The last time he’d called, he was living in a shelter in South Texas. He’d asked her mom for money and then disappeared. Her mom called the shelter, trying to find him, but they said he’d never gone back. She called the police, but they didn’t have anything on him. She called every law enforcement agency in Texas and New Mexico, to no avail.
“You have to go back,” she said, her voice rising an octave. She grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my flesh. “You have to touch him and tell me where he is.”
“Brooke, I can’t touch anyone. I can only see what’s going on. It’s like I’m not even there, which I’m not.”
“But you could try. You didn’t try.” She jabbed the picture with an index finger. “Just go back through and touch him.”
“Okay, I’ll try, but I don’t think this works like that.”
“No, I know. It’s okay. Just try.”
But by then, I was too flustered. I couldn’t get past the curtain again. It was more like a vault door that required a retinal scan and DNA sample. Maybe once I’d entered a picture, I couldn’t go into it again.
Despite the failure of every subsequent attempt, I kept trying, over and over, until the bell rang. I shook my head apologetically and handed back the picture. “I’m sorry.”
She took it with a disappointed frown.
We stood to gather our stuff and she hesitated, biting her lip in thought. “I’m so sorry, Lor. I didn’t mean to freak out on you. This is all just so incredible.”
“No apology necessary. I know what your uncle means to you.” We walked past Ms. Phipps, who was still sitting in the exact same position. “Do you think she’s dead?” I asked.
“If so, we’ll be blamed. We get in enough trouble as it is. Let’s get out of here before the homicide detectives come.” When we reached the hall, Brooke continued her apology. “I am so sorry again. I kind of lost it.”
“Brooke,” I said, wrapping an arm in hers, “that’s completely understandable. I wish I could tell you where your uncle is.”
“This is all just amazing. I mean, I never imagined. We have to tell your grandparents.”
“No! I mean, no,” I said, a little quieter. “Let’s wait awhile, okay?”
The admonishing look she leveled on me could have crumbled a hardened criminal. But I was neither a criminal nor hard. I was kind of squishy, in fact. “Lor, you have to get over what they did sometime. They might be able to explain this.”
“It’s just, I want to explore it a bit first.” I stopped and turned toward her.
“Your grandparents might be able to help.”
“It’s not just them. Everyone has so much faith in me. There’s so much riding on my ability. I don’t want to give anyone more hope than they already have. We still have no real idea of what is going on. Of what’s going to happen. Why throw this into the mix? Get everyone all excited for no reason?”
She bunched a dimpled cheek. “I guess I can understand that. They do have some pretty high hopes for you, with that whole saving-the-world thing and all. It will suck if you fail. No pressure, or anything.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
* * *
Cameron was waiting for us outside as usual, and we met up with Glitch in the parking lot. He had to go help his dad with some technical thing that I didn’t care about, but he promised to be back later. Whatever. I hurried everyone else all along, craving to see if Jared had made it back to his apartment. But after all the pushing and shoving and stuffing bodies into vehicles, I was disappointed yet again.
The skies had turned dark gray, and clouds roiled as I knocked on Jared’s wooden front door. Peeked in through his multipaned windows. The small apartment my grandparents had provided him stood empty, just as it had been the last fifty times I checked it. I didn’t want to alert my grandparents to his disappearance. They’d ship me off for sure. And the last thing I wanted was to leave Riley’s Switch with Jared still missing.
“Can I talk to you, pix?” Grandma called out to me. We’d entered through the back as usual and I was hoping to avoid her. I frowned at Brooke to announce my reluctance, then plopped my backpack on the stairs and walked through the house to the store, bracing myself for whatever may come.
The cash register sang its familiar tune, announcing a sale. “Have a good day,” Grandma said. She smiled at Mr. Peña as he left before turning to me. “How are you?”
I grabbed a bar of soap to examine it and lifted a shoulder. “I have homework.”
Disappointment lined her face. “Granddad’s at the church. He was asking about Azrael.”
