“You prayed,” Matt said, because Corbin would have said worse.
Ellen looked up from her plate. “I cut myself, bled, and prayed. Then the statue came.”
Left and right down the table, all sat in their own silence: sisters scared, Corbin in rage-tinted wonder, Ray eager, Sandy skeptical, Lil awed either by the story or the equally fantastical occasion of the Rafferty girls speaking. Ellen sounded drunk on memory. “He looked like the stories say, with eyes like jewels and wings of stone. He gathered us up. His arms were thin, but he was strong. Not like a person. Strong like an arch.” Those last words broke the spell she had cast upon herself, and her fear returned. She glanced to her father, and back down. “He flew us home. Fast, over the rooftops, and high. They can fly, even here, so they must be right with God, mustn’t they? He said if you weren’t back by morning we should get the Blacksuits. He said if we were ever in danger, we should call him again. He looked worried for us. Then he left. You came back”—this to her father—“when we were all asleep. You were sick the next day. That’s all.”
“Is this true?” Corbin asked. The other two girls had sat very still through the telling.
“It’s true,” Claire said at last.
“But—” Hannah started. Claire looked at her but didn’t speak. She stopped.
“It’s true,” Claire repeated.
“And you all say they’re not a problem. They’ve been under my roof. They’ve touched my girls.”
“Sounds like they did you a favor.”
“What they’ve done, Sforza, is beside the point. What they might do, matters. Stone Men are traitors, butchers. So, my daughters can call them. Let’s call them to the square tonight. Let’s have it out face-to-face. No more shadows, no more tall tales.”
Ray shrugged. “Doubt we’ll see anything.”
“You call my girls liars.” Corbin’s voice tightened to breaking.
“It sounds like a story, is all. And even if they call, who’s to say the Stone Men come? But I’ll watch. The boy can make the morning runs tomorrow.”
“Hells, I won’t miss this,” his son said around a mouthful of burger.
“Then we’ll both be tired on deliveries, and so be it when we crash and suffer grievous death.”
“You’re tempting fate,” Sandy said. “This is a damn fool enterprise and I’ll not lend it my support.”
“But you’ll come if we do it.” Corbin’s teeth were thin and white. “Just to watch, of course.”
Matt drank. He realized everyone was looking at him. He crossed his arms and leaned back. “It’s their choice.”
“Excuse me?”
“The girls,” Matt said. “We do this only if your girls want to.”
Ellen looked to her father first, then Claire, then nodded. Matt had seen that expression on young soldiers in the Schtumpfeter Museum’s God Wars paintings—kids sent to do and die on distant sand. He felt he’d done something wrong, and the tightness around Sandy Sforza’s mouth, the sharp lines in her brow, suggested she agreed.
Matt thought he should stop the whole thing then, argue Rafferty into letting his girls alone, convince them all to leave the affairs of Gods and monsters to greater fools who didn’t have to work for a living. But he said nothing, and the others planned against the night.
9
Twilight in Alt Coulumb summer is a wrestling match, or a bout of violent sex. Sun and moon share the sky, the west blushes with exertion, the first and most aggressive stars pierce the blue to begin their evening’s battle with streetlights and office windows. The night’s triumph is inevitable as prophecy, but wet air holds the day’s heat, sweaty fingers tangled in solar curls. The heat lasts even as the sky fills with stars.