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“THERE'S A YOUTUBE CHANNEL called The Neglected Human,” Orias shares his idea with wiggling eyebrow, as if he's impressed by his own brilliance. “I've watched their videos before. They have over a million subscribers, so their reach is rather large.”
I reply, a bit emptily, “I've never heard of this channel before.”
We're still on the beach, lounging next to a sleeping Grant. The sunset is gone, replaced by a star-spangled night sky. I'm still waiting to hear my partner's “genius idea.” I haven't even heard a solid idea yet, let alone, a genius one.
“A pair of brothers owns the channel,” Orias continues. “They film homeless people. They help them get their stories into the world when no one else will listen. They reunite families and find jobs for the needy, among other things.”
“You really have an obsession with YouTube, don't you?” I tease him.
“Perhaps. It's better than being obsessed with TikTok, isn't it?”
“Is it?” I hitch a shoulder and snort. “It's basically the same thing.”
“I disagree. You can find better quality on YouTube. TikTok is full of teenage girls, inappropriately shaking their booties.”
I clap a hand to my lips, stopping a chuckle before it escapes. I never thought I'd hear an angel say “booty,” but here we are.
“You were a teenage girl, Kate. Why do they do that?” Orias asks.
I'd like to think I'm still a teenage girl, but I don't bother correcting him. “I... have no idea. I wasn't like most girls.”
“Nonsense! I find that difficult to believe. Young women are generally the same. They like boys, attention from boys, and music about boys.”
This time, I have to disagree with him. “That is not true!”
“It is.”
“If you really think that's true, you obviously haven't spent much time around young women,” I argue. “We like all sorts of different things and different music. We're not all consumed with boys by any stretch of the imagination!”
“You never scribbled I love Dean into your diary a thousand times?” Orias asks. “You never drew hearts around his name, or fantasized about a dance with him?”
“Okay, that is a gross invasion of my privacy!” I shrill. I did have a crush on a guy named Dean, but that was over three years ago! How would Orias know about that? I haven't thought about Dean in ages! “How the heck did you... did you...”
“When I was an angel, I was a keeper of lost memories. So was my mate, Penemue,” Orias says. “I could explain what that means, but it would involve a lot of words, and I would rather not get into it.”
“So... you can not only read my mind, but my memories too?” I ask.
“Something like that, but let's not get off topic.” Orias snaps his fingers and directs my attention back to Grant. “The brothers of The Neglected Human live in Los Angeles. In other words, they're not too far from here. We could direct them to Grant, get them to air his story, and maybe the right person will see it.”
Shrugging, I reply, “Well, I guess it's not a terrible idea.”
“It's a bloody brilliant idea!” Orias squawks. “I doubt you can come up with a better one.”
“I thought...” I hesitate for a moment, because I'm sure Orias will find a way to bash my idea. “I thought we could find the person named Easley, the one he keeps thinking about. If you can read memories, that should be easy for you, right?”
“That's not a terrible idea,” replies a grinning Orias. I'm sure he parroted my reply on purpose, to get under my skin. “Reading memories isn't as easy as you think, though. I've gotten a bit rusty over the centuries. Your little Diary of Dean just... popped into my head.”
“Please don't call it my Diary of Dean!” I clasp my hands together and groan. “I don't even like Dean anymore!”
It's true. My crush on Dean died a long time ago. In eighth grade, every single day, Dean would ask if my friend Holly was still single, because he was going to ask her out. As far as I know, he never got around to asking her out, and eventually, his infatuation with my friend killed my infatuation with him.
“Anyway, we shouldn't approach the brothers 'til tomorrow,” Orias says. “For now, warp us Home.”
It's weird to think an angel needs me to warp him someplace. I think Sandalphon restricted some of his powers. If he could have locked Orias' ability to read memories and minds, that would have been great. I don't want my partner rummaging around in my head.
I take Orias Home and briefly visit my grandmother, who's still in hospice care. “Any day now,” the doctors keep saying, but they've been saying that for several days. Javonda, my grandmother's “psychopomp,” is supposed to contact me if something changes. Well, the situation hasn't changed, but I still stop by for a visit. At the moment, no one else is visiting grandma, not even a nurse or a curious spirit. She's dying in an empty room, all by herself.
“I wish you knew I was here, Grandma,” I whisper to her and gently brush her hand. “You'll... you'll see me soon enough, I guess.”
The next day, I reunite with Orias and warp to Los Angeles—Hollywood, specifically. The “Neglected Human” brothers are aspiring filmmakers, so they're in the right place. One brother is still asleep when we arrive, so we focus on the one that's awake and eating breakfast—“breakfast,” which consists of a crumbled Pop Tart over ice cream.
“His name is Jake,” Orias says. “Our goal is to scream at him until he takes a trip to Long Beach. That's where Grant is.”
After some deliberation, Orias and I decide to split up. It'll be his job to get Jake to Long Beach, and it'll be my job to keep him updated on Grant's location. At first, I almost reject the idea of splitting up. After all, I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on Orias. What if the rebellious “earth angel” finds some way to escape, and I'm not around to watch him? Sandalphon didn't leave this entirely in my hands, did he? I would hope there's some kind of contingency plan in place.
