“This is it,” says Sister Auralee. She stamps on the ground beneath them. “This is where we’ll plant the church.”

The turf yields to her bare feet, warm and spongy like bruised flesh. Grass peeks between her toes. She smells moisture, the tang of fibrous peat deep below, a thousand years of bones and dead leaves packed into the dirt. Nashlin was driving her around town when she spotted this clearing: right-sized, buttressed by strong oak and maple, not too far from fresh water. A fungal church taking root here will thrive, grow strong marrow, develop a beautiful color. “It’s a good spot,” she says, pacing the soft ground to the beat of worship music in her head. She can picture it: the church rising out of the tender firmament, quartz-pink and corrugated like a pipe organ, bringing holy music to the people of the county. She’s glad to have found it.

“It looks like the one my daddy picked,” Nashlin says, kicking one ankle against the flat side of her cart. “What’s so different about it?”

“Everything. The soil, the setting, the amount of light. I told you the church can’t be too close to the town. It needs space.”

“You just want a postcard picture. It’s okay. You can say it. My daddy has no sense of style, picking a butt-ugly skyline with all those buildings nearby.”

“If that’s what you want to believe, I can’t stop you.” Auralee wipes her feet and puts her shoes back on. “Now if you please, I have work to do.”

Nashlin is a problem. Her dad is the mayor and she’s got a cart license, so she’s Auralee’s chaperone while the church gets set up. She’s got too many questions and too much to say. Mouthy. Auralee is certain that this is Nashlin’s idea of flirting, sawing at Auralee’s patience until something snaps off. She chews gum and kicks her ankles. She keeps asking for Auralee’s earpiece no matter how much she’s told it’s forbidden. She says things like “daddy”. Nashlin is twenty-five, which makes her almost a year older than Auralee, but she acts like a child. Auralee has decided that this is the consequence of churchlessness. An untethered life tends to disorder. The natural condition of being human is chaotic. Without the orientation of churchsong to pull people along, they wind up selfish. Combative. Not knowing how to take no for an answer. Auralee has long wondered what life would be like outside the influence of a church, and now she knows. No thanks.

She unzips the big canvas duffel in the back of the cart, which slumps open to reveal her tools. The plot-markers go under her arm while she thumbs the scanner to life. It hums between her palms, analyzing the spot she has selected.

Nashlin offers her an over-the-shoulder look, legs still swinging. “You sure you won’t let me have a listen?” She bobs her chin to indicate the earpiece.

“Once again, churchsong takes getting used to. You can’t just pop it in and start listening right away.” In her hands the scanner chugs happily, returning green blips on the sanctity of the ground: pH levels, moisture content, nutrient density. “You might do well to learn some patience. Pretty soon you’ll have a church of your own, and you can listen all you want. What’s the rush?”

Nashlin jumps off the cart, landing softly on her big oily boots. “Curiosity? I suppose? Gotta be something good if you can’t go a day without it, traveling outside of churched areas.”

“It’s not about goodness. Quality, I mean. It’s not about that.” Nashlin still doesn’t understand that churchsong isn’t reliant on the music. It is music, but it’s also more than that. It’s an experience, an anchor. Something that sits both in your marrow and that of everyone else’s, making that substance contiguous, stitching you into part of something bigger. In Auralee’s earliest memory she walks hand-in-hand with her parents down the illuminated path between the twin cathedrals of her home, the Great Father and Infinite Mother, looking up at their giant, undulating peaks, their massive hollow tubes the color of spring peaches. Like her parents they tower above her, but their extreme size is welcoming, a bosom to fall into and remain within forever. Churchsong fills her world. Not just the air which goes into her lungs, but the ground under her feet, and the bones in her head. Through it baby Auralee feels connection with all the people in the park and beyond. Churchsong means she will never be alone. In the years after her parents died, quiet contemplation along the cathedral path would take her to back to that childhood moment: hands encased in warmth, marrow frothy with connection, her body existing in every space and every point in time where holy music plays. When she listens to it, she returns to a place where her parents are still alive. Her mother once said that being part of the church means they will never leave her, and she is right. In Auralee’s earpiece they are never parted.

