Fallen Light

Light is the absence of shadow the way good is the absence of evil — a comforting lie we tell ourselves to avoid the more difficult truth, which is that they are not opposites at all. They are the same force, viewed from different angles.

Gabriel learned this on his second day in Devil's Halo, when he met the woman in the church.

She was standing at the altar when he entered — not praying, not arranging flowers, but simply standing, her hands at her sides, her face turned toward the stained-glass window that depicted an angel whose expression the original artist had clearly intended to be beatific but which, in the gloomy light of this particular church, looked more like fury.

"You're the new one," she said without turning around. Her voice carried the particular flatness of someone who has stopped being surprised.

"I just arrived yesterday."

"I know. I heard the bus." She turned. She was younger than he'd expected — mid-thirties, maybe — with dark hair and eyes that were either brown or black depending on which shadow they caught. "I'm Miriam. I'm the closest thing this town has to a priest."

"What happened to the actual priest?"

Miriam looked at the angel in the window. "He looked up," she said.