dad. Murky and cold, they run from his scalp down his chest, puddling into the carpet around him. I didn’t know my lungs could stretch so tight. Didn’t know they could survive the weight of so much emotion. Of so much sadness.
“I wish I knew,” Jake says. “I wish I had answers for you.”
Dad blows out a puff of air, grumbling, cursing under his breath.
“Dad, I told you. Canaan and Jake don’t know anything about Mom.”
Dad rolls his shoulder again, his expression the fuming side of doubtful. I’m readying myself for an angry outburst, for a barrage of questions, when the room fills with music. Louder than I’ve ever heard it. It’s everywhere. It’s between us and under us. It dances around us. I see the tendrils of incense swirling about, see it wrap Kaylee and Dad tight, see them both gasp and blink and turn their heads left and right.
“Okay,” Kaylee says. “I hear that.”
“They both do,” Jake says, mesmerized. “They both hear it.”
And then from outside, Canaan calls.
“Jake! Brielle!” His voice is strained, desperate, and Jake pulls me to my feet.
Dad tries to stand, but he’s still weak.
“Don’t even think about it, Dad. You’re hurt.”
Dad’s face is purple with the strain of trying to stand, but he’s still stubborn. “You telling me what to do, baby?”
“Yes, I am.” I shove him down, taking no satisfaction in watching him wince. “Kay, stay with him, please. Keep him here.”
The last thing in the world I need is Dad getting attacked again.
She nods and Dad protests, but Jake’s pulling me with him, and I turn my focus away. We run hand in hand out the front door and into the field and then we’re standing next to Canaan, the three of us staring into the apple orchard behind the house.
“What is that?”
“Is that . . . ?”
“Do you . . . ?”
“How . . . ?”
Jake and I start to formulate questions, but our lips won’t finish them. The orchard is on fire, but it’s not burning. The trees, the mangled overgrown shrubs, the weeds protruding everywhere—it’s all a bright red. Not the frightening bloodred of violence, not that terrifying crimson shade, but dazzling, luminous.
The music continues to swell, piping louder and louder. Violins and pianos. And voices, so many voices. Flutes and the deep swell of a bass. And I see the music. See it with celestial eyes, just as I saw it in the house. Curling ribbons of worship in color after color, wrapping the orchard and then rising above it higher and higher until it disappears into the army of death above.
The blood racing through my veins turns hot with desire. I want to touch it, to be part of whatever is making the orchard flame. I want to be inside those trees, inside that life.
I release Jake’s hand and I run, flying through the grass, dropping down onto the orchard floor. I shove aside branches, needing to find the source. My hair catches on a limb, but I press forward, ignoring the pain tearing at my scalp. The fragrance of worship surrounds me: flowers and fruit, salty sunlight and the smell of Gram’s front yard. It’s all so familiar, so achingly familiar.
And then Jake is next to me. I smell the coffee on his skin, the sugar of his touch as it brushes my shoulder.
Sweat pours down my arms, down my back. “This isn’t the Celestial, is it?”
“I don’t know,” he says, looking around. “I don’t know what it is.”
I look at his face, at his eyes. He’s on overload trying to take it all in, as confused as I am.
“The Terrestrial veil is thinning,” Canaan says. “Here, in Stratus, as it did on the mountaintops above. They’re doing it slowly, carefully.”
Jake and I turn at his approach. He steps off the grass and onto the orchard floor. As he walks toward us, flickers of his celestial self come into view. A thread of light wrapping his waist and then disappearing. A white wing there and then gone. His eyes, silver then white, then silver again. One half of his face yellow with a celestial glow, and then fading again to the olive of his human form.
“What does that mean?” Jake asks.
“It means that if the Sabres continue to do their job, if they’re not stopped by the army above, eventually the veil will tear.”
“Is that good or bad?” I ask, the thought both wonderful and terrible in my mind.