First published in Great Britain by Harper Collins Children’s Books in 2003

This updated and revised edition published by Lazy Chair Press in 2013

Text copyright (c) Annie Dalton 2001

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be leant, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form (including digital form) other than this in which it is published, and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This book is for Michael Cooke, who showed me Cockpit Country and helped me to imagine wicked Port Royal and the Black River Morass. Grateful thanks to Curdella Forbes and Nadi Edwards for recommending books, and a big thank you to Maria for sharing her brilliant ideas

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

Also by Annie Dalton

Credits

Chapter One

I miss heaps of things about my old life. Funny little things, like the smell of the face cream Mum uses last thing at night. Plus of course there’s some fairly major stuff, like not being around to see my little sister grow up. Some days I miss Jade so badly, I’d willingly walk over burning coals to be with her for just one hour.

But you know one thing I really don’t miss at ALL?

All that posing humans feel they have to do! Why do people DO that? Nobody really wants to be a fraud, do they? I know I didn’t. Deep down I was desperate for my mates to like me just the way I was: bad habits, impossible dreams and all. Yet I kept up this big act, like I only cared about airhead stuff - style makeovers and shopping - and I wouldn’t recognise a deep thought if it bit me on the bum. WHY? Why didn’t I give my friends the chance to know the real Melanie Beeby?

I was just too scared basically. After my dad walked out, I didn’t have much faith in the real Melanie. (Kids always think it’s their fault, don’t they?) So I invented a new improved personality to hide behind. Like, “I’m so sassy. I’m the princess of cool!”

But humans weren’t designed to fake their way through life, and a couple of weeks before my thirteenth birthday, the cracks began to show.

The weather was foul this particular day, absolutely chucking it down, and my step-dad, Des, had offered me a lift to school. Unfortunately we got stuck at some road-works. We got stuck so long, it would actually have been quicker to crawl to school on my hands and knees. Suddenly I started stressing. You know, REALLY stressing. Telling myself I was going to be late again and this time it wasn’t even my fault. Telling myself I was stupid to stay up half the night, making elaborate birthday invitations for my friends. Friends who didn’t actually care. Friends who didn’t even really know me.

I think it was the thought of having to fake it through my own birthday celebrations that finished me off. I quickly stared out of the window, but all the little gasping sounds must have given me away.

I felt Des put a clean tissue in my hand. “It’s going to be OK,” he said quietly. “One of these days you’ll find a real soul-mate, and you’ll never look back.”

And without any warning, I was suddenly in the middle of this HUGE mystical experience! The gridlocked lorries belching toxic fumes, the giant diggers and earth movers, the workmen in their shiny rain slickers, the plastic supermarket bag that was randomly tumbling about in the wind, all started to shimmer with otherworldly light.

I couldn’t speak. I could hardly even breathe. How come I hadn’t known my world was this beautiful?

Then a workman gave me a cheeky smile and flipped his sign to read GO. The traffic queue started to move. The magical glow slowly faded, and I started feeling just a little bit silly. I decided it must have been a trick of the light. You see, back then, I wasn’t totally convinced that deep stuff like immortal souls or Good and Evil really existed.

Well, they do, as I was just about to find out!

The day after my birthday, I’d arranged to go shopping with my mates. My birthday cash was burning a hole in my pocket, and I was desperate to buy - I forget what, exactly. It’s irrelevant anyway. Angel HQ, a.k.a. the Agency, had made other plans…

One minute I was crossing the street, humming a carefree tune, then BANG! I was soaring through the air like a swallow, skimming over rooftops, whooshing through clouds, and not only was I not showing signs of slowing down, I was in danger of being scorched by passing meteorites!

I was having my first Out of Body Experience. Not to beat about the bush, I was seriously dead. A joyrider had knocked me down in the street. Apparently this was all part of some massive heavenly design which I’ll never entirely understand. The Agency must have had their guys invisibly watching over me for days. Quite possibly they were with me and Des in the car, when I was having my pre-birthday wobbles. The Agency never lets anyone die alone. They’re v. strict on that point.

But like most humans, I had some weird ideas about what happens to the recently deceased. Since I didn’t meet up with a dead relative, or zoom down a tunnel towards the Light, the D-word never entered my head! I just thought the usual scientific laws had been temporarily suspended for some reason. Why else would I be skimming through space as gracefully as I flew in dreams as a little kid?

I could hear strange and lovely sounds, like the throbbing of a huge invisible humming top. When I hear them now, I know I’m home. But to the old Mel Beeby, home meant a poky flat on a London housing estate, not a vast glittering void filled with cosmic sound FX!

Then BAM! I was set down on solid ground. I was bewildered to find myself in a crowd of chatty teenagers who all seemed to be heading towards a pair of tall, very swanky gates. On the other side of the gates was what looked like an alarmingly posh high school.

Of course, by this time I’m totally reeling. I’m like, what on EARTH am I doing here! Then I saw the view. And you know what? It wasn’t Earth.

An exotic cityscape flashed and shimmered in the morning light: soaring glass skyscrapers, sparkling golden domes, curved roofs that looked almost airborne. It was like a city in the most wonderful dream you ever had.

Everything seemed so alive. Even the light was more super-alive than the kind I was used to. And the air! When I breathed in, I went tingly from head to toe. It smelled wonderful - almost, but not quite, like lilacs.

But the sign outside the school gates sent me into a spin of pure confusion.

I told myself it was just a wussy name. It didn’t mean this was a school for actual angels. And OK, so these kids looked incredibly happy and confident. And OK, so they all had a rather unusual radiant glow. They probably just had excellent skin-care regimes.

I know! I’m standing like, six inches away from the Pearly Gates, furiously trying to convince myself I’m not in Heaven!!

Sometimes I think I’d still be standing there, but just then another suspiciously radiant girl hurried past with her mates. Everything about this girl was familiar; her glossy black curls, her tough-girl walk, the sparky intelligence in her eyes.

And for the first time in years I did something that was NOT typical Melanie. I actually followed this fabulously cool person through the gates.

The two of us immediately fell into step. Not intentionally. It just seemed to happen. We kept exchanging astonished glances. Like, what IS going on here?

“Do I know you?” I blurted out suddenly.

And guess what? She was thinking exactly the same thing!

That’s how I met my soul-mate, Lola Sanchez, Lollie to her friends.

Obviously a person does NOT normally have to die to find friends, OK? This is basically a friendly universe. Great mates can turn up anywhere and everywhere; even my old hellhole comprehensive.

But I never knew this when I was alive. Plus, and this is pretty crucial, I didn’t actually know how to BE a friend. Like I said, I just knew how to fake it.

Luckily I was so shocked by my own death that for one life-changing moment, I forgot to pretend. This sparky stranger seemed like a long-lost part of me, and I wasn’t about to let her vanish!

It probably sounds as if I’m just telling you how Lola and I met up, as some kind of ice-breaker, before zooming on to something more major. I’m not. But I desperately need you to understand why Lola is so special to me.

Listen, Lollie has loads of friends. She’s a friend magnet! Yet from my first day at the Angel Academy, this hugely popular angel girl made it her business to be there for me - yes, ME! Encouraging me to do my best, letting me cry on her shoulder when I’d made yet another cosmic boo-boo, then ruthlessly booting me back out into the Universe to try again - and again.

Now that’s true friendship, right?

It was Lola who finally taught me I didn’t have to fake it to be popular. “Melanie, I have met teeny-weeny worms with better opinions of themselves,” she sighed. “So your papa left you. That was harsh, angel girl. But get over it, you’re in Heaven now. It’s time to lose that airhead disguise!”

Lola had only known me a few days when she said that, and already she knew me better than I knew myself! And this girl and I had SO much in common. Which is insane, since Lollie originally comes from the twenty-second century! Yet we had the same mad sense of humour, we loved almost exactly the same styles of music. And we regularly borrowed each other’s clothes.

I felt so lucky it almost scared me. I couldn’t quite believe I could be this lucky. Unfortunately, the day came when I had a totally good reason to feel afraid.

Our history group had been doing this huge project on ancient Egypt. Our teacher, Mr Allbright, decided it would be helpful to experience the vibes for ourselves. Omigosh, the hassle we had on that trip!! Not to mention the dust! The instant we got back, Lola and I dashed back to our dorms and showered like demons.

Now I was catching up on homey chores: watering my thirsty baby orange tree, checking through my post. Lola was sitting on my bed in her PJs, writing up her report.

Before she died and became an angel, my soul-mate lived in a vibey third-world city. Lollie herself is a mix of a dozen different nationalities: Portuguese, Dutch, African. She even has Mayan ancestry - can you believe that? Her granny told her that’s where she got her great cheekbones!

I glanced across at this amazing girl and I thought how we would never even have met if it wasn’t for a total miracle. (No, trust me. Mel Beeby winning a cosmic scholarship is a miracle!)

All at once I felt this pang of - I don’t know - foreboding. “Lollie, we’re always going to be friends, aren’t we?” I asked anxiously.

She peered at me over her little reading glasses. “What’s wrong, girl? Not having a big bad premonition, are you?”

The human Melanie would have denied everything. But thanks to Lola, I was getting better at sharing my true feelings. “I was just thinking I couldn’t bear it if I had to go back to that phoney person I used to be,” I said painfully.

Lola leaned over and patted my hand. “That’s not going to happen! We’re soul-mates, carita. We knew each other back at the Dawn of Creation.” She gave me a mysterious smile. “And I’m pretty the Agency reunited us for a reason!”

I felt a sudden prickle of excitement. “Are you serious?”

Her eyes sparkled. “This is still like the apprenticeship stage. But once we’ve got through our angel warrior training, we’ll be incredibly wise and strong—”

“—but in a cute way,” I suggested, giggling.

“Cute?” Lola sniffed. “We’ll be gorgeous!! We’ll be such an unstoppable cosmic force, the PODS will go whimpering back to the Hell dimensions like ugly little puppy dogs!”

“You really think so?” I said wistfully.

Lola’s brows drew together. “Are you doubting the words of La Sanchez?”

I swallowed. “Suppose we’d met on Earth? As humans I mean? Would we have recognised each other then?”

Lola looked surprised. “Sure we would, Boo!”

“But would we though?” I persisted. “There’s so much pressure on that little planet, Lollie. Even angels can’t hear themselves think.”

“Hey girl, I’d know you anywhere! I’d feel it - in here.” Lola pressed her hand to her heart. “So would you.”

I was so touched I didn’t know what to say.

Next minute, Lola jumped up and turned up the volume on my radio, totally lightening the mood. “I just can’t get enough of this tune!” she sighed. “It is totally, totally luminous!”

The radio station was playing a hip-hop remix of True Colors. We started to sing along. Lola literally sings like an angel. I sing more like a squeaky little reptile. But it sounded OK when we sang together. It sounded nice.

But I must have been having a big bad premonition after all. Three weeks after our conversation, my soul-mate and I were torn apart, separated by something so dark, it could only have been invented in one of the Hell dimensions. Like all truly terrible things, though, it happened on Earth.

But it really began with Brice.

Chapter Two

Sorry, I’ve got to interrupt the flow. I’m worried you don’t understand about the war. That cosmic war I’m always on about? I’m not sure you realise how big this is.

It’s MASSIVE. Battles between the two major cosmic agencies are going on in every single century in human history. This conflict gets more intense every day. Want to know what we’re fighting over?

YOU.

The PODS, a.k.a. the Powers of Darkness, a.k.a. the Opposition, want total control of your souls. They want you to live your life in a kind of dreary waking dream where nothing matters because nothing feels real. They want you to forget who you are.

You think that couldn’t happen, right?

You think you’d know if someone was interfering with your head?

Look, I don’t have time to get into PODS strategies right now, but trust me, OK? Those guys have been around for AEONS. They know a zillion dirty tricks to play on human minds. Our school library has a ton of books devoted to that one subject alone.

My Agency, on the other hand, doesn’t want to own anybody’s soul, thanks. We think your soul is your personal property. We do have an agenda, but it’s the total opposite. We want you to wake up and remember who you really are, so you can have a fabulously rewarding time on your gorgeous little planet!

Check this - life on Earth was actually meant to be FUN.

Unfortunately, the Dark Powers have lulled millions of human beings into a state of cosmic amnesia. They’ve been doing it since Time began. They’re still doing it today. Now I’m going to let you in on another celestial secret.

You are the reason the Heavenly City never sleeps. Yes - you!

When I look out of the dorm window at night, I can see brilliant star bursts of light over the Agency Tower, FLASH, FLASH, FLASH, about a heartbeat apart. Know what that is? Each star burst is an agent returning from, or departing to, Planet Earth. Plus we have Heaven-based agents beaming uplifting vibes at you morning, noon and night. Joy, Peace, Love, whatever. Those aren’t just words in Christmas carols, you know. They’re powerful energy vibrations. We can actually see them on the Angel Watch computer screens, forming a beautiful web of light around your gorgeous little blue-green planet.

That’s how precious humans are. That’s why the Agency will never give up on you, EVER. Your family and friends might give up on you. You might actually give up on yourself. Hey, your dog might even give up on you! But the Heavenly City stays open for business twenty-four-seven.

Which brings me right back to Brice, one-time cosmic dropout, now humiliatingly doing retakes at the Angel Academy.

I’m not sure there is such a thing as an average angel, but if so Brice is definitely not it. The guy wears ripped T-shirts advertising bizarre celestial rock bands. He is basically a total outlaw.

What is a boy like that doing in Heaven? Good question. I could tell you he’s a bad boy who sold his soul and accidentally found his heart. Or I could say he used to be a fallen angel who got homesick for the Light. However the truth is a little more complicated.

I ran into him on my first field trip to Earth, when he was working for the PODS. Technically we were cosmic enemies. Technically, Brice and I were also total strangers. Yet for reasons I won’t go into, it felt like he knew me a leetle too well for comfort. Lola believes our meeting was some big prearranged karmic thing. She says when we met up that day in foggy 1940s’ London, our souls went, Omigosh, it’s you!

“Brice made a big mistake,” Lola explained solemnly. “One day he woke up and found himself on the totally wrong side in the cosmic war. He needed to find a way back home, and you were it, girl.”

Maybe, maybe not. But when the heavenly authorities finally agreed to let Brice come back to our school, I was disgusted. I couldn’t believe I had to share Heaven with this devious dirtbag!

To listen to our headmaster, Brice’s dodgy past was all water under the bridge. Michael’s theory was, if you wait long enough, trees evolve into diamonds, and bad boys eventually come good.

At the time I was like, yeah right, and we’re all made of Stardust and what’s that got to do with the price of cheese? But now I’ve started to wonder if there might be something in this evolution stuff after all, because my feelings towards Brice slowly began to change.

It was disturbing at first, looking up in the library to see my cosmic enemy feverishly turning pages at the next table. Plus, for a boy who once hobnobbed with demons, he looked alarmingly vulnerable. I’d seen Brice’s dark and dangerous side, however, so I had no intention of being suckered in. But as the months passed, I started to get used to having him around.

After he came with me and Lollie to Victorian times, I began to feel almost, well, fond of him.

The day after we got back from ancient Egypt, Brice was slumped at the back of the class wearing his shades, and a ripped black T-shirt that said ASTRAL GARBAGE.

He wasn’t the only one feeling hungover that day. We’d all been humungously affected by some toxic ancient Egyptian vibes. Everyone was suffering, including Mr Albright.

Halfway through the lesson, our teacher noticed my new Emily Strange top and went up the wall!

“A garment decorated with a skull and crossbones design is not suitable for school, Melanie,” he said in a shocked voice.

“It’s sweet,” I protested. “It’s a sweet, fun, retro thing.”

“Pirates were not sweet, Melanie,” he corrected. “They certainly weren’t fun. They were calculating, cold-blooded murderers.”

Lola and I secretly hid our smiles. You see, on our trip to Elizabethan England, Lollie and I had met the sweetest pirate ever. His daughter, Cat Darcy, was in love with Shakespeare. I’m truly not name-dropping, it’s true! Though actually, the world’s most famous writer went under the name of Chance, back then. He was going through a really bad patch and Cat’s pirate dad helped to straighten him out. Listen, I’m not saying piracy is cool. And I’m not saying Cat’s father was a harmless pussycat. I’m just saying that even a pirate can surprise you by having a heart.

Mind you, I was pretty sure Mr Allbright knew this already. And to be fair, our teacher is not normally the type to stress over an innocent fashion statement.

He was stressing because:

1. He’d been zapped by toxic vibes like everyone else, and

2. We were rapidly approaching the end of term and NO ONE in our class had shown any interest in entering the HALO awards.

“I’ve got entry forms here,” he said reproachfully at the end of the lesson. “Think about it at least.”

Lola and I weren’t paying much attention. We had to dash to the library to catch up on an overdue assignment. We’d been scribbling for about ten minutes, when Brice mooched around the stacks.

“Fancy skiving off?” he said in a casual voice.

Lola sighed. “I wish. Unfortunately we have to do this thing.”

Brice cleared his throat. “That’s a shame. I had a proposition. I was wondering if you’d both be interested in a joint entry for the HALO awards.”

Lola looked puzzled. “Who with?”

He went red. “Well, me, obviously.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “You are kidding!”

Brice scowled. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t enter?”

“Of course not,” said Lola quickly. “The awards are open to every trainee in the school.”

“You’ve got to admit it’s a bit out of character,” I said with a grin.

I genuinely meant it as a joke, but Brice just muttered something uncomplimentary and stormed out.

Lola and I looked at each other.

“That went well,” she said in a small voice.

I felt like a really bad person, but I wasn’t ready to admit it. “That boy has such a major chip,” I complained.

Our buddy Reuben came over. “What’s up?”

Lola started to explain but other library users started ssshing.

“Let’s go to Guru,” Reuben suggested. “You can tell me there.”

“Why not,” Lola said with a sigh. “My concentration’s totally shot.”

Guru is less than five minutes’ walk from our school. We grabbed an outdoor table in the sun and ordered the cafe’s special Aztec hot chocolate, otherwise known as the trainee angel’s cure-all.

Mo, the guy who runs Guru now, must have sensed something was up, because when he brought our order he tactfully left us lots of extra marshmallows.

Lola was too upset to notice. “It’s really hard for Brice to ask people for help,” she said miserably. “And we just laughed in his face.”

“We did NOT laugh in his face,” I objected. “We were just - surprised.”

“You basically told him he was a phoney,” Reuben pointed out.

“It was a joke, all right! The guy used to live in the Hell dimensions! I can’t believe he’s that sensitive.”

“Believe it,” said Reuben.

Lola’s eyes were dark with worry. “This is a really tough time for Brice, Melanie. He’s on probation and everyone at our school knows it. He feels like everyone is watching him, waiting for him to screw up again.”

The extra marshmallows were going to waste so I popped two into my hot chocolate and immediately felt ashamed.

When Brice first got a scholarship to the Angel Academy, I’m sure he secretly dreamed of climbing all the way to the top of that dizzy ladder to the stars. Instead, he tripped over a monster snake and went slipping and sliding all the way back to square one. Now he’d got to start that gruelling game of cosmic snakes and ladders all over again. Only this time, like Lola said, everyone was watching…

“Winning a HALO would be like saying he was rehabilitated,” Lola was saying earnestly. “He wouldn’t have to spend his angelic career looking over his shoulder.”

“Lollie, if this was me, you’d tell me to get over it, you know you would.”

She patted my hand. “True! But if you asked us to back you, we’d do it like a shot. We wouldn’t even think about it.”

I felt myself go all emotional. “Really?”

My mates nodded vigorously.

A worry slid into my mind. “You don’t think Brice was like, testing us do you? Like checking to see if we’re really his friends?”

Reuben winced. “Actually—”

“Oh, whaaat!” I wailed. ” Now he’s going to think we’ve been faking. We’ve got to go and find him.”

“Too obvious,” Reuben advised. “He’d hate it if he knew we’d been talking about him. Bring it up casually next time you see him.”

“Why do I have to bring it up?” I whinged. “Why can’t Lola?”

She went pink. “Because it would be better coming from you.”

I got my chance that night at the Babylon Cafe.

The Babylon is our new preferred place to go dancing. They have the best live music in Ambrosia, that’s like the vibey student area. But if you want to cool off or just chill with your mates, you can go outside into their magical gardens. They’re designed so they literally seem suspended in midair. At night they’re all lit up with twinkly white lights.

I’d gone out for some air when I spotted Brice in the shadows, watching the dancers. It was a warm night, but he wore his jacket collar turned up, and his hands were jammed into his pockets. Somehow Brice was always on the outside, looking in. The thought gave me a funny pang in my heart, because I still remembered how that feels.

I took a deep breath and went up to him. “Hi.”

“Nice dress.” There was absolutely no expression in his voice.

“Thanks. About this morning—”

Brice’s jaw muscles tensed. “It was a dumb idea.”

“It wasn’t. I was tired and crabby. I wasn’t thinking.”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

I almost stamped with frustration. “Could you just listen?”

”You listen,” he snapped. “You were right the first time. I am not the HALO type.”

“There isn’t a HALO type, fool! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’d love to enter the awards with you.”

“Yeah, right,” he jeered. “I saw how you both rushed to sign up.”

“I mean it! I’ve never won anything in my entire existence. OK, at my old school, I won a box of cheap chocs in a raffle. But I’ve never won an actual award. It’d be cool to win a HALO, like getting an angel Oscar.”

Brice scowled. “Have you finished your speech? Will you stop bugging me now?”

“No, actually,” I said sweetly. “I’m going to keep bugging you until you tell me what we have to do to enter.”

There was an interesting silence while Brice chewed at his lip, then he shuffled his trainers a bit, then he cleared his throat.

