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JenniAnn woke up with a start.  She may have just had the craziest dream of her life.  And she’d had her share of crazy dreams.  But this…  It had started out innocently enough.  Just a bunch of Roman ruins.  Strange, sure, but nothing special.  But then she’d shown up.  Well, dropped down into the middle of the ruins to be exact.  By a… crane??  In a white disco dress of all things!  She looked pretty groovy, if she did say so herself.  But there was no time to think about that.  Cause then Andrew appeared and he… he wasn’t looking his best.  Then… and this is where it got really weird.  She’d started to sing in her dream.  Quite well, actually!
And others joined in until the decrepit arena was filled with Androolers in white, sparkly costumes. 

“Andrew angel, you’re our star!  Did you ever think you’d fall this far?  Andrew angel, you’re our star!  Did you ever think you’d fall this far?  Tell me when do you think this madness will stop?  Do you think you’re whole career will turn out to be a flop?  Adam’s not been where you’re at.  He’s not where you are.  Can Henry do the things that you’ve done or will we just have no star?   Did you mean to leave like this?  Was this a mistake?  Did you know your choice would take you from your Maker?”

JenniAnn got up, shook her head, and began to prepare for the day.  That’s what she got for watching musicals right before going to bed.  Strange, glitzy dreams.  Her great-grandma was apparently fond of saying if you told someone your dream with in 48 hours, it wouldn’t come to pass.  But this was just too ridiculous to tell.  Besides, Andrew would never fall.  The very idea was unthinkable.     


Various of the Dyelanders were sitting together beneath a tree in the Fields of Gold.  With JABB’s 7th anniversary only weeks away, planning for the celebration should have been in high gear.  However, being a chatty and fun-loving bunch, they were in fact recalling previous celebrations. 

“I hope this isn’t a sore subject but remember the year Andrew hosted it at his house?” Margherita recalled.

JenniAnn groaned but then smiled. 

“Aw geez, I missed it that year.  What happened?” Jess asked.

Margherita grinned slyly, “JenniAnn, care to share?”

“I may have stood outside Andrew’s house holding a boom box over my head,” she admitted, blushing.

“And what was the boom box playing?”

“Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes’…  So may be it was a touch over-dramatic,” JenniAnn admitted with a laugh.

“Just a touch, I’d say.”

The giggling recollections stopped though when the women heard hurried, approaching footsteps. 

“Hey, Monica!” Audrey called when the angel got close enough.  “How are you do…  Hey, what’s wrong?”

When she also moved beneath the trees, the others could see how close Monica was to tears.  A few moved over and motioned for her to sit down while everyone looked at her with great worry. 

“Monica, please tell us what’s troubling you,” JenniAnn pleaded.

Monica took a deep breath and surveyed the faces around her, trying to find the right words.  She wished Tess were there.  Or Adam or Gloria.  Or Andrew, especially Andrew.  She hated having to tell them this news but she also knew she couldn’t leave them in agonizing suspense any longer.  “It’s Andrew.”

“Crikey, he can’t have been arrested again!” Margherita dead-panned.  Monica shot her a pained look.  She grew silent then, knowing this was serious.

“He walked off his last assignment and…” the angel struggled to continue.

Karen looked across at JenniAnn who’d gone completely pale and was nervously twisting the ring she always wore.  She’d told her about her dream earlier.  At the time it had seemed ridiculous and they’d gotten a good laugh out the way her musical obsession was effecting her.

“Tess and I tried to stop him when we heard but… he just walked off and now we fear… he’s not alone,” she told them gravely.

“Well of course he’s not alone!  God is with him!” Jess exclaimed hopefully.

Monica gave her a wan smile and nodded.  “Yes, God is with him but that’s not who I meant.  Satan is trying to…”  Monica shook her head, unable to finish the thought.

“Tempt him,” Margherita finished.

The angel nodded and then everyone grew very quiet, lost in their own thoughts.