Churches have marrow too, a bright-yellow substance that oozes when the bone of the church is cut. Auralee has assisted at several such prunings, holding the hopper while the arborist-priest carefully carves away the extraneous limbs. The marrow is saved, preserved: sacred, the material from which new church seeds are born. One day she too will be an arborist, but she’s not quite there yet. She’s making progress, though, good progress. To be assigned to plant a new church in virgin territory is a big honor. She is determined to see her task through perfectly. That is, if Nashlin or somebody else doesn’t get in her way.

The scanner outputs a crimson rectangle where the church would be best placed. Auralee sets the device on the grass and starts sinking plot-markers along the edges, pushing in the needlelike shafts but leaving their heads exposed, glowing with magenta light.

Nashlin prods one of the markers with her boot. “What’s that for?”

“It’s preparing ground for the church. Don’t touch it.”

Nashlin snorts, but she backs away, tucking her hands into her pockets. Auralee can sense her apprehension. Outside of churched areas most technology doesn’t work. Electricity is as far as it goes. Coal fires and power lines. It’s the reason the mayor was so desperate to be approved for one. Even so, there was opposition to its planting. Not all the glances she encountered in town were friendly. There was a protest outside the mayor’s office, a scatter of people in matching, hand-painted shirts, chanting slogans that Auralee didn’t catch and didn’t care to. She understands, frankly. Getting churched is not something done in halves—it peels back the skin of a life and turns it inside-out. A church changes the land, the air, the people. It alters the texture of living. Some people can’t commit to that sort of change, neither being churched nor being excommunicated from the world shifting around them. The wet dirt knows Auralee could not withstand a schism going in the other direction. So she understands their resentment.

But life with a church is better. It’s so much better. They will learn that soon enough.

Nashlin tucks her hands in her pockets as she watches Auralee work. “Guess I’ve got to find new work once we no longer need these carts, huh? You lot with your hover cars and all.”

“The church will find a place for you. And that’s a promise.” Auralee means it. She is genuinely thrilled for Nashlin, knowing she has this transformation ahead of her: the precious moment she hears churchsong for the first time. For her, and the citizens of this town, being churched will be an ongoing process as the local graft matures, its song gaining layers and strength as it taps further into the mycelial network. It starts as a small whistle, barely perceptible, then grows in amplitude and harmony, progressively kneading the residents of its habitat into novel form. Each day will be an adventure for Nashlin, each morning fresh discoveries of how her perception of the world has changed, every relationship made warmer and deeper. Frankly Auralee envies her; she’s never experienced the joy of this slow change herself.

The plot is set, the markers tenderizing and enriching the ground for the church seed to be buried. Quickly, quietly, she reaches in her pocket and finds the craft knife. Turning her body away from Nashlin she pulls the glove off her left hand and nicks the pad of her left pinkie. Blood swells into a fat bead; Auralee waits until it forms a drop large enough to feed the waiting ground.

“What are you doing?”

She starts; Nashlin has caught sight of her little ritual. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Did you just water the ground with your blood?”

“Just a drop.” Her face grows hot. “It’s for good luck.” This isn’t part of the protocol for planting a new church, just family tradition, a superstition her mother had. Pricks of the thumb on holy Wednesdays, their hands outstretched over the warding fences. Churches don’t need human blood to grow—that’s something the unchurched say to scare their children—but her mother liked the idea of theirs watering the roots of one. It’s an almost heretical belief, but her mother was sick and the churches couldn’t do anything for her, so the priests looked the other way. Let her have her comforts. Presumptuous, but Auralee wants to leave a bit of herself with the first church she plants, in her mother’s honor.

Nashlin grins and holds her hand out, stupidly confident. “Come on. Do me too.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“What, my blood’s not good enough for your precious church?”

“It’s not that.” Why wasn’t she more careful? She could have better hidden this from Nashlin. “It’s a private ritual. You—” She hesitates. “The churches give us so much. Sometimes, we want to give something back. It’s a religious gesture, and you’re not yet part of it. So—”

“So induct me early, then.” Nashlin wiggles her finger. “This, or you can let me listen to your earpiece. You decide.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I like being part of things? Just like anyone else.”