“It’s Jared, Grandma,” I said, adding an edge to my voice. “It’s just Jared now.”
“Pix.” Grandma rounded the counter and put a hand on my shoulder.
I stiffened, but didn’t step away from her. It was the weirdest feeling, being at odds with my grandparents. It had never happened before. I’d been mad at them before for some perceived infraction, but our relationship never sank to this level of pain and resentment. And it wasn’t just about Jared. It was everything. Everything they hadn’t told me. Every secret they’d kept and every lie they’d lived. And now they were planning to ship me off without even consulting me? Without asking what I wanted?
“We can’t begin to express our gratitude where he is concerned. It’s not as though we don’t want him here.”
For some reason, I asked, “Then what is it?” I didn’t want to have this conversation. As infantile as it sounded, I didn’t want to forgive them just yet, and having a heart-to-heart would only lead me closer to that end.
“We’re just … we’re worried. That’s all. He’s so much more dangerous than you can imagine.”
“I know.” I schooled my expression again. “You’ve told me. Can I go do my homework now?”
She drew in a deep breath and nodded, and I steeled myself against the hurt in her eyes. “There’s fruit in the kitchen.”
“Is it in the form of a toaster pastry?” Brooke asked, trying to lighten the mood. She’d walked in after the coast was clear of unwanted sentiment.
“There are those too. Cameron,” Grandma said to him, looking past us into the kitchen, “make sure you get a snack. We’ll see about dinner in a bit.”
He offered a sheepish smile. “Thank you, Mrs. James.”
With a sigh, I shuffled off to bake Cameron a toaster pastry. I wasn’t hungry in the least. My mood had turned as gray as the skies.
“What are you doing?” Brooke whispered to me.
“Making Cameron a snack.”
“At a time like this? We have things to discuss,” she said just as I was maneuvering a cherry pastry out of the toaster oven with a fork. Because I could be reckless when I wanted to be. Danger was my middle name.
“And Cameron has to do a perimeter check,” Brooke said, pulling at my arm.
“I do?” he asked, taking the pastry from me and blowing on it.
“You most certainly do.”
“So, you’re kicking me out of the playhouse?” He grinned at us, at her, then took a huge bite, unconcerned.
While Brooke was dragging me up the stairs, she turned back to him and said, “Of course not. We just have girl stuff to discuss.”
“I thought you had homework.” He said it plenty loud enough for my grandmother to hear. I cringed and glowered at him, but only for a second before I lost sight of him.
“Fingernails,” I said as Brooke whisked me into my bedroom.
A storm had moved in. The wind shook the world around us as rain scratched and clawed across my window in massive waves. And again, all I could think about was the fact that Jared was out in it. I could only pray he found shelter.
“Hurry,” Brooke said as she rummaged through her backpack. “I know you don’t want anyone to know about your new talent, so we have to practice before your bodyguard gets up here.”
She was back and in full force. I thought I’d gained a reprieve from her prodding when I
told her what I was going through with my visions. Apparently not.
I rubbed the underside of my arms. “I wasn’t kidding about the nails. You have a killer grip.”
“We need to explore your new talent.”
“I didn’t really mean that literally.”
“You said yourself, you want to understand this a bit more before we tell anyone.”
“Brooke, I don’t want the visions, remember?”
“But these are safe. You’re only seeing into a picture, into what actually happened when it was being taken. No emotion. No scary dreams afterwards or thoughts of suicide. This will be fun. Now sit,” she said, completely ignoring my exasperation. She brought out a photo wallet as I sat on the end of my bed. After thumbing through it, she stopped and handed one over. “Okay, see what you can get.”
I made sure to exhale really loudly before I scooted until my back was against my headboard. She did the same on her bed, but she leaned against the wall so she could watch me. Which was only a little uncomfortable. I looked at the picture. It was a shot of Cameron at a lake with his dad. He couldn’t have been more than twelve, his blond hair shorter and his long frame thinner. He had an almost sad expression in his eyes as he posed for the shot. His dad had an arm around his waist, his teeth flashing white against his dark skin, but Cameron’s smile was more reserved, almost cautious.
