 Hi. So I have my book with me, 515 Clues, and it's the only copy. And I want to show it to you, so I'm unveiling it. So this is my book. This is the only copy, so if you want to read it, you'll have to come over. And I'm going to read from a chapter called Personal Slash Ritual, and I think that's all I'll say about it. I'll just drop you in. Aura is seven, and she loves Jesus. She loves him so much that she's very careful not to step on the shadows when she comes home from school. If she steps on one of the long shadows that cast themselves across the living room floor, the devil will seep up from the darkness into her foot and from there into her blood, and her soul will become infected with evil. Every night when her mom comes home from working at the bar, she says, Aura, you are such a good girl. And sometimes she says, you're Jesus's little princess. But sometimes Aura wants to do naughty things, so she tries to do them in a way that's still good. Like one time when she carefully tore a page out of her mom's Bible, cut it into little strips and put it in the Campbell soup. Her mom smiled and ate it and said, it was so yummy. And Aura was such a good girl to make her dinner after such a long day. Aura smiled like an angel, feeling very, very smart. Aura lets herself in the front door with the key she keeps safety pin to the inside of her jacket. The room is full of shadows cast by furniture, their forms playing long across the floor, bulky, spindly, menacing. She's been playing in the yard poking a stick into an ant hill and watching them cover it almost up to her hand in just a couple seconds and then throwing it as far as she can into the woods behind the house. She made a rule for herself that she won't go in the woods anymore. That's where Frank took her dog Poppy after he bit him. He just bit him that once and Frank took him in the woods and never brought him back. She has a bad feeling in her tummy when she thinks of the woods kind of like the devil and she wonders if Frank is the devil and if so why her mom lets him come over. She tiptoes across the living room, catching small squares of porch light that flicker through the blinds. Then one big jump and she flips the switch while still in the air and now things look normal, familiar, before her feet even land on the ground. Carpet gray, recently deep cleaned but still stained, worn down, lived on. Wooden rocking chair, green leather chair worn through to the stuffing. A tweedy brown plaid couch inherited from grandpa. It used to be the nice couch but Samantha the kitten has shredded its corners so the threads billow and dangle tempting more claw sharpening. Where is Samantha? She has a sleep under the long low fake wood coffee table so you can tell it's fake where it's starting to peel up on the corner. There's a vague smell of cat pee but it can't be blamed on Samantha. There have been lots of animals. It's covered up with the fragrance of those glade smelly candles, a fruity potpourri hanging in the air or a positions herself on the strip of carpet between the couch and the coffee table. Extends her bare feet so that one of them presses into Samantha's soft belly the other wiggles free in the evening air. Ora wants to get as close to God as possible to be not just good but a perfect replica of God's likeness. She puts all her heart into it when she sings in church and when she eats the food they bless at dinner. When she says her prayers before she goes to bed and especially when she learns about the sacrament of holy communion which is almost old enough to do now. She is fine tuning her inner purity, the difference between wanting something really bad and just opening up and letting go and then sometimes she gets filled with this amazing light that makes her feel connected to everyone who ever lived and died. Her grandpa who fell asleep in his chair and didn't get up. Her baby sister who went to heaven after only three weeks. The kitten before Samantha who she accidentally stepped on in the basement and poppy with his floppy ears and bad breath. Dear Jesus. It's very nice of you to let us take communion after everything you went through. I'm sorry we are such bad sinners. I used to go to the Living Waters Evangelical Church but now I go to most pure heart of Mary Catholic Church and Mrs. Norman told me how your flesh was flayed from your body and then how God turned you into the host which I will get to eat when I have learned my catechisms. I'm sorry about how you had to carry that big cross so far and it was so heavy and everyone was laughing at you calling you names and throwing things at you. That must have really hurt your feelings. I know one time at school I threw a girl through a ball at me and it hit me in the stomach and I was crying and she called me a cry baby and a nerd. I was so mad at her. But you weren't mad at them, you loved them. How did you do that? Mrs. Norman said I should be able to feel your love but sometimes I don't know if I do or not. She says you're everywhere and everything and you are watching me all the time and you