“Let me tell you,” Simone said, “about a young man who is working his way toward sorting out all kinds of people miseries. His name is Matthias, formally known as Matthias of the Lord’s Path, and he’s here today to tell us about his journey.”

Matthias of the Lord’s Path could easily have been Matt of Varsity Tennis. He was probably nineteen at most, but tall with the broad shoulders of a man who went to the gym and lived on a diet of unseasoned grilled chicken breasts. He was white with very blue eyes and wavy brown hair in a trendy cut. There was something about his face that kept Ayanna from thinking he was “too handsome.” Everything symmetrical, unremarkable ears, but maybe it was the way he jutted out his chin—he always looked like he was on the verge of saying something harsh.

“When I was five,” Matthias said, “I was at a festival with my parents and a woman collapsed in front of me. While everyone tried to figure out what to do, I heard a voice telling me to kiss her left hand three times. I was always hearing voices then. My parents had raised me in one of those blue-door churches. I had run through our door when I was even younger and played out among the golden paths, not a care in the world, while my parents were too scared to follow me in. They had to coax me out with a candy bar, but by that point, I had eaten some dirt and some leaves.”

“What is it about kids, they always be dirty,” a woman yelled from the crowd, then was shushed immediately. There was no room for attention seekers in Simone’s audience.

Ayanna’s heart was too loud. She paused the video, took a long drink of water, and paced her dorm room. It could be a lie. Everything he was saying so far was pretty generic.

She unpaused the video, leaned closer.

“It was strange, the leaves tasted like popcorn. I don’t like popcorn anymore because of it.” This was the only thing he said that felt true to Ayanna.

“The woman,” Simone said gently. She smiled, her teeth so white against her signature Simone’s Red Passion brand lipstick.

“The voice insisted to me, kiss her hand. The woman had gotten back up, she was slurring, and people were arguing whether this was diabetes, a seizure, or a stroke, when she fell again. I rushed forward and kissed it.” Matthias then described the hand, how it smelled like roses, how her fingernails were painted eraser pink.

“Then, she woke up,” Matthias said. He made a face, like a fish gasping out its life on a boat’s floor.