WHEN IT SNOWS IN DEEN, when it really snows, and you’re sitting beside a farmhouse window looking out over empty fields, the snow is everything. There is nothing else in the world but those swirling flakes, the tinny sound of them against the glass, the gusts that rattle the panes. When it snows in Deen, I can hardly imagine anything more beautiful.
I stare out the window as the weight of Mr. Henry’s story sinks in. We sat there for days, never leaving, barely sleeping. He talked long into the night, and only occasionally did I interrupt him with a question or a comment.
Have you ever done that? Have you ever stepped out of your life for days at a time to listen to one single story? Maybe read a book without stopping? When you come back out of it, when you return to life from the midst of that story, you are a transformed being. You will never be quite the same again, no matter how hard you try to return to your old self. Stories will do that if we let them. They’ll work their way inside, to the deepest parts, and they’ll live there, and they’ll change us.
Mr. Henry stares at me as he finishes his story.
“I’m not sure I understand,” I say. “Why did Mrs. Miller have to talk to Abra?”
He holds up a finger, asking me to wait, searches through his pockets, and pulls out a small black book. He clears his throat and reads from it.
“When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
“Angels married women?” I ask. “And had children?”
Mr. Henry sighs. “I still don’t like it when you use that word. But yes, it’s true. We’re not all feathers and light, as you and your kind seem to think.”
I clear my throat and stare down at the table. A realization enters my mind, something that makes everything else fit together. Yet I cannot say it out loud. I look up at Mr. Henry, and he nods.
“So you were the uncle in New Orleans?”
He nods.
“And if you and Mrs. Miller were brother and sister . . . ” My voice trails off.
He nods, content to wait while I connect the dots.
“So . . . Mrs. Miller was one of you?”
“At least partially so.” He stares at me as if I still haven’t quite gotten all of it. “Many years ago,” he says slowly, “two young girls wandered into the valley from the surrounding mountains. Their parents were never identified. They were adopted by a kind woman. They grew up in Deen.”
In the silence I can hear the snow tinging against the windows.
“They raised families here in Deen,” he says.
“And one of them was Abra’s mother?” I ask.
He nods.
“And the other one was . . . ” My words freeze in place because I know. A strange sense of urgency rises up inside of me, a combination of realization and denial.
“The other girl was my mother,” I say.
He stares at me, waiting.
“So my mother . . .” I begin, then stop again. My words are coming in fits and starts, unable to keep up with the new information.
“Yes?”
“My mother was one of you too. That’s why she was speaking with Tennin and Mrs. Miller about the Tree of Life.”
Mr. Henry nods. “Your mother’s mother was entirely human,” he says. “But your mother’s father . . . Well, he was not.”
There is a moment in time when all the gears to a problem begin clicking together, when all the bolts slide the right way and the cogs begin to turn and it all ends in a realization too stunning for words. But I manage to speak again, even when I don’t think I can.
“So, the pool Abra looked into was right. My mother knew the tree would be struck by lightning, didn’t she?” Tears gather in the corners of my eyes. “And she took my place.”
Mr. Henry sighs. “The vision I told you about, the one Abra saw in the clear pool on the plain of stone, was true. Tennin was here when you were a child. He warned your mother that you would die in a tree struck by lightning.”
He pauses.
“But these are all other stories, ones we do not currently have the time to tell or explore further.”
“We’re out of time?” I ask, not sure how that could possibly be. “We’ve spent days on this story. What’s a few more?”
“I haven’t come here simply to tell you stories, Samuel,” he says.
I look up at him, and because of how he said my name, I don’t want to know why he’s here anymore, because I can tell he’s about to say something I don’t want to hear. But he tells me anyway.
“You’re dying, Samuel.”
He lets the words sink in. I think of the Tree and the water and Over There. I think of the city and the door in the crypt and the shimmering fruit. I feel like I’m on the edge of the greatest adventure of all.
“But that’s not everything, is it?” I ask. “You need me for something.”
He smiles. “Yes, of course.”
I wait for him to say what it is, what mission brought him into my kitchen. I wait in the silence of that snowy day, but when he doesn’t say anything, I have to ask.
“What is it? What do you need me to do?”
He looks surprised that I don’t already know, that I have not somehow deciphered my mission from his days-long story, and he chuckles to himself, whispering things that sound like words, exclamations. He shakes his head and laughs, and his laugh fills me with an anticipation I have never felt before. It’s like the feeling you get on the last day of winter, or when you first wake up on your birthday.
Finally, he comes out and says it.
“The sword has come to you for a reason. We need your help to kill the Last Tree.”