“Do you have a LightTab?” I ask my partner. “I'll have to update you if Grant travels somewhere else.”
“Yes, I have a LightTab,” Orias grumbles a reply. “Sandalphon gave one to me, I just... I prefer not to use it.”
We've been using only my LightTab until now, but if Orias has one too, that will make this easier. I warp to Grant's location: Long Beach. It takes me a moment to find him. He's on a bench in front of a Chili's restaurant, and he appears to be asleep again.
“I wonder if he's sleeping or just... resting,” I whisper to myself.
I sit on the bench, next to Grant's feet, and type a text to Orias. “Let me know when Jake's on the way, okay?”
I wait.
And I wait.
Orias doesn't even reply to my text, so I start to get worried.
Almost an hour later, I send him another one.
“Please give me an update!”
A few minutes later, I finally get a reply!
Orias writes: “I'm on the way. Jake wasn't responding to me. When his brother woke up, I worked my magic on him instead. He's heading to Long Beach via the subway. Get ready.”
“What's the brother's name?” I ask.
Orias replies with a single word. “Dakota.”
“We're in front of a Chili's,” I write. “Grant hasn't budged.”
I wait, wait and wait some more. It feels like hours, but when I check the time, I realize only twenty-five minutes have passed since Orias' last update.
“It hasn't even been a half-hour!” I whimper to myself, but it's enough to wake up Grant. He sits up, rubs his eyes, and indolently observes his surroundings. “Don't go anywhere, Grant!” I beg. “Just... sit tight, okay?”
A few minutes later, I see Orias heading toward me. Leaping from the bench, I ask, “Why didn't you text me to tell me you were coming?”
Dryly, he replies, “I did text you.”
“Okay, but that was a long time ago! You should have updated me again,” I complain, then I turn my attention to the man with Orias. “Is that Dakota?”
“Indeed,” Orias replies. He says indeed all the time, I swear. It must be his favorite word. “I've already instructed him to look for a man on a bench.”
When I glance at Dakota, he's already looking at Grant. It feels like a minor success—until I remind myself this is only the beginning. Grant's potential interview is only the first step toward getting him off the street.
“You look lovely today, by the way,” Orias suddenly compliments me. “I like what you've done with your hair.”
“What?” I touch my hair, refreshing my memory of the oh-so-sloppy ponytail. “B-But... my hair's a mess!”
“Then it looks nice as a mess,” Orias insists, winking. “Don't let a single compliment go to your head, woman. We need to concentrate!”
Now he's telling me I need to concentrate? Orias is the one with concentration problems! I'm so distracted by Orias' strange praise, I miss Dakota's introduction to Grant. When I tune in to their conversation, they're already talking about the possibility of an interview.
“Well, that didn't seem too hard,” I whisper to Orias. “This interview might lead to nothing, though. You know that, right?”
Orias doesn't respond. Instead, he focuses on Grant's interview. Dakota instructs our charge to introduce himself, and to tell his story.
“Tell us how you ended up on the street,” Dakota suggests.
“Well...” Grant begins. I hold my breath as he leans closer to the camera. Please, let this go well! “My name's Grant. I'm thirty-eight years old. I've been on the streets for a few months now. I guess you could say... everything fell apart after my daughter died.”
“In what way?” Dakota asks—which seems like a stupid question to me, but I'm not the one with over a million subscribers, so what do I know?
“That girl, she...” Grant's voice quavers, and he pauses to pinch the tears from his eyes. “She was everything to me. Her name was... Easley. I can't even say her name without crying. Damn, I'm sorry about this.”
Grant sits back and takes a deep breath. His eyes are red, and no matter how much he wipes them, the tears keep coming back.
“Don't apologize,” says Dakota, the man behind the camera. “Your daughter clearly meant a lot to you.”
“She was everything, man. Everything,” Grant says. His voice is husky, breathy with grief. “She had cancer. I held her hand when she... passed away. She was only eleven. I would have traded places with her if I could.”
My lips purse as I listen to his story. I'm trying to not cry as I watch him battle tears. He's trying to hold them back, to be calm, but he can't. His bottom lip quivers as he continues his tale.
“Shortly after Easley died, my wife left me.”
“Why on earth would she do that?” asks Dakota.
“It was the drinking,” Grant admits. “It got out of hand. My wife couldn't take it anymore, and she.. she just kicked me out one day. That was just a few months after Easley's death.”
As I watch Grant, I suddenly miss my own father. I wonder, did my death bother him even half as much? Since my death, I've only visited my parents twice. I've distanced myself from them, because I feel guilty about what I did. They think I killed myself. Heck, that might even be true. Maybe I wanted to die—and I'm mad at myself for that.
I wish I could have traded places with Easley... then her father wouldn't have lost her. If she could have lived, Grant's life might have been totally different.
“I don't blame my wife for kickin' me out, though,” Grant says. “When I got drunk, I got violent and stupid. She didn't deserve that.”
Why do people even have to die, I wonder? Death is too cruel. No one should have to live through the loss of a loved one. No one should have to think they'll never see their special person again.
Maybe Orias is right? Maybe the world and the system is twisted.
Maybe something needs to change.