Chapter One.

Kandaki was a girl often over-looked. Her deep brown eyes hid an even deeper young mind, and the gentle curves of her expressive face mirrored her soul to perfection. Still, her mother's approval was scarce at best.

The woman had a knack for picking friends and associates who hated her seventeen-year-old daughter. Perhaps, Kandaki mused, they only hated her because of lies her mother told them.

This was an easy conclusion to come to, since her mother was an avid lier. Kandaki had been a witness and puppet of her mother's lies all her life. She walked to the small open window in her bedroom, leaning her hands on the sill and looking out at the starry, November sky. A full moon hung low in the sky, seeming to beckon her. The ache in her back was beginning again, and Kandaki could feel the push of her wings against her skin.

Stepping out of her red bathrobe, she let it happen as it always had since she was five. Great wings broke painlessly and seamlessly through her skin. She stretched them greatfully, thankful to again feel the blood circulating through them. It hurt to hide them, but she did it out of necessity.

Somehow, she had always known that showing anyone could be dangerous to her. Also, she feared what people might think of her strange deformity. She didn't want to be hated by the world any more than she already was. Their hate hurt her in ways she couldn't explain.

When her mother and those like her came near, their feeling poured from them, something that felt to her like jealousy. Of course, it couldn't be jealousy they felt. What reason would they have to feel jealousy for the soft-spoken shadow of the woman who bore her? Wrapping her wings about her like a feathered cloak, she climbed, cat-like, to the outer sill and opened them wide.

Her wings caught the wind, and she sailed up into the wide blue world of the sky. Beneath her, trees and houses stretched on forever. On a hill, the lit windows of one of the larger houses told her that the family inside was still awake.

Kandaki liked the family who lived on the hill. From what she had seen of them on her nightly flights, they were loving and happy. A man, a woman, and two babies made up the happy group. Often when she passed them, the man and his wife would walk their sleepless children back and forth beside the living room window, looking out with them at the night sky.

"It's out again, Richard." Jenny said softly.

Richard Rivara sat up in bed, put an arm around his wife, and looked at the vast sweep of sky visible through the far window.

"I still don't see it, Jen," he said, kissing her softly.

"I can't believe it!" she laughed, pointing. "She's so beautiful, Richard. Maybe if you look harder?"

He smiled, cupping her face in his big hands and looking deep into the blue eyes he had come to know so well. Life with Jenny always held something new for him, some shred of mystery. The angel Jenny saw every night was one such mystery that Richard had never been able to solve. She had seen whatever it was for almost as long as richard had known her, beginning on their wedding night twelve years ago.

Richard and Jenny had grown up together. They had dated all through high school, and on prom night, Richard and Jenny had given themselves to one another whole-heartedly. The night had been magical, and Richard smiled with the sweet nastalgia of remembering. Two months later, Jenny had discovered she was pregnant. Richard, out of love for Jenny and their unborn child, had married her. It had been a beautiful ceremony with roses and candle-light in the church where Jenny's parents had wed.

She wore a dress of satin and lace. The bow in back flared out so wide she looked to be wearing wings. A garland of lilies adorned her reddish-gold hair, and the simple jewelry she wore, two thin bracelets on her left wrist and a heart-shaped locket, had belonged to her great grandmother. As newly-weds, they had been so happy. Richard had taken his pregnant bride to the sea where they spent five weeks blissfully celebrating their union as husband and wife.

Even in their seaside cottage, Jenny had seen the angel flying over them each night. She told him the angel's presence was proof of how blessed their marriage truly was, and for a fleeting time, it had been so. Their child had been born dead, and Jenny had washed the still, cold form with her tears.

Something had broken inside her that day, and from then on, his care-free, laughing Jenny was covered by another woman entirely. Richard loved the woman she had once been and though he loved the shell he held in his arms with a depth that could rival that of any sea, his heart longed for something more. He gently pushed the thought of his secret love from his mind. Kassy, so young, so alive, could never love him.

"Richard?" Jenny asked, looking up into his gray eyes. "What's troubling you?"

He abruptly pulled his thoughts to the present. "Nothing, Jen. Why do you ask?"

"You sighed, Mr. Rivara," she said, looking at him thoughtfully. "That's something you rarely do."

"I suppose, Mrs. Rivara," he said, running his hands through her hair. "I was just thinking how strange it feels to love someone so much it fills you up inside."

Jenny smiled, looking up at him through half-closed eyes. "Richard? Make love to me?”

Kassy dipped her brush into the blue paint and caressed the top of her canvas with it.

Painting the sky was no easy task, but Kassy Potter gave it everything she had. She had been painting angels for years, coppying them after the one that now hovered outside her bedroom window. She didn't know if the vision of beauty and light she saw beyond the glass was just a dream, but it always filled her with a sense of wonder she wanted to share with the whole world. She had won several art contests with her works.

No one painting was ever the exact replica of any other. Through the years, the angel in Kassy's paintings had grown from a little girl into a lovely young woman. Those who followed Kassy's work marvelled at how subtle the changes took place in her painted angels. Some believed that Kassy was, however indirectly, portraying herself and a desire for freedom symbolized by the wings. If only they knew the truth, she thought with a smile. Outside, the hovering angel smiled back. Finishing her painting, Kassy held it up that the angel outside might see it.

Sometimes, Kassy longed to join her in the scape of stars and fly forever, but there was no opening the small window. It was painted shut and had been all Kassy's life. besides there was no guarantee the angel would take her even if she could break free. Looking in at her portrait, the angel smiled. Blowing her a kiss, she turned and took off into the soft, velvet night. Kassy watched until she was out of sight.

