I met the Angels because of a lost cow and a summer storm.
According to the cow’s GPS tracker, it was stuck in one of the most remote parts of the weirdly-shaped chunk of rural Australia that my husband and I had bought with our life savings ten years before: a place we called Buzzard’s Roost. We hardly ever went out that way, partly because the rocky area was useless for grazing, and partly because it took hours to get there on a quad unless we took a shortcut across Howard Frost’s ranch.
Old Man Frost had been a great “neighbor” (his homestead was six kilometers away, but it was the nearest one to us). When my husband Evan and I moved out here, it was Howard Frost who showed us how to set up our paddocks, the equipment we’d need around the ranch, fair prices for buying and selling cattle–he even let us use his corral to brand our first herd. We pestered the poor old man for advice constantly, but he was always patient with us. I think he was happy to pass on the knowledge while he could.
Howard Frost had been dead for seven months by the afternoon I set out alone on the quad for Buzzard’s Roost. We’d been avoiding his ranch ever since–it wasn’t that we were superstitious (well, not only that) but rather we didn’t know the new owners. We used to cut across Frost’s land all the time when he was alive, but now the windows in the weathered grey house on the hill were dark and silent. If it wasn’t for the storm, I never would have taken the shortcut.
Storms in Queensland are deadly. Lightning strikes anything above fence-height out on the red-dirt grassland. High-speed wind breaks branches off of the gumtrees, killing anything that tries to shelter beneath. Sometimes in the morning, I’d find wallabies battered to death by hailstones on my drive into town.
All that was in the back of my mind as I rocketed through the bushland on our secondhand quad, one eye on the clouds rolling in from the east. They looked like towering fairytale castles in the sunset, but to me and my $1,200 heifer, they might be deadly. I found her with her head stuck in a brokedown section of fence just below the bone-white rocks we called Buzzard’s Roost. It seemed she’d escaped with ease, then gotten stuck on her way back in–a perfect example of bovine intelligence. I hurried to free her with the tools I’d brought on the quad, but the air was already cool and dark from the long shadows that those fast-moving thunderheads were casting my way. I knew I’d move slower, guiding her back…
“Where’s your husband?”
The voice was so unexpected at first I thought it came from inside my own head. I jumped, cut myself on wire, and cursed. The heifer snorted.
There was a girl standing behind me. Her dirty-blonde hair was pulled back and covered by a kerchief, and her well-scrubbed skin was as clean as her homemade dress. Had she just appeared by magic? I couldn’t think of any other way she could’ve gotten all the way out here.
“What’s your name, honey?” I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to be patient. I was never good with kids, but If this girl was by herself, she was in danger for sure.
“Kimbe–ah, errr, Awan. Awan Angel. Oh, sorry! I didn’t introduce myself proper…”
“Awan,” I pressed. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
“Oh, I’m not alone! I’m here with Father and Eve and Lilith and Aclima. We came out here to see you! Since you crossed our land without asking and all.” Thunder rumbled in the distance. The sun was behind the iron-grey wall of cloud, and if I didn’t get moving within the next five minutes I doubted that I’d make it to shelter before the storm broke.
I’d been working to free the heifer while we talked, and with a mighty heave I finally unstuck her. She took off trotting across our land toward home. Smarter than me, maybe.
“Well now you’ve seen me, so why don’t you–” I turned. ‘Awan Angel’ was gone. In the fast-darkening distance, I watched a large figure drive an enormous quad with a hitched wagon toward the house that used to be Howard Frost’s. In the back of the wagon, the pale dresses of four girls glowed like ghosts in what was left of the light.
“Did you know the Frost place is occupied?” I told my husband Evan over dinner that night. Occupied, like by an enemy force, I remember thinking, and shuddered. Evan gave me an odd look.
“Howard only had one living relative, a nephew in Sydney. I reckon he’s sold it off then.”
“Do they have kids?” our daughter Emma piped up. She was eight, and didn’t fit in with the only other kids nearby. I wanted to tell Evan that this might be a golden opportunity for her, but I thought of those dresses in the back of that wagon and stopped myself.
“I’m not sure,” I lied. “We’ll see.”
The adult thing to do would have been ride the quad up to the Angel’s door with a gift basket and introduce ourselves. What I actually did was crawl through the bush like an escaped convict to sneak a glimpse of what my new neighbors spent the day. I hadn’t seen any cattle or heard any other machinery that might explain what they were doing, and besides, I justified, who knew how long they’d been watching us.
They’d put up a high fence at the bottom of the hill, but the weather-beaten house was still and silent as ever. At least the grass had been mowed. A water-conserving system and other survival gear–some of it still in its military-surplus cases–was scattered about, and a giant black humvee lay among it all like sleeping Cerberus. My ears pricked up. A radio was playing around the far side of the place.
