Trinity Church, situated at the corner of Church and Martinez in the heart of Love & War, gained its notoriety for having burned down not once, but twice: once over a hundred years ago, and twice less than a year before. Both times it had gone up in flames before its construction was completed. Neither fire had been satisfactorily explained, but for the most part people were willing to accept both misfortunes as freak acts of God, especially since, in this case, the upshot of the accident was a block party sublimated to a holy festival by way of brightly colored party decorations, promise of prayer, and copious amounts of free food.

The townsfolk felt this was as good a way to consecrate the church grounds for its imminent rebuilding as any.

On this particular afternoon, the church had been transformed from the charred ruins of an old building with a statue out front to a small carnival. Street vendors offered peanuts, pretzels, popcorn, and candied apples. Brightly colored helium balloons were tied to anything that stood still. Folding chairs littered the lawn, and long banquet tables were set with fruit punch, potato salad, cold cuts, fried chicken, several plates of pot-luck dishes, and an assortment of desserts.

The Prime of Darkness shuffled behind Gracey, trying his best not to make eye contact with anyone. Obtrusive as he was in his shining pauldrons and billowing silk cape, the townsfolk did a commendable job of giving him a wide berth and offering pleasant smiles when eye contact was inevitable. If they tittered or gossiped when his back was turned, they did so with dignified, hushed voices behind cupped palms and only in the spirit of better understanding the blue-skinned newcomer whose presence had so disrupted their town.

It seemed everyone had turned out for the dedication ceremony. Mothers with small children chased their wards around the courtyard while men who had grown up together exchanged stories of family life, the economy, how tough things were at work. Teenagers stood sulkily apart, disdain and boredom oozing from their pores. The conversations he overheard as he passed between groups were oddly similar; the Prime of Darkness wondered if the humans were aware how common and trite their lives truly were.

He followed Gracey through the crowd as she mingled with the folks who patronized her bakery. She was a natural extrovert, the smile that played over her mouth wide and genuine. She blushed prettily at compliments about her dress or her hair; she offered her own praises and flatteries with the practiced art of a true southern belle. The Palmers received commendations on their home’s new paint job; the Garcias were lauded for their son’s winning the spelling bee. She mingled with the townsfolk easily, doling out pleasantries with a natural grace. The Prime of Darkness couldn’t help but be impressed at the spectacle Gracey was in her natural element.

“You’re having a good time?” The demon made it a question as his eyes scanned the crowd. He was looking for someone in particular. “You seem like you’re enjoying yourself.”

Gracey blushed. “I hardly ever get a chance to do anything like this,” she explained. “Always cooped up in the bakery or at the house, and Lord knows Tiny doesn’t like to socialize with us lowly commoners.” She grinned, shrugging. “It feels good to put on makeup, wear a pretty dress, have people admire you. It’s nice to have face time with the people you live with, ” she said. “You should know your neighbors.”

But the Prime of Darkness was hardly paying attention, as at that moment he found what he was been searching for. On the far end of the courtyard, furthest from the road, Lilac and Lakmei were moving in their direction, winding their lithe figures through the crowd as they welcomed their guests, pretty, warm smiles and genteel laughter at the ready. They wore identical kelly green blouses and identical gray slacks. They flitted from couple to couple, group to group, their buoyant smiles lighting their faces until their eyes found Darkness and their smiles flickered; dark surprise dimmed their angelic brightness.

The pair found their way to Gracey and Darkness, their smiles having returned full force. Lilac took Gracey’s hand, squeezed it. “Gracey Daylittle,” she cooed. “I’m so glad to see you could make it.” She leaned in, gave Gracey a light kiss on the cheek. She flicked her eyes to the Prime of Darkness, and her smile tightened. “And you brought someone with you,” she said, her voice strained. “Now that, I didn’t expect.” She faced the Prime of Darkness directly, her smile having taken on a menacing edge. “I’m surprised you had the audacity to show your face here after what you did,” she said.

The Prime of Darkness stiffened as he looked from Lilac to Lakmei, then back again. “I haven’t come for a reprise if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said. “I was obeying orders. The mission failed, or I wouldn’t still be here. I have no personal interest in you or this church,” he said calmly.