The clock on Kassy's nightstand read eleven fifty-nine PM. She counted the seconds expectantly. In exactly thirty-three seconds, she would be seventeen. How strange, she mused, to change from one age to another so quickly.

"Happy birthday, Kassy," she said to herself when the clock changed to midnight.

She knew it would be an all right day, but nothing special. Because she had no friends, no one her own age would be the party her father had doubtlessly planned for her.

Her tutor would be there, along with a few avid collectors of her work and gallory owners. She would be expected to serve the guests a tray of appetizers, laugh, smile, and accept a few generic gifts she didn't really want. She sighed, unrolling a blank canvas. Setting it up on the second of her two easles, she began on a picture of Him. Richard Rivara with his careless black hair and arresting gray eyes had been her secret crush for as long as she could remember. Her father, wanting his daughter to find her tallent at an early age, had signed her up for piano lessons when she was eight.

Richard---Mr. Rivara, had been her teacher. She wanted to learn all she could from the man with a kind face, and so, as time wore on, her mastery of the piano grew. She learned all the classics, composed fifteen pieces of music, and learned more of Mr. Rivara's compositions by heart than she could count.

Now, sitting alone at her easle by the window, Kassy painted Richard sitting at his beloved Steinway, caressing music from the keys as he looked out from the canvas. His likeness filled the painting from bottom to top, and when she was done, she sat back to gaze at Him. The eyes of the painting seemed to follow her as she at last began cleaning her brushes and putting them away for the night. Soon it would be morning, and Kassy was tired.

Adrian Alverez was tired. Nora had asked it of him again, and as always, he had complied. He wondered why she always wanted him to make love to her when it obviously gave her no pleasure. He tried not to hate it with her, but he always did. Perhaps Nora was right and his lack of desire for her made him a bad husband. There was nights he was convinced of this, and then there were the nights like tonight when he highly doubted it. On nights like tonight, Adrian swore he wouldn't let her use him for her puppet for much longer.

Such conviction rarely stayed with him, however, because his health was frail at best, and he needed Nora to care for him. Somehow, Nora always cured his frequent bouts of sickness, and though the cure was short-lived, Adrian was always more than greatful. Just when he began to take his wife for granted and see her as less than kind, Creater would see fit to make him sick again. The sickness had begun shortly after he had married Nora, so Creater must have known what an unfit husband Adrian would be.

All through his growing up years, Adrian had been the healthiest out of all his friends. He never once missed a day of school because of sickness, and he was always an active swimmer and runner. Ah well. He wasn't as young as he used to be by any means, so perhaps a few ailments were to be expected.

He pulled back the sheets and walked to the window. Nora had left to meet her friends after taking her pleasure from him, and she would be gone until sunrise. He didn't know what they were up to, but Nora always came home happy from these gatherings. Her eyes carried a faraway look, and all through the next day, she was farely quiet, which Adrian was secretly. He silently berated himself for cherishing his wife's silence, but her voice grated on his nerves like a needle scraping repetedly against cement.

"Adrian?" Another voice caught his attention. He looked up to see Her framed in the windowsill. The winged girl was as wild and windblown as always. Stars tangled in her hair, and a curtain of it concealed her face.

"It's you!" he said, smiling.

Adrian laid a hand against the screen, and the angel kneeling on the wide windowledge did the same, laying her hand against his through the mesh. He ached to remove the screen, to let her in, but he knew those large wings would never fit through. For a long time, they stayed there, each silently holding the other's gaze. Her brown eyes held a sweet warm love that captivated him, and Adrian again felt himself falling into them. For that space in time, nothing else in the world held any importance.

He forgot about Nora until the bedroom door opened, letting the light from the hall cast a rectangle of light across the carpet. With a start, he tore his eyes from the window, hoping against hope she wouldn't see his visiter.

"You waited up for me, I see." she said with a smile.

Through the window, Adrian could see that the angel was going nowhere.

"I couldn't sleep," he said to his wife. "Did you have fun tonight?"

"I did," she replied with one of her mysterious smiles.

She walked to him, cupping his face in her hands. Molton hot pain shot through his head! Adrian paled, falling to his knees on the carpet before her as wave after wave of pain slammed into him. Was she smiling? He couldn't tell through his blurred vision, but she seemed to be. That, of course, was foolish---or was it?

"You don't look well," Nora said from above him. "I'll go make you some tea."

He watched the feet that carried his wife from their room. For a moment, Adrian hated her. He had been fine until she touched him. Why did Nora always have to make him sick, and how? How was it that she always weakened him so completely when he used to be so strong? Shakily, Adrian got to his feet. She still knelt there, looking in at him with a concern that touched his heart.

"Good night," he whispered through the screen.

"Are you okay?" the angel asked, touching the side of his face through the screen.

"I'm fine," he assured her with a weak smile. He could feel the warmth of her hand through the thin mesh, and his headache was starting to receed.

"Will you do me a favor?" she asked in that soft, musical voice of hers.

"Anything," he replied.

"Don't drink the tea."

"Don't drink the tea?" he repeated. "Why not?"

"I have a bad feeling about it." Her eyes were imploring him. "Please?"

"All right," he agreed.

"I love you, Adrian," she told him as she did every night.

"I wish I knew your name," he said whistfully.

"You do know my name," she told him. "You've always known it."

He watched her disappear into the deep blue of the sky, becoming smaller and smaller as she ascended. Nora came back with the tea, setting it on the nightstand. He thanked her with a kiss as the phone rang.

"Who could be calling at this hour?" Nora muttered. After the fifth ring, she reluctantly went to answer it. Adrian saw

his chance and dumped the tea down the bathroom sink.