Holding Smoke

by Steph Post

  Judah flipped the picture to reveal a scrawl of writing in the corner. Benji picked it up, brought the picture closer to his face, and read out loud.

  “Reims, 1944.”

  Benji turned the photograph back over and started to pass it to Judah, but he held up his hand.

  “I want you to keep it. From everything I knew about him, he was a good guy. A decent guy.”

  Judah hoped Benji understood what he was trying to say.

  “And he was a Cannon. He was one of us, too.”

  He looked up and Judah was sure that he did. Benji slid the photograph into the front pocket of his coveralls.

  “Thanks, man. I’ll keep it safe.”

  Judah glanced behind him and stood. Night had fallen fast; it was time to get on home.

  “Well…”

  “Just don’t do nothing stupid tomorrow.”

  “No promises.”

  Benji shook his head.

  “I mean, more stupid than what you’re already going to do.”

  Judah rested his hand on Benji’s shoulder, even as he looked away, out into darkness.

  “I’ll try.”

  *

  Despite Milo’s rebellion, despite August’s effrontery and Dinah’s presence and Felton’s blasphemy and the resulting discord simmering within her church, Sister Tulah couldn’t help but gloat when George Kingfisher, after one of his uncomfortable, voluminous pauses, finally admitted it.

  “You’ve done well, Sister Tulah. The Inner Council will be pleased.”

  Tulah leaned back and swiveled in her office chair as her mouth slowly stretched into a smile. She was thankful the call was held over speakerphone and not in person; she most certainly did not want to let Kingfisher see her so exultant and believe he was somehow responsible. He was, of course. Kingfisher had given her the task, given her the chance, really, when so many other members of The Order had been willing to give her up as a failure, but that didn’t mean she would cease loathing him as a person. And Sister Tulah wasn’t deluded. She understood that Kingfisher had approached her at The Recompense not because he liked her or valued her, but because Levi Cannon had been in the wrong place at the wrong time around the wrong people, and Sister Tulah happened to be conveniently in the right. The Inner Council had been searching for Ian Helburn—the apostate, the recreant, the rat who had dared to try to leave The Order—for over a year. Ian must have known they would come for him, find him, cut his traitorous tongue to ribbons before stringing him up. She felt not an ounce of sympathy for him. Or for the unfortunate bystanders and their own grisly fate. Tulah had only been surprised that the Angels’ Horsemen had been so clumsy as to miss one of them, though it had all worked out in her favor. The only witness to their Justice might have slipped away from them, but not from Sister Tulah. And now she would find herself among the Angels. Perhaps she could show them how it was done.

  Tulah steepled her fingers on the desk and glanced absently across her office to its locked door. It was soundproof, like the walls of the room, but still she chose her words carefully.

  “And?”

  The speaker crackled as Kingfisher again graced her with one of his unnecessary pauses.

  “When the time comes, I will not forget you.”

  Sister Tulah knew they couldn’t speak freely over the phone, but she didn’t like Kingfisher’s noncommittal tone. He had promised her that if she killed Levi Cannon for The Order, she would be elevated to the highest level. When the current Eagle died, she would take his place, assuming the Mark of the Angel and a seat on the Inner Council. Like Kingfisher, she would have ultimate power within their ranks and be as close to the True God as she could ever hope as a mortal being. The next Recompense was another three years away, giving the Eagle plenty of time to give up the ghost to his terminal cancer, and Tulah enough time to prepare for the initiation. She would be ready for it, though. She’d been ready for it all her life.

  “You swear to it? By the Fire and the Light?”

  “By the Wheels in the Whirlwind.”

  There was no way she could utter any of the sacred Sevenfold words over the phone, no way to pressure him into a binding ritual. Sister Tulah would simply have to trust him, a fact that rankled her, mostly because of her dislike for the man. An Angel, however, would not break his word and she would hold Kingfisher to it come hell or high water, fall the Latter Rain or no. Tulah was about to hit the end call button, leaving Kingfisher’s vow as the culmination of their conversation, but then his booming voice echoed through the speaker once more.

