Snowfall

I sat a moment in stunned silence and then slowly made my way to the door of the home. Alin lived alone these days, his wife died years ago in childbirth. His oldest son\'s wife came to look after him each morning now, but she had gone back home for the evening to tend to her own young ones. I did not fear being disturbed but my hand hesitated on the door. After all these years to see my brother, a longing was pulling me into the place. Just one last time, it said. Another part kept me standing there in the night\'s chill air that I did not wholly feel, what would I do or say when I got inside?

Slowly I pulled the door open and entered. Looking about the dim room, my eyes took in the changes and the similiarities over the years. New furniture, old pottery, my mother\'s blanket still lay over the bed. I reached the curtained off corner that was the bedroom and cautiously pulled back the clothe. My brother watched me from the bed, blue eyes clear and calm, so like my own, they regarded me as if they knew I would come and had been waiting.

I knelt beside his bed and took his hand. Alin smiled faintly at me, only to turn away to cough. His hand felt weak in my own, like it belonged to a child or perhaps a ghost. I knew my brother was correct, his time was soon. Praying would not change it, but I could.

\"Albin, you look just like you did when I saw you last. So young and scholarly. Are you an angel now, Albin, sent to bring me to heaven?\"

I looked at the hope and trust in my brother\'s eyes and my will faltered. I could choose life for him now or the peace he craved. \"What of your family, Alin?\"

He smiled at me. \"You\'ll look after them and perhaps I will too, from heaven. They are grown now anyway and they no longer need me. I wish to be with the rest of my family. You, mother, father and my wife. Have you met her, Alin? My Bethany?\" His eyes looked away then, remembrance clouding them. I remembered his Bethany and could understand his longing to be with her again. Images of Amar came to me then, was there a heaven for creatures like us? Did he look down upon me and would I join him one day? Not according to the church even if there was a heaven for hunters like the thing I had become Amar and I did not share the same beliefs. No hope to meet him in an afterlife, if such a peace were possible.

\"Albin\" The thin voice brought me back and I looked once more into my sibling\'s eyes. \"Let me go.\"

\"Do you trust me, my brother?\" I asked timidly. I felt Alin\'s strength even now, his character and will and it made me shy around him. This man who believed such good things of me without our ever speaking until this moment.

\"I\'ve always trusted you, Albin.\" He smiled. \"Father said you were his gentle son, pure as the snow that fell on your birth.\"

I looked at him for a long time, bewildered. My father said that of me? He was never proud of me, I wasn\'t a good farmer or fighter.

Alin chuckled and then coughed. \"Didn\'t even mention it to you in the afterlife, I\'m not surprised. He was never one to speak words of praise. I\'ve tried to do better though I should have done it more often. He was very proud of you, Albin. He told me many times how you forgave that boy who had harmed you. You\'re brother is a good soul and a man of God, he\'d say. I knew it to be true. You\'ve always helped us. Can you not help me this one last time?\"

I nodded slowly and leaned forward to my younger brother pulling him into my arms. He created such turmoil in me. His trust and faith, my father\'s pride. I did not know what was the right thing to do, I was not the good soul my family believed. I had done terrible things. Holding Alin\'s thin form, I knew I could not continue to see him suffer when it was within my ability to put him at ease.
With a heavy heart and no small amount of doubt, I sank my teeth into the thin neck. He winced once and then was still, I felt his trust and his happiness. He knew that he would be at peace soon and the bliss he felt was one of rest after a lifetime of toil and hardship. If I could cry human tears, I would have cried that night. Not for my brother, that I layed gently back upon his bed but for myself, for the loss of everything that had been decent in my life. I gave up being the man my family believed me to be for a love that was taken away from me after a few short years. I found that I distanced myself from people that I thought cared nothing about me only to find that they had held a place in their hearts for me after all. Those years my parents were alive were wasted with my own sense of unworthiness that was nothing but mistake.


I watched after Alin\'s family as I said that I would. Watching them grow brought me some joy and laughter. I had become quite adept at living vicariously through their troubles and triumphs. I still aided them in small ways were I could. It had become almost expected, they weren\'t even very surprised in times when many of them were ill to come out and find the field tended or repairs done to the tools. They always thanked God for sending his servants to aid them.

Father Patrick took over the school after the death of Father John, He was as patient as his mentor and a credit to his faith. The Abbey grew under his care and so did the village. It was now a small town and growing larger so quickly to my eyes. Patrick left the Abbey in the hands of one of his students. Father Michael was an intelligent man, no doubt the most gifted with knowledge that the Abbey posessed, however I sensed in him a hunger for something more. I feared that he longed for a more powerful position in the church and would do anything to get it.

When Alin\'s youngest son died leaving his old widow alone to tend her fields, I did what I had always done and helped in my own way. Her nieces and nephews did what they could for her also but they had their own families to take care of.

I was out one night working in her field when I heard footsteps approaching. I looked up to find the widow herself standing at the edge of the field. Her greying hair loose and blowing in the night breeze and a blanket pulled about her shoulders.

\"So you are the angel who comes to help me each night.\" She smiled kindly at me, far from afraid. The elderly I\'ve found see things so very differently. Perhaps it is seeing so much in their lifetime that they are more able to simply accept things as they are, not try to understand or change it.

I stood up and came over to her and bowed politely. \" I help you as best I can Goody Nachton.\" How strange to say the family name after all these years and to converse with one of my kin.

\"You\'ve the look of my husband about you. Do you have a name angel? Are you the Nachton family angel we\'ve all heard so much about?\"

\"My name is Albin, Goody.\" I smiled. \" You\'ll catch a chill in this weather, you should go inside where it is warm.\"

She chuckled and remained standing there. \"Perhaps I should but I cannot go in good conscience when someone else is working for me. I will help you.\"

This wouldn\'t do at all. I regarded her with consternation, she held little fear or awe of me, just a gratefulness and a sense of pride. She would help tend her own fields knowing that I was here. I sighed and tried to think of something we would both accept.

\"Goody? Would you do me something else in return instead?\"

She looked at me intrigued but wary, thinking, no doubt that I meant to trick her back into the house without doing anything to aid in the upkeep of her farm. \"I might. What is it that an angel needs?\"

\"Bread, good lady, I hear you make excellent bread.\" I smiled sweetly. Over the years I knew much about my family and I remembered much praise for her delicious bread.

\"Well, I can say that I\'ve heard it to be fine but I am shocked to see such a rumor has reached the gates of heaven.\" Her eyes sparkled with mischief. \"All right, I\'ll make you some bread in exchange for you work. Won\'t you come in a while and talk to me when you\'re done?\"

No doubt a true angel would have not made such a bargain. The bible is full of stories where arguing with angels did nothing but gain you trouble or at the very least no longer gain their aid. But I admired her spirit and her pride. I worked in her field and came inside to watch her baking bread. It was a strange arrangement, We chatted about the family and she told me stories of each of them first hand. I was happy for the first time in years, speaking with my kin, laughing at some of the tales, offering advise on a few of the young troublemakers. She listened, never doubting that I was something other than human. I had completed the day\'s work of a man in but a short time, my paleness and youthful looks but aged speech were all aided by my knowledge of the family. Though I did not know everything, I knew far more than most of the kin themselves, haveing listened in on more than one house and for several lifetimes now. It seemed enough to keep the good woman believing I was divinely sent, if somewhat more human than she would imagine. She did not ask me about my life or spiritual matters at all, for which I was grateful. It seemed there was some limit to her irreverence, after all.

I took the bread she made me and thanked her kindly. Sending her to bed and telling her to sleep in. I delivered the bread to the Abbey wrapped in a cloth just before dawn.