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Unlikely Angels Ch. 01

By: NotWise



"Unlikely Angels" was the working title of a novel that I started in 2010. My work on the story faltered in 2013 and soon after that I lost part of the story to a disk crash. Still, I think there is some value in it. What follows are the first seven chapters of the story, which I expect to post in five parts.

The story centers about a brother and sister who were raised in different households. They do seek a sexual relationship with each other and if that is a problem for you then you might read around chapters 3 and 6.

*****

1. Nana's Will

Ice crystals danced in the morning sunlight, sparkling like tiny jewels, but the glare from the new snow was blinding, so Ellis kept his head down and watched the loose flakes scatter as he kicked through drifts on his way to the bus stop. The walk was familiar so his mind drifted.

Nana died on Christmas Eve. Ellis found her on Christmas morning, pale and empty. Her passing wasn't a surprise. School took a back seat for the last year while Nana's health failed. Ellis knew that Nana's passing would bring a lot of changes, but now that was too much to think about. Instead, his mind was on Elsie - the little sister that he always knew about but only once met.

Ellis was 15 when Papa died and Elsie was just 13. They met at the reception after Papa's funeral. Elsie moved carefully on new high heels, but her smile flashed when she greeted Papa's friends and her golden hair bounced when she laughed. Elsie's confidence vanished when Nana wanted pictures and made her pose with Ellis. She brushed against him and looked away, embarrassed. Her scent filled his senses. He wanted to take her away to touch her and to taste her. Instead they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, clutched each others hands and tried to smile for the cameras. Eudora watched them both while they posed, then hurried Elsie away.

The usual hiss and rumble of the bus seemed muffled by the snow. This was the route that Ellis took to the university, so the other passengers knew him. He slouched into a seat and pulled his jacket up around his ears so no-one would interrupt his thoughts. Eudora had Ellis when she was only 16. Jack stood by Eudora, but neither of them had a way to take care of a baby, so Papa took Ellis in over Nana's complaints - at least, that was the story that Nana told him. Nana came to dote on Ellis but she never forgave her daughter for complicating her old age. She pushed Eudora so far out of her life that Ellis grew up knowing his biological mother mostly through Nana's caustic commentary. Ellis thought that Papa kept in touch with Eudora, but - like so much that he suspected about the old man - Ellis couldn't be sure.

The bus rumbled by Ellis' stop while his mind drifted. He got off at the next stop and stepped over snow piled at the curb, already hard and gray from the downtown traffic. He trudged the extra blocks back to the attorney's office, still lost in thought. Elsie was at the church yesterday when Nana's ashes were sealed away with Papa's behind a plaque in the church wall. Ellis saw her there but Eudora stood between them. The minister and the small clutch of Nana's friends kept Ellis too busy to find a way around Eudora. At the end, Nana's attorney - a man named Will Crosswhite - took Eudora in tow and pulled her to Ellis. "Mrs. Redden, we need to talk while you're all here." he said. "Mrs. Turner left a will. If you could both be at my office in the morning then it would be a good time for us to review the will." He looked to Eudora "Unless, of course you want your attorney here." Eudora thought for a moment before she answered. "I won't need my attorney. I'll get her involved later if I have too. What time?"

"I have an opening at 10:00" he suggested, then tightened his hand on Eudora's elbow. Eudora pulled away, but Crosswhite leaned to her "Your daughter should be there too. Mrs. Turner left a substantial estate and she has an interest."

Ellis stamped his feet to knock the muddy ice and salt from his shoes then checked the lobby clock. It was 10:06. He glanced at the building directory and waited for a moment at the elevator before losing his patience. The stairs were around the corner and Crosswhite was on the third floor. Ellis ran the stairs.

The receptionist pointed Ellis to Mr. Crosswhite's office. He pushed through the door a little out of breath and stopped. Elsie's pony tail swung as she slipped from where she sat at the edge of Crosswhite's desk. Ellis straightened his spine when his eyes met Elsie's and his face cracked into a smile for the first time that day.

Eudora was silhouetted at the window where she watched icy clouds rise from the traffic on the street below. Ellis and Elsie stood still for a breathless moment before Eudora stepped away from the window and touched Ellis with a cool hand. She spoke quietly. "I'm sorry things worked out this way. It must have been hard, taking care of everything." She glanced down before going on. "Jack and I have always wanted to know you better, but Mom was in our way. Now that Mom is gone maybe we can make up for lost time."

The only times that Ellis ever heard good things about Eudora were when Papa argued with Nana, so he was suspicious. "Thank you." was a practiced reply, repeated over and over since Nana died. "The hospice people were a lot of help. It would have been much harder without them." He looked past Eudora as he spoke to where Elsie watched from behind her back.

Crosswhite backed through the office door, rattling off instructions to his receptionist. She hurried to arrange three chairs in front of the desk while he apologized for being late. Ellis watched Eudora settle into the middle seat then turned to Elsie and extended his hand, stammering "I'm Ellis." It was the best he could do.

Elsie touched his hand and stepped close to him, speaking with confidence. "I'm Elsie. Mom says that you're my brother."

Ellis was for a moment caught up in his sister's bright eyes. He answered "We need to talk. Before you leave, I hope?" Elsie parted her lips as if to reply, but instead turned to Eudora who motioned for her to sit. She nodded her answer to Ellis then brushed herself against him as she turned away.

Mr. Crosswhite chatted for a moment then opened a large envelope and sorted through the papers inside. He came up with a hand-written letter, then looked over his glasses, saying "Mrs. Turner left this note to be read before her will. It was meant to explain herself to you all." He read slowly, carefully deciphering the old woman's hand writing.

"If you're reading this then it means that I've gone to Eloy. We shared everything in life and we will share everything after life, too.

"Eloy Turner was born to a farming family at the start of the Great Depression. His father didn't think his wife was loyal and he may have been right. He raised Eloy like a bastard son. He raised him harshly. Eloy got the farm not long after we married because old man Turner died, then the old lady Turner disappeared a few months later. We never knew what happened to her, or much cared.

"The times were bad for farming when Eloy took over but he made the farm work even when our neighbors gave up. He bought the places next to ours and joined them together, then he bought another, bigger place a little ways away. Eloy and his hands worked both farms until he hurt his back. After that we moved in to Quincy and rented the farms. In the city I took care of Eloy and home and Eloy took care of me and his business. He was very good at both of those things.

"I was not a fertile wife. Our daughter Eudora was a wonderful gift to me late in life. We loved her so, but I never gave Eloy a son and that became his biggest disappointment. Then Eudora had Ellis. I know it was never fair to Eudora and Jack when I took Ellis and pushed them away, but I did it for Eloy. In his heart Eloy always believed that Ellis was his gift from God.

"Eloy had other strong beliefs. He believed that the back pain he suffered most of his life was the burden that God asked him to bear. He never complained. He also believed that wealth is only good when it serves God's purpose. He never understood God's purpose, so his money waited for a sign that never came.

"I don't have Eloy's vision or his understanding, but I have tried to write this will the way he would have wanted it."

Something in Nana's story shook Eudora to tears. Elsie rifled her mother's purse looking for a tissue and Mr. Crosswhite looked to Ellis while he waited for Eudora to gather herself. "Mr. Turner put most of his assets in trust before he died, which is where they are now. He didn't want Mrs. Turner burdened with the business. He also didn't want you to know the size of the estate until you were older."

Eudora straightened her back and cleared her throat to signal Mr. Crosswhite to go on. Two hours later Ellis sat alone in the lobby, facing the elevator door. He leaned his elbows on his knees and watched his hands shake, then clinched them into fists to make them stop. Eudora was upstairs, closed in an office where she could call Jack in private. Elsie was with Mr. Crosswhite's receptionist and, like Ellis, trying to calm herself.

Nana's house, her car, her bank accounts and her personal effects went to Ellis. That wasn't a surprise. The house was the only home that Ellis ever knew and Nana promised it to him long before she died. Ellis thought he knew what her bank accounts were worth, but he couldn't guess what her personal effects might be worth. He didn't expect a lot.

Mr. Crosswhite looked over his glasses at Eudora and went on. She and Jack would get two and a half million dollars in tax-free bonds. Eudora caught her breath and covered her mouth. That seemed like a lot of money to Ellis, but he learned later that Eudora reacted for different reasons.

Ellis couldn't guess, after the money went to Jack and Eudora, how much might be left. Twenty million dollars went to establish a charitable trust. In Nana's words, the trust was to serve God's purpose. Nana's will required Ellis and Elsie to decide how the money would be spent and by doing that she made them both responsible for understanding what Papa never understood.

The remainder of the estate - Crosswhite estimated somewhere over forty million dollars - remained in the trust for Ellis and Elsie. Neither of them would get more than a stipend from the trust until both of them were over 25 - seven more years. For at least that long they would be bound together by a common interest in the money.

