chapter eight.

"Death is a mirror which reflects the vain gesticulations of the living."

-OCTAVIO PAZ.

CONSUELA woke tucked in a warm, cotton chrysalis on Sissy's floor. She could feel the well-laundered blanket curled around her, protecting her against noise and light. She rubbed her fingers over her smooth skull and into the sockets, her knucklebones slipping deep into her sphenoids.

She was alone in the bas.e.m.e.nt. A sort of lazy trust infused her. She'd forgotten how much fun late-night talks and laughter could be. It had been a long time since her last sleepover party. It made her miss Allison something awful.

She didn't know where Sissy had gone, but she knew her own way out and spied her enormous, flowing cape of inky feathers hanging magnificently on the closet door.

Consuela politely folded the borrowed blanket, stacking it neatly on a decorative pillow lying flat upon the chair. The large computer screen was active and displaying a message in fourteen-point font: At OSheas. New configuration = 126. Stop by? Yad Uncertain whether the words were meant for Sissy or her, Consuela read the strange message again. She was intrigued by the invitation, but even more by the author-the Yad. If she was going to get home, she had to meet everybody, explore every option, and the Yad was someone new.

Toeing the limp feathers aside and sliding the closet door shut, Consuela headed for little Killian O'Shea's room in Roxbury.

a young man stood precariously on a stool, his hands over his head, painting a long line over the door. He was formally dressed in black vest and pants, a long-sleeved white shirt rolled to the elbows, and a white undershirt that was strangely frayed, knotted strings hanging long past his pockets. Consuela watched him slowly trail his fingers from right to left, singing softly under his breath. She didn't want to disturb him. It looked suspiciously like prayer.

He hummed to silence and cracked an eye open. "h.e.l.lo," he said.

"Hi," Consuela said, uncertainly.

"It's a ward," the Jewish youth said, stepping down. "To protect the boy inside against the Angel of Death, as it is said." He wiped his fingers on a rag. It was then she realized that the ink was really blood.

"Not to die before their time," she finished.

"Exactly. Mine is to protect firstborn sons," he said. "You must be Bones. I'm Yehudah Rosen, also known as the Yad-" He held up two fingers smeared with blood. "The 'hand,'" he translated.

"Nice to meet you . . ."

"I don't shake hands," he said.

She dropped hers, recalling Sissy's warning a bit too late.

He smiled. "It's a respect thing. Shomer negiah," Yehudah said politely. "I'll only touch four women in my life: my mother, my sisters, my wife, and my daughters."

"You have a wife?" Consuela squeaked. "And daughters?" The Yad looked all of sixteen.

"Not yet," he said. "Someday, G.o.d willing, when I return home."

Consuela nodded, looking up at the ward. It was powerful, she could tell. She was drawn to this spot almost against her will.

"That's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about," she said. "I'm not supposed to be here. I have to go home."

"Well, if it's any comfort, I believe that if you weren't meant to be here, you wouldn't be," the Yad said, adjusting a skullcap on his thick, curly hair. "Sorry, I don't mean to sound flippant. I wish I could help." He held up a waiting palm with a shy smile. "But since we know that some things can cross back, I don't see why you couldn't."

"Things?" Consuela asked. "What things?"

"Well, I have this." He reached up and removed the hairpin that held the circle of suede on his head. She wondered if he was joking. He smirked. "No, really. We all bring something with us that can cross from this world into the next. It's usually something personally significant or a.s.sociated with something personally significant. Cecily has her computer, Giovanni has his cigarette lighter, Wish has his paints." He considered the tiny piece of wire. "Amazingly, it's come in very useful."

She laughed. "For picking locks?"

"Only when there isn't a key," the Yad said, looking back over his handiwork; his thoughts seemed to stir like a swirl of ink or blood. "But I've found that there is always more than one way to get at what you want."

"Well, I want to go home," Consuela said, surprising herself with her vehemence. She checked to see the Yad's reaction. He simply listened. "Sissy said it can't be done, but Wish said it can. V told me that intention is key and Tender tried to explain something about the power of the mind or words or whatever." She tried to remember the shape of Tender's speech against the vacuum roar of the Flow. "He said that if you're willing to stand for something, it could become real."

"Really?" the Yad said, intrigued. "He said that?"

"He said a lot more," Consuela answered. "But most of it went right over my head."

