Jessie showed up at the church five weeks after Sarah Young’s FAQ went viral. She was hungry, cold, and had nothing but her not-entirely-appropriate-for-England-in-November clothes. She stood in the back, mousy and quiet, as people filed in for one of the odd church services. Although she was doing her best not to take up space, someone she couldn’t quite focus on put warm cocoa in her hands, in a completely incongruous tropical souvenir glass, and as she reflexively sipped, someone else slipped a warm blanket behind her and hands guided her into a wide, comfortable chair that really hadn’t been there a few moments before.
She closed her eyes as her coldness and tiredness vanished as if they’d never been, and when they opened again, a plate was on her knees, on her no-longer damp jeans, filled with tidy little bites of this and that. Grapes. Olives. Little cubes of cheese. All things she liked, and could nibble on without making noise. She glanced around, and found a tall woman standing next to her, vaguely nun-ish in a long robe and simple knot of hair, not looking at her.
She felt, rather than heard a gentle, It’s alright, child. You can eat those during the service. No one will mind. Then the woman next to her looked down and smiled, and put a hand on her shoulder, and she knew, to her still-shaky bones, that things would be okay.
It was the first food she’d had in many hours, since she’d spent her last pocket change on a train and then continued on foot for so many miles. She ate slowly, until the ache in her stomach eased and she was able, finally, to pay attention to something else.
Someone at the front of the church was talking, in a voice that carried, about the importance of welcoming, and of accepting welcome. Jessie tried to focus on the speaker, but things were a little blurry. She pulled off her glasses, and cleaned the dried raindrops and salt residue, and then realized she was crying. Relief, really, but it still made it hard to see, and it felt, suddenly, very important to see clearly.
She put the glasses back on, but they fogged and she took them off again in frustration. I just want to see! she thought, and then she realized that not only could she see clearly once her glasses were off, but that despite her saying nothing aloud, several faces had turned to her and smiled. One person had a raised hand, which then dropped, to reveal a kindly, pale, middle-aged man looking over a pair of spectacles she was utterly, completely certain he didn’t need at all. And he winked at her.
She blushed, furiously (but no one seemed to mind) and tucked her glasses into her hoodie pocket. As she blinked more tears out of her eyes, the front of the church became easier to see. What had seemed like typical pew rows when she had come in had changed as people took their seats. The blond man who had winked at her was in a worn old wingback chair. The ginger next to him was draped oddly over a black leather chair that looked like it, in any other circumstance, would be moving very quickly. A half-dozen-ish teenagers around her own age were sitting on an overstuffed couch. Some of the adults appeared to still be sitting in pews, but the other seating had—must have—adjusted itself or been adjusted to the comfort of those sitting on it.
It’s alright if you don’t hear the entire sermon right now, child. You’ll hear what you need to. Jessie glanced up to the tall woman next to her, who nodded down at her.
I don’t know where to look or what… Jessie thought, and suddenly realized she would need to be careful about such things, because it was plain that her thoughts were not silent here.
You may think them at me. This came with a definite sense of direction and it was very clearly coming from the woman next to her.
Jessie looked back up.
You’re new, and in need, and some of your questions won’t wait. We can be quiet. I don’t have to let them hear you. I’m Michael. I am… was an archangel. The woman speaking is Shaddai. You know Her as The Almighty. There are humans here, and angels, and demons, and those who are no longer either of those, Her Stewards.
Does that make you my guardian angel? Jessie asked silently.
Michael looked amused. I suppose it does! For now. As angel-ish as I can be. Speak to Aziraphale and Crowley and the children after, and they will find you a place to land.
A flash of light caught Jessie’s gaze and she looked to see each of the named glow slightly.
Do you know? Jessie thought. Do you know why I’m here?
There was a long pause. Oh. Now I do. Oh, that is unfortunate. You’ll be safe here.
The plate was gone from Jessie’s lap, the empty glass had disappeared as well, and suddenly she felt heavy, and warm, and tired, and keeping her eyes open didn’t feel possible.
Easy, child. You may rest.
She dreamt of feathers and comfort and woke in an airy old bedroom, with evening light glimmering through leaves in shades of gold and red and shadow. The bed was narrow but pleasant, the room sparsely furnished but spacious, her body covered with a many-times-washed wholecloth quilt over a fluffy duvet. An old-fashioned wardrobe stood in the corner, and while it contained no magical lands (and she knocked on the back to check,) it did contain clothes in her size.
