FROZEN ANGEL

Chapter 2

Dusk seeped ultramarine into the sky over Governor Nicholls Street as Elise trudged up the staircase to the tiny house she shared with her friend. A grey half-shotgun cottage tucked deep into the back of the French Quarter, it bore the style's distinctive long, narrow shape and tall shuttered windows and belonged to Joquita's aunt, who rented it to the two women for half the going rate. It had been one of the few that had survived Katrina. Most of the others on the street had been either reconstructed or demolished. 

But Elise could barely afford her share of the rent. She shoved open the door and called out. "I'm getting too old for this!" 

"Hell, girlfriend," Joquita swung around. "Would you honk twice before doing that? You scare the bejesus out of me in that get-up." 

Joquita, stood bare-foot in the middle of their cramped galley kitchen wearing a red cotton shift and a pair of oven mitts, her brown eyes peeled wide. One hand grasped a steaming diet frozen dinner and, the other, a book Elise recognized as part of her friend's research tomes. Joquita had been studying. Elise acknowledged a pang of regret at the thought of her own lost studies, a stalled doctoral thesis. She unfastened her wings and let them drop into a heap on the floor.  

"Every time I see the Frozen Angel, something kicks in and my teeth chatter," Jo said. "I guess that says something about your acting ability." And then she hesitated, peering into Elise's face. "You all right?" 

"It happened again, only much stronger this time. I know I'm onto something here, Jo."  

"Oh, hell." 

"This time, I found myself in somebody else's head being accused of treachery by a man. Gog, it was horrible. The whole thing left me exhausted."  

"Sit." Joquita nodded towards a chair at their linoleum topped table and slid onto the one opposite. Elise collapsed on the seat and watched Joquita pop the plastic cover from the dinner tray and shove it towards her. Sometimes the five year difference in their age seemed so enormous. At thirty, Elise felt old. 

"You need this more than I do--glazed chicken and rice, food of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt." 

Elise wrinkled her nose at the packaged food. "Is our goddess still trying to squeeze into a size six toga, by chance?" 

"Very funny. Eat." 

"No thanks. I think I'll finish off the rest of Aunt Loo's gumbo and leave the toga fodder to you." But she made no move to go to the fridge. All she had the energy for was to sit, hands in her lap, and stare at the grey and pink flecks in the table top. "Why aren't you asking me for the details?" 

"I'm waiting until you recover. Look at you, you're all done in. Why do you keep doing this Frozen Angel stuff, anyway? That piddly amount of money can't make up for what working two jobs is doing to your body." 

"Even a little money is a help right now but you know I'm not doing the Angel for that." It had started as a lark, a kind of bet with her thesis advisor, and had quickly evolved into something extraordinary.  

"Oh right-you have a gift for playing dead for fifteen minute stretches. I keep forgetting." 

Elise laughed. "It's not that, either-not all of it, anyway. I only care about the phenomena. I have to figure out what's going on and get some answers." 

"So, instead of finishing your thesis you can play dress up and hunt for ghosts every night?" 

"You think I'm crazy." 

"I think you're stressed. Isn't that what the doctor said?" 

"Dr. Wilkins hasn't a clue about this stuff and you know it. What medical practitioner can diagnose what doesn't show up as a tumor or a rash? If it's not physical, it doesn't exist. I'm seeing things, experiencing genuine encounters with the past. What student of history can let that pass?"