Into This River I Drown

I gave him that hat when I was eight years old. I’d been so proud of myself for

saving up money, doing extra chores and not telling anyone why. I wanted it to be a surprise. I’d convinced my mom to take me to the store to buy it, telling her she needed to wait in the car because I wanted to do it on my own. I’d gone in and told the clerk I needed the largest size because my father had the biggest head ever. I’d counted out the crumpled dollars carefully, adding coins when I ran out of paper. The clerk had wrapped the hat (so green it was, the words JOHN DEERE in bright yellow, like the sun) in tissue paper before putting it into a brown paper bag. I marched out of that store, feeling high and mighty for thinking of this all on my own. He would love it, I knew. He would think it was the greatest thing in the world.

But that quickly gave way to nerves a day later: Father’s Day, the reason I thought to buy it for him to begin with. I cursed myself as I nervously handed him the paper sack, wondering why I hadn’t saved a bit more money to get wrapping paper. He would hate it, I knew. It was such a dumb present. It was awful. Even as my mother murmured to him that this was all from me, that I’d thought of this all on my own, I felt my face burn. He lifted the tissue paper off as if he was unwrapping the greatest gift in the world. There was such reverence in his eyes, such excitement that I almost couldn’t bear the thought of disappointment taking over, a crushing look that would show how much I had failed. But it never came. He lifted the hat out of the paper, brushing his fingers along the brim gently. His eyes went back and forth as he read over the two words there. His voice was a little rougher than usual when he spoke. “You got this all on your own for me?” he asked, touching the hat again. I nodded at him, unable to speak. “Well, isn’t that… just something,” he said. “Isn’t that just fine. Why, it might be the finest hat I own. You know what we have to do to it, Benji?”

“Crack the brim,” I said, finding my voice, feeling very warm.

“That’s right.” And with that, he took the brim between his two big hands and started to mold it in a semicircle, shaping the green. After, he put it on his head, and it fit just right without him having to undo the snaps on the back. “Very handsome,” my mother said with a smile.

He turned back to me and said, “Well?”

“Looks good, Dad,” I said. But inside, I was screaming with joy, knowing I’d done something right in his eyes. And only a moment later I found myself being pulled upward into a hug that seemed to go on for days.

“Thanks, Benji,” he said, kissing my forehead. “It’s the best present I ever got.”

He wore it almost every day.





“I gave him that hat,” I mutter to Corwin. “Years ago. It was found floating in

the cab of the truck when he was pulled out of the river. Have it back at the house with some other things.” Things that were his, things that I keep away from everyone else. The hat, given to me by an officer whose name I couldn’t remember. A shell casing. A photo of him and me, sitting side by side up in the mountains on a dirt road on a hunting trip when I was four or five, him feeding me a piece of jerky. A yellowed note that says, Benji, make sure you rake the leaves today after school. Just get around Little House and I’ll help you with the rest this weekend. Love, Pops. Things that would have meant absolutely nothing to anyone else, but meant everything to me.

“He was a great man,” Cal whispers in my ear. “You know this.”

Corwin nods at my words, looking slightly ill. “I waited,” he says. “I waited at the park for hours. No one ever showed. I wondered if he’d gotten scared and flaked on me. It never crossed my mind that something happened to him. I just thought he’d worked himself up too much to actually show. It’s happened before. So many times.

“I went back to Eugene and never heard from the guy again. Eventually, it was made clear by the Agent in Charge that my time would be better spent on projects of merit rather than ones that had nothing to support them. I was told in no uncertain terms to drop it, that obviously it was going nowhere, and I had a witness who no longer wanted to play ball.” He smiles sadly at me. “I saw the news story about your father. About his accident. I figured it was him. The timing was a bit off, though. We were supposed to meet at two, and he’d apparently crashed in the early morning. It would have been too early for him to leave to meet me. But then they showed a video of him speaking at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, and that voice… I knew it was him.”

“Why didn’t you do anything then?” I ask, wiping my eyes.

“It all comes down to proof, Benji. There was no proof of foul play. The official police report listed it as a single-vehicle accident. There was no evidence of a second vehicle involved. Nothing on the coroner’s report to suggest foul play. The timing wasn’t right. The Old Forest Highway ends at I-10, yeah, but even if he was going to I-10, who’s to say he was driving to Eugene?”

“I know. I’ve read all the reports. I’ve thought of all these scenarios. Probably many more times than you ever have.”

He nods, like he expected that. “Then you should know there’s nothing there. It was officially ruled as a single-vehicle accident possibly precipitated by speed and the road conditions due to the rain. The report was signed off by Griggs.”

I eye him carefully. “But you don’t believe it, do you? Not now. You think something happened.”

“Yes,” Corwin says, and I sigh. “I think somehow, someone found out your father was speaking to me and decided to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. I think your dad was run off the road and left in the river to drown. I came here a few weeks ago because of that dead file. I was told it was done. I almost believed it was done. But….” He shook his head. “There was something there, I know it. It can’t just all be coincidence. It just can’t.”

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, suddenly unsure about all of this. It’s one thing to be on the phone with the man, and it’s another to hear confirmation of what I’ve long suspected. Now that it’s at hand, I feel small and weak. Uncertain and indecisive.

“Nothing,” Corwin says, a stern edge to his voice. “Especially now that Traynor is involved. Benji, the things that man has done would curdle your stomach. It’s best to keep your distance, as much and as far as you can. I’m going to be sniffing around town a bit. This is officially off the record, at least for the moment. The wife thinks I’m out of town on some work training, and work thinks I’m on vacation. I’m going to take a few days and just look around and see what I can see. Griggs is in on this, I’m sure of it. Walken too. If what your father told me is correct, they could be supplying methamphetamines up and down the West Coast.”

“Arthur Davis,” I say, his name coming out of nowhere. “You might want to check into Arthur Davis.”

He opens his phone and types something into it. “Why him?”

I tell him the story of the attempted robbery, how Arthur dropped Traynor’s name and how the attempted robbery ended in the gunman’s supposed suicide. By the time I finish, Corwin is shaking his head, his jaw set. “Jesus,” he says. “I mean it, Benji. You need to keep your f*cking distance. These people are animals. You need to keep yourself safe. If anything comes from this, we have bias intimidation of a witness and assault and battery against Traynor. Don’t suppose you called the cops after he left.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m sure Griggs would have loved to take that report.”

Cal growls at him again. “You don’t need to worry about him. It is not your job. It is my job. And I am more than ready to do what is asked of me.”

Corwin stares at him. “You’re an odd duck, you know that?”

“I am not a duck at all,” Cal snarls. “You just do your job and let me do mine. Benji belongs to me and no one will take him from me.”

“Hush,” I tell him lightly. “Nothing is going to happen to me. And besides, I can take care of myself. I have for a long time.” Cal looks at me like that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever said.

“You guys been together a long time?” Corwin asks bluntly.

“Yes,” Cal says at the same time I say, “A few days.”

Corwin stares.

“Long story,” I say as I flush.

He nods. “I’ll be in touch, Benji. Just keep doing what you are doing, and don’t let anyone know yet that you spoke to me. If you see me around Roseland, act like you don’t know me. If the shit starts to hit the fan, you call me. That number I gave you is a separate private number. Most people don’t know I have it, not even my wife.” I arch my eyebrow at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Not like that. I deal with some shady people sometimes with what I do, and I don’t want to bring my work home with me. And sometimes, like now, I don’t want to bring things into my work. Not yet. We clear?”

I nod. He stands up from the booth, dropping a twenty on the table. He starts to walk away but pauses at the edge of the booth. He doesn’t look down at us. “I’m sorry about your dad,” he finally says. “I… I always wanted to say that. You know, how sorry I am. What he tried to do was a very brave thing. You have every right to hate me, but the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to help people and to put the bad guys away. I like to think that maybe your… Big Eddie was like that too.”

I nod again, blinded by tears.

He leaves. That is the last time I see him alive.





I’m not the one who physically killed Agent Joshua Corwin, though it might as

well have been me. It is my fault just the same. Had I not called him, he might not have found a reason to come back to Roseland. He might have escaped the pattern, even if it seems to have been calling to him. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have been freed from it? Had I not involved him, he might be with his family instead of lying in a morgue a hundred miles away in the coastal town of Bandon, his bloated body having washed up on a rocky beach four days after we met in the grimy diner.

The what ifs haunt me almost as much as my own memories do. I lost my father to something I still don’t quite understand. He was taken from me, yes, and even if I believe more and more that his death was not an accident, a small part of me still questions whether it could be true. What I can’t question is the fact that I helped to take Corwin away from his family. His daughters will not have their father because of me. His wife will not have a husband because of me.

I don’t know much about Corwin’s last hours. I didn’t see him around Roseland in the days that followed our meeting. All I know is that Abe came in, his hands shaking slightly as he grabbed a newspaper off the stack near the front door. He flipped the paper over and showed me the story in the bottom right-hand corner with the headline: Body in Bandon Identified as FBI Agent. Even as those words blurred and my head started to pound, I read on, and Cal came up behind me and wrapped his big arms around me, holding me close. Agent Corwin had been found facedown on a beach outside Bandon, Oregon, by an older gentleman out for his morning walk. He told police he first thought it was a large sack washed ashore, and that he was going to pick it up and throw it away. He hated litter on the beaches, he said. But when he’d gotten closer, he’d seen white hands, which went to arms and a torso, the face down and turned away. The older gentleman said he froze for a moment, that he could not believe what he was seeing. That he hadn’t seen a dead body since he’d fought in World War II, and that he realized not enough time had passed between the last time and now. Not having his cell phone on him, he stumbled back and headed for the nearest set of stairs, where he flagged a passing motorist who called the police.

Since Corwin was found naked, he had no form of identification. All of his teeth had been pulled from his head. His fingers had been cut off, as were his toes. An obvious attempt to keep him from being identified quickly. I haven’t been able to work up the courage to find out if these atrocious things were done before or after he was killed. I don’t think my sanity could take knowing.

A sketch of his face had been plastered all over the coastal news, and word quickly spread of the John Doe. I heard vague talk of this dead man but didn’t make the connection. Why would I? Even before the FBI could be called in to help with the investigation, one of Corwin’s colleagues saw the sketch. There was no question as to the John Doe’s identity. Agent Joshua Corwin had been murdered, they said. Shot through the back of his head. Based upon the angle of the bullet wound, he would have most likely been on his knees at the time. Hearing that only made the news worse.

Did he beg? Did he plead for his life? Did he tell the shooter he had a family waiting for him, he didn’t want to die, he just wanted to go home? Did he cry out his daughters’ names? Did he whisper that he loved his wife?

Did he pray?

That’s the one that gets me the most, especially as I watch my own angel as he cups my face, as he brushes the tears from my cheeks, never recoiling from the anger in my eyes. Did Joshua Corwin pray for release? Did he ask God to save him? If he did, why was the prayer not answered? Where was Corwin’s guardian angel? Where was the guardian angel of Bandon? Why was Corwin’s thread not seen? I’d met the man. I saw his strength. His thread would have been as bright as the sun.

These are questions Calliel can’t answer. Or maybe he won’t, I don’t know. He says he still can’t remember a lot of what happened before he fell from On High. I want desperately to believe him. I think part of me even does believe him.

“God has a plan,” he says quietly, later that night. He’s curled around me as I shake in the dark. He strokes my back gently. “I know it may not seem like it at times, and it’s hard to understand and it always seems unfair, but my Father has a plan, Benji. I’ve seen it in the shapes. In the patterns. The design. This is nothing you did. This is not your fault. If anything, it’s my Father’s. And I think I can truly understand anger now. I hurt for you, Benji. Oh, how I hurt for you. I don’t want you to be sad. I don’t want you to cry. You’ve done so much of that, and I don’t want to see it anymore. I’d do anything not to see it anymore. I’d do anything if I could just see you smile at me. I understand anger, yes. I’m angry at what I’ve seen in the shapes. That damn pattern. That bastard design. But most of all, I am angry with my Father for hurting you. I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I don’t want you to hurt ever again. I would take all of it from you if I could. You are mine, and I would take it all.”

His words soothe me, even if they cause my chest to hitch.

I think about going to the funeral, but in the end I don’t, unsure if it’s my place. I don’t know if I could stand to see the grief-stricken faces of his family. I don’t know if I would be welcome, even if I would be unknown. I don’t know if I’m already being watched somehow. It doesn’t seem possible that an agent with the Bureau could have driven out to a diner to meet with me without leaving some kind of trail behind. Thoughts of phones pinging off cell towers and recorded conversations bounce around my mind. I don’t know how possible it is or if I’ve seen too many movies. At the very least, I expect the FBI to question me. I did call Corwin at his office one time. Surely they will check the call log. Surely they will wonder why he was so far away from home when he died.

The media began to speculate, helping to spread rumors like wildfire. After all, a big thing did happen in a small town. A mystery occurred, one that had no answers, so of course there was speculation. It was discovered (leaked?) that Corwin worked on a drug task force. Surely that was related somehow? He’d gotten caught up in something related to his work and had paid the ultimate price. Maybe, some thought, he’d been dirty and had been double-crossed. Maybe he was undercover and had been found out. The FBI didn’t release much information, aside from saying they believed someone out there had to know what happened. Anyone with any information was urged to step forward. The FBI didn’t take kindly to their own agents getting gunned down. They had some leads, though they declined to reveal what those leads were.

Corwin’s funeral was held on a bright sunny day in Eugene. Abe didn’t want me to go, the fear in his eyes palpable. Cal didn’t want me to go, the anger in his eyes like fire. We didn’t tell my mother. Much went unsaid, though I am sure we all thought it. Traynor. Or Walken. Or Griggs. Or one of their people. Someone had forced Corwin to his knees, stripped him of his clothing and shot him through the back of his head. Did he say anything about me to his killers before he died? Did he tell them I was the one who had called him? Did he tell them what he knew? Did they force it out of him?

Again, so many questions with no answers. I didn’t go to the funeral. I didn’t show my face. I didn’t step forward as they had asked. It wasn’t out of fear for myself, not completely. It was out of fear for my family. If I’d shown up to Corwin’s funeral and someone was watching to see who would go, then I ran the risk of endangering everyone I loved. I couldn’t take that chance. I had to protect my family.

Roseland was in the claws of the men who ran it. I could feel the grip tightening around us, and soon there would be no way to struggle for release. There was something coming on the horizon. It felt like things were building, though I couldn’t say to what point that might be. All I knew was that I was stuck in that grip. I couldn’t get out, not anymore. I thought about struggling, but I refused to pull anyone into it with me.