She looks at Nashlin’s face, frank and freckled, and for a moment she considers it. Why shouldn’t she, when Nashlin seems so eager to thank the churches for their grace? Then she realizes what a stupid idea it would be. What if Nashlin told? She turns away. “I’m not doing it.”

A flurry of sound and motion in the near distance: as Auralee turns she catches sight of a heavily jacketed figure jumping on a bike. She shouts—“Hey!”—but their stalker furiously pedals away, making for the road beyond the cart. She’ll never catch up.

It’s not important—some busybody teen not minding their business, or a resentful protester taking notes. Neither has the power to derail this process. None of them do; it’s happening whether they like it or not. Her personal irritation at being spied on is irrelevant.

Nashlin appears at her side, a lanky shadow, opportunistic. While Auralee is still distracted, still collecting herself, she coils and darts forward, tweaking the earpiece from Auralee’s head.

“Hey!” Auralee claps a hand to her ear, but it’s too late. Nashlin fixes the earpiece in her own canal. The stream of churchsong hits her at once, that atonal, vibrato keening piercing her consciousness for the first time. Her eyes go wide and she freezes like a prey animal. Her mouth falls open.

Auralee slaps the earpiece out of her head. It thuds into the grass and she snatches it up. “Fuck.” She’s ready to slap Nashlin again to bring her back to her senses, but the woman is blinking, no longer catatonic, shaking her head slowly. Auralee curls a white-knuckled fist around the earpiece. Her cheeks burn with stress. “I told you not to do that!”

“Wh . . .? That was—it was different. I thought—”

“Shut up.” Auralee’s nostrils flare as she fights her own heart rate. “I told you. I told you how dangerous it was.” Unadulterated virgin exposure to churchsong can drive people mad, their synapses snapping into new shapes so fast it destroys their brain chemistry. Neurological whiplash. Unchurched tourists to churched cities have to put on headphones upon arrival, slowly acclimatizing themselves until it’s safe. Many of them never return home, unable to imagine life without the new rhythm they’ve acquired.

Nashlin is fine. She looks fine. She responds to Auralee’s questions when asked, nodding and raising one hand on cue, then the other. Auralee’s quick reflexes saved her, probably. She might suffer from mental tinnitus for a while. But she’s fine.

Still, there’s a faraway look in her eye. “The sounds it made, the things I felt . . . I had no idea.”

“I told you,” Auralee says.

• • • •

Nashlin is fine enough to drive her back to the town hall. She takes the wheel while Auralee sits on the rear flatbed with her duffel beside her. It’s silent on the ride back, eerily so. Auralee has replaced the earpiece where it belongs, but even the swell of churchsong cannot shake loose the plug of disquiet in her chest. She wishes Nashlin would chatter, telling her inane facts about the history of this or that landmark. As they pull into the town outskirts and the shapes of buildings become familiar, Auralee points at the old fire station and says, “Didn’t you mention you had an uncle who was a fire warden?”

“I did,” Nashlin says. “I did tell you about him.”

She’s fine. Her memories and motor skills are intact; she’s fine. Her heart has just been stilled by the weight of worship, that’s all. She’s lucky; she’s been given an early taste of what to expect. Nashlin will take the transition easier than the rest of the town and that’s a good thing.

Nashlin parks in the wide lot behind the town hall, scabbed with disrepair. As the cart engine dies down she says, “You be alright on your own? I’ve got a lot of stuff to think about.”

“Sure.” Auralee gets to her feet, climbs off the cart. “Hey—could you do me a favor? Could you not mention what happened back there?”

“Okay, sure.”

“It’s just that—it’s not legal, you know. Letting the unchurched listen in like that. For many reasons. I’d rather you keep it to yourself.”

“Yeah. I get it. Don’t worry. Lips are sealed.”

Auralee leaves Nashlin to her thoughts and contemplation in the parking lot. She needs assistants for the planting, and she’d hoped that broad-framed Nashlin would have served that purpose, but she supposes the mayor will assign someone else if she doesn’t want to trouble Nashlin. Plenty of idle hands in this town.

