He’s perched at the edge of the roof, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. If he got them from the house, then they are my father’s old clothes. The muscles of his arms strain against the sleeves of his shirt. The red stubble on his head and face looks dark in the starlight. I walk the few steps it takes to reach him, unsure if I should touch him in some way. Surely he’s aware of my presence. I decide against it and sit down on the roof, a few feet away. I’m suddenly very, very tired. I have to be up in a few hours.
We sit in silence for a while. Then, in a deep-throated grumble tinged with anger, he says, “Where were you?”
“Looking for you. Where did you go?”
He doesn’t look at me. “A thread called to me. I had to follow it to make sure I did my duty. When I returned, you were gone.” This last comes out as a harsh accusation.
I’m getting angry. “When I woke up, you were gone,” I snap. “I thought you’d gone away. What was I supposed to do?”
“I have a job to do, Benji,” he snaps. “Even if I am here for you, that doesn’t mean I can neglect my other duties.”
“I never asked you to. I was just… worried. I needed to make sure you were okay.”
“I am fine,” Cal says stiffly. “Except for when I returned. You were not here and I could not find your thread. I panicked. There is still a lot I can’t remember about the day you called, or even the time before. I don’t know why I can see certain things and not see others, why I can remember pieces but not the whole.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know why I feel so ashamed.
“Do you know what I did, Benji? Do you want to know what I did when I could not find you?”
“What?”
He finally turns to look at me. Much is said in that look, but I can’t decipher any of it. “I prayed,” he says. “I prayed for the first time since I’ve been here. And you know what response I received?”
“No.”
“None. I didn’t receive a response. It was like no one heard me. It was like my Father wasn’t listening. I prayed as hard as I could, asking for help to find you. And no one answered my prayer. It feels like I’m being tested. Or being punished, but I don’t know why. I can’t remember why. I can’t remember what I did. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. All I know is I prayed and he didn’t answer. When I was watching Roseland from above, I would pray and he would be there. Even at my loneliest, I would get a response. Now? Now there is nothing.”
“But… maybe you did get an answer,” I say slowly.
He looks at me sharply. “How do you mean?”
“I’m here, right? With you? We may have gotten separated, but I’m here now. Maybe you were heard after all.”
Calliel looks like he wants to argue with me, like I’ve completely missed the point he was trying to make. Instead, he sighs, then chuckles to himself as he shakes his head. “You are here,” he agrees quietly.
“And can you see my thread?” This is the weirdest conversation of my life.
He nods. “I can see it well.” The relief in his voice is a palpable thing and it almost knocks me flat.
“And you’re okay, and the person you had to help tonight is okay, right?”
“Yes, Benji. She is fine.”
I want to know who it is and what he did, but it doesn’t feel like it’s my place to ask. “Okay, then.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
“Are you okay? Where did you go tonight?”
For a moment, I think about telling him everything, just to see what he says, or what he thinks. I want to see if he knows anything. If he’s the guardian of Roseland, then he might have an idea about what happened in the sheriff’s house tonight. The worst he could tell me is that he can’t remember. I’m about to ask, but then I catch the worried spark in his eyes, the way he starts to frown. He’s got too much on him already
, I realize, probably something more significant than I could ever understand. To him, my problems would be nothing because, in the reality of the cosmos from which he comes, I am nothing.
“I’m okay,” I say, my voice steady.
He starts to say something, but then shakes his head.