This was the life and death of Joshua Corwin. He lived until I killed him.





these flickering lights

I am in the river, chest-deep. Shadow of a figure up on the road, hidden by rain.

Flashes of crosses and feathers. The current is rough against my skin. “Benji.” My name is uttered. It’s as loud as I’ve heard it. Is it the river? Is it my

father? Is it a guardian angel who I—

need can’t live without must have love love oh god i love

—know will wrap a strong arm around me and pull me from this place? I don’t

know. I don’t care. Whatever the whisper is, it says my name like a caress and I

lower my head beneath the surface of the river because that’s where it is, that’s what

it wants. Who am I to fight it? Who am I to deny it?

The sound of the rain thundering down from above is muffled underneath the

surface. I open my eyes and prepare for the sting. It comes, but not as painful as it

was before. The world appears a quixotic blue—

blue i shall call you blue because all i have is blue

—and I think about how nice it seems, how soft and wonderful and muted. I

don’t know why I never thought of it this way before. It’s safer down here, floating

in the deep blue dark, and I think how wonderful it feels just to float. I could float

here for the rest of my—

A sharp sound, metal moving against rock.

It grates against my ears and I grit my teeth. But it dislodges something inside

me as well, and I no longer want to float in the blue. The river is trying to hold me

here, trying to make me forget. Breathe, it whispers in my ear. Open up your mouth

and take a deep breath and you will be fine. It’s all blue, you know. Everything down

here is blue.

The sound is louder. I see a faint shape outlined ahead.

The truck.

I push forward, twisting through the river. The red truck comes into sharper

focus, the cab upside down and pressed against the bed of the river. Its tail end is at

an angle and breaches the surface.

I move closer and see the driver’s window is busted out. It must have happened

in the impact. It must have been—

A flash of white.

It’s an arm, I think wildly in the river. It’s an arm. It’s Big Eddie. It’s my father.

The last time I saw my father was in the morgue when he was dead and white and not

my father. He was so f*cking white and the man in scrubs said it was because he had been underwater for a long time, that it was the river’s fault he looked the way he

did. This is the river. This is my father. This is—

I’m closer now. My father holds something in his hand that drifts gently up and

down. It’s too hazy for me to see it, so I move closer. I don’t want to see my father’s

face, I don’t want to see any more of his body trapped here underneath the river, but I

must get closer. My chest is starting to burn, and all I really want to do is take a great

gasping breath, so all the blue fills my lungs and all the river is within me. It’s so

f*cking dangerous, this thinking, and part of me is screaming to stop, just screaming

for me to kick to the surface, to pray and pray and pray for the angel to pull me

away. But I can’t. I won’t. Not when I am so close and can see—

An arm wraps around my chest and pulls me away.

But not before I see the great blue feather in my father’s hand.

Rising up.

Rising down.





This was the last time I saw my father’s face.

“Are you sure, Benji?” my mother asked, her voice hollow. “I don’t know if you should do this.”

“Let one of us handle it,” my Aunt Mary said, tears leaking from her eyes. She’d been this way since she, Nina, and Christie arrived hours before. “You shouldn’t have to see this. It’s not fair. I don’t want you to hurt anymore.”

“It’s morbid is what it is,” my Aunt Christie said, glancing around, narrowing her eyes. “Why does anyone even have to do it?”

“Benji, Benji, Benji,” my Aunt Nina said, petting my hair and kissing my cheek. “You are strong and brave. Big Eddie always thought so. You know that? He always thought so. All the time he did.”

I must stand, I thought. I must stand and be true.

“I just don’t get it,” Christie said, sounding upset. “Why do you have to go in there?” She wrung her hands, cracking the knuckles.

“His wallet was lost in the river,” I said, my voice rough. “His wallet is gone, and even though it’s his truck, they still need a family member to identify him.”

“Griggs knows him,” Mary muttered. “He should have been able to do it just fine. Don’t know why he needs to involve us.”

“Benji,” my mother said, biting her bottom lip. More tears welled in her eyes. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe you shouldn’t see—”

I shook my head and said, “No. No, I will do this. This is my father. He would do the same for me, so I will do what needs to be done.”

A knock on the conference room door. We fell silent as the door opened. Doc Heward, on call because the county coroner was out of the state at the moment, stuck his head in, eyes somber and gentle. “Everything okay in here?” he asked kindly.

“You tell ’em, Doc,” Christie insisted. “You tell ’em that Benji doesn’t need to go in there. You’ve known Big Eddie since he was a tyke. You can tell if it wasn’t him. Please don’t make Benji do this.”

He looked miserable. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said, darting his gaze to me before looking away. “It’s the law, Christie.”

“F*ck the law!” she snarled, looking wild-eyed. “F*ck the law!”

Mary recoiled and Nina covered her mouth to keep from snorting at her sister using a bad word. My mother shook her head, tears falling from her eyes. None of them knew I’d already talked to the doc. None of them knew he told me he would be more than willing to identify Big Eddie for me, that it was Big Eddie in there, he already knew. He’d fudge the paperwork a bit. No boy, he said, should have to see his father in such a way, especially a boy like me and a father like Big Eddie. Let him help in what little way he could. Let him take some of the pain away so I could remember Big Eddie the last time I’d seen him, that smile on his face, the stubble on his head. Let him do this for me, please. By the time he’d finished begging me, there were tears in his eyes.

But not in mine. No, thank you, I’d said. No, thank you. I will do my job. I will see to my father the way I am supposed to. You shouldn’t try and stop me.

He’d hung his head.

“F*ck the law!” Christie repeated. “Griggs said—” She stopped herself and shook her head. I didn’t care right then to know what Griggs had said. All that mattered was seeing to my father.

Old Doc Heward said in a small voice, “Benji, are you ready?”

No. No, I wasn’t ready. No, I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to stand. I didn’t want it to be true. All I wanted to do was find a dark corner and curl up until I was as small as I could make myself and just stay there until the world passed me by. I’d put myself in this position but could only now fully realize what I was about to do. Some small, tiny part of me still believed this to be a nightmare I couldn’t seem to wake up from. That part of me was sure that any moment now, my screams would be heard, and a rough but gentle hand would shake me awake and I’d open my eyes. I’d open my eyes and find myself staring into green like so many fireworks blasting across a black sky. He’d have a tight frown on his face, lines around his eyes as he squinted at me. “Benji,” he’d say, his voice a deep and worried rumble. “Benji, it’s okay. Wake up. You need to wake up because it was all a dream. Dreams can’t hurt you because they aren’t real. None of this is real and you need to wake up.”

“Yes,” I whispered aloud. “Yes. I think so, yes.”

I’d always heard the first step is the hardest, and once you take that first step, all the ones that follow are infinitely easier by comparison. I contemplated that first step for what felt like ages, but in the end, my right foot lifted slightly off the floor and the step was taken. Then another. And another. It did not become easier.

Doc Heward held the door open for me, his eyes filled with so much pain for me. I made it through the doorway and into the long, cold gray hallway. The door closed behind me, but not before I heard my mother gasp and shatter again, the quiet murmurs of the Trio, the only family I had left in the world.

Doc started to speak, but I couldn’t hear his words because I was so far away. I was so far away and I almost couldn’t tell which was the dream and which was real life. I heard my father’s voice in my head, like so many memories rising at once, the cacophony so brilliantly loud that it caused my—

eyes to water as my father said, “I got a guy, Benji. I’ve got a guy who can get us a V8 cheap for the Ford. He tried to swindle me a bit, but I reminded him we don’t do that kind of thing here and he

“—told me he understood and gave me a fair price,” I whispered aloud.

“What was that, Benji?” The Doc asked kindly.

I shook my head. “You think you can give me a moment?” I asked. “I’ll meet you down the hall. I just need a moment.”

He nodded sympathetically and moved slowly down the hall, pressing his hand up against the wall as if he couldn’t support himself.

This was getting more real by the second, and I almost couldn’t catch my breath. My vision narrowed as I took another step, and bile rose at the back of my throat. “It’s not real,” I said. “It’s not—

going to be easy, but I think we can swing it,” my father said with a laugh. “Look, I know I said this was going to be just an office, but think about it, Benji. What if… what if we could just build a whole other house? It won’t be as big as ours but just… what if? If we really buckled down and agreed to do this thing, it could

—be yours one day,” I said as I took another step. “It could be yours one day, if you wanted to stay here, that is. I know there’s a big wide world out there, but sometimes… sometimes, you just want to come home, you know?”

I did know. Oh God, how I knew.

I followed Doc’s silent advice and pressed my hands against the wall to help support my weight. The concrete was cool underneath my hand, and didn’t the hallway seem longer somehow? Didn’t it just seem like the longest hallway ever to have been built? It went on for miles, it seemed. I didn’t know if I could make it. I didn’t know if I could travel that great distance, realizing more and more what waited for me at the end. “I’ve always thought,” I started then paused. I slid my fingers over the stone, rough against my skin and it—

was so funny to see Big Eddie dressed in drag that Halloween, getting ready for the Roseland Chamber of Commerce’s big party. He came down the stairs in the ugliest dress I’d ever seen, plaid with greens and blues and oranges and red. I burst out laughing as he tried to squeeze his gigantic feet into what had to be the biggest pair of high heels in existence. My mother collapsed against a wall, holding her sides, tears on her cheeks as she laughed so big. Big Eddie glared at the both of us and said, “What’s so flipping funny? I’m going to show the town how much I support my son. My big old gay son, because he is my son. If he is gay, then I want to show I’ve got his back. I’ve always—

—got his back,” I said as a tear slid down my cheek. “Even if I look like a big old tranny, the people here are gonna know that my son isn’t going to take shit from any of them.”

Memories like knives. Memories like ghosts.

I was haunted all the way down that hallway. I felt stabbed repeatedly as I heard his voice in my head again and again. I couldn’t stop the memories, no matter how much I wanted to. I hated myself for all the good I remembered, because I wanted to let my anger consume me so I could focus on all the bad. I wanted to scream and shout at him, to let him hear my fury. To let him hear my fury and wake the f*ck up, to stop playing this dangerous game that was breaking me apart.

I was six when he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder and tickled my sides.

Another step.

I was… I don’t know. I was some age somewhere when he looked at me and smiled for no reason at all. He reached over and ruffled my hair and said, “You’re going to be a good man, you know that?”

Another step and I didn’t know that, not anymore.

He sat on the patio beside me at Little House as we watched the sun go down. After a quarter-hour silence, he said, “Sure is a great night.” Then he grunted that sound that meant he was happy. I could only nod.

Another step, and I opened my eyes to see I was almost at the end of the endless hall. The doc waited for me near a door that looked like black iron. He had his hand on the handle, and he didn’t know I saw him wipe his other hand across his eyes and take a shuddering breath.

It was almost real.

I heard my father singing quietly to himself as he sanded a piece of wood that would become the trellis up the side of Little House. It was something I’d heard him sing many times before. An old Seven of Spades song. “Float,” it was called. Some bluesy riff from the forties. Covered by many others through the years, but the Seven of Spades one was always his favorite. It was the song he sang when he was content and lost in his own little world. He—

I stopped. This couldn’t be real.

“Sometimes I float along the river,” I sang quietly to myself, my voice cracking. “For to its surface I am bound.”

I took another step.

“And sometimes stones done fill my pockets, oh Lord,” Big Eddie hummed. “And it’s into this river I drown.”

“Are you sure about this?” Doc Heward asked me with a worried look, as if he could hear my father singing off-key in my head.

No. “Yes.”

“Benji, this doesn’t need to happen. I’ve told you I can—”

“Open the door, Doc.”

He watched me for a moment. I don’t know what he saw, but it must have been enough. He heaved a great sigh and opened the door. It squeaked on its hinges, the sound low and grating. I ground my teeth together. It went on forever.

Finally he walked through the door. I followed him down a shorter hallway until we came to a second door. This one had a small window about head height, and was a pale green. The doc paused again and turned to look at me. I almost screamed.

“We’ll go through the door,” he said quietly. “In the upper-right corner, there is a TV. When you are ready, I’ll turn the TV on, and on the screen, you’ll see a video of the room next door. I’ll ask the ME’s assistant to show you a face. You say yes or no and that’ll be it. We’ll be done. You can leave. You can go back to your family and let them hold you. That’s what you will need, and you have to let it happen. Do you understand?”

I was distracted by a low buzzing noise. I looked up. The fluorescent light overhead was flickering. The electrical buzz was soft but steady. I stared at the light as it went out then back on. Out then back on.

“Benji?” Doc said, sharper.

I looked back at him and nodded tightly. The light continued to sputter.

He opened the green door. It made no sound. I was led to a windowless room. It was colder than the hallway, much colder. A small desk was against the far wall, battered and littered with papers and pens. Pencils and a handful of paper clips scattered near the edge. A stapler and a half empty cup of coffee. The swivel chair next to the desk was blue and worn. There was another door on the opposite side of the room. It was closed.

In the right-hand corner above me was a TV. The screen was black, and I could see myself in the reflection, eyes blown out, mouth slack. The light in the room flickered here too. I disappeared on and off the black screen with the flashing light. The doc muttered to himself, something about the wiring in the old building. He said nothing about the charge in the air that I was sure he felt. How could he not?

He turned to me again and opened his mouth, but I stopped him. “Doc,” I growled at him. “If you ask me if I’m sure one more time, I’m going to get angry.”

His shoulders sagged as he exhaled. “I’ve known you since you were born,” he said finally. “I’ve known your father since he was even younger than you are now. I can tell you the ache I have in my chest, but it won’t even compare to what I know you are feeling.” He looked away. “I hurt,” he said. “Because he was my friend, I hurt. But you? Benji, he was your father. I can’t even….” He couldn’t finish.

“Show me,” I said. “Show me.”

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Eric? The family is ready. Okay. Okay.” He closed the phone and slid it back in his pocket. “Deep breath, okay?”

I nodded.

He reached up to switch on the TV and I thought no, no, no, because it wasn’t real, none of this was real. I thought I felt the brush of a hand on my shoulder, but that was impossible because my back was against the wall. There could be no one there.

But even as I screamed at the doc in my head, I said nothing aloud, because I needed proof. I needed proof in this nightmare. Tangible, verifiable proof that I could see with my own eyes, so I wouldn’t have to hear the words I still considered untrue. It was necessary, I told myself. It was the only way.

