It was hard for twenty-one-year-old Kathy Milner not to cry as she hugged her worn purse tightly to her side. Cider Avenue was just as inviting and cheery as its name could imply, lined with a myriad of friendly little shops that attracted a crowd almost every morning, even though it was located in the worst part of town. Little Emily had always loved coming down here with her mother close at hand, peering though the windows to see the variety of merchandise that lurked in each one. Kathy could remember all the times that her daughter had asked for candy or toys, but had been denied for lack of money; and oh, didn’t she wish that she could have purchased something for the little girl before she’d been carted off to some unfamiliar place full of strangers. Poor Emily must be terrified, Kathy thought, feeling the tears prickling from behind her eyelids, but she forced them back. It wouldn’t help to start crying now.

It is often the little things that start off a turn of events; and that particular Tuesday morning it was barely even significant. Cerise and Raven Sullivan, being new in town, were “getting to know the territory” and exploring a bit. For those of you who haven’t already figured it out, the two teenage girls were really Aurora and Twilight, our stained glass angels; for Twilight thought it a better approach to conceal their identities in case anyone found out about the windows and connected too many dots.

Cerise was forever stopping constantly to examine the window merchandise, while her sister was forever hurrying along. Raven had never been one to fraternize much, and she didn’t like being out in public or around crowds. In fact, she loathed strangers. But Cerise, however, was completely the opposite, having an outgoing and friendly personality.

Raven was so busy looking around to make sure no one was starting at them, that she wasn’t watching where she was going, and tripped over an aluminum can which had been carelessly thrown on the walkway. She landed, face-flat, at the feet of a pretty young woman who exclaimed, “Oh my goodness! Are you all right?”

Kathy reached out her hand and helped Raven get up; and for just a second, their eyes locked. But that was all the angel needed, for in that span of time she read pain and sadness interlaced through the soft, soulful brown color.

“The real question is,” she answered carefully, “are you all right?

To Kathy’s horror, she suddenly burst into a torrent of tears. “No, I’m not all right!” she sobbed. “They’ve taken my husband and my baby, and now I’m alone in the world!”

“Please don’t cry,” Cerise said compassionately, the crystal fountain running down her own cheeks. “You’re never truly alone, because whether you know it or no, there’s always Someone who is waiting for you to run into His tender embrace for protection.”

Kathy looked up at the comforting words, and suddenly the tears ceased to flow. Even though she couldn’t quite understand what the girl meant, it felt nice to know that someone cared about her troubles, for once. “Why don’t you come with me,” she said quickly. “So we can talk in private.”

The two girls exchanged looks, then followed the woman who turned on her heel and headed toward home with a strange new courage in her heart.

Copyright © 2009 by Lavender Westmarch

There was a brisk knock on the door.

Constance looked up in surprise. Who in the world could that be? She didn’t know anyone, and not a soul had ever bothered to drop in before; still, her curiosity had been piqued, and she laid aside her quilt so she could find out who her visitor was.

She discovered a good-looking boy, perhaps two or three years older than herself, leaning cavalierly on the doorframe with a friendly smile on his face. “Who are you?” she asked cautiously, her hand laid protectively on the doorknob.

He offered his hand. “Alec Johnson. I live right down the hall from you, and I thought I might stop by and get to know you over a piece of Aunt Esther’s famous apple pie.” Here he held out a covered dish that Constance had not noticed until now.

“Pie…sounds pretty nice right about now,” Constance said timidly, managing to return his smile. “Come on in.”She looks ever prettier close up, Alec thought to himself as she watched her soft, smooth movements, whisking out the dishes, cutting two slices of the fat, juicy, cinnamony pie---Aunt Esther never skimped when it came to fillings---and poured them each a glass of milk.

“This is good!” Constance exclaimed after the first bite. “I never was much of a cook, and of course Uncle Mark doesn’t-” she stopped and frowned. “So I haven’t had any pie worth talking about since I was seven. She stared into her frothy sea of milk. Since Mama died…

Alec carefully veered away from the subject, seeing that it might prove to be a bad one, saying, “Well, if you can’t cook, what do you do all day, cooped up by yourself?”

“Well…I…make things,” she said reluctantly, fingering the pretty crotched tablecloth in front of her. “I guess I just wanna make a difference in the world, even if nobody notices me.” She smiled weakly.

“Consider yourself noticed,” Alec grinned, his grey eyes sparkling with fun. “You should get out more, thought---you’d make a lot more friends that way than locking yourself away in the dungeon.”

Constance ducked her head in embarrassment, stammering, “I just- I guess I’m scared to go out alone, you know, without knowing…anyone…it’s kinda hard for me to-”

“I can help you there,” he offered. “I know of a kickin’ party tonight that you and I could go to.”

