Chapter Thirty-four

Leland picked up a pair of pruning shears from the bench in front of him.

When he clenched his hand to test the spring, the blades whispered against each other, as though the tool was sharpening itself. Rain pattered quietly on the greenhouse roof above him. The garden beyond the glass wall ahead of him was smeared and gray. But it was warm and dry in here, and there was a hum to the air.

A tray of roses rested on the bench before him.

He reached in and gripped a stem with a gloved hand, and then leaned down and snipped one of the petioles carefully away. It fell softly onto the tray of soil below, taking its cluster of leaves and malformed bud along with it. Leland picked up the clipping and tossed it into the bin beside the bench.

There were two roses in the tray, and both were exquisite. The reds were rich and vivid, with thin veins of blackness reaching out through the petals. The quality of the flowers was a testament not only to his own skill and care but also to the quality of the soil they had been grown in.

And as he stared down at the flowers, Leland remembered helping his father make an angel.

It is October 19, 1954.

"How far is it?" the little girl says.

She is walking behind Edward. He glances back at her—but really, he is looking past her. He is relieved that the road is out of sight now. But the field here is exposed; there is still a danger they might be seen, and his heart is beating hard. When he looks forward again, he sees the tree line in the distance. The approaching winter has stripped the branches of their leaves high above, and they stand out like thin black bones against the empty sky above.

A cold breeze is stirring the overgrown grass.

He picks up his pace.

"It's a little way in," he says. "I need to remember the way."

That isn't true; the route he has to take is burned into his mind, as clear to him as all the other paths he must follow. And even though the tree line remains a little way off yet, he reminds himself that they will not be seen.

That is not what happens.

Because his father told him he would not be seen, and everything else he said has come to pass. The little girl was playing alone on the road exactly where Edward was told she would be. She was nervous when he approached her. There was a cat in the woods, Edward was to explain. It was caught in barbed wire, and he needed her help to free it.

Not a dog?he had suggested.

His father had smiled.

With this little girl, it needs to be a cat. A black-and-white one.

And true enough, Edward had seen the doubt fall away from her face as he explained. He had watched it being replaced by hope. It was exactly what she had needed to hear to be persuaded to follow him.

Because his father knows everything.

They reach the tree line.

Edward moves more cautiously now, working his way carefully between the trees. The web of branches around him is sharp, the ground uneven. The world falls silent aside from the wet push of their shoes in the mulch of fallen leaves, and the air smells of earth and rot. It has been dismal all morning, but it seems to grow ever darker as they move deeper into the wood.

They are out of sight now, but his heart is beating harder than ever. There is a tingle of electricity running over his body.

They walk for a minute. He can hear her breathing behind him.

Then:

A click in the undergrowth off to one side.

"What was that?"

Edward looks back at the girl. She has stopped and is staring between the trees. Even more than back at the road, he notices how little she is. And also—now—how frightened. It is wild and dark here, and the expression on her face is like she has found herself in one of the fairy tales she probably reads in her bedroom at home. At the sight of that fear, Edward feels a flicker of something inside himself. Some primal sense of pity. There is even a moment when he feels an urge to lead her out of here—take her all the way back to the safety of her village down the road, and then run as far and fast as he can.

Your faith is being tested.

And as soon as the thought comes, Edward recognizes the feeling for what it is. His father has warned him about moments like this. The path they have been tasked with following is a hard one, and there are times when he will need to be strong. The tingle of electricity he is feeling, the fast beating of his heart—these things are best thought of not as nerves but as the gentle touch of God, pleased that his word is being carried out as it has been written. That his children are doing what their Father intends.

And to do otherwise would be blasphemy.

Edward walks back to the little girl.

"It's nothing," he says quietly. "It's just the wood making sounds."

"I'm scared."

"Me too. I can take you back if you want. But I don't think I can save the cat on my own."

She stares at him for a few seconds. She's still frightened, but he can tell she's weighing the fear against the desire to save the helpless creature she imagines awaits them ahead. He can almost picture a set of scales in his head, and he feels that tingle on his skin again as he realizes he already knows which way they will fall.

"It's not far," he says.

And without looking back, he turns and walks farther into the wood.

A minute later, he hears something. It sounds a little like someone crying, but it is too continuous for that, and he recognizes it as the quiet rush of water. They have arrived at the stream. He reaches out to the branches before him, and then holds them to one side to allow the girl to follow him into the small clearing.

The stream is a three-feet-wide string of shallow water rushing past, whispering against the sharp rocks at its edges. The clearing, such as it is, is surrounded by trees that press in on all sides. The trunks are thin and black, with countless white branches hanging down like ribbons.

Edward turns. The little girl has stepped to one side, her back to the trees. She is hugging herself and looking around in confusion.

"Where is he?" the little girl says.

For a moment, everything is still. The only sound is the rush of the stream.

Then the tree directly behind the little girl moves.

"Here."

And Edward's father steps forward, dressed in his black suit, his long white fingers splayed wide.

Six decades had passed since that day, but Leland still remembered it clearly.

Along with the night that followed.

How special he had felt, sitting out behind the house in the darkness with his father. A lamp rested on the ground, illuminating his father's bright, spidery hands as they worked over the earth, patting down the soil. They were the only visible part of him, the rest of him lost in the blackness of the night, but the murmur of his voice filled the air: a constant stream of language that was close to prayer, and which Leland could not quite decipher but found himself hypnotized by.

His father had reached back in the darkness. To one of the older graves.

When his hand returned to the light, it was holding a flower.

Standing in the greenhouse now, Leland looked down at the tray of roses. The lesson his father had taught him that night remained with him. It is not for us to question God's will; however hard it is, we must simply do what our Father dictates. We must trust that he knows best and that beauty will stem from the actions that have been set for us.

And so the roses before him now were exquisite not solely because of his care and attention but because of the soil in which they had grown. The soil that had been drawn from his own garden and nourished in turn by the angels that lay beneath.

A tap at the glass.

Leland looked up. A moment later, Banyard opened the door and stepped in out of the rain.

"The lawyer is here," he said.

"He has the money?"

"He does."

"Thank you. Tell him I'll be in shortly."

Once Banyard had left, Leland picked up the shears again. He looked between the roses, trying to decide which was the most beautiful—which was the most appropriate for the meeting he had arranged with Christopher Shaw to acquire his father's book. Because he had waited so long for this moment. To receive his wisdom again after all these years.

And to put right what his brother had done.

Finally, he clipped one rose off halfway up the stem.

And feeling that tingle on his skin, he pushed it carefully into the lapel of his black suit.