❝ It’s very rude to stare. ❞
it’s rude to stare. he’s known that since he was a child, since his mother took him aside and gently admonished him for staring in church. it’s rude to stare, my sweet. but it’s hard not to, hard not to stare at her, because she is tiny, so small compared to the rest of them, and she is so young but not, and there’s a power in her eyes he’s only encountered once before, a strange spark of knowing that he doesn’t know what to do with.
she reminds him of joseph in a strange way. she’s all like him, alike in the ways of strangeness and knowing, carrying power in a thin form like nothing he’s ever seen before. but there’s differences too, and she’s like a counterpoint to everything he was in the same breath, all sanity where he was mad, almost soft edges where he was sharp and unforgiving.
he’s not foolish enough to compare her to an angel, the angels he knows from books and his mother’s words, not the angels of faith’s creation. he’s not foolish enough to think of her that way, but he knows she’s something other, he just can’t put his finger on what.
he considers asking her what she wants, why she’s here, but somehow he knows he won’t get an answer, or if he gets one, it won’t make any sense to him. until it’s too late.
he’s been through enough these days that it doesn’t bother him as much as it should.
smile hesitant and small, deacon’s cheeks flush, and he ducks his head to look at his hands. “sorry ma’am,” you remind me of something. many somethings. and i would ask, but i don’t think you’ll answer me as you should in the moment. “i was just thinking.”
she smiles at him. small. mysterious. knowing. and he has to look away.
his life keeps getting more complicated, but now he thinks he has some guidance in it.
she’s no angel, but she’s something else. and he trusts her.