Doc touched the button on the front of the TV, and there was an electrical snap. A small shower of sparks fell from the back of the TV to the floor, hissing as they hit the cold concrete. The doc jerked his hand away and stared dumbfounded at the TV. A smell of burning plastic permeated the room. “Goddamn wiring,” he muttered. “Told them a thousand times to get this fixed. Not in the budget, my ass.” His phone rang. “Yeah? No, the TV shorted and damn near shocked me! The what? The camera went out?” He frowned. “That’s not hooked up to any of the wiring, is it? That’s odd. How the hell…. No. Just give me a moment.” He snapped the phone shut and reached up carefully toward the TV again, which had already stopped smoking. He tapped the power button quickly, as if thinking he would still be shocked. Nothing happened. He pressed the button and held it down. Nothing.

“Benji, I’m sorry. I don’t know what the hell happened. Looks like the monitor is dead. This building has had the same wiring since the fifties. I guess there was a surge somewhere.”

And now I would never know if my father was truly gone. This was my only chance to see and it had been taken from me. I would have to take it from the words of others that he was gone, and there would always be that little voice in my head that said ‘what if?’ What if they were all lying? What if this whole thing was one big hoax? Big Eddie wouldn’t leave me. He told me he wouldn’t. He told me he’d be back in the afternoon. He promised.

“Open the door,” I said.

Doc’s eyes widened. “What?”

“The TV won’t work. Your camera doesn’t work. Open the door. I want to see for myself.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think—”

“I’m not asking you to think,” I snarled at him. I immediately felt guilty at the way he recoiled, but it did nothing to stop me. “Open the door, Doc.”

“Your father wouldn’t want this,” he said. “He wouldn’t want this for you.”

My eyes started to burn. “If he’s gone, what does it matter?” I said hoarsely. “What does it matter what he would have wanted?”

“It will always matter,” the doc argued.

I shook my head. “You have to have this for your reports. I have to have this for my sanity. Open the door.”

He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to refuse. I thought I was going to have to push my way past him and bust through the door myself. I would be careful—Doc was getting older and I didn’t want to hurt him. But not even he would stand in my way. The sinking feeling I’d had in my stomach for the past two days was swiftly turning into a black hole, and I had to stop it or let it consume me completely. I didn’t know which option was safer. I wasn’t sure if it mattered.

Doc closed his eyes and his lips moved as he muttered to himself, and it took me a minute to realize what he was doing. Out of all the things he could have done, the fact that he seemed to be praying was the most unexpected. I felt sick at my anger, but it did nothing to quell it. I let him have his moment, let him say whatever he wanted to whomever he was saying it to. The buzzing of the lights grew louder, like a hive of angry wasps.

Doc finished his prayer and opened his eyes again. There was still doubt there, but it was resigned. He knew I would not back away from this. Not now. He didn’t even ask me if I was sure again. I almost wished he had.

He turned to the windowless green door that had started to take on a menacing shape. Maybe they were telling the truth, I thought nervously, starting to fall into the black hole. Maybe this is real life. Maybe I’m not asleep.

He opened the door and stuck his head in. I heard the murmur of conversation. I couldn’t make out the words. There were protestations from the unseen Eric, but the tone in Doc’s voice silenced him. I heard footsteps, and then a young man who seemed oddly colorless came through the door, pushing past the Doc. He moved with an economic grace, no step wasted, almost like he was floating. Eric wouldn’t meet my eyes as he flitted by me and out the other door, shutting it behind him.

“It’s cold in here,” the doc told me kindly. “I have a jacket if you think you’ll need it.”

“Why is it cold?” I asked, suddenly unsure.

“To… preserve the body.”

“Like a freezer?”

“Yes.”

That didn’t sit right with me, the thought that my father could be cold. What if he didn’t want to be cold? What if he wanted to be warm? It wasn’t fair. If he couldn’t be warm, then I wouldn’t either. “I don’t want a coat,” I said roughly.

“Okay, Benji. Okay. Do you want me to be in there with you?”

I thought I did. I thought I wouldn’t want to be alone, even more so than I already felt. The black hole was opening wider and I was starting to collapse in on myself. I didn’t want to be alone. But I heard myself say, “No. I’ll go by myself.”

He nodded, as if he’d expected this. “Then you need to understand something, Benji. I need you to listen and listen good. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“That may be your father in there. But it’s not really. It may look like him, but it’s not him, okay? Your father is in a better place, a warmer place, a happier place, so whatever you see in there is not who he is anymore.” His voice started to waver. “You should pull the sheet from his head, and take just a moment to be sure. You might want to stay longer, but I am begging you not to. I don’t think I could stand it. Just take a peek and then come out, and I’ll help you remember who he was. I’ll help you remember everything he was to you. He’s not what’s lying in there. That body is not all he was. Do you understand?”

That’s what they say to prepare you, I thought. That’s what they say when it’s going to be bad. It’s going to be bad.

“Yes,” I said.

“I wish you’d change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

Unbelievably, he smiled as he shook his head. “Stubborn. Just like him.” And then he held open the door.

A wave of cold air washed over me, carrying with it a sharp medicinal smell, like antiseptic. My arms prickled, the thin long-sleeved shirt I wore doing nothing to keep the cool air out. I felt dizzy when I inhaled, but I swept away the vertigo, forcing my vision to clear, forcing myself to take the next steps until I was through the doorway into what was essentially a freezer.

“Close the door,” I said, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

For once, Doc did not argue and did as I asked.

I turned away from the door. In the center of the room stood a metal table. On this table was a great white sheet. And under this great white sheet was the form of a man. I could see the points of the feet, facing away from each other at a slight angle. Following the sheet I could see the gentle press of a stomach. Further, a slight peak of the nose.

I tried to breathe through my mouth because the cold air in the room was becoming harder to take, the medicinal smell like waves crashing over me again and again and again. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Get it done! I cried to myself. Get it done and get out!

I took a step.

I ignored the way the lights above began to flicker.

It’s just bad wiring, I told myself.

I took another step and gagged on the smell.

It’s how they keep things clean.

I shivered with the next step, my teeth starting to chatter.

It’s how they keep things preserved.

Another step, and I knew it would just take one more.

I was almost there, so I took it. I took the last step.

The lights buzzed loudly.

Before I could stop myself, before I could turn and run from the room screaming that it was a lie, this was all a lie, and please, please, let me just wake up, I raised my hands to grip the sheet near its edge. I focused on what was so clearly the point of a nose and thought, Big Eddie never had that big of a nose. A mistake! There’s been a mistake and he’s alive! He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive. My father was alive. He was not under the sheet. His nose was not that big. He was somewhere safe and soon would come out of hiding and take me in his arms, and I would feel my back crack as he hugged me tightly.

With this certainty, I pulled back the sheet.

And moaned.

It was too much at once. Big Eddie Green was lying there, in this cold room, on this cold table, under this cold sheet that felt scratchy in my hands. I thought I could refuse to believe it at first, that my mind in a last-ditch effort to save itself wouldn’t let me see what was actually there. But it did.

His skin was starkly white, much whiter than it had ever been in life. I was distracted by splashes of color, though, like paint on a canvas. The area around his closed eyes was violet, like a mask made of bruises. A bloodless red cut zigzagged across his forehead, starting from his left eyebrow and rising up to his right temple. A navy blue knot of flesh rose from the left side of his head, as if he’d struck it on impact. His parted lips, a pale pink. The hint of white teeth underneath. That dark stubble on his head. On his face.

Only then did I become aware of a low sound in the room, almost like a strangled cry, a gasp of air. I looked around wildly. No one was there. I was alone. And only then did I realize the sound was coming from me as I let it out again. A hand had seized my lungs and my throat had closed. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t pull in air. I was suffocating next to a Big Eddie whose face was covered in impossible colors, in such an improbable shape. Bile tried to rise, but my throat was too constricted for it to get any farther.

It’s a lie, I tried, one last time. He said he’d come home in the afternoon. It’s a lie. It’s a lie.

I thought the life I have now would not be possible. Your mom. You. None of this seemed like it could be real. Like it could be mine. It seemed impossible.

I opened my mouth to admit the truth to myself.

Instead, I screamed.

I had to be sedated then and for the days that followed. I was told later my screams could be heard throughout the building, and I didn’t stop until Old Doc Heward injected something into my arm. The world fell into a hazy mix of violet, like bruising. Red, like cuts. Blue, like knots. For want of my father, I was lost.





A week after Cal returns, we sit on the roof, in the dark. Waiting. Watching.

So much to say, so many things to ask, but for the moment I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it. For the moment, all I care about is the way I fit against his chest like we were made for each other, two separate pieces interlocking to be made whole. All I care about are his arms around me like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him. For all I know, maybe I am.

That’s all I care about. Until I open my mouth. “The dreams are getting worse,” I say as the sky begins to lighten in the east.

Cal pulls me in tighter. “I know,” he says gruffly. “Don’t you think I know?”

“You saw it the last time, didn’t you.”

“Saw what?” he asks, but he knows.

I wait.

“Yes,” he sighs. “Yes, I saw it.”

“Why would my father have a feather in his hand? One of yours?”

I can feel his frustration mounting, but not at me. Not yet. “I don’t know,” he says. “I wish I did. I’m praying every chance I get. I’m begging, I’m threatening, I’m demanding an answer. I can’t remember, and I need to know why. My Father is testing me, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” He’s vibrating by the time he’s finished, his anger spilling over.

“You guard,” I say as I burrow myself further into his embrace.

I feel his tension ease slightly. “What?” he whispers.

“You guard,” I say again, letting my lips brush against the hollow of his throat. “You come here and you do what you are supposed to do. You guard. You stand and be true.” Those last words hurt.

“There haven’t been any threads in a few days,” he says. “I don’t know what that means.” He’s right. It’s been almost a week since Corwin was buried, and not once has Cal been called away, not once has a thread made itself known to him.

“Maybe they hired someone else to take over for Roseland,” I try to tease, but it falls flat.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that, Benji. There’s protocol, procedure. At the very least, I would have expected Michael by now.”

“Or more of the Strange Men,” I mutter, shuddering at the thought. I was sure they were going to descend on the town in droves after Dark Man and Light Man were sent into the black, but there’s been nothing. It’s been quiet, aside from Corwin.

“It’s like I’ve been cut off,” Cal says. “Like I’m alone here. I’ve done something, and I can’t remember what it is. I don’t know what I did.” He sounds so forlorn that I can’t help but twist in his arms and kiss him soundly. He huffs his surprise, but he lets me in, my tongue touching his. He kneads at my back almost desperately, and I can feel his breath, hot and harsh against me.

“It may be a test,” I say, pulling back, allowing my lips to brush his cheeks. “And you may be cut off, but you are never alone. Even if the majority of the town hadn’t already fallen at your feet, you’d still have me.” I kiss him again, hoping he can feel how true my words are.

He smiles weakly at me as I run my fingers over his cheeks. “You say that now,” he says. “But Benji, I had something to do with your father’s death. You can’t deny that. Not anymore.”

I ignore the dark twinge in my chest. “Dreams are just that,” I manage to say. “Dreams.”

“Except when they’re not,” he replies.

He’s right, of course. I’m at the river almost nightly now, sometimes able to get close enough to see the feather in my father’s hand before Cal pulls me away. There are times when I feel like he allows me to linger, like he wants to see what else there is under the river’s surface, but he remembers his duty and pulls me away. I’m on the brink of something; a precipice. The edge of everything.

“Something’s coming, isn’t it?” I ask him, making sure I can see his eyes.

He hesitates, but then: “Yes. Yes, I think so. I think this whole thing has been a beginning and that the end is coming. This is my test. I think this is my test.”

Chills, like ice, spread down my spine. “Do you remember anything? Anything at all?”

He tries to pull away, but I don’t let him. I press my forehead against his, making sure I’m as close as I can get to him. “Little things,” he says finally. “Like flashes of light. Pieces that don’t quite fit. I can see the threads as I used to see them when I was On High. I remember praying, but I can’t remember what for. I remember Nina talking with me before I fell, but I can’t remember what she said. I remember the surprise I felt at her hearing me, but knowing it was because I was close.”

“Close to what?” I ask, trying not to let him see how my heart is aching.

“To you, Benji,” he says, bringing a big hand to the back of my head, holding me tight. “It may be pieces, but it’s you. It all comes back to you. You are in my pattern. My shape. My design. Even through everything, it all comes back to you.”

“Well, then, whatever it is,” I tell him fiercely, “whatever is coming, we’ll face it together, okay? I don’t care what it is, Cal. I don’t care how long it takes. We’ll do it together.”

He smiles sadly at me. “I really hope that’s true, Benji. I do. I really hope so, because I don’t know anything else right now. I don’t know anything else but you. I can see the others in this town, and I care for them because I must. They are mine to protect. But it’s you. You are the one I want.”

I straddle his lap and take his head in my hands and pull him to my chest. He rests against me, my chin on his head as he clutches at my back. He shakes against me, and I let him because if there is something coming, he’s going to need strength. I would gladly give him all of my own to help him stand.

Eventually he calms and props his hands against the roof. I turn and lie with my back against his chest as we wait for the sun. “Should we warn them?” I ask finally. “The town?

“About what?” he says.

“I don’t know. We don’t even know if anything will happen.”

“No, we don’t.”

“But it will.”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Cal?”

“Yes?”

“I have to find out what happened to my father.”

He stiffens underneath me. “I know,” he says quietly. “But you must stay away from the river, Benji. Please. I know I can’t explain much, and I know it may not make sense, but you must hear me. Please. Stay away from the river.”

“It’s Griggs,” I tell him, certain. “It’s Griggs, and Walken. It’s Traynor. It’s whoever they were calling the ‘boss’. It’s them, I know it. They killed my father. They killed Corwin. They killed Arthur Davis.”

“And they’ll kill you,” he snaps, suddenly angry. “We must wait. We must wait until whatever comes shows its face. After that, I promise you I will do everything I can to help you. But we have to wait, Benji. Promise me.”

“We won’t have much time. They said they were moving everything on the day of the festival. Jump Into Summer Fest is only a few weeks away. I have to—” “Promise me!” he snarls in my ear, slamming his fist down on the roof. “I promise,” I whisper, though it feels like a lie, to placate. To soothe. And then a sharp intake of breath.

“What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

“Damn,” he mutters. He tries to hide whatever is wrong, but I can see he’s favoring the hand he’s just hit against the roof. I pull on his arm to show me, and my fingers feel slick. He sighs but doesn’t resist. The sun chooses that moment to peek over the Cascades and the first rays of sunlight on a new day catch upon my life, now so unreal.

Embedded into the side of his hand is a small carpenter’s nail, undoubtedly forgotten at one point on the roof. It’s jammed into his hand almost to the nail head, his skin puckered around it. But it’s not the nail itself that catches my eye; it’s the dark-red blood welling around it.

I lift my hand in front of my face, staring at his blood on my skin. “That’s not….” I breathe. “You got shot. I saw you get shot and—”

he is weaker

“—nothing was wrong with you!”

