I can’t speak.
We drive on in the dark, a hand of ice wrapped around my heart.
The fact that Calliel knows where he is going should surprise me, but with all that
has already happened, it seems to be the least of my worries. We pass Poplar Street in silence, where I’d sat at the intersection only ninety minutes before, trying to decide if I was going to go to the seventy-seven or go home. Ninety minutes is all it has taken for my reality to change. We don’t speak. I still sit with my back to the door, watching him. The occasional car driv
ing by illuminates his face. Sometimes he’s looking ahead, focused on his driving. Other times, he’s glancing over at me, his mouth opening like he’s going to speak, but then closing like he’s thought better of it.
He’s been waiting, yes, but you helped bring him here, down to this place. You’ve got to help him. I’ve got to do no such thing. The fact that he’s now pulling into my driveway means nothing. The fact that the small smile on his face is growing as Big House comes into view means nothing. Do I call the police? Do I wake up my mother and the Trio? What do I tell them? Where do I tell them he came from? He’s certifiable, to be sure. Can I even be sure I saw what I remember seeing? The more logical explanation is that it was dark, that there was a huge storm going on over me, thunder and lightning. The light I saw falling from the sky was just some aftereffect of the storm. A freak thing. Maybe ball lightning. This man got struck and now he’s crazy. The electricity has done something to his neurons or synapses or whatever they are. And I’m just tired. Sitting beside a stranger who drove directly to my house without needing directions.
“It seems so different seeing it from this side,” he sighs, slowing as Big House looms above us. “It seems so real.”
“It’s always real,” I mutter. “Everything about it.”
“That’s not what you normally think,” he says without looking at me.
Fear again. “How do you know what I think?”
Calliel shrugs. “It’s just something I did. It was part of my job.”
“What am I thinking right now?” Tell me the truth. Who you really are. No more bullshit. No more crazy. Tell me who you are. Tell me the truth so I know this is just a dream that I can’t seem to wake up from.
He catches my eye again, and for some reason, I can’t break away. For a moment, I can imagine him doing just as he said he would. That he’s reading my mind and in a moment he’ll tell me what I’m thinking. But even worse, he’ll be able to tell me the things I’m not thinking, the things buried so far down that dragging them into the light will break me in half. I hold my breath as his gaze bores into me. Who are you?
The moment shatters as he sighs again and looks away. “Can’t do it,” he says, sounding frustrated. “Being down here isn’t the same as being up there looking down.”
I deflate, feeling strangely disappointed. I’m about to tell him that I can give him a few bucks if he’s looking to get something to eat since he’ll be on his way (I’m hoping), when he slams on the brakes in front of Big House, the headlights illuminating the front steps.
I follow his line of sight. “No,” I tell him, already struggling to open the door. “No, you don’t even touch her—”
“Nina Fisette,” he says happily, watching my aunt waiting patiently on the steps for me to come home. “Born September 14, 1964 at 3:34 in the afternoon under a sapphire sun. Sister Mary Fisette born thirty-four minutes later. Suffers from trisomy 21 caused by the presence of an extra partial twenty-first chromosome. Daughter to Michael and—”
I grab my dad’s coat from the floor of the truck and I’m out the door even as Nina rises from her spot on the steps. She looks hesitant as she sees me rushing toward her, but then her gaze flickers over me, back to the truck, and the smile that blossoms on her face causes me to stumble in its beauty. I’ve never seen her wearing the look she has on her face now, and it’s enough to cause the world to shift on its axis again. I stop as she walks past me, not even acknowledging my presence. I reach out to grab her, to stop her from whatever it is that she’s about to do, but she pulls away, never looking back. “Nina,” I say, but it comes out choked.
The man has gotten out of the Ford, and as she walks toward him, the rational world as I know it disappears like sand through my fingers.
Calliel stands in front of the truck, watching the small woman walk toward him. He’s changed. There are flashes of blue whirling around him, sparking off into the darkness. His eyes are alight with something I can’t place. Elation? Unbridled joy? Love? I don’t know. I’ve never had anyone look at me the way he’s watching her. I can hear a soft exhalation as she reaches him, a sigh of peace. The blue is brighter now, spinning faster. It molds around him, beginning to take shape. It only takes seconds when the lights make a faint outline, clinging to his back and rising up and down around him. The feather in my hand vibrates, heating until it’s almost too much to hold on to.
Before I can shout a warning, my aunt reaches up with her little hands that can’t quite reach what she’s trying to hold onto. Calliel lowers his head and she cups his face in her hands, rubbing her thumbs gently over his cheeks. He closes his eyes, and, remarkably, hums a contented sound that causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. The blues (Prussian and cobalt and azure and indigo and so many, many more) spin in tighter circles and the shapes behind his shoulders become more pronounced until I can no longer deny the outline of great wings that stretch around him.
The night has gone silent around us, as if we three are the only living things left on the planet. I’m aware of every breath I take, every beat of my heart, every thought that rushes through my head. It’s not as if my ears are plugged, no; it’s as if I can hear clearly for the first time and I’ve focused on every single little thing that ever was and ever will be. Bright flashes of light burst behind my eyes, but I can’t look away.
“Hello,” Nina says, her voice filled with awe.
“Hello, Nina Fisette,” the stranger says, turning his face in her hands so it rests against her left palm.
“You came,” she says. “I didn’t think you would. I didn’t think you could.”
“He called for me,” he tells her, never taking his gaze from hers. “He called for me and I would not say no. I made a promise. To him. To you. You know this, little one.”
“Promises are made to be broken,” she says, her voice breaking. My heart stutters in my chest. “Promises aren’t always kept, even if they’re meant to be.”
“Not mine,” he says, reaching up to his face to place his hand on top of hers. “Not to you. Never to him.”
“Does he know yet, you think? Does he realize?”
Calliel glances up at me, the blue dancing around him causing his eyes to spark. The feather in my hand grows hotter still, but I can’t look away. Much is said in his eyes, but I can’t decipher any of it. My breath hitches in my throat and my eyes start to burn, and all I can hear is my father in my head saying, Wake up. Wake up, Benji. He’s come down from On High and you need to wake up. Open your eyes and see. Wake up.