Soon after delivering her message, Monica left.  She had to go help Adam finish Andrew’s assignment.  Before disappearing, she asked Andrew’s gathered friends to pray for him.  It was all they could do.  So they did.  Then they began to share their favorite memories of him, hoping somehow their kind words would reach him, wherever he was.

“I was going to tell you this earlier, before Monica came and it seems even more appropriate now,” Margherita began.  “It was the anniversary before last.  I hadn’t spent much time with Andrew.  To be honest, when I first met him I wasn’t sure I liked him.  But anyway, the day of the party I’ll admit I was a bit tipsy.  So I said something like ‘The other girls really like you just the way you are and I just wanted to say… I do also.  Well, I mean you sometimes wear shoes with goofy tassels on them and I really think you need to pick a length of hair and settle with it.  You clearly have pride issues and you let your friend call you a stupid nickname you don’t like but… you’re a nice angel and I like you.’”

Despite their worry, several of the Dyelanders howled with laughter.  Once recovered, JenniAnn piped up.  “Poor Andrew, we’ve certainly exposed him to more than his fair share of… eccentricities shall we say?  I’ll be the first to admit I’ve done so on a myriad of occasions.  But he was never mean, even when I really, really messed up.  You remember when he nearly got impeached by Eben?”

The rest of the group nodded.  “I was there the day he cleared out his desk at City Hall actually,” Audrey recalled.  “That was a sad sight.  Everyone felt awful.  But then something amazing happened.  As he walked through the hallway, people started standing on their chairs.  One by one.  Suddenly there was a din of people shouting ‘O Captain, my Captain!’” 

“Wow, I wish I’d been there to see that,” JenniAnn commented, regretful.
 

“You must have a favorite memory of your own though?” Jess queried.

JenniAnn smiled, already fondly recalling hers.  “I do.  It was that semester after I graduated from college and took a couple classes just for fun.  Well, one day I was headed to my campus and I saw Andrew.  Turned out his assignment was one of the star football players there.  Now, the school itself was nice and most everyone was very professional.  But there were a few bad seeds and for whatever reason they latched onto poor Andrew.  So when we were walking together they just, for no reason I could tell, started pitching rocks at him.  Well I was horrified!  So I just yelled ‘Run, Andrew, run!’  And he did.  Boy did he run!  The football coach saw him and ended up hiring him as his assistant and that’s how he got through to his assignment.  Only time I ever cared about sports…” JenniAnn sighed. 

Chihuahua, the little dog who had sat quietly and listened to everyone reminisce piped up then.  “You just let me at whomever has Andrew and then I know how to cheer Angel Boy up!” he boasted, tail wagging.

“Oh and how is that?” Audrey inquired.

“Well you see a couple years back Andrew was discouraged over some assignment or another.  Oh you know when it was actually?  Remember that phase where Cliff got really creative with the architecture and we had that big blue elephant shaped buidling behind City Hall?  It was then.  I found Andrew moping up there.  I asked him why and he answered that he’d just come from a divorce hearing in which he was a lawyer,” the dog further explained.

“Aww, that must have been tough for him,” Jess interjected.

“Very.  So to cheer him up I sang snippets of love songs.  Y’know got some U2 in there.  Bowie.  He piped in with the Beatles.  And we danced.  It was fun!”  Chihuahua pranced around happily at the memory.  While everyone else swooned over the image of Andrew dancing.  (Although in their minds it was with them… not the scrappy lil mascot.)

The group sighed in unison and there was a moment of silence as they all thought of their angelic (or so they still hoped) friend.





Andrew ducked into the cabin and rested against the wall.  He took a deep breath, trying to regain his energy after being chased by the demon Eben.  A scraping noise across the room told the angel he was not alone.  Sure enough just across the room stood Eben’s partner, Stella.  She was mixing drinks and held one out to him with a coquettish grin.  Frankly, if Andrew weren’t a bit piqued he would have laughed.  She looked utterly ridiculous. 

