Free Angel in the Parlor by Nancy Willard

yelled.
    â€œNuisance broke down the door,” shouted Etta. “You better lock him up good.”
    Galen burst into tears, and Helen sank to her knees beside him.
    â€œThere, there, honey lamb. No one’s going to hurt you. Helen will lock the doors and windows.” She held his head against her neck. “And I’ll let you play with my Old Maid cards.” Galen’s shoulders stopped shaking. “And I’ll even let you touch my new lampshade.”
    â€œCan I go down cellar and see your chest?” Galen said in a sodden voice.
    Flicking the switch by the cellar door and taking each of us by the hand, Helen led us down the steps, dimly lit, past a clothesline sagging with diapers, to a big brassbound chest.
    â€œCan I open it?” snuffled Galen.
    â€œGo ahead,” said Helen.
    So Galen lifted the lid very slowly. It was like a thing from dreams, this box, big as a coffin, full of bedspreads and blankets and dishes. This is the way I would like to keep my whole past, I thought, folded away where I could take out last year’s Christmas or my first birthday and play dress-up whenever I liked. Resting carefully on top of a platter painted with turkeys, the lampshade waited. It needed a light to show clearly the man and woman walking in a garden painted on the front.
    â€œI got it for seventy-five cents at a rummage sale,” Helen announced proudly. “It’s not paper, either. It’s real satin, and all clean.”
    â€œToo bad it’s purple,” I said thoughtlessly, and then, seeing I’d hurt her, I added, “but I like the two people in the garden.”
    â€œWhat comes after the garden?” asked Galen, pointing to the edge of the picture.
    â€œNothing. Don’t poke at it,” said Helen crossly.
    And she herded us upstairs.
    Etta had gotten control of herself and was crocheting as if nothing had happened, but her face looked like bleached flour. The lower half of the screen door was hanging out, torn in two—I touched it, awestruck. Helen went to the sink and started snapping the stems off the beans heaped on the drainboard.
    â€œEtta,” I said, and I felt my tongue thicken in my mouth, “Did you ever see God’s face?”
    â€œNobody has ever seen God’s face,” said Etta. “Only His hinder parts.”
    Helen touched her buttocks absentmindedly.
    â€œHis what?” said Galen.
    â€œHis hinderparts,” repeated Etta. “Nobody will ever see His face till the last day.”
    Etta knew the Bible better than any of us, but she didn’t know I gave God the head of an ass.
    â€œHow do you know which day is the last day?” asked Galen.
    â€œWhen all the signs have come to pass, that will be the last day,” said Etta mysteriously. “Oh, they won’t all come at once. They’ll be spread out over the centuries, for a thousand years in the Lord’s sight are but as yesterday when they are past.”
    â€œSomething’s burning,” exclaimed Helen. She peeked into the soup pot, pushed the chicken legs down, clapped on the lid like a jailer, and turned off the stove. Then she said to Etta, a little sadly, “All those things are mighty hard to understand——”
    A crash outside cut her off. For an instant none of us moved.
    â€œThe raccoon is rummaging through the garbage pail again,” Helen squeaked. “He comes pretty near every night.”
    We all exhaled.
    â€œGo on about the signs,” I urged Etta.
    Etta smoothed a finished snowflake across the back of her hand.
    â€œWhen my grandfather was a little boy, he saw the darkening of the sky. That’s one of the signs. The cows came home and the chickens went to roost just like it was night. And stars fell out of the sky. People thought they would get burnt up, and some folks killed theirselves.”
    â€œIs this a ghost story?” asked Galen nervously.
    Etta scowled at him over the