I could feel her disappointment.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wanting to curl into a ball and sleep for a thousand years. “I wish I were better at this stuff.”
Kenya scoffed. “You’re amazing,” she said. “You have no idea. If I could do half the stuff you can, I’d be thrilled.”
“You must think I’m pretty unappreciative.”
“You are.”
“But you’ve known about me your whole life,” I argued, suddenly defensive. “Do you know how long I’ve known about me?”
She quirked a brow. “Since you were born?”
“No. Well, yes, but not me. Me-me. The prophet me.”
“How long?”
“About four months. That’s it. And I only found out after I was hit by a huge green delivery truck and was slated to die only to have the Angel of Death swoop down and save me.”
She nodded. “Oh, yeah, I’d wallow in a constant state of self-pity, too.” She did that deadpan thing she was so fond of. “You forget. I’ve seen the Angel of Death. The Angel of Death is hotter than a two-dollar pistol. That must have been a real hardship.”
She totally didn’t understand.
* * *
We got to the church and entered through the back door, winding our way down the small staircase to the basement underneath. I wasn’t sure whom all Granddad had called, but it seemed like we had a pretty full house. Besides my grandparents and Mac, the sheriff was there as well as a few elder members of the Order. I could’ve killed Brooklyn.
“What the heck did you tell my granddad?”
“That we had a Code Three emergency.”
“What’s a Code Three emergency?”
“No idea, but it got his attention. He said to meet us here.”
I didn’t know whether to admire her or worry.
“Okay,” Granddad said gravely. “Whatever happened, we can figure it out together. So, what happened?”
They were sitting in the boardroom at a large table they used for meetings, research, and lively discussions on the logistics of the prophecies. We took seats around the room as well and I faced my grandfather head-on.
“There’s something I never told you,” I said, wondering how they would take it. I figured Mac would understand my reasons for not mentioning it sooner. Or I hoped so. “I can see into pictures.”
They sat there with blank stares as though waiting for the punch line.
“No, like pictures. Photographs. I can see into them.”
Grandma spoke up first. “We aren’t sure what you mean, sweetheart.”
“She can go into them,” Brooke said, taking over for me. “She can look at a picture, concentrate, and go into it. She can see what was happening when it was taken. But that’s not why we’re here.”
“Nope,” Glitch said. “She can do something much cooler than that.”
“She can draw a picture and go into that as well,” Kenya said, joining in. She seemed way too excited by the prospect.
Mac scrubbed his stubbly jaw and was about to say something when Kenya interrupted.
“Like that other prophet, one of Lara Beth’s daughters. She would draw pictures with the ashes of special herbs she’d burned and go into them. Remember? That’s how she got her visions.”
My grandparents nodded as well as a couple of the church elders.
Mac finally got a word in. A few, actually. “No one has been able to do that for centuries,” he said. “That’s an incredible gift.”
All in all, they seemed to take it well.
“Pix,” Granddad said, “why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed kind of a useless thing to be able to do.”
“But wait!” Brooke said. She was way too happy, too. “There’s more!” She nodded encouragingly. “Tell them.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, so I decided I’d try to remember more about the man that day, the one who opened the gates of hell the first time.”
“Dyson,” Grandma said. If only knowing that name helped. It got us nowhere fast.
“Yes, Dyson, if that’s the same man. So I thought back to what he looked like and drew a picture.”
Glitch got my backpack and pulled out the sketchbook for me. He turned it to the sketch and handed it to Granddad.
“Well, Brooklyn had an idea, so we tried it.”
“Right,” she said, excited. “I figured if she could go into pictures, she maybe could go into any kind of picture. Even a drawing, you know? So she tried it and it didn’t work the first time but I knew she was holding something back because she does that so when we were in the restroom today I told her I knew she was holding something back and she said I’m not and I said I can tell you are and she said, okay, maybe I am but I didn’t go into it, and I said well you need to try again and—”
“What Brooke is trying to say,” I said, cutting her off so she could supply her red blood cells with oxygen, “is that she convinced me to try again.”
Grandma’s astonished expression turned hopeful. “And?” she asked.
“And it worked.” I lowered my head, suddenly uncertain. “I was there again. I was back at that day.”
Granddad touched my knee to draw me back to him. “You went back to that day through your drawing?”
“Yes. It was not pleasant.”