him.
“Your angel is very shimmery,” he whispered, his eyes large and shining with wonder.
“Excuse me?” Katy said, leaning toward him. “Did you say my angel?”
He nodded, first at her and then at the wall beside her. “She’s one of the brightest I’ve ever seen.”
“She?” Katy repeated, involuntarily glancing over her shoulder.
“Well, except for mine,” Shiloh said, his grin broadening. “He’s so bright sometimes I have to put on sunglasses.” He darted a glance up the aisle then leaned closer. “Mom said I shouldn’t tell anyone I see angels, but mine said it’s okay to tell you.” He shrugged. “Most people don’t believe they’re real ’cause they can’t see them.”
“But you— Wait. Earlier when the turbulence started and you told your mom they were all smiling . . . you were seeing smiling angels?”
He nodded again. “I saw everyone’s.”
Excitement pulsed within her. Katy closed her book, looked around to see if they had any eavesdroppers, and pivoted to face him. “You called my angel she but yours he. Do girls have female angels and boys have males?”
He shook his head. “They’re not really male or female. They . . . they’re . . .” His brows puckered in thought. “They’re all. You know, like everything. They don’t even have bodies, ’cause they’re really just energy.” He grinned. “Angels can be whatever we need them to be when we ask for their help. But you gotta ask. Well, most of the time. Sometimes they know what’s gonna happen before we do and they’ll give us warnings to make us ask for their help.” A pained expression crossed his face. “But people don’t always get the message, even if their angel smacks them upside the head, trying to get their attention.”
Katy stilled, her mind racing back three weeks. “Do they ever not warn us?” she asked, searching her memory for anything happening that night that she should have taken as a sign. “Like, do they ever decide to just let us deal with . . . things on our own?”
Shiloh stared at her with a look of deep concern. He could read her pain, she thought. Or the angels were cluing him into it. Too much, she thought. For him, and for me.
She shot him a crooked smile and touched his arm. “Do they talk to you?” she asked, wanting to lift the dark mood she’d created.
He brightened again and nodded. “I don’t hear them with my ears, though. I used to talk back to them out loud but only when I was alone in my room.” His eyes took on a troubled quality again. “But I stopped after my dad came in one night and asked who I was talking to. He got a funny look on his face when I told him, and then just walked out without saying anything.” Shiloh glanced down the aisle then lowered his voice. “Later on, I heard Mom and Dad in their room, fighting. But in that whispery way, ’cause they didn’t want me to hear, you know? I think it was about what might happen if people found out I see angels. So I started talking to them inside my head after that. Even when I’m not visiting Dad, so I won’t forget and do it when I am.” He shrugged. “Mom says I’ll probably outgrow it.”
“Only if you stop believing. I’m a grown-up, and I believe you see angels.”
“Then how come you can’t see them?”
“I see . . . other things.” Amazing how good it felt to say that to another person.
“Like what? Spirit guides? I see them, too. One of yours is letting me see it right now. It’s a—” His eyes widened as he continued to stare past her shoulder. “It’s a snake wrapped around a stick.”
Katy laughed. “You just described the symbol for medicine,” she explained. “Which fits, I suppose, since I’m a paramedic. But no, I don’t see angels or spirit guides. Sometimes, though, I can see inside a person, see what’s hurting them. I get pictures in my mind of what’s wrong with them so I can help fix it.”
Dark, nagging thoughts threatened to sweep into her mind, but she pushed them away and focused on this miracle of a boy, smiling at him.
He smiled back. “Um, can I ask you a question? About the Bottomless Sea?”
“What do you want to know?”
He hesitated, his eyes turning guarded. “The reason Mom wanted the job at Inglenook so bad was because she heard the Bottomless Sea was formed by .