The elevator chimed and Ellis stood. He didn't know if Elsie and Eudora would step out, but he couldn't sit any longer. The doors sighed open to show them both there. Elsie was talking. Her pony tail bobbed and she gestured as she spoke. Eudora leaned very slightly to her daughter, but that was the only sign that she listened.

Ellis held his breath for a second before Elsie saw him. She took one hesitant step toward Ellis, then clattered across the lobby and threw herself at him. Ellis braced himself to take her weight, but he could not be ready for her energy erupting in his arms, or for the touch of her lips against his neck and the wave of excitement she sent rushing through him.

Elsie released her grip and Ellis let her slide down his body until her heels settled on the floor. Eudora was laughing behind Elsie while Elsie smoothed out her cloths. Eudora got Ellis' attention "Let's talk. Can I buy you lunch?" She glanced around the lobby "I don't know where to go, though. Most everything in Quincy has changed since we moved away."

"The University is right over there," Ellis waved. "so there's lots of places to eat. We can get pizza by the slice across the street. It's a popular place, but with school out there won't be a big crowd." Eudora looked doubtful. Ellis swept his eyes down her firm figure and added. "They have salads and fruit, and a few other things too."

Ellis didn't know what to expect from Eudora. He settled into a seat across from her and tried to find out if she and Jack planned to dispute Nana's will. She was hard to read and seemed to be mostly curious about Ellis. What little she knew of him was what Papa would tell her and that stopped when Papa died. Ellis was frustrated trying to read her, so he decided to ask. "You and Jack didn't get a big piece of Nana's will. Do you think you want more?"

Eudora laughed "Two and a half million dollars sounded like a lot until the rest of it came out. I suppose we could change our minds, but right now we're happy. Honestly, you know that Mom didn't get along with me. I was surprised to get anything at all." She paused to toy with her salad before she looked up. "Did you know that Dad bankrolled our business?" Ellis shook his head and wondered if Nana even knew.

"He bankrolled all of them." She went on. "The first one when Elsie was a baby. It lasted just a few months. Both of us thought we knew what we were doing, but really neither of us did. Dad told us it was a learning experience. We moved out to Florence to get a fresh start and he gave us the money to try again. Our second company lasted three years before we lost it. By then I was good at the books and the permits and Jack knew how to run his crews - he was a landscaper, you know - and how to get and keep customers, but we made mistakes early that we couldn't overcome."

"Dad was disappointed the second time we crashed, but we had plans and Dad listened to them. He came up with the money we needed but he told us then that we were spending our inheritance. That was 13 years ago and now the company is still growing - landscaping then our own greenhouses and now one garden center built and another one planned. Jack and I have all we need because Dad didn't give up on us. We didn't expect any more. We're glad that Mom remembered Elsie. That's what Dad would have wanted." She glanced at Elsie. "If Mom left Elsie out then I think we would find a way to dispute the will."

They talked over the table until the cafe was empty and the employees were waiting for them to leave. Ellis checked the clock "They closed at three - half an hour ago. We should go." They stepped over ice freezing on the sidewalk and stopped by the street before he spoke again. "Were you going back to Florence tonight? It'll be dark before you're even half way home."

Eudora nodded "That was the plan. We checked out of the hotel before the meeting this morning." 

"Stay with me." Ellis insisted. "Otherwise the house will be empty. Nobody wants Nana's room, but the couch folds out and there is an extra bedroom. I'll take the couch and you can both have real beds."

Elsie bounced with excitement and Eudora laughed. "I think your sister wants to stay. I'll let Jack know." Eudora called Jack while Elsie clutched Ellis' jacket sleeve and babbled about what they could do to pass time. When Eudora was done she turned back to Ellis with a thoughtful look. She bit her lip and told him "There's a place I'd like to see before it gets dark, but I'm not sure I can find my way there any more. Do you know Quincy pretty well?"

Ellis was puzzled "Where is it? I mean, I think I know the place pretty well but I don't know all of it."

Eudora pointed vaguely to the west "It was a lane on the bluffs over the river - an abandoned factory or something when I was a teenager. You could look over downtown from there."

It seemed like an odd place to want to go. Ellis thought a moment. "I'm pretty sure I know how to get there, but it's a park now. I played in that park when I was a kid - little league and youth soccer, you know. We probably should go now if you want to see it before the sun sets."

They got Eudora's Cadillac from the parking garage and Ellis directed them through the winding course out of downtown and over the river. The park didn't get much traffic in winter, but still, the lane along the bluff was plowed. The road was starting to get icy where water ran from the melting snow. Eudora slowed the car to a crawl and studied everything around her.

Ellis thought at first that Eudora slowed because of the ice, then realized that she was looking for something. She stopped in the middle of the road to look around, then pulled over next to a barren old tree. She got out of the car, clutching her coat around her. Ellis and Elsie followed, not knowing at all why they were there. Downtown spread out across the river, its lights blinking on, first one then another. The sun at their back barely peeked under the clouds and spread a watery light and long shadows in front of them.

Eudora knew that Ellis and Elsie were both curious. She cleared her throat. "When I was a teenager there was a rusting ruin of a factory over there." She said, gesturing with her gloved hand north along the bluff. "This was a pretty empty place. There was a little pullout here, beside this tree. It might still be there under the snow." She glanced at Ellis before going on. "I loved this place. This is where you were conceived - on a summer night in the back seat of Jack's Toyota. Actually, it was his mom's Toyota. We didn't own a thing."

The shadows across Eudora's face made it hard for Ellis to read her expression, but she fell quiet, suddenly embarrassed. Elsie broke the silence. She had wandered out into the snow and turned back to Ellis, laughing. "So when you played little league here was there a special tingle that made you play better, something that told you this was a special place?"

Ellis straightened his back. "No. My little league team sucked. I think the only games we won were by forfeit. My soccer teams were always pretty good." He turned to gesture to the west, across the road. "My U14 team won the city league title right over there, but not because I had any special tingle."

A snowball burst against Ellis' shoulder and he snapped around to look at Elsie, who grinned into the sun. "Yes! I still have my arm. I played little league too. We would have beaten your butts." 

Ellis scooped up a double handful of snow. He may not have been great at baseball, but he was good in a snowball fight. Elsie squealed and turned her head away. The snowball splattered against the back of her knit cap and left her scowling at Ellis and digging snow out of her collar. Eudora laughed. When Ellis turned to her she told him "You probably shouldn't have done that. Elsie escalates. It's what she does."

The warning came to late. Elsie jumped from Ellis' blind side and shoved him into a staggering step. When she shoved him again he slipped to one hand in the snow and she whooped. Elsie threw herself on his back, scooping up hands full of snow and stuffing them down his shirt and jacket.

Ellis bellowed and sent Elsie sprawling into the snow. He held her down with a hand on her back, then sat astride her hips and shoveled snow over her as fast as he could. Elsie struggled between his legs, but Ellis had her buried in wet snow from the waist up before he let her go.

Ellis stripped off his jacket and shook it out, then opened his shirt to knock the snow off his shoulders and back. Eudora helped Elsie out of the snow and brushed snow and dead grass out of Elsie's hair and off her clothes. She shook her head, laughing at them both. "We have to get you to Mom's and into dry clothes before you freeze."

Unlikely Angels Ch. 02-03



2. Introductions

Li's Restaurant had the best Chinese food that Ellis knew about. The restaurant was in the bowling alley, around a couple corners from home where they had been since Eudora was little. Eudora wanted to walk there for dinner like she did with Nana and Papa, so Ellis settled at the kitchen table to wait while Elsie and Eudora got ready.

He stared through the big windows at the porch lights and street lights shining in the dark and thought. This was Eudora's childhood home too, and when Ellis toured her through the house she found much of it still familiar, barely changed. When he offered Eudora her old bedroom to sleep in she stopped nervously at the door. "Ellis, this gives me the willies. I think I'd rather sleep on the sofa downstairs." Ellis watched Eudora's expression and now he had to wonder. How long would he be able to live there among all the old memories?

His mind was far away, so he was startled when Elsie slid into the chair next to him and asked "Wow, what happened here?"

The petty tragedy around him had been there for so long that it took Ellis a moment to realize what she meant. The houseplants that Nana loved lined window shelves all about the table, but where once there had been walls of colorful leaves and bright flowers, now there were shriveled leaves and bare twigs, some flattened onto the dry soil. Ellis took a second to study Elsie before he answered. She must have been soaked to the skin and now she wore one of his shirts borrowed from the drier. "Nana's house plants." he said, motioning with one hand. "They haven't been watered since last summer when Nana fell that last time. I don't even notice them anymore. She loved them, but now I'll have to throw them all out. I wish I'd been paying more attention."