Further exploration revealed that one door led into a hallway, while the other led into a bath, where a hamper, a set of towels, and her favourite soap waited. Abruptly aware of just how much travel grime she could feel, she didn’t waste time.
The clothes weren’t ones she’d owned, but they were close enough, clean enough, and clearly meant for her to use. She showered and dressed quickly, feeling gratitude for the simple kindnesses bubble up in her. She looked around for her shoes, which had been worse for the wear from walking so many hours in the damp, and found dry, clean shoes which proved to fit just fine.
It was a reflex to reach for her phone and glasses on the little table next to the bed, but while a phone was there, her glasses were not, and the phone wasn’t her phone. But she could see clearly without the glasses, so she picked up the phone, reflexively touching the fingerprint sensor, and it woke, unlocked.
Her contacts were all there, and she sagged back to sit on the bed, her eyes filling with tears again.
They’d taken it from her, her own phone. They’d yelled. She’d tried to explain, tried to do the things that had been suggested, but they refused to listen.
“I’ve been called. And I need to go. You can read it too, you’ll see.”
Her mother had read, and then thrown the phone at the wall. She’d already printed out a page and she showed it to her father, and he’d gotten so loud that she’d stumbled from the house, no phone, no pass, no backpack, no handbag, just the money in her hoodie pocket, which proved enough to get get her closer to Tadfield but not all the way there.
That phone’s case had popped off. The glass had shattered. This one was whole, no decorative case, but everything that made her phone hers was inside.
She reflexively reached for her glasses again, and then thought with just a faint, ungrateful hint of annoyance, I did like having something to hide behind.
A faint laugh wasn’t quite audible but she could feel it, and under her hand appeared a pair of glasses.
Curious, she put them on. Her vision didn’t change, but her face felt less naked.
She pulled up the clean hood of her fresh hoodie over her still-damp hair, and opened the door.
The light streaming through the window at the end of the hall was a syrupy, dusty sort of pale gold, afternoon in late autumn. She could see a banister outlined in the sunlight, and followed it, to climb down the steep old stairs.
As she came around the bends of the stairway, the room opened up, a large sitting room with clusters of comfortable seating. On a divan against the back wall, she recognized Sarah Young from her picture—dark hair, pale skin, light eyes, face full of wry humour simmering under the surface. The man she was curled up against was darker, Mediterranean tanned brown skin and dark hair with kind brown eyes. Beyond the sitting area, she could see a counter and beyond that a kitchen, with a cluster of teenagers her own age sitting on stools with a plate of snacks.
She stood on the landing, and then sat, watching the room quietly. Beyond the kids were the adults Michael had pointed out to her. Their names came to her. The winking blond man she was just about certain had adjusted her vision sat at a table in the kitchen, reading, though he had no glasses at all now. Aziraphale. The other—Crowley, she remembered—was slinking around the kitchen, cooking something.
She could hear voices through an archway, like there was a much larger space beyond, with many people.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and then Michael was sitting down next to her on the stair.
When Michael spoke this time, it was aloud. “We’re in the vicarage, next door to the church where you found us.”
“I… the website said I should be here, but my parents…”
“I know. Free will is like that sometimes,” Michael said. “I’m sorry they hurt you.”
“Aren’t you an angel?” Jessie asked.
“I am,” Michael said. “But it’s still unfortunate, and I’m learning how to have sympathy for injustice without smiting people. It’s a work in progress.”
“Oi, new kid!” Crowley called from the kitchen. “Come eat.”
She felt the eyes of the room on her as she crossed the long space to the kitchen table. “Isn’t anyone else eating?” she asked.
“They did,” Aziraphale said. “We felt you wake up.”
It was very strange to have so many people suddenly seeing her after she’d felt so invisible for so long. Invisibility was safety, but very, very lonely.
The thing Crowley set in front of her looked complex and smelt divine. She didn’t know what it was, but she was so, so hungry, and she cut down through some sort of pastry crust and took a bite and still didn’t know what it was, but it was savoury and rich and well-seasoned and warmed her right down to her bones.
“What is it?” she asked.
Crowley shrugged and made a noncommittal noise. “Little of this, little of that.”
“It’s good,” she said.
He twitched slightly, and then nodded. “So, do you want me to fish your reason for being here out of your head or do you want to tell me yourself?”
She blinked up at him, swallowed, and said, “I have a choice?”