Lakmei reached for the demon, and took his hand in both of hers, the way Lilac had done with Gracey. The gesture surprised the entire party. “It’s so good to hear you say that, Prime of Darkness,” she said, her voice soft as silk and sweet as honey. She tilted her head to the side as her thumbs caressed the back of Darkness’s hand. “We don’t have to be enemies,” she said. “I know that millennia of grievances stand between your kind and ours, but there doesn’t need to be any animosity here, between you and us. We just want to bring our message of love and salvation to Love & War. It would be good of you not to stand in our way. We don’t want trouble.”

Angelic tenderness toward the demon was a display Gracey had never witnessed, and it surprised her. She’d never seen Lilac or Lakmei direct anything but hostility in Darkness’s direction. She stole a glance at Lilac and saw on her smooth, white face an expression that mirrored her own confusion. Whatever Lakmei was trying to convey to Darkness, Lilac neither shared in it nor fully understood it. This realization was more worrisome to Gracey than the fact that she was standing between two natural enemies—a sworn solider of darkness and two messengers of light. It wasn’t exactly an enviable position to be in.

The Prime of Darkness held Lakmei’s stare and struggled to find the right words to reply, but they weren’t forthcoming. Eventually he removed his hand from hers and turned to Gracey. “I think I’ll have some fried chicken,” he said. She watched him make his way to the food tables where he soon disappeared behind a wall of townsfolk and balloons.

“Anyway,” Lilac said, returning her attention to Gracey, “it’s good to see you. Is your sister not with you today?”

Gracey shook her head. “She couldn’t make it. Though I was instructed to bring back a slice of Hannah Davey’s chocolate cake if there was any left.” She put extra effort into her smile. She hoped it made her seem nonthreatening. She’d already earned the angels’ mistrust for harboring the demon.

“Oh, well. Tell her we missed her.” Lilac took a little breath and looked around, slipping back into hostess mode. “I expect we’ll be getting started soon. We’ll talk later.” Her saccharine-sweet smile was pasted back into place, and the two angels gave Gracey little finger waves as they drifted back into the crowd.

Aware as she was of how uncomfortable Darkness felt amongst people he didn’t know—which was nearly everyone—Gracey set off to find the demon. But though she found the fried chicken and several Jell-O molds, she didn’t happen to find the Prime of Darkness. As she craned her neck to look over the heads of the crowd, she maneuvered through the throng without watching where she was going and collided with another body. A gasp, a swear, a slice of German chocolate cake tumbling to the ground, and Gracey brought her hands to her mouth as she apologized for her clumsiness. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed, kneeling to help clean up the mess. “I didn’t see you there.”

The woman on the receiving end of Gracey’s apologies chuckled graciously, waving the apology away. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’m used to it.” She was referring, ostensibly, to her height, which was slight. Even crouched, Gracey could tell she was not much more than five feet tall. She offered Gracey a forgiving smile, and Gracey felt the band of embarrassment that had caught her in its grasp loosen as they stood.

It took Gracey half a moment to realize she’d seen this woman before, but she couldn’t recall where. They didn’t get many newcomers to Love & War, and fresh faces tended to stand out; why she was drawing a blank on where she’d seen this woman before, Gracey didn’t know. It wasn’t until she glanced over the woman’s shoulder and saw her escort, a thin, nervous gentleman in a top hat and violet colored spectacles that she was able to place her. Gracey pointed a finger in recognition. “Are you…you’re the lovely woman I saw onstage at the Simon St. Laine show recently, aren’t you? You’re his assistant, right?” Gracey motioned to the magician. “I thought I recognized you.”

Simon St. Laine moved to the woman’s side in one quick, graceful movement as the small woman laughed—it was a high, tinkling laugh, the sound of silver bells on a clear morning. She shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “I don’t know a thing about magic.” She looked up at the magician, eyes bright. “But Simon does put on a wonderful show. Wasn’t it just marvelous?”

Gracey looked to the magician, saw a nervous smile try to appear, resulting only in an upward twitch of the corner of his mouth. She gave a little nod and extended her hand. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure,” Gracey said. “I’m Gracey Daylittle. I own the pie shop just down the road, Want Some Pie? Do you know the one?”

