Chapter 23: Finding closure

They were back at the apartment, and Tagas was drawing a circle with chalk on the ground. Adding to that, he wrote strange symbols in the circle. Harry watched him.

"If you couldn't find the girl, then she is likely..." Harry let his words hang in the air. He didn't want to say it, but it was the only truth.

"Dead? I know," Tagas sighed, and then kept on drawing the symbols. "Still, if I could simply connect to her spirit. If I could only find where the remains are. Then, I can go back to the old woman with something more than what she got these past twenty years."

Tagas was done, and he cut his hand over the symbols. A white light appeared in the middle, and Tagas began to speak.

"I know I am banished, big brother Uriel, but this is urgent. There is the ghost of a girl, named Dianna, whom I have to find. To bring closure to an old woman," Tagas said, and he heard a hum.

"You don't give me much to work on. Do you know how many Dianna's died just yesterday alone?" Uriel asked, and Tagas forwarded all the information he had on the girl. Soon, the angel was replaced with a childish voice.

"Hello, you searched for me?" The girl asked, and Tagas smiled bitterly then. This was the confirmation that the little girl had died, all those years ago. She sounded like she still mispronounced the r's, even. A young life cut short.

"Dianna, what happened to you? How did you die?" Tagas asked.

"I was chasing after my ball, and then a car ran me over. The driver took me in his car, but I died halfway to the hospital. Then, he took me in the forest, and buried me next to a blueberry bush," the little girl told him.

Tagas touched the white light, and got the location. He tried his best to smile for the dead girl, but found he could not.

"Your mother misses you," Tagas finally managed to get out. The woman had been ruined after the death of her daughter.

"I miss mommy too, but the angels say that I will see her someday," Dianna said. "Can you tell her something for me? It is not a big message."

"Anything," Tagas told her, and Dianna sighed.

"You tell her I love her. That I miss her, and that we will see each other again. Did you remember it all?" Dianna asked, and Tagas nodded.

"All of it," Tagas said, and then he ran his hand over one of the symbols, cutting off the connection.

"We have a grave to mark, so the police can find it," Tagas said, and he looked at Harry.

"I'll get us there," Harry said, and he offered his hand.

The place where Dianna was buried was a pleasant and serene one. There was a deer trail leading to it, which was probably what the man had taken to hide the child.

Tagas touched the soil, and felt the bones underneath. Some were broken, but then again, Dianna did say that she had been run over. Tagas placed a red ribbon on the blueberry bush, that still gave berries after all those years, and Harry called the police.

They gave instructions on where they were as good as they could, and had to dig the bones out, so it would look believable that they had stumbled on them.

When the policemen came, they saw the two a bit dirty, and saddened.

"Are you the ones who found human bones around here?" One of the officers asked, and Tagas nodded.

"We just needed some forest soil for our potted plants," the angel told the lie that he and Harry had agreed on earlier. The officer came to them, and peered inside the grave.

"Nasty business," the man said, and then made a call. "We will see to whom these bones belong to, and contact the family. A child's body, for crying out loud."

"May we go now?" Harry asked. There was an empty bag sticking out of his pocket. The perfect addition to their lie.

"Sure, you may go. I suggest you buy the soil, next time," the officer told them, and the two were off. When the trees hid them from view, Tagas turned to Harry.

"We need to bring the old woman closure," the angel said, and Harry nodded.

"How are we going to do that?" Harry asked.

Tagas took out a faded piece of paper, and waved it at Harry. It was a drawing, something that a five-year-old could have made. Of a woman and a little girl holding hands.

"You want us to leave that at her doorstep?" Harry asked, and Tagas nodded.

"It is not much, but it is the best thing that I can think of," the angel said, and Harry got them to the old woman's house. Before Tagas could place the paper in the mailbox, the woman came rushing out of her house.

"Have you found my daughter? Is she alive?" She asked, and Tagas handed her the picture.

"This is the only thing we could find of her, we are sorry," the woman stared at the picture, and then broke down sobbing. Tagas was by her side in an instant. He held her gently, and murmured sweet nothing's in her ear. The final thing he said was:

"You will see her again, and I am sure she misses you, no matter if she is still alive or not," and Tagas let go of the woman.

"Thank you for searching," the woman told them between sobs.

When the news reported a cold case finally being solved by two good people, they saw the mother again. She was clutching the picture Tagas had given her.

Arthur sipped his coffee, and watched as Tagas played around with his food.

"There was nothing more you could have done," the farmer told him, and then turned to Harry. "Or you, for that matter."

"It still leaves me bitter," Tagas told him, as he finally began to eat his food.