Midnight Mass. A pocketful of mushrooms. P. stripping a piece of bark from a tree; Xie eats it along with the mushrooms, old medicine, flavor of soil and wood, that hint of poison in each; too much and you will be sick, just enough and you will be healed. A wreath nailed to the church door, pine needles sprinkled over the steps. Light in all its colors coming through the glass. He stands near the cabinet, back against the stone, pushing the hood from his head. A woman in a red coat turning to look; she smiles. Xie smiles back. The priest in a white gown. The room fuller than he has ever seen it; ten, maybe a dozen people. Smell of incense. Sound of singing. Christmas carols. How does he know all the words, he wonders, when he can’t even remember ever singing them before. But maybe he did. In school or. Somewhere. P.’s cabinet open, the case full of poinsettia plants, plush red leaves stroking the sword. The parishioners line up to eat the body, to drink the blood. If you really believed that was what you were doing, how did you explain it to yourself, how did it feel. Like excitement or dread or. Something else. Passion. Putting their lips to the cup. The woman in the coat crossing herself in front of the cabinet, head bowed; P. behind her, touching his hand to her head, her gray hair stirring. The parishioners raise their arms for the last prayer. Xie slips out, P. following. As soon as the church is behind them Xie takes P.’s hand, greedy, jealous, pressing it to the back of his own head: I am the only one you may touch, no one else. P. pulling him close, mouth against Xie’s forehead. Do you miss it? Miss what, beloved. Being there. P.’s cape stroking the grass as they step into the woods. I was never there, beloved. A nuthatch swooping through his shoulder. His face the color of the trees, fresh milk poured against the night. The nuthatch, along with two-thirds of all bird species in the town, in the state, in the country, will have vanished by the end of the century: to look at the face of the bird, folding its wings on a branch, is to look at the past. A ghost. A corpse. Do you know what a mass extinction event is? Yes, P. says. A rapture. Let me show you. Drawing a line along the base of Xie’s head, that spot where the skull meets the spine, both bones so vital, so vulnerable, split in a second, a great flash of light, white as pain, as pure, the spasm of every nerve’s journey interrupted, and then a fountain of blood, gushing up to splash the sword, burning, a rejection of everything; a bone is an atheist, and the sword is Christ, taking his last breath.