Father Teuwen’s face filled her mind. He was still back there. She swallowed. That had been real. The father’s words came to her. Think of yourself as a vessel. A cup. Do not try to guess what the Master will pour into you before he pours, he had said. Your life of torment has left you soft, like a sponge for his words.

But you have poured, Father. Every night you pour, filling me with this vision.

Are you ready to die, Sherry?

Sherry sat upright on the bed, half expecting to see Father Teuwen standing there. But the room was empty. The sound of splashing water ceased— Casius was finishing his shower.

Helen had said she was gifted. That she played some part in God’s plan. Like a piece in some cosmic chess match. Heavens, she felt no more like a knight or a bishop than she felt like Father Teuwen’s sponge.

She pushed herself from the bed and walked to the dresser. Her image stared back from the mirror. She scratched at her hair, trying to make some order out of it. Her eyes stared back at her, bright blue again. It struck her that with wet hair she looked like her old self—like Tanya. The door to the bathroom opened and she looked up to the mirror, her hair forgotten. In the reflection, the bathroom door opened and Casius stepped out.

Only it wasn’t Casius she was seeing. It was a blond-haired man, still shirtless, still wearing the black shorts, but clean.

Something clicked in her memory then—something painful and buried deep. A déjà vu in three dimensions that made her blink. Sherry whirled around. He stood, ruffling his hair.

He saw her stricken face and froze.

“What?” he said. “What’s wrong?” He looked quickly around the room, saw no danger, and returned his questioning eyes to her.

Sherry looked from his hair to his face, cleaned of the camo paint for the first time. His eyes were green. Her knees began to quake. Her throat froze shut, and she felt suddenly dizzy. His likeness crashed in her mind like a ten-ton boulder.

But it was an impossibility and her mind refused to wrap itself around this image. A thousand pictures from her early years streaked across her mind’s eye. Her Shannon grinning above the falls; her Shannon shooting from beneath the surface to smother her with kisses; her Shannon popping a shot off at that rooster above the shed and then turning to her with a sparkle in his eye.

A reincarnation of that image stood before her now. Taller, broader, older, but otherwise the same.

She found her voice. “Shannon?”

SHANNON STOOD staring at Sherry. Her mouth gaped as if she were looking at a ghost. And he had already opened his mouth to tell her to get a grip when he saw the change in her eyes. They were blue. They were not hazel.