Elsie jabbed "I wish I had a chance to see them. It must have been real nice before you killed everything." She turned from the plants and focused on Ellis. "My coat is damp. Do you have something warm that I can wear to the restaurant?"

Ellis lead Elsie to rifle through Nana's closet. She burrowed into the back of the closet, then danced out wearing a long black coat that she held snug around her waist. She twirled in front of Nana's mirror. "It's so retro and cute," she buried her nose in the fur that lined the hood and then into the fur at the wrists "but it smells like old lady." 

"From some powder she used." Ellis motioned across the room. "It's probably still on her dressing table." He spoke without thinking while he watched her. On an impulse he turned Elsie toward him and pushed the hood back from her surprised smile. He grasped the coat's lapels and Elsie lurched forward in one unsteady step. Ellis inhaled under the coat collar, against Elsie's throat. There through Nana's powder he found Elsie's scent - warm, animal, at once both familiar and exciting.

Ellis let Elsie go and wondered how he would explain what he just did, but he didn't need to. Instead of stepping away from him Elsie rose to her toes and pushed her nose under his ear. Her hair brushed softly against his neck while she inhaled his scent. She found it warm, animal, at once both familiar and exciting.

Elsie settled back on her heels, smiling. Ellis was watching her parted lips when Eudora called from the living room. "Elsie, Ellis are we ready to go?" Elsie turned and disappeared while Ellis swallowed his anticipation.

Elsie twirled in Nana's coat and danced over the icy spots on the way to the bowling alley. She made a Hollywood entrance when they got there, as if the families waiting to get their lanes were her adoring fans. Eudora stopped inside the door and looked around, confused "They remodeled a lot in here."

Ellis laughed at Elsie then explained "They had a fire a few years ago. The whole place was shut down for most of a year while they remodeled, but Li's is still here on the left and the bar on the right. The restaurant looks a lot different now, but the food is still as good."

They found Mrs. Li in a pool of light at the hostess station. She looked to Ellis to be a little older and a little more frail. Ellis was surprised to see her because her daughter took on most of the management chores after the fire. He rarely saw Mrs. Li any more. She recognized Ellis immediately and wrapped him in a hug. "My Ellis, you are so big these days! How is your Nana?" He skirted the question for a moment and asked after her daughter. Mrs. Li broke into a broad grin. "Maddy had her baby! I'm Granny Li now and old like your Nana, but I had to come back to work for a while. You didn't bring Nana with you?"

Ellis put his hand on Mrs. Li's arm and shook his head. "Nana was ill and in a lot of pain, but she is comfortable now - in a better place. She passed away on Christmas eve."

Mrs. Li covered her mouth with her fingers and caught her breath. "Oh Ellis, I'm so sorry. You're all alone now?"

Ellis shook his head and stepped back. "No, I'm not alone as you might think." He motioned to Eudora with his right hand. "Remember Nana's daughter, Eudora?" He turned to find Elsie and pulled her into the light. "And this is my sister, Elsie."

Mrs. Li was confused by the introduction. Hardly anyone knew that Eudora was his mother, but Mrs. Li drew her conclusions quickly. She rested her hand on Eudora's arm. "I remember you when we were both so much younger. Your Ellis is a very special to me. He had such a crush on my Maddy when he was just this big." She leveled her hand at the top of the hostess station. "Do you know what he did for me?"

The hostess stood behind Mrs. Li with menus cradled in her arm. Ellis was uncomfortable with the story he knew would follow, so he tugged at Elsie and trailed the hostess to a booth in the corner, leaving Eudora with Mrs. Li.

They laid their coats at the back of a corner booth, then Elsie slipped into the seat next to Ellis, asking "What did you do that made you so special to Mrs. Li? I mean, aside from having a crush on her daughter."

Ellis rolled his eyes. "I was like nine when Maddy was 15. I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. She had some fun teasing me." 

Elsie raised her eyebrows, prompting him for the rest of the story and Ellis groaned. "I've had to tell this story too many times, so you get the short version. Nana and I were here when the fire started. It was an electrical fire, but the kitchen went up like a torch. I got Nana out of the building right away and we waited outside. Mrs. Li and her husband didn't come out, so I went back. I found them in the kitchen. Someone stepped on her in the panic to get out and broke her ankle. Mr. Li was old. He was choking on smoke and screaming Chinese while he tried to pull her up. I crawled in, low like they say you're supposed to, then picked her up. Mr. Li held onto my arm and I got them both outside. It was on the news and I got a medal from the city. Mrs. Li has been telling that story to everyone since I was 16 and her version is a little more embellished. I'm probably never going to live that down."

Elsie watched Ellis tell his story, then circled her finger tip on the back of his hand, sending an odd thrill up his arm. "You shouldn't be embarrassed and it isn't something you have to live down. You were her hero." She paused and thought for a moment before she whispered "If I needed you, would you be my hero too?" A server reached over the table to set water in front of them and offered to help with the menu, so Ellis nodded his answer and watched a smile spread on Elsie's lips.

Their dinners were already picked out when Mrs. Li brought Eudora to the table and hurried off to take care of some problem in the kitchen. Eudora slid in close to Ellis and studied his face before she reached to touch his hair. "Good looking, rich and brave" she mused. "Maddy should know what she missed out on." Elsie laughed, complaining that Maddy was too old for Ellis. Eudora shrugged. "She's six years older, according to Mrs. Li - a big deal when you're young, but now that seems like a pretty low hurdle."

Mrs. Li stayed busy through dinner, then caught Ellis as they left. Elsie touched his arm and let him know they would wait outside the restaurant. When Ellis caught up he found only Eudora waiting. She tucked her hand into the crook of Ellis' elbow "Elsie found a piano in the bar over there." She gestured across the entry and tugged on his arm. "There's something she wants you to hear."

They found Elsie at a baby grand hidden in the back corner of the bar, which was otherwise almost empty on family night. The fur lining of Nana's hooded coat framed her face and hi-lighted her hands as they moved lightly across the keys. Elsie pushed the hood back away from her face and grinned at Ellis. He felt like he had to say something, and came out with "That sounded nice." Eudora laughed and stepped back, leaving Ellis alone beside the piano.

At first Elsie's only answer was a frown. She pushed the tail of Nana's coat behind her so that it draped off the back of the piano bench and grumbled "That was a doodle. Now listen." She plunged into the keyboard with an intensity that took Ellis by surprise. Her music rose and fell between moments of anger and moments of quiet contemplation and shattered Ellis' growing opinion of his little sister. Her hands danced over the keys and the sounds reverberated through his body until the last chords thundered and faded.

Elsie pushed back from the piano and stepped close to Ellis, who stood dumbly while the last vibrations settled slowly into his groin. He was afraid to touch her, but managed to stammer "I, I don't know what to say. I've never felt anything like that before." Ellis' answer was meaningless, but the awe reflected in his expression was enough for Elsie. She laughed and turned to face the children and parents who had gathered at the doorway. The kids crowded around her so Ellis stepped back with Eudora and asked "Oh my God, what was that?"

Eudora's answer confused him. "An introduction, I think." She turned back to watch Elsie with the children. Ellis could see by the glow from a sign behind the bar that her cheeks were streaked with tears. "It's the last part of Rachmaninoff's second sonata. Elsie won a national contest last month, playing that piece." She turned to look at Ellis. "I've probably heard her play it a thousand times and it's never sounded like that. I think that's because this time she played it for you."

She turned away and mused "People tell us that Elsie's a prodigy. If we had the money for better lessons when she was young then she could be famous by now, but what kind of childhood would that have been? Her prize for winning that contest was a scholarship to the Conservatory at Cardinal College. It's what she's always wanted, but Jack and I weren't going to let her do it - that is such an impractical education. Money doesn't seem like such a problem any more." 

3. Magic and Miracles

They were home and Eudora was quietly asleep before Ellis could gather his thoughts. He laid on his bed in his darkened bedroom and stared at the shadows on the ceiling. He felt the weight of his aching hard-on laying on his belly and thought again about how Elsie's body felt when she pressed against him and whispered "Mom is going to need pills to get to sleep tonight and after that she won't hear a thing until morning."

The day left Ellis with energy that wouldn't go away. Out of old habit he squinted at Papa's mantle clock on his dresser then remembered again that the clock hadn't worked since Papa died. Ellis tossed through a moment of indecision, then rolled out of bed and quietly opened the door. The landing was lit dimly by light filtering up the stairs. He heard Elsie sigh before he saw her, leaning with her back against the door frame outside of Eudora's childhood bedroom. She was dressed for bed in panties and his shirt that she she took from the drier. He stood in front of her with his cock bulging in his boxer shorts and whispered. "I couldn't sleep."