He winces as he pulls the short nail out of his hand. I pull my shirt off over my head, the morning air cool against my body. I wrap his hand with my shirt to stop the flow of blood.

“It’s what the Strange Men said, isn’t it?” I demand. “They said someone like you couldn’t stay here. What happens if you do?”

He looks away, but not before I can see it in his eyes. He knows. This isn’t a hidden thing, lost in whatever his Father took from him before he fell. He knows this.

“Calliel! You better f*cking answer me on this! I deserve some goddamn answers after everything I’ve been through, after everything we’ve done. If you even remotely care about me at all, you will tell—”

“I’m becoming human,” he says quietly as the sunlight catches his red hair. It reminds me of blood, and I almost cry out. He looks like he is covered in blood. “Father put it in place to avoid angels becoming corporeal. The longer I stay, the more human I become. And if I stay….” He watches the horizon.

“Cal?” I ask, already knowing the answer but needing to hear him say it. “What happens if you stay?”

He turns and kisses me deeply. I can feel the desperation behind it as he pushes into me. He’s clawing at my back, trying to get as much of me as he can. I pull away only because I don’t know what’s wrong. He grabs my neck and jerks me close again. When he speaks, his voice is a rasp in my ear. I tremble. “If I stay… if I stay, the moment I become human, I will die. My soul will not be allowed to ascend. I’ll fall into the black and be lost forever.”

The sun continues to rise.





a knock at the door He’s dying.

Ever since that night on the roof, weeks before, I haven’t been able to think of much else besides blood dripping down Cal’s wrist, the nail jutting from his skin, the curiosity on his face as he felt physical pain for what had to be the first time. Even pressed against me, his lips near my ear as he told me what would happen if he stayed, he seemed to be more worried about me than himself.

“You have to go back,” I choked out. I wanted nothing less in the world, but it seemed to be the only way.

“No,” he said, his dark eyes flashing. “I will not leave you.”

“But—”

“Enough, Benji.”

But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. How could it be? I was angry that he could be so selfish as to allow me to watch him to die, knowing everything I had been through. I had nowhere near recovered from the loss of my father and he was expecting me to go through that again? The bastard. How dare he? I was drowning in a f*cking river that he was still attempting to save me from, and he was telling me he was going to push me back in and hold me under. My father’s death had nearly destroyed me. Cal’s death would finish me.

This, of course, led to the question of how Calliel, after such a short amount of time, could mean as much to me as Big Eddie did. That was the question I didn’t know if I wanted answers to. It’s easier to ignore what’s in your heart if you pretend it won’t hurt you in the end. But even I knew that was a lie I used to placate myself.

I watched for signs of Cal weakening, of humanity springing forth and leaving his angelic side behind. I stayed awake long into those nights, lying against his chest, listening to his heart beat against my ear, his chest rising and falling with every breath he took. Aside from the nail in his hand and the blood from it, there was nothing else. He looked the same; he sounded the same. He tasted the same.

In those weeks leading up to the festival, no threads called to him, no reasons to leave my side. Again I wondered if it was because he was already more human than angel and had been cut off from God, or if he had been replaced by a new angel who was watching over Roseland. I listened for gossip to spread like wildfire, but heard nothing unusual. There were other rumors, of course. Rumors about me that I overheard at the diner. Rumors I overheard while shopping at Clark’s on my day off, Cal at my side, dropping box after box of Lucky Charms into the basket (“I think I am just going to take all the green clovers out of each box and put them into one box so I can have a box of just green clovers.”) These rumors were accompanied by furtive glances at us. No one seemed quite sure how we had met. Sometimes these questions were asked to others, sometimes they were asked, almost shyly, to me. He was just passing through town, I told them. He decided to stay a while (“Not so much passing as falling,” Cal would tell me later, a grin on his face).

Most spoke of the fact that Cal lived with me and that each of us was rarely seen without the other. It’s good for Benji, they said. He’s been such a loner ever since Big Eddie passed, God rest his soul. It’s nice to see him smile again. So they shacked up quickly. When you know, you know.

But I didn’t know. I didn’t know at all.

People loved him, though. If he left the store without me, he’d be mobbed almost instantly by people who just happened to be walking by the station. Cal! they’d exclaim. What a surprise to see you! What are you up to? Oh, well I don’t mind walking with you since I was heading that direction anyway! Then they’d wave at me through the glass almost as an afterthought, and I’d roll my eyes as Cal turned back to me with a grin, the worry not quite leaving his eyes. If he did leave my side, it was only for a few moments, and only because I practically shoved him out the door. He’d take off on whatever errand I’d sent him on, almost at a jog, his companions struggling to keep up with his long strides.

“I wish you wouldn’t make me leave you,” he said with a scowl one night, very late. “I don’t like to take my eyes off you. Not when we don’t know what’s out there.”

I snorted as I rolled off him and onto my back. “That’s life,” I told him quietly. “You never know what is out there. You just have to hope and trust that you’ll see the other person again.”

He must have heard something in my voice betray me. A slight tremor, a rhythm to my words that belied the teasing lilt I tried to make him hear. Before I knew what was happening, he was atop me, crushing me into the mattress, teasing his tongue over my skin. There was always need with him, but this was somehow more. He held me as if I was something precious, something extraordinary, as if I was his guardian angel instead of him being mine. He spread my legs with his knee, and I saw blue, everything I saw was blue. He took me that night with such abandon that I cried out incoherently as he rammed into me, unable to form words, much less thought. Blue lights shot across my vision, though whether from him or in my head I didn’t know.





I awake early the morning after, shortly before he rises to wake me for the

sunrise, heat radiating from him as he presses against my back, draping his arm over my waist. I turn over, my face against his. He chuffs quietly in his sleep, gives a light snore, then falls silent. First, I wonder if he dreams as I reach up to smooth the lines from his brow. And, second, I try to remember what it’s like to sleep alone. I can’t. These are the only thoughts I have until he opens his eyes right before dawn and smiles a sleepy grin at me. There is something there, in his eyes, a deep warmth far beyond anything I’ve seen in him before. I think I know its name, though I can’t bring myself to say the words. It’s as if in me he’d seen the greatest thing in his long life.

A life he is ending by being here with me, I thought as he pulled me to him. Not everyone was kind, though. I didn’t miss the scowls of Griggs as he drove by us on the street. Walken would nod coolly as he entered his office on the other side of Poplar. They knew, somehow, that I knew. What I was supposed to know didn’t matter, just that I knew. I knew about Arthur Davis. I knew about Joshua Corwin. I knew about my father. These were men who killed to maintain their secrets. I didn’t know which one of them pulled the trigger at Corwin’s head, or hung Arthur by his neck, or ran my father off the road. I didn’t know if the specific person mattered. Not even if it was Traynor, who’d disappeared. They were all complicit, and I would bury them alive if I got the chance.

Cal knows of my anger, though he says little of it. Sometimes I think he has plans all his own, though I don’t know what they could be. I suppose I should be worried about what he will do. Or about my soul. But I don’t think I am.

No FBI agents have knocked on my door asking after Corwin.

No Strange Men have wandered into town.

It makes me nervous.

It doesn’t help that the dreams are getting louder and louder. Standing by the roaring river, the rain pounding down from the sky. The metallic shriek of Big Eddie’s truck crashing down the embankment. Crosses. Feathers, both on the surface of the river and in my father’s dead hand. A darkened figure up on the road. My name called, my body submerged. I’ve never really thought about sounds in a dream before, but as the dream progresses, each time an inch or two closer to the window, the world around me is shrieking, enough so that it feels like my head will split and save me the trouble of drowning. I don’t know if the further I am getting in my dream has to do with Cal becoming more human. All I know is I have to get into the truck.

It also doesn’t help that I’ve started having the dreams while I am awake. Conversations get interrupted because the river has rushed in and engulfed me. I swim as fast as I can (thinking inhale, try, breathe, drown), but the truck’s only an inch closer each time. I’ll snap from the waking dream, laughing it off if I’m talking to a customer or my family. If it’s Cal, it doesn’t matter because he already knows. He’s the one who pulls me away.

But I’m getting closer each time. I have to see my father’s face.





“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” I mutter, sitting on the edge of the

bed. “As a matter of fact, this sounds like an awful idea.”

Cal is standing in front of the mirror, his face scrunched up as he stares at his reflection, trying like hell to tie his tie. For all that he can do, for all that he is, it’s the tiniest of things that trip him up the most. The most human of things. Like tying a tie that I’m still unclear about why he decided to wear. (Where it has come from inspires a whole other set of questions I don’t want to bother with; the slacks and dress shirt he wears are tailored perfectly, as if they’ve been made for him. Someone has obviously been sneaking around.)

I sigh and walk over to him, knock his hands away and untangle the knot he’s somehow gotten his finger stuck in. “We can just stay in,” I mutter.

“Your mother invited us,” he says, checking himself out in the mirror again.

“Vanity,” I scold him.

“It would be rude not to go. Do you like this tie?”

“It’s okay, I guess. I don’t know why you want to wear a tie.”

“Oh.”

“She also invited Abe.”

“Yes. Good. I like Abe.”

“And the Trio.”

“Nina. Ah, little one. She is so special.”

“And Mary and Christie,” I remind him. “Who don’t know you sprout wings like a butterfly.”

He stops looking at his reflection to scowl at me. “I’m not a butterfly. I am big. Impressive, even. Suzie Goodman told me I was the most impressive specimen of man she’d ever had the pleasure of seeing.”

I roll my eyes as I finish his tie. “And why were you talking to Suzie Goodman?” I ask, ignoring the flash of jealousy that I want no part of. I know as well as Cal does that he’d never do anything with her. He just likes to get a rise out of me. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, though I do cinch his tie more tightly than I need to.

“I was reading on the computer that you have to keep your man interested, so it’s always good to make sure he knows others are.”

I frown at him. “Angels are not allowed to go on the Internet.”

He winces. “Probably a good idea. That place has so much porn.”

I don’t want to know. Okay, I do. “Let’s just get through this so we can come back to Little House.”

Cal kisses me gently before walking out of our room. “Sure thing,” he calls over his shoulder. “I did learn some things on the Internet that I want to try on you. It’s not all bad.”

I stare after him as his laughter floats back to me.





It’s a warm spring evening, the Jump Into Summer Festival now only a week away.

Mom has invited Cal and me up for dinner at Big House with the rest of the family. She and I have kept our distance from each other since that night in the cemetery weeks before. It wasn’t anything unusual for us, at least at first. Even though we live right next to each other, there’s been times since I moved into Little House that we have gone months without seeing each other. We leave notes here and there. Maybe a text message or two. A voice mail if it’s really important.

But now I have a life preserver of sorts, someone who is trying to keep me afloat. He has his hand curled in mine as we walk up the hill toward Big House, the sun already starting to set. A sweet breeze that smells like the trees washes over us, and for a moment, a brief second, I’m able to forget about everything that has happened, and everything that could still happen. For a moment, I’m walking up the driveway to Big House with my boyfriend to have dinner with people I care about. For a moment, I’m twenty-one years old and don’t know what true pain feels like. I am young and alive and ready to face anything the world throws at me. I don’t have a goddamn care in the world. Nothing can touch me. Nothing can hurt us. As long as I have this man by my side, as long as I can look the four women and one man who wait for us in Big House straight in the eye and tell them everything I’m feeling, then nothing else matters. It’s a lovely thought, deceptive though it might be.

Nina waits for us on the porch. She stands as we approach her, looking almost shy. “Do you like my new dress?” she asks, twirling around. “It was blue so I thought of Blue.” And it is, a dark-blue sundress that reminds me of his wings. It has little ruffles on the shoulders and white flowers sewn into the fabric. “Mary helped me pick it out.”

Cal lets go of my hand and stands in front of Nina, then bends over until they are face to face. “It’s the prettiest dress in the world,” he tells her seriously. “And you look very beautiful, little one. But then you always have.”

She giggles as she blushes, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. I should have known she would be perceptive to the changes in him, that she could see things no one else would. She stiffens against him and her eyes go wide. “How?” she whispers as she stares at me. “What did you do?”

Wow. It sure is bright today.

The stars?

Oh, no.

The moon?

Bless the moon, but no. What did you do today?

I was at work, Nina. You know that. At the store.

No, Benji. What did you do?

I wait, feeling uneasy.

She pulls from his embrace and looks up at him. I can’t see his face, but his posture is tense. “Things are different,” Nina says as she squints, as if trying to physically see just what she felt. For all I know, maybe she can.

“It’s not a bad thing,” I hear Cal say in a low voice.

“But you hurt,” she says, her lip quivering. “You ache in the haze of your mind. The pieces are shattered and you’re trying to put them back together. Why do you want to remember so bad? Aren’t you happy here? Can’t you just live for now instead of then?” Her gaze flickers over to me as she says this last, and I have to look away.

“Because,” he whispers as his shoulders slump, “I have to know what happened. I have to know what I did. I have to find out what I can do to make things right. This is my test, I think.”

I start forward, wanting to wrap myself around him, to take him away from here back to the moment where nothing could touch us and none of this stuff mattered. But I stop as Nina speaks again. “If you did do something wrong, could you forgive yourself?”

“I am more worried about others forgiving me.”

“Your Father?”

He sighs. “Among others.” The intent of his words isn’t lost on me.

“We make mistakes,” Nina says kindly. “It’s a part of who we are.”

Cal starts to tense again. “I am not one of you,” he says bitterly.

“You are more of who we are than what you used to be,” I say, finding my voice. “If you won’t go back, then we’ll find some way to fix this, I promise you.” I say this fiercely, as if I can make him believe with words alone. There’s much I feel I have to say to him, but I can’t find the right words.

“Sure, Benji,” he says, smiling weakly at me. He looks like he doesn’t believe me in the slightest, but he holds out his hand to me anyway. I don’t hesitate.

“Remember what you’re here for, Blue,” Nina says, looking at our joined hands. “If this is a test, I think you may be doing it right.”

“Cross your heart?” Cal asks.

She doesn’t hesitate and my heart skips a beat. “Hope to die.”

“Stick a thousand needles in your eye,” I finish.

“Thank you, little one,” he says, holding out his other hand. She laughs quietly to herself and takes it, her hands so little in his.

“I like your tie,” I hear her whisper as we walk up the stairs. “Very handsome.”

“I bought it for Benji,” he whispers back. “I made some money from Benji working at the store and wanted to look nice for him.”

I stumble on the last step, and he looks at me funny. “You okay?”

I nod. “Nina?” I ask, without taking my eyes off him. “Can you give us a minute?”