  “Sister Tulah. It’s good to know you can take care of things.”

  The speakerphone beeped as George Kingfisher hung up and a flush bled across Sister Tulah’s cheeks. Of course she could take care of things. She could take care of everything. And she would, make no mistake. As she leaned back, snapping off her eyepatch and massaging the skin under her hollow eye socket, her agitation at Kingfisher’s condescension began to simmer, boiling down into a fury that spilled forth, filling up all four corners of the room. Kingfisher and August and Milo and Felton and Dinah. The slippery Cannons, the spineless members of her church, the painted heathens swilling coffee dregs at all hours of the day and night. They thought they held power. They held nothing. Nothing. She slid open a desk drawer with a bang and snatched up a bag of ruffled potato chips. Tulah ripped it open down the middle, dusting the documents stacked neatly on her desk with a shower of grease and salt. She greedily stuffed the chips in her mouth, one handful after another, as her mind wheeled, piecing together her next plan. Sister Tulah had fulfilled the task given to her by The Order; now she would fulfill the one she had set before herself. As she wiped her glistening mouth with the back of her hand, she called upon the New Testament, that right side of the Bible she so rarely visited in her devotion to the left.

  “For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”

  And now the scales would tip.

  *

  Judah put his arms around Ramey as she dropped her head to his chest, turning away. He ran his hand up the length of her back, along the curve of her neck, and let his fingers catch in her hair. A foreboding for the next day and all that it could bring, all that it would bring, still clung to him, but at least he had this moment. A breach loomed before them, but no longer between them. Judah listened to Ramey breathe and to the rain slashing through the night, the live oaks and longleaf pines groaning in the wind. When the sky cleaved with lightning, Judah could just make out the walls of their bedroom in the house they had tried to make a home. If he craned his neck, he’d be able to see the row of framed vintage flower prints Ramey had hung next to the window and the yellowing pages of the paperbacks she’d stacked on the sill. Judah hadn’t contributed much more than the scattering of change on the nightstand, the balled-up T-shirts in the corner, but he could make out Wyatt Earp on the dresser, tiny gun drawn, ready for action. Judah had insisted they keep him, though it’d been hard to explain to Ramey why.

  He pulled his arm up behind his head. There were things that needed to be said only in the cocoon of night, and there was no guarantee he would ever see another.

  “You know, that’s twice I thought I’d lost you. Twice I was wrong. Guess I should’ve had more faith.”

  Ramey was silent for so long he was afraid she’d gone to sleep, but then she stirred against him, twisting her head to face the other way.

  “No. You did lose me. For a moment there.”

  Judah lifted her hair, fanning it out across the furrowed bedsheet. Judah could feel her breath, warm against the inside of his arm, even as he held his own.

  “Or maybe we just lost each other. Maybe we lost ourselves.”

  Judah exhaled. His voice was splitting, but he didn’t care.

  “I would have fought for you.”

  “You’re fighting for me now. And tomorrow…”

  The tremor was in her voice now. Judah rolled out from underneath her an
d twisted around. She turned onto her back to look up at him and he braced himself with one hand on either side of her face. It was too dark to see her eyes.

  “Tomorrow. Tonight. You need to know this, Ramey. You need to know. You’re the one. You were always the one. And you will always be the only one, for as long as we have time left on this earth. A handful of hours or the rest of our long lives, maybe, if we somehow get lucky.”

  He pushed himself all the way up and placed his right fist in the center of her chest, cupping over it with his other hand. He pressed against her.

  “I’m giving my heart to you to carry. Not as a weight. Not as a burden. Not beating with all the baggage and bullshit and ghosts. Just my heart, as it is, right now.”

  Judah uncurled his fist, spread his palm wide.

  “It’s all I have to give. It may be all I ever have. Will you take it?”

  In the darkness, he felt her hands pressing hard against his own chest.

  “Only if you accept mine in return.”

