The Heavens Rise

a gift shop of some kind. Many of the shelves were still there, a couple of rusted metal spin racks still leaning against the walls. There was enough pale daylight coming in through the door she’d left open behind her that she almost moved on without noticing the single gooseneck desk lamp, new-looking and startlingly out of place amidst the decrepit surroundings. It had been set on what had once been the cashier’s desk, and positioned right under its halo was a scored, leather-bound journal, with a single notecard on top that said READ ME.

She glanced up briefly when Ben entered the room, but when he didn’t say a word, she went back to reading. As soon as she turned the last page, he began to tell her the rest.

34

Prove it,” Marissa said.

“What? On you? No way. You heard what I just said—”

“Ten seconds, fifty seconds. What’s it gonna hurt?”

“You! It’ll hurt you.”

Ben rolled his eyes, brushed past her and threw open the back door. A few seconds later, a tiny sparrow zipped into the room and landed on the cashier’s desk right next to the journal.

“Left,” Ben said. The sparrow fluttered up into the air, then dropped to the table a few inches to left. “Right,” Ben said.

The sparrow complied, and Marissa felt a strange heat spreading through her abdomen, then turning to icy chills as it ascended her spine, and suddenly her hands were going to her mouth against her will. Ben continued to manipulate the tiny bird. Left, right, left, right . . . And then the thing’s skull collapsed into a tiny little spill of gore and it fell to one side with a soft plop and all Marissa could hear was the sound of her own breaths rasping against her sweaty palms.

Ben walked toward the aquarium, holding the door open until she found the wherewithal to follow him, and then they were standing before the cloudy, moss-dappled glass, and finally she saw it, pulsing in floating tendrils through the water. And even though she wanted to bring her hands away from her mouth, she couldn’t, and this made her feel both terrified and terribly self-conscious at the same time.

“We wouldn’t have to hurt anyone,” Ben finally said. “Not physically, anyway. We’d never have to spill a drop of blood. Not one.”

“We?”

“Think of the potential, just for a minute. Before you freak out. Think of the confessions we could force from their lips when the cameras were rolling. Think of what it would mean if we married it to our investigative skill. Vultures will start to feed off an animal just because it’s stopped moving. And they’ve been feeding off this city for years, Marissa. If we scared the vultures away, this city could walk again. Hell, it could run. We could—”

“I need to go. I need to . . . just . . .” She started for the open doorway to the courtyard. “This is . . .”

“We don’t have time,” Ben called out to her. “Isn’t that what you said to me that day, after the pipeline blew? This city lost its margin of error fifty years ago. That’s what you said, Marissa. And somebody’s supposed to be telling the truth. Even when no one wants them to.”

“Ben . . .”

“Not one drop of blood. Not one. Words, Marissa. We’d be working with words. Only, instead of ours, we’d be working with theirs. We couldn’t go after the ones we hated directly, you see. The risk of changing them would be too great. But we could take away the environment they used to thrive in, piece by piece. Crook by crook. Thief by thief. Liar by liar—”

“Ben, this is absolutely. You just can’t—”

“We could take away their luck. Their good fortune. Their culture of corruption. Don’t tell me you can’t see the potential. Don’t tell me that you weren’t sitting there wondering what kind of good this could have done if some little privileged white family from Uptown hadn’t keep it a secret for eight years.”

“You want to go there with me?” She whirled on him, finger pointing, words flying from her faster than she could think. “You want to play that card while you talk to me about the casual enslavement of other human beings? Because that’s what this is, Ben. This is a violation of everything anyone who values the human mind believes in. Including me. A person’s ability to think for themselves. Free will, for the love of God. Where would I be without those things? Where would you be?”

“Small moves with a giant hand,” Ben whispered. “Small moves with a giant hand, Marissa. That’s what this would be. Precise, specific, brief. And just enough to advance a bigger objective.”

“What bigger objective?”

“Our city, Marissa! The same one the rest of the country is ready to cut loose into the sea as soon as they’re done with their wild weekend. The same one they want to blame for their racism and their addiction to oil because they can’t manage to care about most of the people here because they’re black and they’re poor. It’s the same objective we’ve had for eight years, Marissa, and only now we wouldn’t have mountains of lies standing in our way.”

“This is insane,” she whispered, her vision blurred by tears she couldn’t bring herself to fight.

“You’re right. Maybe we should have given up a long time ago. But we didn’t.”

“Tell me,” she said quietly. “Do you really believe this is the only way to do any good here anymore? After everything you’ve been through, after everything you’ve seen, is that really what you believe?”

“After everything you’ve taught me. Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Okay . . . Then I quit. If this is truly what it takes, then I’m out. I can’t do it anymore.”

His eyes fluttered shut as if he had tried to brace himself against the blow a second too late, and she could see he was fighting tears as well. But now that the words had left her mouth, she was backing away from the tank’s sweep of glass and its terrible, pulsating potential.

“Marissa . . . please . . .”

“No, I’m sorry, Ben. That’s it. I’m done. But don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me and I’ll be long gone by the time you get to work. So don’t you worry . . .”

“Marissa!”

She expected him to call after her again, but there was only the sound of her shoes crunching twigs as she hurried to her car.

She got almost as far as the freeway when her foot slid off the gas pedal and found the brake, and her hands left the steering wheel and ended up bunched together in her lap. For a few seconds, she thought he’d followed her and was using his power on her. But wouldn’t she have blacked out? Wasn’t that how it worked? But here she was, alone in her car, the rutted road behind her empty save for shadows cast by branches and moss. And she suddenly wished that he had forced it on her instead of leaving her with this bitter litany of all the sacrifices she’d made for her profession, for her city.

But was that why she was hesitating now? Not because she truly wanted what he’d offered her, but because she wouldn’t be able to face the sacrifices she had already made if she gave up on everything now. And why did she have to give up? Why did she have to leave? Did she truly think he would hurt her if she didn’t?

But the question that had brought her to a standstill was the one she’d just asked him a few minutes ago, a question so pointed and absurdly leading she never would have been able to include it in a professional interview in good conscience. Did Ben truly believe his newfound power was the only way to help New Orleans?

Maybe not. But you sure do.

You prayed for courage and you got an opportunity to be courageous. That was what the true believers in her mother’s church had always preached. You didn’t get to pick what the opportunity would be. That wasn’t how the universe worked, or seemed to work, anyway.

You didn’t get to pick your miracles You could either lean into them or run the other way. And that’s all she was doing. Running.

Ben must have heard her car coming back down the road because he was standing in the middle of the