The Yad nodded. "Tender is very . . . intellectual. Although to hear him say that there is manifestation in our words, that we can speak things into being-well, that is a profound insight into the nature of truth. Words and numbers have considerable power."

Consuela knelt down on the carpeted floor and peered up into the Yad's faraway stare. Sissy said he'd studied the Bible, or something close to it.

"So you think he's right?" she asked.

"Possibly," he said. "I wouldn't say that he's wrong."

The concept crushed her like a soda can.

"What is it?" he asked.

She tucked her hands beneath her knees, hunched into a ball. "So . . . did I do this?" she said, voicing something she hadn't meant to admit. "To myself, I mean? By being so . . . afraid . . . ?" Of dying. Of living. Of doing it wrong. Consuela couldn't finish. She ma.s.saged one bony foot, watching the tiny, round anklebones shift and slide.

The Yad squatted across the hall and crossed his arms in thought. She felt oddly honored by his silence, his not rushing to answer or joke. His was a long, careful contemplation. She had never considered her thoughts that important before.

"Perhaps you have it backward," he said finally. "Perhaps this power was within you all along and only now manifests itself in the Flow." He pointed at her skeleton almost without meaning to. "Before, it came through your thoughts and dreams and fears. As one of the Flow, you become yourself, pure and simple. Literal. Black fire against white."

Consuela examined the floor. "Joseph Crow said something like that," she muttered. "Wish, too."

"There are many ways to say the same truth," said the Yad. "And Wish wears a lot of them."

A moment of silence stretched like the line of blood burning over the door.

"I'm sorry. I'm staring," the Yad said. "It's rude." She hadn't realized that he had been. He grinned ruefully. "I've never seen anything like you. When Cecily told me, I'd thought maybe a dybbuk? But you're not a ghost. More like an angel. An antiAngel of Death-an Angel of Life." Yehudah dug a knuckle in his cheek, tilting his head as he grinned. "I wonder if the hand that stayed Abraham's might have looked like yours? If it was one of us sent to make known that it was not Isaac's time to die?" he said. "An Angel of G.o.d."

Consuela chuckled, strangely flattered. "You know, you're the second person to call me 'Angel' today."

The Yad smiled. "Maybe, then, it's true."

She didn't feel very angelic. Mostly she felt scared, a t.i.ttering nervousness that stayed buried as long as she was moving. As long as she could hide in her skin. Like this, she felt naked-all guards down. In some ways, she felt stronger, braver; yet in others, totally vulnerable. She missed her old skin, folded, lonely and abandoned in her room.

Who am I when I'm iridescent bone? Who is Consuela? Who is Bones?

She scratched the patella floating in the shadow of her knee.

"Don't you worry that you'll never get back?" she blurted. "Never get to find your wife and have kids? Grow up? Have a life?"

The Yad stood up slowly and Consuela straightened, too.

"We are granted the life given to us," the Yad said. "It is up to us to choose what to do with it." He inspected his ward as if it underlined his words. "The Rebbe said, 'Instead of "Why me?" think, "What should I learn from this?"' If this is my life, I'll live it to the best of my ability and know in my heart that it is enough."

He wiped at his hands as he and Consuela walked down the hall, which faded into the nothingness of the Flow. It bent and wobbled like a soap bubble to admit them.

Consuela stopped, glancing back, her heel on the threshold between two worlds. There was something she'd forgotten-a nagging tug like a half-remembered tune, an unfinished sentence, the feeling of something unintentionally left undone. She hovered on the hardwood, uncertain of what it was.

"It was nice meeting you." The Yad waved as he turned aside.

"Same here," she said vaguely. "See you later."

Alone and unable to place the source of her unease, Consuela reentered the Flow.

SHE'D retrieved her feathered skin, trailing it like a Brazilian wedding dress, and tucked it into the garment bag before dressing herself in flesh. Consuela returned to the closet. The black, iridescent feathers had settled darkly against fire, air, and liquid light. It was a tight fit. This was becoming less a fashion statement and more a bizarre haute couture collection.

Consuela touched each one briefly and wondered how many skins she'd eventually have. Maybe she should pack her normal clothes into her winter chest to make more room? There'd be no reason for dry cleaning in the Flow. No reason for laundry. No reason for clothes without skin.

She smoothed the sleeve of her favorite blouse, the one she wore to church on Sundays, dimly realizing that her fingers were trembling. She stared at them as if they belonged to someone else.

11:19.

Something sane and solid snapped. She collapsed to the floor, coughing jagged sobs.