Elsie caught her breath and bit her lip. She looked up from the front of Ellis' shorts and pushed herself away from the wall, rising close against him. "I was starting to worry that maybe you didn't feel like I do."

Ellis said nothing. He pushed his little sister against the wall with his hands on her breasts and she arched her back to press her hardening nipples into his hands. He fumbled for a moment trying to unbutton her shirt, then in frustration grasped the open collar and ripped the shirt apart. Ellis knotted his fingers in Elsie's hair and pulled her mouth to his.

They broke their grips and watched each other for an instant, open-eyed, panting like animals. Elsie used the back of her hand to wipe spit from her mouth then laughed and darted into Ellis' room. Ellis caught her and tossed her onto his bed, then climbed over her and stripped her panties away. Elsie grasped his cock in one hand and his balls in the other and pulled him to her, then lifted her knees to his sides and clutched his shoulders while he took her.

Their sweating bodies slapped together until both of them struggled for breath, but still it seemed too soon when Ellis realized that he was about to climax. Elsie was his perfect lover. He clenched his teeth and tried to hold back but Elsie's slit tightened around his cock. Ellis was her perfect lover. She clawed at his back and her voice in his ear rose from a moan to a scream. Ellis let himself go deep inside Elsie, then they fell away from each other, gasping for breath.

Streaks of street light lit the ceiling from the window. Ellis stared up at the dim light and shadows and tried to understand what he felt. Elsie slid over him to lay her head on his chest. She whispered. "I've never climaxed for a boy before - just, you know, for myself. I came so hard and fast... I didn't even know that could happen."

"That was the best." Ellis whispered, then slipped from under Elsie and rolled her on her back. Ellis pressed her down and rasped, nose-to-nose "Somethings happening. Do you feel it?" He watched her eyes for a response and worried that she didn't.

"I'm feeling a lot of stuff." Elsie laughed, pushed Ellis away and pulled the sheets around her. "But I think I know what you mean. So you feel it too, that... I don't know, it's like a light glowing inside when you touch me? It happened earlier today, but it was never so strong."

"Light might be a good word for it, but I don't know." Ellis admitted. "I felt it at the restaurant when you were tracing circles on the back of my hand, like it came from you."

"To me, it felt like it came from you." She leaned over Ellis to study his body. "It's a good thing I'm on the pill, because that's not all that came from you. Mom put me on the pill when I was sixteen because she didn't want me to do what she did." Elsie sat up with a sudden purpose then dropped the sheet and stood naked by the bed. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go clean up so that I'll be more, you know, pleasant to be with." 

Ellis leaned on his elbow and watched the sway of Elsie's butt as she left, then he listened. He heard the bathroom door shut and the toilet flush, then the sound of water running in the sink. There was another sound. He looked over his shoulder and found Papa's old mantle clock, ticking precisely around its numbers.

Elsie slipped back into the room while Ellis watched the clock and settled onto the bed next to him. Ellis noticed the wet wash cloth in her hand, then looked up "Papa's clock is running." He motioned to the clock. "I think the winding key is downstairs in a kitchen drawer, but I'm not sure. I've never wound it."

"Odd." Elsie nodded. She didn't understanding how that was possible, so she chose to ignore it. She pushed on Ellis' chest and whispered "Lay down. I'm going to wash you." Elsie cupped Ellis' balls in one hand then stroked his hardening cock with the washcloth. She worked up the shaft, under the soft edges of the head and carefully over the tip, then down around his balls to his ass.

That odd feeling, the light - or whatever it was - flowed from Elsie's touch and joined with Ellis' rekindled excitement. He reached up to click on the bedside lamp and pulled his sister up to see her. He studied her face like he had never seen her before, then her neck and her high, firm breasts. Elsie plucked at the curls in his hair and stroked the stubble on his jaw. They explored each other by scent and by touch and by taste and urged each other on to explorations that were ever more intimate, ever more exciting.

Their repeated climax's came both together and apart until Ellis collapsed onto the bed beside his sister. He gathered Elsie's trembling body in his arms, stroked her hair and kissed the sweat and tears from her face. They murmured to each other until the coolness of the room seeped in, then Ellis turned off the bedside lamp and pulled the bedclothes around them both. 

It wouldn't be good if Eudora came to wake Elsie and found her missing, so Elsie slipped from Ellis' bed before sunrise. Ellis woke later when the sun crept through his bedroom window. He could hear a radio somewhere downstairs, clattering in the kitchen and a hair drier running in the upstairs bathroom. Ellis figured that Elsie and Eudora were both up and getting ready to leave.

Ellis knew that he would have to get up, but for now he laid back with his hands behind his head and listened to the insistent ticking of Papa's clock. He inhaled Elsie's scent, still clinging to his pillows and his sheets. Elsie had been his most exciting lover, but he wondered if he would or should ever have his sister again.

The downstairs shower started while Ellis thundered down the stairs. It must have been Eudora in the shower, because he found Elsie in the kitchen, drying glasses and putting them away. She turned to Ellis and motioned around herself, pointing out the obvious. Every dry flower pot and dead stick from the night before was blazing in full leaf and flower. She asked "This was all dead last night, right? Or was I dreaming?" Elsie waited until Ellis closed his mouth and managed an answer.

"Dead. Dead for months, most of it." Ellis stepped past Elsie to touch a red hibiscus blossom, cool and soft and nearly as big as his hand. His heart pounded so hard that he was sure Elsie could hear. Ellis found Nana's clippers in the drawer beside him and trimmed off the flower. He offered it to Elsie and asked "Did Eudora say anything?"

"How pretty!" Elsie mimicked her mother. "I don't think she noticed them last night, so it wasn't bizarre to her." She tucked the flower behind her ear and held it there while she struck a pose and asked "Where do I wear this to say 'That had to be the best sex ever, but now I'm scared'?"

The pipes rattled as Eudora adjusted the water and reminded Ellis that he wouldn't have much longer with Elsie. He stepped closer and inhaled Elsie's warm scent while he lifted the flower from her ear. "That might be more than you can say with a flower. I think you wear it on your right ear to say that you're available and on your left ear to say that you're taken." He tucked it behind her right ear. "I wish you could be my lover, but you were my sister first." He waved at the windows full of flowers and added "And there's that odd sense when we touch and I can't shake the feeling that Papa's clock started and all these little miracles happened somehow because we had sex."

"Then you know why I'm scared." Elsie nodded. "I don't believe in magic. The musician in me needs logic and order and there's none of that here. It's all magic and miracles. As much as I'd like to wrap my legs around you again, I just can't."



Unlikely Angels Ch. 04



4. Exactly the Way I Remember You

Ellis never tilled a space larger than Nana's vegetable garden but he watched the farms along the highway with a concern that he learned from Papa. The drive from Quincy to Florence was three hours of fields that lay fallow or withered in the morning sun. That spring the rains never came.

He slowed behind a truck and waited for an opportunity to pass. Nana's car was old, but it was still in good shape. This was Ellis' first trip outside Quincy since Nana died but he wasn't worried about the car, he was worried about his destination. Elsie was graduating from High School. Eudora arranged his visit as a surprise for Elsie and as a way for Ellis to meet the rest of their family.

Ellis pushed on the gas and Nana's car responded with a satisfying growl and enough acceleration to sink him into his seat. The truck was behind him when his thoughts returned to Elsie. Ellis talked with her each time he learned more about their trust funds and often when they simply needed to talk, but being with her again made him uneasy. Ellis was more comfortable with meeting his father for the first time than he was with facing his sister again.

Excitement was at the root of Ellis' discomfort and now he squirmed in his seat. Elsie was entrenched in his fantasies and neither Sharon nor Denise would shake her loose. Either Elsie didn't share Ellis' excitement or she was good at hiding it. She was dating a boy named Marc months before she met Ellis. Elsie described a jealous boy who slowly grew more temperamental and harder to understand, but still she seemed happy.

The tires thumped on and off a bridge near the edge of Florence where a tree-lined stream ran dry waiting for the rain. Ellis turned his palms up to study his hands, as dry and cracked as the empty stream bed. He spent his spare time that spring remodeling Nana's house, getting it ready to rent out. Rebuilding the bathrooms was especially heavy work that left his hands torn, but the work was good for his muscle tone and now his tee shirts drew tighter around his arms and across his chest.

Eudora's directions took him to an auditorium where Ellis found her waiting by the door, hanging on the arm of a man who looked uncomfortable in his dark suit. Ellis slowed his walk and watched her pluck at his jacket sleeve. Jack had the rounded look of a successful man. He wasn't - or was no more - the chiseled laborer that Ellis imagined he would be.