“Where did you get this?” I asked her.
“Out of Cameron’s truck. He wouldn’t give me a picture, so I stole one.”
“Brooke,” I said, my tone admonishing.
“What? He knows I took it. I grabbed it off his visor and stuffed it into my pocket with him watching me.” She thought back. “He just gave me this odd expression. Like he couldn’t understand why I’d want a picture of him in the first place.”
“He isn’t the most secure guy.”
“True, but the look on his face in that picture has me curious. I just thought you might could see what was going on.”
I was curious now too. Darn it. I filled my lungs and concentrated, imagined the sheer veil. My first attempts at pulling it back failed. The veil slipped through my fingers, the only disturbance a puff of smoke where I’d tried. I stopped, shook my head to clear it, then tried again.
Finally, on the fifth try, the veil solidified and gave way to a ridiculously bright day. I blinked and tried to raise a hand to block out the sun. But it seemed I didn’t have a hand. I wasn’t really there. I had no corporeal manifestation. It was like walking a tightrope a hundred feet off the ground, wanting to grab on to something solid, something stable that wasn’t there.
I focused on the surroundings. Cameron stood at the edge of a lake, the water lapping at his feet, his swimming shorts long and bright. He wore no shirt or shoes as he dipped his toes in the water, splashed them around a bit.
“I’m not sure how this thing works,” Mr. Lusk said.
I looked over to my left. Mr. Lusk was fumbling with a camera. He was so much shorter than Cameron and had dark skin and hair, very at odds with his son’s pale features.
“I think you just push a button.”
He glared up at his son teasingly. Cameron laughed softly, then looked out over the mass of blue. When I looked back at Mr. Lusk, he was studying him. His face sad and proud at the same time.
“Got it,” he said, balancing the camera on a rock and hurrying to stand beside Cameron. He wrapped an arm around him as Cameron smiled for the shot.
Even as young as he was, he towered over his dad. And they couldn’t have looked less alike if someone had paid them to. While Cameron was tall, lean, and very blond, his dad was average height, stocky, and dark, his skin like leather from working out in the elements for all those years. He was handsome like Cameron, just in a very different way.
Of course, he wasn’t Cameron’s real father. The angel Jophiel was. But he was loyal to his son and supported him in every way.
“I’m so proud of you, son,” he said, waiting for the timer. “Of everything that you are.”
Cameron shifted in discomfort. “Thanks, Dad.”
Just before the timer snapped the shot, Mr. Lusk added, “And so is she.”
Cameron’s smile faded almost completely as his dad put on his best one. Then a light flashed around me and I was back in my bedroom.
I blinked and sucked in a deep breath like I’d just surfaced from a tank of water. Then I put the picture down, feeling like an intruder.
“What?” Brooke said in alarm. “You have to keep trying. You can’t just give up—”
“It worked.”
She stopped. “But, you just now shook your head to try again. Like a microsecond before you put it down. And it worked? You went inside?”
“Yeah. I was there for almost a minute, maybe more.”
She slumped against the wall in thought. “That is too weird. You weren’t—” She glanced up at me, searching for the right words. “—gone that long. It’s like time is different there. You must be seeing this stuff in one split-second flash, but your mind is interpreting it as longer.”
She took out her journal, the one she kept notes in, and jotted down what was happening. I could only pray no one would ever, ever, ever find that journal. Then again, they’d probably think it was fiction.
“Maybe. I don’t really know.”
“So, what did you see?”
I lowered my head. “Right before the picture was shot, Cameron’s dad said he was proud of him.”
“Why would that make him sad?” She took the picture back. “He just seems so sad in it.”
“Because his dad also said his mom was proud of him too.”
