Into This River I Drown

  Oh fuck.

  Without thinking, I turn and toss the coat at Cal. He stares at it for a second until I hiss at him to put it on so he doesn’t look like he’s ready to do battle in a gladiator coliseum. He does, smiling quietly to himself.

  My mother opens the screen door to Big House and Mary and Christie pile out behind her. They’re looking at us curiously until one by one they see the gigantic man still standing next to the Ford. “Hello,” my mother says uncertainly.

  Calliel takes a step and starts to smile, and we’re only seconds away from, “Greetings, Lola Green, born December 15, 1962 under a corporeal moon and take me to your leader” or some other fucking crazy bullshit.

  “Uh,” I override him loudly. “This is just… a friend of mine. You know. Just… hanging out. And stuff.” He looks at me curiously, and I try to put as much murder in my gaze as I possibly can, but he seems amused, nothing more.

  “A friend?” Mary says, starting to grin. “Well, he’s certainly quite the specimen for a friend.”

  Oh goddammit.

  “Yes,” Nina says, somehow picking up on the growing awkwardness. “I was just waiting for Benji to come home and he introduced me to his friend and nothing more. Nothing more at all is going on, so no nosy nellies.”

  “What’s his name?” Christie asks.

  “Blue,” Nina says, as he says, “Calliel,” while I say, “Cal.”

  The three women on the patio stare at us.

  I cough. “Calliel Blue,” I manage to say. “Everyone calls him Cal.”

  “They do?” Calliel asks, sounding extraordinarily baffled. “I have not heard this before from—”

  “What he means,” I say, interrupting him, “is that he has a lot of nicknames and Cal is just one of them. Or Blue. Or… whatever.” Yeah. That should convince them.

  “Really,” Mom says, sounding like she doesn’t believe a single word that’s falling from my mouth. “Hello, Cal. Or Blue. Or Calliel. I’m Lola, Benji’s mom. These are my sisters, Christie and Mary. I think you’ve already met Nina.”

  He waves jovially at them (and everyone except for Mom starts waving right back), looking at me, begging with his eyes to speak. I shake my head quickly once and, unbelievably, he grunts at me, calling me ridiculous without saying the words.

  “Cal Blue?” Mary whispers quite loudly, still waving. “That sounds like a porn name. He looks like he does porn too. Big bad ginger-man porn.”

  “That’s not a porn name,” Christie scoffs. “Calliel sounds… Hispanic. Or Greek.”

  I groan.

  “I am not Hispanic,” Calliel assures her. “Or Greek.” Mary and Christie titter quietly at the sound of his voice, rough and wonderful.

  He tries again. “I’m actually—”

  “He’s actually Californian,” I say, as if that explains everything. To Mary and Christie, it seems to suffice; they nod as if that makes perfect sense. My mother is not buying a damn thing. Even worse, she’s starting to get that look on her face that means she’s going to start asking questions I have no idea how to answer. Making a decision, I walk over to him and take his hand in mine. Even though it can’t possibly be real, there’s a moment when our fingers connect, that feeling of skin against skin. An even brighter blue bursts across my vision. His palm feels calloused, his fingers soft and dry. My toes curl in my work boots. I look up at him and find him staring down at our intertwined fingers, wonder playing across his face. He raises his gaze to mine and smiles again. Fuck it all.

  “Not what you’re thinking,” I say under my breath. “Don’t you say a damn word until I tell you to.” He nods, looking back down at our hands. He gives an experimental squeeze and then does it again.

  Great. Fantastic.

  I take a deep breath and look back to the porch. Mary and Christie watch us, dumbfounded. Nina looks like she wants to tackle us and kiss our faces off. Mom looks like there are at least four hundred more questions she must ask right at this moment. I need to end this now. “Cal’s going to be staying with me in Little House for a while.” Uh, what? He squeezes my hand again, harder. “There’s some stuff he and I need to talk about, so… you know. Maybe we can do this whole thing later?” I direct this last at my mom, trying to put enough emphasis on my words that she feels no need to say anything else.