Jack eyed Ellis with doubt while Eudora went through brief introductions. Jack believed that men proved their worth with hard work and his son had a lot to prove. He was pleased by the rough callouses he felt when he shook Ellis' hand. Ellis eyed Jack with doubt. Papa would always be his father, so biology was the only thing they had in common. Eudora watched her son and her husband uncomfortably, then inserted "Ellis, I wish we saw you more often. I've marked your birthday every year since you were born. You turned 21 last month, didn't you?"

"You had a good party, I hope." Jack added, laughing. Ellis was surprised that Eudora would think of his birthday.

"Yes. On the sixteenth." he answered. He strained to remember the day, then told Jack "We had a test in Econ, then I spent the rest of the day working on the house." The story was true. After the test he painted the bathrooms and hung new doors. Sharon came over to cook dinner and they celebrated in bed. He shrugged "My friends thought that was pretty lame."

Eudora smiled at Jack and squeezed him closer. "We didn't party on Jack's 21st, either. We were busy. That was the day that Elsie was born." She changed subjects with hardly a pause. "We should go in. The rest of the family already has seats."

Ellis was squeezed into a family that he didn't know; Jack's mom and dad, plus sisters, husbands, boyfriends and their kids, who fell quiet only while Elsie gave the Salutatory speech. Kate - Elsie's youngest aunt - leaned close to Ellis, touched his hand and whispered in his ear. She told Ellis stories of when Elsie was a child and she was Elsie's teenage babysitter. Her boyfriend slouched and yawned beside her.

Kate's stories lasted through the ceremony and afterwards Ellis stood with the family outside the auditorium and waited for Elsie to free herself from the mob of graduates. Eudora spotted her first when she emerged from the crowd, dragging a tall and pale, dark-haired boy behind her. "Here's Elsie" she said, "and she has Marc with her."

Eudora tugged on Ellis' elbow to pull him out of the family crowd to where Elsie could see him. Elsie whooped when she caught sight of Ellis "My brother's here!" She pulled away from Marc and sprinted as fast as her high heels would let her. Ellis stepped forward to catch Elsie in a hug and she buried her nose under his ear while he spun her about. The family clapped and laughed and under their laughter he could hear Elsie breath "I knew you would be here. I knew it."

Elsie slipped out of Ellis' arms and Jack turned her with a big hand on her shoulder. He hugged her, then passed her to Eudora. Elsie collected congratulations from the whole family before she looked for Marc again, but he was gone.

Eudora gave Ellis directions to their new house, but she thought it would be better if Elsie went along to guide him. Elsie didn't use Eudora's route. Instead she took Ellis on a winding tour through Florence, passing their old house before ending at home. She spouted the whole way about the new house, about her month-long graduation trip to Europe with Eudora, about the concert she would play with the Florence symphony orchestra, about starting conservatory in the fall. Ellis listened and kept his thoughts to himself.

Eudora met them at the door and Elsie dragged them both to her piano, gleaming in the center of a great room that opened onto the pool. Elsie thundered off a few bars that Ellis recognized from an old Elton John song, then she spun on the bench to grin at Ellis "It's mine, and it rocks the whole house." She caught sight of a clock on the wall behind Ellis and added "I have to go change."

Ellis hoisted his bag over his shoulder and watched Elsie run spiral stairs to a balcony over the great room. Eudora took Ellis by the hand and toured him through the downstairs, stopping again beside the piano. Eudora pointed to the balcony. "Your room is in the loft, next to Elsie's." She led him up the stairs and past a door where he could hear Elsie talking on her phone. The room looked to Ellis like a hotel room; neatly ordered, impersonal. "You're the first to stay here." Eudora said. "We want it to be your room whenever you visit. Do you like it?"

The room lacked anything comfortable or familiar but he answered "It's nice. I can get to like this" while he thought that he could sleep in the car if he had too.

Eudora seemed satisfied by his answer. She stepped back and told him. "Now I have to change and make salad." Elsie opened her door as Eudora left. Eudora stopped to look at her daughter and shook her head. Ellis heard her utter "Oh my" then she left without adding anything more.

Elsie, with her bathing suit covered by an unbuttoned shirt, stepped into Ellis' room. Ellis recognized his shirt that Elsie took from the drier that night in Quincy. He dropped his bag and pulled the shirt open to look over her red bikini. Elsie displayed herself for Ellis, then pried his hands off the shirt and turned his palms up. She studied the cracks and callouses and asked "Is this all from the work on the house? It's been terrible for your hands. " She pushed Ellis back until he sat down on the bed and told him "Sit there. I'll be right back."

The shirt billowed behind Elsie as she disappeared into her room and again when she returned with a kit of lotions and tools. She dropped cross-legged onto the bed in front of Ellis, then squeezed lotion onto her hands and started rubbing it into his cracked skin. Ellis got that odd feeling - the light in his veins - flowing from Elsie's touch and knew that Elsie could feel it too. She smoothed lotion between his fingers and seemed lost in details of his hands before she looked up, a little embarrassed. "You have big, beautiful man hands" she said "but I guess I already knew that."

Elsie continued working over Ellis' hands while she talked. "We're having our first pool party this afternoon. Dad is grilling and Mom is laying out a big spread. Aunt Liz is taking the kids home later, but Gramma and Grandpa are staying in the guest house and Katy and that new boyfriend of hers have the extra bedroom downstairs. Hope and Lisa are coming over and after dinner we're going party-hopping." She looked up from his hand. "You should come with us. It'll be fun."

Ellis was studying the way Elsie's nipples pressed against her swimsuit top and when she looked up he found himself looking into her brown eyes. Ellis swallowed and replied "I'd like that." Then he confessed "You could make it really hard for me to behave."

A smile flitted across Elsie's lips. That odd feeling - the light in her veins - flowed from Ellis' hands and made it hard for her to think of anything else. She returned to her work on Ellis fingers and mumbled "And I'm not sure if I want you to." She went on without looking up again. "I'm wearing your shirt, you know. I fixed the buttons that you popped and I wear it because it reminds me of you." She finished his hand and dropped it on her knee. The look on Ellis' face must have asked a question. She answered "Now I'm wearing it just to cover up."

Ellis picked his bag off the floor where he dropped it and rifled through it. He looked up, disappointed. "I guess I knew you had a pool, but I didn't think to bring swimming trunks. I hoped that maybe I had some that I never took out of the bag, but I don't. I just have jeans."

"You have jeans." Elsie said. "I have scissors. We'll make cutoffs." Elsie held her hand out and Ellis pulled the bag away like he would say no, so she went on "Come on. Hope and Lisa will like it - probably even Mom and Kate will like it - and I know for a fact that you can afford to buy new jeans."

The doorbell rang and Elsie looked away. "That's gotta be Lisa and Hope." She bounced off the bed and shot over her shoulder as she left "Put the jeans on and I'll be right back to cut them off." When all three girls thundered up the stairs, Lisa and Hope carried swimsuits and towels and Elsie carried scissors.

Ellis stood for introductions with the jeans buttoned but his shirt still open and untucked. Elsie's friends giggled lewd advice while she knelt in front of him and cut the denim away from his thighs. When Elsie was done she gave her friends a scowl that chased them into her room. Elsie turned back to Ellis and pushed her hands under his shirt. She touched his sides, stroked upward to the curve of his pecs and brushed her thumbs across his nipples. She murmured, with her eyes still on his chest "You changed."

Elsie's touch sent an excited rush through Ellis' body, so his answer was distant and distracted "I suppose it will all go away when I'm done with the work on the house."

The shirt she wore had fallen off her shoulders and now draped from the crook of her elbows. Ellis touched his sister's arm and watched his hand travel up to her shoulder, as if it were moving under someone else's control. His fingers touched her neck and slipped behind her ear. Ellis tipped Elsie's head back to study her face, her slightly parted lips and whispered "You are exactly the way I remember you." He pushed his free hand under her shirt to touch her skin and cup her breast. Elsie drew a breath to push herself into his hand and her nipple hardened under his touch.

It was too much. She turned away to break Ellis' grip and both of them struggled to slow their breathing. Elsie shrugged the shirt back onto her shoulders and backed to the door with it held tightly around her. Elsie exhaled "Wow" and spun around the corner. Her bedroom door closed on shrieks of laughter.

Ellis found a towel in the bathroom and waited on the balcony until he calmed down. Sunlight fell across the great room through tall windows that faced the pool. The soundless scene in the windows was surreal. Liz's kids splashed in the water while she watched from a lounge and laughed with Jack. Eudora - now in a bathing suit - worked over a patio table and Kate sunned herself on a towel by the pool while her boyfriend dozed in the sun.

The water was more inviting than the chair in the shade with Jack's mom and dad, so Ellis laid his shirt and towel by the pool and slipped into the shallow water with the kids. Kate turned her head and Eudora paused in her work to watch. Ellis learned his cousins' names, then set about teaching Bobby - the youngest - how to swim.

