Each one of us believed that we were those called to receive true sight, but none of us knew what that sight would show us. We only knew that an angel named Sylous had appeared to Rose and delivered truth, so we could remain true to the end and be presented as a pure bride to Christ.

Having spoken the prophecy, Harrison glanced at his wife, dipped his head once, and took a deep breath. He nervously scanned the flock. “Today, dearly beloved, is the day we have been waiting for. Today . . . Today we will all be given eyes to see what is to come.”

I sensed Sylous before I heard the door at the back of the small sanctuary softly closing. I knew it was him before I saw him. Every hair on my body stood on end. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, much less turn to see.

It was as if my soul knew who he was before my mind could catch up.

I had expected an angel with wings and a choir, maybe because I was only six and naïve, but when I finally turned with the rest, Sylous was nothing like anything I had imagined.

There, standing at the back of the room, stood a man dressed head to toe in white. Pants, suit jacket, shoes, all pristine white. His skin was tanned, tight across a chiseled jaw. Red lips and warm smile, but it was the bright blue of his eyes that has always wandered into my dreams. Beautiful and terrifying at once. Intriguing and dangerous.

For a moment, I forgot he was an angel. Maybe he wasn’t—no one really knew, not even Rose, because according to the Bible, even angels could show up as men and you wouldn’t know the difference.

No one moved. No one dared speak. All eyes were fixed on the man standing at the end of the center aisle.

Rose was the first to kneel. I saw her from the corner of my eye, there on the end of the pew, sinking to the floor with head bowed in reverence. Her husband followed suit beside the podium, eyes wide, face white.

Without further hesitation the rest of us knelt, sliding off the pews to our knees. My heart was pounding. My eyes were fixed on the angel sent to save us. Then, without warning, my excitement shifted into something else. Fear. My brother Jamie must have felt the same, because he grabbed my hand, trembling. I glanced at little Lukas, who slept soundly in my mother’s tight embrace.

Sylous started forward, his slick shoes clicking across the creaking wood. All the way to the stage, where Harrison knelt. He stepped up to the podium and turned to face us, eyes moving slowly across the pews.