“Oh, no!” she said, looking terrified, “I couldn’t---not with all those people!”

Alec laughed. “I was kidding,” he said. “But why don’t you let me take you somewhere a little quieter---I dunno, like a diner or something?”

That was all it took. “That’s OK,” Constance agreed. “What time were you thinking?”

Copyright © 2009 by Lavender Westmarch

“Aunt Esther, do you know who that girl is living down the hall?” Alec asked the slender black woman, who was busily occupied with washing dishes and handing them to ‘her boy’ to dry. Several years ago, Alec Johnson had been abandoned by his parents in their little ramshackle abode, and Aunt Esther had taken him in as one of her own, even though their skin was of two different colors. But Esther wasn’t one to be picky.

Now he was a handsome boy of seventeen, with jet-black hair and deep, blue-grey eyes. He wasn’t a bad boy, only wild; but even that was enough to send Esther into a worrying spree every now and again. Sometimes it seemed like “her boy” had no heart, for his had been broken and ground into dust long ago.

But here he was asking about the girl in Room 310! Aunt Esther had heard many stories about the pretty young lady who stayed away from the world by locking herself into the little apartment and avoided contact with anyone except her no-account uncle; but the most prominent of them all was that he came home drunk at all kinds of unholy hours, treating his faithful young niece shamefully. “He’s breakin’ her heart, the ol’ leech,” Esther said aloud.

“Who?” Alec questioned.

“her uncle. Word is thet she usta be rich, when her momma died an’ left her all thet money; but her uncle wuz the guardeen ‘til she came of age, an’ he wasted i'tall on gamblin’ an’ drink. An’ he don’t treat ‘er right neithah.” She gave the pan she was washing an extra-hard scrub.

“What’s her name?” Alec wanted to know.

“Constance Randall. Right pretty young thang, too. Bad ‘nuff thet ‘er uncle Mark’s a drunk, but she nevah comes out an’ makes any friends. Mebbe she wouldn’t hurt so bad if’n she had some’un at lean on.”

“I wouldn’t mind if she leaned on me,” Alec mused to himself, as he remembered the beautiful figure he’d seen in the window last night.

Copyright © 2009 by Lavender Westmarch

Jake walked down the beat-up sidewalk, kicking at a loose rock here or empty soda can there. He was determined never to go back to that church, to say nothing of any church, ever again. He was done with religion, he decided, with fire in his jet-black eyes. He could get along just fine without God, if those holier-than-thou “Christians” were going to treat him like a scumbag.

Because, try as you will, you couldn’t really define Jake as your average street trash, even if he was a runaway. Before his mother died, she’d always taught him everything that was right and good, trying to “bring him up in the way he should go”; she could only remember inklings of the Lord from her early childhood, but even so they had influenced her greatly. No matter how hard things would get with his father, Mom had always been able to bring a little sunshine into the slummy, rundown shack which they called home, back in Chicago. But now she was dead, along with little sister Christy---gone, because they had caught pneumonia when there was no money to pay for hospitalization or medicine.

Jake had been very close to his mother, and was still devastated by her death two years later; but Dad couldn’t have cared less. He was a worthless good-for-nothing who’d abandoned them when Jake was ten, leaving the family penniless; and what little money Mom could scrape together, he always came back to rob them again---that was why she was dead in the first place! After he’d been forced to watch the life slowly seep out of the only people who loved and cared about him, Jake didn’t care whether he lived or died anymore. He was in perilous waters, and only God could save him now.

The boy had visited the Forest Glade Wesleyan Church to see if, perhaps, he could find a home there. After all, weren’t Christians supposed to be kind and welcoming(like Mom)? But from what he’d been subject to yesterday, he figured that his chances were better off on the road.

Suddenly, a voice broke through the early morning stillness, singing like. . . like an angel. Jake stopped in his tracks to listen. The very air around him trembled as it clung to each note before they slipped out of its grasp and fluttered away on the gentle breeze.

A brown-haired girl ran down the alley.

She hadn’t always been like this. Oh, no. There was a time when she would have been horrified to do the things she did now. But life changed, and Opal Levine was no longer the innocent little girl of her youth.

And there was no going back for her.

Opal paused suddenly, running her soft hazel eyes warily over the surrounding area. Shadows played games with her imagination on the dank brick walls, and the least bit of noise, no matter how far away, made her jump involuntarily. She rubbed her sleeve across her forehead to try and clear her mind. It was hard to think straight. Funny, the silly little fantasies that came over her now and again were no longer pleasing at all. They’d changed into horrible nightmares, plaguing her dreams while she lived every waking moment in constant fear of something that didn’t exist. But Opal was firmly hooked now, and she couldn’t pull away.