She giggles again, and I hear the door creak as it opens and then closes after her.

And then I kiss him with everything I have. “You look so f*cking hot in that tie,” I pant at him as our lips separate. “Sorry I didn’t say that earlier.”

He flushes and looks shy again. “It’s really okay?”

“Better than okay. Thank you. You don’t need a tie to impress me, but thank you.”

The smile he gives me then is brilliant, and that warmth I saw earlier in his eyes blossoms like fire. I think I know what it means. I think I know what it says.

I have to find a way to fix this, I think frantically as I kiss him again. This can’t be an ending. This must be the beginning.

“Cal, where in California are you from?” Christie asks, causing me to choke on a piece of bread.

We’re all sitting around the large dining room table, Abe on my left, and Cal to my right. Nina and Mary sit across from us. My mother and Christie sit at the ends of the table. I give serious thought to telling Christie to shut her f*cking face, but I don’t think that would quell the innocent question I took to be overtly suspicious. She’s family, I remind myself. She’s not like everyone else.

I jump in. “Redding.”

“San Diego,” my mother says at the same time.

“Sacramento,” Abe says at the same time.

Everyone stares at us.

“He traveled a lot,” I say hastily as Cal watches me. “He never stayed in one place for too long. Kind of his thing.”

“I moved around a lot,” Cal repeats as I resist the urge to kick him under the table. “Always moving. Kind of my thing. Lola, would you happen to have any green clover marshmallows? I think I would like some.”

My mother smiles weakly I as stifle a groan. “Sorry, Cal. Fresh out. I’m sure Benji has some back at Little House when we’re finished.”

“Rosie told me you had a thing for those,” Mary says, eyes sparkling. “I found that to be so dear.”

“Rosie is a good person,” Cal says as he chases a carrot around his plate with a spoon. “She carries that shotgun around with her everywhere and made me cupcakes. I like people like that.”

“Do you?” Christie asks, amused. “It seems to me shotguns are a scary thing.”

“I’m not really scared of much,” Cal says. He glances at me and smiles. This look is not missed by anyone at the table.

“Good to know,” Christie says. “Do you have family back in California, Cal?”

Dammit. He speaks before I can stop him. “I have a Father,” he says quietly. “And many brothers.”

Not quite a lie.

“Big family?”

“You could say that.”

I start to sweat.

“Are you the oldest?”

He shakes his head. “Youngest.”

Oh, that’s right. He’s only a couple of hundred years old.

“What about your mother?”

“Jesus, Christie,” I snap. “What’s with the third degree?”

She looks surprised. “I just wanted to get to know your friend better. Seems everyone in town just adores him, and I wanted to see what all the fuss is about. Besides, if he’s going to date my nephew, I think I have a right to know him better!”

“Dating? We’re… we’re not—” I sputter. “We’re just… shit.”

“Language,” Nina scolds me.

“We’re dating,” Cal tells the whole table quite loudly.

Abe and Nina grin. My mom looks stressed. Mary looks confused. Christie looks triumphant. I look embarrassed, I’m sure. And Cal? Cal looks pretty damned pleased with himself.

“I guess,” I mumble. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”

Dinner resumes, conversations veering here and there. Sometimes I speak up, other times I listen. I try to include Cal, steering the conversation away from any dangerous topics. My mom had asked me before why we just didn’t tell Mary and Christie about Cal since they were the only ones here who didn’t know, but I’d asked her to keep it under wraps for now. Mary, though I love her, isn’t known for her discretion, and I didn’t need Cal’s coming-out angel party to include the whole damned town. In my head I saw the swarms of media that would descend on Roseland, cameras flashing, reporters shouting. Then scientists would come and whisk him away to some secret underground testing facility where they would experiment on him, trying to find some way to hold him hostage and try to ransom him off to God. It was an awful thought, but one I believed to be entirely plausible. I put the kibosh on that idea as soon as it’d come from her mouth.

Dating, I think, barely able to restrain the eye roll. The concept behind it is so completely ludicrous I can’t even grasp it. One does not date a guardian angel, even if one is having sex with a guardian angel. Even if one has developed… feelings for said angel that defy logic or explanation. At the very least, I don’t deserve someone like him, to be sure. One can’t get smaller than being a small-town boy from a place like Roseland. I run the town’s only gas station, which still bears the name of my dead father. I have no prospects for the future. I am drowning in my own grief. I am selfishly motivated and desperate for answers I don’t know how to get.

But even then, even with these thoughts, even with the conversations around us, something happens. Abe is talking about the caves in the back hills again, most likely filled to the brim with gold nuggets the size of ponies. Christie listens with rapt attention, her eyes glittering with excitement. Mary and Mother are discussing the upcoming festival, and what they’ll need in order to prepare all the pies that have been ordered. Nina sits counting the peas on her plate with a look of pure concentration on her face, her tongue peeking out between her teeth as she moves each one from one side of the plate to another. This is my family, and the noise around me is soothing in a way it hasn’t been in quite a long time. That’s mostly my doing, I know, given my self-imposed exile in the Land of Sorrow. But hearing the overlapping voices and laughter, seeing the bright eyes and smiles, does more for me than I ever thought it could.

The strangely joyous moment is only confirmed when through it all, the noise, the laughter, the brightness of the room, I feel a hand on mine underneath the table. I turn my hand palm up and long fingers brush along the skin, causing the hairs on my arm to stand on end. I’m electrified as Cal brushes the tips of my fingers with his own. This is nothing erotic, though my dick thinks it’s a fine idea. The touch is not meant to be about sex. It is touch, feelings conveyed through a simple action that mean more to me than any words. He slides his fingers between my own, engulfing me as we blend together. I can feel him watching me out of the corner of my eye, and I think to turn, but realize I don’t have control of my emotions. It’s too much. It’s all too much, and I think about getting up and leaving the table. But he knows, like he always does, and squeezes my hand tightly, letting me know that he isn’t going to let go, no matter how hard I fight against it. Only he knows at that moment what is running through my head. Only he knows.

Eventually, I calm. Eventually, I stop listening to the little voices in my head telling me it won’t matter in the long run; I will lose everything and be alone again. Eventually it feels like blessed silence.

The only thing missing is my father. His presence doesn’t loom over the table as much as it has in the past when the remaining family came together those few times after he drowned. Then, it was like a large unspeakable thing had fallen over us all, threatening to bury us with its weight. It is still crushing. Devastating. Still painful, yes. Still there, yes. But it’s almost muted somehow, like seen through a fog. The warm hand in mine squeezes again and the fog shifts, only to come into sharper focus, and I recognize it for what it is.

It’s in my mother’s laugh, a sound as big as I can ever remember. It’s in the way Nina blushes when Cal winks at her. It’s the way Mary leans over and brushes a lock of hair out of Christie’s face. It’s in the way Abe drops a hand on my shoulder and tells me he thought he heard a rumbling noise in his old Honda and wants to bring it in next week for me to check it out.

We are moving on. We are letting go. I am realizing that some things might be more important than my own selfish desires for answers I might never find. It burns, this feeling. It hurts. It claws at me, but it’s undeniable. Cal glances at me again, those dark eyes sparkling, and it’s like a hammer to my chest.

But then that feeling is taken away only a short time later.

We’re clearing the table when my mother comes out from the kitchen, wringing her hands. I wonder at it, having noticed her pointed looks at Cal that got more and more obvious over the past hour. I don’t know what she’s up to, and I have a feeling I don’t want to know. She’s planning something, her nervous hands doing little to detract from the determined look in her eyes.

“Cal?” she says, and the noise in the room stops. I can hear Mary and Christie chattering in the kitchen while they start the dishes, but the rest of us are quiet, waiting. “May I speak with you? Alone?”

I narrow my eyes and before I know what I’m doing, I take a step to stand in front of him, as if to protect him. It must look ridiculous, given how much bigger he is than me, but at the moment, I don’t know what she wants and I’m not going to take the chance.

“Why?” I ask before Cal can speak.

She glances at me before looking back at Cal. When she speaks, it’s to him. “There’s something I need to say to you. Something that I need you to hear.”

“Lola,” Abe says. “Maybe we could just—”

“It’s okay, Abe,” Cal says lightly. “She has the right.”

“The rest can go,” I say with a scowl. “That’s fine. But if you think I’m going to go too, you better try again.”

“Alone,” my mother repeats.

A knock at the door, light but strong.

We all turn to look.

“Now who could that be?” my mother says to herself, starting for the door.

Something is off. I didn’t hear a car come up the driveway, much less see headlights. Cal has begun to growl, his hands turning to fists at his sides. Thoughts of the Strange Men start running through my head. Thoughts of Traynor standing at the door, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Something is wrong.

I brush past him and put my hand on my mother’s shoulder. “I’ll see who it is,” I say. “Why don’t you just hang back?”

She starts to object, but Cal’s growling grows louder as he sidesteps us and heads for the door. I rush after him. “Who is it? A thread?” I mutter once I catch up to him.

He shakes his head. “No thread. It’s him.” For the first time since I’ve known him, I hear fear in his voice, underneath the growling, buried in the bravado.

This can’t be good.

I reach the door first, much to Cal’s dismay. Already I can hear the others following us down the hallway. “You don’t open that door, Benji,” he snarls at me. “You get behind me and you let me deal with this. I am a guardian and I will guard. Do it now and don’t make me ask you again.”

I obey, instantly. I can’t ignore the fury on his face, the way his eyes look like they have turned to oil, liquid and black. Had this occurred only a few short days ago, I’m sure blue lights would have been flashing all around him, forming the outline of his wings. But as it is, there is only a charge in the air, like static, palpable and thick. I don’t want him to open the door.

The knock comes again.

“Don’t open the door,” I whisper. “Please.”

“Benji,” my mother asks from behind me. “Who is it?”

Cal kisses my forehead and opens the door.

A man stands there, a man unlike any man I’ve ever seen before. The sun has set long before, the sky behind him like a deep bruise. The light from inside the house bleeds out onto the porch. The shadows from the darkening night seem to crawl over his shoulders.

He is an imposing figure, all sharp angles and planes. His black hair is short, nary a strand out of place. The goatee around his thick lips is perfectly trimmed. His throat is exposed, showing olive skin that disappears into an opened button-down white shirt that looks crisp. He wears a black dress coat that appears tailored to fit his strong body, buttoned once in the front. He’s not bigger than Cal, more lithe and long, but he radiates authority. He is devastatingly handsome, but in a cold, manufactured way.

“Calliel,” he says, his voice whiskey smooth. “How lovely to see you again, brother.”

“Michael,” Cal says quietly in greeting.

Michael.

Cal’s voice, a memory: I can’t tell the future. I can’t speak to God’s plan. I don’t think anyone can, even the higher-ups, the archangels, though sometimes I wonder what exactly Michael knows….

The Strange Men: This will end now as we were instructed. We cannot go back to Michael empty-handed.

Cal: Minions that do nothing more than Michael’s bidding. They are abominations, and I do not know why Father permits them.

I feel eyes on me and pull myself out of the memories. The archangel Michael is looking at me with undisguised curiosity, cocking his head to the right, and for a moment I expect his eyes to twitch back and forth like his Strange Men. “You must be Benjamin Edward Green,” he says to me. His voice is kind, and that makes his smile all the more terrible. “It’s nice to meet you, Benji. You’ve certainly made quite the impression, from what I understand.”

“Don’t you talk to him,” Cal snaps, pulling me behind him. I press my forehead against his back, smelling earth, the charge in the air increasing. “This does not concern him.”

“Doesn’t it?” Michael asks. “It seems to me it most certainly does involve him. You made that perfectly obvious once you made the decision to come here.”

“I… I don’t….” Cal sounds upset. Uncertain. I move around him again and stand by his side. This time he doesn’t stop me. I take his hand in mine.

Michael laughs in disbelief. “You don’t remember?” He shakes his head. “Father certainly does enjoy his games, doesn’t he?” And before I can shout out a warning, Michael flashes out his hand, pressing his palm against Cal’s chest, right above his heart. Cal stiffens as if electrocuted, his hand gripping mine so tightly I think my bones will break. There’s a dull flash in Michael’s eyes, a light that is only there for a moment before falling away. He pulls his hand back and Cal shudders, bowing his head. “Father does enjoy his games,” Michael repeats quietly, the laughter gone from his voice. “The parts are there, I see, but they’ve been shattered. The shapes aren’t making sense. It’s jumbled. Like a knot.”

“Can you return them to me?” Cal asks, his head still bowed. “The memories?”

“No,” Michael says. “I was not the one who took them from you. This is a test, Calliel. He is testing your faith, it would seem.” Michael snorts derisively. “He’s been silent on the matter. To me. To the others. No one really seems to know what he’s up to.”

“Benji?” my mother asks shrilly. “Who is this?”

Michael peers over Cal’s head. “I am a friend,” he says. “I have not seen Calliel in quite some time, and I decided to check in on him.”

“Are you one of them?” Abe asks, his voice hard.

“He is,” Nina whispers. “So many lights. White. So much white around him. He’s so bright.”

“He’s a… an angel?” my mother says lowly.

“Someone’s been talking.” Michael sounds amused.

“What do you want?” I ask, trying to sound stronger then I feel.

Michael looks at me, and I feel like quaking where I stand, but I don’t break the gaze. It is startling to realize that he isn’t blinking. My skin crawls. “What I want,” he says slowly, “is to make sure everything is in order. That all things are in their natural place.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means me,” Cal whispers.

Michael nods. “This whole… thing you’ve got here. This is disorder. This is chaos. I don’t know what Father has planned for you, but he hasn’t stopped me from being here. There are rules, Calliel, as you well know. You are not allowed on the earthly plane. You watch. You protect. You guard. You do not reveal yourself. It is within us all to do so, of course, but we are not meant to have free will. Father placed the ability to become corporeal to test us. To give the illusion of free will so that we may be tested.”

“It’s not his fault,” I snap. “It was mine. I prayed for him and he came. I pulled him down. I did this, not him. You leave him alone.”

“Oh, Benjamin,” Michael says. “While I am sure it’s a perfectly lovely thought, it’s not a correct one. A human cannot just pull down an angel from the sky. Not by praying for it. Prayer doesn’t work like that.” He frowns. “No, this appears to be all on Calliel. I can see the how of it, but I can’t yet figure out why. What does Father hope to achieve?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Abe said, stepping forward. “He’s not going anywhere with you. He stays here. Where he belongs.”

Michael blinks. “Hasn’t he told you?” he asks, scanning each of our faces. He looks at me last, and I know his words even before he speaks them. “If he stays here, it will kill him.” Nina gasps and covers her face. “He is not human. He is an angel. Angels are not meant to stay on this plane of existence. If he dies here, his soul will become nothing.”