“Miss Robin Sun… you’re trying to tempt me.  Aren’t you?” he asked. 

Stella tried to keep up the act.  “I am not Andrew.  I hadn’t even thought of it.  I feel…”  But the demon’s face turned bright red and she fled from the room.

Andrew knew calling her by Tess’ old nickname for her would rattle her.  Tess had bestowed it on her sometime in the 60s when Stella begged to be called Rainbow Sunshine and be named “angel of Woodstock”.  God had declined on the latter matter and Robin Sun became Tess’ garbled riff on the former request. 

Andrew peeked out the window and watched her run.  He shook his head when another figure came into view.  Eben dashed past but didn’t seem to notice the angel of death.  Andrew whispered a prayer that Stella might see the light and go back to God.  Sure enough, as he looked outside, Eben stood, his T-shirt drenched, and gazing upward yelled “Hey Stellllaaaaa!!!!!!

There was no answer.  Even from his vantage point, Andrew could see the anger flash in Eben’s eyes.  He could tell he was now more determined than ever to make him fall.


“That’s it.  I’m not going to just sit here.  This isn’t a wake!  We still have time!  We could help Andrew!” Margherita jumped up and proclaimed.

JenniAnn shook her head, forlorn.  “Margherita, he could be any where.  What are we going to do?  Search the whole world?”

“He keeps a journal doesn’t he?  I say we go to his house and take a peak.  We’ll all vow *only* to look at the very last entry.  Hopefully he’ll have mentioned where he was headed.  Then we go there.  If it works, yay us.  If not… and he falls… his coming after us for snooping is the least of our concerns.”

This seemed reasonable enough to everyone and they agreed.  But before they left the field, JenniAnn looked back once more.  Something in all this made her recall walking in that same field.  Debating with herself whether starting Dyeland was a good idea or just bound to cause problems, if not uproarious laughter at her expense.  Then she heard it…

“If you build it… he will come,” an ethereal voice whispered.

And that had settled it.



“June 18th, 2005.  I’m headed to a campground called Hamilton Park.  I look forward to being a camp counselor there for a few weeks this summer.  I hope my archery skills are still up to par but…”

JenniAnn interrupted Audrey who was reading from the journal.  “Stop!  Hamilton Park!  I know where that is.  Less than 10 miles from my house.  Grade school classmates used to go there and I sometimes did for a day here and there with Girl Scouts!  People used to tell stories about it,” she told them excitedly.  “And… ohh… there was this hill they called Angel’s Slide and another… Devil’s Slide.”  She shivered.

“I hate to say it but there’s probably dozens of Hamilton Parks…” Cliff lamented.  He’d been called in to help since, having built Andrew’s house, he best knew its secret areas where private materials such as journals might be stored.

“That may very well be but there’s only one that we can find right off.  I say we start there!” JenniAnn insisted.  She looked around at the others who nodded solemnly.  “Then we’re off!”



“It’s dead.  Won’t move an inch,” Cliff kicked the jeep he and the 8 other Dyelanders had piled into to get to Hamilton Park.  
“Then we’ll walk.  I really, really think Andrew is here.”  JenniAnn hopped out of the car.

“Uhh… you guys…” Audrey sat in the jeep, transfixed by a glass of water that someone had put in the driver’s seat arm rest.  The water was bouncing…  Everyone was very quiet.

Thump… thump… thump…

It sounded as if massive footsteps were approaching.  Then there was a roar!

The group stared back in horror at a large reptilian creature with glowing red eyes.  They clamored to get out of the jeep and flee the hell beast!

“Run towards the bridge!  May be we’ll lose it there!  And the Slides are that way!” JenniAnn screamed.

