The steps had been re-mortared at some point in the past, but the sloppy job had left them crooked. Or maybe it was me who was off-kilter. I tread slowly, hoping my expression wasn’t as twitchy as my nerves. The porch was strewn with last year’s dead leaves, and the splintered planks creaked under my weight. The front door had been equally neglected, but the brass knocker looked solid beneath its grimy patina, so with a deep breath, I raised my hand.
Two white sparks popped into view at my wrist. Not now. My knock resounded up and down the deserted street. I waited, then knocked again. Still no response. Hadn’t he seen me from the upstairs window? I listened, but couldn’t hear footsteps, and couldn’t see through the hazy windows without deliberately peering in.
“Sal?” I called through the door. “Can we talk?”
I sensed someone behind me and whirled around. Nothing.
“Sal!” My voice was stronger as I faced the door again. I was too close to answers to leave now. “I need to talk to you!” And then, as an afterthought, “Please!”
Mimi had taught me that you get more flies with honey. I felt a giggle rising, remembering the look on her face when I’d asked why in the world I’d want flies.
Another time, Lila.
My hand raised for a third knock and the door jerked open. Sal was huge in the doorway, colossal and cross like a fitful young god disturbed from his divine contemplations.
“You should not be here.” He was bare to the waist, clothed only in rumpled linen trousers and a sheen of sweat.
Oh, God. Did he have company?
“Leave. Please.”
It was the copycat please that snapped me to my senses. “No.” I put my hand on the door. “We need to talk.”
A flush blossomed across his torso. “I cannot.” His tousled curls hung, heavy and damp, across his brow. He was burning with fever. In pain. Again.
“What’s wrong?” I crossed the threshold, and he retreated—three steps for each of mine—until he was a rigid silhouette in the narrow hallway. At least he hadn’t shoved me and slammed the door in my face. “Are you sick?” I hovered at the edge of the tiny foyer. Less than ten feet of decrepit carpet separated us, but the gloom masked his features.
“Sal . . . ” I kept my voice low, as if coaxing a wounded animal. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Do I . . . ?” I stopped, not sure what I was about to ask, and his head bent forward. What did that mean? “What did I do?”
Silence.
“Just talk to me. Please?”
A slow shake of his head.
I thought of the black energies around Cara and the woman at the parade . . . “Sal, do you . . . ? Does anyone . . . ?” I inhaled and tried again, “Do you feel this way around Cara, too?” Maybe he was a sensitive and . . .
Another slow shake.
I flung my hands in the air. “Damn-it-all! I just want to understand! Something’s hurting you, and maybe I can help! Unless . . . ” Unless I’m part of the problem . . . ?
The outline of his shoulders rose and fell. “No one hurts me.”
“But—”
“You do not understand.”
“Then come here and explain it to me.”
He walked forward, slowly and deliberately. “I. Can. Not.”
“But you—”
“No! I will protect your daughter. I will protect you. But you must leave.”
Protect my . . . ? For the second time that day, chills swept through my bones. I pulled back and shifted my focus, only to be rattled further by frantic sparks of white and blue erupting and racing between us. The angelic chaos was frightening, their movements like a cacophony of silent screams, and I took another step backward.
“You do not need to fear me.”
Sal edged closer, and the angels flared even brighter. His vivid, orange-red angel was the only steady pulse among the frenzied mayhem. I blinked, again and again, my eyes darting from angel to angel. I needed to see. See them all. What were they trying to tell me?
“Wh-what about Cara’s b-baby?” I gritted my teeth through another shudder. “Tell. Me.”
His response was to dissolve the last bit of space between us. The angels disappeared, and as he looked down into my eyes, I shivered, useless and waiting for whatever answers he’d deign to share. We drew our breaths in tandem, seconds stretching into longer seconds, until I imagined I could see his soul fractured in the crystal depths of his eyes.
“Leave, Lila.” His command was a sudden caress and I tilted up against the reverberant touch. “Please.” The word strummed down my spine. “Go home. Forget.”
His voice was as warm as his radiant heat, and my quaking ceased. I felt disoriented, confused by him—and my body. His lips curved and stretched, but the words they formed didn’t convey the meaning I thought they should. I frowned and opened my mouth again, but he pulled back, leaving warm air clinging to my skin as he disappeared among the shadows in the hall.
He wanted me to leave. He wanted Eileen to be safe. Dazed and short of breath, I turned toward the open doorway. Safe from what? My heart lurched in an extra beat. Eileen. Two steps away was sunshine and a world I could pretend was normal. Behind me, shrouded in darkness and unspoken secrets, was . . . abnormal.
He obviously knew about Cara. I should march after him and demand answers. She deserved them. Adam needed to know.
Eileen.
Tears blurred the threshold in front of me, rippling the line where dark ceded to light.
Sal was right. The only thing I understood was that my grandmother had been wrong.
✽✽✽
Ensconced in a room on the ill-lit upper floor, he allowed himself to sink against the window’s cool panes. Her face was wet
