Page 31 - Archangel

As they pulled away from the shore, MacIain oddly conjured memories
of his Scottish American grandmother who always said she, and later he,
had the Celts’ small voice and premonition beyond reason but very much
alive to occasionally guide him in the world. That small voice led her
one day to scream “Stop!” at Skye’s mother as his mom pulled out of the
oyster-shell driveway. Staring briefly at each other in shock, mother and
grandma suddenly scampered out to find a three-year-old Skye silently and
partially pinned under the tire of their old 1956 Buick. Pulling forward to
free him with shaking hands, a week-long tire impression on young Skye’s
malleable little arm was the only remnant of the near-catastrophe.
Another miraculous intervention came from Skye’s Gullah neighbor
Olivia, a ‘seer’ who lived beside the MacIains on Savannah’s Wilmington
River by Sasser’s shrimp docks. On one fateful afternoon, the nearly-
blind, ebony Olivia inexplicably dispatched grandson and Skye’s buddy,
Roderick, into the Wilmington River in his bateau. Her calm and cryptic
directive was, “Lil Skye, Ee comin raan deh ben fa sabe um.” Sure enough,
Roderick soon intercepted a frantic MacIain as he passed around the bend
in the tidal river, pulling at his failed outboard motor as he was being
sucked out toward the Atlantic Ocean by a 10-knot tide.
MacIain didn’t know or care if it was Grandma, Olivia, or both
matriarchs who counseled him to slip the H & K into his captain bag. Just
that he heard the voice loud and clear that fateful night in Bukavu before
they voyaged back to a dangerous Rwandan shore to rescue an angel. It
saved their lives.

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