“With her very fair skin”—she touches her pale cheek—“and very fair hair”—she touches her platinum hair—“she blended like a moth inside the bland off-white FBI dorm room as if natural selection was the explanation for what she’d become. But it wasn’t. Something else had leached the color out of her soul, mutating it and creating paranormal cravings and behaviors that made her seek out lightlessness and gloom.

“As a young child Carrie knew she wasn’t good. When people at church talked about good stewards, good Samaritans, good believers pure of heart she knew she wasn’t one of them. From the earliest age she knew she wasn’t like anyone at school or inside her own home. She wasn’t like anyone at all and while this was confusing it also pleased her greatly that she had been unusually blessed. Such a rare gift not to mind extreme temperatures, to scarcely feel heat or cold and to see in the dark like a cat. What a treat to leave her body during sleep and travel to distant lands and into the past, to speak languages she’d never learned and remember places she’d never been. Carrie’s IQ was too high to measure.

“But to whom much is given much also can be taken, and one day her mother uttered the terrible words that no child should ever hear. Little Carrie’s destiny was to die young. She was so special that Jesus couldn’t bear to be without her long and would take her back to heaven early.

“‘Think of it as a Holy layaway plan,’ Carrie’s mother explained. ‘Jesus was shopping, and as He browsed through all the millions of new babies about to be born, He picked you out and set you aside. Very soon He’ll return to pick you up and take you home with Him forever.’

“‘Then He has to get the money to pay for me?’ Carrie inquired.

“‘Jesus doesn’t need money. Jesus can do whatever He wants. He’s perfect and all-powerful.’

“‘Then why didn’t He just pay for me when He found me and take me home with Him?’

“‘It’s not for us to question Jesus.’

“‘But it sounds like He’s poor and not very powerful after all, Mommy. It sounds like He couldn’t afford me the same way you can’t afford things you put on layaway.’

“‘You must never say anything disrespectful about our Lord and Savior.’

“‘But I didn’t, Mommy. You did. You said He can’t afford me right now or else I’d be gone from here and in heaven with Him. And then I wouldn’t be a burden for you anymore. You don’t want me and wish I was dead.’