“Yes. I haven’t been in over a week.” Madeleine headed toward the Gator without looking at Hæra. “Would you mind driving me back to the farm? I’ve got to hurry if I want to make the ferry.”

“I can drive you to the ferry,” Hæra offered, following Madeleine. She didn’t have a driving license, but nobody cared about that here.

“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. Besides, I biked here again.”

“No inconvenience.” Hæra hopped into the driver’s seat and started the ignition. “The bike’ll fit in the Gator bed.”

“You’d…uh…drive this on the road? The actual road?”

Hæra flashed her a grin. “Trust me. It goes faster than you’d think.”

For some reason, Madeleine didn’t look reassured.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

The familiar words came easily to Madeleine as she knelt in the confessional of Our Lady and Saint Joseph’s Church. The priest sat on the other side of the screen, the thin latticework obscuring his face as he awaited her soul’s unburdening.

“How long has it been since your last confession?” the priest prompted.

Oh good grief, how had she forgotten the second line? The one drilled into her since birth? So much for the familiar words. Flushing, Madeleine said, “It’s been…” She couldn’t remember. Not the exact number of days. She could always remember that, but now she couldn’t. “Over a week,” she managed.

“And what is the nature of your sin, my child?” His voice was deep, reassuring, the voice of Madeleine’s own history.

“I—I’ve⁠—”

I’ve realized I’m homosexual, she ought to say. I’m so drawn to another woman that I touched her without realizing what I was doing. I’m in search of an angel I might not even want to find, when that’s all I should want.

“I’ve been impatient,” she said. “I’ve been short-tempered and ungracious. And I’ve been…afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I don’t know. Everything. Of not doing what I should do—or being who I should be—” Her voice cracked.

Hæra’s fierce amber eyes flashed in her memory. Her smile had been carefree as she’d driven the Gator toward the ferry terminal at speeds the vehicle surely hadn’t been meant for. Her wrist had been sturdy beneath Madeleine’s hand. Sturdy and strong.

Madeleine hadn’t even intended to touch her. It had just happened, the way both Eve and gravity had happened to the apple. Whether according to the Bible or Isaac Newton, the result was the same: a fall.