of the roof. I sit a few feet away from him, but by the time the sun shoots itself above the horizon, with that first blinding ray over the Cascades, I’m pressed up against him, his arm heavy across my shoulders, my head in the crook of his neck.
I asked him once why he wanted to see the sun rise every morning, what it was that caused him to be out here at the crack of dawn every day.
He watched me for a moment before looking back at the horizon. “Its beauty,” he said. “It reminds me every day that there is beauty in the world. That even though it may feel like we are alone sometimes, we are never truly alone.” The sunlight hit his face and his red hair and beard turned to fire. He looked down at me again, pressed up against him. “Why are you here every day?” he asked.
I looked into his dark eyes and said the first thing that came to mind. “Because you’re here.” I immediately blushed, realizing how the words sounded. The smile that bloomed on his face was bright and knowing. I looked away, but not before he pulled me tighter against his chest.
The times he disappears during the day are more difficult, because those are the times I worry most about his visibility. He tells me he’ll be fine, that he isn’t doing anything that will bring more attention to himself, but that does little to calm me. Whenever the threads call, he follows. There are times we’re in the middle of a conversation when he breaks off, staring off into the distance. “I have to go,” he says after a moment of silence. “I’ll come back, I promise.” Sometimes he asks for the keys to the Ford, but most of the time he takes off on foot. I watch him and contemplate following. I even tried to, one time, but he moved so quickly I lost sight of him within minutes.
He never tells me what he did, and I never ask. I don’t feel it is my place to, nor do I think I have a right to know. But things happen around Roseland that I can no longer associate with normalcy. The Wallace family was displaced after their house burned down one night, a freak electrical thing. They escaped through the window. The house burned to the ground, but the Wallaces were safe. Mr. Wallace later said that he’d awoken because of what he thought was a hand on his shoulder, but no one had been there.
How lucky! breathed the town. How fortunate! said its residents. God must have been watching over the Wallace family that night—it’s the only explanation!
I thought there might be another explanation, as Cal had come home that night smelling of smoke.
Little Becky Newhall went missing after she went outside to play two days after the Wallace fire. Her parents were frantic, and a large mass of people gathered, ready to comb the woods for any sign of the girl. But even before they could all set out, she was discovered on the porch swing at her house, covered in a blanket, her arm clutched to her chest. She’d fallen into a small sinkhole, she said later. The fall had broken her arm. She cried for a long time and screamed for someone to get her, but she grew tired and tried to sleep. She woke sometime later and she was being carried by someone who told her everything would be okay. She went back to sleep and when she woke again, she was on her porch at her house.
Who saved her? the town cried. Surely the hero would come forward and receive the praise and blessing of Roseland? No one came forward. It’s the will of God, some said. He works in mysterious ways, others whispered. Little Becky Newhall surely had her guardian angel watching over her, all agreed.
“It’s the threads,” Cal tells me when he comes home, slick with mud and grime. “I follow the threads.”
I say nothing as I turn on the shower, getting the water scorching hot, knowing he likes it that way.
It’s been over a week since Cal arrived. I can’t even tell which way is up anymore,
in a dizzy, antigravity kind of way. Floating is probably the best way to describe it. I feel like I’ve been floating in a haze of deep blue, something that is pleasant and at the same time alarming. It’s been eight days