“Well ,for a start, we have to fill in a ton of forms,” he said cautiously. “The HALO judges might not accept us. They don’t always.”

“They will! I know they will!” I bubbled. “Oh, this is SO great! Let’s do it first thing tomorrow.”

“If you want,” he shrugged. “It’s really no biggie.”

Liar, I thought. This was obviously HUGE for Brice. I could tell he still felt really bruised.

You know that thing? That bimbo thing that I’m not meant to do any more? I think maybe I do it because I don’t know what else TO do.

I looked at him under my lashes. “Brice, how do HALOs work at high-school level exactly? At the angel nursery where I help out, the kids are doing really cute projects.”

“Perhaps you didn’t notice, but I don’t do ‘cute’,” he said with distaste. “We’d be in the advanced section, obviously.”

But I could feel him thawing slightly, so I did another Bambi-eyed flutter. “But I still don’t quite understand. What would we actually have to do?”

“We’d have to go on a blind date with destiny.”

I stared at him. “I have no idea what that means,” I confessed.

“We volunteer for an unknown mission,” Brice explained. “The HALO panel put their heads together to discuss our various strengths and weaknesses. On that basis, they decide what cosmic experiences are likely to stretch us and take us to the next angelic level, yadda yadda.”

“Yadda yadda,” I echoed, to show I was keeping up.

“They pick a suitable time and place, and off we go.”

“Sounds like quite a challenge,” I said in my most impressed voice.

“I think that’s the general idea,” said Brice. “Evolution and all that.”

“Well, definitely count me in,” I said enthusiastically.

He frowned. “What about Lola? Is she in too?”

“Oh, I really couldn’t say,” I said innocently. “You’ll have to ask her.”

He grinned. “Yeah right! Like you two don’t discuss everything*”

I blushed. Brice definitely wouldn’t want me to know about the night he and Lola got all romantic under the stars last holidays!

“Oh, look! Lollie’s over there by the fountains!” I exclaimed with relief. “You can ask her yourself.”

Brice sauntered over. I saw him and Lola deep in conversation through veils of falling water.

Yess! My ploy had worked!

I know! I’m in Heaven now. I should drop the airhead disguise, but sometimes it comes in SO useful!!

The judges did accept our entry as I somehow knew they would.

And now it’s confession time. On the day Mr Allbright was due to announce our time destinations for the HALO, I had genuinely good intentions, I really did! I was all set to take notes and ask questions. And believe me, I wish I had.

But when our teacher told us we’d be going to seventeenth-century Jamaica, everything else flew out of my head. I practically went into orbit!! I’m like, “Woo! I am SO packing my bikini!”

I literally didn’t hear another word anyone said!

I’d always felt a mysterious connection with Jamaica. Some of my friends at my old human high school had told me how amazing it was, and I’d often dreamed about going to see it for myself. But this was going to be SO much better! We were going to time-travel to this gorgeous tropical island, centuries before the tourist invasion. We’d see the island of Jamaica in its original unspoilt state!

I’d have loved to stay and chat about our mysterious Caribbean mission with my HALO teammates, but all three of us had appointments elsewhere. Lola had a singing lesson. Brice trudged off for his weekly chat with our headmaster, one of the conditions of his probation. And I help out at the angel nursery school most Wednesday afternoons.

I flew back to our dorm to change. I burst into my room, still buzzing with excitement and caught sight of myself in the mirror. For the first time I realised that I was clutching an official-looking Agency folder. “I don’t believe it!” I wailed. “This is so unfair!”

I’d been so busy daydreaming about tropical sunshine, I hadn’t noticed Mr Allbright give out our bios for the mission. An angel only needs a human cover story if she’s going to be visible.

I could forget about the cute bikini. Chances were I’d be going to Jamaica in a corset!! But like Reuben says, “You got to take the yin with the yang.” I decided that wearing a corset was a small price to pay for a working holiday on a paradise island.

When I got to the nursery school, the children were just finishing their yoga practice. They looked so-o sweet, sitting in the lotus position on their little pink mats! I have learned such a lot from those angel babies. They can be incredibly wise. They can also be incredibly naughty!

Their rehearsal for the preschool HALO show was a riot. Afterwards I helped Miss Dove clear up. “Thank you for helping, Melanie,” she said warmly. “I know the children are hoping you’ll come and help on the big day. Friday isn’t your usual day for coming in, but do you think you could make it?”

Being appreciated makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? When I feel like that, I’d do anything for anyone.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I beamed.

Next morning I woke with a bloodcurdling shriek.

I’d only promised to help Miss Dove on the same day we were due to fly out to seventeenth-century Jamaica!

If it was anyone else but those little angel kids, I’d have pulled a Houdini and wiggled out of it. But I owed them big time. I’d had some dark times when I first got here and Miss Dove and her preschoolers saved my sanity. I was desperately disappointed, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

Someone would have to take my place on the HALO mission.

I just hoped Brice would understand.

Chapter Three

Two hours later I was sitting on a patch of daisies outside the school library, sobbing my heart out. Reuben had tactfully brought me outside before I made a total fool of myself.

“I said there was still time to get someone else,” I hiccupped, “and he just went ballistic! He said I had ruined his chances of getting a HALO!”

“He’s just upset,” Reuben said calmly, “having one of those cosmic wobbles like we all do.”

I hunted for a fresh tissue. “Brice has wobbles?” I sniffled. “I don’t think so.”

“Mel, the guy’s only been back in Heaven a few months. When he came back his clothes still reeked of sulphur, remember?”

I blew my nose. “I know. Lola had to take him shopping,” I remembered. “He’s been through stuff I can’t even imagine.”

“Ssh, it’s going to be OK.” Unlike me and Lola, Reuben is pure angel, and though he doesn’t look particularly tough, he has this incredible inner strength that comes from having grown up in the angel bizz.

“I don’t know what to do, Reubs!” I wept.

Reuben thought for a moment. “What does Helix say?”

Helix is my official angel name. It’s a really big moment when a trainee gets his or her true angel name. But Helix is also like, my inner angel, and I’m meant to tune into her when things get rough. Unfortunately, when things get rough I find it hard to believe I even HAVE an inner angel.

“You tell me,” I choked. “You’re the real angel. I’m just a - a faker!”

He just smiled. “Rubbish. Your inner angel is always online.”

“If you say so,” I snuffled.

I shut my eyes and took slow, deep breaths. The Angel Handbook said it was hard to connect with your inner angel if you were upset. After a few minutes, the centre of my chest began to feel like I’d swallowed a tiny hot potato and it was still trapped halfway down. It seemed like Helix was equally keen to get in touch with me!

When I opened my eyes some time later I felt stunned. “She says Brice needs me. He and Lola are both going to need me on this mission.”

“Problem solved,” said Reuben cheerfully.

I sighed. “Not really. Even Helix couldn’t tell me how I can be in two places at once!”

My buddy rolled his eyes. “Remind me what that big A on your jacket stands for again? You’re a celestial being, Melanie! Time is not a problem.”

“It isn’t?” I said bewildered.

Apparently it wasn’t. Reuben suggested a v. sensible alternative scenario. Lola and Brice would go ahead as planned. I’d keep my promise to my baby angels, jump into my seventeenth-century corset, sprint downtown to the Agency, catch the first available portal and join the others in the sun. Sorted!

“The time technicians will get you there a few hours after Lollie and Brice at most.”

I was stunned. “You’re a genius!”

“Thanks,” Reuben said modestly. “You’d better tell Brice, so Mr Allbright can make arrangements.”

“Brice could have told me this,” I said suddenly.

Reuben gave me a lopsided smile. “He must have thought you knew.”

I went cold. Brice didn’t realise I was being dense. He thought I was fobbing him off with any old excuse. He thought I genuinely didn’t want to go!

“Gotta go!” I said urgently. “Later, Reubs.”

I went hunting all over the campus, but Brice had totally gone to ground. Then just as I’d given up all hope I saw a familiar figure in an outsized hoodie trudging out through the gates.

“Brice - wait!!”

He waited with a bored expression.

No one does “bored” quite like Brice. He’s like a porcupine, always putting up sharp prickles. But I told myself I wasn’t going to let him get to me. This time I’d get it right.

“I’ve, um, just been talking to Reuben,” I began brightly.

“And I should care because?” Brice said coldly.

And BOSH! My good intentions went out the window just like that!

“You should care, you thick bozo, because Reuben has just this minute reminded me that I’m a celestial being. Which means I could still be on your stupid HALO team, assuming you still want me. So do you or don’t you? I haven’t got all day, you know!” I was literally yelling into his face.

Brice looked genuinely shocked. “You’re being unusually forceful.”

“Yes, I am,” I snapped. “That’s because I’m sick of tiptoeing round you, like you’ve got some fatal disease, you moron.”

He gave a startled grin. “That’s a fine way for a celestial being to address another celestial being!”

I glared at him. “OK, then: jerk, creep, dirtbag. Take your pick.”

The grin vanished. “Your point being?”

“My point being that real friends don’t tiptoe round each other.”

There was an electrifying pause.

“Friends?” Brice repeated.

I smiled down at my shoes. “Obviously there’s still a way to go. But if trees can turn into diamonds, anything’s possible, right?”

I could feel Brice looking at the top of my head. “OK, Mel Beeby, future friend,” he said softly. “What’s the game plan?”

Confession time. No, really, BIG confession time.

I TRULY intended to read my bio. The night before our mission, I actually curled up in my uncomfortable school armchair and opened the first page, but then Lola popped her head round the door to see if I fancied a takeaway. She hadn’t read her bio either. So we both went into total denial mode and ordered this massive feast from the Silver Lychee!

Over our meal, my soul-mate and I got into this really deep conversation and before we knew it, the evening had flown by.

Eventually, Lola started collecting up takeaway cartons.

“Hey, carita! We didn’t do our fortune cookies!”

“We can do them now!” I said, stifling my yawns.

Lola’s fortune said she was going to risk everything for love. Mine said I would have to learn to tell the real from the unreal.

“How come I never get to fall in love?” I moaned.

I could weep when I remember us innocently reading those cookie fortunes. If we’d read our bios, and more importantly shared them with each other right then, things might have been so different. But I started on about my stupid corset and that led into happy reminiscences about Shakespeare’s girlfriend.

“Cat Darcy had it all,” Lola sighed. “She was pretty, smart, brave.”

“It must have been a nightmare being a black person in England then. The Elizabethans treated her like she was some exotic pet.”

“Chance didn’t,” Lola said softly. “Shakespeare, I mean.”

“Those two were true soul-mates, weren’t they?”

“I wanted them to get it together, didn’t you?”

“Totally. But if Chance had gone to sea like Cat’s dad suggested, he’d never have discovered he was a play-writing genius.”

Lola did one of those feline stretches she does. “Gotta move my angel booty,” she yawned. “Brice is picking me up in two hours.”

I gave her a hug. “Mind you watch out for that Caribbean love-interest!”

“And you go on keeping it real, girlfriend!”

I heard Lola pattering down the hall in her little beaded slippers, and the soft double clunk as her door opened and closed.

Next morning there was a note pinned to my door:

Soul mates see each other’s true colours no matter what. Big love 2 u Lollie

It was like she knew.

A few minutes before I was due at the nursery school, I finally glanced through my bio. I couldn’t see too much to worry about. The character in my cover story even shared my real first name to my relief.

Melanie Woodhouse had grown up in England, but her parents had died and she’d been sent to Jamaica to live with her uncle and aunt. They were called Josiah and Sarah Bexford and owned a sugar plantation with the magic name of Fruitful Vale.

This is going to be SO sublime, I thought happily. I was OK with being visible now. For one thing, when you’re visible you can enjoy the local food. Once, my friend Latisha’s mum cooked this massive Jamaican Sunday brunch for us. Ohhh! It made my mouth water to think of it.

When I got to the nursery, everyone was outside in the sun. Chairs were set out in rows for specially invited guests. Our headmaster was in the front row, chatting to Miss Dove. At least he was trying to, but several overexcited preschoolers had decided to use him as a climbing frame.

Michael seems so human and easy-going, it’s easy to forget he’s an archangel; until you look into his eyes. Omigosh, those scary-beautiful eyes just see right into your soul!

“Melanie!” he said warmly. “I hope you’re going to sit next to me! It’s been too long.”

“Hey, whose fault is that? I turn up to school every day!”

It’s a standing Angel Academy joke that our headmaster is almost never around. As archangel with special responsibility for Earth, Michael is constantly jetting off to historical trouble spots. Yet here he was, keen to see the little nursery school angels do their stuff, looking slightly tired but totally serene.

Preschool angels obviously can’t go off on dangerous missions. But they’re desperate to do their bit for the Universe. Miss Dove tries to encourage this positive attitude, so she’d arranged for them to perform their HALO contributions in front of a friendly heavenly audience.

The children had been practising for WEEKS. The Rose group performed last of all, looking totally darling in their miniature school casuals. They’d organised (you’re not going to believe this!) a Giggle Marathon!

I’d already seen them in rehearsal, but it got me every time. There’s something about preschool angels laughing. They sound SO naughty!

Soon everyone in the audience was laughing helplessly. Michael had been the first to crack up. He even set Miss Dove off and she is the soul of professionalism, believe me.

Finally the children took their bow, still giggling. Some of them could hardly stand by this time!

“Thank you,” Michael told them, wiping his eyes. “Who’d like to tell me about this unusual project?”

One of my favourite preschoolers stepped forward. Obi has absolutely no hair, almost invisible eyebrows, and the calmest face you have ever seen. He looks just like a mini Buddha.

“Miss Dove said to think of a project that could make Earth a happier place,” Obi said shyly. “So Maudie said we should just giggle and have fun. She said our vibes will beam all the way to Earth and children will catch them and start giggling and feel happy again.”

“Is that right, Maudie?” Michael asked gently. “Was this your idea?”

She gave him an awed nod. “Yes, because giggling is catching. When I start I can’t ever hardly stop.”

There was a kiddies’ party afterwards. Unfortunately, I only had time to grab a fairy cake before I had to leave.

I was SO touched when Michael offered to take me down to the Agency and see me off.

“I’m glad you felt able to support Brice’s HALO entry,” he said as we purred downtown in his awesome Agency car. “This one could be quite a challenge for all of you.”

“Oh, we’re old hands now. We’ll be fine!” I said airily.

No matter what time you go, it’s always crowded in Departures. I rushed into the ladies’ cloakroom and came out feeling self-conscious in my seventeenth-century cap and gown.

One thing I find so comforting, is the way the Agency gets every teensy historical detail just right. Like the coin purse hanging at my waist had items of real seventeenth-century jewellery in it. Nothing flash. Just the type of sweet simple trinkets my character would have.

Michael and I joined the long queue for angel tags. No one is allowed to leave Heaven without them. They basically tell the Universe that we’re on official business, plus they keep us in touch with all the angelic support guys.

I saw a sudden flicker of worry in Michael’s eyes. He’d seen my teacher talking to a junior agent. “Excuse me, Melanie, we may have a problem.” Michael hurried over to Mr Allbright.

I had a sudden bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I caught confused snatches of their conversation. Communications between Heaven and Earth had been disrupted in the early hours, just bare seconds after two trainees left on a HALO mission.

I knew it had to be Brice and Lola.

I heard Michael say, “And there’s still been no word? Well, page me as soon as you hear anything.”

The agent hurried away. Michael and Mr Allbright went into a huddle but this time I couldn’t hear what they said.

I’d collected my tags, but now I was at a total loss. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I glanced up to find Al, my favourite maintenance man, at my side.

“Your portal’s ready, doll, but it looks like we’ve got a bit of a situation,” he said sympathetically.

Michael and Mr Allbright came over, looking grim.

“I’m calling your mission off,” Michael said bluntly. “We’re fairly sure your friends arrived in the right time slot, but unusual atmospheric conditions are making it impossible to pick up signals. Mr Allbright and I have considered various options and decided to send in a SWAT team.”

“To get them back? NO way!” The angry words burst out before I’d even thought. “It’s the worst thing you could do!”

Michael looked startled. “Melanie, we’re trying to save him.”

“Yeah, save his hide, but what about Brice’s self-respect? He’d think he was a major loser. You’ve got to let him sort this out on his own.”

Mr Allbright had joined us. “This is not about doubting Brice’s ability,” he said quietly.

“Oh, really! What is it about then?” I was fuming.

He sighed. “It’s about the school acting responsibly.”

“You’re wrong,” I said angrily. “You’re not seeing the big picture.”

Michael took a breath. “Your friends could be at risk. I’ve decided to bring them home. That’s all there is to it.”

“NO! Whatever it is, Brice and Lola can deal with it. Why won’t you trust them?” I was yelling at an archangel, but I knew I was right.

“I’m sorry, Melanie,” he said, “this is one for the professionals.”

I was getting that burning hot-potato sensation again. My inner angel wanted to get in on the discussion. “Tell them what’s in your heart, sweetie!” she whispered. “But try not to lose your temper.”

I forced myself to calm down. “Listen, everyone knows Brice and I aren’t exactly bosom buddies. When he came back I was just waiting for him to screw up. The way I saw it, I was right and good, and he was bad and wrong. If he screwed up, he’d be bad for ever, and I’d be good for ever. That’s how I was thinking.”

“I fail to see—” Michael began.

“That’s what I’m trying to TELL you!” I almost yelled. “If you rush to his rescue, you’re as good as telling him he’s got no future as an agent!”

“On the contrary, we’re showing him how much we value—”

I cut across him. “Can you see Brice doing some heavenly desk job? Michael! It would kill him!”

He looked upset. “Melanie, there will be other opportunities—”

“Not like this!” I was practically wringing my hands. “I truly think this could be a cosmic thingummy. A turning point, kind of. Like, if Brice can get through this, he’ll know he can really make it in the angel bizz.”

“What if he doesn’t get through it?” Mr Allbright’s brow was puckered with worry.

“I can’t think that far,” I confessed. “I just know you’ve got to give him a chance.”

They exchanged glances.

“Excuse us,” Michael murmured.

My headmaster and Mr Allbright went off into another huddle. I was so anxious I was literally digging my nails into my palms. Their private conflab seemed to last for aeons. I could see Mr Allbright shaking his head dubiously. Eventually Michael walked back to me. His expression was so grave that I was sure it was bad news.

“Mr Allbright and I have agreed that you must do what you think is right,” he said in a quiet voice.

I went weak with relief. “I promise I won’t let you down.”

Urgent squawking sounds came over Al’s headphones. The time technicians were getting twitchy.

“Hate to hassle you people,” Al said apologetically, “but we’re cutting this really fine as it is.”

“Just let us have a few more seconds.” Michael’s scary-beautiful eyes searched mine. “I know Lola is your best friend, but I’m not sure you realise how dange—”

I shook my head. “It isn’t just Lola.”

“You feel responsible for Brice, is that it?”

“I think,” I started shyly. “I think when Brice met me that first time, it reminded him what he’d lost. In a funny kind of way, I’m the reason he came back to our school. He signed up for the HALO mission because I promised I’d be on his team. Now something’s gone wrong.” My eyes stung with tears. “I should have been there, Michael. I have to go.”

This time Michael didn’t attempt to change my mind. He simply held out his hand for my tags. “Shall I fasten those?”

He did up the clasp, and I found myself engulfed in the fizzy rainbow cloud of Michael’s energy field. I literally saw cosmic light and colours whooshing everywhere! All at once, my heart was burstingly full of love. It was like the tiniest glimpse of how it might feel to be an archangel.

I tottered into my portal, still fizzing with angelic electricity.

“Take care, Melanie,” Michael said softly. “Call the Agency as soon as you can.”

“Good luck, doll,” called Al.

The glass door slid shut. Al said something into his headpiece then gave me a thumbs up. I waved to show I was ready.

We must have been cutting it REALLY fine, because next minute my portal lit up like a laser show and I was blasted out of Heaven.

Soon afterwards, I felt the familiar jolt, as the portal burst through the invisible barrier that separates the angelic Light Fields from the human realms of Time and Space. I wasn’t actually watching at that point. I was emptying out my flight bag, desperately trying to find my bio. I’d planned to have a quick last-minute read. You’d better not have left it behind! I scolded myself.

As it turned out, reading was not an option. Seconds later, my portal started pitching about like you would not believe. We’d hit major cosmic turbulence.

Must be those weird atmospheric conditions Michael was talking about, I thought anxiously.

I glanced through the window and was alarmed to see time zones streaming past in a multicoloured blur. We were travelling fast, even by Agency standards. Screechy metallic sounds started up under my feet. The portal began to judder. I could literally feel my back teeth vibrating.

I hit the PANIC button. “Help!” I shouted. ” We’ll have to abort the mission. This thing is shaking itself to pieces!”

Weird staticky sounds came from my radio, making me clutch my ears. My radio link was malfunctioning along with everything else.

“Help!” I called again. “Al? Michael? Can anyone hear me?”

Outside, the different historical eras were flashing past so fast they just looked colours in a migraine.

I thought I was going to dissolve with terror. Could angels actually DIE? It was one of those technical details I was always intending to look up. Now I might never get a chance.

“Michael, if you can hear me, please help!” I moaned. “Please, please…”

Then a jagged hole tore in the portal and I was sucked out into space.

Chapter Four

In my dream I was lost in roaring darkness. Lightning flashes showed lurid glimpses of a terrifying dream world. FLASH! Palm trees bent almost double. FLASH! A wooden chair sailing through the air. FLASH! Water rushing - a river? A lake? And again pitch black.

The roaring, rushing nightmare went on for what seemed hours. Nothing was solid. Nothing made sense. Nothing felt real.