  Judah lifted his hands from Ramey’s chest and twined his fingers in hers. They were both grasping at one another with a fierceness that frightened him almost as much as his surrender to it. He knew, and she knew, that when the dawn broke, it would be over a day they could never turn back from. And when the ashes came to rest, there might be no more left than this.

  17

  The rain seemed to have finally cleared for good. Felton peered up into the cloud-scrubbed sky, then down at Juniper, who, in turn, appeared engrossed in the carpet of pine needles at her feet, scuffed and scattered by the circle of camping chairs and coolers and the kids’ ever-present fire in the night. Felton glanced from the top of Juniper’s bent head—today her hair braided up around her ears in a low crown—to the lovebug-splattered windshield of the van, where Tyler and Dustin patiently waited. Felton had already spoken to the boys. Had punched Tyler in the shoulder when he’d been punched first, had attempted the complicated handshake involving a twist of the thumb and jerk of the wrist that Dustin had tried to teach him. And now it was Juniper’s turn. Felton wet his lips, trying to think of something to say. He had never imagined a goodbye could be so hard.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Juniper nodded, still keeping her head down. She was picking at one of the many brightly colored string bracelets on her wrist, worrying it back and forth.

  “I’m sure.”

  “You know you can stay here as long as you want.”

  Felton waved his hand toward the van.

  “All of you. You’re all welcome, for as long as you like.”

  Juniper shrugged. Her braid was coming loose and falling in wispy tendrils down around her temples and ears, trailing down the back of her neck. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and glanced around the small clearing in front of Felton’s two campers.

  “I know. There’s no place for us here, though.”

  Felton couldn’t argue with that. Juniper slowly raised her head. She hadn’t been crying, as Felton had feared, but there was a gravity lingering in her eyes that surprised him.

  “But there is for you. I’ve seen it.”

  “In the stars?”

  Juniper’s expression didn’t change.

  “In you. Felton, you’re going to do great things here. I don’t know what, but I just know. And I’ve seen the real you, remember that. And remember it yourself.”

  Now it was his turn to look away. Felton dropped his gaze down to his sneakers as his throat tightened and his eyes burned. The Adidas clashed horribly with his polyester dress pants, but he didn’t care.

  “You’ve given me so much. I wish I had something to give you in return.”

  “Jesus, they’re only shoes.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Felton’s head snapped up, but Juniper was trying to smile.

  “Kidding!”

  Felton echoed her, his voice dismal and hollow.

  “Kidding.”

  “But hey, I actually do have something for you. One last thing. You know, so you don’t forget me.”

  All Felton wanted to say was that he would never forget her, could never forget her, but the words were stuck in his mouth, as dry and strangling as cotton. Juniper fished around in the shapeless hobo bag slung across her shoulder as Felton tried not to break before her. When she withdrew the small brass cross, she cupped it in her palm and held it out to him like a covenant. It winked at him in the sunlight.

  “My aunt gave this to me when I was twelve, I think. Whenever it was that I got baptized. I did it to make her happy, because she was the only one who ever stuck up for me when I was a kid.”

  Another strand of hair caught at the corner of her half-moon lips. She tucked it in her mouth, chewed on it and then plucked it away, all while keeping her eyes on the cross. Juniper hadn’t told Felton much about her life before hitting the road, but he had an idea. She’d never tried to hide the lacings of thin scars running up and down her forearms.

  “I don’t know why I kept it all this time, it’s not like I believe in any of that God stuff.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “But I believed in her, I guess. And I believe in you. So, it’s yours.”

  Felton still couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Juniper smiled and reached out to take his wrist. She flipped his hand over and slid the cross onto his palm, almost as if it was a living thing. Felton’s fingers closed tightly around it. He managed a whisper.

  “Thank you.”

  Felton fumbled with the flap of his suit jacket pocket and tipped the cross inside. He patted it and nodded to Juniper. They stood awkwardly for another moment, their eyes jumping around from one another’s faces to the ground and back again. Felton knew Tyler and Dustin were anxious to take off, but he didn’t know how to let her go.

  “Where will you head?”