Bobby progressed through dog paddling and was starting to learn the crawl when Ellis saw Eudora stop by the deep end of the pool. She dropped the thin robe she wore over her bathing suit and dove. It took her only two strokes to cover the length of the pool, then she turned and pushed off again. Eudora glided under the surface past Ellis and Bobby and didn't come up until she touched the wall at the deep end, where she rose to the surface smiling and washed her hair back from her face.

Bobby called "Look at me Aunt Dora! Look what I can do!" and took off splashing toward the deep end before Ellis could stop him. Bobby's stroke wasn't quite a dog paddle and it wasn't quite a crawl and it wasn't going to get him there before he ran out of steam. Ellis followed along and swept Bobby onto his chest when he started to flounder, then backstroked to Eudora with Bobby's arms around his neck.

Eudora pried Bobby away from Ellis, laughing. "Little Bobby can swim. I saw you!" She held Bobby on her hip until Liz took him away to the shallow end, then she told Ellis "You can swim too. I bet that Papa made you learn, just like he made me learn." 

It was true. Papa insisted. Eudora drifted against Ellis while they talked and then stroked back a few inches. She changed the subject and nodded toward where Elsie and her friends were stretched out to tan. "The girls came down while you were helping Bobby and they've been watching you ever since. Are you going out with them tonight?"

Ellis nodded, but Jack called to Eudora from the grill before he could answer. She waved to Jack then went on. "That means it will be about a half hour 'till dinner. Jack and I hoped you would go with them. They're so young and we thought you might keep them out of trouble. Now I have to finish getting things ready for dinner."

Ellis followed Eudora out of the pool and settled on his towel next to Elsie, who's exposed skin gleamed with suntan lotion and sweat. He commented to no-one in particular "I guess you aren't getting in the water."

Hope responded without opening her eyes. "Don't want to mess up the do, man. My hair isn't straight like this on its own."

Elsie sat up and crossed her legs. She handed Ellis the suntan lotion and continued Hope's thought. "The way the weather has been we could probably get into the water and have our hair dry again in no time. It's been like a desert here. Dad's selling a lot of sprinkler systems and that's been good for the business, but I wish it would rain. This doesn't feel right."



Unlikely Angels Ch. 05-06



5. Escape

Hope and Lisa were lightweights, but they didn't know it. They begged Ellis for beer, so he bought them a twelve pack, then at their last party stop there was a keg and a room full of boys who were eager to pour for them. When Ellis took them to Hope's house they had two beers left and both girls were giggling drunks, but they were safe, giggling drunks. Ellis did his job.

Elsie bumped to the music from the radio, her smile lit by the glow from the dashboard and when her friends were gone she asked "Hey, did you know that they're going to the U this fall?" Ellis groaned. It was a joke. Both girls told him and forgot, then told him again and forgot. Elsie snickered then glanced into the back seat "They left you a mess back there -- they even left their bras. It looks like you had a really good night."

All three girls left the house with their bras on, then later pulled them off through their sleeves. Ellis turned to look at the back seat, strewn with beer cans and satin, and grunted "If I had a really good night there would be panties back there too, not just bras."

Elsie laughed and picked up her phone. "You know, it isn't too late. I can call Hope and Lisa back here and we'll see if they want to donate to your cause. Bet they would." Elsie's cell phone vibrated in her hand. She glanced at it, then threw herself back against her headrest and groaned. "Shit. I forgot." She gestured with her cell phone. "I told Marc that we would go by his house tonight and he's still waiting. He'll wait all night if I don't show up." She looked away and talked to her reflection in the side window. "I need to get real and end all that. I would have broken up with him a long time ago if I didn't like Ginny so much." She glanced back at Ellis "Ginny is his mom."

Ginny met them at the door. She hugged Elsie and when Elsie introduced Ellis she nodded to him, then warned Elsie "It's been a bad night for Marc. He threw a fit and ran his friends off. Now he's talking to himself in the back yard."

Elsie confessed. "I don't think I can make the night any better for him. His problems are too big now for me to do anything about them." Tears welled up in Ginny's eyes, but she led them to a sliding door where they could see Marc outside. He kept his eyes on the ground and paced across the yard while he argue with someone who wasn't there. Elsie stopped Ellis from following and told him "I'm not going to take very long. You being here might upset him. Would you wait here?"

Elsie slid the door shut behind her and stopped Marc's pacing. Marc looked over her shoulder to where Ellis and Ginny watched from inside, then led Elsie aside, into the shadows where Ellis couldn't see.

The wait could not have been much more awkward. Ginny wrung her hands while she peered into the shadows and Ellis tried to think of something to say. It was Ginny who finally broke the silence. "Your sister is a wonderful girl, and so talented." She continued, still searching the night. "Even as Marc's mother I've always known that he isn't good enough for her. He's gotten much worse over the last few months. Now I'm not sure if he has anything left for her."

A sound from outside caught Ellis' attention. A scuffling sound. His heart jumped into his throat when he heard it again and this time is was followed by Elsie's garbled scream. Ellis threw the glass door open and stumbled blindly into the darkness, tripping over hoses and lawn sprinklers that he couldn't see. He found Marc and Elsie around the corner. Marc held Elsie down on a picnic table with his knee on her back. He had her wrist pinned to the table with one hand while she thrashed under him and tried to elbow him away. Marc's other hand gripped a hatchet, poised over his head, ready to sever Elsie's hand.

Ellis lunged at the hatchet. He twisted to wrench the hatchet out of Marc's hand and slung it into the shadows where it clattered against a wall. Marc bellowed and jumped away from Elsie, sending Ellis sprawling on the ground. Elsie rolled away and staggered backwards, wiping her mouth. Marc spun to face Elsie and Ellis scrambled to his feet. He jumped in front of Elsie and squared up facing Marc.

Marc's face gleamed with sweat, his eye's were wide and blood from Elsie's claw marks streaked his neck. Ellis couldn't guess what Marc might do next. Marc howled "It's her hands! There's evil in her hands and it's taking her away from me. I'll cut off her hands and she'll be mine again." He dove at Elsie but Ellis clutched the front of Marc's shirt and rode him to the ground. Marc threw Ellis off with a forearm and knocked him into the corner of the house then spun again looking for Elsie, who circled toward the door.

Ellis jumped between them once more and was ready when Marc lunged for Elsie. He stepped into Marc with his knees bent to deliver a blow and slammed the heel of his hand upward into Marc's chin. Marcus' head snapped back and blood splattered over Ellis' arm and chest. Marc crumbled against the picnic table and Ellis staggered backwards toward Elsie.

Elsie sidestepped Ellis' fall, then yanked at his shirt to pull him up. She could see Ginny though the door, yelling into a phone and Marc climbing slowly, unsteadily away from the table with blood steaming from his mouth and down his chin. Marc stumbled for the door, growing stronger with each step. Elsie screamed at Ginny to run and pulled at Ellis' arm. "He has guns! We gotta go. Now!"

Elsie dragged Ellis through a gate at the side of the house. Elsie threw herself into her seat while Ellis started the car. He didn't know where he was going, but he was going away as fast as he could. Marc ran into the street as they pulled away and leveled a rifle at the car. The muzzle flashed blue and pink and the back window shattered into a spiderweb of cracks. The muzzle flashed again and Ellis felt the car shake from an impact that he didn't see. He spun the car around a corner and they were gone.

He drove away from the lights, toward the hills at the edge of town while Elsie called for help. Elsie was afraid for Ginny and there was a crazy boy with a gun out shooting up the street. They were lost on a winding country road when Ellis found a turn out. The turn out became a trail and snaked behind a grove of trees and along the side of a narrow field where Ellis stopped the car.

Ellis fell back into his seat to catch his breath and calm his nerves, then turned on the interior lights. He met Elsie in the middle, each of them searching the other for injuries, asking "Are you hurt? Are you okay?"

Elsie touched Ellis' shirt and pointed out "Your shirt is ruined. You have his blood on it." She pulled her hands back to look at her fingernails and shuddered. "I have his skin under my fingernails!" She threw her arms around Ellis' neck and buried her face in his collar, sobbing "Oh God. I'm not okay."

Ellis held his sister and whispered to her until she stopped crying and rested quietly against his chest. She looked up at his face to whisper "You know, Marc really would have cut my hand off. When you stopped him you saved my hand. You saved my music. You saved my life."

Ellis brushed a tear off her cheek and explained "I couldn't live if I let that happen to you, so I saved myself as much as I saved you."

Elsie pushed away and sat up, scowling at Ellis. "Don't pretend to be selfish. You aren't. I'm the selfish one."