Then inside my dream I felt gentle hands take hold of me, lifting me up as if I weighed no more than air. I was laid on something soft and carried through the lashing wind and rain. My rescuers called to each other in a musical dream language, a language I miraculously understood.

“She is here,” they told each other. “She flew here on the wings of the storm. Now the end is coming.”

Another flash showed me a brief, electrifying vision: six or seven concerned faces gazing down at me through the falling rain. They wore strange ornaments made of pearls and seashells. The colours shimmered against their half-naked bodies like beautiful colours you only see in dreams…

I opened my eyes and found myself lying in a large four-poster bed. Velvet curtains had been looped back at one side. An oil lamp made silky gleams on dark polished wood. Everything else was in deep shadow.

There was a strange fog inside my head, making it hard to think.

I didn’t know where I was. And - this was really bad - I didn’t actually know who I was!

I heard stealthy creaks. My heart thumped like a rabbit’s. Someone was in my room, and I didn’t know if they were friend or foe.

“Is anyone out there?” I whimpered.

I heard more creaks as someone shifted his or her weight in a chair. Then I heard slow shuffling footsteps. An old black woman peered through my curtains. “Lawd a mercy!” she exclaimed. “You come back to us, Miss Melanie!”

Miss Melanie. That had to be me. I could have cried with relief. She knows who I am, I thought. Now I’ll find out what’s going on.

“Have I been away?” I said huskily. My throat was incredibly sore.

“You been sick, bad bad.”

That must be why I felt so weak, and so strange. This old woman must be my nurse.

“I’m very thirsty,” I croaked.

“Have a sip a dis cordial. But don’t sit up too fas’,” she warned.

The cool drink was blissful, but the effort of drinking wore me out. I collapsed back on my pillows, trembling.

I felt haunted by my horrible nightmare. I wasn’t sure if I was truly awake, or if this was just another episode in the same dream. Nothing seemed fixed or solid or familiar. The room, the old-fashioned bed, the tired old nurse.

I watched her from under my eyelashes, wondering what it was about her that disturbed me. Her eyes are so sad, I thought. Next minute this thought slipped away and I found myself glancing nervously into the corners of the room.

There was something creepy about those shadows, as if they might morph into something else when I wasn’t looking. Something evil.

You’re being pathetic, I told myself. You’re in a big comfy bed in this lovely peaceful room. You’re weak from this mystery illness, that’s all. There’s absolutely nothing to be scared of.

Except that I’d lost my memory.

The old nurse bustled about, sponging my hot face, bringing clean cool sheets, plumping up pillows.

“This is really sweet of you,” I said.

She gave me a startled look, like I’d said something bizarre.

“I seem to have forgotten your name,” I said apologetically. “This illness has made me feel a bit confused.”

“Dey call mi Quasha,” the old woman said. “But mi true name Quashiba. In Africa times, all girls born on a Sunday get call dat.”

I gasped. “We’re in Africa! I had no idea!”

She laughed. “Dis not Africa! Dis place Fruitful Vale, your uncle’s plantation. You don’ remember Massa Bexford and Lovey meet you at di harbour, drive you here to Fruitful Vale?”

I shook my head. “I don’t remember a thing. What happened to me?”

“You got sick on the boat, girl-chile,” she said. “Missus don’ think you gonna live.”

Quashiba told me that on my first night, I’d become delirious and wandered out in a hurricane. But my uncle’s driver, a man called Lovey, found me before I came to any harm.

This was getting more bewildering every minute. How could I have forgotten who I was?

It made me genuinely panicky. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.

Got to get some air, I thought urgently. Take deep breaths.

“Can you open the shutters?” I asked Quashiba. “It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

There was no glass in the window, just wooden slats you opened or closed. Quashiba pulled a lever, letting in shimmery bars of moonlight. The room filled with the high shrill sounds of crickets. Delicious scents floated in out of the darkness. I lay back on my pillows. The night breeze felt blissful on my sweaty skin. I could see the blue-white pulsing of a star between the wooden slats. And suddenly I knew.

“I’m in Jamaica!” I breathed.

Quashiba clapped her hands. “You remember, nuh! You in Jamaica in Fruitful Vale. Your uncle, Massa Josiah Bexford, own all di Ian’ from here to Orange Park.”

I had to turn my face to the wall. Relief at getting my memory back was making me weepy and I didn’t want Quashiba to see. I didn’t belong in this place. I wasn’t even human. I was an undercover angel on a mission to help a friend get back his self-respect. My portal had mysteriously auto-destructed on the way. By a miracle, I’d survived unscathed. Apart from a little touch of cosmic amnesia.

I burrowed into my pillows. Just as soon as I had my strength back, I’d try to track Brice and Lola down. Hopefully it wasn’t too late. Hopefully we could keep our joint date with destiny.

But first, I thought, I’ll have a tiny little snooze…

Angels have fabulous powers of recovery! Next morning I was tucking into a Jamaican-style breakfast on the veranda outside my room.

I’d just started on the yummy fried plantain, when a white lady with a parasol appeared on the steps. My “Aunt Sarah” had heard of my recovery.

“I am relieved to see you are better, niece.” My aunt looked flushed and hot in her tightly-laced gown. I heard her corsets creak as she bent to kiss my cheek. She caught sight of my plate. “What was Quasha thinking!” she exclaimed in disgust. “Bringing you this revolting native food!”

“I asked her to. I love yam and plantain,” I said in surprise.

Aunt Sarah looked faint. “Oh, but my dear, wouldn’t you prefer something less foreign? A cup of beef tea? Or calves’ foot jelly?”

Euw! The foods my aunt thought suitable for invalids sounded far more weird than yam!

To my relief Aunt Sarah totally accepted that I was the human in my Agency cover story. Though to be quite honest with you, I think she would have talked to anyone. Not to be mean, but she just about talked my ears off, apologising about a million times for not nursing me herself, and hinting at a mysterious loss that had left her very low.

“I fear that in my depressed condition I would have succumbed to the same contagion and become dangerously ill myself,” she said.

I didn’t like to pry into her personal business but I could tell my aunt was hoping for a reaction, so I said sympathetically, “Omigosh, what happened?”

Aunt Sarah dabbed her eyes with a lace hankie. “Little Phoebe died,” she said. “I didn’t know it was possible to shed so many tears.”

Well, I couldn’t just leave it hanging, could I?

“Don’t tell me if it upsets you,” I said in my gentlest voice. “But who was, um, Phoebe?”

“My love bird,” choked Aunt Sarah. “Every time I see that empty cage…” My aunt quickly turned away, her shoulders shaking.

I felt genuinely sorry for her actually. No human should be that lonely, should they?

I thought I’d distract her by asking if I could see around the house. I was still in my nightie, but Aunt Sarah caught hold of my hand like a little girl who wants to be best friends, and led me eagerly along dimly lit corridors. She explained that the shutters had to be kept closed to protect her furniture from the strong Jamaican sunlight. “I had everything sent out from England,” she said proudly.

I think Aunt Sarah probably had more English furniture than they had in England. Stiff English chairs upholstered in flowery satin. Huge oil paintings of glowering English ancestors. Highly polished cabinets crammed with English china and glassware that looked totally unused. It wasn’t a home, I thought. It was a museum.

As we walked through this depressing series of rooms, Aunt Sarah confided how difficult she found life in the tropics; the snakes, the heat, the humidity. “And that terrible hurricane, my dear! I thought the roof was going to blow right off!”

I had an alarming thought. “When was the hurricane exactly?”

“A week ago today. You’d just arrived, poor child, when it started to blow.”

Eep! The Agency would be wondering why I hadn’t called home. I felt furtively under the collar of my nightdress and went weak with relief. My angel tags were still there.

“Have you tried sugar cane yet? You really must!” Aunt Sarah smiled properly for the first time and I was horrified to see gruesome black stumps. Sugar cane was obviously one foreign food my aunt enjoyed to the max.

I’d never seen cane growing, so my aunt took me on to a veranda with a view over cane fields. After the permanent twilight inside the house, my eyes were dazzled by the acres of lush foliage.

“It’s an amazing colour,” I breathed. “Almost blue!”

“When cane stalks turn that blue popinjay colour, it means the cane is ripe. My husband starts harvesting when the Christmas breeze begins to blow.” She gestured at the palm trees busily clacking their fronds like gossipy grannies.

I was confused. “Is it Christmas then?”

My aunt laughed with a flash of her disturbing teeth. “Everything must seem strange to you, my dear.”

“It does seem quite strange,” I said truthfully.

Aunt Sarah patted my shoulder. “It will be good to have some female company. The men only come indoors to eat and sleep. And quarrel,” she added with a sigh.

“Don’t they get on?”

“My nephew, that’s your cousin, Beau, and Mr Bexford are constantly at loggerheads. Mr Bexford’s brother sent Beau out to Jamaica to learn the plantation business. My husband says he is a foolish young hothead. And Beau says—” My aunt stopped herself abruptly. “Listen to me rattling on! Now you are up and about again, we shall be able to talk every day!”

“That will be lovely,” I said brightly.

I really hope I find the others soon, I thought nervously, as my aunt launched into another long story about her difficult nephew. You can’t afford to let yourself get distracted on a mission, or you’d never get anywhere. I was sorry for my aunt but I hadn’t come to Earth to be her full-time companion.

Luckily, Aunt Sarah remembered she had to see the cook about a blancmange or whatever, so I was able to escape. I rushed back to my room, struggled into my seventeenth-century clothes, (with help from Quashiba) and took myself for a walk in the Caribbean sunshine.

I truly don’t know how European women survived in the tropics, wearing that dreadful underwear. I was practically fainting after five minutes. I literally had to rest under a mango tree, like a frail heroine in an old-fashioned book.

It was lovely actually. I could feel calm mango-tree vibes humming inside the knobbly bark of the tree trunk. “Hi tree,” I whispered. “I’m a visiting angel, but you knew that, didn’t you?”

There was no one around, so I took the opportunity to call home. I clasped my angel tags, and tried to tune into my heavenly energy source - and got absolutely nada. I couldn’t believe it, I’d been here for days and communications were STILL down!

I could feel myself starting to panic, but I firmly told myself to get a grip. The glitch could be just one way. The Agency might still be able to pick up incoming calls.

I beamed a quick progress report to Angel HQ on the off chance that some junior agent would pick up my signal.

Hi, this is Melanie. Um, I just wanted you to know I’m fine. I had, um, a little setback but don’t worry, I’m back on the case and hopefully I’ll run into the others any time now. Um, later!

Not the most polished performance, but that’s because I’d got distracted halfway through. I could hear spine-tingling harmonies coming and going on the Caribbean breeze. The cane-cutters were singing.

I gazed across fields hazy with heat, to the stooped figures working their way steadily down the rows. The rhythm of the singing perfectly fitted the swing-and-slash motion of the workers, as they hacked down the cane.

I don’t know what it was, but something in their voices brought me out in goose-bumps. I suddenly felt intense emotions welling up inside me. The only word to describe it is suffering. A pain and suffering too deep for tears.

These weren’t my feelings. I could feel them seeping out of the earth and rocks, and quivering through the living wood of the mango tree. These feelings were coming from the island itself.

It didn’t make sense. Jamaica was the closest thing I’d seen to Heaven on Planet Earth. How could anyone be suffering in Paradise?

I hastily pulled myself together, as I became aware of someone strolling towards me through the heat haze. There was something oddly familiar about him. This person had a new stiff way of walking, and he wore strange, stiff, seventeenth-century clothes, yet he totally reminded me of—

It WAS! It was Brice!!

I rushed to meet him, almost weeping with relief. “Thank goodness you’re safe! I’ve been SO worried!”

I babbled on about the hurricane and my illness, “I’m SO sorry! I must have set our mission back by aeons, but I’m fine now. We can get started any time you say!”

I finally stopped for breath. Brice looked surprisingly dashing in his baggy shirt and knee breeches. Plus he totally had seventeenth-century manners down. “Calm yourself, cousin,” he said sternly. “You are not quite recovered, I fear.”

“Oooh!” I teased. “That’s no way to greet your heavenly rescuer!”

Brice gave me a strange look. “Do I seem as if I need rescuing?”

“Well duh! Obviously you don’t! But we didn’t know that, since you never actually bothered to phone home! Angel HQ wanted to call off the whole mission, can you believe! But I said to leave you exactly where you are, because you were a big angel now and you’d handle it.”

I was grinning like a loon but to my dismay Brice was not grinning back.

“You should not be walking out of doors at this time of day,” he said in the same disapproving tone. “You may have a brain fever.”

“OK, drop the act, angel boy!” I sighed. “I want to hear the game plan - I assume you guys do have a game plan?”

But Brice seemed determined to kid around. “Didn’t Aunt Sarah tell you that you must never walk outdoors without your parasol? Particularly in the middle of the day?”

“Oh ha ha ha! Like I’d be seen dead with a stupid para—”

I broke off. The chilling truth finally dawned on me.

Brice wasn’t kidding.

Stay calm, angel girl, I told myself. Better find out exactly how bad this is.

My heart was banging around in my chest, but I managed to fake a ditzy giggle. “Silly me! I can’t seem to remember what they call you! My memory is just all over the place.”

Brice gave a curt nod. “It is to be expected after such a severe fever. I am your cousin Beau.”

Please tell me this isn’t happening, I prayed.

“You’ve turned pale, little cousin,” he said gallantly. “You had better lean on me in case you feel faint.”

I felt faint all right! My deluded angel buddy seemed to think he really was the human in his Agency story line. What in the world was I going to do?

Slipping his arm through mine, Beau/Brice began to steer me back firmly towards the house.

“Wait!” I said desperately. “I absolutely don’t have brain fever. I feel fine, truly. And I was just teasing about the angel thing, honestly.” I faked peals of laughter. “You should have seen your face!”

Brice dropped my arm abruptly. “You have an unusual sense of humour, cousin,” he said coldly.

I giggled nervously. “Everyone says that. But I truly meant no harm. I was just, um, amusing myself talking nonsense!”

I thought this sounded convincingly seventeenth century, but Brice frowned. “I have no time to talk nonsense to young ladies. My uncle had to stay over at our plantation in Savannah la Mar. I have to take care of business in his absence. I was on my way to the mill when I saw you.”

“Can’t I come?” I coaxed. “I’ve been stuck indoors for days.”

“The mill is no place for a young English lady,” said Brice stiffly.

I clasped my hands. “Please! I’ll just watch. I won’t get in the way.”

He sighed. “Very well. But fetch your parasol.”

“I’ll be back in two ticks! Don’t move!”

I picked up my skirts and went skipping back to the house, doing my best to seem like an innocent little orphan. But inside I was in turmoil.

It wasn’t safe for Brice to be here in his current state. An angel with this level of cosmic amnesia was a sitting target for the PODS. I had to get him home.

And how exactly do you plan to do that, Melanie? I asked myself in despair. Communications are down or had you forgotten?

We’d managed to get Reuben back to Heaven that time in Elizabethan England, I remembered, but Lola had been with me then. Two angels can send much stronger angelic signals than one.

There’s your answer, Mel, I thought. Now stop making mountains out of molehills. Together Lola and I will easily be able to generate enough angel power to get an SOS to Heaven.

Sorted!

All I had to do was find her.

Chapter Five

Those are called trumpet trees.” Brice pointed to a grove of immensely tall, very slender trees. I’m not sure why they were called trumpet trees. Their leaves looked more like huge fans.

We were walking along a shady track, walking very slowly actually. I know it was hot, but I have to say Beau/Brice didn’t seem that keen to reach our uncle’s sugar mill. He kept stopping to show me tropical plants along the way.

I dutifully repeated their names to show I was paying attention: rose apple, soursop, guango trees. All the time I was trying to think of a way to drop Lola casually into the conversation. Asking if he’d run into any nice angels recently was obviously out. I could try asking if he had any other female cousins living nearby? The Agency had made me and Brice relations, so chances were they’d made Lola some kind of rellie too.

If ONLY I’d read my friend’s bio…

Or even your own, babe, my inner angel commented.

I heard scuffling sounds. A little girl came stumbling down the track in her bare feet, struggling to balance a basket on her head. Her dress was so old and tattered it was virtually hanging off one shoulder. When she saw us, she immediately lowered her eyes, mumbling, “Morning Massa. Morning miss,” as she staggered past.

“Morning, Bright Eyes,” Brice called after her.

The little girl made me think of my little sister Jade. “Bright Eyes is a sweet name,” I said wistfully. “And she does have lovely eyes.”

“She’s very light-skinned, did you notice?” Brice sounded edgy.

“Not really,” I said. “People come in all colours, don’t they?”

He sighed. “I keep forgetting you’ve just come from England. In a few months you’ll be like all the other white people on this island. It’s their curse. They can’t escape.”

“You’re a white person too,” I pointed out. “Will you escape?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “I think I was born an outlaw.”

Babe, you have no idea, I thought.

A cool whirr of wings fanned my face. A magical little bird appeared in front of us, hovering over a bush of vivid pink blossoms. Its wings were vibrating so fast they were literally a blur. The tiny bird plunged a long, needle-like beak into a blossom, to drink the invisible liquid inside then whirred away again.

“Was that actually a humming bird?” I breathed.

Brice nodded. “They’re as common as blackbirds here. The best time to see them is at sunrise, or just after the rain.”

I explained that humming birds were on my personal list of Caribbean “must-sees”, along with fireflies.

He gave me a sad half-smile. “Do you think you will like Jamaica?”

“It’s very beautiful,” I said cautiously. “But I haven’t really been here long enough to know if I’ll like it.”

We were walking past large rhubarb-type plants which Brice said were cocoa plants. They had leaves like heart-shaped umbrellas, easily as big as dinner plates.

“Jamaica is a place you either love or hate!” he said. “I love it, but I hate what we have done to it in a few short years.”

“Have you been living here long?” I asked slyly. I was kind of interested to hear what he’d come up with. But it’s like he didn’t hear.

“Have you heard of the Taino?” Brice asked out of the blue.

“Not really, I don’t know much about Jamaica at all.” I blushed. “The Taino IS a Jamaican thing, right?”

“Taino means ‘good and noble people’. It’s what the indigenous Indians of this island called themselves; the people who lived here before the Europeans came.”

“I had no idea anyone lived here,” I said guiltily.

“There were many such tribes, all with different names, scattered throughout the Caribbean, but white people prefer to forget about them. They like to pretend the New World was empty when Columbus got here. Though they are extremely interested in the cities the original inhabitants are supposed to have left behind.” Brice had a sudden edge to his voice.

“These Indians actually built cities?” I’d imagined them living in tepees and whatever.

“They lived simply, in complete harmony with the Earth. But they were also wonderfully skilled craftsmen. For instance, the Taino knew how to use seashells so cleverly that they looked like precious gemstones.”

“So what was that you said about a city?”

Brice explained that the first Europeans to arrive in the New World had heard tantalising rumours of an ancient city buried deep in a jungle in the Americas. The details varied. Generally the city had been abandoned owing to some horrific natural disaster. In some stories, the city was in Venezuela, sometimes Mexico or Surinam. But the crucial element of the story never changed. There were always fabulous quantities of Indian gold.

He gave a painful laugh. “Many white explorers have died attempting to find this city. You could see it as poetic justice.”

I sensed that there was something he wasn’t telling me. “But what happened to the Taino themselves?”

“Sometimes I think I see their spirits in the woods,” he said in a low voice.

The blue sky was cloudless yet I shivered as if a shadow had slipped between us and the sun. “They’re dead? ALL the Taino?”

“Almost all. A few tribesmen survive in the hills.”

“But why would anyone…?”

Brice swallowed. “They got in our way.”

By ‘our’, he meant white people.

After that we just walked on without speaking. But the sound of our shoes rustling through dead and dying leaves suddenly seemed abnormally loud. The idea that ghostly tribesmen might be watching us from between the trees suddenly felt disturbingly real.

I was becoming aware of an overpowering pong, sickly-sweet and unbelievably foul. Eventually I had to cover my nose.

“You can smell the molasses,” Brice explained. “Take my handkerchief.”

Shortly afterwards we crossed into the mill yard. This wasn’t some picturesque windmill, like mills in picture books. It was powered by six sweating oxen, urged on by drivers with curses and thumps. Instead of mill stones, the sugar mill had three gigantic vertical rollers, as fat as tree trunks and as tall as your average seventeenth-century adult male.

The rollers revolved with hollow rumbling sounds that echoed through the cobbled yard. You could feel it vibrating in your bones and the roots of your teeth. Men were working frantically to keep this monster fed, unloading harvested cane from the carts, stripping away the useless cane trash with knives. The dust and little loose fibres from the trash got everywhere, drifting around our feet, blowing in the workers’ eyes.

“The original Taino word for Jamaica was Xaymaca,” Brice said into my ear. “It means Land of Wood and Water. Wonder what they’d think of it now?”

He was angry. Why wouldn’t he be? He was seeing the world through an angel’s eyes. As I looked around at this hellish scene, I felt angry too.

The mill workers were all half-naked except for filthy loincloths. Many had ugly scars on their sweating backs and legs. Some had fingers, or parts of fingers, missing. All of them were black.

Brice kept up his grim commentary as we made our way through rising clouds of dust.

“Our last mill-feeder, Mingo, got so tired he fell asleep on his feet and lost his hand in the press. He was lucky.”

I stared at him. “He was lucky?”

“Mingo’s brother got dragged in through the rollers last year.”

We watched the new mill-feeder deftly hand-feeding cane stalks through the rollers, risking his life with every stalk. Treacly brown liquid spurted into a trough at his feet. I tried not to picture Mingo’s brother’s body being crushed like sugar cane, his red blood mixing with the molasses.