“I’m fine,” Cal growls. “I don’t feel any different.”

Michael looks at him sympathetically. “Now that’s not even remotely truthful, Calliel. You and I both know that. I think Benjamin does too, by the look of it.” I look away before Cal can see in me whatever Michael did.

“I’m fine,” Cal says again, more forcefully.

“Be that as it may, I would prefer if you returned to On High with me now,” Michael says, taking a step back. “It would allow us to avoid any further… unpleasantries down the line. We’ll return, speak to Father, and get this whole mess sorted out, and then maybe, just maybe, you can return to your job. How this town hasn’t burned to the ground without a guardian is beyond me.”

“I can still see the threads,” Cal says hoarsely, which causes Michael’s cool façade to slip, for just a moment, surprise seeping in. “I am still able to see them.”

“That’s… not possible,” Michael says, visibly trying to compose himself. “You aren’t even….”

“It’s true,” I say. “He saw my thread after your Strange Men came and attacked me. He saved me from them. They wanted to hurt me.”

“That was an unfortunate mistake,” Michael allows. “I’d been called away and let the… Strange Men, as you call them, have free rein in locating Calliel. The more human he became, the harder it was for us. That mistake was mine, and I apologize.”

“Benji could have been killed and you apologize?” Cal snarls. “Michael, those things are dangerous! I still can’t understand why Father allows their existence!”

“Much like I don’t understand how Father allows yours,” Michael retorts. “And the only reason I was away to begin with was to try and placate the roar your falling has caused. You have put On High into disarray and others are demanding answers.”

“You know I have no answers to give, even if I wanted to.”

“Yes, yes,” Michael says, waving his hand in dismissal. “I will demand an answer from Father, one way or another. These games of his are getting tiresome, no matter what he hopes to learn about the humans. We have other things to worry about, you know. Will you return with me now? Save your friends here from further heartache?”

“No,” Nina says, stepping forward. “Blue stays here. He won’t leave with you.”

“That’s right,” Abe rumbles, moving to stand on the other side of Cal. “I know a bully when I see one. He isn’t going anywhere. You’ll have to go through me. I’m a lot sprier then I look.”

My mother comes to stand beside me, putting one hand on my shoulder and the other on Cal’s. “Cal belongs with us,” she grinds out. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let you take him away.” I might have doubted my mother, but how could I have doubted her heart?

I move in front of Cal again, blocking his massive body with my skinny one. Michael, who wears an expression of amusement, looks down at me. “And will you threaten me too?” he asks, a small smile on his face. “You are all nothing if not protective of the ones you care about.” He bends down until his face is level with mine. His eyes are so deep, they appear infinite. For all I know, they are. “You should remember, Benjamin Edward Green, that things are not always what they seem. But I believe you shall learn that in due time. I believe you shall learn all things.” Whether his words are a threat or not doesn’t matter. They still chill me to the bone.

He stands again. “This is not finished, Calliel,” he says sharply. “Either you will die here or you will return. Make your choice quickly, for I fear you don’t have much time.”

“Why are you guys all at the door?” I hear Christie call out from down the hall. “Is there something out there?”

“Something comes, to be sure,” Michael says, glancing over his shoulder.

Headlights, starting up the driveway.

“Who is that?” Mary asks as she came up behind us, pointing at Michael.

“A friend,” Cal snaps. He is getting riled up, and I can tell it has more to do with the oncoming car than the archangel standing in front of us.

“Who is this?” Michael asks with a frown. “I do not have eyes in this little place. The threads. I can’t see them.”

“What threads is he talking about?” Christie asks. “Why is everyone standing in the doorway? Move! I want to see!”

Cal begins to growl, and I know who it is even before I see the decal on the side, the lights on top of the car.

Griggs.





old bones

“A welcoming party?” Griggs asks with a sardonic nod of his head as he

steps out of the cruiser. “How wonderful.”

“Sheriff?” Christie asks, her voice going cold. “What are you doing here? None

of us called you out here.”

He shrugs easily, averting his eyes. “Thought I’d stop by and check things out

for myself.”

“Check what out, George?” my mother asks.

Griggs ignores her and looks up at Michael. “Haven’t seen you around before,

friend.”

“I don’t suppose you have,” Michael says slowly. “I’m not exactly from around

here.”

“Could tell by your clothes. Pretty fancy.”

“How kind of you, Sheriff.”

“Got a name?”

“I do.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

Griggs’s mouth stretches to a thin line. “What is your name, friend?” “Michael.”

“Got a last name, Michael?”

“Oh, I’m sure I do, but none I feel at this very moment needs to be shared with

you.” He pauses, considering. “Friend.”

The sheriff’s eyes narrow. “You friends with Cal Blue here?”

They glance at each other. “You could say that,” Michael allows. “More like…

business associates.”

“Oh? And what line of business would that be?”

“Security.” No hesitation. It would have been funny had it not been between a

high-ranking angel and a man I’m pretty sure is a sadist.

Griggs arches an eyebrow. “Security? And what are you supposed to be

guarding?”

Michael laughs. “Now that’s an amusing question.”

“Wasn’t meant to be funny,” Griggs says with a frown.

“It was,” Michael assures him.

“Cal Blue?”

“Yes?” Cal says. His lips are almost twisted into a sneer.

“There’s no one in the state of California named Calliel Blue. Trust me on that; I

looked.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing, Sheriff,” Abe says. “You should know that better

than anyone. I assume that to be elected into your position you have at least some

knowledge of the law. Well, not that I voted for you, anyway.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, old-timer,” Griggs says coldly. “You’ll know if I am.

You can trust me on that.”

I am angry. “You got a problem, Sheriff? Ever since Cal came to town, you’ve

had a bug up your ass about him. What the f*ck do you want?”

“Benji!” my mother snaps.

Griggs smiles but it never reaches his eyes. “What do I want?” he asks. “What I

want is to know why your little boyfriend here is lying about who he is. I want to

know how he came to be in Roseland out of the blue. My problem, Benji, is I want to

know who the f*ck he is.”

“I don’t see how that concerns you,” Michael says, cocking his head. He seems

curious about the sheriff.

“That’s because it doesn’t,” I say, unsure if I should be agreeing with him. “Cal

hasn’t done a damn thing wrong. As a matter of fact, he’s probably done more right

for this town than you ever have.”

“Might be a good idea for you to shut your mouth, kid,” the sheriff growls. I take a step toward him. “And why is that, Griggs?” I say, keeping my voice

hushed so the others on the porch can’t hear me. “Am I going to have an accident?

End up in the river? Get a bullet in the back of my head?” He’s good. He doesn’t

even flinch. “I know what you’ve done. And one way or another, I swear on all that I

have that I will make you suffer.”

His eyes glitter as he twitches his lips. “Boy, you have no idea the unholy mess

you are walking into.”

“I think I know plenty,” I tell him. “You will pay and everyone will know what

you’ve done.”

He laughs loudly, raising his voice. “Threatening an officer of the law? Benji, I

expected you to be smarter than that. But then, the apple never did fall far from the

tree, now did it?” Cal grabs my arm before I can launch myself at the bastard who

dared to insult my father. I want to tear him to pieces and split his bones while he

screams for me to stop.

“That’s… enough,” my mother says, her voice quaking. She comes down the

steps, surprising us all with the ferocity in her voice. She pushes past me, almost

knocking me over. Cal grabs me as I stumble and pulls me against him, putting his

arm across my chest protectively. I am very aware of Michael watching us closely. “Lola,” Griggs warns, “this is none of your concern. You stay out of this.” “I am done with you,” she snarls at him. “Unless you have probable cause to be

on my property, I suggest you leave. The less you do for this family, the better.” He glances over my mother’s shoulder at the rest of the family standing there, as

if looking for something. He must not find what he’s looking for, because he takes a

step back toward his patrol car. “I will find out what you’re hiding,” he says to Cal.

“I know it’s something, and as long as you are in my town, I won’t stop until I find it

out.”

“Now that’s an interesting use of taxpayer money,” Abe says. “I wonder what

the town would think of such things, Sheriff? You know, the people who elected

you? Maybe you should ask them what they think about Cal here before you

misappropriate your department’s time and energy. It’d be interesting to see how

quickly one could gather enough signatures to petition for a recall election for a

sheriff using bias and intimidation to get what he wants, wouldn’t you say?

Especially in front of so many witnesses.”

The scowl on the sheriff’s face deepens. The hatred in his eyes is plain as he

looks at each of us in turn, but never more than when he glares at Cal and me. I stand

firm, not diverting my gaze, attempting to show I will not be cowed by this man. Not

now. Not at my home. He points his finger at me. “You will—”

“Enough,” Christie interrupts in a hard voice. “It’s time for you to get back into

your car, George. This has gone on long enough. We’ll be in touch if we require your

services any further.”

“So that’s how it’s going to be,” Griggs says. “After all I’ve done for your

family over the years. Who knew it would have come to this?” His petulance is

almost laughable, but I can’t rein in an angry desire to attack him.

Griggs turns to move back to his car, but is stopped when Michael says his

name. I’d almost forgotten the archangel was even there. He walks over to the

sheriff, his long legs making quick work of the distance between them. He moves

with such fluid grace it almost seems like he’s floating. If you didn’t know what he

was, you’d have thought he might have been a dancer at one point in his life. If you

did know what he was, you could almost imagine his wings carrying him over. He has several inches on Griggs as he stands before him, and for a moment the

sheriff’s perpetual sneer falters as he looks into the angel’s eyes. I don’t know what

he sees, and I don’t know if I want to. If everything I’ve heard about the angel

hierarchy is correct, then Michael is almost the top of the top, just under Metatron,

the one Cal said had disappeared long ago. That alone is enough to intimidate. “What do you want?” Griggs asks. “You better take a step back.” “I try not to involve myself in little things,” Michael says softly, though his voice

still carries back to where we stand. “There are matters of greater consequence that

always seem to demand my full attention. However, the fact that I am here should be

enough to convey the importance of the situation.” He glances back at Cal as he says

this last before returning his attention to the sheriff. “Since I am here, I must admit to

being a bit curious about you. We are not meant to interfere, much as we sometimes

want to. Our Father has dictated as such. But even still….”

Michael flashes his hand up and presses his palm flat against Griggs’s chest. The

sheriff’s head falls back and his mouth opens in a yawning gape, but no sound comes

out. The cords in his neck stand out as his hands twitch lightly at his sides. It’s over

in a matter of seconds, and the sheriff gasps as Michael frowns and takes a step back

from him. “Ah, Sheriff,” Michael says as he shakes his head. “If you only knew….

No matter. Leave this place. I have no desire to look upon your face any longer.” Griggs looks confused and angry but obeys almost immediately. We stand watch

as he starts the car and the headlights come on. I can see him watching Michael

through the windshield before he turns the car and peels out down the driveway, the

engine a fading roar.

“What in the hell is going on?” Christie snaps. “Who is that man?” “He is kind of scary,” Mary says. “Did you see the look on George’s face? I

thought he was going to piss himself, to be honest.”

“Bad word,” Nina intones quietly.

“Calliel,” Michael says, still facing the way the sheriff has gone. “To me,

please.” His tone leaves no room for argument.

But that doesn’t stop me from trying. I grab Cal’s arm as he starts toward

Michael. Cal pauses for a moment, then looks back and shakes his head, his eyes

resolute. “I must go, Benji.”

“You’re leaving?” I ask, hating the way I sound.

His eyes widen and he pulls me into him. “No,” he says harshly in my ear. “No, I

am not leaving you. I will never leave you. I need to find out what he needs, and then

we can go home, okay?”

I clutch at him.

“We’ll go home,” he whispers, kissing my forehead.

“Now, Calliel,” Michael says.

“Okay,” I mumble and let him go. He holds his head up high and squares his

shoulders as he crosses over to Michael. As much as I strain to listen, I can’t hear a

thing beyond the murmur of deep voices. A hand falls on my shoulder and I feel a

breath on my neck. I almost cringe until I realize it’s my mother. She wraps her arm

around my shoulders, and soon we are surrounded by the rest of our family, Nina

leaning against me on my other side, Mary and Christie at my back, Abe standing

next to my mother, a hand on her shoulder.

From what I can see in the dark, Michael does most of the talking, though his

words seem to be few. He does not punctuate anything with movement, keeping his

hands folded behind him as if he stands at parade rest. Cal stands next to him, head

bowed. One might think it was a defeated pose, but I can see that Cal is merely

listening to Michael’s voice.

“This turned out to be a weird night,” Christie mutters.

“I enjoyed myself,” Nina says with a smile. “So many people!”

“Certainly unexpected,” Mary agrees. “Security, huh? At least they look the part.

All that man flesh. Michael, is it? Don’t suppose he’s a queen like Cal?” “He’s not your type,” my mother sighs as Abe snorts. “Trust me.” “You need to be careful of Griggs,” Abe says. “I’ve told you that before, Benji.

But he’s got his eye on you, and he might have….” He trails off, seeming hesitant to

say the rest.

And I realize this is a moment, an opportunity for someone to say aloud what I

had thought and what I am sure the others had thought about my father. I could tell

them all I know, but I don’t, simply because I want to distance the danger from my

family as much as possible. I can’t bear the thought of one of them getting hurt

because of me. Corwin’s death has weighed heavily on my mind, dragging my guilt

to the forefront for all to see, even if they don’t know what they’re looking at. I

would not survive if I caused the death of another person, especially one of the

people standing near me. My conscience would not allow it. But here? Now? There

is this moment where it seems like we have stepped to the edge of a precipice and all

held our breaths, waiting for one person to have the courage to finish Abe’s sentence.

It needs to be me. It needs to be me because I have had the thoughts every day. It

needs to be me because I am my father’s son and I will not rest until I am sure he can

rest.

“And he might have been the one who killed Big Eddie,” I say.

Michael stops speaking and looks out into the dark again. Cal turns neatly on his

heel and comes back to me, stopping a few feet from where we stand huddled as if

trying to protect each other from a gathering storm. He watches us for a moment, but

I can’t make out the expression on his face. Is he resigned? Defiant? I don’t know. He holds out his hand to me.

I don’t hesitate and step from my family and grab the rough familiarity of his

hand. “Michael would speak with you, if you’d allow it,” he tells me quietly as he

pulls me against his chest. “He says he has words for only you to hear.” “What did he tell you?” I all but demand, sure that he is forcing Cal to return to

On High.