Ellis turned off the lights without answering, then climbed out of the car and walked around it looking for damage. The bullet that shattered the rear window glanced off the top of the window then creased the roof of the car. The second bullet entered the rear of the trunk. Ellis decided to wait until it was light before he opened the trunk. He climbed onto the back of the car and sat down to survey the field and the lights of Florence, sparkling in the valley.

Elsie stayed in the car to clean Marc's skin from under her fingernails then searched through the litter in the back seat. She found what she wanted and climbed the bumper to sit next to Ellis. She had the last two cans of beer. Elsie popped one open and held it out so the overflow wouldn't land in her lap. "A little warm now" she shrugged "but it's all we have to drink. Maybe it will still taste good." She handed the first can to Ellis and opened the second. Elsie sipped, then gulped her beer and covered her mouth to belch. She snickered at herself, then leaned forward, holding the beer with both hands between her knees. 

Ellis tipped his beer back and let the froth flow down his throat. He set the can down at his side and stretched out on the back of the car with his hands behind his head. The lights from Florence reflected on low clouds that gathered overhead. Elsie leaned over him to set her beer next to his, then opened Ellis' shirt and ran her fingertips over his chest. Ellis stopped her hand and asked "What's on your mind?"

The darkness made it impossible for Ellis to see the smile that Elsie wore while she wondered how to phrase her answer. She went on with "I was wondering if sex with you tonight will be as good as it was the first time."

Elsie made the decision that Ellis wanted. He pulled Elsie into an embrace that lasted until he felt raindrops on his bare back. He took his hand out of Elsie's panties and sniffed her scent on his fingers while Elsie writhed slowly beside him, trying to catch her breath. Ellis straightened his cock, shrugged his shirt back into place and suggested "Let's get out of the rain."

Ellis rolled off the car and climbed into the back seat. Elsie zipped her jeans and found her cell phone on the front seat. She checked the time and groaned "It's getting late. I bet Mom is still waiting up for us. She's probably going to be furious. We should go."

6. The Rain

Ellis had misgivings and the longer he waited the worse his misgivings became. He should have taken Elsie in the back seat when he had the chance, but she was persuasive. Now he slouched in a patio chair and watched water drip from the umbrella overhead. And he waited.

The rain that chased them back to Florence faded to a mist once they got into town, but the feeling of anticipation that the rain brought with it wouldn't go away. The clouds hung like someone watching over Ellis' shoulder, waiting for a signal.

Elsie was right, Jack and Eudora were still up, but Eudora was more relieved to see them than she was furious. Ginny had called to see if Elsie was okay. She told Eudora what she knew, but that ended with Marc shooting at the car as they squealed around a corner. The police were able to add a little reassurance because when Elsie called 911 she told them that she wasn't hurt. Now Elsie told the rest of her story and Ellis waited.

Another drop gathered at the edge of the umbrella, then extinguished itself on the patio. It was Eudora who told Ginny's story. Ginny hid behind a hedge while her son emptied his magazine at any target in the neighborhood. The police got there to find Marc sitting on the curb with his spent rifle on the ground, muttering about Elsie's hands. Now he paced in lockup and refused to cooperate with doctors. And Ellis waited.

Ellis held his hand out to catch the next drop. It gathered itself on the edge of the umbrella and died in his hand, its whole life cycle spent in seconds. He sniffed his fingers, seeking Elsie's scent and found stale beer instead. They stopped at a convenience store and left the empties from the back seat in a trash can. The beer cans were gone when Jack helped Ellis cover the hole in the back window but the bras were still strewn across the back seat. Jack said nothing to Ellis, but then found Elsie and Eudora putting the kitchen away for the night and Jack, laughing, made Elsie explain. Eudora started the dishwasher while she listened to Elsie's red-faced explanation, then she pulled Jack off to bed. Elsie stayed to finish in the kitchen and Ellis went to the patio to wait.

The mist grew to light rain and drops fell from the umbrella at a steadier pace. Ellis reached to catch another drop and it fell instead into Elsie's open hand. She settled astride his lap and leaned to his ear. Ellis expected something softly whispered, but instead Elsie sent a charge through his body by bitting his neck and dragging his tender skin through her teeth. She let him go and laughed in his ear "We should have done it in the car when we had the chance."

The rain came harder and thunder rolled from distant lightening. They dashed for the house and up the stairs to her room. There would be no more waiting. Ellis stripped Elsie's clothes away. He pressed her back against the wall to taste her lips and her throat and her breasts while Elsie tore at his shirt and fumbled to open his jeans.

Lightning crackled outside and thunder rattled the windows. Ellis pushed his hands down over Elsie's naked skin and between her legs. He lifted her off the floor and spread her thighs around him. Elsie guided his cock into her then gasped in his ear while his thrusts drove her hard against the wall. Elsie was everything that Ellis remembered, everything he wanted. He savored her body wrapped around his, her scent, her taste. He took her mouth and she took his throat. The house shuddered under sheets of driven rain and Elsie took her brother's essence.

When Ellis was empty he dropped to one knee, then with Elsie still knotted around him he rolled into a pile of stuffed toys that filled the corner of her room. They writhed together on that pile until a familiar melody tinkling from beneath the toys caught Elsie's attention. She unwrapped herself from Ellis and sorted through the pile to uncover a music box with a ballerina slowly turning under a glass bell.

"This pile is a lot of stuff that I moved here from the old house and never sorted out." She explained. "I suppose I would have thrown most of it out when I had time because it's all so old and childish. Papa gave me this music box when I was five years old. The song is from Beethoven's 'For Elise'." She laughed, remembering. "Papa told me that it was 'For Elsie'. I loved the melody. I started playing piano just so that I could play it for myself. The music box stopped working about the time that Papa died and before that I knew 'For Elise' -- all of it, not just this pretty little part."

The rain had quieted but distant lightening flashed and for an instant Ellis could see the little dancer's painted face turning slowly toward him. He took the music box from Elsie's hands and felt it's machinery whirring inside. "Maybe Papa came back to fix the things he left us -- the mantle clock and now the music box."

"And the plants?" Elsie asked, as she dug deep into the pile of toys. "Do you think Papa's ghost is a pervert who likes to hang around while his grandkids do each other?" Elsie pulled a teddy bear out of the pile and sat up cross-legged with the filthy-looking bear on her lap. She changed the subject and introduced them "Mr. Bear, this is my best lover, Ellis. Ellis, this is my first lover, Mr. Bear." She turned the bear to look at his face. "Mr. Bear slept with me when I was young and starting when I was, like 12 I would squeeze him between my legs and fantasize about boys."

"You were the first boy that ever made me climax, but it was Mr. Bear that gave me my first orgasm ever." Elsie admitted. "Like this." She rose to her knees and pushed Mr. Bear between her legs, then leaned forward with one hand on Ellis' shoulder. Her body undulated while she ground Mr. Bear's matted carcass against her clitoris. Elsie breathed into Ellis' ear. "Oooh, and Mr. Bear still has it." She reached down between Ellis legs and snickered as he hardened in her hand, then whispered. "But Mr. Bear doesn't have a cock."

Mr. Bear was hardly more than a shadow between Elsie's thighs, but Ellis found him and tugged the bear away from Elsie without explaining himself. He sniffed at it curiously, then leaned back into the pile of toys with Mr. Bear on his belly, his hard-on thrusting up between Mr. Bear's legs. Ellis pointed out "And now he does."

"It's a dream come true!" Elsie laughed. She climbed over Ellis with her knees beside his waist. Ellis felt more than he could see while Elsie lowered herself onto his hard-on. She settled her weight onto Mr. Bear and Ellis held the bear in place while Elsie ground against him. Elsie's excitement infected Ellis. He stroked Elsie's skin and urged her on until her climax overwhelmed her. She collapsed onto his chest, sweating and relaxed; her hair fell across his face.

Thunder crackled again and rain pounded at the window as if it would break right in. Ellis swept Elsie's hair out of his mouth and held her until she moved again, then he rolled her into the corner complaining "I like your hair, but not so much in my mouth."

"Enjoy It while you can." Elsie laughed while she lifted her legs around Ellis, "because things are going to change." Ellis seemed not to hear, and plunged back into Elsie's wet slit, deeper than he could reach with Mr. Bear between them. Elsie caught her breath and clinched Ellis between her thighs. With her brother so deep inside her, that second climax came suddenly. She clawed at his back and Ellis clinched his teeth and groaned in her ear as he came.

Ellis fell away from Elsie and Elsie followed, kissing his ear and ribbing him with a whisper in his ear. "Do you suppose Papa was watching? Do you suppose he liked that as much as I did?"

"I get it that you don't see Papa in all this." Ellis groaned. "You don't believe in ghosts and I guess I don't either." He pushed Elsie away and stood up, then asked from the dark above her "So what do you believe?" then turned away to find the bathroom. 