Cliff led the other eight in across the bridge towards the slides JenniAnn suspected Andrew was at.  But as they ran over the bridge the beast leapt out from a tree and dashed behind them.  Cliff stopped and turned around.  The others bade him to continue but he answered “No, run you dolts!”  Then he turned back to the raging animal, held his walking stick aloft and yelled “You shall not pass!” 

The remaining eight looked back and began to fret when they did not see the magician and saw the bridge had fallen.  They prayed he was somehow safe and continued on through the woods.  


The moment of truth had come.  Eben had found the angel in the cabin.  Stella may have baled but he was as determined as ever.  Andrew had gotten away too many times before.  This time Eben was determined to triumph.   The two stood next to each other at the top of Devil’s Slide.

“And you couldn’t help them, could you Andrew?” the demon asked with mock sympathy.  “You just had to stand there… and wait…  As they cried out in agony.  A shame.  A real shame.”  Eben shook his head gravely.

“God was with them,” Andrew insisted, tears in his eyes.

Eben shrugged.  “Still… I imagine they would have liked a little more help from Him.  Or you.  But no… nothing.”

“They had free will.  If God stepped in every time someone chose to do something dangerous, there would be no freedom.”

“Ah the old party line.  Free will!  Y’know, we don’t pay as much heed to that on our side.  We do what we like.  Andrew, it’s not as if you’d need to do anything cruel.  I mean it could be very liberating.  Getting to help people as you wished…” Eben explained, temptingly.

“I say this to you and all the other enemies of humankind.  You may do what you can to try and make my life miserable but I will never help you to take away their FREEDOM!!”  Andrew bellowed the final word so loudly, the demon looked frightened and winced.  When he opened his eyes, the angel was gone.




After a while the Dyelanders came to a hill and looked down.  A group of menacing individuals stood around speaking.  They knew them to be demons.

“We can’t all eight of us go down there.  It will be too conspicuous.  Seven women and a Chihuahua come to them, they’ll know we’re there for Andrew.  Someone needs to go… alone and see what they can find out,” Margherita suggested.  Everyone nodded gravely.

JenniAnn rifled around on the ground for eight sticks, breaking one so that it was smaller than the rest.  “We can use these to determine… hey where’d Audrey go?”  Everyone turned back to the valley below them.  Audrey was all ready nearly down the hillside and headed to the group of demons.

The woman strode purposefully towards the group.  They were quiet and seemed disappointed.  It made her hopeful, especially since she did not see Andrew among them.

“Where is Andrew?” she demanded, looking one she recognized as Eben straight in the eye.

Eben seemed confused but then his eyes glimmered.  “Oh but it’s too late.  Andrew has fallen.  He’s gone all ready.”

Audrey’s eyes burned.  “Was it you?  Did you convince him to?”

Eben shook his head and cackled.  “No, as much as I’d like the credit for it.”  He pointed to a retreating figure about 40 yards away that Audrey hadn’t noticed til then.  “He did.”

Audrey tore after the figure.  When she drew nearer she couldn’t see his face, it was mostly hidden by a black hooded sweatshirt.  He didn’t seem to know she followed and now stood near the precipice of what JenniAnn had called “Angel’s Slide”. 

“You made Andrew fall and now you can fall for all I care!” Audrey shouted and pushed the figure onto the slide.

As he fell, she heard his voice bellow back “God… loves… you!”

Audrey was shocked.  “Oh!  My sweet Andrew!  What have I done?!”  Then she began tumbling down the slide herself. 

Angel’s Slide was tamer than Devil’s Slide and they landed soon in a bit of thick grass.  Andrew made his way over to where Audrey was.  “Are you okay?  Can you move?”

Audrey beamed at him, “You’ve not fallen!  If you want I could fly!”

Andrew shook his head and grinned quizzically at her.  “Right…  Well, I didn’t.  Well, not in the sense you mean anyway.  And I may not have fallen at all if you hadn’t pushed me,” he teased.  Then he helped her up. 

