I singing some stupid jingle and then bursting into laughter. It’s a relic of older, kinder days, and it makes me ill to hear it.
Especially now.
With a click, the machine starts recording.
“Keith. Mike here.” I recognize the voice. It’s Sheriff Cahill. The one we saw cowering behind the crumbling tombstone just minutes ago. He and Dad are friends, played high school football together back in the day.
“We’ve had some . . . vandalism out here at the cemetery.” It’s quiet for a second or two. “It’s going to be on the news, buddy, there’s no way around that, and I’d rather you get the details from me. I’m going to be stuck here for some time, but as soon as I can get away I’ll stop by your place. Just do me a favor, Keith. If you get this, give me a call on my cell before you even think about snapping on the television.”
I drop onto the couch and curl into a ball. My legs and arms are grimy, my shorts brown with muck. I need a shower, but all I really want to do is curl up and watch reruns of I Love Lucy.
I don’t want to deal with Dad. He’s either drunk or hungover. Maybe both.
And it’s late.
Or early.
Whatever.
“Go to bed, Brielle,” Helene says. “Let the police assume the responsibility of informing your dad, and let me talk to Virtue.”
Her instructions are tempting, but I can’t help feeling like I’m shirking some sort of daughterly responsibility. Do I really want Dad to hear this from someone else? From the sheriff?
“I don’t know.”
“She’s right,” Jake says, kneeling before me. “Unless you want to explain to your dad what you saw and how you saw it, you’d better let Sheriff Cahill talk to him.”
I count the stitches on the couch cushion, picking at them as I go. I’ve torn eight of them free when I lose it.
“This is . . . ahhh! It’s just ridiculous,” I say. I’m tired and angry and confused. “What was he thinking, burying an empty box? Visiting it every week. Taking flowers and cards and . . . and me to a mound of dirt with . . . nothing underneath it.”
Jake rubs my knees. “Benefit of the doubt, remember?”
He’s gorgeous—that soft hair, those eyes both dark and light, a tall, muscled build—but sometimes I want to punch him.
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet, okay?” Helene sits next to me on the couch. “Virtue’s words—his presence here—shouldn’t be taken lightly. Whatever happened to your mother’s body holds some relevance. If it didn’t, I doubt he’d have unearthed the absence of it.”
My throat dries at the mention of the Sabre. “Why are they here?”
She smiles. “He’s no threat to you, Elle. He’s a Sabre. A very powerful, very gifted angel.”
“But my mother’s grave? Why?”
“I can’t begin to guess why he destroyed your mother’s grave,” Helene says. “But all twelve of them have left the Throne Room, Elle. Only the Father Himself could make such a request.”
“I don’t understand, though. They could all see him—the crowd—and they could hear him.”
“They get brighter as they fight,” Helene says, her face seeming brighter itself. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I think of him plummeting to earth, of the sheriff screaming a warning. “Surely he could have accomplished . . . all that . . . in secret.”
Helene brushes away a tear I never intended to release. Her hands are warm, sisterly, almost motherly, and for the first time tonight grief replaces anger and fear at center stage, and I mourn the loss of the thing I never had. I mourn the one thing that would fill the emptiness.
I mourn my absent mother.
“Some things,” Helene says, “were never meant to be secret.”
I let Jake walk me to my room. My thigh brushes the rumpled comforter on my bed, and for a moment I crave the deep escape of sleep. My pillow’s warm, the sheets inviting, but memories of my last nightmare chase the desire away. The last time I let warm and inviting take over, I dreamed about red unicorns with blue tails and little girls I didn’t know.
And death.
“It’s going to be okay, Brielle,” Jake tells me. “We’ll figure it out.”
I stare at my wall, at the child Cosette. I stare at her broom and her bondage and I wonder if there are puzzles that can’t be solved. Jake would never think that way. He can’t. He’s a healer. He thinks everything can be fixed, but what if