with clean sheets. I tell him to check the drawers because I’m pretty sure there are some of my dad’s old clothes in there. I tell him it’s probably a good idea for him to change out of his skirt/tunic thing until we can figure out something more appropriate. He nods, but doesn’t go into the room.
“You’re not going to leave, are you?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
He watches me for a moment. “No, Benji. I won’t leave.”
I nod, my eyes starting to close on their own. “Just don’t leave the house yet,” I mumble to him as I turn. “And if someone knocks on the door, just ignore it. Don’t need you telling them everything about themselves and that you know God personally or some bullshit.”
“Then what should I tell them?” he asks, sounding confused.
“I’ll be up in a while,” I say. I close the door behind me.
“Good morning, Benji,” I think I hear him say quietly through the door, but I can’t be sure if I have imagined it.
My eyes open and I’m standing at mile marker seventy-seven. Rain falls from
a gray sky. Thunder rumbles in the distance. The river looks swollen against the banks, the water dark and choppy.
I look up to the sky and say, “I am not here.” Rain falls into my mouth and I choke.
There’s a flash and the rain has turned to feathers.
Flash. Feathers turn back to rain.
“I’m haunted,” I say, my voice flat.
And I am. I know this. I am haunted here at this river.
There’s another flash and I’m down by the riverbank, mud squishing up against my boots. There’s a cross, starkly white. Then there are a million of them. Then there are none. Another flash. Feathers on the river, covering the surface. Then there are none.
The river beckons. I take a step toward it.
A truck on the road, the engine roaring. The sound of metal striking metal, grating and sharp. The truck sails over the edge, bouncing on the bank behind me. It strikes a large boulder. It flips, landing upside down into the river, its back end angled up toward the sky. The rear tires spin lazily until they stop.
There’s a flash and I’m knee-deep in the water, the current pressing against my legs, my feet sinking in river mud.
I’ve been here before. I’ve been at this moment before.
An arm, a strong arm, will slip around my chest, and a voice will tell me I cannot cross, I cannot be allowed to drown. I turn my head swiftly, but there is no one behind me. Movement catches my eye up on the road.
A figure silhouetted against the gray-white clouds, staring down at me.
“Help me!” I scream as I wave my arms over my head. “My dad is in there!”
But the figure does nothing. They don’t call back. They don’t wave back. They just watch. They just watch as the cab of the truck behind me slowly fills with river water. They do nothing. They say nothing.
I turn back toward my father. I’m going to get him out. I’m going to change this. I’m going to fix this. The future will be changed because I am here. I am here. I am—
“No, Benji,” a strong voice says from behind me. An arm wraps around my chest, pulling me against a large body filled with so much warmth it’s like he’s burning from the inside out. “You’ll drown. You’ll drown here and I can’t watch that. I can’t let that happen. Not now. Not ever.”
I struggle against him, but it’s no use. I scream at him to let me go, but he doesn’t. He won’t. He’s too big. Too strong. I moan and sag against him, the fight draining as quickly as it has come.
“I will help you carry this burden,” he whispers in my ear. “I will carry you.” There’s another flash and the roar of the river and I—
will carry you
—open my eyes to a sunlit room. My sunlit room. My heart thumps against my chest, my breathing is rapid. A dream, I think. Everything was a dream. I’m sure of this now. None of what I remember happening did happen. I know it didn’t. There was no storm. No light fell from the sky. I did not cross the river. I did not find an angel.
Calliel. A name that causes a twinge in my chest.
I sit up and put my feet on the floor. I listen to Little House. It tells me nothing. But that