Satisfied that no one real was watching, Opal ducked behind a dumpster to wait for the others. She knew what the gang had planned for tonight---the Bloody Angels, they were called. Opal hated the name, as she always had from the time they first carved their insignia into her left wrist: a bloody cross with wings. Those unfortunate enough to get caught in the gang’s clutches were there for life---which probably wouldn’t last long for most of them, what with all the drugs and daredevil heists, kidnappings, and what-not. And it was dangerous just to be a member if the gang, for at the tiniest hint of traitor, you were dead. And you’d die a bloody death. Darkling, the Angels’ leader, prided himself on fear and carnage.

Presently, four figures emerged from the darkness: Opal knew them as Slink, Fracture, Rival, and Darkling, while they knew her as Dagger, for the seven-inch switchblade that she’d swiped from her father, and knew how to use to her advantage.

“Hey, Dagger,” Darkling welcomed, slapping a rough hand on her shoulder. “We were wonderin’ where you’d run off to.”

“We started to think that maybe you’d ditched,” Fracture said malevolently, giving her a knowing look.

Opal laughed nervously. “You know I’d never do that to ya, guys,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. It was so hard with this . . . this tainting her blood.

“Good,” stated Darkling, meeting her straight in the eye. He still had her by the shoulder. “‘Cause I’d sure hate to make ya pay the penalty, sweet thing.”

Opal shivered as his piercing steely-grey eyes grinned at her wickedly and unmercifully. “C’mon now. You know what we’re doin’ tonight.”

Copyright © 2009 by Lavender Westmarch

She reclined near a window in the front room of her apartment, the tears shimmering in the warm light of a brilliant sunset as they dropped, unheeded, on the unfinished patchwork quilt that lay forgotten in her lap. Why must she be so alone? Her heart cried out for someone who truly loved and cared about her, yet she could not see the love that waited for her at the altar of Forest Glade Wesleyan Church. It had been obscured from her when the cruel, mocking laughs of those supposedly Christian girls had reached her ears.

Her name was Constance Randall, and tonight, as always, she waited for her Uncle Mark to get home. He usually stayed out well past midnight, and when he did come back, he was always drunk; but even though she didn’t know what he did on those long nights, Constance always sat up for him while she worked on her creations--sewing, crotchet, or embroidery. She loved to make things with her own hands.
If Constance had ever made any acquaintances outside of the tiny, two-room apartment, she would have been very popular among the kids her age; especially the boys, for despite her delicate complexion that came from staying inside far too much, she was a natural beauty and a valuable friend. Even so, the girl was much too shy for any kind of special attention, save from those she loved most. So, Constance never once dared to leave Room 310 of Singer’s Apartments---that is, not until tonight. And look at where it had got her! Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

She turned back to the pretty patchwork and began to ply her needle furiously, hoping that she could get rid of her troubles by stitching them away into the simple, though brilliant, design.

Down below, someone had a perfect picture of the princess who stayed hidden away in her tower as she sat sewing in the twilight, and wondered who she could be.

Copyright © 2009 by Lavender Westmarch

NOTE FROM THE AUTHORESS: I have revised the first two installments of "Rose Colored Stained Glass Windows," so I advise you to check back and get up-to-date!

~

“How dare she do such a thing?” fumed Aurora the minute the door was locked and the sanctuary was empty again. “It is her duty to minister and welcome any lost children to the family of Christ! Whatever happened to that?”

“I feel that this is the answer to our awakening, Aurora,” Twilight said. “We are to turn this church around and guide it back to the correct pathway,, so that they will once more walk with the Son instead of their own selfish desires.”

“How?” was the simple question.

Twilight paced the floor thoughtfully. “I believe I know,” she said at length. “We must take the humans’ form. If we change our guise to appear as they do , surely they will attempt their ungodly wiles to force us out of the church; but when we do not leave, they will begin to wonder…why.”

Almost as soon as she had finished speaking, the rose-colored light enveloped them like a veil, transforming them into what looked to be two of your basic average girls. Their wings were gone, their long, fancy garments were gone; and in place of them, Aurora was clad in a pink blouse, a blue-jean skirt, and a pair of sneakers; and Twilight wore khaki pants and a dark violet T-shirt with a “what would Jesus do?” printed on the front.

“Is this really the kind of thing that they are wearing?” complained Aurora, examining her outfit. “It’s so…plain!”

Twilight sighed in frustration. “Must you be so particular? Let us wait here until tonight, when we shall see what all has truly changed in this church---by experiencing it firsthand.”