Miriam opened her cupboard for some flour and froze. Before her, the biggest spider she had ever seen—multiple glass-bead eyes, and feathery, overlong, jointed limbs—paused in the sudden shaft of light. Miriam’s scream trembled in her throat, suspended between ripping out of her and being gulped fearfully into her stomach.
The spider moved first, its mandibles working. “Be not afraid,” it said, sure and strong. “I bring you great news…”
With a yelp, Miriam raised the wooden bowl in her hand and brought it down hard on the spider. The wet crunching noise it made reminded her of breaking eggs. She shuddered and ran to her front door, shouting for her neighbour.
“Another?” asked Tanit. Miriam nodded, grimacing as her neighbour peeled the angel’s carcass from the cupboard. Already it was beginning to disintegrate and vanish. Tanit stuffed it in a vial containing a purple liquid and stoppered it.
“It’s in a much better condition than the other two,” Miriam said. “You will need to up the payment.”
“You smashed it too hard,” Tanit countered. She counted coins grimly into Miriam’s outstretched palm. “Why do they keep coming to you anyway? What do they want?” Her look was shrewd, suspicious. Angels rarely appeared to people these days, and with the king searching for anyone who got a visitation… well.
Miriam shrugged, avoiding her gaze. The coins went into a pouch at her waist. She soaked a rag and scrubbed at the shimmering blue-green stain with salt until it vanished. Tanit, realising she would get no answer, prepared to leave.
“Remember,” Miriam said, bolting upright. “No word about this. Herod’s men have not stopped looking for whoever gets a visitation. I am lucky to yet be hidden from his seers.”
“If he hears, it won’t be from me,” Tanit grinned and tucked her vial into her sleeves. “I find the fare in my inn much improved by celestial materials. Why risk pauperdom?”
The half-disintegrated angel glowed dimly through her sleeves, though Miriam imagined she only saw the spark because she knew what to seek. She wondered what this angel would do to Tanit’s dishes; the first had been a lobster sort of creature that shimmered with a white-hot light, and when Tanit made it into soup, it caused customers in her tavern to suddenly understand each other, no matter from what region of earth they hailed.
The second had been some sort of orb that hovered just out her reach, speaking softly, fast, filling her spirit with a mighty dread. Miriam had thrown a wet cloth over it and drowned it—surprisingly strong—in a barrel of wine, squeezing it hard between her palms to keep it submerged, it thrashed its death throes, eventually cracking against the wood of the barrel. Tanit had purchased the cheap wine, tutting under breath, amused all the same. It had caused her clientele to have glorious visions of the future. Miriam, despite Tanit’s urging, had tasted not one drop.
“So then,” Tanit said. She adjusted her shawl over her head and stepped into the sunlight.
Miriam crouched, examining her handiwork. She nodded to herself and humming, began to scoop flour into the bowl to make her daily bread.