The magician nodded his head, a stiff, up once, down once movement. He accepted Gracey’s proffered hand awkwardly, like the action pained him. He pumped her hand once and released it. “I know the one,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t partake of pastry, so I’ve never had the opportunity to patronize your establishment,” he explained. His words were more clipped and formal than they had been the several times she’d seen him onstage. Gracey wondered if perhaps he were the shy sort. “I’m Simon St. Laine,” he said. “I’m quite pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. Daylittle.”

Gracey waved away the formality, smiling. “Gracey, please,” she said. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you. I’ve seen many of your performances over the years.” She paused, noticed the way a flush crept up his neck. She wondered if he were aware of what people said about his work. “The Placerita show was brilliant,” Gracey said. “I’d never seen anything like it; it was even better than I expected.”

Simon gave her another curt nod. “I’m delighted to hear that it exceeded your expectations.”

Gracey looked back at the small woman standing beside them and shook her head slowly. “I thought for sure you were the woman on the stage. There’s such a similarity.”

Simon cleared his throat, clasped his hands behind his back. “May I introduce my cousin,” he said, “visiting from out of town.”

The woman smiled even more brightly, showing even, white teeth. She extended her hand. “Kit,” she said, her handshake limp and dainty. “Kit St. Laine. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

Having grown up in Catholic schools, Gracey was relatively certain there was no Saint Laine, so she was relatively sure St. Laine was a stage name, so she was relatively confident the woman whose hand she was shaking was lying about her name. That struck her as odd, but she labeled the curious thought “None of my business” and pushed it out of her mind.

“So you own a bakery,” Kit was saying, eyes wide. “I just love pie.” She had the kind of voice that caressed her words, the kind of voice made for radio or untoward telephone operations. “My favorite is strawberry rhubarb. Do you sell that?” She leaned forward, hopeful. Gracey thought she looked like she was about to tip over.

“Sometimes, when strawberries are in season, but not right now,” she said. “But I do have a dozen flavors most days. Why don’t you stop by and try a slice on the house? Maybe even take a pie back home with you to…I’m sorry, where did you say you were from?”

“Vermont,” Kit said, shooting her cousin a mischievous look. She bit her bottom lip in anticipation. “I would love that,” she breathed. “Tell me, Gracey, which flavor would you recommend?”

Of all the questions in all the world, of all the inquiries, queries, petitions, and solicitations that had been offered up to Gracey in the past, “Which pie?” or some variation thereof, was Gracey’s absolute favorite. That moment where she was granted implicit permission to reach out with her heart and soul and touch the inner workings of another shining being to ferret out the perfect combination of confections that would elicit the greatest surge of joy was the single most brilliant point in Gracey’s day. It set her spirit on fire like nothing else. Brimming with anticipation, Gracey opened her heart to the woman standing in front of her, reaching out with her own tendrils of emotion to touch whatever emotions and pie ingredients lurked inside Kit St. Laine’s heart of hearts. She searched for one moment, two. But instead of finding contentment sprinkled with cardamom, or boredom laced with orange liqueur, amusement spiked with chocolate fudge sauce, or longing smoothed over with marshmallow topping, she found, to her profound dismay…nothing.

Nothing at all.

Kit was waiting for a response, her upturned face expectant and curious. Gracey blinked and offered a flustered smile. “Ah, well, apple crumb is my most popular,” she said, the words tripping out of her. “But right now Chocolate for Breakfast is selling like hotcakes. It’s a chocolate and espresso cream with a chocolate graham cracker crust. They’re single-serving pies,” she added, as though this made a difference. “You’re sure to get just enough.”

Delighted, Kit clapped her hands together, turning her bright, smiling face to her cousin, who offered merely an uninterested grin. “Well, I can’t wait to try it,” Kit said, eyes glittering. “It’s been such a pleasure talking to you. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other before I leave. You take care, now.”

The magician offered Gracey an affected, tight-lipped smile as his cousin pulled him away from the befuddled pie baker. When they were perhaps twenty paces away, the Prime of Darkness sidled up beside her, a fried drumstick in one hand and a plastic cup filled with potato salad in the other. “We ready to go?” he asked.

Gracey looked around and spread her hands out before her. “The dedication ceremony hasn’t even gotten started yet!”