I followed Brice into the boiling house. It was like being inside an oven. I could literally feel the moisture being drawn from my body. The combination of the tremendous heat and molasses fumes, made it next to impossible to breathe.

Five giant copper kettles were suspended over a blazing furnace. Inside the kettles, the boiling molasses blipped and bubbled like an evil magician’s brew.

A half-naked boy, of eight or nine years old, was keeping the furnace going with bundles of cane trash. He’d reached the zombie stage of exhaustion, running mechanically from the trash pile to the boiling kettles, from the kettles to the trash pile.

What are the Bexfords thinking, I fumed, making people work in these horrific conditions? Suppose some of that scalding sludge got splashed on to the little boy’s skin? Suppose he stumbled and knocked a kettle flying? The blistering-hot molasses would stick like boiling glue.

Brice had to talk business to the overseer, a sandy-haired Scot and the only white worker in the yard. I grabbed the chance to beam loving vibes to the exhausted little boy then I went outside and beamed heaps more to the mill-feeder. (Reuben always says it’s WAY better to light one tiny candle than to whinge about the dark.)

I can’t say, obviously, if beaming vibes helped to dispel any cosmic darkness for those humans, but it had a huge effect on me.

I found myself taking a hard look at the overseer. When Brice emerged, mopping his perspiring face, my question just burst out.

“Why does that man have a whip?”

An alarmed ripple went round the yard. Brice hurried me out of earshot. “Where have you been hiding, cousin?” he hissed furiously. “Why do you think that man has a whip? To show my uncle’s slaves who has the power. To stop them rising up and killing their owners in their beds - shall I go on?”

I couldn’t speak. At some point I thought I might want to be sick.

”Slaves?” I whispered. “All those people are slaves?”

Brice gave an angry laugh. “Do you imagine that white plantation owners could live like emperors if we PAID our workers?”

The clues had been there from the start. The pride and pain in Quashiba’s voice when she talked about African names, the haunted harmonies floating from the fields, the suffering that came seeping out of the blood-soaked earth of Jamaica itself.

I had no excuse for my ignorance. We had learned all about this particular form of slavery at my old school. Human slavers stole thousands and millions of their fellow humans from Africa, shipping them across the sea to work in the plantations of the Caribbean, and forcing them to work in the kind of harsh conditions I’d just seen. Yet I’d pushed this information to the back of my mind. I’d wanted to have my own cool little Caribbean experience. Like la la la, hello humming birds, hello mango trees…

STOP IT! I told myself.

Slavery was way too dark to take on by myself. I had to concentrate on my own small cosmic task; getting Brice back home to Heaven before he got into any worse trouble.

To do this, I needed angelic backup, and I didn’t want to waste another minute faffing around. I had the worrying feeling that time was running out.

“I need to find a girl called Lola,” I blurted out. “Do you know her? Quashiba says she can sew.“As you can tell, I was improvising frantically.

Brice looked totally thunderstruck then tried to cover his shock. “Um, yes,” he said in a slightly too-casual voice. “I do, indeed, know a Lola.”

“Really!” I said. I literally felt giddy with relief. This was the best news I’d had since I left Heaven.

You see Mel, I told myself, the simple approach is often the best!

Suddenly aAteeny worm of doubt crept in. “I expect she lives a long way away, doesn’t she?”

“If we’re talking about the same person, she lives here at Fruitful Vale. But I don’t think it can be the same Lola.” Brice sounded really cagey but this clue passed me by.

“No, it is. It has to be,” I burbled. “Can you take me to her?”

“I don’t think I can, no,” he said, to my dismay. “In any case, I don’t think Lola would want visitors.”

“Why ever not?”

He couldn’t meet my eyes. “Before you arrived from England, Lola was accused of stealing from the kitchen. My uncle has strong opinions about stealing. The overseer gave her a beating.”

I gave a nervous laugh. “No, no, sorry, we’re getting our wires crossed. This Lola’s an - a - very proud person.” I was so completely freaked by Brice’s words that I’d almost said “angel”! “Lola doesn’t steal from kitchens,” I added firmly.

Brice swallowed. “To my uncle she is just another thieving slave.”

There was a sudden humming in my ears. The dusty mill yard, with its feverish activity, wobbled like a mirage. “She can’t be a slave!” I whispered. “Lola’s not even African!”

I immediately wanted to bite my tongue off. What a dumb thing to say. Like, if she’d been pure African it would be perfectly OK to beat her like a dog.

Brice gave his painful laugh. “One drop of African blood is enough to condemn someone to a life of slavery. I heard an entertaining debate between my uncle and an English vicar who’d recently arrived in Jamaica. They were trying to decide whether Africans have souls. I suggested it would be more educational to find out whether plantation owners have souls.”

“I have to see her,” I told him shakily. “It’s vitally important!” Horror was pulsing through me in waves. While I’d been lolling around convalescing, my friend had been suffering the worst humiliation Planet Earth had to offer.

Brice sounded despairing. “Lola was sold a few days ago.”

My heart almost stopped with fright. “She’s GONE! But you said—”

“I meant there’s absolutely no point you going to see her. Lovey is driving her over to St Mary’s first thing tomorrow.”

I closed my eyes in relief. She was still here. I’d just got here in time.

I caught hold of Brice’s seventeenth century sleeve. “Take me to her. Take me now!” I must have sounded mad.

“I can’t. My uncle could come back at any moment. He would be extremely displeased if—”

“I don’t CARE!”

Bruce looked suspicious. “Forgive me, but what exactly is so important about this piece of sewing?”

I grabbed at the first excuse that came into my head. “I, um, lost heaps of weight while I was ill. I’ve got this gorgeous dress for the Christmas party and now it totally won’t fit. I need Lola to alter it before she goes.”

Brice looked disgusted and I didn’t blame him. He must have thought I was turning into one of those ugly Europeans before his eyes. But he nodded reluctantly. “Very well.”

The slave huts had been built as far as possible from the main house, behind a natural screen of coconut palms. The huts were thatched with palm leaves, and looked - and smelled - completely squalid. Garbage lay rotting everywhere. Probably the inhabitants didn’t have the heart to clean up.

There was unexpected beauty though, even in this depressing little village. The garden plots where slaves grew their own fruits and vegetables glowed with life and colour. I could literally feel the love and care that went into them.

An old man crouched outside his hut, tying up a flowering vine that had come away from its stake. “Massa,” he mumbled.

His eyes followed us resentfully as we walked past. I could feel other pairs of eyes watching from the dark, strong-smelling interiors of the huts. The hostility in the air made it hard to breathe.

I hoped Brice was wrong. I hoped the ghosts of the Taino weren’t watching what Europeans were doing to their peaceful Land of Wood and Water. In just two hundred years, their Paradise had been turned into a hellhole.

I was finding Jamaica’s dark side hard to handle. Luckily I didn’t have to handle it much longer. Once I’d hooked up with Lola, we’d all be zooming back home. I tried to make my voice sound casual. “Which hut is Lola’s?”

Brice pointed. “Hurry. My uncle could come back any minute.”

The path to Lola’s hut was edged with rough scented grasses. I tore off a blade as I passed, inhaling its lemony perfume. I was nervous for no reason. Lola’s on your side, fool, I reminded myself. Pretty soon this will all be over. This time tomorrow lover boy will have his memory back and we’ll all be drinking hot chocolate at Guru.

The door to Lola’s hut was open. Inside was a woven sleeping mat and an old cast-iron cooking pot. Balanced over the stew-pot was a crudely shaped wooden spoon, carved out of some kind of gourd. It seemed that these three pitiful objects were the sum total of her possessions.

I remembered Brice arguing furiously with Mr Allbright about a week after he joined our history class. “Millions of human children are dying of hunger because rich countries couldn’t care if they live or die! And the powers that be say we mustn’t interfere with their free will! Well, that sucks! If you want humans to change, angels are going to have to make waves!”

I stared at that dented old stew-pot and I wanted to make waves, like you would not believe. I wanted a humungous tidal wave to roll in and wash slavery from the face of the Earth forever.

I was feeling violent electric tingles, normally a sure sign that other celestial agents are in the area. The thought of seeing Lola was such a relief, I was practically falling over my own feet in my eagerness to reach the rear of her hut.

A golden-skinned girl in a fraying head-tie was stretching up to peg a tattered cotton blouse on the line. She winced and clutched her side.

I ran forward. “Lola? Are you OK?”

She spun in terror then clutched her chest. “Miss! You frighten mi. Mi tink a bad duppy creep up when mi nah lookin’.”

I felt confused. This girl looked like Lola, but she didn’t sound or behave like her.

Don’t be stupid, Mel, who else could she be? I told myself quickly.

Yet something was off. Lollie and I normally hug, even if we’ve only been apart for like, a day. But I got the definite feeling that hugging this Lola would not be a wise move. My friend was keeping her eyes fixed stonily on the ground, as if she didn’t want me to know what she was thinking.

That was another disturbing thing. Lola and I almost always do know what each other is thinking. But now she was completely shut down. I could just feel incredibly hostile vibes.

She’s angry, I thought shakily. She thinks I abandoned her.

I swallowed. “You’ve had a terrible time,” I said. “Did the overseer really beat you?”

“Mi belong Massa,” Lola said in a sullen voice. “Massa can do what him like.”

The soles of her bare feet were filthy from walking about the plantation without any shoes. She was wearing a shapeless old skirt and blouse in faded blue. The identical sun-faded blue cotton I’d seen on Quashiba and Bright Eyes. Slave clothes.

I felt my heart contract. “Lollie, I swear, I’ve been ill, or I’d have come sooner.”

“Mi hear ‘bout dat,” she said in her new singsong voice. “Lovey find you in di bush. Dey say you like to die.”

My best friend sounded like she wouldn’t have cared either way.

“Babe, drop the slave-talk, please!” I pleaded. “This isn’t you.”

Lola made a rude sound, like sucking spit through her teeth. “Nuttin wrong wid me, miss. You di one talkin’ foolishness.”

“Lola, LOOK at me!” I practically yelled at her.

My friend reluctantly met my eyes, and I felt as if I was falling through space. There was no warmth, no spark of recognition. Just pure hate.

“You really don’t know who I am,” I whispered.

Beau/Brice came up behind us, looking frazzled.

“I see you’re up and about, Lola,” he said in a falsely bright voice. “The pain isn’t too bad today?”

Lola blushed. “No, Massa,” she said. “Pain nah so bad today.”

The two of them were being just a bit too careful not to look at each other. Brice and Lola might have lost their memories but they definitely hadn’t lost their cosmic chemistry.

Their obvious attraction only made me feel worse.

I felt so alone, I can’t tell you. I wanted to wake up in my room at school, and rush next door to Lola. I wanted to tell her about the horrible dream I just had where we were on a nightmare mission to Jamaica, but she’d somehow forgotten we were friends. I wanted to hear her say, “Poor you! Dreams are SO weird, aren’t they!”

But I didn’t wake up. My nightmare just went on. I turned and fled back to the house.

My aunt was sitting on her veranda, chewing furiously on a chunk of sugar cane. Beside her was a dish of mangled spat-out stalks. As I fled past, she called brightly, “Would you like to sample some, my dear! Sugar cane is so soothing to the nerves.”

I looked at this woman who wept over dead birds while her husband tortured human slaves, and I would have liked to despise her, but I knew she was every bit as lonely and lost as her slaves.

I excused myself, saying I needed to rest. Then I shut myself in my room and flung myself face down on my bed. I was so upset I couldn’t even cry.

What am I going to do? I thought. What am I going to DO?

Somewhere between Heaven and Earth, something had happened to my friends; something which made them forget their true identities. Unlike yours truly, Lola and Brice had clearly read their cover stories. Now they believed they actually were these fictional humans and they were living their parts for real!

This mission was meant to get Brice back on his feet. Instead he and Lola had been ensnared in some dark game of seventeenth-century Consequences. White nephew of rich plantation owner meets feisty slave-girl in steamy Jamaica. And the consequence was…

…I was playing a lonely game of angels all by myself.

I don’t think I have ever felt so alone. I won’t lie to you, I could feel myself being sucked down into this like, total marsh of self-pity. But then I did something that I think shows I’m starting to mature as a celestial trainee: I asked my inner angel for advice.

I sat down in the lotus position and closed my eyes. After a while I felt the familiar burning hot-potato sensation spreading through my chest. I don’t actually see my inner angel. It’s more like I could feel her vibes building up inside me. And this time I heard her voice as clear as a bell.

“Hi babe,” Helix said. “Poor you! It must be scary, seeing your friends like this.”

My eyes filled with tears. “It’s so scary I can’t tell you. It’s like they’ve been hypnotised.”

“Isn’t it?” she agreed warmly. “Lola isn’t a slave. Brice isn’t her master’s nephew. It’s just a story line some Agency scriptwriter thought up for them.

“I’m so confused, Helix. How come this kind of thing can happen to angels?”

“It’s a bummer,” she said. “The fact is, thoughts are incredibly powerful. On Earth, if you think something’s true for long enough, it eventually becomes true.”

“For humans, yeah,” I objected. “But we’re supposed to know how this stuff works!”

“OK, OK, listen. Angels are immortal beings operating at v. intense energy levels, right?”

“Right,” I agreed.

“Plus they have humungous thought power, agreed?”

I remembered how the angel preschoolers grew teeny baby trees in like, ten minutes flat. “Agreed,” I said.

“Without their angel memories, Brice and Lola grabbed at what seemed to be reality. They’re actually creating this whole scenario minute by minute. If they saw what was happening, they could step out into angelic reality just like that. But to them it feels like this is reality.”

“Actually it kind of feels like reality to me too,” I said miserably.

“I know, honey,” Helix said sympathetically. “So here’s a teeny cosmic hint. If something makes you feel small, lost and hopeless, it probably isn’t real!!”

Helix went on to tell me some other private angelic stuff, which I’m not supposed to share. After what seemed like blissful aeons of time, I opened my eyes.

It was amazing! I had bags of energy suddenly. All my self-pity had vanished, and I saw the whole thing with total clarity. And I knew now why I’d had to come on Brice’s mission.

It was like that gruesome fairy story about the three blind old women, who had to share one eye between them.

I had to see for all of us. And I had to remember for all of us. But I couldn’t do that if I got sucked into the illusion along with my friends. It seemed like Brice, Lola and I were trapped in totally different movies. It even seemed like my soul-mate hated me. But these were just cosmic illusions.

Lola and I had a truly special bond. Even before we met, we were already connected. This connection was still there, even if Lola couldn’t see or feel it. I just had to find a way to remind her. I had to find a way to help my best friend see through her fog of cosmic amnesia. I’d creep out after dark and go to her hut. Whatever it took to get through to Lola, I’d do.

Now that I had a plan, it seemed OK to have a little siesta.

By the time I woke up it was night. I smoothed down my crumpled gown, put on my seventeenth-century cotton cap and little leather slippers and crept out of the house.

Stars sparkled high above the plantation. Some of the stars were so tiny they were just scatters of glitter dust. Crickets sang their metallic ‘sweet-sweet’ song from every tree and bush, like a chorus of tiny bicycle bells. And I became aware of another thrilling sound vibrating through the night like a heartbeat. A faraway beating of drums.

As I got nearer to the slave quarters, I saw the flicker of cooking fires through the palms. I could hear voices murmuring, warm and intimate in the dark. I felt all the fine hairs rise on the back of my neck. The Bexfords had a piece of Africa, right here in their back yard; a living, breathing, stolen piece of Africa. A three-year-old child would know how precious this was. Yet the Bexfords and their kind had no idea. I actually had to pinch myself. “You’re in Jamaica, Melanie,” I whispered. “You’re in Jamaica, listening to African slaves talking in the dark.”

I can’t explain why, exactly, but I felt like I was supposed to be here. I felt, I don’t know, honoured. I glanced up at the stars, and for a moment I had a dizzy sense of being part of that vast shimmery totally mysterious pattern.

I must have been invisible standing in the shadowy coconut grove, because two figures sped softly past me without even noticing I was there. It was Brice and Lola! “What on earth?” I gasped.

I raced after them, trying not to trip over my stupid gown, and finally caught them up in the stables.

A lighted lantern made a pool of weak yellowish light. A horse was nervously shifting its hooves on the straw. I saw the whites of its eyes gleaming. Brice was murmuring soothing words as he adjusted the saddle.

“What’s going on?” I said breathlessly.

My friends froze guiltily. I could see Lola’s pulse beating in her throat. I could smell hay and horses, and the strong-smelling coconut oil that the slave Lola used on her hair.

“Mi tell you dat white girl bring trouble!” she hissed to Brice as if I wasn’t there. “She tell Ole Massa for sure!”

“Who am I? The secret police?” I said angrily. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

It might just be an illusion, but Lola’s hostility was really hard to take.

Brice fastened the girth on the nervous horse. “We’re leaving this place.”

“I’d sort of worked that out,” I said. “Where are you running to?”

“Don’ tell her, Massa!” Lola cried. “Ole Massa set dogs on wi.”

I took several deep breaths. “I’m not your enemy. I won’t tell. You don’t have to be scared of me, OK?”

The sound of drumming was getting louder, as if the wind had suddenly changed. A horse whickered from its stall.

Lola shot me a look, half scared, half triumphant. “Mi nah scared a you, white girl!” she said. “Young Massa buy wi freedom. He buy all wi freedom!”

I was stunned. “He’s going to free you ALL?”

“Just our slaves at first,” Brice explained. “There’s a place up in the hills. People call it Cockpit country. Hundreds of runaway slaves live up there.”

Isn’t that incredible? Brice couldn’t remember his name or his heavenly address. He had no conscious memory of the Agency. Yet he had made up his mind to save slaves single-handed. It’s like he knew he was supposed to be on a mission! He’d just forgotten that he didn’t have to do it alone.

If this had been the normal Brice I could have reasoned with him. I could have said, “You tried that rescue-trip before and it got you into deep poo.” Brice’s previous rescue attempt ended in a long and gruesome exile in the Hell dimensions, where he only survived by doing freelance work for a number of Dark agencies.

But the Beau Bexford Brice didn’t know about Hell dimensions or warring cosmic agencies. He was saving the world, the only way he knew how. So I stuck to basics. “Where are you going to get that kind of money?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” he said cagily.

Please say he isn’t planning a robbery, I prayed. I didn’t think the Agency would be too thrilled if Brice robbed a bank, even if his motives were totally pristine. For once I didn’t have to think about what to do next.

“I’m coming with you!” I said in a bright voice. “I think what you’re both doing is, um, amazing and I want to help.”

Lola did her rude tooth-sucking sound. “It look like three people can sit on dat poor lickle horse to you?”

“Then steal two horses, girlfriend,” I told her. “I’m coming and that’s final.”

Brice shook his head. “I can’t let you do that. I couldn’t guarantee your safety.”

“I don’t care,” I said stubbornly. “I’m coming.”

Lola was scowling horribly. No way did she want me on their romantic trip! “Tie her to a coconut tree! Massa nah find her till mawnin’.”

Illusion or not, Lola’s attitude was really getting under my skin. I flashed my sweetest smile. “You tie me up, and I’ll scream the place down, and you’ll have that whole slavering-hunting-dogs scenario you’re anxious to avoid.”

Well, I wasn’t trying to win a popularity contest after all. I was following the first law of angelic teamwork. Keep your team together at ALL times.

You need me, I told them silently. I’m your seeing-eye angel.

Perhaps my cosmic vibes got through to him, because Brice reluctantly saddled a second horse. Lola was visibly fuming. Instead of riding off alone with the handsome Young Massa, she was stuck with me.

“Where are we going by the way?” I asked her as we spurred our horses into the night.

Lola’s answer gave me the chills.

“Port Royal,” she snarled. “Di wickedest city on Earth!”

Chapter Six

At dawn next day we were riding single file through a misty river gorge. Ladders of sunlight slanted down through the mist. Now and then I had to push aside the lush tangles of vines that hung down like curtains. A bird called the same two-note song over and over. It felt like we were all alone at the green dawn of the world.

Well, if it wasn’t for the vibes. I’m serious! It’s a miracle I didn’t break out in blisters! As the morning went on, I genuinely started to wonder if my best friend was plotting to poison me. Lola kept stopping to pick stinky plants she spotted by the track.

“Dis herb good for mi skin, Massa,” she’d tell Brice, stuffing some obscene hairy root in her bag. And she’d shoot him this intimate smile. Sometimes she’d tell him it was a herb that would make her hair shine, or whiten her teeth, the scheming little minx. When Brice wasn’t looking, she’d dart spiteful looks at me. Like: “You better not cross me, girl, or I’ll put these babies in your stew!”

I was relieved when Brice said we were breaking our journey in a place called Spanish Town. It was getting hot, plus my angelic backside was SO sore, my previous horse-riding experience being basically nil.

In Spanish Town a lively street market was in full swing. Old ladies in vividly-coloured head-ties squatted in the shade beside heaps of yams, bananas and sweet potatoes, pots, pans and bales of cloth, singing out to passers-by.

This was the first real town I’d seen since I’d arrived. A little girl ran alongside trying to sell us some freshly-picked oranges. Brice threw her some coins and we rode along, slurping at the greenish-skinned fruit.

“Why’s this called Spanish Town?” I asked in a juicy voice.

“The English captured Jamaica from the Spanish,” Brice explained. “It’s the perfect base for attacking foreign ships.”

I was shocked. “Isn’t that piracy?”

He grinned. “Piracy is exactly what it is.”

“Sorry, I don’t believe you,” I said primly. “I can’t believe the British government would encourage pirates.”

He laughed out loud. “Why not? The government gets the loot!”