  She can see right through my attempts, but small wonder. She nods tightly, pursing her lips. Mary and Christie stand behind her, waggling their eyebrows obscenely, but it’s wasted on my apparent new best friend, who is still looking down at our hands, squeezing again and again like he’s never held hands with another person.

  Maybe on whatever planet he comes from this is frowned upon, I think, trying to avoid going into hysterics.

  “We’ll talk later,” my mom says finally, the tone in her voice letting me know in no uncertain terms that there will be a later. I almost want to tell her that I’m fucking twenty-one years old, but realize how that would sound and there’s no fucking way that’s going to happen. “Remember, you’ve… you’ve got the day off tomorrow, so….”

  “So make sure you get plenty of sleep.” Mary giggles, sounding so much like her sister when she laughs.

  “Yeah, sleep in,” Nina says, although I’m not sure she understands what she’s saying.

  “Ladies,” Christie says, “into the house. Let’s leave Benji and Gigantor alone so they can do whatever it is two guys do when they are all by themselves in an empty house where no one can hear them scream.”

  My mom shakes her head and turns and walks back into the house, followed by Christie and Mary. Mary asks her older sister if it looked like Cal was wearing a skirt, and Christie replies that it must be a Californian thing. Nina waits until they’re all inside before she looks back at us. “I promise I won’t say anything,” she whispers hurriedly. “But these things have a way of getting out all on their own. Be careful, Benji. And Blue?”

  He looks up from our hands, where he’s nearly turned mine into mush. “Yes, little one?”

  Her eyes sparkle. “I am so very happy to meet you.” She blushes again and runs up into the house, then closes the door behind her, shutting off the porch light and leaving us in darkness.

  I stand there, staring after them, trying to collect my thoughts.

  “Benji?” he finally says, sounding bemused.

  “What?” I say tiredly.

  He hesitates. “They seemed nice,” he offers.

  Oh dear God. I drop his hand and move back toward the truck. “Let’s go, Blue or Cal or whatever your name is. We have a shitload to talk about.”

  “I can’t wait to tell you things,” he tells me seriously, which causes me to roll my eyes. “Well, what I can remember, anyway.”

  I reach the Ford, ignoring the tingling in my hand and just how empty it feels.

  it came from outer space!

  The ride to Little House is quiet. I don’t know what I would say even if I could

  speak. Two thoughts are running through my head, both of which are cause for panic. First, if I’ve gone insane, then apparently I’ve pulled Nina into my delusional psychosis, since she seems to see the same things I do. Beyond that, she apparently has seen it (him?) longer than I have (what did you do?). She didn’t seem to fear the outline of wings that had formed on Calliel as she held him. Although I don’t know what there was to fear besides the fact that there were the outlines of wings.

  The second thought?

  The second thought is one I’m trying to push away. The second thought is one that I’d rather not focus on because it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t even know why I’m having this second thought. Out of everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, why is this on my mind?

  The second thought: the way my hand felt in his. Engulfed. Sheltered.

  This is a thought I don’t want to have. I can’t have it. I tell myself it has been the lack of human contact lately. I tell myself it’s because really he’s not unattractive (though the moment I thi
nk this, I am horrified and shove that away). I tell myself it’s because it’s been a while. I tell myself maybe it’s time I take a trip to Eugene. Roseland isn’t exactly filled with available men, not that I would be looking if it was. There’s too many other things I need to focus on.

  And I don’t even know if he’s gay. Or human.

  It’s a good thing I just told everyone he’s staying with me.

  “Little House.” He grins, stopping the Ford and then turning it off. He seems to hesitate for a moment but then reaches over, handing me the keys. “You going to let me drive again?” he asks, almost shyly. “I do like driving, I think. Even if you make me drive way too slow. What’s the point of having the dial go up to seventy if you can’t go that fast? It seems ridiculous.”