Darkness wiggled his shoulders in an ambiguous little shrug, took a bite of his chicken. “I didn’t think we were really staying for that. I’m sort of allergic to these kinds of things,” he said.

Gracey made a disgusted noise, the wind knocked out of her sails. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she said. Shoulders slumped, she turned on her heel and started for her car, motioning for the demon to follow. “All right, let’s go. I think I’ve had enough camaraderie for one afternoon anyway.”

Gracey and Darkness hoofed it to the car they’d parked a few blocks away, Darkness munching his fried chicken, Gracey wondering why her pie empathy had failed her for the first time in her life.

Watching from the far side of a banquet table, only one of the angels was glad to see them go.

Situated on the northeastern edge of Love & War on the north side of the tracks, the Badlands bloomed, against all odds, like an apple on a cactus. The Bohemian community that made its home amid the abandoned trailers and detritus of a long-defunct trailer park comprised transients, squatters, wayward artists, and hippies. Though banded together by little more than a long streak of bad luck in life, the settlers of the Badlands slum stuck together and looked out for each other, which was more than could be said of folks with more affluence in larger towns, so by some measures, the folks in the Badlands were getting by better than maybe they realized.

Insular and forgiving as it was, the Badlands had come to attract misfits and nomads of various sorts: pagans, nudists, ex-carnies, gypsies, and communists. What was once merely a blemish on Love & War’s backside had developed into a full-blown infection, but one that, to their credit, the townsfolk saw little reason to treat. As long as the folks in the Badlands kept their philosophies, worldviews, and medicinal herbs mostly to themselves (which they were generally happy to do) the residents of Love & War left the Badlands well enough alone.

Which was a shame really, because the Badlands was a spectacle. Colorful, decrepit, and exuding the constant stench of nag champa, marijuana, and body odor, the Badlands encompassed a variety of contradicting stereotypes and lifestyles without so much as batting an eye. Broken-down RVs and silver trailers were strewn with tie-dyed scarves and motley assortments of table cloths, shawls, and tattered American flags. They served as personal banners, marking territory,  announcing to the community an intention, a presence, an expression of self. Belly dancers sewed tiny bells to the scarves that hung from their doorways; makeshift tribes claiming 1/8th Blackfoot heritage decorated their trailers with animal skins and feathers. NPR, tinny drums, and the crackling of cooking fires composed the bass line of the Badlands soundtrack, against which all other sounds were a blissful, discordant descant.

In the center of this chaos, Mitsuo was sitting cross-legged on the ground, drawing pad balanced precariously on his knee, sketching the profile of the unsuspecting young woman who had arrived the week before with a couple of bikers. She was unconventionally pretty, with a crooked nose and a mouth slightly too big for her face. He liked her eyes the most; they were the color of turtle skin.

He had just begun sketching the curve of her nose when he was bumped from behind by a black and pink whirlwind who tumbled to the ground beside him, flashing a bright smile. “What! You drawing that girl again?”

Mitsuo frowned, scooted away from his assailant. “What’s it to you?”

Satsuko shrugged. “Nothing to me. You could try talking to her, though. Pretty sure she speaks English.”

“Better than you do, I’m sure,” Mitsuo quipped. He shrugged. “I don’t have anything to say to her.” He sketched in rough outlines of her lips. He made them too thin. He erased.

“Well,” Satsuko said, scratching her head, “who knows how much longer she’ll be here, anyway. She’s not permanent. She looks like city to me.”

Mitsuo looked up at the girl, squinted. Satsuko was right. With her hair pulled into a loose ponytail and a faraway look in her eye, the girl had an air of culture about her, and her cheeks were too full to have ever known true hunger. She was probably just passing through, sowing her wild oats before going away to an all-women’s college on the east coast. They got a surprising number of folks like that in the Badlands: folks with an artistic or counterculture curiosity trying to see how the other half lived. They meant no harm. But they were insulting all the same.

“So now I got your attention, why don’t you draw me for a little while? I need a new portrait.” Satsuko tossed her mop of shaggy, badly cut hair and struck a pose. “You haven’t done any of me in a long time.”

