Mommy Said So

There once was a little girl named Heather. She was blond-haired and blue-eyed and she lived in a little white house on a little green hill. She loved her mommy and her daddy and her kitty, and she had a special guardian angel who watched out for her; mommy said so. Heather was a very happy child, but even happy children don't stay children forever. One day, Heather and her family had to move, because Daddy got a new job. Heather and Mommy and kitty moved into an apartment in the city and daddy was gone a lot. The streets were loud, even at night, and everywhere Heather looked it was hard and cold and grey. But Heather was still happy. She still had her mommy and her kitty, and a special guardian angel who watched out for her; mommy said so. Heather was still getting older, as children tend to do. She was going to kindergarten, and then middle school, and then high school. Mommy and daddy started fighting. There was lots of yelling, and daddy was gone more than ever. Mommy cried a lot, and it made Heather feel sad. She would go into her room, close her door, and hug her kitty. One day daddy didn't come back, but Heather tried to be brave, because she still had her kitty and a special guardian angel who watched out for her. Mommy had said so. But mommy wasn't around much any more, she had to get a job to pay the rent. And Heather started spending more time away from home, walking around the streets. Sometimes she would pass by the office where her daddy used to work and she would sneer up at it. Eventually she found new people to make her happy, boys and girls and movies and cigarettes. She didn't have her mommy or her daddy any more. Nobody was watching out for her. It was a cold autumn evening, and Heather was just getting off of work; she waited tables in a slimy diner to put herself through college in a town far away from her mommy and daddy and kitty. The sky was a low ceiling of rapidly shifting clouds. It was windy, and dark, and Heather started feeling scared walking back to her apartment. And then she took a wrong turn and found herself in a dark alley that smelled like vomit and urine, cornered by an ugly homeless man who smelled even worse and was giving her looks that made her skin crawl. It all happened so fast. The man lunged at her, but before he touched her something large and black jumped up from the shadows and knocked him against the alley wall. Bare feet scraped over the slime-slicked alley floor as Heather's rescuer held the homeless man up of the ground. There was a hollow crack and then a sickening crunch, and the homeless man crumpled into a pile. Heather drew a sharp breath as her rescuer turned toward her and she got a good look at him. He was tall and pale, bare-foot and bare-chested, with long hair that had once been blond but was now to tangled and greasy to tell. Large black wings stretched out behind him, oily feathers that dripped a thick, dark pitch that sizzled when it hit the ground. With sad, sad eyes he looked at her and said, "Even now, I won't let them hurt you."