Eventually I get up and shower, drying my freshly touched-up hair with far more care than I usually give it. A large white rose, the biggest I could find in the tiny floral section at the grocery, goes over my ear. Wearing the full crown from my birthday felt a little too obvious. I don’t usually look in the full mirror when I get ready, preferring to use my compact so I only have to look at whatever I’m working on, but this morning, I put on my makeup with all of me visible. I’m Chavi but softer, not as bright or as bold, my sister’s bone structure and features through different-colored glass. I pull on the tiered white sundress, the royal blue sweater and leggings that I put out last night. A freak weather system that moved in yesterday means there’s snow on the way, on the first of May. Still, with the coat I should be warm enough.
Downstairs, I can hear Sterling and Archer talking, the changing of the guard. When I come down, camera bag slung over one shoulder, Sterling is gone. Archer looks at me, his eyes a little wild. Second thoughts? But he gives me a shaky smile and opens the door, so I guess we’re good. I can’t imagine Sterling would have left if she had had any idea of our plans for the day.
I can still back out. Just tell him or any of the others about Darla Jean’s brother, let them find and arrest him.
But I think of spending the next however long waiting for a court to tell me I have justice, when justice can’t bring anyone back. Be sure, Mum said.
I’m sure.
We stop at Starbucks to get drinks for the road, and then we’re on our way.
It’s a long, quiet ride to Rosemont, both of us sipping at our drinks until they’re gone. Music plays softly from the radio, hard to hear over the whirr and buzz of the heat. Halfway there, it starts to snow, fat, wet flakes that shush against the windshield and melt as soon as they touch the warm glass. Occasionally, Archer’s GPS gives us a change in direction.
My hands won’t stop shaking. I bury them in my gloves, even though they’re starting to sweat. Right now, I think, it might be nice to be a religious person. It would be nice to have something or someone to pray to, with the relative certainty of being listened to. Then again, if I were a properly religious person, I probably wouldn’t be doing this, so. You know.
The snowfall gets heavier as we go. When we drive through the tiny town of Rosemont, a cluster of orange-coated men and women are out with shovels and salt buckets. A trio of plows sits on a side lot by the fire station, ready to make sure folks can actually get out of their homes. Not many people live here in town; according to the articles I read about the chapel, Rosemont exists mostly so the area residents have someplace to market, mail, and educate their children.
Archer frowns at the open curiosity that meets us down the main road. “Is a stranger so shocking?”
“It’s a small town.”
Shiloh Chapel is a few miles outside of town. As small as Rosemont is, it manages to have four proper churches, but the chapel is left over from a wealthy mining family that used to own most of the land hereabouts. It’s popular still for weddings, regardless of denomination. Archer parks the car a ways back, and for a moment I’m so enchanted by the view I almost forget why I’m here.
It’s like standing inside a snow globe. White covers the sloped roof, more than a dusting but not quite thick enough to hide the reddish-pink terra cotta tiles. The walls are white as well, plaster or stucco or whatever it is that leaves thick swirls of texture like an oil painting. The small rosettes on either side of the ox-blood door are shades of blue, and there’s something a little bit perfect about that.
There won’t be enough sun to catch the other windows at their full glory, but there’s magic in this too.
Checking over my camera, I sling the bag over my shoulder and climb out of the car, the camera itself cradled in my hands. My hip catches the door to swing it shut. I lean against the front of the car, where warmth seeps through my coat despite the damp of melting snow, and just take in the view for a bit.
Framing the picture comes later; you can’t see context through the view-screen.
Archer is still in the car when I lift the camera and start taking pictures, the tiny chapel almost blending in with the snow except for its darts of color. I pace in a wide circle around the structure, finding the interesting angles. The east and west walls are, like the Methodist chapel back in Huntington, only as much wall as is needed to support the windows and roof. Even without beams of sunlight, without the way to track the shafts of color against the new snow, the glass is glorious. The western wall shows Jesus walking on the water through the storm, the disciples huddled in a rough boat in one corner.
Josephine was Episcopalian; we went with her to church sometimes out of curiosity, and afterward, Chavi would take the Bible stories and sketch them into windows like this. I haven’t really thought of those stories in years.
The north wall is entirely solid except for a trio of rosettes in warm shades of yellow, amber, and brown. It’s cleverly done, if you believe in a Trinity, each rose predominantly one color but containing all three, bleeding into each other around the inner edges. Maybe it’s clever even if you don’t believe.
I make another circle, stepping in for close-ups this time. A trail of green ovals shows where I’ve been, though fresh snow dusts the grass soon enough.
The east wall is its own sunrise, and I wish I could see it with all its warmth, the colors afire with light. There are colors I would never think to put into a sunrise, bright blues and soft greens blurring out from the indigo and lavender, but it works in a way Chavi could probably understand, if not explain.
When I come back around to the front, Archer is still in the car. “Coming in?” I ask through the closed window.
He shakes his head. “Far too cold for me. Take your time, though.”
Right.
There are no chairs in the chapel, no kneelers, just space, empty even of the hum of electricity. I take my pictures, entranced more than I would have guessed by the simplicity of the northern rosettes, the colors warm and soothing like candlelight. There’s a stillness to the air, the moment before a breath. It isn’t simply silent, it’s muffled.
Solitude, I suppose, when it’s nature rather than choice.
Then I pack away the camera, setting the bag safely in a corner, and peel off my gloves, scarf, and coat. It isn’t anywhere near warm enough, but I know what I look like in this dress, because I know what Chavi looked like in it. It was always one of her favorites, and even though she was an inch or so taller than I am now, an inch or so smaller in the bust, it fits well, sweet and innocent, the ruffled white tiers just a little bit flirty. There isn’t a way for me to look like the too-skinny twelve-year-old I was, but I can look like a pale reflection of Chavi.
The rose is heavy against my ear, the weight fighting the pins holding it in place. It seems heavier than it should be, and I can’t tell if it’s just me, maybe, my body insisting on feeling the weight my mind wants to give it.
With my phone in my hand, I drop the coat in the center of the floor and sit down on top of it. Even with the heavy wool and my fleece-lined leggings, I can feel the cold seep through. Chavi used to sit like this, just captivated by whatever she was trying to draw.
I hear the rumble of the car turning back on and driving away. Of course no one’s going to come if Archer’s right there. So he’ll hide a ways back, watch. Wait. I pull up a contact on my phone and hit “call” and “speaker,” listening to the dull rings fill the small chapel.
“You’re up early for a Saturday, Birthday Girl.”
Something tight and terrible in my chest eases at the sound of Eddison’s voice. I can hear chaos behind him, what would seem to be Vic getting roundly scolded by his ma. “It’s snowing,” I tell him, and he laughs.
“Goddamn Colorado. But you usually wait for me to call you on your birthday. Are you okay?”
Because as much as he’s my friend, he’s also an agent, or maybe more an agent at times, and he’ll always look for patterns and the ways we break them. It’s comforting, a little. Dependable. “I’m Chavi’s age.”
“Shit, Priya.”
“Next year, I’ll be eighteen, and logically, I knew it would happen, but I don’t think I’m prepared to be older than my big sister.”
I’m not fully prepared for a lot of things, but I’m pitching headlong into them anyway.
“Has your mother pinched you yet for being maudlin on your birthday?”