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“And now we’ve got this John! We’ve got this spirit, a—a kind of false prophet, Lord Jesus, who’s tryin’ to twist the word

of God, tryin’ to turn us away from His Word, tryin’ to make the people believe he has the answers to our spiritual problems

so we can move away from God!”

John couldn’t remember saying anything about solving anyone’s spiritual problems. He was still trying to solve his own supernatural

one.

“You shall be judged! You—”

“Fuck ’em,” said Hannah, and William clicked off the video, which was just as well, since they were pulling into the underground

garage of the arena. “And fuck that damned singer.”

“Damned or damned?” John said.

“There’s the spirit.” She smirked.

But John didn’t feel at all impervious to... was it hatred? Fear? Both? After his time alone in the Grey House, John was

still uncomfortable with being forced to know other people’s perceptions of him. Their emotional reactions to him were, in

his view, unreasonable. He was just a person, however incorporeal. He was just John. He was no one. But they loved or hated

him with the vehemence one might love or hate an idea, a religion or a political or social position. It made him want to hide.

“Here we are,” Hannah said as the SUV parked alongside a line of tour buses and golf carts. She opened the door, and echoing

through the garage were the resounding, thrilled screams of thousands.

John couldn’t be farther from home.

As soon as Hannah and John stepped into the blank-walled dressing room, a tawny-complected young man wearing a multicolored

diamond chain and an enormous pearl bracelet swaggered over.

“Hannah! My girl!” The rapper gave an impish grin, the kind that implied one got out of as much trouble as one got into.

A boy of fifteen stares at the mirror, lip split and still cacked with blood, but thank goodness his lyric-filled notebook

has made it out the scuffle OK.

“This is—are you—?” Riley covered his mouth with a closed hand. “Hannah, you rep this dude? Damn, I feel like I need to call

my moms and get you to say something or some shit.” He glanced down at John’s feet. “And yo! Feelin’ the all-black Jordans.”

Riley nodded in appreciation, as did several of the young Black men sitting around the room, a girl draped over each of them.

A lanky white man passed out small bags of weed.

“Did you like the show?” Riley asked Hannah. “Switched it up from the Crosshairs tour. Added the triple projector screens

and lost the pyro but made up for it in lighting. I’m on my shit.”

Hannah smiled. “Caught the end from backstage. Phenomenal.” Her eyes shone. Pride. There was another sentiment, too, something

John couldn’t quite place.

Riley pressed his hands together and bowed a fraction in thanks. He turned to John. “Look, I’m in the studio recording my

new album. It’s the first one where I’m officially going by my real name. Hannah got me transitioning my image to make room

for my new acting career. And that’s cool. I wouldn’t want to be accepting my Oscar award from Morgan Freeman with him callin’

Killshot into the mic, you know? Anyway, it would mean a lot to have you feature. I’ve got a record I think you’d be perfect for.”

“I don’t... I wouldn’t know the first thing to say.”

Riley shook his head, “Nah, man, I don’t believe it.

” He walked back toward the vanity and motioned for John to follow.

“You can’t go through the shit you went through and have nothing to say about it, you feel me?

” He moved aside a cheese plate and sat.

“We don’t fully understand the older generations, right?

But we recognize and remember it when we’re going through our own shit, even if it isn’t as fucked up as, you know, being whipped and raped and having your kids trafficked and having your history beat out of you until you don’t even know what your family name ever was.

European ships trafficking Africans to the American colonies, to the Caribbean, to South America, separating families—literally

tearing babies from their mothers’ arms, fathers and sons over here, sisters and brothers over there. All new roots. ‘New

Roots’ isn’t the record I want you to feature on, just one I need out in the world. Probably second single.”

After a long silence John realized everyone was waiting for him to say something, probably something profound. “Sounds like

you’ve packed a lot into four minutes.”

“Seven.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on the song. Oh, one of my... Someone has something for you.”

Bean stepped forward and handed Riley Ruben’s drawing, which the rapper placed carefully on his vanity.