I could feel Lola fidgeting sulkily behind me. I was always trying to include her, but she totally refused to join any conversation I was a part of. The bottom line was: I wasn’t meant to be there.

We stopped at an inn on the outskirts and seated ourselves at an outdoor table in the leafy shade of a passion-fruit vine. A slave-girl brought us our breakfast. She looked genuinely shocked to see two white people sitting at the same table as their slave.

Brice and Lola spent the meal whispering to each other. I didn’t want to be a gooseberry, so I concentrated on trying to find something I could eat. It was a weird breakfast, I have to say. The stewed goat looked really stringy, plus there was this evil Jamaican green vegetable that someone had boiled to a slimy pulp. The coconut cake seemed the safest bet. Dry but edible if you washed it down with a beaker of fresh cane juice.

While we ate, a vulture circled lazily overhead in a cloudless blue sky.

Lola shook her fist. “G’way!” she threatened. “You nah get dinner today, John Crow!”

How does she KNOW this stuff? I wondered, amazed.

My friend had lived in seventeenth-century Jamaica for less than ten days. But when she hummed to herself, she sang authentic slave tunes! She knew which local plants made your hair shiny. She even knew how to tie a head-tie, African-style. And Brice knew all about sugar mills and pirates and stealing horses. It’s like my friends had plugged into some cosmic equivalent of the Discovery Channel!

I was still puzzling over this when Brice went off to get supplies. The minute he was out of sight, Lola let me have it.

My Lola has a way with words. But this Lola came out with stuff that made my eyes water. Even when she was insulting me it sounded like sheer poetry. Lola told me that young Massa Bexford might be taken in by my sweet innocent manner but she’d had me totally figured from day one.

According to her, I was a little gold-digger determined to get my hooks into my rich cousin. I know! She was convinced I wanted to marry him for his inheritance! Also, according to Lola, I was just pretending to care about slaves. White people were all the same, purely out for themselves.

By the time Lola had finished with me I’d started to think she was right. Being white was starting to seem like a really unpleasant disease. I literally felt like I might be emanating a pale poisonous glow. Purely by walking round inside my skin, I’d become a living advertisement for Evil.

If I’d been human, I think I’d have crawled into some dark hole and died of shame. Lola was meant to be my best friend but she couldn’t even see me. It broke my heart that Lola couldn’t see the real me hurting inside.

It’s embarrassing, I know. She’s the slave, yet I want her to pity me, the poor misunderstood white girl! I literally had to shut my eyes to stop the tears from falling.

My inner angel had just been waiting for the chance to put a stop to all this nonsense. A message flashed up on my mental screen: A soul-mate’s true colours shine through no matter what.

Lola’s parting words.

I felt all the stress drain out through the soles of my feet. Lola wasn’t a slave. I was not an evil white-skinned devil. None of this was real. We’re just angels, I thought. Just angels passing through.

I was so relieved to be back in angelic reality that I was smiling through my tears.

Lola gave a scornful snort. “You laugh like stupid! But you don’ know nuttin! You don’ even know why we goin’ to Port Royal. But Massa tell me. Massa tell mi everyting!”

Poor girl. She was so desperate to prove that the young Massa loved her best that she blurted out the entire plan.

It was complete madness. The whole enterprise depended on Brice selling a treasure map he’d acquired from a pirate called Bermuda Jack, in return for a bottle of rum. This wasn’t your regular treasure map, mind you. It was a map leading to an ancient Indian city. A city made of pure gold. I know! You couldn’t make it up!!

“Massa get a heap a gold for dis map,” Lola said proudly. “A whole heap a gold.”

“Why are we talking about gold?” Brice had come up behind her.

Lola gasped, backing away from him with a guilty expression. “Mi nah want to tell her, Massa. She drag it outa me!”

This time, though, I didn’t take it personally. I was back in angel mode and I understood exactly where she was coming from. Reuben and I had once been slaves too in ancient Rome, but unlike Lola, we never forgot that we were undercover angels. If things had been different, who knows how we’d have behaved?

“I’m not angry, Lola,” Brice comforted her at once. “I was planning to tell my cousin everything anyway.”

And once we were back on the road to Port Royal, my angel buddy told me the whole crazy story.

Brice hadn’t bought a map from a pirate. He’d bought HALF a map. (Obviously that made me feel much better.)

Bermuda Jack had told Brice that if he reached Port Royal before the Christmas breeze stopped blowing, he’d find the owner of the map’s missing half staying at a certain tavern in Port Royal. “Jack said she’d give me hundreds of Spanish doubloons for my half,” he said eagerly.

“The other owner is a lady?” I said in surprise.

Brice grinned. “And a very beautiful lady, by all accounts.”

Lola made a noise that sounded exactly like ripping velcro.

“And is the Christmas breeze still blowing?“I asked him.

He gestured at the palm trees busily clicking their fronds. “It’ll blow for a few days yet.”

“I hate to be dense,” I said. “But why didn’t Jack sell his half of the map and pocket the doubloons.”

“Oh, he says it’s cursed. But that’s just superstition,” Brice said casually.

See what I mean about that boy? Just as I’m thinking things can’t get much crazier, he throws in a curse!

“Naturally, the Taino wanted to discourage Europeans from plundering their sacred golden city,” he explained, “so they spread all these stories to warn them off.”

“Wait - slow down! This city is SACRED?”

Brice looked shifty. “Allegedly.”

“Personally I’m wondering if this Indian city even existed,” I said. “Maybe the Taino were just having a laugh?”

“My map is genuine,” Brice said confidently.

“But how can you be sure?”

He pulled a crackly piece of parchment out of his shirt. The map fragment was badly scorched at the edges as if it had been rescued from a fire in the nick of time. And the sinister spattering of faded brownish splodges was almost certainly a trail of human bloodstains.

But at the top in shaky script was a name that set my heart racing.

Coyaba, City of the Gods.

I’d never heard of this city before, yet when I saw the name, about a zillion angel volts went off inside my head and, like Brice, I knew this was the real thing.

But that just made it worse. Not for the first time, Heaven’s favourite bad boy was getting in way over his head. Someone had to make him see sense before he did something we’d all regret. Someone like me.

“Um, I hate to be a party pooper, but if this map is for real, it’s incredibly precious. What if this lady in Port Royal is just like all those other Europeans, purely out for herself. Don’t you think it’s a bit dodgy giving her directions to an ancient golden city? Do you really think the Taino would want her to have their gold?”

Loia gave me a poisonous look. “Massa don’ business wid dead people gold,” she flashed. “Massa just wan’ set wi free.”

“But it doesn’t belong to him, Lola! Hello! The City of the Gods? Trust me, if you let pirates loose on a sacred Taino city, that could have really dark consequences!”

Brice was glaring at me now. ” The Taino are dead. I’m more concerned with the sufferings of the living. Slavery also has dark consequences, don’t you agree, cousin? “

Lola gave me a triumphant smile.

I probably should have left it there, but something niggled at the edges of my mind.

“I don’t totally understand what you need all these doubloons for,” I said to Brice. “Why do you need so much cash?”

“Guns and ammunition are expensive,” he said coolly.

My jaw dropped. “Guns and—”

“The rebel slaves deserve all the help we can give,” he said in the same cool, reasonable voice.

No need to check Agency policy on this one. I opened my mouth twice then shut it again. I simply didn’t feel up to explaining to Brice why this was such a bad idea.

We rode on to Port Royal in strained silence. I tried reminding myself that I was an angel on a mission, but I felt more like a tin can that had accidentally got attached to a v. hyperactive dog. I was supposed to be working on a brilliant strategy to get my friends back to Heaven. Instead I was being dragged helplessly from one insanely complicated situation to the next.

We trotted along the bumpy potholed road, under palm trees waving graceful fronds in the tropical breeze. The sun was hot. The sky was blue. But my heart was as heavy as lead. I don’t know how far it was to Port Royal, but it felt like a long way in that atmosphere, believe me.

Gradually the lush vegetation of inland Jamaica was replaced with dry-looking scrub and cacti. By late afternoon I smelted salt on the breeze. Minutes later we rode into a little settlement known as Passage Fort, where we were to get the ferry to Port Royal. We had to leave the horses at the town’s one tavern.

“No horses, mules or horse-drawn carriages are allowed in Port Royal,” Brice told us. “The city is barely half a mile wide and extremely densely populated. You will notice the buildings are unusually tall. The city folk soon ran out of building land, and since they couldn’t build outwards, they built upwards instead!”

We hurried down to the harbour just as the sun was starting to set. Besides us, there were two other passengers, a nervous white merchant and his very handsome male slave. The slave was hopefully checking Lola out, but she only had eyes for the young Massa.

I really enjoyed that boat trip actually. We passed tiny uninhabited islands looking exactly like tropical islands you see in cartoons.

We were halfway to Port Royal when we heard an appalling ruckus floating across the water. Pistols firing, bells ringing, drunken voices singing and squabbling in every language under the sun, drums beating, whistles blowing. I thought some mad carnival was going on, but Brice said this was normal for Port Royal. With a flash of fear I remembered that Lola had called it the “wickedest city on Earth”.

The dock was unbelievably crowded. The moment we got off the boat there was this stampede. Rough humans of both sexes rushed at us, yelling threateningly in our faces, poking and prodding at us, mostly trying to sell us stuff we didn’t want.

This was a city where pirates basically ruled. Its lanes and alleyways swarmed with buccaneers of all colours and nationalities. It even smelled wicked. The streets literally stank like they’d been marinated in Jamaican rum! Just about every other building was a pirate tavern, a gambling den, or a “punch-house”. Lola looked disturbed when she saw the punch-house girls with their plunging bodices and crudely made-up faces.

In a street behind the Turtle Market, we passed a gun shop, where pistols were laid out on black velvet like a lady’s jewels. A drunken pirate suddenly pushed his face into mine, making kissing noises. He was quite old and his leathery face was seamed with scars.

Lola flew between us and gave him a massive thump in the chest.

“G’way, you boldface devil, you!” she said fiercely. “You tink dis nice girl business wid you! Tcha!”

He slunk away mumbling apologies. “Thanks, Lola,” I said gratefully.

Lola just gave me one of her looks. Like, “You think I want to be your babysitter?”

“Do try to look as if you know where you’re going, cousin,” Brice sighed.

On the other side of the street, a pirate dressed in silks and velvets, was stopping passers-by at gunpoint, challenging them to a drinking contest from a barrel of Jamaican rum!

I scurried after Lola and Brice. “And do we? Know where we’re going?” I asked nervously.

Brice said we were looking for a tavern called Diego’s Whiskers. Naturally, I thought he was kidding. But Brice assured me the name was for real; Diego had been a notorious Spanish pirate who finally got blown to pieces by English buccaneers.

“What was so special about Diego’s whiskers?” I asked. “Did they glow in the dark or something?”

Brice grinned. “English seamen are always boasting about singeing their enemies’ facial hair,” he said. “It’s the ultimate insult!”

He seemed more like the old Brice now we’d left the plantation. He seemed thrilled with himself, to be honest: setting off to do a nefarious deal with a mysterious lady, a bloodstained treasure map in his pocket, and an adoring slave-girl by his side.

However, I was getting twitchy. I reckoned it would be dark in about five minutes max. We’re talking Jamaican darkness, right? Five short minutes before the streets of dilapidated high-rise tenements turned into inky black canyons. This thought seemed to occur to my friends at approximately the same moment. No one actually mentioned lurking robbers or cutthroats but everyone suddenly picked up the pace.

Brice led us down an extremely evil-smelling alley, running parallel to the waterfront. I could hear the hollow sloshing of waves against wooden piers and the rhythmic creaking of ships’ timbers.

We hurried along, scattering pigs and chickens in our haste to get under a roof before nightfall. Brice peered at an inn sign in the gathering dusk. It was peppered with bullet holes and totally impossible to read, but he strode through the door of the tavern without a second’s hesitation. Amnesia or no amnesia, Brice’s bad-boy radar was functioning as well as ever!

He gave a swift glance around the crowded bar, nodded at the landlord and, without breaking stride, ducked through a door marked PRIVATE.

Lola and I both beetled after him, not wanting to be left alone with the pervy old sea dogs who formed Diego’s select clientele.

We found ourselves in a long, low room with dark wooden beams. The air was thick with rum and tobacco fumes. A dozen ferocious seafaring-types were yelling at each other through the fog. They’d obviously been drinking for hours, if not days. Every person in this room had an opinion and every person was bellowing his opinion at the top of his lungs, backing it up by hammering his fist or the barrel of his pistol on the table.

But the most opinionated person in that room was actually a girl. A booze-swilling, pistol-toting girl, it’s true, but still a girl, no more than sixteen years old.

She had her back partly turned to me, so I couldn’t tell if she was really beautiful, like people said, but she obviously had great style. Her rustling skirts of crimson silk were looped up to reveal creamy lace petticoats and boots of gorgeous Spanish leather. The pirate girl’s shiny black hair had been oiled like a flamenco dancer’s, and swept up with combs. Rubies and sapphires twinkled on her fingers and swung sparkling from her ears.

Brice coughed. “Sirs, madam?” he said politely. “May I enquire - if this is the right place?”

Ten pirates’ hands drew ten swords with a thrilling clash of steel. The eleventh pirate snatched up a chair, aiming it menacingly at Brice’s head. He was growling, literally growling like a dog.

The girl started to laugh, a wild tipsy laugh. “You’ve come to the right place, sir - for a fight!”

She swung to face us, still laughing.

My heart almost stopped. I knew this girl!

“Cat!” I breathed. “Cat Darcy?”

But that was impossible. Shakespeare’s girlfriend would have to be over a hundred and twenty years old by now!

“I am Mariah Darcy,” the pirate girl said haughtily. “Catherine Darcy was my grandmother. Who are you, miss? And why do you burst in on our private soiree?”

Brice stepped forward. “I have something in my possession that I was told would interest you.”

Mariah gave one of her wild laughs. “Oho! You’ve been speaking to Bermuda Jack!” She gestured imperiously to her men. “Sheathe your swords! Caleb, stop that ridiculous growling, put down the chair and tell the landlord to bring more rum! These people are our guests.”

I was still reeling from the bizarre cosmic coincidence. I could NOT believe we’d bumped into Cat’s granddaughter! She could almost be Cat’s double, I thought wonderingly.

Angels aren’t meant to get involved with their humans, but on our mission to Elizabethan England, Lola and I had developed a genuine affection for Cat Darcy. It was a relief to know she’d eventually found love and had a family. No guy could have measured up to Will Shakespeare obviously, but she’d survived their break-up, and made a new life for herself and that was really good news.

But as I gazed at Cat’s seventeenth-century descendant, I started to wonder if I was seeing things. I was picking up tiny lightning flashes every time Mariah laughed. Lola seemed equally baffled.

Finally I caught on. At one stage in her pirate career Mariah had lost an eye-tooth, and a diamond had been wired into the gap. The piracy bizz must be paying pretty well, I thought.

I thought Cat’s pirate dad would probably be really proud if he could see his stylish great-granddaughter carrying on the family tradition.

These are the kinds of moments I usually share with Lola, and I instinctively turned to smile at her, but she just blanked me and turned away.

I bravely pulled myself together. One day we’ll laugh at this, angel girl, I told my friend silently. And that’s a promise.

It was past three in the morning and the candles at Diego’s had almost burned down to tiny stumps.

The remains of a huge pirate feast were scattered over the table. Oyster shells, gnawed pork ribs, the heads of giant prawns. But the drinking went on and on. And Beau Bexford and Mariah found more and more in common.

“Each of us is a freedom fighter in our different ways! Freedom is the most important thing in life, don’t you agree?” The pirate girl had been licking pork grease from her fingers, but she stopped to give Brice an intimate smile.

Brice threw down a shot of rum and yelled, “To freedom!”

Mariah let out a wild yodel. “Aye! To freedom!”

Those pirates who could still stand, jumped to their feet and knocked back more slugs of fiery white rum. “To freedom!” they roared.

The pirate girl sat back down, in a flounce of lacy petticoats. “Only the souls of outlaws are truly free,” she announced. “That’s why the world hates us! Isn’t that true, men?”

And the other pirates cheered and pounded their fists on the table until the wooden planks vibrated like a drum.

I don’t know why, but while you were with Mariah Darcy, you forgot to ask really obvious questions. Like, are you sure that’s why people hate you? Are you sure it isn’t because you hack off their limbs with cutlasses? Plus the robbing and pillaging might put a few people off!

It sounds ridiculous, I know, but that night not a word of criticism entered my head. I actually admired Mariah to the point of total and utter envy. She had it all. Beauty, brains, her own ship. Plus a loyal band of followers to do her bidding. (No, really! Some of them were quite cute in an unwashed Hell’s Angels kind of way!)

At a time when a girl’s career options mainly consisted of being locked away in a convent, or dying hideously in childbirth, this girl had the entire Caribbean ocean for her playground.

What I envied most of all was Mariah Darcy’s confidence. You just knew she didn’t stay awake at nights, beating herself up over some stupid little mistake. Mariah answered to no one but herself.

And as the night went on, the pirate girl started to reveal a softer side. OK, so she was a bit woozy from the rum, but she seemed genuinely inspired by Brice’s desire to help his father’s slaves. She fished her half of the map out of her blouse, and she and Brice placed their two halves side by side so you could see how exactly they fitted.

“Let me tell you something,” she slurred. “I could retire from piracy tomorrow, if it was gold I craved.”

My buddy’s eyes glinted. “Isn’t it?”

She shook her head. “I have pots of gold,” she boasted. “Crates and barrels full of gold. Gold means nothing to me. What I crave, Mr Bexford, is adventure!”

“Oh, really,” he said politely. “I thought it was freedom.”

She wagged her finger. “Now, now, sir! Let’s not quibble over words! My point is, like you, I detest all forms of slavery. That’s why I’m declining your offer! I’ve decided NOT to buy your half of the map.”

Brice looked confused. “I see. Naturally it’s yours to do—”

“I haven’t finished, Mr Bexford! I propose, sir, that you and I mount a joint expedition to find this city. Any gold we find will be used to resettle your unhappy slaves.” Mariah leaned forward. “What do you say?”

Omigosh, this is so thrilling, say yes! I thought excitedly. I know! I was totally caught up in the moment. One night with pirates and my angelic scruples go right out the window!

Brice would have made a great poker player. I could NOT have told you what that boy was thinking. We were all holding our breath, except for Lola, who seemed to be struggling to stay awake.

“What is your answer, Mr Bexford?” Mariah’s voice had a bit of an edge this time.

Brice pushed back his chair so dramatically that I truly thought he was going to storm out. “I say we drink another toast,” he said coolly. “I accept your generous proposal, Miss Darcy.”

Mariah let out a piercing yodel of triumph. The pirates whistled and stomped their feet to show their approval. One of the pirates produced a fiddle and started to play a sea shanty. Another pirate picked up some silver spoons and beat out a lively rhythm.

Brice bowed to Mariah. She took his hand, laughing her tipsy laugh, and they swung each other recklessly around the room as the other pirates clapped and whistled.

I was in complete pirate mode by this time as you know, and rather fancied boogieing with a pirate myself. Unfortunately Lola was almost falling asleep in her chair.

“Come on, angel girl,” I sighed. “Time for some beauty sleep.”

Brice had rented us two rooms for the night. My friend was so out of it that she let me support her as far as the door, then she shrugged me off.

The music had switched into something fiery and Spanish. I glanced back wistfully and saw Brice andMariah doing a dance that involved a lot of stamping and sexy peacock-type strutting. Two outlaws closing their deal in true outlaw style. Who’d have imagined our maverick buddy would end up going into partnership with Cat Darcy’s pirate granddaughter! In my wildest fantasies I couldn’t come up with something like that.

I felt a flicker of excitement. This is WAY too karmic to be a coincidence, I thought. OK, the Agency couldn’t have known for sure, but they must have allowed for this mind-blowing possibility in their cosmic calculations.

And suddenly I was flooded with relief.

Omigosh, this was meant to happen! I wasn’t a failure after all! We were always supposed to come to Port Royal and hook up with Mariah.

It totally didn’t matter that I still hadn’t managed to figure out a way to get my friends home. My friends weren’t supposed to go home, because -omigosh, omigosh! - despite everything, we were still totally on track for Brice’s HALO award!!!

I wanted to yodel like a sexy pirate girl. Instead I stood at the top of the stairs, fanning myself, and trying to absorb this amazingly good news.

Finally I’d calmed down enough to go into our room.

When I walked in, Lola muttered something I didn’t catch and went on carefully pouring water into a cracked china bowl.

I have to say Diego’s Whiskers wasn’t exactly four-star accommodation. The bed curtains were visibly mouldy (euw!), and there were tiny lizards apparently glued to the walls, looking like bizarre ornaments.

My friend leaned over the bowl to wash her face. Suddenly I saw something glint in the candlelight. My heart practically flew into my mouth. It was Lola’s angel tags!

This was my chance.

Say something, Mel, I told myself. Say something NOW.

I cleared my throat. “Lola, this is going to sound like I’m making it up, but please hear me out, OK?”

I tried to explain what had happened in terms a seventeenth-century slave-girl could relate to, deliberately avoiding words like “Heaven” and “angel”. If I hit her with the heavenly terminology right off, she’d be likely to think I was a nutter. So I just reminded my friend that the three of us came from a place where nobody went hungry and everything was free. In this wonderful country, slavery didn’t exist.

“But something happened to you and Brice, um, Beau, on the way here,” I explained. “Something that made you forget who and what you really are.”

Lola yawned like a sleepy little cat. “Mi nah forget nuttin. You da one who confuse. You all di time talkin’ wild-wild.”