  “I think south. There’s this place on the Gulf Coast I heard about. Weeki Wachee Springs. They have this crazy underwater mermaid show and are always hiring.”

  Juniper grinned like a child, finally breaking the spell of the moment.

  “I always wanted to be a mermaid, you know. Or a unicorn. But mostly a mermaid.”

  “Well, whatever you do…”

  Felton’s throat swelled. Tyler stuck his head out of the van’s window and called to them.

  “Juni! We got to go.”

  Juniper nodded over her shoulder, looked back to Felton, and then rushed him, looping her arms up around his neck. Felton was so surprised that he almost didn’t hug her back. Juniper didn’t let go, though, and as he gently put his hands on her back, it occurred to him that he had now been embraced twice, in the span of two days, by two people he hadn’t even known a few months ago and who were now the most important in the world to him. Felton had been touched in his life—by healing fingers grazing his head, fists beating out demons, palms slapping his face when he’d failed to follow orders—but he had never been held. Felton bowed his head over Juniper and whispered in her ear.

  “You’ve been my true friend. And I’ve never had one of those before.”

  Juniper’s face was still pressed hard into Felton’s shoulder and her voice came out muffled, but Felton knew he would carry her words with him forever.

  “Well. You’ll always have me.”

  *

  Dinah had never been inside Tulah’s tall, white house, but the Elder who’d brought her simply pointed upward from the foyer and Dinah had found her way. At the top of the stairs, a large window, spanning from her ankles up to the high ceiling, lost in the shadows, admitted the ebbing dusk. Dinah stepped to the dusty glass and looked down at the fenced family graveyard, and then out across the weed-choked yard, the driveway, the church and the winding highway beyond. It was a beautiful view and Dinah wondered if Felton had often stood there as a child, imagining where the road could take him. It was the sort of thing Dinah would have done, and had done, at many a
foster home window. Behind her, she could hear a throat clear impatiently. Dinah turned her back on the window and cleared her head of reminiscences. Sister Tulah had summoned her, and a summoning could never be good.

  All of the doors running along the narrow hallway were shut tight except the one closest to her, cracked just barely, allowing a sliver of light to peek through. Dinah pushed the door open and stepped into a small room, lit only by a gooseneck lamp on a child-sized desk and the silver light spilling in through the small window above it. Surprised, Dinah realized she was standing in Felton’s old bedroom, the one he’d told her had been his all his life, up until only a few months before. Above the desk hung a mobile made of tortoise shells and next to it a low bookcase crammed full of Audubon guides, tiny animal skulls, and empty glass jars, some with breathing holes pierced through the tin lids. One jar, sitting on the otherwise cleared desk, was open and filled with an inch of clear liquid. Dinah eyed the jar, then the ladder-back chair pulled out purposefully away from the desk and, across from it, the twin bed flush against the wall. Sister Tulah was sitting on the faded patchwork quilt, running her hands over the soft, worn cotton.

  “So, you’ve arrived.”

  Dinah glanced around the room warily, but Tulah gestured toward the chair facing her.

  “Sit down.”

  Dinah stared at the chair. It was all wrong. All terribly wrong—the chair, the jar, the light, Sister Tulah’s cloven grin—but she was so caught off guard that she couldn’t do much more than stutter.

  “What about Felton?”

  Tulah pointed to the chair again, the grin about to split her face in twain. Dinah swallowed and took a fumbling step backward.

  “I thought this was some sort of family meeting with the three of us. I thought—”

  “Dinah, sit down.”

  It wasn’t a request. For a second, Dinah thought about running. Tulah certainly wasn’t going to chase after her, but then she remembered the Elders downstairs, the one who had picked her up from The Pines motel where she’d been hiding out and had escorted her inside, and the three who were still standing out on the porch. Dinah was pretty sure she could make it past them, but she hadn’t been able to tell earlier if they were armed or not. Dinah decided it would be smarter to see what game Sister Tulah was playing first. She crossed her arms as an affront and flung herself down in the chair.