  I take the keys from him. “We’ll see,” I mutter, unsure why I’m not just saying no flat out, why I’m not telling him to get the hell out of my truck and out of my life. I seem to be unsure about a whole hell of a lot. I’m pressed up against the passenger door again, trying to put as much space between me and him as possible. It doesn’t help that I have to clench my fists together to keep from taking his hand in mine again. It doesn’t help that in the dark, in my father’s jacket, his shape is familiar, almost surreal. Yeah, I don’t have daddy issues at all. I shake my head.

  “What?” he asks me curiously.

  “Nothing,” I say. I reach for the door handle.

  “This would be so much easier if I could still read your mind,” I hear him grumble

  He follows me up the porch and into Little House. I hang the key on the rack and flip on the light, then hold open the door and wait for him to walk through. He seems to hesitate at the entryway, which of course leads to the most random thought (you always have to invite them in first), but then he takes a deep breath and crosses the threshold, his gaze taking in everything, everywhere. His hand goes to the door as he passes it, letting his fingers run across the wood, tracing the bumps and whorls from the cedar my father crafted and shaped. The look on his face is one of such reverence that I have to look away before it has the chance to become something more.

  He closes the door behind him, then immediately opens it again, swinging it back and forth before closing it a final time and latching the lock. I start to head down the hallway, assuming he’ll follow. But he speaks in a low rumble and I stop, keeping my gaze toward the floor. “I was here when you and Big Eddie broke ground that first day to build this house, you know.”

  Fear returns, thunderously bright.

  “Oh?” I manage to say.

  “Yes. That first pick he took to the ground to break up the earth. You sat on a cooler just a little bit away from him.” He sighs. “He said you couldn’t help just yet because your mother would tan his hide if she saw you with the pickax. He told you not to worry because there’d be plenty of work to do. But you still helped. Every time he stopped to catch his breath, you ran over to bring him some water from the cooler. He’d smile at you and you’d smile back at him and it would start all over again.”

  I shudder.

  Then a hand falls on my shoulder.

  A breath near the back of my neck.

  I whirl around. For a moment, I’m sure there is a flash of blue, but I only see Calliel standing right in front of me, our bodies almost touching. He’s looking at me closely with an intensity I can’t quite accept. The hand on my shoulder, the feeling of someone always just out of reach that I’ve experienced ever since I returned to Little House. That touch I’ve ignored, passed off as a figment of my imagination. That touch that happens here, and at the station, in my truck, in my room.

  Everywhere. It happens everywhere and only when I need it.

  I take a step back, unable to keep the distress from my face. Calliel sees it and looks as if he’s going to reach up and grab me, to stop me from moving back, but he apparently thinks better of it and drops his hands back down to his sides. I stumble and fall back, hitting the wall and then slumping against it, trying to stay standing. He doesn’t move.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says finally, sounding almost hurt. “Why would I?”

  “I don’t fucking know what you are,” I snarl. “I don’t care what Nina says or what she sees or what anyone else sees. I don’t know you.”

  “But I know you,” he says simply. He takes a step toward me.

  “No,” I gasp. “You stay right where you are. I want some goddamn answers. Tell me the fucking truth.”

  Calliel cocks his head at me and frowns. “I already told you, Benji. I told you almost right away.”

  “Just tell me the truth,” I say weakly.

  He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. With that breath comes a feeling of heat bursting softly throughout the room, the air growing thicker. When he opens his eyes, he seems taller somehow. Bigger. His eyes are almost completely black, the white peeking out around the edges. For a moment, I think I see an outline of wings again, but I blink and they’re gone.

  He speaks, almost as if in recitation: “I am the Throne Angel Calliel of the second Heaven, in service of God, our Father, descended from On High. I am the Guardian of Roseland and its inhabitants. These are my people, my charges, the ones who have been entrusted to me. I protect them. I carry their fears. I lift up their prayers. I hear their calls and I answer if it is within my power. I do not pass judgment for I am not God. God judges sin and the follies of man, not I. I do not intervene with the plans of God. I do not avenge the plans of God. I am an extension of him and his will, for he is my Father and he is divine.” He pauses, almost glowering at me, daring me to refute him.