“Nothing I didn’t already know,” Cal says. “That I am wrong for being here, that

it is killing me. That he’ll return to collect me when the time is right. That he’s sure

Father is testing me, though he doesn’t know how.” He sighs as he rubs my back.

“He’s seen the knot in my head, how the pieces are all tangled and not making sense.

He saw something in Griggs, but he will not tell me what.”

“Why not?”

Cal chuckles ruefully. “Michael’s always been a stickler for the rules. Since he is

sure this is a test, he does not want to interfere.”

“But he is interfering,” I remind him. “He’s trying to make you leave.” “He’s conflicted,” Cal says. “He doesn’t understand what Father wants, and only

knows what he’s been told in the past. It’s confusing him. He’s frustrated.” “He can go f*ck himself,” I hiss angrily. “Tell him to go away and leave us

alone. Or better yet, I’ll do it myself. He wants to talk to me, right? I’ll make him go

away and never come back.”

I can’t help but notice the way Cal quirks his lips at the sides, like he’s trying to

stay serious but can’t help but be amused by the tiny human in front of him who

wants to go kick an archangel’s ass clear across the county. I try to scowl at him, but

don’t succeed.

“And then he’ll leave?” I ask. “Without you?”

Cal nods eventually, though it looks forced.

“Then you get the rest of them inside,” I tell him. “I’ll go talk to the big, bad

Michael and see what the hell he wants.”

“I’m not leaving you alone with him,” he snaps. “You can forget that right now.” I can’t help the grin that follows. I stand on my tiptoes and brush his lips with

mine. “I can take care of myself,” I say, as if I’m not talking about an angel of God.

“Please. Just do as I ask.”

Cal rolls his eyes, an action I think again is so unbefitting an angel, so human,

and my breath catches in my chest. Something warm lights itself at the base of my

spine and roars up me until all I can hear is a deep-pitched buzz in my ears. I feel

alive and powerful. Even more, I feel awake, truly and completely awake, for the

first time in years. I will do anything for this man (for that is what he is becoming, I

think) in front of me. I will do anything to save him.

I walk away from him before he can see this in my eyes.

Michael hasn’t moved, and I come to stand beside him, leaving enough distance

between us so we are not touching. If he wants to do his weird hand chest zap mojo

thing, he can reach out easily, but I don’t think his request to speak to me is about

that. I glance behind me to see Cal ushering everyone inside, over the protests of my

mother. The others go inside Big House, but she refuses, sitting herself down on the

patio defiantly, watching Michael and me with a guarded expression. Cal does what I

thought he would and sits in the wicker chair beside her. They do not speak. “What do you want from me?” I ask the angel.

“Walk with me,” he says and turns toward Little House. I think to hesitate, to say

we need to stay in the light, but then I think better of it. I glance back at Big House

and see Cal standing again near the porch steps, his big arms crossed over his chest. I

shake my head once at him, and he nods but doesn’t move to sit. I can feel his gaze

on me as I turn to follow Michael.

My steps are slow, the pace set by Michael. He seems to enjoy looking around in

the dark, staring up at the stars, reaching out to brush his fingers along the trunk of a

large tree, his fingers coming away with sap that oozes like black oil. He brings his

hand to his face and inhales the scent. It hurts my heart to see, though I can’t say

why.

“I was not the first angel,” he says as he rubs the pitch against his slacks, “but I

was one of the Firsts. Do you understand?”

“Yeah. I think so. Metatron was first, right?”

Michael stops and squats on his heels, rubbing his fingers along the grass. “Yes.

I must admit to being surprised that you know that name.”

“Cal mentioned it once. Said no one had seen him for a long time.” “Longer than you could possibly imagine,” Michael says, picking a pinecone off

the ground and rolling it in his hands. “But that is beside the point. When I was much

younger than I am now, I felt I had to compete with my brothers for my Father’s

affections. I was one of the Firsts, which meant I had brothers to compete with, or so

I thought. Things were much different then. We were young. Cocky. We thought we

could do it all, or at least my brothers and I did. Father was strict in his rules, and we

acted out as much as possible, specifically because a time came when it appeared he

loved his humans more than he loved us. That was not the case, of course, but we

were his sons and we worshipped the ground he walked on, so it was easy to get

jealous. Metatron above everyone else, though. There’s something about being the

actual first. In essence, he was the only because he was the first. Gabriel, David,

Raphael, and I couldn’t help but feel inferior to Metatron, who seemed to have

Father’s favor above the rest of ours, seemed to have his ear more than the rest of us.

But then Metatron was gone.”

“Where did he go?” I can’t help but ask. I am unsure what this has to do with

me, but it seems important that I listen. “Did he fall?”

“It would seem so,” Michael says as he stands. “No one really knows for sure

how or why, and Father would not say. If I had to guess, I would say he was cast

out.”

I feel cold. “Is that what happened to Cal?” I whisper.

Michael looks at me sharply. “No. And please don’t misinterpret what I am

saying as that. No, Calliel is… something else entirely. He is no longer part of a

design, the pattern. Something has shifted and I don’t know what it is. I don’t know

what my Father has planned for Calliel, or why he is testing him like he is. I was not

being facetious when I said that Father likes his games. He does, as I am sure the

history of humanity could tell you. But he is not cruel, at least not intentionally. He

believes all beings should have to prove themselves. I don’t know why he’s picked

Cal. Or you.” He pauses. “Or your father, it would seem.”

Nausea rolls over me in waves. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I,” Michael admits as we resume our slow pace toward Little House.

“Fathers are mysterious creatures, are they not? We may not always understand their

motives, or even agree with the choices they make, but we love them just the same

for all that they are.”

“My father…,” I start but the lump in my throat stops me from finishing. “Was the greatest man in the world?” Michael says kindly. It’s like he can read

my thoughts. For all I know, he can.

I nod.

“Most sons think that. I could say the same about my own, but the comparison

isn’t fair for either of us. I do not know this Big Eddie, and you don’t know my

Father. Not in the way I do.”

“Does your father love you?” I ask.

Michael smiles. “Oh yes. I should think so.”

“Does he love Cal? And me?”

“Yes, child. He does.”

We reach Little House, and I can’t help but notice the way Michael reaches out

and strokes the wooden railing on the porch, a loving caress. This only fuels my

anger. It seems wrong for him to touch what my father made, though I don’t know

why.

“Then why must we suffer? Why does he hurt us every single day? Why did he

let Calliel fall and take his memories? Why is he allowing it to kill him while he

stays here? Why did he allow my father to die? Why does he have to take everything

I love if he’s supposed to love me?” My words are harsh by the end

Michael doesn’t flinch. “You can’t know,” he says quietly, “how much you truly

love something until it’s gone.”

“That’s not fair,” I say as I tremble.

“No one said it would be. He tests you, Benji, and he tests Calliel for a

supremely simple reason. You are tested because if you aren’t, how could you know

what you believe in?”

I can’t do it. I can’t get into a philosophical debate with an archangel, knowing

how ridiculous it is and how unprepared I am. Not to mention I’m too angry to listen

to what his words actually mean. I go in a different direction. “You touched the

sheriff. Just like you touched Cal.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what happened to my father?”

“Bits and pieces.”

“Tell me.”

He sighs. “Benji, how are you supposed to know love if the answers are given to

you?”

I hate his backward questions. “I know what love is,” I snarl at him. “No,” he says. “You know only grief now. There is a difference, though I don’t

expect you to understand what it is, at least not yet. You have all but buried yourself

in it, so how could you? How can you love if you don’t even know yourself

anymore?”

“That’s not fair,” I croak out.

“Do you love Calliel?” he asks.

I freeze, unable to answer, unable to process the question. Any part of it. “And yet he loves you,” Michael says. “I could see it the moment he opened the

door. Maybe because it was so unexpected, or because it was so bright, I don’t know.

But it almost knocked me flat.”

“He… he doesn’t… he can’t….”

“And you don’t see it,” Michael says, as if I’d agreed with him. “Because some

part of you is already grieving for him. You think him lost, and so you are burying

yourself in preparation.”

“You said… you said he would die.”

“Did I?” Michael asks, testing the porch step with his foot. “Not even I can know

what my Father has planned. True, it is killing him to stay on this plane of existence,

but it is up to God, as you call him, to decide Calliel’s fate.”

“Then why do you want to bring him back? Why are you here? Why did you

send the Strange Men after him?”

“Because there is an order to things, even if you can’t see it in all the chaos.

There is a balance, and Calliel has broken that balance.”

“But if it was God that did it, then wouldn’t you think he has a reason?” Michael almost looks embarrassed. “I am a sort of stickler for the rules. Comes

with being one of the oldest. And Father has not spoken to me yet regarding this, so I

must follow protocol until I hear otherwise. But….” He stopped, staring up at Little

House.

“But what?”

“This house has some old bones. Good, but old. You must be very proud of it.” “This is the house my father built.”

He arches an eyebrow at me. “I expect you helped, though. I can feel you in

every part of it. There is love here. Old love. New love. You’ve just forgotten what it

feels like.”

“I….”

“I like you, Benji. That surprises me. I can see why Calliel loves you as he does.

Such a little thing, this place seems to be, but it too surprises me.” He turns to face

me. “There are other… levels… of existence. Other planes. Worlds you couldn’t

possibly imagine exist. There may even be an infinite number of them. I don’t think

even Father knows for sure. Once he started creating, I don’t think he knew how to

stop. And within these infinite levels, there is one that sets itself apart from the rest.

On this level, there are people who can do the most beautiful things with earth and

water, fire and wind. They can manipulate the elements like it’s so much magic. It’s

a beautiful sight to behold. But… there is a darkness coming. One we don’t know yet

how to stop, no matter how much we wish we could. And we must stop it, before it

finally spills over onto the other levels. It is too important to ignore. Metatron….” He

sighs and shakes his head.

“What does that have to do with me?” I ask harshly, unable to fully comprehend

his words.

“That’s just it,” Michael says. “I don’t think it has anything to do with you… at

least it shouldn’t. But then why is my Father so focused on this plane, this corner of

the universe, this planet, this country, this place? Why is he doing what he’s doing?” I say the only thing I can think of: “God works in mysterious ways.” Michael stares wide-eyed at me for a moment before he bursts out laughing,

using Little House to prop himself up as bends over, clutching his stomach. I can’t

find the humor in it, but I start to laugh along with him because if I don’t laugh, I’m

sure I’ll lose it completely. So we laugh. We laugh until we can laugh no more. And

when we finish, I know our conversation is almost over.

Michael stands before me and drops his hands on my shoulders. He isn’t

laughing any longer. “I believe there will come a time, Benji, very soon, that I’ll

return to give you a choice. You must think hard on the choice you will make,

because I don’t know if it can be reversed once it has been made. I might have been a

bit premature when I said Calliel has broken the design. He might have just made it

different. For some reason my Father has allowed me to come here, and I think I

have become part of this test, whether I asked to be or not.”

“Test of what?” I ask, unable to look away.

“Faith, Benji,” he says, like it is the most obvious thing in the world. “It always

comes down to faith. To do what you must, you must believe. Father has tested one’s

faith for as long as I can remember. It’s kind of his thing, in case you haven’t heard

the stories. But I may need to speed things up a bit. As I’ve said, my focus and his

focus need to be elsewhere.”

“I thought you were a stickler for the rules,” I say without thinking. He laughs again. “Maybe some part of me wants to see how this plays out too.

It’s certainly a first in all of my existence. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of

history?”

Somehow, I don’t think I want to know just how long his existence has been. “I will send one of the Strange Men, as you call them,” he says, squeezing my

shoulders. “They will not be here for you, or for Calliel. Think of it as a… a gift.

Once you catch sight of the Strange Man, you will know I have assisted you and that

you should follow. You may get the answers you desire, but remember this:

sometimes the past is better left alone. Do you understand?”

My heart pounds in my chest. “Yes.”

He lets me go and steps back. “I have enjoyed our conversation, Benjamin

Green. I think maybe you have taught me some things. I hope you will continue to

surprise me.” He turns and starts walking toward the forest behind Little House. “Wait,” I call out before I can stop myself.

He stops but doesn’t turn.

“What did you tell Calliel? Just now?”

He looks up at the stars again and I follow his gaze. They look so brilliantly blue

against the night sky I think them like ice. “I told him that even though I would

return for him, I could understand why he did what he did. I told him he was very

lucky to have found one such as you, even if it can only be for a moment. I’ll see you

soon, Benji.” Even as he speaks the last words, white lights begin to flash around

him. They become almost too brilliant to look at. I cover my eyes with my hands,

squinting through my fingertips. I can make out the vague outline of massive wings, much larger than Calliel’s. They stretch out wide, glowing in the dark until they snap around Michael, cocooning him. The light explodes outward, and by the time the burned afterimage fades from my eyes, Michael is gone and I can hear footsteps

racing down the driveway.

Cal crashes into me, grips me tight, and runs his hands over me to make sure all

my parts are still attached. Once he is satisfied I am in one piece, he cups my face in

his big hands and kisses me, pressing my lips against my teeth. “Are you all right?”

he asks hoarsely, brushing his lips over mine again and again. “Are you all right?” I stare at him, seeing my reflection in the black of his eyes.

And yet he loves you….

“I’m okay,” I whisper, though that is so far from the truth it’s extraordinary. “What did he want?” he asks me. “What did Michael ask of you?” I kiss him again, needing to feel his strength. I hope he has enough to give for

what is to come.

“Benji! What did he want!”

I shudder in his hands. “To let us know we don’t have much time,” I whisper. “I

think the end is about to begin.”





part iv: the river

The man past the end of his life stood at the edge of the river. The River Crosser was long gone, having warned him he would not come back. The man had said he understood this, and that he couldn’t leave. Not yet. “You may always be lost, then,” the River Crosser had cautioned before he departed. Alone, the man stared long at his reflection, which had again appeared in the water. He saw many things flash by about his own life, both the good and the bad. He saw that he had not taken his life for granted, and that he had been kind. But above all else, what he saw the most was love.

And it gave him strength.

So he stood, his shoulders squared, his head held tall. He breathed in the air around him as twilight began to fall. And at the sounds from above of great wings taking flight, he cried out for the river to hear, his voice booming through the darkening night: “If it takes all I have and if it means I will never be found, then so be it! For my family, for my son, into this river I drown!”





michael’s sign

All over town, the flyers read:

THE ROSELAND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE PROUDLY PRESENTS

The52nd ANNUAL

JUMP INTO SUMMER FESTIVAL MAY19, 2012

MUSIC~FOOD~CRAFTS~GAMES LOCAL BAND THE WAYWARD BOYS AT 6PM! PREPARE TO JUMP INTO SUMMER!!!