How long can this go on?

How long will I be here?

How long before I . . . ?

The sentence wouldn't complete itself before drowning behind a wall of fresh tears. Consuela curled up in misery, alone and scared to death.

She thought she'd become powerful as Bones-invincible, elemental-but she was weak, a fake, more vulnerable than ever. She wasn't dead, but where was she?

Do they know that I am gone?

Will I die here?

Where will I go?

Am I being punished? Rewarded? Given a second chance?

Where is G.o.d when I need Him most?

She lay on the floor, keening, praying, overwhelmed by skins and mirrors, b.l.o.o.d.y smears and toothless wishes, eyeless prophets and handsome angels. Her skull throbbed, her ribs shuddered, she could feel each vertebra pressed against the wall. Even in her own skin, she could feel the power inside her-the truth of who she was. She could sit in her room and her skin and pretend, but there was no escape. Consuela hugged herself small.

* I'm sorry. * The choral voice whispered from somewhere overhead, echoing in the central air ducts like Mozart playing downstairs. V was somewhere, whispering to her heart. * Try to sleep. *

"I can't . . ." She shook her head, blubbering. "I can't . . ."

* I know, * the voice hummed. * It will get better. Sleep. *

She couldn't. She couldn't stop crying. It sounded so sorry, her disembodied angel.

* I promise, * the violins hummed on steel wires. * I'll help you. I promise. * The litany became a song. Consuela stared at herself in the full-length mirror.

She edged closer, uncurling across the carpet. Still sobbing, she reached out her hand and pressed it against the gla.s.s. Another hand materialized beneath hers, surfacing in the silver, mirroring her reflection-she couldn't feel it, but could see the echo of it there.

"V." The name slipped beneath her tears.

* I'm here. *

Their fingers shifted slightly and threaded through the gla.s.s, his becoming real as they settled against her skin. Consuela cried harder, in release and relief, pulling him through. V emerged, crouched to meet her, and folded her in his arms.

* I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. *

She cried helplessly into his shirt. His arms enfolded her like a heavy cloak, a kind, protective wall against the outside world. Her hand bunched in his sleeve, she clung to him like a child. He stroked her hair. Her breathing faltered, choking on sobs.

"Consuela . . ." he said aloud, and couldn't seem to find more words to say. He brushed the hair from her face and placed a kiss at her hairline. She buried deeper into his chest and the edge of his lips caught the side of her cheek. He placed another kiss there. Her tears stopped. The moment caught like a breath. She was afraid to guess. Afraid to move.

* Please. *

One arm unwound, letting the light and him in.

He kissed her softly on the lips. One shared gasp, and they both tasted the warm salt of her tears. Mouths opened. Kissed again. Her fingers wound tighter as he combed through her hair. Her head b.u.mped the wall and he pillowed her against his palm. Pressing, pulling harder, they fell into each other, feeding the ember enough air to burn.

They burned like a matchstick, flaring then gone.

The kiss ended with a sigh. They broke apart slowly.

Consuela wiped at her face. Feeling shy and embarra.s.sed, she took stock: V was shoved against her wooden shoe rack, her legs tangled underneath her, both of them huddled on her closet floor. His shirt was a wreck. She was a wreck. Consuela tried to breathe through her nose, which was stuffed. She kept her head down.

"Sorry," she muttered, and made an attempt to pull away.

"That's my line," V said, and stubbornly held her against his chest. Consuela could feel the rumble of his voice beneath her cheek. His heart had been singing the whole time. Only now was it quiet like a hush of settled leaves.

V shifted next to her, keeping her close.

"You're exhausted," he said. The words were puffs of breath she felt on her temple. She was too tired to say anything back.

They rocked quietly in a comfortable silence.

"I've been thinking . . . about something the Yad said-" She broke off, hesitating to speak and ruin this moment. V waited. "If I wasn't meant to be here, I wouldn't be." She settled her hand against V's arm. "Maybe I'm meant to be here . . . ?"

V shook his head. "You don't belong here."

"Then I wouldn't be," Consuela said. "Don't get me wrong, I want to go home. I have to go home." She hoped V believed her and could help make the wish come true. "But maybe here, now, for this little while, I'm supposed to be here." She tried the words on aloud, testing their fit. "Maybe I'm the only one who can save someone important. Maybe it has to be me."

V grunted and stood up. Consuela did, too, suddenly neither one touching.