Lovelock by Kathryn H. Kidd Orson Scott Card

stood at the microphone and carefully took the protective dome off her dandelion.
    “I’d like to spread the word for Odie Lee,” she said. “Odie Lee was an angel in human form. She and her prayer partners were the first to help me when my husband Hyrum was down with prostate cancer. I’ll never know how they even found out we needed help, but she and the prayer partners were at my door, bearing food and leading us in prayers. That’s what I’ll remember about Odie Lee.”
    When the speaker ended, she stood motionless at the podium. Then, hesitantly, the crowd murmured, “Spread the word!” Timidly, the woman held the white flower in front of her mouth and, filling her cheeks with air, blew mightily on it. Immediately the puffball disintegrated; white threads scattered in all directions. Many of them landed on the inert form of Odie Lee that was lying on its cart under the podium. Others were carried aloft by the air currents, and they flew haphazardly across the sanctuary.
    One cluster of filaments landed on the head of a man two rows ahead of me. I leapt from Carol Jeanne’s arm and scampered over the shoulder and lap of the little girl directly in front of us; she gasped in delight. Standing on the back of the next pew, I reached up and picked the piece of white dandelion fur from the top of the man’s head. Several people turned to watch me, smiling or frowning or pointing, but I ignored them. I was only interested in the projectile. I carried it back to Carol Jeanne and held it out to her, but she shook her head and patted the crook of her arm for me to lie next to her there.
    I settled next to her body and inspected my find. The white portion was as soft as down. I tickled my nose with it. Then I reached up and tickled Carol Jeanne’s nose with the featherlike strands. She looked down at me and smiled.
    Attached to each filament was a pale brown seed. That explained it. Once I saw the reason for the buoyancy of the white threads, there was nothing for me to do but discard the fluff and eat the seeds. There was no substance to them, though; they were dry and tasteless.
    The next voice from the podium was so loud and tearful and discordant that it piqued my interest. “I was a prayer partner of Odie Lee’s,” the woman said. “She was always the first to know who had a problem and lead the prayers on their behalf.”
    I heard another woman’s voice mutter in the row behind us, “That’s because her husband couldn’t keep his mouth shut.” Someone shushed at her. “Cyrus told her everything we ever said to him in confidence.”
    “Liz, hush! ” another voice hissed.
    Liz hushed. Not that many humans could have heard her anyway—she spoke very softly. Nevertheless, her words intrigued me. Maybe this Odie Lee wasn’t the saint that Penelope and all these other people thought she was. I wriggled up and peered over Carol Jeanne’s shoulder to get a look at Liz. She was a fairly attractive woman, very skillfully made up, with not a hair out of place. The bull-necked, overmuscled man sitting beside her had to be her husband. From the rigidity of her pose, she did not like it when he hushed her.
    She looked down at me—not moving her head, not varying that perfect posture—and stared coldly at me until I turned back and looked at the podium.
    “Spread the word!” the crowd was murmuring, more confidently than the first time. A puff, and the dandelion seeds were propelled across the church. The prayer partner, a young and tearful woman, marched down the aisle to her seat.
    “I was another prayer partner,” the next woman said piously. “Odie Lee always told us who to pray for, and why they needed our prayers. She always took a dinner to the family and told them we were praying on their behalf.”
    “ Pry ing on their behalf is closer to it,” Liz whispered behind me. “She was only twisting the knife.”
    I couldn’t help looking at Liz again—and this time everything had changed. It was her