Trouble brews inside the building. As Auralee tramps over dull carpet there’s muffled shouting down the corridor, rumblings of dissent. A small crowd has cornered the mayor in front of his office. Robert Stokes is a tall, round man who gives the impression of being smaller than he is, and he wipes his face with cloth as he tries to calm the half-dozen complainants clamoring for his attention. Some have on the protest t-shirts she recognizes from her arrival.

A man with a straw-colored ponytail gesticulates violently. “That’s the field my kids play in, Bobby. And you’re letting them turn it into a barren wasteland.”

“It won’t be barren—”

“Like hell it won’t. Those churches suck up everything from the ground. It’ll kill the trees, the grass, all of it. You can’t even get within a hundred feet of one. Isn’t that true? They put up fences in the cities.”

Bobby Stokes clears his throat. “I hear you, Eric. I understand your concerns. But think of the benefits. Jobs. Our energy problem, solved. Your kids, they had a rough winter, didn’t they? Think of how nice it’ll be next year, when it won’t be so cold.”

“And what’s the price of that? My blood? Yours?”

“Churches aren’t fed with human blood,” Auralee says, stepping in. “That’s an urban legend.”

“I saw you,” says the kid standing next to Eric. That big leather jacket—her interloper. He shares a face with Eric: father and child, probably. The kid tucks his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “You were dripping blood all over the ground.”

“I think you saw wrong,” she says coldly.

“Now, now, Eric,” says the mayor, waving his hands, “let’s not get too crazy with the accusations. Getting a church planted is safe. It’s been proven, there’s no risk to human life with all the precautions taken. Millions of people live under the umbrella of a church, and their lives are better for it. Just give it a chance—you’ll see we’re right.”

“Give it a chance?” Eric lunges and grabs Bobby Stokes by the lapels. “That’s an alien fungus you’re putting in the ground. In our town. They scraped it off an asteroid and it took over half the planet and you still think it’s harmless?”

“Let me go,” says Stokes. His face has gone very red. “You’re not seeing reason—Clarissa!” That last exhortation directed over his shoulder, calling for help.

But the others in the group have stepped forward, peeling Eric away from the mayor. “Come on, Dad,” says the kid in the jacket, sounding tired. Bobby Stokes tugs at his clothes, flustered.

“You’re brainwashed,” Eric spits. “All of you, brainwashed. Especially you.” He jabs a finger in Auralee’s face, as a parting shot.

“Let’s go,” says someone else in the group.

Mayor Stokes huffs as they leave, still tidying his rumpled attire. “Sorry you had to see that. Where’s Nash? I thought she was with you.”

“She had something to attend to,” Auralee says, feeling suddenly guilty. “But we found a plot. I’m ready to plant the seed when you are.”

“Good, good.” Mayor Stokes looks at the floor, dusting his collar. His face is ruddy from the confrontation. “Don’t worry about Eric. Known him a long time. He’s got a big temper and a bigger mouth, but he won’t act on it. He’ll come around.”

“I’m sure he will,” Auralee says. The emptiness of the corridor seems somehow more oppressive than when it was filled with angry people. A vacuum of sentiment. She cannot get the church planted soon enough. Its presence will smooth over every crack, knit together every break. Eric will become grateful, the way she is grateful.

She gets the church seed and fencing out of her transport hold. The seed, thickly encased in dull lead plastered with hazard labels, has to be handled by two people. Mayor Stokes puts the sturdiest and most agreeable of his staff on the job, two guys named Cardin and Yeshua. “We’ll need their help with digging too,” Auralee says.

Nashlin joins them, summoned by her father. She drives with the rest of them loaded in the back of her cart, awkwardly squashed. Cardin and Yeshua gingerly put their hands and feet where they won’t make contact with their leaden cargo. Throughout the ride, Mayor Stokes keeps up a nervous stream of talk—the weather, crop allotments, late-night TV—to which Nashlin replies monosyllabically. Auralee sees where she got her chatterbox instincts from. If the mayor notices how strangely silent his daughter is, he doesn’t comment on it.

But when they’re unloading the cart at their destination, Nashlin bumps into her, elbow-to-elbow. “Heard there was a ruckus at the office,” she says in low tones, like a conspirator.

