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down the street, and turns the corner.
    Where the heck did he just go? I wait on the sidewalk alone. A few people pass, eyeing me skeptically. I shiver as a cool breeze blows. I wish I had a coat. I adjust my bag on my shoulder.
    Finally, an eggplant-purple van rounds the corner. It’s a Dodge Caravan, straight from 1999. Sparrow’s driving and going about seven miles per hour. He has no idea how many guys at the trailer park drove one of these suckers. All it needs is a light bar and a volunteer firefighter sticker across the back, and I’d swear we were standing on a dirt road in upstate New York.
    I smile as Sparrow gets out and walks toward me. He changed his clothes—must’ve gotten them from the thrift shop or the garbage bin or, heck, maybe they were in the back of the van. He’s wearing jeans with a matching jean vest. And he looks really good. Like, Bon Jovi good. But people are going to stare. I wanted to keep a low profile in case we run into any Angels or Demons who have escaped their realm.
    “You can’t wear that,” I say.
    “Why?”
    “I mean, you look spectacular. Like you walked out of a music video from 1985, but you can’t go walking around in a Canadian tuxedo.”
    Sparrow’s eyebrow tips up. “Canadian tuxedo?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Sweet.” He smiles and smooths his hands over the denim fabric.
    I bite my lip and stare a little longer. Who cares? He looks hot.
    “Wear it. But I’m driving,” I warn.
    I’ve already experienced a time when Sparrow couldn’t remember how to drive. With his mind fading, I don’t want to be the passenger when it all goes to shit and he forgets what the brake pedal does.
    Sparrow sits in the passenger side and clicks his seat belt on. He reaches out and touches the dashboard. “We don’t have these things in Heaven.”
    “Minivans?” I ask.
    Sparrow shakes his head.
    Of course not. I don’t think Cadillac ever made a minivan.
    I motion to the back of the van. “We could fit, like, six kids back there.”
    Sparrow turns, focused on something in the backseat.
    “What?” I ask.
    He reaches behind me and comes back with a pale-orange feather duster. From the glint in his eye I can tell he’s enamored with the thing. Maybe this feather obsession is never going to go away. It’s kind of cute—and fucked up.
    “It’s a feather duster, birdboy.”
    Sparrow looks at me quick before running his long fingers through the column of feathers.
    “For cleaning.”
    “Tragic.” He brushes the duster across his face. “It’s really soft.”
    I know what he’s thinking: he could put those suckers in his pocket and stroke them all day long.
    I wish he’d put me in his pocket.
    Sparrow touches the feather duster again.
    I put my seat belt on.
    “Did you steal this van?” I ask, settling my hands on the steering wheel.
    “It was running. I didn’t break anything,” he replies innocently.
    Perfect.
    “I need to get my tattoo fixed.” I point to the quill on my shoulder that was faded by Teari and her healing. I know just the place.
    “Ready?”
    Sparrow’s eyes lock on the ink, and he licks his lips. “Sure.” His head “tics” to the left.
    My heart sinks.
    I pull away from the curb, focusing on the road and not my slowly deteriorating Sparrow.
    Doing whatever we want here should be easy. I have loads of money on the earthen plane. My mother left me millions before John Lewis murdered her. He tried to murder me, as well, right before I turned twenty-five and the lump sum was due to be handed over to me. Jim, my ex-fiancé, was in on it, too. The jerks.
    Deciding on a place to go, I know that I don’t want to go back to Gouverneur: too many bad memories, too many people I don’t trust. So I get on the highway and head for the little town where I went to college in downstate New York.
    Sparrow fondles the feather duster the entire way. It makes me a little jealous. Living the past week in a chastity belt has been killing me, especially with Sparrow