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the LORD. For the husband is head of the wife…”
Awan and three other girls (who I assumed to be Aclima, Eve, and Lilith) were digging out a garden. Pure white sheets blew on the clotheslines behind them; combined with the biblical recording, it made the whole thing look like a cheap stage set of heaven. None of the girls could’ve been older than ten.
I tried to process what I was seeing. On one hand, we got a lot of religious types in the country, kids start work young out here (our Emma had already helped castrate a bull), and the girls didn’t exactly look unhappy…so why did something about the scene feel so wrong? Before I could clarify my thoughts, they were interrupted by the sound of barking and the revving of a massive engine.
The quad coming toward me was driven by an obese giant of a man whose leather duster and the dirty ballcap pulled down over his face gave him a unabomber sort of look. I, however, was more concerned with the snapping, slobbering jaws of his massive dogs than with his fashion choices. I’m used to dogs, even aggressive ones, but something about this pack made me want to climb the nearest tree–if only I could.
“Belial. Jezebel. Azrael. Spthth!” the big man made a hissing sound and the dogs stopped, just as I cowered away from their attack. He parked the quad with the sun at his back and let it idle. Apart from shoulder-length greying hair, stubble, and pale green eyes, I couldn’t make out any of his features. A knife hung from his belt, the big kind we use for boars. I got the sickening feeling he was taking his time, savoring this. Letting me think about how out here, if a stranger gets mauled or even killed on someone else’s land, it’s considered their own fault.
Accidents happen–and some of them never get reported.
“Heyyy,” I simpered, “I’m Aileen McGill, the neighbor across the way…” No response. The big man drummed his fingers on the knife hilt. “I just came over to say hello…”
My words sounded pathetic even to me. The big man looked from side to side, as if to make it even more obvious that no person in their right mind would cross the wilderness around us for such a purpose.
“Well, you’ve said it,” he snorted. “Mind you don’t come back this way. My little angels are busy…and my dogs are hungry.”
He was waiting for me to leave. Up on the hill, the girls were watching. I raised a hand in a meek little wave; the big man’s head snapped around, like he was daring them to respond. The four “little angels” stood still as scarecrows, watching my retreat.
I was too embarrassed to tell my husband about what I’d done. Evan gave me a curious glance when he noticed I was still doing chores after sunset, but I managed to push the whole thing out of my mind until I went into town that Saturday. Our daughter Emma always wanted to come along for the shopping–probably just to see something that wasn’t the ranch. She’d wander down the aisles inspecting the ripe strawberries and jars of olives like the supermarket was an alien spacecraft that had landed temporarily and she might never see again. At times like that, I wondered if I life our here was best for her. I wondered how she really felt. Our Emma was so distractible by anything new…
When I turned away from my thoughts and towards the wall of yogurt, Emma was gone. I tried to sigh, to tell myself she was just exploring, but when I didn’t see her in either of the nearby aisles my heart pumped machine-gun fast with a parent’s fear. At the back of that fear was a big man with a leather duster, a dirty ballcap, and crazy eyes that were snakeskin green–
In fact, the exact man I saw talking to Emma beside a tower of organic oranges. He had knelt down to speak to her, and his four charges hung behind as though they were bound by an invisible leash. I knew how it must’ve looked, but I ran to her anyway, a protective mother bear.
“You didn’t tell me you had a daughter.” The big man was all smiles now. “I’m Metatron. Call me Mett.” My hand disappeared inside of his. “Perhaps my girls would like some company, yeah?” the four Little Angels didn’t react. I wondered if they were just shy.
“How are you finding life in Red Valley, uh…Awan?” The girl looked up at Mett, who gave her a slow nod.
“It’s a little lonely,” Awan admitted. Mett squeezed her shoulder in a way that might have been kindly, or intimidating. “But we’re learning a lot!”
A little lonely. It made me think of Emma, who was already telling one of the other girls (Lilith, I supposed) about our trip to the Blue Mountains last fall.
“Your girls could come over to our place…” I ventured.
“NO.” It wasn’t an answer–it was a command. “The girls have too much to do around the ranch. Your girl’s welcome, though.” Emma looked up at me pleadingly.
“I suppose that’s fine…” I replied slowly. “But I’m coming along to supervise. At least the first time.” Emma groaned. Mett seemed to think it over, then nodded. “It’s a date, then!” Emma was skipping when we left the store.
I didn’t leave out any details when I told Evan about our daughter’s upcoming “play date.” He’d grown up in a place like Red Valley, and I wanted his real opinion about the strange family next door–not his “I’m-your-husband-and-of-course-I-support-everything-you-do” opinion.
