My hand enclosed around a picture frame and Ipulled it forward. I wiped away the dust covering the glass toreveal the fading picture within. The edges of the photo had curledin, but I could make out the family portrait. A man and womansmiled proudly as they stood behind two little boys and one youngergirl. All of the children smiled broadly, each of them showing offat least one missing tooth.
I held the photo before me, unable to tear mygaze away from the family that didn’t exist anymore. I don’t knowhow I knew it; I just knew the family in this picture had no longerbeen the same before the war had even erupted.
“There’s no water here, either,” Corsonsaid.
My eyes remained on the photo, my fingersresting on the face of the little girl as she stared at me frombeyond the glass. Stared at me from a world beyond this one, aworld I couldn’t touch, or perhaps I somehow could.
Where had that idea come from? I shook myhead to try to clear my mind of the strange notion that I couldsomehow reach out and communicate with the girl, wherever shewas.
Not here, not anymore.Gone beyond this plane. Taken from her family before thewar.
“River.”
My hands tightened around the frame as Istruggled to tear my attention away from the photo.
“Did you hear me?” Corson asked.
“No water here,” I said in a hoarsevoice.
“We’re going to move on.”
“Wait.”
“For what?”
I didn’t have an answer for him, but I knewthere was something in this house I was meant to see, somethingmore than what was in this room. Moving away from him, I walkedtoward the stairs. I peered into the dark shadows obscuring the tophalf of them before jogging up them with no concern about whatmight lie ahead, or that they might give way beneath my weight.
“River!” Corson hissed from behind me.
Arriving at the top of the stairs, I stood inthe hall for a couple of seconds. Dim light filtered in from aroundthe dingy curtains at the end of the hall. Dust motes danced in theair as I strode forward to stand before the first door on my right.Years ago, I’d stopped questioning any weird instinct guiding meforward or my visions. I’d never had answers for any of myquestions until I’d met Kobal.
He’d finally explained what I was, what mademe so different from all the other seemingly normal people aroundme. Though I may not have liked the answers he gave me, I didn’tdeny they were the right ones. Now, I didn’t question the things Iexperienced or saw in a vision, because I knew they would revealsomething to me thathadto beseen.
I gripped the knob on the door and twistedit. The door remained closed, the wood swollen from the elementsand years of neglect. Pressing my shoulder against the wood, Ipushed on it a couple of times before putting my entire body behindit and shoving hard.
“River!”Corson bit out in exasperation as he reached the top stair andturned toward me in the hallway.
The door finally gave way beneath my weightand flung open. I stumbled forward a step before catching myself.The door crashed against the wall and bounced back toward me, butmy hand shot out to stop it from closing again. I took a startledstep back as I gazed in disbelief at the room before me.
It was the little girl’s room, or at least Iassumed it was because of the canopy bed and thecotton-candy-colored walls. The fabric of the canopy had faded overthe years and the dust on top of it made it difficult to discernthe color, but there were still some bright pink patches showingthrough the dirt and age.
My gaze roamed over the room, my heartleaping and crashing in such a strange way I wondered if I washaving some kind of heart attack. Everywhere I looked, the faces ofangels stared back at me. There weren’t merely one or two of them,not even a dozen or so, but hundreds, perhaps thousands of themlining the floor-to-ceiling shelves of the room.
All of the angels’ little cherubic faces weredusty, but I could still make out their different expressions andposes. Most of them were in prayer, some had their wings stretchedoutward, and others were playing with each other with cloudsbeneath their feet. Some were porcelain dolls, others wereminiatures, and more than a few had been hand-carved andpainted.
I’d never seen anything like it. They werebeautifully strange, yet something about them made my skin crawl.There weresomany.
Beside me, Corson’s mouth hung open. His eyessurveyed the room as if the angels were going to come to life andfly at him. After everything I’d seen since leaving mynormallife behind, I wouldn’t besurprised if they did come alive, but I didn’t think it was goingto happen. At least, Ireallyhopedit didn’t. I didn’t believe that whatever had drawn me here wasbad, but I couldn’t think of anything more terrifying than thesefigurines coming to life right now.
My gaze fell on a sign hanging by the window.The floor creaked beneath my feet as I walked over to pull the signfrom the wall. I wiped away the dust to reveal the name,Angela,painted on it in pink.
I traced my fingers over her name as imagesunfurled within my mind; images of laughter and happiness beforeall the anguish and loss. The days of a young girl playing with herbrothers on the playground, then later lying in her bed with herstuffed animals crowded around her while her body wasted away.
Never before had I been able to see intoanother’s life like this before. I didn’t know if it would everhappen again, or if I was only meant to see Angela’s short life,but this new development didn’t frighten me.
“They called her their angelic Angela,” Imurmured. “Cancer took her too young.”
“Why would you say that?” Hawk asked frombehind me.
