When the Angels Fell

Chapter 1: Stone Angel

"We've been over this, Abigail"
"I know dad, but..."
"Let me finish," Abigail's dad sighed, leaning forward and resting both elbows on the table. He blinked tiredly and ran a hand through his close-cropped brown hair. A pair of thin reading glasses rested on the wooden table surface and he slipped them on; his icy blue eyes gaining dominance over his face as they were magnified by the glass.

Abigail yawned and leaned back on her chair. She knew what was coming. Another of dad's famous lectures on how violence wasn't the answer. It wasn't Abigail's fault that a supposed school friend was now lying in a hospital bed with a broken arm and possible concussion. Well...maybe it was; but if the girl hadn't been such a drama queen over something so stupid there wouldn't have been any need for violence in the first place.

Gazing around, Abigail let her dad's words wash over her and explored the other sounds of the house. The theme tune to some children's cartoon show blared from the TV in the front room, a TV that her little brother Jacob would no doubt be stood in front of; utterly transfixed. The rattling of pipes from upstairs signalled one of her stepmother's weekly showering marathons. Abigail's lip curled and she glared at the whitewashed ceiling; imagining the woman burned to ash by the hot water. Deciding such a quick demise would be poor recompense for the years of glares and barbed comments, Abigail shifted the mental image to a pleasing vision of her stepmother's skin being slowly scalded away under the intense heat and leaving nothing but a charred skeleton.

"Abigail!" Her dad's sharp tone snapped her back into focus and she dropped the chair back onto four legs with a dull thud of wood hitting tile.

"Yeah?" Abigail asked, trying to keep the surprise at her dad's change of his normally mild tone out of her voice.

"I asked you whether they expect Chelsea to be recovered enough for the Christmas break-up"

"I don't know dad," Abigail replied. "Why?"

As you know, our family has been friends with the Archfeller's for years. I used to work with Frederick Archfeller at the clergy in my younger years"

"He retired right?" Abigail asked quickly, sensing that her dad was about to embark on one of his long, torturous stories.

"Yes, last year in fact," Abigail's dad took off his glasses, rubbed them with the edge of his thumb and put them back on. "Anyway...we, Lynne and I, were going to extend an invitation to the Archfellers for a Christmas Day get together"

"What? You can't be serious," Abigail protested, standing up. "That bitch has made my life hell for the past two years!"

"Watch your tone!" Her dad responded sharply. "And your language too. There's a place for that filth and it isn't under this roof. Now sit back down"

Abigail returned to her seat as the staircase creaked and her stepmother made an entrance. Wearing a white bathrobe with her blonde hair hanging wet around her face, Lynne fixed Abigail with one of her green-eyed glares.

"Aren't you supposed to be at school?" Lynne asked acidly.

"It's the Christmas holidays, Lynne," Abigail replied, taking extra care to keep her tone neutral.

"Well, maybe you should be doing something useful instead of sitting around and expecting others to clean up after you," Lynne sneered, turning and walking back up the staircase.

Abigail's anger, normally rigidly controlled, boiled over for the second time that day.

"Hypocritical bitch!" she shouted, surging to her feet and kicking over the chair with a loud crash. Ignoring her dad's shouts, Abigail stormed over to the front door and ripped it open. Storming through into the night, she slammed the door behind her with a percussive bang.