Black

by Angelina J. Steffort

  “It wasn’t more than a year when Charles became ill. We had several doctors checking on him, but nobody found any reason for his sickness. He became weaker and weaker within days, and after little more than a month, he died, leaving William and me behind. It was hard times then. We ran out of money quickly and I tried to find a job, but as a woman, nobody would hire me anywhere. And William—he had plans of his own.”

  Jenna shook her head slowly, her eyes far away in the memory.

  “After a few years of living on whatever money William provided—I still think most of it came from criminal activities, he was much too lazy for honest work—William thought it was time I brought in some money of my own. I was young then, pretty. Eighteen. William invited me to a restaurant one evening. It was a fancy place. Too expensive for us, but he insisted he wanted to take me there that night. We met several people there and two men had dinner with us, Frank Linberg and Albert Gracy. Both of them rich businessmen. Frank was a kind man around fifty. He reminded me a little of our father, with his gray wavy hair and the dimple in his chin. Albert, on the other hand, was younger. Thirty-two. He was the only son and heir of an entrepreneur in New York, where we were living.

  “It was only after dinner, at home, when William introduced me to his plans to marry me to Albert Gracy. The deal was already made, or so he told me. I would become Albert’s wife and William would get a monthly payment and a flat in the nicest district in New York. He would get rid of me. That was what he was after all along. Money and nobody he had to share it with.”

  I watched Jenna turn to the window. She had me caught up in her story. I didn’t worry about anything right now, I was too amazed by what she had to tell.

  “I had no choice. William would have kicked me out onto the streets that day if I hadn’t agreed. Charles would have never let that happen, had he still been alive.

  “It was less than a month before the wedding took place. I became Missus Albert Hugh Gracy. William was only too pleased when Albert announced that he wanted to move further into the country to build some new business, as he called it. So we moved and that was when Lenard Mansion was built.”

  I didn’t dare to interrupt, but I was glad Chris did. It seemed like he didn’t know all of the story himself.

  “Why is it called Lenard Mansion when it was Albert Gracy who built it? Why not Gracy Mansion?” Chris asked curiously. He seemed as caught up in the story as I was.

  Jenna smiled bitterly. “Be patient. I’ll tell you in a minute.” And then she continued.

  “Albert was very successful. He became even wealthier within years. At the beginning, he took me out to parties a lot. He needed me as his accessory. He acted the perfect gentleman there, but at home he wasn’t. I was unhappy at the parties and I was afraid to come home with him after them, for he would be drunk and when he was drunk, he didn’t care when he hurt me.

  “After a while, I was alone at home most of the time with our servants. He lost interest, like a child in some toy, and I was grateful that he did. That meant I didn’t see him that often and I didn’t have to think of excuses for my black eyes or bruised lips.” Jenna’s face hardened. “He wanted an heir and when it became apparent we could not have children, he blamed me and the beatings began. I wrote to William to come and get me, that it was unbearable.

  “William neither answered the letter, nor did he come to my aid. It was thirty-seven years of bruises and pain when justice found me. I was grateful he had stopped thinking of me as a woman long before that night. After one of his parties where he had probably been drinking with some of the young girls he used to keep around, he came home completely drunk making loud noise and waking up the entire hose. I remember Carla, our kitchen-servant, standing in the entrance hall in her nightgown. I was standing on the top if the stairs, afraid it might be burglars.

  “When he saw me standing there, he yelled at me, as usual. He stumbled up the stairs, shouting about what a useless whore I was, and how he would kill me if he hadn’t promised my brother not to. He grabbed me around the waist and...” Her voice trailed off.

  “What happened?” My whisper was loud after the silence. Jenna turned around and pressed her lips into a thin line, her soft brown eyes hard as stone.

  “It was the last time he ever hurt me. Carla hurried up and tried to pull me away. Albert just lost his balance. You know the staircase. Straight down. Twenty-two steps. He was dead before he hit the hall. It was the happiest day of my life. I was finally free of the constant fear and the regular pain my husband inflicted on me. It was the night I spread wings for the first time. Nobody was with me. Nobody triggered my abilities. I don’t have to carry the burden you call mark. And after what I’ve learned since then, I’m endlessly thankful I don’t.”

  Silence filled the room for a while. Chris stood brooding in one corner of the room. I hadn’t noticed him walking over there.

  “What happened to your brother?” I asked, unable to restrain myself.

  “As Albert and I had no children, I was the sole heir, or so I thought at first. William turned up a short time after Albert’s death to claim half of my inheritance and it was legal. Albert had put it down in his last will.

