the pew in front of me and set it in my lap.
Part of my brain knew everyone had stood up for singing the Doxology, but it was a world away from what was happening to me. I turned to the back of the Bible and found the subject lists. Holding my breath I searched, waiting to be guided.
“What are you doing?” my mother snapped at me.
I didn’t mean to lie, exactly—I just said what I thought she wanted to hear. “I’m reveling in the word of God.”
The offering plates were being passed now, but I had plenty of time before I would have to hand a plate to anyone. This was more important. I was creating a new language with someone or something otherworldly.
I began by running her finger down the subject list, feeling for passages that vibrated—but all I felt was a pressure around my head. I stopped, shut the Bible. Still I felt squeezed. I let go of the Bible and it fell open naturally (or so it seemed) across my lap. The pressure was gone, so I looked into the two pages that had come to me by accident.
Hebrews. I dropped my hand on the page and read the line above my fingertips: Don’t forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.
I didn’t know I’d made a sound, but my mother shot me a look. I passed the offering plate she handed me to the waiting usher.
I paused until my mother stopped glaring at me. So weird to be watching both her from the corner of my eye on the right while I still had that vague shadow on my left back in the edge of my vision. When it seemed safe, I slowly pressed the Bible closed between my palms and meant to let it open randomly, but it landed at my feet with a clunk.
“What’s got into you?” my mother whispered.
As I reached down to pick up the Bible, I noticed Mrs. Caine in a pew across the aisle watching me. I spread the Bible out on my lap just as it had fallen, open to the book of Ruth. My finger dropped onto the page:
Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
I could hear the drone of the pastor beginning his sermon but not the words. My head was full of loud silence, like the running of a stream. My heart was full too—I was happy in a way that didn’t make sense. Like how the day before it made no sense that I felt more at home lying in the grass outside my house than I did in my own bedroom. Like how I fell apart during a stupid credit card commercial on TV. The night before I felt like I was missing someone I’d left behind, and now someone had come to see me.
CHAPTER 15
Helen
JENNY SMILED TO HERSELF, glanced around again, searching for me, I was sure. You would think I would be the one to explain how this language worked, but it was a mystery. Whether my desire to speak with her had bent the binding of the book and forced a certain page to fall open and then guided her hand to find words that made sense to her or whether we were only imagining it, I had no idea. This had not been in my plan—I’d never done such a thing with any of my other hosts. But Jenny dropped the Bible on the floor again, intentionally this time. The thud reverberated through the sanctuary. The woman across the aisle who had been watching made an audible gasp. She was one of the ladies from Cathy’s women’s group. She stared at Jenny as if the girl had shouted out a blasphemy. Cathy swooped down and snatched the Bible away, stuffed it under her purse where Jenny could not reach it.
Did she think she could keep me from talking to my girl that easily? I tapped the bulletin lying on the pew. It didn’t move, but Jenny picked it up and opened it all the same. I pointed to one word after another, jumping around from this line to that. Jenny ran her finger along