  “Oh,” is all I can think of to say.

  The charge gathering in the room dissipates as quickly as it arrived, cold sweeping back in.

  He follows me as I move down the hall toward my bedroom. He touches

  everything he sees with that same wonder, as if he’s never felt such things and he finds them extraordinary. There are little grunts of pleasure at particular things that seem to tickle him for some reason: the thermostat on the wall that he cranks up to ninety before scowling at the vent that blows down from the ceiling; light switches which he flicks on and off, the light above flashing bright then going dark. I am almost horrified by this, a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach as I mull over asking him if they have light switches and heating ducts where he comes from.

  Because, I think as I watch him study himself in a mirror, he obviously doesn’t come from around here. And if he’s so fascinated by something as simple as a light switch, chances are he’s probably not from around anywhere else, either. I wonder if there is still a chance that this is a dream.

  “Isn’t that a sin?” I ask him as he stares at his reflection, obviously pleased by his appearance. He runs his hands over his head, touches the auburn scruff on his face.

  “What?” he asks as he pulls his ears out and grins at himself in the mirror. “Vanity.”

  He rolls his eyes, which seems unbecoming of someone in his position.

  “Everything is a sin if you think about it,” he says, looking somewhat surprised at his own words. “Nobody is perfect.”

  “So says the man who claims to be an angel.”

  He glances over at me. “Perfection is a flaw in itself,” he says. “And I don’t claim to be anything. I am.” He looks almost insulted. “Nina believes me. Why can’t you trust like she does?”

  “Nina’s… different,” I sputter. “She’s different from the rest of us.”

  “You speak of her triplicated chromosome?”

  “Sure,” I say, suddenly forming a plan. “Why not? Let’s speak about that. Why would your God allow that to happen to her? Why would he let her be like that?”

  He looks confused. “Like what?”

  “Disabled.”

  “She looked perfectly able to me.”

  I scowl at him. “You know what I mean. She has a mental handicap. Why would

  he allow that to happen? Why wou
ld God do that to her?”

  “Is she not happy?” he asks, leaning against the wall, my father’s jacket

  bunching up as he crosses his arms.

  “This isn’t about her happiness,” I snap at him. “Answer the question.” “I just did,” he says. “I asked you if she was happy, and you implied by

  deflection that she was. If she is happy, who are you to say she’s not how God

  wanted her to be?”

  “She doesn’t know any better!”

  “And how can you? Do you think you know better than she? Than God? That is

  a sin, to presume the will of my Father. For all you know, she’s exactly the person

  she is supposed to be, even if she is different. You of all people should know that,

  Benji.”

  Tears sting my eyes. This is too much. All of this is too much. “Don’t you dare

  talk to me like you know me, you bastard.” He takes a step toward me, but I shake

  my head and take a step back. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, aside from your

  creepy-stalker bullshit. I want to go to bed so I can open my eyes tomorrow and see

  that this was all a dream, because it is a dream. I’m going to wake up and I’ll still be

  at the station, or I’ll be lying by the river, but you will be gone, because you’re just a fucking figment of my imagination. Things like this don’t happen. Things like this

  aren’t real. You’re not fucking real.”

  “And yet, I’m here. Because you called me,” he says, his voice hard. It sounds

  like an accusation.

  “Don’t you dare put this on me. I don’t fucking know you!”

  A memory, rising: Oh, someone please help me. I can’t do this on my own. Not

  anymore.

  “You’re lying,” he says, dawning comprehension lighting up his eyes. “This is

  you lying.”

  “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  “But—”

  “Get the fuck out of my house!” I bellow at him. Without waiting to see what he

  does, I go into my room and slam the door behind me.