Auralee frowns at the sudden congeniality. “Nothing serious; someone named Eric, a few others.” She decides not to tell Nashlin that Eric’s kid saw the ritual with the blood.

“Hmm. Eric Salinsky? He’s been on daddy’s case for a while. Nothing much he can do.”

“No.” She doesn’t like speaking of conflict; it’s not something she’s used to. “A church smooths the wrinkles between people and breaks down walls of division. He’ll calm down once its established. It won’t be long now.”

“I’m glad you came,” Nashlin says. She seems completely back to normal. “I doubted at first, but now I’m glad.”

Mayor Stokes watches while the four of them break the ground with tools. A foot of dirt, then two. A third. Auralee admires how well Nashlin wields the shovel: practiced, efficient. She catches Auralee watching and grins.

The hole grows until it is sufficiently deep. Under Auralee’s direction, Cardin and Yeshua gingerly bring the lead box to the lip of the chasm. She puts on her protective gear: face shield, apron, triple-layered gloves. The others withdraw to the edge of the plot, apprehensive, as Auralee activates the lid. It hinges open to reveal its tender core, the yellow block of a church seed, its top glistening wetly. A cubic foot of marrow. Auralee slides her gloved hands into the box and lifts the seed free, heavy as a slab of flesh. Gingerly, sliding on the fragile soil, she steps into the trench and lowers the cube to the ground. It sticks to the plastic of her gloves, sucking at the impervious surface. She pulls herself free. The seed immediately germinates upon touching earth. Yellow fronds burst forth into nets that spread like water, burrowing into the ground. Auralee leaps away before her feet get caught in the eruption of churchflesh. “Quickly,” she says to the others. “Bury it now.”

With four of them working, the growing lump vanishes beneath clods of dirt, and soon the earth is mounded over with freshly-disturbed soil. Auralee imagines her drop of blood soaked into the firmament, crumbling over the infant church, anointing its forehead as it breaks into the light.

“Now what?” Nashlin asks.

“Now we put up the fence,” Auralee says. “A hundred-foot radius.” Churches need space from people. Really it’s more that people need space from churches. Their song gets too loud, or curiosity overtakes the human and they just have to touch. It still happens on occasion, despite all the precautions taken. Auralee has seen what happens. She doesn’t like to think about it.

They array the fenceposts in a neat pattern around the plot. Each one is a slender titanium rod studded with projection knobs. It’s not much of a fence now, but by tomorrow, when the church is up and running, a thin membrane of forcefield will sit between each post, blue and thrumming. Together Auralee and Nashlin shove in the last rod, closing the putative circle. It is done. Already the grass where they’ve buried the church has crisped brown. The ground swells with subterranean growth. A newly-planted church can double in size every hour; by the next sunrise it could be as large as a house, oxidizing pink in the air and sunlight.

“I can hear it,” Nashlin says, staring at the mound. “It’s singing. I can hear it.”

Their job done, Yeshua and Cardin start walking back to the cart, dusting their hands on their thighs. Mayor Stokes trails after them, but Nashlin remains rooted to the spot, staring as though waiting for the first horns of churchflesh to emerge.

“Nash!” the mayor calls, but she doesn’t respond.

Auralee darts over and smacks her on the elbow. “Hey.”

Nashlin turns around. Her gaze seems bright and fevered; Auralee is reminded of her mother’s face in the grip of prayer, when she would become consumed by ecstasy. “We’re leaving,” Auralee says. “We’re done here.”

Nashlin throws a lingering glance over her shoulder at the church. “Why do we have to fence it off? It’s so far away.”

“Because it’s necessary. Because people will always want to touch it. But they can’t, they’ll be absorbed. I’ve seen it happen; you don’t want that.”

Still, Nashlin hesitates, unwilling to leave.

“It’ll be there,” Auralee says. “It’ll always be there. You can come back anytime to look at it. From a distance, like anybody else. But it won’t matter, because its song will be with you.”

Finally, the other woman nods, and heads up the grassy incline to the cart, her big black boots making heavy footfalls. Auralee keeps turning back to make sure she’s following, as if Nashlin might break free and run back to the church if she isn’t watched. The woman keeps her eyes fixed to the humming soil, and Auralee knows where her head is, deep in the song that is new to her.

