Free Shadow of an Angle by Mignon F. Ballard Page A

sure she's okay," I said. "But how do we get in? I don't have a key."
    "I do," Gatlin said. "Actually, it's Vesta's. She left it with me that night Mildred insisted on going back there. Said I might need it sometime."
    "Mildred may be in trouble. I hope her angel's on duty," I told Augusta as I grabbed my coat. "She does have one, doesn't she?"
    Augusta was washing the kitchen windows with something that smelled like new grass and looked like spring water. She didn't turn around. "Of course she does, Arminda, but I don't have my directory handy just now."
    "Huh!" I said. Sometimes I couldn't tell if Augusta was joking, but I wouldn't be surprised if she really did carry an angel directory in that great big bag of hers.
    The front of Papa's Armchair looked dark and deserted, and a blind was drawn in the doorway, so I parked behind Gatlin's ten-year-old red Pontiac at the back entrance to the rooms Mildred and Otto had called home. Gatlin already had her key in the lock by the time I got out of my car.
    "I've rung the bell three times and knocked until my knuckles are raw," my cousin said. "I'm going in."
    "Maybe we ought to call somebody first," I said. "What if something's happened? You don't know what we'll find in there."
    But it was too late. Gatlin swung the door wide and stepped boldly inside the dark, narrow hallway with me crowding her footsteps, only to be met by a pink apparition.
    I'd like to say I imagined it, but I'm almost sure I screamed. The apparition made a funny growling noise, snatched a lamp off the hall table, and shook it at us.
    "Look out, it's got a lamp!" I yelled just as the pink figure and the lamphit the floor together.
    "Minda, for heaven's sake, it's Mildred!" Gatlin ran to hover over the dazed-looking woman who sat, still muttering, in the hallway while I rescued the lamp.
    "What's going on?" Mildred spoke in a hoarse, hesitating whisper. "I don't understand…and…oh, my head hurts so…"
    Mildred Parsons was not a heavy person, but even with our support she walked like an adolescent in her first pair of heels, and it took the two of us several minutes to help her to a chair. If I hadn't known about Mildred's strict Methodist principles, I'd have suspected she'd been into the booze.
    I whispered to Gatlin over Mildred's head. "Maybe we'd better get her in bed."
    "No, no!" Mildred croaked weakly. "Just let me sit a minute—and water—a glass of water…"
    "Easy now…sipit slowly." In the tiny living room Gatlin held the glass to Mildred's lips while I shoved a footstool under her feet and covered her with a throw. The throw had a smirky-looking cat on it and read IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE ABOUT PEOPLE, COME AND SIT NEXT TO ME. This woman I had known all my life was surprising me at every turn.
    Gatlin and I watched anxiously as she drank most of the water, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes for minutes that seemed longer than an off-key wedding solo. I was about to grab her wrist for a pulse when Mildred opened her eyes and announced that somebody had "slipped her a Mickey."
    "A what?" Gatlin grinned and jabbed me with her elbow. "You've been watching too many of those old movies, Mildred. You must've eaten something that disagreed with you, or picked up a virus somewhere."
    "Don't tell me what I picked up! I reckon I know what I picked up—I picked up a drink with some kind of dope in it!" Mildred sat a little straighter and then winced with the effort. "What time is it? I feel like I've been asleep a thousand years."
    "It's close to three in the afternoon, and whatever you picked up, you need to see a doctor," I told her. "How long have you been sick?"
    "Since I got home last night. Hardly made it to bed before my head started swimming. Sick as a dog and up half the night." She rubbed her eyes and pulled the coverlet closer about her.
    "Got home from where?" Gatlin wanted to know.
    "UMW. Wouldn't have gone, but we're in the middle of planning for the Christmas Bazaar, and I'm