“He isn’t the most secure guy.”

“True, but the look on his face in that picture has me curious. I just thought you might could see what was going on.”

I was curious now too. Darn it. I filled my lungs and concentrated, imagined the sheer veil. My first attempts at pulling it back failed. The veil slipped through my fingers, the only disturbance a puff of smoke where I’d tried. I stopped, shook my head to clear it, then tried again.

Finally, on the fifth try, the veil solidified and gave way to a ridiculously bright day. I blinked and tried to raise a hand to block out the sun. But it seemed I didn’t have a hand. I wasn’t really there. I had no corporeal manifestation. It was like walking a tightrope a hundred feet off the ground, wanting to grab on to something solid, something stable that wasn’t there.

I focused on the surroundings. Cameron stood at the edge of a lake, the water lapping at his feet, his swimming shorts long and bright. He wore no shirt or shoes as he dipped his toes in the water, splashed them around a bit.

“I’m not sure how this thing works,” Mr. Lusk said.

I looked over to my left. Mr. Lusk was fumbling with a camera. He was so much shorter than Cameron and had dark skin and hair, very at odds with his son’s pale features.

“I think you just push a button.”

He glared up at his son teasingly. Cameron laughed softly, then looked out over the mass of blue. When I looked back at Mr. Lusk, he was studying him. His face sad and proud at the same time.

“Got it,” he said, balancing the camera on a rock and hurrying to stand beside Cameron. He wrapped an arm around him as Cameron smiled for the shot.

Even as young as he was, he towered over his dad. And they couldn’t have looked less alike if someone had paid them to. While Cameron was tall, lean, and very blond, his dad was average height, stocky, and dark, his skin like leather from working out in the elements for all those years. He was handsome like Cameron, just in a very different way.

Of course, he wasn’t Cameron’s real father. The angel Jophiel was. But he was loyal to his son and supported him in every way.

“I’m so proud of you, son,” he said, waiting for the timer. “Of everything that you are.”

Cameron shifted in discomfort. “Thanks, Dad.”

Just before the timer snapped the shot, Mr. Lusk added, “And so is she.”

Cameron’s smile faded almost completely as his dad put on his best one. Then a light flashed around me and I was back in my bedroom.

I blinked and sucked in a deep breath like I’d just surfaced from a tank of water. Then I put the picture down, feeling like an intruder.

“What?” Brooke said in alarm. “You have to keep trying. You can’t just give up—”

“It worked.”

She stopped. “But, you just now shook your head to try again. Like a microsecond before you put it down. And it worked? You went inside?”

“Yeah. I was there for almost a minute, maybe more.”

She slumped against the wall in thought. “That is too weird. You weren’t—” She glanced up at me, searching for the right words. “—gone that long. It’s like time is different there. You must be seeing this stuff in one split-second flash, but your mind is interpreting it as longer.”

She took out her journal, the one she kept notes in, and jotted down what was happening. I could only pray no one would ever, ever, ever find that journal. Then again, they’d probably think it was fiction.

“Maybe. I don’t really know.”

“So, what did you see?”

I lowered my head. “Right before the picture was shot, Cameron’s dad said he was proud of him.”

“Why would that make him sad?” She took the picture back. “He just seems so sad in it.”

“Because his dad also said his mom was proud of him too.”

“Oh.” I’d knocked the wind out of her. “Right.”

“Look at the date stamp.”

She read the date, then looked back up at me.

“Cameron’s mom died nine years before that picture was taken. It was the anniversary of her death.”

Brooke let out a ragged breath. “How did I not pick up on that? I’m so stupid.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’ll give this back to him. It’s only right.”

“I think if he wanted it back, he would’ve asked for it.” I scooted toward her. “I think he likes you having it.”

Her mouth formed a hollow smile. “What’s it like?” she asked, and I knew she meant the visions, going into the pictures. I thought back and told her about the veil, about pulling it back and sliding inside the image. I told her what it felt like being there, incorporeal, outside my body. It was hard to put into words what I felt, but Brooke was pretty savvy. She imagined it, put herself in my shoes.

“So, every time you come back, there’s a flash first? Right when the shot is taken?”

“Yes, but I’m beginning to think the light I’m seeing isn’t actually the flash of the camera, but my trip back to the present.”

“Lor, I gotta say, this is the coolest thing on earth. Honestly, just when I didn’t think you could get any cooler.”

I laughed, unconvinced. “I don’t know. I mean, what good does it do? It’s still not getting us any closer to stopping this stupid war that’s supposedly coming. I’m still fairly useless.”