Their god drop wasn’t scattered out in a clearing somewhere like ours. It was inside another huge straight stone cliff with a stone that opened so you could get into the cave inside. Outside the cliff, angels in heavy coats were lined up, shifting from foot to foot and puffing up their feathers to keep their wings warm while they waited. The angels who were just arriving were cramming themselves into the line wherever they could.

“There’s a spot!” Cherie pointed, but it was already being taken by a guy twice as wide as he was tall. She started to look for another, but they were filling up fast.

There wasn’t time to stand around and look, so I grabbed her hand and pulled her along. Over there. I shouldered us into a spot between a guy wearing a black coat with white sleeves and matching black and white shoes, and a girl with coat past her knees that buttoned all the way down.

“Hey!” the girl snarled.

“What?” I said.

She made a disgusted sound in her throat that reminded me of the witch queens, but instead of telling me to get pecked, she crossed her arms and scowled at a stone cliff in the opposite direction.

The guy in black and white glared over his shoulder at us, but when he met my eyes, he turned back around, muttering to his square of plastic.

Cherie hugged my arm and her wings gave an excited flutter.

“Oh, I hope I get in!” she moaned. “If I could just be chosen…”

“I thought you already were?”

She bit her lip. “But what if they stop the {god drop} before I make it inside? What if they run out of the new {squares of plastic}? What if…” The tops of her cheeks were already red from the cold wind, but they blushed darker. “What if I get inside and the gods un-choose me? What if they don’t want me?”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I squeezed her to my side. “Who wouldn’t want you?”

The line of angels inched forward, the guy at the front disappearing through the swinging stone. This one wasn’t clear like the one on Cherie’s cliff, but a shiny gold like the sunlight. All around it, angels had been carved into the stone, their wings stretched high above their heads like they were about to take off, except that all those shiny gold angels had all been carved upside down.

I laughed and pointed it out to Cherie.

She didn’t think it was very funny. “I don’t get [][[]. Why do they always have to make something wrong with it? That doesn’t make it good.”

“You think they put them upside down on purpose?”

She looked up through her pale lashes at me. “You don’t?”

“If it was me, and I was embarrassed that I’d made it wrong, I would say I did it on purpose, too.”

That got her to laugh.

The sun’s light shined on the tops of the cliffs, creeping slowly downward toward the ground between them. You could tell from the intensity of the glare that it was going to feel nice when it reached us.

A little bit at a time, the line of angels moved forward. Nobody fought or threatened each other. Nobody talked to each other, but some angels talked to their squares of plastic. Most of the rest stood there stroking them so they wouldn’t make noise the whole time.

The angels around me and Cherie kept glaring our way. We weren’t exactly keeping it quiet. I liked making Cherie laugh and I liked holding onto her, so I kept doing both while we waited. Big deal if they didn’t like it. The guys were probably just jealous that I had a girl like her, and the girls were probably jealous that they weren’t her.

As we got closer, though, Cherie laughed less and stared more at the gold stone letting angels inside the cliff.

When there was nobody left between us and the door but the guy in all black and white, she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I know you don’t want me to ask about a coat for you,” she started.

I let my head fall back on my shoulders. “Ah, not this again.”

“But I’m going to.”

“I don’t even need one yet. See?” I held my hand out. “The air’s already warmer. When the sun gets overhead, it’ll be hot.”

She frowned. “I don’t like only getting something for me.”

“I don’t need anything.” I squeezed her again and kissed her on top of her soft, wavy white hair. “I’ve already got everything I want right here.”