I followed him up the stairs. I was a fornicator, of unnatural appetite, in thrall to an Atheist. I repeated the words in my head and tried to feel the shock of them, but they remained strange and cruel, far removed from Ferris and me. It was simpler to say I was in love.

But what virtue I do have is in me and of me. Men deny the good that comes from themselves, calling it God. So do they with their won evil, calling it the Devil.

I wondered at him, so wise and so foolish, to have lived with me all these months and not know that the worst storms break inside a man.

Speak to me, Jacob, do not play the tyrant. Speak to me.

I followed him up the stairs. I was a fornicator, of unnatural appetite, in thrall to an Atheist. I repeated the words in my head and tried to feel the shock of them, but they remained strange and cruel, far removed from Ferris and me. It was simpler to say I was in love.

There had been a frozen mist here, and the trees were spun into feathers. Their fragile brilliance made me wonder why, into the spotlessness of Creation, God had seen fit to introduce soiling, twisting, rampaging, Man.