Despite himself, Mitsuo grinned. He flipped the page and penciled in a quick sketch of Satsuko with her head tilted back and eyes closed. Her sticking-out-in-every-direction, black and pink hair framed a pale, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, a broad nose, a full mouth. Her almond eyes had been painted, as usual, with so much shadow she appeared to be wearing a mask. Today she had painted tiny pink stars at the corners of her eyes and the tops of her cheeks. If she were a snake she’d be a warning: too colorful. Poisonous.

“Hey hey, Satsuko, strike that pose, girl. Like RuPaul. Do a twirl!”

Opening her eyes, Satsuko fell out of character and turned to see a tall, skinny white woman strutting behind her, hands on her hips, doing a decent imitation of a model on a catwalk. She strutted a few paces, turned sharply, and posed. Her dreadlocked hair was pushed off her face and held in place by a bandana. She was as deeply tanned and dirty as she was unwelcome. Satsuko scowled at the intruder. “What you want, hippie?”

Stone snapped her fingers, gave a sexy look over a bony shoulder. “You better work! Cover Girl! Sashay, shante!” Her RuPaul impression was flawless, but neither of the teenagers smiled. RuPaul was before their time.

Stone smiled, became herself again. “You got any weed?”

Satsuko and Mitsuo exchanged irritated looks. Satsuko sat down beside her friend as Mitsuo flipped back to his original drawing, concentrating. “No,” he said. “We don’t smoke.”

Stone wasn’t dissuaded. “You don’t smoke, or you don’t smoke?” She wriggled her eyebrows up and down.

Mitsuo looked up, gave Stone a hard, cold stare. The hippie held up her hands, shrinking away from the glare. “All right, all right, the straight-edge vibe, man, I dig.” Craning her neck, she stretched to see Mitsuo’s art pad. She let out an appreciative whistle. “Hey, Mitsuo, that’s pretty good,” she said.

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” he muttered.

But Stone didn’t take the hint. “No, man, I mean, you’re really good. Like, professional quality. I bet you could sell those if you wanted. Well, I wouldn’t pay for it,” she said, smiling, “‘cause I’m broke as shit. But folks with money would. Definitely.”

Mitsuo grunted in response, but stopped sketching just long enough to evaluate his work. He’d started drawing when he was five, and over the past twelve years he’d honed his talent considerably. Having moved beyond the mechanics of catching a person’s physical characteristics on paper, Mitsuo had learned to capture something of his model’s inner fire, that spark that made them who they were. Every line seemed to jump off the page and breathe with life. He’d amassed hundreds of drawings over the years, but having nothing else to do with them, he’d boxed them up and stowed them in one of the trailer’s empty closets.

The sketch on his lap was breathtaking; he’d perfectly captured the new girl’s prim expression, the self-assured way she enjoyed her own company. As a drawing it was lovely, but the portrait would become even more beautiful when he laid down the watercolor. But he’d meant what he said about not needing Stone’s approval. He wasn’t sure of anything else about himself or the world, but he was sure of his talent.

His sketchbook was full of impromptu sketches and watercolors. It was a snapshot of how he saw the world.

“Her name is Alison,” Stone said, pointing with her chin.

Mitsuo flushed a deep red, turned his back to Stone as much he could and still keep Alison in his sights. Satsuko growled.

“Hey, Stone, ain’t you got nothin’ else to do? Can’t you see we’re busy?” Satsuko’s voice was rich with contempt. She gave Stone the evil eye over Mitsuo’s shoulder.

“You’re not doing anything,” Stone said, brow furrowed. “Mitsuo doesn’t need you to draw pictures of other girls.”

“She’s my muse,” Mitsuo said, chuckling. Satsuko punched him playfully in the shoulder.

“Anyway,” Stone said, changing the subject, “I was gonna tell you. Y’all going to the church for that blessing thing?”

The two kids looked up at Stone, this time without scowling. “What blessing thing?”

Stone straightened her back, clearly proud to have town news they didn’t. “You know those Applewhite chicks got that new office over on Church Street? The ones renovating Trinity?”

The kids nodded.

“Well, they’re having some kind of blessing. I think they called it a consecration ceremony? To dedicate the renovation and the ground or something? Everybody’s invited.”

Mitsuo and Satsuko exchanged looks. “Why the hell we’d go to that?” Satsuko asked. Her broken English was completely affected. She was capable of speaking properly if she wanted to. She just rarely wanted to.

