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“The girl’s faith has never wavered,” Serena said. She had the clean robes and pure silver eyes of one who rarely left the plains of Heaven. “Her soul will pass on to the Light. Martyrs are hardly uncommon. Perhaps her death will bring others to the Light.”
“Enough,” Asher said, silencing her with a glare. A week ago, he might have said the same. Now he thought she sounded cold and cruel.
“He won’t kill her,” Malachi said, his grip tightening on Asher’s wrist. “He’ll hurt her.”
“He won’t,” Asher promised. “Who will show me where?”
“I will,” the second seraph said, and his companion nodded his agreement.
Asher clasped hands with each of them in turn. “Thank you.” He turned to Serena. “Heal him. We’ll be right back.”
“Asher, wait,” Serena said. “Malachi doesn’t know what he’s asking of you. He doesn’t know the danger you’re in now.” Michael apparently hadn’t sent them, but it was obvious his visit to the seraphim encampment was already old news. “This monster he speaks of is half-human with at least half a human soul. In spite of all his evil, he is protected. If you
lose your temper and destroy him on the human plane, you will fall.”
“You would rather this child be abandoned?” he asked. “One more martyr?”
She blushed. “Go then. Just be careful.”
Kelsey rubbed the last of the oil from the soft bristles of her varnishing brush and put it in the jar by the sink. Four of Jake’s paintings were now laid flat on sawhorses to dry. Like coffins, she thought before she could stop herself.
She had been at it all afternoon—through the windows she could see the dark. She pulled on a thick cardigan sweater, another hand-me-down from Jake. She buried her face in the crook of her elbow and inhaled the scent—her own perfume and the ghost of Jake’s old cigarettes. Tears stung her eyes, and she wiped them away.
She picked up the phone and dialed. Taylor, her sister-in-law, answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hey, baby sis,” she said, keeping her tone light. “You were right on top of that.” She slumped back against the edge of the battered desk. “You expecting a call? Got a hot date?”
“Not tonight,” Taylor said, a smile in her voice. “I have a test in the morning, a make-up for—for one of the ones I missed.” Jake’s mother and sister had flown north and spent his last four days at the hospital with him and Kelsey. It had been the first they had known he was sick. “You sound good.”
“Yeah…I’ve been varnishing some stuff.” The last time she and Taylor had talked, they had both been crying at the airport. “I wanted to tell you something.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Taylor said. “Mama was horrible to you, blaming you. We know Jake; we know it had to have been his idea not to tell us, just like he said it was.”
“Taylor—”
“She was just so upset—”
“Of course she was—”
“She feels really bad about it now.” Kelsey slid down the desk as she listened until she was sitting on the floor, still holding the phone to her ear. “She wants to call you, but she’s scared of making it worse.” She concentrated on breathing without crying, holding her eyes open wide. “Kelsey? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” To her shock, she sounded fairly normal, maybe just a little congested. “She shouldn’t feel bad. She was right; I should have told y’all what was going on whether Jake wanted me to or not.”
“I understand why you didn’t,” Taylor said. “I think I understand.” Taylor was studying elementary education and comparative religion at the University of Georgia. Her two great ambitions were to teach elementary school and marry her fiancé, a medical student. “You should come home for Christmas,” she said now. “You need to be with family, and we’re still your family. Jake wouldn’t want you to be all by yourself.”
“I’ll think about it.” Christmas was only a few weeks away, she realized. She hadn’t thought about it before. The idea of going south and spending time in Jake’s mother’s house with the white artificial tree and all the teddy bears dressed like Ebenezer Scrooge was like a science fiction movie in her head, too weird to be real. “Taylor, remember the night Jake died, and you told me I could pray to him?”
“Yes.” In the silence, she could almost see her sister-in-law twisting a lock of blond hair around her perfectly-manicured finger. “I know you think it’s silly.”
“No, actually, I don’t.” The floor she was sitting on was cold as ice. The window was still open. “I did it, sort of. I wrote him a letter.” She closed her eyes for a moment and let a single teardrop fall. “I wanted to tell you that it really helped.”
“Oh.” She sounded surprised and pleased and a little bit tearful herself. “I’m glad.”
Kelsey smiled. “Okay…that was all I wanted.” A wave of love for Taylor made her heart ache. “I’ll let you go.”
“Kelsey, wait.” Another pause. “Did you feel him answer?”
Her eyes widened in shock, and she had to take a deep breath. “Yeah…yeah, honey, I think I did.” For one crazy moment, she considered telling Taylor about the ghost. But when she opened her mouth to do it, she realized she couldn’t.
