Page 81 of Brimstone Hollow

Looking down into her soup, she presses her lips together but then says, “My cousin called me the other night. Said he saw Dean driving out toward Willow’s Bend.”

“Willow’s Bend,” I say. “Where Joel Shepherd lives.”

“My cousin asked what the hell Dean would be doing all the way out there and I told him he must’ve been going out to fix someone’s vehicle. He did that sometimes. Made house calls like that. He was real good.”

Tears well up in her eyes again and she presses her fingertips on her eyelids as if that can stop the flow.

“When was this?” I ask.

“I was in the grocery store when he called,” she says, her fingers still mashed into her eyes. “So, it must’ve been Thursday. I always do the shopping on Thursdays.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, as she sniffles and the tears slip past her fingers.

“I wonder if that’s why Brother Ezra came to me,” she says, wiping her nose. “Maybe he wanted to be sure I was there tomorrow. In case he has a message from Dean.”

“Hmmm,” I say, thinking that doesn’t sound any more bonkers than any other reason Ezra might miraculously appear on a mountaintop.

“Everyone always knew how powerful his faith was,” Crystal says. “But I could see it because… I can see auras. Most people have a sort of dim glow, but Brother Ezra’s was more like the angels in my visions.”

“Shiny?” I ask.

Her mouth forms a small, careful smile and she says, “Almost. His was shiny the way light on the water is shiny. The way it’s so bright you can’t hardly look. But you want to. Even though it hurts, you still want to.”

I watch as a subtle blush creeps up her neck and onto her ears.

“Did you have feelings for him?” I ask.

The blush deepens, but she shakes her head.

“I’d never have admitted it before he died, but I always sort of… Well, he was so good-looking and so kind. But, no, nothing ever happened.”

I give her a searching look, but she blinks at me, and then laughs as she says, “I’d never cheat on Dean. Not after everything we’d been through together.”

But the way her blush spreads onto her temples, the way she looks away from me, I feel like there’s more to it.

“Ezra never… he never tried anything with you?”

She shakes her head, quickly, side to side.

I open my mouth to ask another question, press harder, but instead she just starts talking at a fast clip as if she’s been holding it all in and needs to let it out.

“When I saw him today, well, it just overwhelmed me, I guess. I got home from my shift at the Dairy and I was dead tired. With Dean’s death and—I just haven’t been sleeping well. I took some melatonin and turned on my wave sounds and closed all the curtains and went to bed.”

“But you didn’t stay asleep?”

“No,” she says. “Just like with the angels, I heard someone say my name.Crystal. Crystal…I opened my eyes and there he was. Brother Ezra was standing there, at the foot of my bed.”

The way she says it, so matter-of-fact, sends a skittering cold under my skin. Goose bumps erupt on my arms and down the back of my neck.

She takes a deep breath and says, “I could barely see him. He wasshadowed. My room is so dark… but Iknowit was him. Only, instead of black, he seemed to be dressed in white. He told me that I needed to carry a message to his church.”

“And the message was that he would appear tomorrow at dawn?”

She says, “Yes. And then he told me to close my eyes and lie back down. So, I did. And next thing I knew, it was later and he was gone…”

“Crystal…” I say. “You know there’s a thing called hypnagogia where—”

“I know what it is,” she says sharply. “I’ve read about it before. When I was a teenager and my visions started getting stronger. That’snotwhat this is!”