Silence reigns on the ride back; Cardin and Yeshua are worn out by the afternoon’s work, or the gravity of what they’ve done. Mayor Stokes begins with small talk, but quickly gives up when no one replies, reducing him to the occasional huff as he wipes his brow with a handkerchief. Auralee’s attention remains fixed on Nashlin’s broad back, imagining her smothered by the weight of devotion. On the wind, a furtive keening has begun to play, syncing with the music in Auralee’s ear. A new voice has joined the heavenly choir.

• • • •

Auralee plans to leave in the morning after checking that the church has taken properly and there are no problems. She sleeps in her transport, which offers more comfort than any cotton-stuffed hotel bed. Lying in the moldable divan, she dreams of her parents, who died more than fifteen years ago. It’s not so much a dream as her brain going through pieces of memory, turning them over and over like a water wheel. She’s sitting in her mother’s bony lap, staring at the neat black part of her hair as she sings, her voice harmonizing with the tune of the church. She’s trailing behind a man in a dark velvety frock, her mother’s string of beads clutched in her hands. He’s telling her where she will sleep now that she’s being raised by the priesthood, since both her parents are dead. She’s perched on the fin of a police cruiser in front of the twin cathedrals, blankly answering questions. Over the police officer’s shoulder rise the ruddy shapes of the two holy edifices, wild and pointed like a thousand trees bundled together, each one comprising an infinity of hollow tubes. Those depths now contain her mother and father, kneeling in eternal worship, bodies transformed into salmon-pink bone. She’s standing in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom, an invisible shadow, listening to them talk and pray by yellow light, not yet understanding what they are planning. Her mother sits her down the night before they do it and explains how she’s so incredibly sick and will never get better. But they, mommy and daddy, are going to do something so they can be together until the end of time. “We’ll be in every note of the song,” she says. Auralee spent a long part of her childhood wondering why her parents didn’t take her with them, why they left her behind. They wanted her to live her life, but what is she meant to do that’s so important?

She wakes up to frantic pounding on the door of the transport. Someone’s shouting, calling her all sorts of vulgar names. She thinks she recognizes the voice. Against her better instincts she decides to answer—but not before arming herself with a taser.

She cracks the door open. Eric from the town hall launches himself through. She screams; they land on the hard floor, his sour breath in her face. “You bitch! You murderer!”

He violently shakes her by the collar. Spittle peppers her cheek. Auralee jabs the taser upwards into soft flesh; she’s not sure what she hits, but Eric rolls away, screaming in pain. She scrambles to her feet, dizzy; the transport tilts around her.

“Murderer!” Eric continues to shout as he writhes on the floor. “Her blood is on your hands! Yours!”

Frightened, confused, she runs outside before Eric can get to his feet. She trips on the hem of her sleeping gown; she gets up, elbow torn and bleeding. Adrenaline flattens pain to a dull throb.

Just then a cart pulls up next to her transport, coming to a haphazard stop, wheels squealing and crooked. One of the guys from yesterday—Cardin, she thinks?—jumps from the driver’s seat. Auralee springs for him, relieved. She grabs him by the shoulder. “Help me! That guy, Eric. He’s in my transport. He’s lost his mind. He attacked me!”

Cardin stares. He looks dazed, upset. Auralee glances past him and realizes that Mayor Stokes is sitting in the back of the cart, his face pale and pinched. Something is wrong. She doesn’t see Nashlin. Then she remembers Eric’s delirious raving.

With a swift, sinking thought she understands. She knows what has happened.

Yeshua deals with Eric while Cardin takes her and the mayor to the church plot. Overnight it has grown taller than a man, pushing through the soil in the shape of a mountain. Blocky, like a reef made of basalt columns. This one is more flat-topped than most. It’s smaller than Auralee expects, but she’s never seen a church this young.

“There,” Cardin says, pointing.

She must have climbed the fence overnight, unable to resist the siren call of churchsong. Unlike the cathedrals back home, this churchling isn’t big enough to obscure the shape of a whole human figure absorbed into it. Its side bulges, forming a shape like a gravestone, tapering towards the top where a head and shoulders would be. Nothing of Nashlin remains except one of her big boots, thrust out from the fractal pink of the church.