“There’ll be free food,” Stone said in a sing-song voice. Her smile was smug.

In the Badlands, “free food” was a magic phrase. Although those in the community who managed a meager income were quick to share what they brought in with the others, nobody every exactly got enough to eat. Cast-off cans of black beans were common debris around the grounds.

Mitsuo shrugged, returned to his drawing. “Sure, that sounds good. As long as they don’t expect us to sing any hymns or anything.”

Stone took a chance and crept closer, dropping to her knees when she got as close as she figured Mitsuo or Satsuko would tolerate. She was in bad need of a shower. “You ain’t got religion?”

Mitsuo smirked. “Don’t have much need for it,” he said, eyes fixed on his model. “They want us to donate money we don’t have to save souls we don’t believe in. I figure if there’s really a God, He wouldn’t be so concerned about whether or not I believe in Him. He’d have better stuff to do.”

Stone snorted. “I guess. Those two women, though—they know somethin’ I don’t. They got this…way about ‘em, I guess? Makes you curious, don’t it?”

Mitsuo shrugged. “Lilac and Lakmei, you mean?”

Stone nodded.

Across the way, Alison stood, stretched, and disappeared into one of the trailers. Sighing, Mitsuo closed the drawing tablet and leaned back onto his hands. “I don’t know much about them,” he admitted. “Haven’t ever seen them come into the bakery. Saw them once with a work crew outside the church, taking pictures. I haven’t ever talked to them, though. Just heard stuff.”

Now, even Satsuko was interested. “What kind of stuff you heard?”

Mitsuo, who wasn’t much for gossip, gave a little shrug. “I don’t know, same kind of stuff you hear about newcomers to any small town, I guess. They keep to themselves too much. They don’t leave their office. They didn’t go to the Simon St. Laine show in Placerita. Stuff like that.”

“I heard the show was awesome,” Stone said. “I heard he floated this woman up off the stage and everything.”

Satsusko sucked her teeth. “No way. That magician need to learn a thing or two about not sucking. Who do you know saw the show anyway, hippie? Your friends ain’t got ticket money,” she said.

“I know some folks,” Stone said, cool as a cucumber. Nothing seemed to rile her up much. She managed to keep pretty mellow no matter what Satsuko said to her, which only served to irritate Satsuko all the more. “So y’all are gonna go, then? To the blessing thing?”

Stone’s intense curiosity was suspicious, and Mitsuo cut his eyes at her, drawing a breath. “Why are you so interested?”

Now, Stone’s cheeks flushed pink and she rubbed at an invisible spot on her arm. “Well, I just wondered, since you got that job at the pie place, if that pie lady was gonna be there? ‘Cuz I’d like to meet her, maybe? And she could tell me what kind of pie I like. Maybe she would let me try some. On the house?”

To anyone else, the request might have sounded ridiculous, but Mitsuo understood. It wasn’t the pie she was after; it was what those pies were purported to do to the eater that she wanted.

With this new understanding,  Mitsuo felt slightly less antagonistic toward his irritating neighbor. He gave her a small smile. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

The shadows that fell from the hollows of Trinity Church grew longer as autumn announced her arrival. The days were growing shorter, and the sunlight that saturated the town during the day grew thinner and more desperate as it drained as much color from curtains and wooden sideboards as it could hold, readying the small desert town for the dull gray of winter.

Candles flickered in their amber glasses on the makeshift altar inside the Trinity Church office. Their light threw dancing shadows on the walls—shadows which, under different circumstances, might have been cause for some concern. Lilac and Lakmei * knew there was a Prime of Darkness in their midst, and they knew all too well the kind of powers his kind possessed, the magic they held. Allowing shadows to play across their walls, to numb them to what quickly moving shadows could mean, could have harkened the snuffing out of their ancient existence.

But Lilac and Lakmei were not concerned tonight. This particular Prime of Darkness was more interested in the pie woman than he was in them or their games. This put them at ease. For now.

They sat at opposite ends of the overstuffed couch in their waiting room, feet curled up under them as they sipped pinot grigio from identical crystal glasses and read identical novels, hummed identical melodies, and thought identical thoughts. In fact, nearly everything about them was identical, from their white, heart-shaped faces to the timbre of their lilting voices. The only perceptible difference between them was their hair–both wore their hair long and board straight, but where Lilac’s was black as death with a curious violet sheen, Lakmei’s was gleaming white.