know all my thoughts. Then why can't I feel you or see you or hear you on the inside? She says to read the Bible, everything's there but I don't really like the Bible because it's so boring. I'm sorry, I know that is bad to say. I guess you must have a reason for making it like that. I guess only people who try really hard to like it can go to heaven. I wish I could meet you so I could know for sure that you're real and what everyone says is true. Please don't be mad at me, I want to believe. Love aura age seven. Aura begins to prepare herself for her own version of the Holy Communion. She finds the birthday and Christmas cards from her grandma, the one she's never met, the one who lives in Arizona and signs her cards to Abuela. Then she collects all the Jesus dolls from the living room and her mom's room. Icons, her mom always corrects her, including her favorite, the one of the baby Jesus in his manger. She wants to lift him out but he's stuck there looking so innocent and sweet gazing up at her. She leans down into his manger and kisses his sweet little nose. She gets all the leftovers out of the fridge, the casserole from last night, the soup she made all by herself on Monday, and fruit, she needs fruit. She's making a feast for God. There are two apples and a shriveled tangerine and candles. She finds the little prayer candles and a lighter in the junk drawer. She brings all these things to the dining room table, arranging them in a kind of circle. She climbs up on the table, situates herself in the middle and begins to take off her clothes. Skipping a little bit back to Aura. Aura is now sitting naked on the dining room table. She has placed three candles at the end of the table where her head will go. The baby Jesus is between her legs, head down the way she learned babies are born, except Donna from her mom's work had a baby butt first and that made Aura laugh, silly baby. There is a crucified Jesus by her feet and Jesus dolls by each hand. She lights the candles. She lays down careful not to get her hair in the flames. Toes pointed, crossing her feet at the ankles. She places her letter to Jesus, along with the apples and the tangerine on her chest. She feels the weight of the apples through the crinkly paper. The tangerine rolls down to her belly button. It's cold, pocked skin, making her own skin shiver in response. She spreads her arms wide and grabs a Jesus in each hand. Okay, Jesus, she says, let's do it. She lies there and waits. She's not sure what makes this moment different from the one before. Everything is in place, but she still feels the same, just a kid lying on the table. She's tried to use everything she can to tempt him, compliments, devotion, logic, food, but the real thing, the core of it all, is this, just her, herself. She's offering herself for him to enter her to let her know him. If he is real, she will feel it now. Now. Now. But she doesn't, she just lies there, kid on a table. The tangerine is rocking back and forth against her belly button when she breathes. Maybe she should say something, a special prayer. She wishes she could say it in Latin, like the priest. Jesus. She sings on one note, a high sustained angelic hum like the choir sings in church. She can feel it right around her belly button, the tangerine wiggling with her vibration. She continues, thinking of what to say. Please make me hold. She sings for as long as she can hold it. And when she runs out of breath, she takes a really big deep one and watches the shriveled little tangerine rise into her vision. The two apples roll off her chest and land in her armpits. She giggles at the feel of their cold skin, then takes another deep breath. She wonders how many other people have done this ritual. She figures if it's real, if it works, it must be something that lots of people do. If God is really God, then he knows how to tell you things even if you never read the Bible or go to church, right? So then lots of people must offer themselves to Jesus like this. Please, please, please, Jesus, please, please, please. She tenses up every muscle in her body, tighter, tighter, tighter, even her insides, even her butt and her pee-pee squeezing, squeezing. And then when she can't stand it anymore, she relaxes, and then she feels almost like a switch inside her and a surge. And then all of a sudden there's this buzz all through her, everything alive and humming. Like it's always been there, she just never noticed it before. Is this Jesus? It might be. So she does it again, squeezes tighter, tighter, until she is teeny, tiny, every muscle clenched, even her face, her toes, her tummy, all the way through. She lets go, she's breathing heavy now, huffing and puffing, and the tangerine rolls off her belly across the table and onto the floor. The hum is stronger now, and with it a warmth in her belly, a tingle in her pee place. Beneath the table, Samantha skitters and pounces on the tangerine, which has followed the slope of the lopsided dining room floor, scrolling across her path. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.