Seeing us getting ready to leave, Barnabas mustered a smile. “Go,” he said. “I’ll get myself in a distant place where I can watch Shoe without giving away who I’m watching. I’d think we have at least until midnight for Ron to pick out Shoe’s resonance from the fabric of time.”

By his uneasy stance, I didn’t know if I should believe him. Sighing, I dropped back to stand with Nakita. Her arm hesitantly wrapped around my waist, and I stumbled as her wings opened, making us lift an inch and then drop. My heart pounded, and she shifted her weight.

“I’m sorry you’re different now,” she said to Barnabas. Her words were soft, but I knew he heard her as his shaggy mop of hair shifted. “She changes people,” she said, as if I weren’t standing right there. “Maybe that’s her purpose.”

“Maybe,” Barnabas said; then he ducked as Nakita pushed down with her wings.

I gasped as the corn around us flattened and we were suddenly airborne. The sudden air-pressure shift made me wince—not to mention Nakita’s wobbly ascent—and I looked down as Barnabas gazed up. He was standing in the middle of the deserted road, the impressions of Nakita’s wings making what looked almost like part of a crop circle around him. My stomach lurched, and I gripped Nakita’s arm holding me to her. She wasn’t as good as Barnabas in carrying my weight, but she could do it, and I relaxed, hearing her sigh in relief.

As she winged us back to Three Rivers, my mind kept swirling over the fact that Nakita had felt sorrow for Barnabas when she had once felt only disdain. I had changed her, too.

Devoting your life to the person who had accidentally put black wings inside of you to eat your memories and teach you the meaning of death could not be an easy thing to do.

Five

The spaghetti sauce smelled spicy, just the way I liked it. Or had liked it. I sent my fork twirling, winding up a wad I was going to pass to Josh as soon as my dad looked away. Being dead sucked dishwater. I’d never realized how much I had enjoyed food until I couldn’t. Sitting across from me in my dad’s kitchen, Nakita pushed her food around as well. Josh wasn’t helping her eat her spaghetti, and my dad was starting to look worried at her full plate.

“Too much oregano?” he asked, pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

“It’s great, Mr. A,” Josh said cheerfully around his full mouth.

My dad’s eyes were on me, though, and I smiled, forcing myself to put a forkful in my mouth and chew. It just wasn’t the same. The solid illusion of my body took what it needed from my amulet. I didn’t need outside energy to exist, and the desire to eat just wasn’t there. I could do it, but it was like chewing on rice cakes.