It was the crackle of thunder that made them look up from their books and catch the other’s eyes, inviting each to recall that the other was present.

“It’s going to rain soon.” Lilac spoke the words aloud, though she needn’t have done so. She’d been communicating with Lakmei in other ways for millenia, but for some reason she enjoyed, even after all this time, the sound of her voice. She liked the way speaking felt, the way the vibrations in her chest and throat became sound, the way her voice sounded different to her than it did to others. She enjoyed the physicality of speaking and listening. It was one of the perks of corporeality.

Lakmei leaned her head back and breathed in, smelling the air for rain. “It’s coming from the east,” she said. “Should be here in twenty minutes or so. Some tea?”

“Yes, please,” Lilac purred, snuggling deeper into the corner of the couch. It was a rare October night in west Texas where the temperature hadn’t climbed above 60 and the wind howled through the narrow country lanes. Love & War didn’t have much in the way of tumbleweed, but if it had, this would be the kind of night to see them performing their namesake action down the road.

Lakmei filled two identical coffee mugs with water from the cooler and put them in the microwave. “Something has arrived that shouldn’t be here,” she said.

Lilac sighed, marking the page she was reading before setting it down beside her. “I know, I felt it, too. Not our concern, though,” she said, her voice stern.

Lakmei shrugged, rummaging through their collection of tea boxes. “I don’t know, it could be,” she said. “Whatever it is, it–”

“Human,” Lilac said. “It’s not a what, it’s a who, and you know that. It’s a ghost. This is not our domain. Stay out of it.”

Lakmei chose two tea bags and set them out. “Do you suppose it’s still a ghost if it has a physical body?”

Lilac cocked her head to the side, thoughtful. “The Prime of Darkness has a physical body. We have physical bodies. And we three of us are still what we are.”

The microwave beeped, and Lakmei retrieved the two steaming mugs and dunked the tea bags inside. The corners of her mouth quirked up into something like a smile, and without quite looking directly at her counterpart, said, “Strange to hear you speak of us like that. The three of us. Together.”

Lilac winced, her chagrined expression mimicking Lakmei’s almost-smile. “A fine trinity we make,” she said.

“Mmm.” Lakmei wrapped her hands around the hot mug. “What do you think the ghost wants?”

Lilac shrugged; the question was clearly of small import to her. “They usually want the same things. To see loved ones. To recall their too-short lives. To seek justice for wrongs done against them.”

“Or revenge.”

“That, too.”

They sat without speaking while their tea steeped, listening and smelling for the coming rain. Lakmei closed her eyes, could hear music playing in her head. It wasn’t coming from her, though, not from her own thoughts or her own memory, but from Lilac, who was remembering another time when they sat in a room not too different from this one, in a town very different from this one, listening to Alexei Dombrovski make love with his violin. His music set the very air a-quiver, his notes dancing like electricity along the skin. Hairs stood on end to be nearer to his melody; the body ached to hear him play, to be filled with his emotion, to be fluent in his language. To be present with Alexei Dombrovski’s playing was to sit at the feet of God.

His music would never be studied by eager violin pupils with more wish than earnestness, never praised by critics with more ego than talent, his name never written in the annals of music’s long history, for Alexei’s music died long before he did, as talent so often does amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life. So much of the world’s talent went undiscovered, shared only with a handful of friends and family who inevitably envied and hated the talent more than they appreciated it. This was humanity’s way. They loved, even worshiped, what they could not themselves do but only if the genius belonged to a stranger. The genius of loved ones was too rich a pain to bear.

Lilac and Lakmei knew this perhaps better than anyone.

When the tea was ready, they drank it. When the rain began, they listened to it. When the candles burned out, they relighted them. When all was done, they sat in stillness, Alexei Dombrovski’s last impromptu recital on a virtual loop inside both their heads. The rain, with its fat splashes against the office windows, provided the perfect counterpoint to the doleful melody Alexei played. When the sun rose over the edge of town, they put their nighttime things away and prepared to greet the new day.

*Author’s note: Lakmei is pronounced LOCK-may, like the title character in the opera Lakmé.