“I can prove it,” I said eagerly. “When we leave our home to go travelling, we wear these.” I showed Lola my tags. “See? They’re exactly like yours.”

She pulled a face. “Tcha! You can buy dem kinda ting in any slave market in Jamaica.”

I was so disappointed. Whatever Lola was seeing, she wasn’t seeing the same object. I could see she was completely exhausted so I let it go for the time being.

There was only one double bed in our room. Lola was all set to sleep on the floor, but I managed to persuade her we could share.

Before she went to sleep, my friend wrapped her sheet around her face and upper body. I guess she wanted to protect her face from prying eyes (mine) while she was sleeping. But it left her feet bare and vulnerable. I noticed a woven friendship bracelet around one ankle and felt my eyes fill with tears. I had made that bracelet for Lola one lazy afternoon in Heaven, a few weeks after we met.

I lay awake for a long time, listening to my soul-mate breathing softly inside her private cocoon. I could hear fiddle music and roars of laughter coming from downstairs. Plus some kind of drunken ruckus seemed to be going on in the alley outside.

After a few minutes I got up and wedged a chair under the door handle. Then I went back to bed and slept like a baby.

I must have gone back to Heaven in my dreams, because when I woke next morning, everything seemed clear: a little too clear, actually. I had to giggle into my pillow so as not to wake my sleeping friend. I couldn’t believe I’d wanted to run off with the pirates! Some angel you are! I scolded myself.

After my sleep, I felt totally connected to the higher angelic realms. For once in my life, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I pictured myself walking down the corridor and knocking on Brice’s door. I pictured him appearing in the doorway with a wondering expression.

The true Brice was getting closer to the surface. I’d seen it in his eyes yesterday. If I went while I was zinging with angelic energy, I wouldn’t have to worry about finding words. He’d look into my face and it would be like a light switching on. This bizarre illusion would vanish like a mirage and Brice would remember who and what he really was.

I knelt on our bed and peeped through the slatted window at the alley below. A drunken pirate sprawled face-down in the dirt. I couldn’t see his face but I didn’t think he was one of Mariah’s. Chickens were carefully pecking around him. They probably saw this kind of thing all the time.

Do it Mel, I told myself.

I tiptoed out of our room in my petticoat and bare feet.

The door to Brice’s room was wide open. A slave-girl was sweeping the floor, raising clouds of dust. Sunshine streamed through the window slats making the tiny dust specks dance in the light.

“Where’s Mr Bexford?” I asked in dismay.

She shrugged. “Massa gone long time.”

And suddenly I knew. Brice had left while we were still sleeping. He’d run off with Mariah Darcy to find Coyaba, City of the Gods.

Chapter Seven

Lola sat on the edge of the bed clutching her raggedy bag full of smelly poisonous plants. She was shivering. She just went on sitting there shivering and staring emptily into space. After a while the bag slipped to the floor but she didn’t seem to notice.

Two tiny lizards, no bigger than children’s hairgrips, unglued themselves from the walls and skittered over to look at her. Then they turned their bulging little eyes on me, almost like they were waiting for me to do something. But I just stood in the middle of the room, feeling completely useless.

What can you say to a runaway slave-girl when the one white person she trusted abandons her without a word?

I was sick with disappointment myself. I had put myself through the wringer to help Brice. Well, that jerk had just thrown away his last chance. And let’s face it, he had had the MOST last chances.

No more sympathy for you, mister, I thought grimly. You have blown it, totally.

Though getting mad with Brice was quite therapeutic, it didn’t actually solve anything unfortunately. In addition to her cosmic amnesia, my soul-mate was now utterly traumatised. To cap it all, we were stranded in Port Royal with absolutely no cash.

You’re out of your depth with this one, Melanie, I thought miserably. Michael offers to send in a SWAT team, but oh no. You have to know best.

The teeny lizards had skittered up one of the mildewed bed curtains. They clung there side by side, watching me and Lola with their beady bright eyes.

I was so upset, I think I went a bit mad. I started talking to the lizards in my head.

“Got any ideas?” I asked them miserably. “I’m not proud, you know. All suggestions gratefully received, believe me.”

An ugly little bug flew past. Lizard Number One shot out its tongue and - bosh! - the bug was gone. Lizard Number Two went pattering down the curtain and across the floor. I thought it was hunting for an ugly bug of its own, but it kept pattering along until it reached my clothes. I’d dropped them in a heap the night before.

The lizard zoomed up the heap until it reached the top where it suddenly froze. You could almost hear it saying, “Ta-da!”

When I saw what the lizard was standing on, I almost screamed. Can you believe I’d forgotten that little seventeenth century coin purse?! A purse FULL of jewellery, if you remember!

Everything’s going to be OK! I thought deliriously.

Don’t get me wrong. Jewels wouldn’t mend Lola’s broken heart. It wasn’t the jewels that were making me so excited.

It was the reminder that I wasn’t completely alone. I’d forgotten that really crucial heavenly messages always, always get through - via a lizard if necessary!

Of course, now that I’d remembered I was an angel, I was able to see my situation in a different way.

I felt a rush of shame as I realised I’d been doing exactly what angels are not supposed to do. I had judged Brice without knowing the facts.

The fact is, you DON’T know what happened last night, I reminded myself. OK, it looks like Brice has gone back to his bad old ways. It also looks like Lola and I aren’t friends. And that’s SO not true.

At that moment my friend looked up. “What mi do?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Mi cyan go back to Fruitful Vale. Mi cyan stay in dis wicked place. What mi do?”

I couldn’t believe it. My friend was talking to me! She had actually asked for my help.

I didn’t care that she didn’t know who I was. I was much too grateful. Don’t blow this Melanie, I told myself shakily.

It was the breakthrough I’d been hoping and longing for.

I daringly sat down beside my shivering, traumatised friend. “It’s going to be all right,” I told her softly. “If Beau Bexford went off without you, there’s probably a good reason. Probably he thought it would be too dangerous.”

Lola stared at me as if I’d started talking in Martian. “Too dangerous for me? Too dangerous for ME, a slave!” Then she completely exploded.

“Nuttin safe for slaves, NUTTIN!” Her face was quivering with rage and distress.

I was scared I was going to cry. Lola and I were only inches apart, yet there was this howling chasm between us. I wanted to make all her pain and suffering go away, but I didn’t know how.

I groped blindly for words. “I know I don’t understand what it’s like to be a sla—”

Lola covered her face with her hands. I could hear gasping sounds.

The tiny soul-mate lizards were back on the wall, looking like they’d never moved. I got the feeling they were still watching. In a funny way those little lizards gave me courage.

I reached out to touch my friend, lost my nerve and pulled back. Tears spilled down my face.

“I’ll never understand, will I?” I wept. “Oh, but Lola, I do want to.”

My martial arts teacher says sometimes the hardest thing in the Universe is just to stay still. He says when we stop trying to fix everything and just stay still, we create a space for miracles to happen.

Well, that morning at Diego’s, when Lola finally decided to trust me, I stayed still. Sometimes I wanted to run out of the room in pure horror at the things she was telling me. But I didn’t. I didn’t try to comfort her or make her feel better. I didn’t try to make it into my story by nervously interrupting to explain that all white people weren’t monsters. I just sat totally still and listened and it was the hardest thing I have ever, ever done.

Lola wasn’t really a slave, but the things she was telling me about slaves’ lives were really true. And so I listened, not just with my ears, but with my whole hurting angel heart.

There was one time, though, when I wasn’t able to keep quiet.

In a wistful voice, Lola was telling me how different Young Massa was to his uncle. Young Massa treated her with respect, not like pervy old Josiah, blatantly paying visits to the slave-women’s huts at night.

“Ever see dem yella-skin pickney runnin’ round di plantation?” my friend asked abruptly. “Bright Eyes and dem?”

I figured “yella-skin pickney” meant “light-skinned children” and quickly nodded.

Lola gave me a meaningful look.

I was horrified. “You’re not serious! Bright Eyes is old Master Bexford’s little girl?”

“An’ Jewel an’ Precious.” Lola gave a bleak little shrug. “Precious gone now. Ole Massa sell her las’ month.”

I had to wrap my arms around myself so as not to feel the sudden ache inside. I thought of a slave mother choosing the most beautiful names she knew. I thought of her having to stand by helplessly as her master sold their little daughter like you’d sell a puppy. And I understood why Brice thought he had to buy the guns and ammunition.

When Lola finally stopped talking, it wasn’t because she’d run out of stories, it was pure exhaustion.

I poured water into the bowl and washed my face. After checking carefully for lizards, I started struggling into my seventeenth-century clothes.

Lola looked stricken. “You go leave me now, miss?”

I gave her a tired grin. “No way! I’m taking you to breakfast.”

It was more peaceful than you’d think in the courtyard at Diego’s. The high walls kept out most of the street noise. Only sporadic gunshots in the distance reminded me we were in pirate territory. We were sitting in the shade of an old mango tree. Sunlight filtered through star-shaped leaves sending starry patterns flitting across our faces.

It was more brunch than breakfast as it was past midday, but we seemed to be the only guests up and about. We didn’t talk much. I think we both felt like limp rags. When we’d finished our roast breadfruit and ackee and saltfish, the girl came to see if we wanted anything else.

I had a sudden longing for something sweet. “I don’t suppose you have hot chocolate?” I asked impulsively.

The hot chocolate at Diego’s was so thick you practically had to eat it with a spoon. It smelled of nutmeg and cinnamon and something I couldn’t place.

I kept catching Lola looking at me with a baffled expression. It was the same way she’d looked at me that day we first met in Heaven. Like she was thinking, who IS this girl?

I cleared my throat. “Remember that place I told you about? We drink hot chocolate there all the time.”

She gave me a wan smile. “Dey have streets pave wid gold in dat place too? Girl-chile, you always talkin’ wild!”

“We’re friends there,” I insisted. “And no one thinks it’s strange.”

My friend sighed. “Dat place sound nice-nice. Mi have a dream ‘bout a place like dat.”

I grabbed her hand. “Lola, I swear to you. It wasn’t a dream!”

She shook her head vehemently. “Mi wake in dat stinking lickle hut, all bruise an’ mash-up from Massa’s beating. An’ mi know dat other place not real.”

I didn’t ask Lola any more about her dream of Heaven. It was too painful for both of us.

And even if I could get a message back to the Agency, going back home was out of the question. We couldn’t leave without Brice.

My friend and I sat at our table under the mango tree for a long time. Neither of us spoke, but it wasn’t unfriendly.

And as we sat there, a daring plan formed in my mind.

I took a breath. “Last night, when they put that map on the table, I managed to get a look.”

Lola sat up straight. “You know where dem go?”

“Not exactly. But that city isn’t in the jungle, like people thought. It’s in the middle of something called the Black Morass. No, sorry, the Black River Morass. Whatever a ‘morass’ is,” I added sheepishly.

Lola shook her head. “Morass a bad ting. You get suck under di mud. Lungs jus’ full up an’—” She made a graphic choking noise, rolling her eyes up into her head. “You dead.”

“I thought it might mean that,” I sighed. “Well, that’s where the city is, so there you go.”

Lola gasped. “Miss, bad duppy live in dat city!!”

“This entire island is full of bad duppy. Jamaica is practically built on dead people’s bones! But we need to find Bri— erm, Beau Bexford, before something terrible happens.”

My friend started to protest.

“Listen, Lola,” I said firmly, “as I see it, you’ve got three choices. Go back to Fruitful Vale and be beaten to death. Stay in Port Royal and wind up entertaining pervy pirates for a living. Euw!” I pulled a disgusted face. “Or, groovy Option Three, to join forces with the weird white girl, and set off to find your boy Beau, and see what happens next.”

After a while Lola looked up, her eyes dark with worry. “You tink Massa in danger?”

I nodded, pressing my hand against my chest. “I can feel it.”

Lola nodded. “Mi feel it too.” She leaned closer. “Las’ night mi hear dat pirate girl tell Massa dey sail round di coast to a place where hill country start.”

“Ooh, Lola!” I teased. “I thought you were asleep!”

She gave a sly giggle. “Hear more tings dat way.”

“Can you remember what the place was called?”

Lola shook her head ruefully. “It drop outa mi head.”

I had a sudden flash of inspiration. Angels have brilliant photographic memories, plus Mr Allbright makes us play angelic observation games all the time. True, I’d never had to do this exercise under pressure, but if I could at least remember the name of this place, we’d have a helpful landmark for the starting point of our journey.

I shut my eyes, trying to recreate the bloodstained map fragments in my mind’s eye. It worked. I could see the coastline with total clarity. Unfortunately I had no idea which landmark was the crucial one. I was on the verge of panicking when, for absolutely no reason, song lyrics floated up from the bottom of my mind. A song Lola had once put on tape for me, for when I needed a boost: Sisters are Doing it for Themselves. I mentally scanned along the Jamaican coastline, and there it was!

“Three Sisters,” I said abruptly. “Three Sisters Cave.”

Lola clapped. “Dat di one!”

Lola and I went back to our room. We couldn’t exactly tell anyone the real reason we needed to go to Three Sisters Cave, so we cooked up a story about how my childhood sweetheart was waiting for me on the beach nearby. I know it sounds a bit dodgy, but people married really young in those days.

It took ages to make the wording of my tale of True Love seem convincingly natural, but finally we were ready to check out.

Before we went back out into the real world, I wanted to make something totally clear.

“Everyone out there will assume you’re my slave,” I said.

Lola quickly lowered her eyes. “Yes, miss.”

“Stuff ‘yes miss’!” I said fiercely. ‘“Yes miss’, is banned for ever. My point is, you and I know different. From now on we’re partners.” Lola opened her mouth.

“Partners,” I repeated firmly. I gave one last glance around our room. “Don’t you want your herbs?” I said in surprise.

Lola had left her withered collection of poisonous plants on the bed.

She just shook her head.

I gave a nervous laugh. “Does that mean you’ve stopped wanting to poison me?”

My friend shook her head again. “Mi nah poison you, girl-chile.”

I was genuinely touched. “Really?”

Lola’s eyes glinted. “Where we goin’, dey got alligators!”

We went down to the docks and asked around for a boat to take us to Three Sisters Cave. Every person we spoke to looked blank and passed us on to someone else. Off we’d trudge to another sleazy waterfront location and I’d tell our story again.

It got really boring hearing myself repeat the exact same thing over and over. After a while, Lola and I started adding colourful touches.

My sweetheart and I were to be married as soon as he got his inheritance. Meanwhile my evil uncle was in hot pursuit. My wicked uncle had wanted to marry me off to his pervy best friend, but I was determined to marry my true love.

At last someone directed us to a boat called the Susannah. When we got there the Susannah turned out to be a full-sized sailing ship. Dirty and dilapidated, but way too grand for what we had in mind.

I was going to say we’d try somewhere else, when a sharp-eyed deckhand came dashing down the gangplank. “You the young mistress wants to hire a boat?”

Wow, news travels fast in Port Royal, I thought. The deckhand had obviously been told to look out for us! A minute later we were on board, talking to the captain!

I have to say Captain Plum didn’t exactly fit my picture of a sea captain. He was quite old and his clothes were greasy and grimy. There were icky bits of food in his beard and his eyes were red-rimmed from too much rum. As I told my story he made sympathetic noises in all the right places. When I’d finished, he shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what this world was coming to.

“I can pay,” I said quickly. “My uncle didn’t take all my jewellery.”

The captain looked thoughtful. “We’re bound for Hispaniola on the next tide. We shall be sailing past the very landmark where your young man is waiting.”

I felt a prickle of excitement. “That’s fantastic! Does that mean you’ll take us!”

Captain Plum put his head on one side like a wise old bird. “Did I hear you say you had a little jewellery, young mistress? I’d gladly take you for free, but I’m not getting any younger and times are hard.”

I kept back a sweet little bracelet for emergencies, and poured the rest into the captain’s hands. This was such a cool way of doing business! Way more romantic than cash or credit cards.

It seemed like we’d only just found the Susannah in time. Bare minutes later, her rusty old anchor was hauled up dripping on to the deck. Her sails filled with a rush of wind and, with mighty creaks and groans, the battered old sailing vessel eased away from the waterfront.

As we sailed away from Port Royal, I couldn’t stop smiling. You’re nuts, I told myself. There is absolutely nothing to smile about. May I just remind you that we don’t actually have a map!

Could two angels find their way through the Black River Morass without a map? I had no idea. Could we track Brice down before he helped to plunder a sacred city and blew his final last chance of having a career as an angel? I didn’t know that either. All I knew was that my friend and I were a team again. We had made a plan and we had followed it through. Now we were on a seventeenth-century sailing ship watching pelicans fly home to their nests, or wherever pelicans sleep at nights. I was SO happy I started humming our Sisters theme tune. This is what Mariah means about being free, I thought. Life is so-o much more fun if you just go for it!

Lola and I watched the whole sunset from beginning to end, until the sun vanished into the sea in a final fabulous blaze of colour.

The ship sailed on through a deep blue dusk. I could see glittery trails of phosphorescence on the water. I became vaguely aware that the sweet greenhousey smells of Jamaica were fading. There were just smells of rope and tar and sea salt. Instead of hugging the Jamaican coastline, the Susannah was heading out to sea.

Lola looked bewildered. “What happen?”

“It’s fine,” I told her cheerfully. “The sailors are just trying to avoid rocks or something. They’ll correct their course in a few minutes.”

I heard stealthy creaking sounds. A man with a knife between his teeth swung himself up on deck, landing as softly as a cat.

Before we could raise the alarm, a dozen or so hard-faced men came swarming over the side. At the same moment, a galleon flying a sinister black flag loomed out of the dusk.

The Susannah been captured by pirates!

Chapter Eight

The Susannah’s crew stood sullenly by as the pirates swept through the ship in a whirlwind of activity, tearing open hatches, taking trunks, crates and boxes.

They jemmied open one of the boxes and I was astonished to see precious metals glittering inside. Apparently Captain Plum was some kind of smuggler. But when they found the guns and barrels of gunpowder, I was genuinely shocked. Was there anyone who wasn’t a pirate in Jamaica?

A young black buccaneer was supervising the pillaging, setting up a chain gang to pass the loot up from below, doing his best to make sure that his men didn’t miss anything crucial. He had his hair tightly braided into hundreds of gleaming plaits and he wore a rich crimson waistcoat over a baggy white shirt. The sleeves glimmered in the Caribbean dusk. I have to say he was v. good-looking; well, if you go for gangster types.

I heard him talking angrily to Captain Plum at one point, but I was too confused and scared to take it in. The Susannah’s captain wasn’t exactly the friendly character I’d thought.

All the pirates carried knives or evil-looking cutlasses, except the pirate chief - he had a sword with a jewel-encrusted hilt. For backup, he had two pairs of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling over his shoulders.

He only spoke when necessary and I never saw him actually hurt anyone. Yet each time he came close, I instinctively backed away. He gave off this totally electric vibe, the vibe of someone with absolutely nothing to lose.

The pirates brought their ship, the Santa Rosa alongside the Susannah and two of her crew wedged a plank between the decks.

Lola and I watched in amazement as the pirates performed a reckless trapeze act, ferrying huge trunks and crates across this madly wobbling bridge as if they were just popping next door.

When the last boxes had been taken on to his ship, the pirate chief gestured to me and Lola. “Now make haste, pretty ladies.”

I looked helplessly at Captain Plum. Surely he wouldn’t allow us to be abducted by dangerous buccaneers?

To my dismay he just exploded. “Do what he says, wench! And take the slave-girl with you!”

Seconds later I was inching across the plank, trying not to look down. I could hear Lola’s scared breathing behind me and the swoosh and slap of waves far below. I told myself it was a good thing it was dark. I’d never know if those were actual sharks circling below or purely imaginary ones.

The minute we tottered on to the deck, the Santa Rosa’s pirates surrounded us like hungry hyenas.

Of all the times for Mr Allbright’s words to come back to me. Pirates were not sweet, Melanie… They were calculating, cold-blooded murderers…

I felt as if my known universe had turned upside down. I couldn’t imagine why they’d kidnapped us. Did we look like people who have gold and jewels stashed away? A deeply unpleasant thought crept into my mind. I hope it’s not because we’re girls, I thought nervously, and they want to—

Suddenly I was gabbling at top speed. “I think there’s been a mistake. We aren’t rich. All I’ve got left is—”

I groped wildly for my purse, but there was just a severed cord hanging from my waist. A tousle-haired pirate cabin boy cheekily waved my purse from a nearby ladder. He pulled out the bracelet and bit it to test the gold.

“We are not common thieves!” The pirate captain yanked the boy off the ladder, cuffed him round the ear and returned my bracelet with a bow.

“Leo hasn’t been with us long. He gets carried away,” he explained apologetically. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Rufus Valentine, captain of the Santa Rosa.” He chuckled. “At least I am now!”

I looked at the rough-looking men in earrings and bandannas, and at the stacked boxes and barrels they’d taken from the Susannah. Then I stared up at the ominous black flag flapping in the evening breeze. Even the ship had been stolen by all accounts.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but you look like thieves to me.

Captain Valentine gave another low chuckle. “We’re thieves, little mistress! Just not common thieves.”

“Oh, right, my favourite kind,” I said sarcastically. “I suppose you steal from the rich and give to the poor?”

His smile faded. “I am not so noble as your Robin of the Woods. But villains who prey on helpless females deserve to be taught a lesson.”

I felt like I was missing something. “I’m sorry?”

“I am afraid you were too open about your personal affairs. Every water rat in Port Royal has heard that your fiance is to come into a large inheritance. The captain of the Susannah was going to keep you hostage and demand a ransom for your return.”