Just then the other 7 Dyelanders burst through some bushes, having found a different way down.  They all cried and hugged Andrew.  There was a chorus of “I knew you’d never give in!” and “You’re safe, thank God” and like messages.

“Eben tried but I know where my place is,” Andrew assured them.  “Like I told Audrey the only fall today was her launching me down that slide!”

“They told me you were the demon who had made… well, you, fall!” Audrey clarified.

Andrew smirked.  “I guessed as much.  Eben never does know quite when to give up.  Let’s all get out of here and head back to Dy…”

Just then the demons appeared again. 

“I’ll keep them back, go!” Andrew instructed and the women and the dog dashed off.  


Night had fallen when they found a cabin and all piled into it.  Audrey noticed it had a cellar and pulled up the door, urging everyone to go below.  She hopped in herself and then noticed JenniAnn standing on the porch.

“JenniAnn, get in!  Don’t let them in!” she hissed.

“Andrew’s out there…  He’ll come to check on us,” she responded with a wavering voice.

Audrey tried to coax her in but gave up and closed the door. 

JenniAnn closed her eyes, willing Andrew to come and hide safely with them.  She held her hand out.  Strange yet beautiful violin music started up and she felt someone grip her hand.  Andrew pulled her inside, threw open the door in the floor, and they climbed in. 

The group huddled there as they heard footsteps walking around above them.


When it seemed the coast was clear, everyone climbed out and went outside. 

“Okay, *now* let’s get back to Dyeland,” Audrey suggested.  Everyone nodded numbly, anxious to get away from the park.  Andrew strode a few steps away, checking to make sure the path out of the woods was free of demons. 

They all stood and stared upward when they heard a great whirling noise from above them.  It was a helicopter and Cliff shouted down from it!  They cheered that the magician was alive and that they would soon be out of the place.  Everyone climbed in.  But then Margherita looked around anxiously as Cliff rose the copter off the ground.

“Andrew!  We gotta wait for Andrew!” she screamed.  She looked downward to where the angel stood on the ground, demons coming towards him as he fell to his knees.  But Cliff didn’t descend.  Between the din of the copter and the CD he was blasting (FYI it was Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”) he didn’t hear her cries.


“Well, you‘ve now watched the American Film Institute’s ‘100 Greatest Movies Lines’.  Now let’s go to Janie Dyefan on the streets and see what Dyelanders chose as their favorite movie moments and lines,” the newscaster said. 

JenniAnn blinked a few times.  She wasn’t sure what was going on and why she was laying on the couch in the Willowveil TV room.  Then suddenly she remembered and screamed.

Monica, Karen, Vincent, Chiwawa, and Audrey came running into the room.

“What the heck is going on?  Geez… it was just another of those AFI countdowns.  Nothing too sinister!” Audrey grinned.

Vincent was less amused by his godchild’s obvious distress.  “JenniAnn, tell me what troubles you.”

“Where’s Andrew?!” she questioned.  She was beginning to hope the whole horrible saga had been nothing more than a movie-induced nightmare but she still wasn’t sure.

“He’s Home.  Remember he just finished an assignment and went up there for a break?” Karen responded with arched eye brow.  JenniAnn knew all this. 

JenniAnn looked relieved but continued, “I was in a park and you and you… and you… and you were there!”  She looked at each of them. Her gaze landed on the little dog and she hugged him.  “Oh Chiwawa!  Andrew’s Home!  And he’s never ever gonna leave again cause God loves him and he loves God.  Oh, there’s no place like Home!”

And everyone shook their heads and left the room, having decided it best JenniAnn relax for a bit.  And also she was banned from watching any more AFI countdowns.  

The End

Special thanks to Audrey for suggesting the movie scene she did.  I love that one.  :-)


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Newsletter 168

(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page are from "Touched by an Angel" and owned by CBS Productions, Caroline Productions, and Moon Water Productions.  They are not being used to seek profit.)