“Oh.” I’d knocked the wind out of her. “Right.”
“Look at the date stamp.”
She read the date, then looked back up at me.
“Cameron’s mom died nine years before that picture was taken. It was the anniversary of her death.”
Brooke let out a ragged breath. “How did I not pick up on that? I’m so stupid.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’ll give this back to him. It’s only right.”
“I think if he wanted it back, he would’ve asked for it.” I scooted toward her. “I think he likes you having it.”
Her mouth formed a hollow smile. “What’s it like?” she asked, and I knew she meant the visions, going into the pictures. I thought back and told her about the veil, about pulling it back and sliding inside the image. I told her what it felt like being there, incorporeal, outside my body. It was hard to put into words what I felt, but Brooke was pretty savvy. She imagined it, put herself in my shoes.
“So, every time you come back, there’s a flash first? Right when the shot is taken?”
“Yes, but I’m beginning to think the light I’m seeing isn’t actually the flash of the camera, but my trip back to the present.”
“Lor, I gotta say, this is the coolest thing on earth. Honestly, just when I didn’t think you could get any cooler.”
I laughed, unconvinced. “I don’t know. I mean, what good does it do? It’s still not getting us any closer to stopping this stupid war that’s supposedly coming. I’m still fairly useless.”
“But how do we know that? I think we should tell your grandparents. They’ll know what to do. Maybe there’s some prophecy that will explain its importance.”
“I will.” When she cast a doubtful gaze my way, I added, “I promise. I’ll tell them.”
“When?”
“Soon. Tomorrow maybe.”
Her mouth thinned and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Pinkie swear.” Just then my phone beeped. Saved by the bell-like ringtone. It was a text from Grandma. She was ordering pizza. Guilt cut through me. I knew she’d been planning on making enchiladas. She probably thought I wouldn’t want any. Which, if it meant eating with them, she’d be right, but it didn’t make me feel any less guilty.
Since we were clearly stuck in my bedroom for the rest of the eve
ning, Brooke and I decided to get ready for bed early while waiting for the pizza. May as well be comfy. Cameron came up to check on us twice before heading back outside despite the horrid weather. That guy had chops.
“I wish my parents were here,” I said to Brooke. “They would know what to do.” I took the picture I had of them off my nightstand. “I have a feeling my dad would have known more about all this than my grandparents do. I mean, he grew up with it. He learned from birth what it meant to be a part of this lineage. A descendant of the prophet Arabeth.”
“That’s true,” Brooke said from the bathroom. “But your grandparents are doing an amazing job, considering they knew nothing about the Order until they met your dad. They’ve taken a lot upon their shoulders.”
She had a point. Maybe I was being too hard on them. “They are pretty great, huh?”
“Yes,” she said with a gurgle, clearly brushing her teeth.
“We’re about to eat pizza. Why are you brushing your teeth?”
“I don’t know. Seemed like the right thing to do.” She spit into the sink, then said, “Do you want to try another picture?”
“No. It gives me an awful feeling. Like I’m intruding.”
She leaned out the bathroom door. “You’re a prophet, Lor. That’s what you guys do. Get over it.”
She was so brutal when she wanted to be.
Maybe I could try one more picture. I looked at the photo of me and my parents, ran my fingertips along the glass frame. I had just been born. We were still in the hospital, and I looked more like a burrito with a face than like a baby. The nurses had cocooned me in a pink blanket. Mom looked spent but happy, her hair matted and a sleepy smile on her face. And Dad looked so proud as he grinned into the camera, his red hair thick and his eyes captivating.
What if I could relive such moments? What if I could see my parents again as I had Brooke’s birthday party? It would be so easy.
With new purpose, I worked the back of the frame off and took the picture into my hands. I was going to lean back against my headboard, take deep breaths, and concentrate. But the moment my fingers touched the picture, I tumbled inside. The sheer curtain drifted apart and I found myself standing in the hospital room while Mom and Dad studied the infant me.