Page 67 of When the Angel Falls First

And then it was time to go home.

I held the mysterious journal in the palm of my hand as I walked to my reading nook, where the sleeping cats immediately woke and scattered. They knew something was up. Cats always knew, and these in particular had their own special connection to other worlds that I couldn’t understand.

The large window in my reading nook had a perfect view of the moon.

Slowly, cautiously, I lowered myself onto the cushion, placing the book on my lap. In the worn leather, I could justabout make out the embossing, which could very well have been a feather… but maybe not. Maybe it was just an artistic symbol, not at all what Caleb described. Maybe I could convince myself this wasn’t what Caleb was looking for, and, therefore, I could keep him in this world a little longer. Or forever.

One thing was for sure: the sensation the book gave me was electric in a way it had never been before, like the time Fred made me touch my tongue to both tips of a nine-volt battery.

“That’s still not proof,” I said to the closed cover. The blank pages inside seemed to mock my feeble attempt to explain away its strangeness. The fact that I couldn’t read angelic seals was neither here nor there; if it were any old blank journal, there’d be nothing to read either.

The leather felt oddly warm, alive under my touch.Thatwas a bit awkward. I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for the next step.

My hands trembled as I turned off the light, then pulled back the curtain and allowed the moonlight to fill the room. Thank God for a cloudless sky.

Nothing is going to happen, I told myself again,so chill the fuck out and open the damn book.I counted to three, then turned it over and slowly lifted open the back cover.

And then I was blind.

An intense golden light burst from the page, so brilliant I had to squeeze my eyes shut. The book slipped from my hands, landing with a thud, but the light remained, unwavering.

As I batted my eyes open, a beam shone up into the ceiling, and even though I could see my ceiling was perfectly intact, I could also see something else.

Something beyond the ceiling. Beyond the skies.

Into the great beyond.

I picked up the book from the floor, my eyes having adjusted to the wash of illumination. Even if I didn’twantto see what was happening in the pages of the journal, my body reacted independently from my head. Blood surged through my veins as the weight of the book settled in my hands, a dizzying rush overtaking me.

My vision sharpened, revealing what had been hidden only moments before. The pages, covered in ancient scrawl, flickered between invisible and glowing, as if I were seeing through someone else’s eyes.

The eyes of an angel.

My heart swelled with Caleb’s undeniable presence—he was here, inside me, woven into my soul, whether he knew it or not.

I slammed the book closed, not daring another second with it. The sensation I’d felt when I brushed my fingers over the cover paled in comparison to the raw power I had just experienced.

There was not a shred of doubt that this was Caleb’s angel book.

And possibly my last chance to keep him with me on Earth.

I was hunchedover the counter the next morning, intentionally buried under paperwork Fred sent me so that I could pretend for a little longer that I didn’t have something I was keeping from Caleb. But a curious sound broke the silence. Music, vibrant and peppy, and undoubtedly out of place. I picked this location for the Bookish Cat specifically because it was quiet, but just off one of the main drags.

I set aside the application for a new-business tax break because whatever was going on sounded like it was worth seeing.

Music from the eighties filled the air as I opened the door, and my first thought was that a flash mob in costume had come to the neighborhood. I loved a good flash mob, and the shop was currently empty, so I stepped out the door.

Before me, the sidewalk had transformed into a spontaneous dance floor with a flurry of movement, fingers jazz-handing in the air. A group of women in matching velour tracksuits shuffled and swayed, their silver wigs catching in the sunlight. Except…

Wait, those aren’t wigs. And those aren’t costumes.

A crowd of elderly ladies were cutting the rug to the sounds of an eighties heartthrob, and they were heading my way.

In the midst of them all, one woman stood out. With a mini boombox perched on her shoulder, she led the brigade of dancers with a spryness that contradicted her age.

The way the woman tossed her head left and right reminded me so much of?—

“Nana Geraldine?” I blurted in surprise.

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