He let out a bark of a laugh. “Well, Michael got the superficial stuff, but that was kind of an emergency, right? You weren’t very verbal when you got here, not that I can blame you. I’ve gone whole centuries without talking. Overrated.”
There was a snort behind her.
“Oi, ’Ziraphale, none of that,” Crowley said, pointing a wooden spoon at him.
“Who, me?” Aziraphale asked innocently.
Jessie took another bite and Crowley turned back to her, saying, “How about I guess some things, and you can just nod. You look like you need the meal.”
She gave a little nod.
“Alright, so, I’m thinking you got the raw end of the stick in the parent lottery, hm?”
She nodded.
“You came out to them, maybe, and they didn’t like it?” Crowley did something complicated with his hands and produced a large glass of something out of thin air, with a wide straw sticking out of it.
She hesitated, and then nodded.
“You maybe showed them the FAQ, because that worked for some of your friends, hm?” Crowley pushed the glass across the counter to her, and she looked inside to find a very thick-looking chocolate milkshake.
She nodded, and then swallowed. “I thought they would have to believe it if I showed them.” She bent her head and drew the milkshake up into the straw.
“Well, when the problem is concern about religious conflicts, that works great,” Crowley said. “But some people are just mean. The truth doesn’t fix mean.”
“What should I do now?” she asked.
“There’s room here,” Michael said, standing next to her. “We can arrange for you to switch to the local school, if you like.”
“Without my parents’ say-so?” Jessie asked.
“See, now, there’s where you get a choice,” Crowley said. “You’re what, fourteen?”
She nodded.
“Were they violent?” Crowley asked.
Jessie looked down at her plate and toyed with a flake from the crust.
“Yes,” Michael said.
Jessie looked over. Michael’s face was impassive, looking at Crowley, but then the angel turned and said to Jessie, “I visited them while you were asleep, and took the memories from them. You don’t have to worry about remembering it wrong, they did those things, and it wasn’t your fault. They had all kinds of justifications.”
“Did you… Did you do anything to them?” Jessie asked.
“Did you want something done to them?” Crowley asked.
Jessie winced. “I… no. I just want to be free of them. I don’t want them to come after me. I can’t… Is there a way I can never see them again?”
“I made your leaving slip their mind,” Michael said.
“Can you make me slip their mind?” Jessie asked.
Michael looked at Crowley, who looked at Aziraphale, who said, “Make it conditional. If she wants them to remember, they can remember. As long as she doesn’t, they won’t. Acceptable, Jessie?”
She blinked. “Just like that?”
Aziraphale laughed. “You wouldn’t know, but I moved into Soho 200 years ago. You aren’t the first child to run in my direction for this reason.”
“It would be like not having parents?” Jessie asked.
“Oh,” Aziraphale said, “At your age, that would be rather alarming, no? I think it will be like having a half-dozen or so adults looking out for you, and an entire community helping you out.”
“I’d live here?” she asked.
“Well,” Crowley said, “there’s some choice to be had. The manor has room. We could—” he snapped his fingers “—make some more room at the Youngs or with Anathema. The Vicarage has plenty of space.”
“How many people live here?” she asked.
“Oh,” said Sarah, looking up. “That varies day-to-day. People come, stay, move somewhere else in town, get what they need, leave or don’t.”
Jessie looked up at Michael. “Where do you live?”
Michael blinked down at Jessie. “I—my needs are not really analogous to human needs, so I do not require a place to reside.”
“Now, Michael,” came a mellifluous voice. A hand appeared on Michael’s shoulder and then She was there, not quite glowing but not quite not glowing. “Michael, darling, it would be a useful learning experience, don’t you think?”
Michael sighed. “If I do this, perhaps I should…”
The Almighty gave a deliberate half blink, and something shifted.
Michael shuddered, a full-body head-to-toe quiver, and shook her head, then opened her eyes. Something was fundamentally different about her.
“Oh!” Aziraphale said. “Well!”
Jessie looked at him, baffled.
“She put on her human corporation, fully,” he said. “Did you surrender your powers?”
“No mind-reading,” Shaddai said. “No teleporting. But necessary bits remain. And there’s a safety… I’ll know if she needs them all back.”
Michael looked down. “Oh, the last time I did this, it was very different.”
“Different?” Jessie asked.
“They didn’t listen much to those in female bodies,” Michael said. “I shifted to this shape when I stopped going down amongst the humans.” She shifted her hips, and then her shoulders, “Oh, this is better. The dangly bits were annoying.”
