“You think I’m mistaken, that I lie to you?” said Jeremiah. “Well, you’ll see. Go ahead—address the Hummingbird Grove, and it will respond.”

“But what do I say?”

“The Spirit will give you the words in the proper time. Focus on the Spirit and the Spirit alone. Can’t you feel the light inside of you? Can’t you taste it like honey on your tongue? Have faith, Lee, and speak, and the words will come.”

I stood up and stared deep into the Hummingbird Grove, into the constant motion of the birds whirring like the cosmos, into the stillness of the forest around us. Jeremiah walked up behind me and began to murmur some sort of chanting prayer in my ear, like the kind I heard Grandma do over the grave in the woods.

I decided it was time. I decided I would have faith in myself for once.

I opened my mouth, and I spoke.

But it wasn’t my voice that came out—it was Jeremiah’s, same as it was on the tape, the one full of such joy and power that it sounded like it came bearing priceless gifts. It was the sweetest, saddest voice you ever heard in your life, and it was mine now.

The words were nonsense—they were just syllables, just sounds, like the Pentecostal people I’d seen overcome on TV. It was melodic, meaningless so far as I knew but pure and right as music.

The hummingbirds ceased their darting and whirling, and they stood still in front of me, an army of red-throated baby angels waiting at attention.

“Shut your eyes,” Jeremiah whispered in my ear. “Give yourself over to the Spirit. Never mind the words. Let the words be what they may. Let the Spirit flow through you like wind through the mouth of a cave. Let go until you vanish and there is nothing left but the Spirit.”

I cleared my mind and focused as hard as I could, and I spoke whatever words came to me. I talked and I talked until I felt something rise up inside of me, and I began to sing, a melody I’d heard before—the song Cass sang under the Split Tree—but with my own words, with whatever words the Spirit gave me. I sang and I sang, and my voice became like sunlight, and it fell down on the trees and the grass and the flowers, casting everything in a golden haze.

“Open your eyes,” said Jeremiah.

I did as he said.

The Hummingbird Grove was filled with animals. Birds hunched in the trees, sparrows and cardinals and blue jays and mourning doves, watching me wide-eyed. Rabbits had gathered, standing on their hind legs as if awaiting a command. A family of deer stood nearby, a doe and a buck and three fawns, and the buck bowed his tangle-crowned head before me.

“They’re listening,” I said. “They’re hearing every word.”