The rain died away again before Ellis come out of the bathroom. He found Elsie at the window, silhouetted against the meager light from outside. She clutched Mr. Bear to her breast and watched scattered raindrops trickle over the glass. Ellis touched Elsie's hips and stroked his hands up and over her skin. His hands touched Mr. Bear and he stopped, surprised.

"Look" Elsie said. She held the bear out into the blue light. The once matted bear was fluffy and soft and probably as white as the day he was made. She turned around in Ellis' arms to face him and thrust the bear into his hands. "So what do I believe? Who can bring things back from the dead? Who can make the broken and the old new again? Those are miracles." She pointed to the window. "Why did the drought suddenly break, and like this? I've never even believed much in God, but that's the only answer I have." Elsie went on because she sensed Ellis' disbelief "When we're calm -- like now -- the rain stops. When we're turned on the lightning is everywhere and it's raining buckets."

"Don't forget that odd touch; the light in our veins" Ellis added, but he had little else to say. He pushed the bear back into Elsie's hands and pressed her against the window frame with his hands cupped around her breasts. He wasn't convinced that they could make it rain again, but he was willing to find out. Elsie wrapped her arms around his neck with Mr. Bear's foot still clutched in her hands and opened her mouth for Ellis' kiss. Her breath grew hot and ragged against his cheek and her nipples hardened under his touch.

Fat raindrops dashed themselves against the window glass beside them. Ellis turned his head to break their kiss and breathed into Elsie's ear "I guess what they said in Sunday School was right. God is always watching." Elsie felt her brother's hardened cock press against her belly and lightning crackled overhead.

"Then we should give him something to watch." Elsie laughed. She shoved Ellis away, and dove onto her bed with Mr. Bear still gripped in her hand. Ellis caught her from behind and held her up by her hips while he worked his cock deep inside her. Elsie first collapsed to her knees and elbows and squealed into the bear's soft fur, then flattened onto the mattress under the force of Ellis' thrusts.




Unlikely Angels Ch. 05-06



The rain came and thunder rattled the house. The tempest lasted as long as Ellis and Elsie could keep up their sweaty menage a trois with Mr. Bear. When they could go on no more. Ellis rolled onto the sheets and pulled his exhausted sister against his chest. He swept the hair off her neck to sample her scent and taste for a last time, then pulled the bedclothes over them both and they slept.

Daylight was seeping through the window when Elsie turned in Ellis' arms and dug her fingers into his sides to wake him. She hissed in his ear "Ellis, wake up. The rain stopped and Mom will be up pretty soon. You need to go to your room in case she checks on us when she gets up."



Unlikely Angels Ch. 07



7. Into the Night

Elsie waited alone in a stale dressing room, her hands clutched between her knees. For now she couldn't tolerate anyone near her, anyone who might disturb her concentration. Her hair, her makeup were perfect, but she leaned to the mirror once more to make sure. Her necklace and her gown were perfect, but she stood and smoothed the bodice again and turned to watch in the mirror as the skirt flowed around her ankles. White. It had to be white.

She played in recitals almost as long as she could remember and played in contests when she got older, but concerts were different. It didn't help that this was her first concert in Florence, in front of her friends and her neighbors. Elsie was on the second half of the program. The orchestra was at intermission and musicians laughed in the hall while the crew moved her piano on stage.

The last week passed in a whirlwind of appointments and rehearsals, statements for the police and interviews with reporters. Florence was not a big city. First there was the gush of stories about the rain and the flooding, but then the news caught the story of the star student and piano prodigy, attacked by her boyfriend and rescued by her brother. If nothing else all of that attention was good promotion for the concert. The theater was sold out and the orchestra musicians were treating her with a little curious respect.

"Leave me alone you fucking waste of skin!" Elsie winced as she remembered what she called Ellis. The temper that he didn't know about exploded when he interrupted her practice to say goodbye. Ellis didn't call when he got back to Quincy and didn't talk to her all week. She didn't have time for him any way, but now Ellis was in the theater. Elsie saw him when Eudora let him through the stage door. She was leaving to Europe with Eudora after the concert, so among everything else that was on her mind she needed to find a way to make things better with her brother before she left.

He sat through the first half of the program with Jack while Eudora paced the back, unable to calm down and take a seat. Ellis had been warned. Eudora told him not to interrupt Elsie but then she left without explaining. He stormed out of Florence, angry at everyone.

Ellis' drive home was slowed by men clearing trees and brush that the flooding left tangled around bridge piers and by crews removing debris from the roads and patching the damage. Ellis calmed down as he waited in the queues and watched. Elsie would probably always be an important part of his life, so he had to find a way to get along with her. Once Ellis got home there was little more time to think about Elsie - too much had to be finished before the start of summer classes.

The prosecutor who was handling Marc's case wanted a statement from Ellis, so on Friday he drove back to Florence in the new truck that replaced Nana's damaged car. It was the prosecutor who reminded him of Elsie's concert. "Elsie's been all over the news" she said. "I wanted to go to her concert tonight - to get the end of the story you know, but I can't get tickets."

Ellis knew he should be there, so he called Eudora. She took Elsie to the theater early, then let Ellis in through the stage door and hurried him into the theater before anyone could ask questions.

Ellis caught his breath as Elsie crossed the stage, gleaming in her white gown and pearls. Jack noticed Ellis' reaction and laughed "Your sister cleans up pretty well, doesn't she? She had a look that she wanted for this show. She insisted on the dress, then had her hair cut and darkened."

Elsie settled at the piano and waited for the Maestro. Ellis watched her while he turned their last conversation over in his mind. "Beethoven's fifth concerto - the Emperor" Elsie explained over the top of a ham sandwich. "It isn't a real hard concert piece and I've been working on it for months, but the music is pure joy distilled into sound. I have to make people feel the joy, you know? I'm not sure I can. I have to practice this afternoon and then we have rehearsal tonight."

The Maestro raised his baton and brought the orchestra to life. The audience sat still at first, unsure of how to react, but Elsie found the joy in her piano and soon she was in command of her audience. People moved in their seats and smiles spread from person to person. Even the orchestra got caught up in Elsie's joy. Ellis was so involved in watching Elsie and the reactions in the audience that he was surprised when the first movement came to its crashing end.

Jack nudged Ellis then asked under the applause "How are things between you two? I haven't heard her say a thing about you since last weekend."

Ellis wondered for a moment about what he should say, then "Not so great. I broke into her practice last week so I could say goodbye." Jack winced, knowing what kind of reaction Ellis probably got.

They didn't have more time to talk. Elsie stayed at the piano until the applause faded and Maestro began the second movement. Her soft music floated around Ellis like perfume. The audience seemed to float with her until the tempo changed and pulled them to the edge of their seats where they moved with the rolling excitement in her music. Ellis spotted Hope and Lisa running down the opposite aisle with bouquets of flowers. He lost sight of them over the crowd when people at the front of the theater rose to their feet. Most of the audience was standing before it was over. When Elsie entered the final, ascending cadenza it sent a thrill through the crowd that grew from a murmur to a roar.

Elsie scanned the little crowd gathered in the light at the front of the stage, hoping to find Ellis. She found Hope and Lisa. They bounced with excitement and thrust bouquets of roses up to her. Elsie stood to bow with Maestro, then crouched to gather the bouquets. She hissed over the flowers in her arms, "Ellis is here. Would you find him and keep him here? Don't let him leave. I have to talk to him."

Jack shouted into Ellis' ear over calls for an encore "This is the friendliest crowd she'll ever have." A touch on Ellis' arm made him turn and he found Eudora next to him with tears streaking her face. Ellis stepped into the aisle so Eudora could reach Jack, and Jack wrapped her in his arms, whispering "Dora, Dora. You're my beautiful mess."

When Elsie rose and turned back to the maestro he tugged on her arm and leaned to her ear. "Are you ready for your encore?" She was, but there was going to be a change. Else had planned to use the Rachmaninoff piece that won the Cardinal College contest, but there was suddenly a piece much more meaningful. Elsie pushed a bouquet of white roses into Maestro's hands and explained her change. He grinned at her then nodded and stepped away to clear the orchestra from the stage.

Ellis stood awkwardly in the aisle for a moment. He didn't see Hope and Lisa break out of the crowd to search the audience. He turned and climbed to the back of the theater where he could watch without being in anyone's way. Elsie laid her red roses across the piano and sat alone in the light to play "For Elise."

From the darkness at the back of the theater Ellis searched the crowd for Jack and Eudora and found them in time to see Eudora lay her head down on Jack's broad shoulder. He couldn't imagine how many times Elsie must have played that piece for them and now it seemed to Ellis like she played it for them alone. He watched for a moment, feeling uncomfortably like an intruder in their lives, then squeezed through a side door and into the night.