This is her fault. Why did she tell Nashlin about the people who died touching churches? She put the idea in her head. Nashlin—with her dumb, eager smile, with her willingness to jump headfirst into stupid things—would have wanted to try, punch-drunk as she was on new worship, on churchsong.

“What do you mean there’s nothing you can do?” Mayor Stokes asks, his voice reedy with panic. “She’s in there, you’ve got to get her out.”

She doesn’t know how to tell him Nashlin is gone, church food, dissolved into her component chemicals to fuel the growing structure. It is true that churches aren’t watered with blood, but they are fed the bodies of deceased faithful, a way of repaying the edifices that give them so much in life. In cities the waitlist for a church burial is so long it has to be lotteried. Sometimes people jump the queue. Other times they want nothing more than to become one with the fungal body, to be woven into song.

“That’s why we put up fences,” Auralee says. “The churches eat anything that comes into contact with them. They’re parasites in that way.”

“That they sure are,” Cardin says, with surprising venom in his voice.

She tells the mayor what everyone in the cities already knows. Put up warning signs. Educate the people. Watch the fences. Despite your best efforts, there will be losses: one or two will slip past every year. You can’t stop them making the choices they make. You just have to accept it.

But that’s no comfort to a man who has lost his only child. Auralee parrots what her mother once told her. “She is in every note of the song. She will go everywhere, touch everything under the sun. In every waking moment, in every second you are asleep, so long as you hear the music of the church, she is there with you.” She’s said it so often in the years since her parents died that she’s come to believe it. The mayor will, too.

• • • •

There’s an inquiry, of course. Someone needs to answer for the planting going so wrong, for the undesirable loss of life, for the many letters of discontent written by Mayor Stokes. Sister Auralee recounts the sequence of events a dozen times to a dozen different audiences, the repetition its own punishment. The council of bishops confers. White papers are written, debated, rewritten. They deliberate for months. When they come to a conclusion, they find Sister Auralee not culpable for Nashlin’s death; in fact, no one was at fault. The actions of the deceased were regrettable, but they were independently taken. She was forewarned. Her death is filed as a misadventure, and changes are made to the planting protocol to prevent future tragedies.

The verdict should come as a relief to Auralee, but it does not. Even when absolved of the blame, she keeps returning to those two days spent in the sun, picking apart each moment to examine them for what she could have done better. What if she hadn’t watered the soil with her blood? What if she were more careful with her earpiece? What if she had invited Nashlin to stay the night, inventing some pretense, so that she wouldn’t have been left unattended? Questions and questions and questions, to which she’ll never have an answer. Her career stalls; it’s never said, but with her first planting ending so disastrously, she’s never getting another, and with that her chances of making arborist drop to zero. With her lifelong dream fading before her, Auralee has nothing to turn to except prayer. She spends hours on her knees between the twin cathedrals, hands clasped, letting churchsong whip through her, filling the corners of her mind. She imagines the force of their song pummeling the cells of her body, softening her bones, turning her marrow to jelly.

She recalls something her mother told her. They were church-watching, perhaps a week or two before her parents climbed the fence. Auralee clasps her mother’s fragile hand tightly, as if afraid she might be carried off by the wind that pulsates with music. Her mother says, gazing up at the night sky: “The churches came from outer space. I bet you can hear their song not only here, on this planet, but also everywhere in the cosmos.” She points upwards. “When we die, when we go into the church, I want to explore the universe. Wouldn’t it be lovely, leaping from star to star, seeing all that it has to offer?” But Auralee thinks her mother is wrong. She hopes she’s wrong. She doesn’t care for interstellar travel at all. On the day when she finally gives in, when she finally clambers over that blue fencing and presses her bare hand to the keening, slippery surface of the cathedral, on that day she hopes that she goes deep into the ground, into the soil where all the roots and dirt and bones are, and down there she will find all who have passed before, her mother and father with their long hands, Nashlin with her crooked smile, waiting for her. Waving to her. Welcome home.