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 evening, 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.
I was sound asleep, probably due to lack of oxygen from being cocooned, as Dad wiggled my chin with a fingertip. “Just like my father’s,” he said, and I couldn’t have explained the pride that welled inside me if I tried a thousand years. My incorporeal chest swelled with emotion.
My parents were right there. Right in front of me. So close, I could almost touch them. I wanted so much to run to them, to thank them for everything. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but could I breathe here at all? In this place of void?
I wanted to stand there forever and bask in their presence. It was like they were back. They were with me. But I had no way to pause the moment, and it slid forward despite my every desire to the contrary.
Mom stopped her cooing and looked over at Dad. “We should tell her when she’s older.”
I stepped closer. Tell me what?
Dad gave her a sad look. “It’s not our secret to tell,” he said, shaking his head. “Besides, what good would it do her to know the truth? To know that he’s alive?”
What? Who’s alive? What truth?
“I think I have this thing figured out,” a man said, and just as Mom and Dad looked up, the bright light flashed and I was back on my bed, the picture in my hands, Brooke mumbling something about duty and how spying was a noble tradition. Just look at James Bond.
THE VAGUENESS OF TRUTH
But what were my parents talking about? What truth?
“Mm-hm,” I said to Brooke, pretending to listen. I closed my eyes, placed my fingertips on the picture again, and concentrated. But just as before with Brooke’s, nothing happened. Maybe one shot was all I got. No replays or do-overs. I tried again and again, but nothing. Then I did as before with Cameron’s picture. I took a deep breath and relaxed. A coolness washed over me, starting from my fingertips and fanning out over my entire body. I felt the molecules of my existence fade, become translucent like watercolors. Then fog. Time slipped out from under my feet. The air rippled around me. And the curtain appeared. I reached forward. Pulled. And went through.
Dad sat on the side of the bed and leaned over me to wiggle my chin. My mom cooed and swayed, just barely, back and forth. Beautiful and strangely elegant, like a princess. This time I tried to see more. To extract more from every word, every movement.
“Just like my father’s.”
The moment Dad said it, a sadness washed over my mom’s face. She looked almost pleadingly at Dad.
“We should tell her when she’s older.”
He looked down, shook his head in regret before refocusing on Mom. “It’s not our secret to tell.
Besides, what good would it do her to know the truth? To know that he’s alive?”
Mom bowed her head.
“I think I have this thing figured out.” It sounded like Granddad, but I couldn’t be certain.
