Page 135 of White Lights
It’s not so much black but a deep, dark, brilliant, midnight blue. The real sky over Colorado. The constellations twinkle, moving on their ancient paths, closer than Dez has ever seen. The moon’s a lovely crescent, lying lazy on its side.
“Oh,” Dez says under her breath. She missed this. To be in the natural world again, no filters but the clouds.
She remembers that Rafe’s wings are visible outside thebarbelo. She turns again to look, this time catching his eye. He’s watching her, pleased, as if he wants her to see him. As if he’s showing off for her. Looking past his warm, cobalt eyes, sheseesthem.
Angel wings, glittering against a dark expanse of clouds.
They’re the most magnificent things she’s ever seen. Massive, golden, limned with light, sweeping out behind his shoulders to span thirty feet. Feathers twinkle, then fade into their surface. Nothing about them stays the same. They seem to be made of some iridescent, radiating substance from another world.
“Can I touch them?” she whispers.
Rafe closes his eyes as if the question elicits deep pleasure. He’s never been so glorious, so sexy as he is right now, riding the sky with her.
“When we land,” he murmurs.
“No. Now.”
“I won’t be able to fly if your hands are on my wings.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re sensitive.”
“Are we there yet?” Dez says, pleading. She doesn’t know how farthey’re flying or what they’ll do when they get there. She only knows she needs to put her hands on Rafe’s wings.
“Almost,” he says. “Try to enjoy the ride.”
And Dez does. The view in every direction is staggering. Snowcaps punctuate dramatic mountains. Canyons curve around mountains. Rivers wink in silver moonlight. Everything smells like petrichor, and the cool clouds dance across her skin like silk sheets.
“Do you see that?” he asks, nodding toward a dense white cloud above the tallest mountain peak.
“That cloud?” Dez asks, squinting as they descend. “Is that the Distribution Department?”
“Right now I’m the Distribution Department. That cloud is the Veil—part of it anyway.”
“The Veil between life and—”
“Yes, death,” Rafe says as they draw nearer. “The Veil changes size and shapes, traverses the sky much like a normal cloud, but inside, it’s how mortal souls cross over, and before that, it’s how the angels reach the dying.”
Soon his feet touch down on a stone ledge at the highest point of the mountain, a tooth set in the ancient jaw of the world.
The Veil is close enough now that Dez can almost reach up and touch it. Up close, it emits a soft, symphonic sound. She tilts her head back, watching it above her, as patterns, shapes, and then finallyscenesflicker into view along the Veil’s misty underbelly.
It looks like a shimmering movie screen, airing a million films at once:
A sunrise. A flood. A broken arm. A wedding. A toothless baby’s smile. A downhill bike ride toward the sea. Sex. Trophies. Seeds sprouting in soil. Candles on a birthday cake. One hand grasping another.
“Scenes from our films,” Rafe explains.
Dez points at a portion of the Veil, a scene where an actor takes a bow in the center of a stage. It’s from a film she made that afternoon, for a man from St. Louis named Odin Day. “That’s—”
“One of yours?” Rafe asks, taking Dez in his arms again. “Let’s go see him.”
“What do you mean, go see him?”
“It’s just about time for your film to air. Missouri, right?”
“We’re going to Missouri?” Dez says, confused.
