Neal was seated on a camp stool, and two more were folded at his feet.
"Where did you get these?" Alex asked, setting one up for herself.
"They were here when I got back," Neal told her. "I figured you and Rose brought them out."
Alex looked at Rose, but Rose just opened her stool and sat down. Immediately, she raised the camera to her eyes and began watching the fence, as if looking through binoculars.
"There's a lot of weird stuff going on and it seems like nobody but me is even noticing," Alex said, her voice tight with tension.
"Like what?" Neal asked.
"The bird disappeared out of Rose's picture," she told him.
"No it didn't," Rose corrected her. "It just moved."
"It moved again," Alex said coldly. "Right off the paper."
"Really?" Rose said, but she didn't lower the camera.
"And the flowers really do smell." Alex added.
"What flowers?" Neal asked. He had lowered his expensive digital camera and was peering intently at Alex.
"In the picture. Pops noticed it too. He said they were so realistic, they even smelled like flowers!"
"He did?" Rose said, surprised and pleased.
"Don't you get it?" Alex yelled. "Did you spray perfume on the picture? Why did it smell good?"
Rose shrugged. "Meemaw was holding it. Maybe she had lotion on her hands."
"What happened to the white thing?" Alex reminded her. "Are you gonna come up with some kind of simple explanation for that too?"
"I guess it flew away," Rose said. "Or maybe you just imagined it to begin with. All I know is I didn't paint it."
"Could Meemaw see it?" Alex asked anxiously.
"What are you talking about?" Neal asked. His cheeks were pink.
"Calm down," Rose advised, looking first at one, then the other. "Meemaw says God is working in our lives, that's all. She says there's nothing to worry about."
"Oh, that's nice!" Alex bellowed. "Meemaw never worries about anything! She doesn't know you're supposed to worry sometimes!"
"Who says?" Rose asked curiously. "There's no law that kids have to worry about stuff, except getting their homework done."
"That's easy for you to say!" Alex protested tearfully.
"No it's not," Rose disagreed. "If I wanted to worry, I could find plenty of things to worry about and you know it."
"You do worry," Alex accused her. "You just worry about stupid stuff, instead of worrying about the things that are important."
"Like what?" Rose asked, making a face.
"You don't even care if your hair is permed on one side and straight on the other! Do you know how weird you look? I would never go to school if my hair looked like that! I wouldn't go anywhere. I would stay locked up in the bathroom until it grew out. I would make my mom bring me my meals on a tray and I'd eat them in the bathtub."
"Calm down or you're gonna end up in the hospital like my mother," Rose lectured.
"Well maybe I don't blame her for wanting to get away from this place," Alex said tearfully, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. "It's downright creepy, that's what it is."
"If one of you doesn't tell me what you're talking about, I'm going home," Neal threatened.
Rose lifted the camera to her eyes again. "The white thing probably came and left ten times while we were arguing," she said. "Pretty soon it's gonna be too dark to take a picture."
"It's probably too dark already," Neal said, noticing that the sky had gone gray.
"Tomorrow is Sunday," Rose announced politely.
"So?" Neal and Alex said together.
"We have church in the morning. Meemaw said to tell you you're welcome to go along, if you want to."
"Me?" Alex and Neal said together.
Rose lowered the camera. "Both of you. Either of you. There it is!"
They turned to look and the tiny white creature was hovering between them, turning its head from side to side, as if comparing them in some way.
"It doesn't have wings," Alex said. She was terrified, even if she didn't know why she should be afraid of anything so small and cute. "It has ... arms."
"It does too have wings," Rose disagreed. "It has wings and arms."
"Wow!" Neal said. "It looks like a ..."
Suddenly it was gone, as though it simply disappeared into thin air.
"What?" Rose said.
"It looks like a what?" Alex prodded him.
Neal opened his mouth, but no words came out. "I don't have a clue," he finally admitted. "What time is church?"
"There you go again," Alex said, jumping up, her arms held close to her body while her fingers clenched into fists. "Like it never happened. Like we didn't just see something really, really weird."
"Nine o'clock," Rose said. "Do you think your grandparents will allow you to go?"
Neal shrugged. "I don't know. Do you leave at nine or does it start at nine?" He glanced at Alex, who was stomping around with her hands on the top of her head.
"We leave at nine," Rose said. "If you want to go and your grandparents say 'yes', then meet us at the car at nine."
"Nine it is," Neal said, forcing cheer into his voice.
"Bye Neal," Rose said, equally cheery. "Stop acting so weird," she lectured Alex, leading the way back to the house.
(( 13 ))