I stared at him. “You’re telling me you rescued us?”

He gave another deep bow. “I was honoured to be of service.”

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so stupid. Our story had rebounded in the worst way.

“But in the future it would be wise to be a little more discreet,” Captain Valentine suggested.

I could feel my face burning but I knew I’d better come clean. “Um, actually, there is no inheritance. We made that up. There’s no fiance, either.”

The pirate raised an eyebrow. “Then why did you charter the Susannah?”

“It’s kind of personal,” I told him.

“It must be something important,” the pirate said softly, “for you to put yourself and your slave in such danger.”

“It is important,” I said. “And Lola’s not my slave. Look, everything isn’t always about money, OK? There is NO fiance and there is NO inheritance. If you rescued us to do Captain Plum out of the ransom, you’re out of luck. That bracelet your little sonny boy pinched just now, is all we have left in the world.”

The pirate looked astonished. “Mistress, did you think—”

“You know what?” I interrupted angrily, “Columbus should have stayed at home to raise pigs and done everyone a favour!”

“Pigs?” he echoed in a bewildered voice.

“Everything’s been galloping downhill since he came to the Caribbean. Everyone wants a piece of whatever is going and no one cares who they hurt to get it. Well I’ve HAD it with the New World. I’ve had it up to here!” I folded my arms, glowering.

A stunned silence descended. The pirate ship was so hushed I could literally hear Lola’s teeth chattering. She probably thought we were going to be fed to the sharks. All the pirates were totally riveted. I think they were dying to know what would happen next.

Nothing did for several nerve-wracking moments then Captain Valentine did something I totally didn’t expect. He took off his beautiful waistcoat and draped it respectfully around my shivering friend’s shoulders. “The night air is cool, little sister,” he told her, “and your dress is thin. I suggest we go below.”

He gave me a cool smile: “I do not want your ransom, mistress. You and your friend are my guests. My crew and I are humbly at your service.”

I followed the captain in a daze. A pirate who rescued females in distress? Was Captain Valentine for real?

But when I saw the captain’s private quarters, my jaw absolutely dropped. It was gorgeous! Everywhere you looked there was something beautiful, an exotic rug, a silk hanging, a painting. Shelves were crammed with leather-bound books, several written in foreign languages. They weren’t just for show. He had what looked like a poetry book lying open on his desk.

“Please,” he said. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

Lola and I seated ourselves self-consciously on a wooden settle.

“You are now under my protection,” he said gravely. “I give you my word that you will come to no harm. In fact, I would very much like to help you.”

Some people would say a pirate’s word wasn’t worth much. On the other hand, did we have a choice? Exactly.

So I took a major risk. I told Rufus Valentine everything that had happened, carefully leaving out references to angels or amnesia. I’m afraid I totally got on my soapbox when I described the treatment of the slaves on my uncle’s plantation. And after that Lola started shyly chipping in. She’d obviously decided to trust the pirate chief too, and this Lola was not the trusting type, as you know.

It felt almost like old times with both of us talking at once and setting each other straight. I could see this really amused him.

We told Captain Valentine about hot-headed Beau Bexford and his outrageous scheme to free the Fruitful Vale slaves. And we described how Bermuda Jack had sold my cousin part of a map showing the whereabouts of an ancient Taino city. “It’s SO bizarre,” I said. “Beau is incredibly respectful of Taino culture, yet he seems to think it’s cool to rip off their gold just so long as it’s in a good cause.” I gave Lola a stern look. “And before you say anything, I KNOW it’s dead people’s gold, OK? But it just doesn’t seem right.”

We told the captain how the three of us left Fruitful Vale at dead of night and rode off to Port Royal to find the mysterious owner of the map’s other half.

The captain shook his head at me. “You clearly have a relish for danger, little mistress,” he said, with a straight face. “I had no idea I was rescuing an adventuress.”

“The most dangerous thing on the journey was Lola,” I giggled. “She wanted to poison me.”

Lola made her eyes wide and innocent. “Mi never poison you. Mi jus’ pick mi lickle herbs and look at you, like dis!” She shot me an evil look under her brows then creased up laughing.

The pirate looked uneasy when I mentioned Mariah Darcy, but he listened attentively until I had finished. Then he got up to pace. “So Mistress Mariah is mixed up in this.”

“You know her!” Maybe all the major pirates knew each other?

“I knew her at one time,” he said grimly. “But I did not like the company she keeps.” He sighed. “I am afraid your cousin will not find his gold. I have heard of this city and it is precious, but for reasons Mistress Darcy and her kind will never understand.”

“Oh, she isn’t interested in the gold!” I said eagerly. “Mariah said if they found gold, he could keep it to save the…”

The captain and Lola were staring at me as if I was bonkers.

“She was lying, wasn’t she?” I said in a small voice.

“When Mariah wants something badly, she can make you believe that ashes are really stardust.” H thoughtfully twiddled one of his braids. “I suppose you didn’t get a look at that map?”

“We think the city is hidden in something called the Black River Morass,” I said. “And we’re fairly sure Mariah was heading for a landing place near Three Sisters Cave.”

“I know it. I’ll take you there at first light. It will take at least two days to reach the Morass, going through Cockpit Country.”

“Isn’t that where rebel slaves hide out?” I asked.

Captain Valentine looked evasive. “So they say. But I have heard strange stories about those hills. People say that when the soldiers come with muskets and hunting dogs, things happen which cannot be explained. Out of nowhere, the mist comes down and the men find themselves walking in circles. They stumble into bogs or fall into ravines. Their dogs mysteriously go missing. Yet a slave can hide in those hills for weeks and months and never be found. So I have heard.”

My arms had come out in goose-bumps. “You make it sound like the country is alive,” I told him. “Like it’s deliberately taking the slaves under its protection.”

“It feels like that sometimes.” The pirate’s voice sounded dreamy and far away. Then his mood changed abruptly. “But you young ladies are under my protection. Tonight I shall draw you a map of the safest route through the hills.”

I suddenly understood something about Captain Valentine, and I was shocked to the core.

“You were there!” I said. “You were hiding, while the soldiers blundered around in the mist. You were a runaway slave.”

Lola gave me a look and I saw that she had known all along. I had done that ugly European thing again, talking about things I couldn’t begin to understand.

I started to apologise, but the pirate was already speaking.

“Yes, I was a slave,” he said quietly. “I belonged to a white man by the name of George Wainwright Valentine. When I was six years old I saw George Valentine beat a young man to death for daring to look him in the eyes. I vowed then that I would run away as soon as I was grown.”

“Omigosh, how can you bear to use that man’s name?” I said in horror. “You aren’t a slave any more. You should choose a completely new name!”

To my amazement he smiled and shook his head. “‘Valentine’ is my name now. I have earned it.. I have worn it like a second-hand boot, stretching and working at it over the years, until it stopped pinching and became mine. I never knew my true name or my true parents. I don’t even know which African language they spoke. The very words I use, I borrow from books written by white men.”

When I first saw Rufus Valentine I felt scared of him because I guessed he was a man with nothing to lose. I hadn’t realised that he’d already lost everything before he was even born.

He seemed to know what I was thinking. “Yes, little mistress,” he said softly. “The world can be harsh. Yet still, it is good to be alive!”

We slept in a spare cabin on silk sheets which Captain Valentine insisted had belonged to a Spanish Infanta.

The tousle-haired cabin boy woke us at sunrise. “The captain says to bring you these,” he grinned.

He had brought us a bundle of old but perfectly clean clothes; stripy cotton tops, pirate bandannas to protect our heads from the sun, and breeches drastically faded by salt and sun.

Yay! I can finally ditch that corset, I thought gratefully.

To my surprise, Lola chose the blue top and bandanna, so obviously I took the red. I didn’t say anything but I couldn’t help being puzzled. Lola’s slave clothes were blue. You’d think she’d be desperate for a change. But it was like she felt safer sticking to something she knew.

We creased up laughing when we saw each other in our pirate gear. But I felt a happy little buzz. In our matching clothes, we finally looked like equals. We looked as if we could actually be friends.

We went to say our goodbyes to Captain Valentine who seemed genuinely sorry to see us go. “I advise you to get out of sight as soon as you reach dry land,” he warned us. ” The militia watch this part of the coast like hawks, and the Santa Rosa is a Spanish vessel. If they see you in those clothes they will shoot first and ask questions afterwards.”

He raised my fingers to his lips. “Farewell, little mistress.”

OK, it was just a charming gesture, plus he kissed Lola’s hand immediately afterwards, but ooh la la! Say what you like about this mission, I thought, but we are certainly seeing life!

We clambered down a rope ladder to a waiting dinghy. As we pulled away from the Santa Rosa, I waved shyly to Captain Valentine.

Our pirate boatman spoke practically no English. He rowed us as close as he could get without running aground, then solemnly handed us two small bundles that obviously contained food.

I wondered what Mr Allbright would think if he knew we had met yet another pirate with a heart. Handsome Captain Valentine had been for real after all. He had even drawn us a map to help us reach the Black River Morass.

We splashed ashore, quickly scrambling up the rocks and out of sight, in case the English militia were watching from some secret outpost.

The first part of our journey took us through rocky hills where nothing grew but scrub and cactus. The barren landscape gradually gave way to coconut palms and rippling fields of blue-green sugar cane.

At midday we stopped to rest in the shade of a palm tree, and ate some of our pirate provisions. The ship’s cook had packed tiny hard-boiled eggs and strips of dried meat and a type of flat bread which Lola said was made from cassava root.

When we’d finished lunch, we wandered around, gathering wild fruits and berries. Lola handed me a fruit she called “sweet sop”. It didn’t look that special from the outside but it was gorgeous. You broke open the shell and there was this delicious natural custard inside. I caught Lola watching me as I slurped at this unexpected treat. “What?” I said.

My friend’s eyes were dreamy and unfocused, almost as if she was seeing through me to someone or somewhere else. “Just tinkin’ ‘bout dat dream city you talk ‘bout,” she said softly.

I got a tingly feeling inside. Lola’s memory was coming back, I was sure of it. But I didn’t want to push her before she was ready, so I just joked, “Oh, that’s all right. I thought I was dribbling juice down my chin.”

That afternoon we kept up a cracking pace, despite the heat. By sunset we’d reached the foot of some really peculiar-looking hills, kind of like upside-down puddings with hollowed-out depressions in between.

I saw Lola’s face light up. “See dem lickle valleys. Dey look jus’ like cockfightin’ pits! Mus’ be why dey call dis Cockpit Country, eh?”

I’d never seen cocks fighting, but it had to be gruesome. I suppressed a shiver. “You could be right.”

“Ole Massa Bexford jus’ love cockfightin’,” Lola remembered. “A whole heap a dem white massas come over and dey make di poor birds fight-fight till one dead. Mi watch one time, but it make mi spit up everyting in mi belly.”

But as we stood there, mopping sweat from our faces and gazing at the amazing view, all the cruel goings-on at Fruitful Vale seemed like a bad dream.

“Slaves call dis place nutha name some time,” my friend said, almost whispering the words. “Dem call it di Land of Look Behin’.”

“The Land of Look Behind,” I repeated. It sounded like a place in a story.

I felt so proud of us at that moment. Lola and I had been abandoned in a violent city without money, or even a map. We’d been tricked by pirates and captured by a totally different set of pirates. Yet here we were in the foothills of the Land of Look Behind, in hot pursuit of our angel buddy.

It was going to be dark soon, so we found a guango tree with spreading umbrella-type branches, and made a rough kind of camp. We piled up dry leaves for a mattress (first checking for snakes!). Lola lit a fire and we shared our pirate rations.

In a movie, this would be the scene where the two angel girls end up having a meaningful talk in the firelight, shed some tears and finally iron out all their misunderstandings.

In a movie, though, they’d leave out the mosquitoes. I doubt even Albert Einstein could have had a meaningful conversation with vicious bloodsucking insects attacking exposed bits of his anatomy. Actually, I have this theory. I think mosquitoes adore angels! I think we’re like this amazing cosmic delicacy, that they totally can’t have too much of. Lola and I did try to talk, but we kept interrupting each other with frantic slapping sounds.

I started to think we’d be swatting mozzies until daybreak. But when you’ve been walking in the open air from dawn till dusk, pure exhaustion takes over.

Lola and I gradually slid down the tree trunk until we were lying on our backs under our guango-tree umbrella. The whine of mosquitoes began to mix itself into an atmospheric soundtrack, along with chirping crickets, tree frogs and soothing rippling sounds from a nearby stream. I could see showers of tiny stars dancing in the dark. This is so cool, Melanie, you’re finally seeing fireflies, I thought drowsily. Like humming birds, fireflies were on my list of Jamaican must-sees. I wanted to stay awake watching the tiny magic dancing lights, but my eyelids kept closing.

I wondered where Brice was and if he was watching fireflies with Mariah Darcy. It was so weird the way he’d left us behind in Port Royal; weird and deeply worrying. I tried not to think the worst, but I had a horrible suspicion that our night with the pirates had brought out our buddy’s dark side.

Look at the effect they had on you, I reminded myself. And you’re a complete wuss.

In the movie of our lives, I would have fallen fast asleep at this point and had a dream that told me exactly what was going on for Brice.

But my dreams seemed every bit as confused as waking life. Brice was standing on some crumbling stone steps in the moonlight, watching Mariah’s pirates loading fabulous Taino treasures into canoes. In my dreams he wore normal clothes and looked just like he did in real life, hands in pockets, collar up round his ears, the same lonely, complicated Brice.

“You should be happy, angel boy,” I told him. “You found the city.”

Brice shook his head. “There’s been a mistake,” he said huskily and he pointed to a huge carving of a Taino god that was towering over us like some ancient tree. The god’s carved face wore an expression of deep suffering.

“Omigosh, it’s got tears,” I said in surprise.

With that the carved tears became real, streaming down the wooden face of the god. By the time they reached the ground the god’s tears had become a torrent, thundering through the city, sweeping away temples, pirates, canoes and treasures.

I woke screaming, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” Lola was staring down at me in concern. “What happen?”

“I just had a bad dream. I’m OK, honestly.”

Lola lay down again. But after a while I felt her hand grope for mine. We slept like that, hand in hand, until morning.

Some dreams hover over you all the next day like the wings of a sinister bird. You can still see sunlight and blue sky. You go about your business as normal, yet your dream casts a shadow you totally can’t ignore.

I loved Cockpit Country. I absolutely loved those round pudding-shaped hills. I loved how lush and green everything was. The sheer variety of trees and flowers blew me away. Palm trees with silver leaves. Vivid blue morning glories. Golden black-eyed susans. One time, Lola silently pointed out a plantation of yams obviously being cultivated in one of the fertile “cockpits” between the hills. A shiver went through me to think I’d seen a secret garden tended by runaway slaves.

I especially loved the yams. They looked spookily alive, like green giants that might uproot themselves any minute and go galumphing over the hills.

But most of all I loved that Lola and I were getting reacquainted.

She still wasn’t totally my Lola, but she was excellent company all the same. She took everything in her stride. Nothing fazed her, not even when I got confused by Captain Valentine’s map. We must have wasted a good hour before we got back on track, but Lola said philosophically, “So it go!”

One time I fell in a stream and soaked myself to the skin. Lola laughed so much she almost fell in herself.

But lurking under these happy moments, like disturbing music in a film, were the dark vibes from my dream. They made things feel not quite real: like this was just a holiday from the horrors of real life.

And as you know, holidays can’t last.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we were making our way through a deep valley, knee-deep in lush green ferns and wild flowers. There was dense thicket on either side. Somewhere a bird was singing for pure joy.

I’m not sure that is a bird actually, I thought.

I heard the tiniest twig-crack. Lola froze. By then it was too late.

We were surrounded by half-naked humans brandishing spears.

Lola and I were too shocked to move. Who were these flat-faced dark-skinned people? They weren’t slaves. They weren’t like any people I’d seen in Jamaica. Yet I felt I had seen them before.

When you’re scared, random things jump out at you. I found myself focusing for no reason on their headdresses and jewellery. The elaborate collars and amulets were made from shimmery seashells, cut so cleverly they could have been precious gems. The exotic feathers braided in their hair made them seem almost childlike; the kind of magical people who might have existed when the world was simple and new.

I hadn’t seen these people because they were practically extinct. I was looking at the last survivors of the Taino.

Chapter Nine

There were seven canoes altogether, gliding through the water as silently as shadows. We shared a canoe with the chief’s grandson, a boy called Marohu, and a wiry little dog with alert pointy ears.

We were going to Coyaba, the City of the Gods, and something huge was going to happen there.

I’d asked the chief if it was a good something, or something bad, but he just shook his head. “Something hard,” he said quietly.

We paddled down silent backwaters, between steep banks lush with ferns and orangey-gold black-eyed susans. After an hour we reached a place where three rivers met and went speeding out into wide open water. I could hear tropical birds calling to each other high in the trees.

Marohu looked rigid with nerves. I couldn’t blame him. Who’d want to be in a canoe with the Angel of Death?

That was me, in case you’re wondering. The Taino chief had been expecting me. He wasn’t called a “chief” by the way. Strictly speaking he was a cacique, (it actually sounded like kaseek). That meant he was like the leader of the tribe and a holy man all rolled into one. He hadn’t been expecting me in person. He wasn’t looking out specifically for an angel-girl called Mel Beeby. I was more like a sign: She who Flew on the Wings of the Storm. The final sign their world was ending.

You know how it is, you’re trying to lighten the atmosphere, so you chat madly about anything that comes into your head. I focused on the dog, the way you do. How sweet it was, how well-behaved, its perky little ears.

Marohu gradually relaxed. He told me his dog was called Beetle. Like all Taino dogs, Beetle was barkless. “Better for hunting,” he explained shyly. “Barking dogs scare the animals.”

Lola looked baffled when I translated this conversation.

“How you can speak to dese people?” she hissed. “How dey know you?”

“I have no idea, babe,” I said truthfully. “But where we come from, we understand all the human languages.”

It probably seems like I was taking this really calmly? I didn’t have a choice. To the Taino, I was a messenger from their gods. This wasn’t a part I’d have chosen, obviously. That wasn’t the point. Mysterious cosmic forces were clearly at work and I felt I had to go with the flow. Luckily it’s hard to take yourself too seriously when your face is being licked by a rapturous Taino hunting dog.

Marohu was mortified. He kept saying he didn’t know what had got into her. Normally Beetle was as good as gold. But I knew the little dog was just overexcited by our angelic vibes.

“Is a dream, dis,” Lola murmured to herself. “Soon mi wake. Mi wake an’ hear Quashiba singin’ in she hut.”

It seemed like a dream to me too; travelling in a canoe with a boy from a tribe that was about to vanish forever.

We sped down the wide river under a green canopy of leaves, until the sun sank low in the sky. At a sign from the old cacique, the Taino lifted their canoes out of the water. The men slung hammocks between palm trees and lit a fire. One of the Taino had caught several fresh-water fish. The men gutted the fish, wrapped them in some kind of aromatic leaves, impaled them on sharp wooden skewers and baked them over the fire. Tricky to eat with fingers, and just a teensy bit too hot, but totally delicious! There was cassava cake to fill any empty spaces and coconut water to wash it down.

Afterwards the cacique asked to speak with me. He was really old; in his eighties, maybe even his nineties. His eyesight was bad, and he must have been stiff and tired after hours in a canoe, yet I could feel this amazing vibe from him. I got the strangest feeling that he knew who I was. I mean really knew. In fact, I started wondering if this wise old man might be some kind of earth angel.

He started by telling me about Coyaba, the City of the Gods. For thousands of years, he said, native people travelled there in canoes from all over the Caribbean to honour their gods.

After Columbus discovered the Caribbean, that all changed. His people were initially willing to live with white people in peace, but there were so many, the old man said; they came like locusts, and they wanted to own Xaymaca in a way the Taino didn’t understand. How could you own trees or birdsong?

The Europeans forced the Taino to work in their fields. Some actually hunted the tribes-people for sport. Many Taino died of the white man’s diseases. Others killed themselves in despair. Soon only a few were left, hiding out in the hills.

“Yet still the location of the sacred city was fiercely protected,” the cacique told me. “Each generation of Taino memorised the secret route, passing it down from generation to generation.”

I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. “It isn’t really made of gold, though, is it?” I asked awkwardly.

The old man sighed, as if I was missing the point. “Ah those mysterious golden cities!” he mocked gently. “Soon my people will vanish like bird trails in the sky, and all the gold in creation will not bring us back.”

Then I knew had to tell him. “I think someone’s betrayed you,” I said miserably. “Someone drew a map of the route. I saw it in Port Royal. A friend of mine got hold of one half. Someone called Mariah Darcy has the other.”

The cacique gave another weary sigh. “I have heard of this young woman. And what I hear worries me greatly. So much intelligence and beauty, yet inside she feels empty. Always hungering for something she can’t have.”

“That’s too harsh,” I objected. “Mariah is—”

“Your friend on the other hand,” the old man continued firmly, “is descended from a long line of rats’ arses.” (Sorry, he might not have said “rats’ arses” exactly, but it’s the closest word I can get to the Taino.)

I stared at him, open-mouthed. “You know about Brice?”

“Rats’ arses,” he repeated in a louder voice. “Yet his soul shines like moonbeams on water.”

My heart was thumping. “You think Brice is in danger, don’t you!”

The cacique’s eyes were troubled. “Evil hovers over this boy like the wings of a vulture. I ask myself, ‘Why are these dark beings going to so much trouble to destroy him? He must have made them very angry.’”

It was a warm night, but I could feel chills going up and down my spine.

“Your friend lived in utter darkness. Yet he found the strength to leave. Such souls have a rare power. They are not afraid of the world’s dark places. They shine light on them.”