Jessie laughed. “That’s why you’re Michael?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Michael asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Jessie said. “Does this mean…”
“I’ll take responsibility for you,” Michael said. “I know Aziraphale is the angel of all that is queer, but he’s had plenty of turns, and My Lord apparently has ideas. Also, I find that I like you, child. I’d like to help.”
Jessie felt tears trickle down her cheeks. “They didn’t like me much,” she said. “I could always feel it.”
“They,” Michael said severely, “did not like anyone. It had nothing to do with your innate likeability. Can you feel that?”
Jessie had had a similar conversation with a school counsellor, over the course of months, but in that moment, something radiated from the supernatural beings surrounding her, and for the first time, she felt, to her bones, that she was worth liking.
She nodded, and then looked at Aziraphale. “How many kids have you helped? Like me?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Aziraphale said, eyes sliding sideways.
The Almighty laughed, and the air sparked with it. “In six thousand years, he has directly influenced the lives of 400,000 people like you, though I’m using, oh, queer, is the broadest word, I believe, in your language, as my definition of ‘like you.’ Indirectly? Millions.”
Jessie’s eyes went wide. “How?”
Aziraphale put down his book, steepled his fingers together, closed his eyes turned his head upward and said, “Well, let’s see. Miraculous gender transitions in some cases. I hid a lot of people. Softened the hearts of those around them in a bunch of cases. Soho… ah, that was a joint effort.”
“I got to claim the sin for the homophobes downstairs,” Crowley said, “while shuffling them his way.”
Aziraphale sighed. “Sin, schmin. They were lonely. We gave them a place to not be lonely. Net to the good.”
“The knock-on effects were pretty significant, though some arseholes were working against us for a long time,” Crowley said.
Michael sighed. “They have a talent for bending these things out of proportion, don’t they?”
Crowley snorted. “You’re just lucky I don’t hold a grudge.”
Michael leaned over and said to Jessie, “He does, in fact, hold grudges, but he’s very bad at following through on them, and seems to have a near infinite capacity for forgiveness. It’s almost saintly.”
“Oi, you take that back!” Crowley said, and then glanced up and said, “Adonai, never mind me.”
“I never do,” She said, with a serene smile that had the combined effect of a pat on the cheek and a bottle of antidepressants.
“Ooop!” Aziraphale said, and stood up to move around to give Crowley a hug. “He still isn’t used to it, My Dear,” he directed at The Creator.
She chuckled and said, “I know, that’s why I do it.”
“Are you gay?” Jessie blurted out, watching Crowley sob onto Aziraphale’s shoulder.
“They’ll argue semantics for days on that one,” came a voice from behind her. She turned, to see a boy about her age, curly hair and oddly intense eyes. “We’ve tried to explain that gay works because their genders are functionally identical, in that they are alternately genderfluid and agender, because Angels don’t really do things the way humans do, so it’s always, ALWAYS a choice for them, so they are a same-sex couple, but beyond that we don’t ask for details.”
She blinked.
“Adam Young,” he said, sticking out a hand. “So what brought you here?”
“I told my parents I’m a lesbian and they got violent, even after I showed them Sarah’s thing.”
He winced. “Sorry that happened, but you’re here now.”
“Are you an angel?” she asked. “Oh, is that rude to ask here?”
He cackled. “Me? Hey, Sarah, she asked if I’m an angel.”
“He’s a retired antichrist,” Sarah said. “Best brother.”
“Hey,” another boy said from the lounge.
“You’re a good brother,” Sarah said. “But I’m still getting the hang of having two.”
“You’ll get the whole story if you stick around,” Adam said.
Jessie blinked. “I feel like there’s something I’m missing.”
“You’re not alone,” Michael said.
Jessie took a sharp inbreath. “I’m not alone.”
“Hey, Grandmother, would you do the thing and give Jessie some space near my house?” Adam asked. “Cottage for two?”
“You could have done that, but yes,” She answered.
“I…” Adam shook his head. “It gets too easy, and there’s plenty around here who can do it, too.”
Her eyebrows went up, and something gave a tiny shimmy, like the world around them had shifted to allow the creation of a little cottage, with two bedrooms and a lovely little garden, and they knew where it was and that it was home.
Michael blinked. “Why, I don’t think I’ve ever had a home, not here.”
“Me, neither,” Jessie said. “Not like that.”
Home had always been a fraught concept for her, but this… a place where she might be, and be safe, with someone who liked her and would take responsibility for her?
She took off her glasses, and pushed down her hoodie, and smiled.