“Just be careful.” Evan told me, mopping breakfast egg off his face as he left for work that morning. “I’ll ask around town and see what I can find out about the, uh, Angels.” Two hours later I was standing awkwardly beside Mett in the shade of the quiet grey house on a hill.
It was so strange. It was like Eve, Lilith, Aclima and Awan didn’t know how to play. They just kept looking up at Mett, like they were waiting for orders. Emma ended up helping them with their work in the garden.
“Your girl has potential,” Mett commented. “She could be a good wife.” I kept silent, not sure what to say to something like that. “The only way to make a good wife is to raise her from childhood with virtue. To fear the Lord, and to fear her husband. Is she saved?”
“I’d rather not talk about religion, if you don’t mind.” I said as sweetly as I could muster. Mett just shrugged. He turned to go inside.
“Something to drink, then?” I asked for a water, then made a mental note not to drink anything Mett gave me. This had gotten too weird already. As soon as I could find an excuse, I was getting us out of there–
I was still thinking about the best way to accidentally spill Mett’s water when the black bag slipped over my head. My hands shot up to my neck as a cord cut off my air supply.
“Grab the heathen, my little angels!” Mett shouted as he dragged into the cool darkness of the house. “Don’t dare disobey me again, or you’ll get what Namah got!” No matter how I fought, the sheer bulk of the man dragged me inward and downward. I couldn’t get my fingers around the cord. The black cloth of the bag, wet with my spit, was sucked into my mouth with every breath. I just couldn’t get enough air. Outside, Emma was screaming: the little angels were following their orders…
I came to with my cheek against the cool wooden floor of Frost’s ranch. My hands and ankles were numb from zip-ties, but my bonds were being cut. Someone was shaking me. Evan, my husband, and two others I didn’t recognize: police officers. The place was empty. Evan explained that when he finally got hold of Howard Frost’s nephew, the young man was as surprised as he was to learn that someone was living in the ranch: he’d never sold it. Mett Angel was squatting.
“Where… where’s my daughter?” I demanded. An officer shook his head. Evan looked pale. They carried me outside, where the blinding-white sun shone on an empty dirt driveway, abandoned garden, and white sheets blowing in the wind like angel’s wings.
The humvee, the survival equipment, the girls…
Everything was gone.
The police brought me down to the station. They wanted me to provide a current photo of my daughter and take a look at a couple other pictures; they didn’t say why, but I didn’t have to ask. There was a girl with dirty-blonde hair and scrubbed-pink skin, the spitting image of Awan as a toddler. Except her name wasn’t Awan Angel. It was Harriet Forester, and she’d been kidnapped from her front yard four years ago.
More photos, more faces I recognized. Eve, Lilith, Aclima. Mett’s ‘little angels’ but under different names, in rompers and overalls instead of dresses, smiling instead of serious. I didn’t understand.
“We have reason to believe these five children have been taken by a cult.” The officer explained. “A polygamous sect that believes girls must be raised from childhood to be perfect wives. They’re active from Darwin down to Victoria, and in who knows how many other countries. And since they mostly operate in rural areas, they’re notoriously difficult to track. I’m sure you can imagine,” the officer looked out the window at the endless sun-baked plains around town, “how easy it is to just disappear out here.”
I felt shock, that nightmarish gravity’s-gone stomach plunge–but that wasn’t all. There was something else about the officer’s words, some wrong. Had she said five children?
I thought back to what Mett had screamed as his brainwashed angels grabbed Emma:
“Don’t dare disobey me again. Or you’ll get what Namah got.”
There was one photo I didn’t recognize. A girl who’d fought back against her indoctrination. A girl who’d been renamed “Namah” against her will…
A girl who was probably buried in a shallow grave somewhere between Red Deer and Kingaroy.
Thinking about my Emma meeting the same fate, I broke down. The country was too big, they’d never find her. And if they did, would she even be my little girl anymore?
“Mommy?!”
The double doors of the station swung open. My little girl was covered in dust and a nasty gash ran up her leg, but she was here, with me, alive.
“I hid in Buzzard’s Roost!” she squealed. “I cut myself climbing over the fence but the bad man was too fat to catch me! The girls were grabbing me, and it hurt, but Awan…I think she let me go on purpose.”
I said a silent prayer of thanks to the lost, captured child who had saved my little girl as I hugged Emma tight.
Another family has moved into Old Man Frost’s place since that summer, and the story has disappeared from the local news, but when I look out across the endless grass, I know that ‘Metatron’ and his cult are still out there–
Looking for Little Angels.