“Thanks. Maybe think it over and—” Riley reached over to pat John’s shoulder and John tried to move out of the way but it

was too late. Riley’s hand went through him and John’s metaphysical stomach roiled and his body, for most of the time so easy

to forget because it was weightless and so lacking in presence unless something like this happened, felt absolutely loaded

with corporeality. He had a flash of sensory memory—of what it was like to pull himself out of a pool or some other body of

water after being immersed for a long while, the lead weight of himself, the way his legs lumbered... A tsunami of dizziness

sent John lurching to the side.

“Yo! You good? My bad!”

Making it across the room was like trying to stroll across a new planet that had an impressively oppressive amount of gravity.

Bean threw open the door and moved to follow, but in the hall, John waved him away.

There were too many people. Where was the garage? Both directions looked alike and it was difficult to think through tides

of nausea. Which way?

12

Persephone looked anxiously down both sides of the arena halls. The Killshot concert had just ended and people were zipping

by with racks of clothes and black trolleys and walkie-talkies and paper plates of food, and Persephone wanted to press against

a wall and wait for Christine and Langdon to find her. Langdon had some weed he wanted to get to the rapper, and Persephone

had considered it, getting a chance to network and whatnot, but she hardly wanted Killshot’s first impression of her to be

One of the Girls with the Weed Guy. She said she’d wait outside the restroom, but when they didn’t show after twenty minutes,

she walked the circular hall, and after another half hour, settled on hanging near Killshot’s dressing room. Persephone glanced

at her phone; the cell service in the depths of the arena was still shoddy.

“You can’t be here.” A calloused hand over her shoulder.

She turned to find herself face to chest with a ponytailed security guard. “My friends...”

“Where’s your pass?”

“Oh, right. Uh, I think it’s in my purse.” She opened her purse and feigned a search. Persephone, Christine, and Langdon had

never gotten passes because earlier a security guard recognized Langdon and nodded them through.

“You have to go, miss. Please don’t make me physically remove you.”

“But—”

The guard grabbed her upper arm, loosely enough so that it didn’t hurt but firmly enough that she couldn’t slip away. “Let’s

go.”

“She’s with me.”

Persephone had seen so many movie special effects and ghost-hunting documentaries and haunted-house exposés. She’d seen him

on television. She’d known what he was. But still she asked herself now, Is he real? How can he be real? This is real. He is real.

Because there John was.

John the Ghost, John the Angel, John the Demon, John the Usher of the Rapture. John, Patron Saint of the Mortified.

Under the glare of fluorescent lights he looked filmy and a little more hazy than he had in that first video she’d seen of

him, and like most stars, he seemed smaller in real life, but more otherworldly, too.

John looked back at Persephone with eyes that appeared blacker than black. She felt as if she were shrinking, bowing beneath

the pressure of that unnerving gaze. His gaze was, in fact, approximate to her mother’s, minus the disappointment, irritation,

and parental exhaustion. Persephone looked back at John and felt translucent, certain that he understood the measure of her

desperation, of her utter lack.

Like he’d known her forever.

13

A bright cyan sky that extends so far as to touch the boundaries of the universe, set to the music of a perpetual roar.

Not moving yet traveling so fast.

The seat is more than comfortable, but the almonds are too salty. The cumulus clouds just beyond the window, however, are

too perfect to be real.

Or perhaps that’s his near-desperate optimism talking.

14

John blinked.

It was his. His first fully formed memory, and it belonged to him.

A recollection with place , with context.

He clung to this very real version of himself, of his life, and didn’t quash hope when it bubbled in his chest. Instead, he pressed the tip of his tongue against the backs of his front teeth and tried to recall the taste of salt.

But as he struggled to hold on and the memory disintegrated, his hope was replaced with the sharp sting of disappointment.

“Um, you OK?”

He was back in the halls of the arena, staring at the strange, long-legged girl in the lumberjack shirt.

No, she was not a strange girl, but rather a girl who made him feel strange, a girl who’d made him remember . Somehow, he knew this.

When he’d first seen her standing with the security guard, John could’ve sworn he’d seen her before, and then he walked up

and blurted, She’s with me , without a thought. The girl felt familiar, and in a way that wasn’t entirely benign. Yet as he walked away, he chided himself;

Los Angeles sprawled, and he could’ve caught glimpse of her face any number of ways in any number of places.

But he’d remembered. Because of her.

“Hello?” she asked.