"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." - CS Lewis

When we arrived home, it was night. I crawled into bed with Ike, the only human who could stand my presence so well, wrapped myself around his warm, solid little body and slept. I had no tears left to cry and no energy left to fight. I didn't really care if I lived or died. I slept a dark, dreamless sleep. Freyja lingered, always close, but as with any drug, my tolerance of her magic was growing. It no longer had the same powerful effect it once had.

In the days following our return I sometimes wandered vaguely to the kitchen, picked at some food, or sipped at a cup of water. Then I crawled back under the covers. The entire community tiptoed around me out of kindness though, in retrospect, they were only feeding my self-indulgent pity party. I needed to mourn, but I also needed to live. I was doing neither. I was hiding from existence.

One day Michael sat in a chair next to me. With his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands he sobbed. I curled on my side and cried with him. It was the closest thing to intimacy we'd experienced in months.

Sometime later I woke, aware of my own filthy stench but uncaring, and aware as well of the radiance of Raziel, nearby.

"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.

"I exist outside of time and space."

"But I don't. I exist, right here on earth, with all the physical limitations of a regular old earthling,

"A few minutes, in your time," he said.

"I never see you come or go. You're just there. Or you're not. I can't summon you or send you away. I have no control over any part of this."

"There is always free will."

"Bullshit!" I threw the covers away and rounded on him. "I call bullshit on your claims about freewill. I didn't choose any of this! I didn't choose to be Moses in the freaking Sinai desert and I sure as Hell didn't choose for my son to die. He's dead, Raziel! He's dead because I got him tied up in all of this.

"And what about that, huh? What about the children? The millions, billions of children dying all over the world right now because of the choices of their parents. Do those children have free will? Did they choose to be born to parents who would offer them up as a sacrifice? Did they choose to suffer and die for no reason that makes sense to anyone? Did any of us choose any of this?"

I was in a fine rage now. I stood and stormed past him, and out of the room. I was looking for someone to skewer, and the strange man from the truck was sitting at the table with Michael and a few of the others.

"Who are you? How did you come to be with our group in the back of that truck?" I demanded. I don't know what made me focus my anger on him, specifically. I just wanted to tear someone to shreds and he was there, in my path of destruction.

"Simone--" Michael started, but I waved him away.

"I'd like some answers, please. We've already been betrayed. Are we just supposed to trust you after that?"

He seemed to look to the others for support.

"I'm the one talking. Don't look to them. Look at me. Answer me!" Still he said nothing and I thought I was going to lose it completely. "Why won't you talk to me?" I screamed at him.

He just sat there and stared.

"You want to be a part of this group you can at least have the decency to answer a simple question!" I yelled. I knew I was acting like a lunatic, but I couldn't seem to stop.

"Simone--" Michael stood.

"What?" I turned on my husband, still bellowing in anger. "Is it so much to ask? I mean, why can't he answer a simple question?"

"Because he's a deaf-mute. His name is Andy. He helped us load the healed into the trucks when we were at the hospital. He came back with us because he had nowhere else to go."

I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. I looked over at the young man who sat there, apparently waiting for me to come to my senses. I was so completely baffled and confused by the emotions raging within me. The power buzzed in my veins but my spirit was nothing but a dry husk. I couldn't fight any more. I couldn't stand one more battle with anyone. Not with a human. Not with an angel. Surely not with the damnable voices inside my head.

Maybe that is the whole point, I heard, quite distinctly. Raziel. He was spirit-stalking me, answering my thoughts in his own silent way. I found I didn't really care. I went outside and sat on the step, staring at the woods. The warm air kissed my skin. It felt wrong. Nothing should be pleasant. I should be suffering. I dug my nails into my arms just for the satisfaction of pain.

I found myself unwillingly considering Raziel's words. I had no more energy to fight. Maybe that was the point, he'd said. Maybe so. No more fighting. Not now. Not later. Not with anyone else and not with ourselves. Maybe the time had come for peace. But, oh, how I longed to fight. Rage boiled in my soul.

I wasn't the only one, either. Our formerly peaceful community was tense. Jake and Emma were constantly bickering, Hnoss and Gersemi fought as only sisters with the powers of minor-league gods could. Finally, Freyja was forced to send them back to their home realm to settle their differences before they hurt someone. Even little Fayette was snippy and sarcastic, nearly bringing Judith to tears one day with a remark about having to waste energy and resources caring for old folks whose lives were already spent. Gaia took to taking longer and longer trips into the woods. She was spending more time with Charles and his pack than with us.

But no one was worse than Atsheena. The quiet woman who had been so quick to serve in any way she could became withdrawn. She rarely spoke unless spoken to and then her answers were short and frequently rude.

I'd managed to pull myself together enough one afternoon to actually be helpful in the kitchen. I was chopping, and stirring, and being my usual messy self when I slipped on a slice of tomato I'd dropped on the floor, bumping into Atsheena and causing her to splash boiling water on the countertop. No one was hurt. The mess wasn't especially large, but she slammed the pan she'd been carrying down hard enough to shake the counter and stomped off in search of a towel. When she came back, I decided it was time to approach the subject.

"Can you tell me what's going on with you?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she said.

"You need to talk about it. Whatever this is, it's too big of an issue to ignore. Frankly, you are becoming a serious threat to the balance, which seems to be hanging by the thinnest possible thread lately."

She snorted. "Like you're any better? You want me to leave? Fine. I'll go. I should have known that the whole, 'unconditional acceptance' thing was a load of crap. You're just like everyone else!"

She stormed toward the door.

"Atsheena! I don't want you to go!" I shouted. Then, quieter, "I just want to help you. Something is obviously going on here and it is killing me to watch my friend suffer and not know why or how to help."

She spun around to face me, anger flaming in her eyes, but it quickly faded as tears threatened. "I haven't told you because there is nothing you can do. You can't help me. You're a mess, Simone. You sleep more than you're awake, and when you're awake you're either crying or screaming at someone. You've got your own issues to deal with. Everyone does. No one can help me." She leaned back against the counter and wrapped her arms across her chest as one who's been exposed to a terrible chill. "I'm pregnant, Simone. When we ran from the army in the city, when you were standing against them to give us a chance to bolt... Popobawa was there. He... punished me. I got to the safe house later, after the rest of you. I A sob cut off her words, and she covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook. Her unfinished sentence lingered. She hadn't told me because I'd been so wrapped up in my own grief over Donovan. I hadn't even noticed she wasn't there. None of us had. We are all consumed with our own fear and pain. My heart broke for her. "I'm so sorry. I can't believe you've been holding that secret all this time. You can't think we'll kick you out for such a thing, though!"

She wiped her face with her sleeve. "You don't get it. He's a demon. This baby is a crossbreed. No one can know what it will be. My father was a demon. The child could be a monster with immense power."

Understanding may have slipped through my fingers up to this point but I was beginning to get it. "Isn't that what they said about you?"

"Yes. And they were right."

I was about to rebut when Susan burst into the kitchen. "Simone, there's someone here you need to meet."

Irritation plucked at my constantly-too-tautly-strung nerves. "Who is it, Susan? Can't they wait? We're in the middle of something here."

She looked back and forth between us and obviously registered the emotion of the moment. "I'm sorry to interrupt, truly. But you really need to come out and meet him right away if you can."

"Well, who is it?" I snapped.

"Uhm. Well, it's Hermes," she said.