I didn’t quite buy the cacique’s version of an angel loner who sat around listening to Astral Garbage CDs. I opened my mouth to tell him that at this moment his precious shining light was looting his sacred city to buy guns. But the old man’s next words sent a jolt of fear into my heart.

“That is why the Dark Forces are trying to destroy him. They are playing with him. They have been playing with you all.”

When I went back, Lola was fast asleep.

As I lay rigid in my hammock, traumatised by what I’d heard, Lola spoke to me in her sleep. “I wish I could see this place,” she whispered. “I should love to speak all the languages like you.”

My skin prickled with angel electricity. Lola had spoken in her normal voice.

We were on our way well before it was light.

We had breakfast on the move, nibbling at flat cassava bread as we went along. I gave most of mine to Beetle. I was too nervous to eat.

I wanted to ask Lola if she remembered talking to me in her sleep, but Marohu was there, plus my friend seemed tired and preoccupied.

For the first two hours the river was fast and deep-flowing. Then it divided off into an absolute maze of channels that wandered off, looping and crisscrossing the boggy flood plains, looking like some nightmarish brainteaser: Find Your Way to the Sacred City. Tortured-looking mangrove trees reared up out of the water forcing Marohu to paddle around them. We had now entered the Morass itself. When I saw how skilfully the Taino guided their canoes along the secret waterways, I realised I’d been insane to think we could ever find Coyaba on our own.

The Morass wasn’t actually black, it was slimy green and brown. After just an hour in this place, I started to feel like these were the only colours left in the world. Sludgy brown water, greenish-brown reeds, slimy sinister trees.

Since my scary talk with the cacique, I’d had the sense of being watched by something evil. Here, in this unbelievably creepy place, I felt the Dark Powers coming closer. Everything about the Morass was sinister: the steamy suffocating air, the sinister screechy birds that we never actually saw, but sounded huge. Ominous bubbling, sucking sounds came from inside the swamp. Worst of all were the writhing mangrove roots that looked like agonised body parts of people who had been buried alive, and who died struggling to get free. And over it was this all-pervading stink of rotting vegetation and marsh gas.

Suddenly there was an explosion of sound. An alligator shot out of the reeds and came speeding towards us like a torpedo. Marohu paddled us frantically out of reach.

After my heartbeat returned to normal, I still found myself seeing those cold yellow eyes. Had it truly been an alligator? Or something worse?

And then Marohu just stopped paddling and our canoe glided silently into a lake.

It was like going from darkness into light. Birds sang. A soft breeze trembled through the fronds of palm trees. And tiny white clouds reflected back in the clear, still waters of the lake.

Marohu paddled the canoe towards a towering cliff where a ledge of rock made a natural landing stage. From here you could see a flight of steps in the rock face. We helped Marohu drag the canoe out of the water, then followed the Taino up the steps.

At the top was the entrance to what looked like a large cave, but was actually the entrance to a tunnel. On either side of the entrance were enormous wooden pillars carved with images of the Taino gods.

A shiver went through me as I recognised the weeping god I had seen in my dream. I wanted to run, but I knew this wasn’t about me. I wasn’t an individual to the Taino. I was the angel of their Last Days. I was She who Flew on the Wings of the Storm.

Taking a deep breath I followed the others into the tunnel.

The cacique walked ahead of us holding up a burning torch. I saw dim, ancient paintings flickering on the smooth rock face. They looked like birds and animals. But I think they were also gods. There were more steps at the end of this tunnel. We climbed and climbed in the flickering gloom until my legs were almost giving out. Then we emerged in the sunlight and there were no words.

I saw my own wonder and astonishment reflected in Lola’s face.

She had seemed to be in a kind of trance ever since we’d joined forces with the Taino. But as we finally stood inside the City of the Gods, I felt something change. I felt her start to wake up.

Listen, I can tell you what we saw. I can tell you about the actual physical stuff we saw in the City of the Gods. I could list Taino houses, gardens and fountains. I could describe the huge open space with benches, where the Taino used to play an incomprehensible sacred game that makes absolutely no sense if you’re not Taino. I could get all poetic about the carvings encrusted with shimmering seashells. But that would be missing the point. The actual stuff - the playing field, the quaint Taino objects, their fabulous flair for working with shells - was not what made the city so magical. You couldn’t simply carry off their stuff and knock up a sacred city of your own.

Can you imagine somewhere, anywhere, on Planet Earth where you can just inhale pure peace? Where you can literally mingle with invisible gods? I felt myself tingling from the roots of my hair to the soles of my feet.

We were walking slowly towards a small shimmering Taino temple. It seemed to be constructed entirely out of delicate mother-of-pearl shells.

I thought of how the first white men who came to Jamaica used to hunt the Taino for sport, as if they were animals!

We’ve got to save this place, I thought suddenly. People have to see this. They have to know how awesome the Taino really are.

I was going to say something, but one of the Taino gestured fiercely for everyone to stay quiet.

When I saw what was happening inside that beautiful little temple, I had to bite my lip to stop myself crying out.

One of Mariah’s men was kicking angrily at the base of a shrine, scattering shimmery shell fragments with his boot. Kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind his back, was Brice, looking sick with fear, just as he had in my dream.

Mariah was watching him with a narrow-eyed expression. She had one beautiful leather boot resting on an overturned statue as she raised her pistol and deliberately aimed it at his head.

Chapter Ten

When I saw Mariah getting ready to blow my friend to pieces, I understood for the first time what was so evil about the PODS. I understood what they’d done.

The Dark Powers are playing with you.

They’d studied us like a project. The creeps had studied us and taken notes and they’d figured out all the special quirks that make us who we are; Brice’s compulsion to make waves, Lola’s awesome ability to risk everything for love, and my secret longing for adventure. They’d taken everything that was deepest and best, then they’d used them against us, planting drunken pirates and intriguing map fragments. And, like ants high on honey, we’d followed their sticky trail to Port Royal - where Mariah was waiting.

I’m not completely stupid. I did get that Mariah wasn’t like, a nice person. But because she was Cat’s granddaughter, and because she was so beautiful and kind of thrillingly dangerous, I told myself it was OK. But here in the City of the Gods I finally saw what she was; a human so empty, she was no longer quite human.

Mariah Darcy had sold her soul to the PODS.

As I stood watching her finger teasingly release the catch, I thought that Brice had never really stood a chance. When you don’t like yourself, when you don’t know who you are, when you think you’re all alone in an unfriendly universe, it leaves you open to believing all kinds of garbage. For example, that you can create a peaceful world by stealing gold to buy guns. Or that a girl pirate with a diamond tooth is the answer to your prayers.

Let’s face it, Melanie, said a despairing voice inside my head, Life is basically a vast, pointless game. Even angels are just helpless pawns…

Then I felt that familiar hot-potato feeling inside my chest. Who’s thinking this stuff? I thought. It’s certainly not me. I’m not a pawn. The hell I am! Angelic reality is SO much bigger than this.

It was like I’d been trapped inside a lonely dark bubble all by myself and POUF! It burst and I was propelled into a totally different movie.

Three Taino marksmen stepped out into the open and started efficiently firing darts. Several pirates crumpled to the ground and immediately began snoring like stunned rhinos.

It was one of those moments when Lola and I didn’t have to speak. We didn’t even glance at each other. We knew Mariah was momentarily shocked so we just ran at her, jumping the pirate girl from behind, wrestling her to the ground. I grabbed her pistol, but the vibes were so foul I dropped it in absolute revulsion.

Marohu had sliced through the ropes that bound Brice. Our buddy quickly picked up the pistol and jammed it in his belt. All three of us exchanged amazed glances. I saw baffled recognition in my friends’ faces.

Omigosh, they’re back! I thought deliriously. I rushed forward to hug them, fatally taking my eyes off Mariah.

I guess people become pirates for different reasons. I think Mariah took to piracy because when you feel that empty, not getting what you want is worse than being dead. I think, after all her scheming, Maria couldn’t stand to leave Coyaba empty-handed.

I saw her lunge at an exquisite Taino carving on the altar.

The statue of the weeping god had been much bigger in my dream, but its grieving expression was just the same.

“Mariah, don’t!” I shouted.

The statue was never meant to be moved. It was part of the altar in some way. Mariah took a lethal-looking knife out of her belt and levered frantically with the blade. The blade snapped off but the damage had been done.

The ground started vibrating. There were hideous grating and rumbling sounds and a yawning crack appeared in the temple floor. I watched, paralysed, as the two jagged halves began to move apart.

Brice didn’t hesitate. He immediately rushed forward to save her, but Mariah fell flailing into the chasm.

We all stared down in horror. A supernatural wind whipped our hair across our faces. The sky grew dark overhead.

“We must leave!” said the old cacique urgently.

We fled back along the tunnel. Groaning sounds rose from deep inside the earth. Blocks of stone came crashing down around us.

Outside, trees writhed in this sudden hurricane as if they were trying to uproot themselves. The waters of the lake seethed and churned like a cauldron.

“Come with me,” Marohu’s grandfather told us. We jumped into his canoe and he paddled us fearlessly into the storm. I was too shocked to be scared. I was too shocked to feel anything at all. I had just watched a human plunge screaming to a hideous death. I thought the sound of Mariah’s screams would echo through my head for ever.

There was a sudden thunderous roar. We turned our heads to see the cliff collapsing in agonising slow motion and disappear into the lake.

The old cacique watched as the sacred city of the Taino sank forever. His eyes were clouded with pain. I saw his lips moving. He was talking to someone. Not us. He’d forgotten we were even there. He was talking to one of his gods.

“They did not understand, O Cloudless One,” he said softly. “But one day they will feel lost without you. They will be drawn to look for you in places of wood and water. They will remember you, and understand that they must change their ways.”

There’s a feeling you get when you have to leave Planet Earth, no matter what’s going on at that moment. Like, say someone’s world has just disappeared for ever. It makes no difference. It might seem inhuman, but it’s a call that angels totally can’t ignore.

“It’s time,” I whispered to my friends. I didn’t want to disturb the distressed cacique while he was grieving privately with his god.

Brice and Lola reached unthinkingly for their angel tags. As my hand closed around the platinum disc I felt the unmistakeable buzz of angelic electricity. The broken cosmic connection had been repaired. “We’re ready,” I told whoever was on duty. A whoosh of white light lit up the lakeside.

When I opened my eyes we were surrounded by delighted heavenly personnel; communications guys, maintenance people, time technicians, all talking at once and slapping us on the back.

Our clothes were filthy. Our hair was dusty and matted. Lola and Brice were obviously traumatised. We’d been duped by the PODS. We’d watched helplessly as the sacred city of Coyaba was destroyed, but I had brought my friends safely home.

Chapter Eleven

For three days I couldn’t even visit her. That’s how ill Lola was.

It’s not good for an angel to forget who she is, not for so long. It’s not good for us to be cut off from our heavenly support systems, and wander round exposed to toxic vibes. What the PODS had done to my soul-mate had burned her deep, deep inside. I didn’t know if she’d ever get over it.

The first time I visited her, it was torture. Imagine me and Lola not knowing what to say to each other!

She lay there in her bed in the sanctuary, staring out at the garden, and it was like she was just waiting for me to go away and leave her alone.

I was hurt at first. Then I figured out why she couldn’t talk to me.

It hadn’t happened to me.

I’d never had to wake in a dark stinking hut, stiff and bruised all over from a senseless beating because I had the tiniest trace of African ancestry. I hadn’t suffered such total cosmic amnesia that I believed this was who I was: a member of a subhuman species, a being regarded with such contempt that white people asked each other, in your presence, if you even had a soul.

Like I said at the beginning, my soul-mate and I were torn apart by an evil force. Who knew it would be so hard for us to find our way back?

Michael took me out to tea at Guru and told me I had to be patient. “Give her time.”

“But we’ve been through so much together!” I said miserably. “Doesn’t she realise I’m her friend by now?”

“She doesn’t know what she knows,” he said. “She isn’t sure if she’s an angel or just a slave-girl dreaming she’s in heaven. Cosmic amnesia strikes to the absolute core of what you think you are.”

Michael went really quiet after that and there was this feeling in the air that I just can’t describe.

I was totally perplexed. Did he mean it had happened to him? Could a high being like Michael actually forget who and what he was? Did this kind of thing happen all the time then? Immortal beings getting trapped inside a PODS illusion, forgetting why they came to Earth, unable to find their way home?

I wondered if I’d ever met an amnesiac angel while I was alive. How would I even know? I’d have just assumed they were human, when all the time they were lying awake at nights, aching and aching inside, because something huge was missing but they couldn’t remember what.

Two weeks after Lola came out of hospital, she appeared in my doorway. “Hi.”

She’d been crying. She came in and curled up on a floor cushion and blew her nose. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t get any words out.

“Lola, what’s wrong?” I said anxiously.

Lola burst into tears. “I miss you. Isn’t that stupid? You’re right here in this room and I’m really, really missing you.”

My eyes filled with tears. “I miss you too.”

I didn’t know what else to say. Well, I could think of plenty, but if I blurted the wrong thing, I could set us back weeks. What should I do? I was practically wringing my hands.

I heard myself say, “Boy, right now I could really do with a couple of lizards.”

Lola just stared open-mouthed, not knowing whether to laugh, cry, or give me therapy. I saw her brush away the tears from her face. “Um, is this lizard problem something new, angel girl?” she asked cautiously, “or is it like, a shameful childhood secret you couldn’t bring yourself to share until now?”

“Actually it goes back to that morning in Diego’s,” I told her.

“Diego’s,” she repeated and she let out a little sigh. “That mission was something else wasn’t it?”

“Just a bit,” I agreed.

Lola went quiet again. I had a feeling she was picturing our shabby room at Diego’s. “You know what was so scary?” she said suddenly. “I’d forgotten what it’s like being human. I’d forgotten how lonely it feels sometimes. And when you’re a slave, omigosh Melanie! I didn’t trust anyone at Fruitful Vale, even the other slaves. But I really trusted Brice.”

I let out a giggle. “Boy, you were in big trouble.”

She gave me a sideways glance. “The weird thing was I kind of recognised you.”

I was stunned. “You did?”

“I just didn’t trust what I felt. With Brice it was kind of different. You know.” Lola went slightly pink.

“You really knew me?” I needed to make sure.

She nodded earnestly. “Somewhere inside I truly did. I just couldn’t think why the sassafras you wanted to know me. I’m so sorry, Mel, I just imagined you having all these like, dark motives.”

Lola was looking tearful again so I quickly changed the subject.

“Talking of Brice, how’s he doing these days? He hasn’t said two words to me. Just beetles off after class to work in the library or whatever.”

“How would you feel if you were him?” Lola asked softly.

Lola vigorously shook her head. “He didn’t. He got her right away.”

I stared at her. “You think?”

“I know,” she said firmly. “He knew something wasn’t right. But he did that thing Brice does. He took it all on himself.”

“Brice has to do it alone,” I agreed. “He’s the original DIY guy.”

“Poor babe. His mission didn’t quite work out like he hoped.”

While she was talking, Lola was rolling up the cuff of her jeans so I could see she was still wearing my fraying friendship bracelet.

“It got a bit faded in Jamaica,” she said in a hinting tone.

“I’ll make you a new one,” I promised her. “Just give me time.”

The day after we had that conversation, Lola and I both received official invitations to attend the Angel Academy HALO awards. I know!

“How come we got invitations?” I asked my friend in amazement. “We’ve never been invited before.”

“Maybe we’ve won an award?”

I knew she was just joking.

“Yeah right,” I said. “That really special award you get for helping to sink a sacred city.”

I felt a sudden pang for Brice. He’d tried so hard. Life can be really unfair.

The HALO ceremony was ridiculously short notice, plus we were revising for exams, so I didn’t even have time to shop for a new outfit. I had to wear the glittery grey dress I bought the first time I went shopping with Lola. My soul-mate wore a similar dress in pale gold and we put each other’s hair up.

We examined ourselves in her mirror.

“Hey we look hot, girl!” she grinned.

When we arrived, the hall was packed out with agents and trainees, all dressed up to the nines.

All around us kids were spouting advanced angel jargon. You know the types who love talking in initials? DS for Dark Studies and TTs for time technicians.

Lola fished out a pen from her bag and wrote C.W.O.T on her hand. “Complete Waste of Time,” she whispered. We both sniggered like naughty children.

Then I saw something I never thought I’d see in this universe.

I nudged Lola. “Look who’s sitting across the aisle.”

“How DID they get that boy in a suit?” she said wonderingly.

I giggled. “From the look on his face he’s wishing he was back in the Hell dimensions.”

The ceremony kicked off with the usual speeches about teamwork, yadda yadda, then people were called up to receive their awards.

It was warm in the hall, and I was tired from staying up at nights revising. I kept almost nodding off. Now and then there’d be a burst of applause and I’d jump awake guiltily and realise where I was.

Suddenly there was a huge outbreak of clapping and cheering.

I practically leapt out of my seat. “What’s happening?”

Lola was looking stunned. “We won an award!”

“Don’t be stupid,” I told her.

“I mean it. We won!”

My voice shot up an octave. “What the sassafras for?”

“I’m not actually sure. I think it was ‘Brilliant teamwork under unusual adversity’,” she said.

Everybody was craning round, wondering why we weren’t going up to get our trophies.

Mr Allbright stood up. “They’re in shock,” he told the audience.

A ripple of laughter went round the hall.

I followed Lola self-consciously to the front. My knees had totally turned to water.

Brice was waiting for us, looking like some alarming stranger in his suit. We all filed up the steps and there was Michael smiling at us.

Some strange Agency official that I’d never seen in my life made a speech about how we were the finest example of something or other he’d seen in such young trainees.

Apparently we were supposed to say something. Unfortunately, I’m totally chicken about public speaking and I completely froze. Brice just stood silently glowering at the audience. Not the most shining example of angelic teamwork, you have to admit. Lola saved the day luckily. She stepped up to the mike, beaming, looking absolutely divine in her glittery gold dress, thanking everyone for supporting us while we were going through our ordeal.

“But most of all,” she said breathlessly, “I want to thank my team-mates, Mel and Br—”

Brice turned white and bolted out of the hall.

“Better go after him,” Michael whispered in my ear.

I found him outside the building, practically in tears.

“Hey, you’re missing your big moment,” I said. “What’s up?”

Brice shook his head. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. I think I got scared.”

“Of an award ceremony! After the stuff you’ve seen?”

He wiped his eyes, trying to laugh. “It wasn’t stage fright, darling. It was more like that old Taino guy watching his city go under the water. Like my entire life was ending or something.”

“WHY? This is just the beginning. You wanted that award, that’s—”

“I know,” he said angrily. “Look, this is humiliatingly cheesy, but maybe I’m not sure I deserve it.

“Why ever not?” I said. “You didn’t know who you were but you had all these like, amazing principles. You even tried to save Mariah, when I’d have been tempted to—”

“I know, I know, OK? Spare me. So am I like, a really good boy now?” Brice peered down at his suit in a kind of horror. “Because, be honest, sweetheart. Is this really me?”

I felt like slapping him. “This is ridiculous, man! Why are you so hung up about a stupid suit?”

“Because…” Brice struggled for words. “I knew how to do twisted, OK? Twisted really worked for me. I’m not sure I can hack that other stuff.”

“I don’t see a tragedy here,” I said firmly. “I don’t even see a teeny weeny problem.”

“You don’t?”

I patted his shoulder. “Absolutely not. You can be twisted if that’s your style. You can be that twisted angel boy who goes around in a stinky Astral Garbage T-shirt. You can be that dark dangerous twisted teenage angel.”

Brice perked up. “Dangerous? Ooh, sounds promising!”

I swatted him with my sparkly clutch bag. “Come on. Let’s go and rescue poor Lola from the AWTIIs.”

He looked blank.

“Angels Who Talk In Initials!” I grinned. We started walking back.

But I could see Brice was still terrified, so I did that thing I still occasionally find myself doing, when things get heavy. That airhead thing.

“Incidentally,” I giggled. “You owe me BIG time, angel boy! Do you have ANY idea what a nightmare you put me through?”

Brice looked bewildered. “For making you enter the HALO awards?”

“No, dirtbag! For making me wear a corset!”

About the Author

Annie Dalton has been shortlisted for the Carnegie medal and won the Nottingham Children’s Book Award and the Portsmouth Children’s Book Award.The twelve Angel Academy books (previously known as Agent Angel), became an international best selling series. Annie lives overlooking a Norfolk meadow with a ruined castle, in a row of cottages that were rescued from bulldozers and lovingly rebuilt by a band of hippies.

www.anniedaltonwriter.co.uk

Also by Annie Dalton

Urban Fantasy Books

Night Maze

The Alpha Box

Naming the Dark

The Rules of Magic

Angel Academy Series

Winging it

Losing the Plot

Flying High

Calling the Shots

Fogging Over

Fighting Fit

Making Waves

Budding Star

Keeping it Real

Going for Gold

Feeling the Vibes

Living the Dream

The Afterdark Trilogy

The Afterdark Princess

The Dream Snatcher

The Midnight Museum

Swan Sister

Friday Forever

Zack Black & the Magic Dads

Ways to Trap a Yeti

Cherry Green, Story Queen

Invisible Threads co-written with Maria Dalton

World 9 stories

Ferris Fleet the Wheelchair Wizard

How to Save a Dragon

Moonbeans stories

Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Dream Cafe

Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Shining Star

Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Talent Show

Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Circus of Wishes

Credits

Cover Illustration by Maria Dalton & Louisa Mallet

Lily Highton

Alistair Johnston

Juan Casco

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

Also by Annie Dalton

Credits