The morning of the festival dawns cloudy and gray, with a promise of rain later in

the afternoon that could put a damper on the festivities. A buzz spreads through town, like it does every festival, but it’s muted compared to years past. What if it rains? some in the town are asking. What are we going to do if it rains? They try to think back to other festivals, if there was a time when a spring rainstorm had fallen on the day of. No one can seem to remember any rainouts. Mid-May is usually a drier time, full of sunshine and blossoming flowers and bees buzzing lazily.

Of course, weather contingencies have been in place for years, just in case. Mayor Walken goes on the local AM radio station morning show (Terry In The Mornings!) to reassure Roselandians that the show will go on regardless. Why, he spoke to Pastor Thomas Landeros of Our Mother of Sorrows just this morning, and the pastor assured him the church would be opened up and the pews cleared out of the way so people could set up their tables for the food and crafts. As planned, the festival will take place at the end of Poplar Street opposite the gas station, in front of said church, as it has for the past twenty years. It will be just like God is there with us, he says in that politician’s voice of his, earnest and soothing. And the Shriner’s Grange is only a short walk down a stone path from the church. Any overflow can be set up in there, and The Wayward Boys will be able to play their brand of bluegrass folksy twang inside as well. It’ll be fine, he says. We’ll pray that the rain stays away, at least until Sunday. If it doesn’t, the emergency plan has always been to gather at the church anyway, as it’s set up on a hill, higher than the rest of the town. Surely safe from any flood waters, should they come.

And should they come, he says, Roseland will be ready. Heavy bags filled with sand have already been pulled from the town’s storage in case they’re needed to block the river. He knows, he says with certainty in his voice, that everyone will be willing to lend a hand, should it come down to it. After all, Roseland is the greatest little town in the world, and its people always want to help out their neighbors. It’s times like these that we remember just how wonderful Roseland really is. With that, he signs off and Terry In The Morning switches over to sports and weren’t the Trail Blazers just so close to getting into the NBA Finals this year? Interim Coach Canales certainly rocked this season out!

Abe turns off the tiny radio I’d pulled out from the back office. “The greatest little town in the world?” he says. “Walken sure knows how to spin it, doesn’t he?”

I shrug as I look out the front of the store. The gray clouds are thick, looking as if they’re stacked on top of each other, growing darker as they rise in the sky. The wind is starting to pick up, and an errant festival flyer blows down the center of Poplar Street. Peals of thunder echo down the mountains, but the sound is faint and doesn’t seem to be getting any closer or louder. Not yet. We’ll be closing the store at noon (as is tradition—Big Eddie was a big fan of the festival and often sat on the planning committee) and then heading over to help my mom finish setting up her table and bring in all her pies and cakes. She and the Trio are still up at Big House, churning out last-minute cookies and cupcakes in a furious cloud of flour and panic.

It seems oddly domestic and normal, especially given what we now know about the way the world works. It’s been just under a week since Michael knocked on the door and Griggs stopped by for one of his unannounced-threats-disguised-as-aconcerned-visit. I’ve been watching for Michael’s sign, but nothing out of the ordinary has happened since he disappeared in a burst of feathers and a flash of light. I glossed over Michael’s warning when Cal asked what he told me, only because I think I’m protecting him, at least in the best way I know how. I’m no closer to solving anything, whether it be Big Eddie’s death, what exactly Griggs, Walken, and Traynor are doing (or even who their boss supposedly is), or where they’re doing it.

A few days ago, I left a grumbling Cal at the store with Abe under the pretense of needing to run over to the next town to visit a friend of mine. I’d really headed past mile marker seventy-seven and crossed the bridge further down the highway and then doubled back, returning to the spot where he’d crashed from On High. It hit me that what I’d heard that night at Griggs’s house, through the anger in their words, had an undercurrent to it. Not quite fear, but nervousness, especially Traynor. This whole thing has bad mojo written all over it. First the guy dying in the river. Then that f*cking meteor thing falling right near there. Jesus, Griggs! It’s like the universe is telling you to get the f*ck out, and you’re saying we need to wait?

I parked and hiked through the woods, making sure to keep an eye out on the time. Cal would be expecting me back shortly. He was pissed I’d left without him, and if I was late, I was sure he’d come looking for me. I still didn’t understand how I could block him from seeing the pulse of my thread, but it seemed it was possible. I’d prayed for him to come that night with the Strange Men, and he said my thread had lit up like the sun in the sky. I’d prayed for him not to see it, to stay away, when Traynor had come into the station, and he hadn’t seen my thread.

So with simple thoughts such as stay away, Cal and I am okay, Cal and (ridiculously) I am invisible, I returned to where he’d fallen. The blowback was still evident, burnt trees lying on their sides, the crater in the middle of the clearing still blackened.

If you knew what you were looking for, you could see the outline of wings in the crater, only instead of charred earth, they were made up of different types of blue flowers, ones that I had never seen before in all my years growing up in the woods. They stretched out along the crater, their design a bit fuzzy but obvious to me. I stared, dumbfounded, before plucking one, and heard the stem snap with a moist crack. I brought it to my nose, and it smelled of earth.

Stay away, Cal. Stay away.

I left the crater and went up the hill, deeper into the forest, looking for any signs of a structure, anything that would potentially show some kind of drug lab operating in the trees around Roseland. The air smelled fresh, not acrid. No trash littered the forest. No conveniently high hippie wandered toward me, telling me he’d just bought the most righteous shit from a sheriff, a mayor, and a scary-looking man who smoked.

Michael. You said you’d give me a sign, so… give me a sign.

The only response was the birds in the trees.

So I left.

Cal noticed nothing out of the ordinary when I returned.

I look at him now and find him watching me, like he’s asked me a question I didn’t hear. “Sorry?” I say with a smile that feels fake. All I can seem to focus on is how much more pale I think he looks. I don’t know if it’s my eyes playing tricks on me, if I’m overreacting, but all I can hear in my head is that he’s dying, that staying here is killing him, that God thinks this is just some test, some goddamn game. It’s up to him, Michael had said. Only God can change his fate.

And you better, I think as Cal returns the smile, showing teeth. You just better change his fate or I’ll hunt you down and find you myself. I don’t care if you’re his Father or if you are God. You take him from me and I will do my best to take everything from you.

They seem empty, these thoughts. I’m sure God is used to being threatened.

“What’d you say?” I ask him, trying to keep my voice even.

He walks toward me slowly, as if he’s stalking me. He might very well be doing just that. I want to look away, sure he can see right inside my head and know what I’m thinking, but I don’t. Even if he is becoming more like the rest of us, there is still something unfathomable about his eyes, something not quite human, a certain awareness, almost alien in its intensity. I know if he asks me to tell him everything I am thinking right at this moment, I’ll tell him. I’ll give him all my secrets and ask for nothing in return. I’ll do anything for him because I lo—

Oh.

Oh shit.

“You okay?” he asks me as he stands in front of me. I look up at him, and for a moment I allow myself to imagine his wings behind him, blue and beautiful, the feathers like silk, whispering as they rustle against each other. Blue lights shoot everywhere and the feathers (like the one in my desk at home that is mine) rise as he stretches his wings. The feathers (like the one in my father’s dead, floating hand, because that one is his) rise to block out the overhead lights. But that’s not real, because they aren’t there, they aren’t in front of me. I don’t know if he can even pull out his wings anymore. No further threads have called for him, and where once that might have made him restless, nervous that he hadn’t been called, now he seems almost at peace. There is still strength there, exuding from him, a reservoir I don’t think has even been tapped, but it’s not the same as when he first arrived.

For some reason, he’s happy.

“I’m good,” I manage to say. “You okay?”

He grins. “I’m awesome.”

I should have never taught him that word.

The bell rings overhead.

“Oh, thank God you’re here, Rosie,” Abe drawls. “Gives me someone to talk to so these two can continue to gaze into each other’s eyes.”

Cal and I both flush at the same time, but it doesn’t stop him from leaning down and kissing me sweetly on the lips. I sigh to myself and wonder if it matters anymore, all the things I tend to think are important. Maybe all that matters is right here in front of me. Maybe that’s the thing I should be focused on. All the rest will still be here weeks from now, but Cal might not.

He pulls away and watches me for a moment. Then, much to my dismay, he says with a knowing smile: “You’re looking at me differently.”

Shit.

“I….” Have no idea what to say.

He shakes his head and kisses me again before stepping away.

Rosie is grinning at him like he’s the greatest thing she’s ever seen (to be fair, Rosie’s lived in Roseland all her life, so he just might be). “I am so very glad you decided to come to town,” she tells him without so much as a look at me. I don’t know if she’s saying this on my behalf or for her own nefarious purpose. I almost tell her to back off my angelic boyfriend but I think the reference would be lost on her, so I resign myself to the fact that I’ll be stuck in Cal’s shadow for the rest of the time I know him. This splits my train of thought two ways, the first of which is thinking there’s no place I’d rather be than in his shadow; the second is wondering just how long I will know him.

You can’t take him from me. You just can’t. He’s here for me, not for you. If you really are his Father, then you should love him enough to let him go.

Much like I love my father too much to let him go.

Dammit.

“Heard about that storm?” Rosie asks. “Or should I say storms?”

I nod. “Radio.”

“Sounds like a doozy! Haven’t had one of them probably since….” Her voice trails off as she realizes her faux pas.

But it’s not like I can blame her. It’s been almost five years. People are still sad, yes, and everyone knows the hole that Big Eddie left in our lives, but I seem to be the only one still fixated on it, the only one still drowning. I almost allow myself to feel anger about their perceived callousness, how quickly they were able to toss him aside like he was nothing, but that’s not the case. I’m the one with the problem. I’m the one people are tiptoeing around like I’m made of so much glass that even a whisper could see me break.

“It’s okay,” I tell her kindly, even though my voice sounds rougher than I want it to. “You can say it. Hasn’t been a doozy of a storm since the day Big Eddie died.” And it had been too. What started out as a light sprinkle had eventually turned into a torrential downpour right before Big Eddie had been pulled from the truck. They’d had to move fast given how quickly the river could change from docile to manic. Looking back, I thought the sky itself was weeping openly at the loss of such a man from this earth. I thought Heaven cried for having to take him away from me, and God was begging for my forgiveness. I decided quite readily that if it was true and Big Eddie was gone, I didn’t give a damn if God felt sorry. I didn’t care if he was contrite and if he made the world cry for me and my father.

“It’s fine,” I say again to Rosie. “I’m not going to break. I’m okay. I think. No, I know.” Maybe I’m getting there.

Rosie glances at Cal before smiling sadly at me. “He was a good man, Benji. You know that; I don’t need to tell you again. I don’t think you could find a single person in this town to say anything against him.” Pretty words, but I have a feeling there’s a few who’d disagree with you. “But I’m sure glad to hear you say that, and I’m thrilled to see you smile the way you have been lately. And I think we know who we have to thank for that.”

Cal flushes again, but even I can see the pleased smile on his face that he tries to hide with a bow of his head. I refrain from rolling my eyes, but not by much. It is easier than sinking into the twinge in my chest, especially since now I know that it could have a name, should I choose to give it one. It’s easy, almost too easy.

“Shouldn’t you be down getting your food truck set up?” Abe asks Rosie.

“Getting there,” Rosie says. “I’ve got some heavy lifting that needs doing and was hoping a certain big man would come help me.”

I say nothing, waiting for Cal to make the decision on his own. It takes a moment, and many emotions appear to cross his face. While it might be indecipherable to Abe and Rosie, I’ve been around him enough to catch it all—his hesitation, his annoyance (however brief), his fear (even more fleeting). He knows what today is, what the conversation I overheard at the sheriff’s house means for today. In those few short seconds, he goes to war with himself, and I don’t know which part of him will come out the victor.

Abe decides for him. “Go on, Cal,” he says, not knowing Cal’s internal conflict. Or maybe he does. If anyone else could know, it’d be him. “I’ll stay behind here with Benji and close up the store, and we’ll head down to the festival in another hour or so.”

Cal looks to me. “It’ll be good,” I say. “Rosie could use the help and I’ll be there before you know it.”

He crowds against me again, placing his hands on my neck, stroking the skin under my ears with his thumbs. His touch is familiar, warm and urgent. “You’ll be down right after noon?” he asks me. Or tells me. I don’t know.

I nod. “Sure will, and we’ll have some fun. And then maybe I can get Christie or Mary to come open the store in the morning tomorrow so you and I can sleep in.”

“After the sunrise?”

“After the sunrise.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah, Cal.”

He looks dubious. He kisses me again and steps back. “There’s something I want to talk to you about tonight,” he says. “Something important. Just us two, okay?”

I tell myself I don’t know what it could be, but the heat of his gaze makes me a liar. “Sure,” I say, turning before he can see anything else on my face.

He walks around the counter and stands beside Rosie, who grins up at him. “I’ll take care of you, and make sure you get delivered safe and sound back to Benji. Deal?”

“Safe and sound,” he echoes, looking out the windows, undoubtedly searching for threads. He must see none, because he looks back at me. Calm, Cal. I’m safe and fine. We’re okay. He nods as if he hears.

Rosie puts her arm through his and starts to pull him toward the door. “Oh, before I forget,” she says, her hand against the glass. “Those storms coming in? Supposed to be real bad, from what I understand. You may want to consider putting up some plywood against the windows.”

“You think the storms will be that strong?” Abe asks.

She shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt. Having Dougie do the same up at the diner. I don’t think we’ll be seeing any out-of-towners this year. Probably would get stuck here if they tried. Roads are supposed to close all over the place.”

“No way in or out?” Abe says with a frown. “I don’t know why they just don’t postpone the festival until next weekend. It’s not like it’ll do anything for the economy if no one shows.”

“I thought the same thing,” she agrees. “But you know Walken. A stickler for tradition, that one. Third Saturday in May, just as it’s always been. Eh. The town’s seen worse, and I’m sure the weather reports are being overblown as it is. We’ll survive.”

Cal looks agitated and is about to open his mouth—to say what, I don’t know. “We’ll see you down there,” I reassure him. “Maybe I’ll even close up a bit early. Probably won’t be too many others coming into the station.”

The bell rings overhead as Rosie pulls him out the door before he can protest. She says something that makes him chuckle softly, a sound I can hear before the doors shut and they disappear down Poplar Street.

Abe huffs out a laugh before staring at me pointedly.

“What?” I say.

“Boy, if you don’t know, then I don’t know what to tell you,” he says with a smirk. “I just wonder what Cal wants to tell you tonight.” He starts walking back toward the office, most likely to pick up the old half-finished crossword book he’s been working on since 2006. “I just hope you’ll say the right thing back.”

I gape after him.