The Reverend seemed unconvinced. “They know what we’re like,” he said, leaning forward again. “They witness it. Do something wrong to another human being, they witness it. Do something destructive, they witness it. We destroy each other”—he drew a line back and forth between them with his index finger—“it’s what we do best. And some of us they don’t want destroyed. Like me. Because the Reverend Damien Lee Wheeler’s going to be around for the Eleventh Coming, and he’s going with them, for sure. That is why they showed me my lying whore of a wife cleaving to another man. They knew it would destroy me if it didn’t stop.”

Lila. Frankie nearly uttered the name, but caught it before it left his mouth. He said, “And the tenth time, they’re coming to take inventory.”

“Believe it,” the Reverend said.

“What about the ninth time?”

“That is the last official help visit. After that, they’re making their list, checking it twice, going to torch who’s naughty and take who’s nice.”

“The reason I ask …” Frankie leaned forward, inching closer to the Reverend’s damp face. He’d never said it aloud before. He’d kept silent about it the way he did with any potentially good but uncertain thing: because he didn’t want to jinx it. But the Reverend seemed beyond jinxing things. “I’ve met them.”

“You met who?”

“Them. Ten years ago. I was at school, in Tallahassee, on this stretch of grass.” He cleared his throat. “It’s called Landis Green, and people sit all over it during the day like it’s a beach. But I was there at night by myself, right in the middle of it, lying on my back on the ground. And it just came … floating over my head. I mean, it was up there—it was pretty high, but it was right over me. It was dark, and round, but with these little points of light all over it, no bigger than the stars. I think it was supposed to look like a constellation.”

The muscles of the Reverend’s face had gone slack while Frankie was speaking. Slowly, like ingredients floating in a thick sauce over flame, they began to shift, simmering into the look of anger Frankie had seen when he’d first arrived. Then the eyes squinted shut and the mouth winced and the entire head seesawed right and left violently. Frankie drew back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the man snapped.

“Just telling you—”

“I mean, what are you up to? Do you paint?” he demanded.

“No. I—I draw, sometimes. With pastels and markers.”

“Christmas, you’ve got balls! Coming into my home to tap my head!”

“It’s not that,” Frankie said. “I don’t … I’m not an artist. I don’t sell my stuff or even show it to anybody. I just mean … I’ve met them.”