  “When William came back, he brought a young woman with him—Greta. She was half my age. She was his wife. We became friends after some time of living together. She was very unhappy with my brother and I couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t violent, but she didn’t love him and with my half of the inheritance I could afford to buy a small house in the east of the country and I had Greta visit me as often as possible.

  “William died some ten years later, leaving his possessions to his wife, and we moved back in together. By then I had managed to get in control of my powers and I had learned how to age and re-age. I could confide in Greta with my secret and moved in as her twelve-year-old niece, and as Greta’s surname was Lenard, the house just remained Lenard Mansion. End of the story.” She smiled with the last words. It was a warm expression.

  I sat there, having soaked up her every word. How could I never have noticed how much there was to this woman—more than anyone would have expected? She was such an old soul. All the bad things that had happened in her life hadn’t made her bitter.

  It took some time for us all to return to the present. We spoke long and urgently about our new understanding of each other, and it was with reluctance that I finally said I had school the next day and needed to go home. We still had so much to talk about.

  “Will you come back tomorrow?” Chris asked at the door. His face showed traces of the burning expression I had seen earlier this evening.

  “Sure I will.” I hugged him goodbye. “I want to know everything and we will find a solution for your problem.”

  “My wings—” he exhaled the words, almost inaudibly.

  I nodded. “Good night.”

  On my way back home, I had much to think about. Too much to process so quickly. But most importantly, I knew now that although it was my fault Adam was dead, I was still wanted at his parents’ home, and this made me feel like a tiny part of my inner wounds were starting to heal. It gave me hope.

  When I pulled the car into the driveway, light greeted me from inside of the kitchen window. The back of Sophie’s head was visible as I walked from the car to the front door.

  Hoping that she wouldn’t have been worried, I unlocked the front door and let myself in.

  “I’m back!” I called as I slipped out of my shoes and my jacket.

  She was sitting in the kitchen with Ian, both of them laughing at some joke I had missed.

  “Where were you?” Sophie asked between two laughs. I was glad she hadn’t checked the time, yet.

  “Over at the Gallagers’.” I made it sound casual, like it was nothing special to do, hanging out there.

  “How come?” Her voice was guarded now. I could tell from the way the words hung in the air that she expected a good answer. She didn’t trust my mask of stability.

  I closed
my eyes for a second, hoping to put on a believable face when I opened them again.

  “I wanted to see Jenna and Chris. I hadn’t seen them in weeks.”

  Sophie eyed me suspiciously.

  “I wondered how they were doing.” That was almost the truth.

  It seemed like Sophie was satisfied with my answer. She turned back to Ian and they returned to the conversation I had interrupted.

  On my way upstairs, I felt the pressure of the day crushing down on me. I had handled most of the situations reasonably well; I had even had a real conversation with my friend. I had found the courage to finally see the Gallagers and it could have been worse.

  I got ready for bed and crept under the quilt. My body felt heavy and limp as I stretched out my limbs on the soft mattress. My heart was bleeding. The entire day, I had been able to cover the pain of it with sensations of all kinds, always keeping the constant torment at a low level, but I had felt it all the same. Maybe today I had just made a first step towards not reacting to the continuous ache anymore. But did that make me stronger or weaker?

  The next day, Thursday, I was sitting in the cafeteria with Lydia. I had picked a table in the corner farthest from the entrance, hoping I would be mostly invisible there, and we were sitting in silence with our lunch and little interest in the conversations going on around us. I was deep in thought, with a slice of pizza paused halfway to my mouth when I heard familiar voices alarmingly close by.

  “No,” I moaned at my plate. “No, no, no. Not today.”

  Slowly, I set down the slice. I didn’t need to look. It was Amber and Jaden. Even though my voice wasn’t more than a whisper, Lydia shot me a curious look. I merely frowned at my pizza and dropped my head. If I could only conjure an invisible force shield that would keep them away—but of course I couldn’t. In reality, I could not have been more apparent to everyone and there they were, standing at our table and smiling broadly.

  Regretfully letting go of the thought that with a few seconds warning I could have grabbed my books and bolted, leaving Lydia to deal with it all, I simply raised my head and forced a smile.

  “Hey guys,” Amber said—too loud for my taste, and a bit shrill. “This is Jaden, our new student.”

  As if I didn’t know.

  “Hello, Jaden,” Lydia’s tone was polite and friendly. I managed a neutral nod.

  “Jaden, these are my friends, Lydia and Claire,” Amber trumpeted. Golden light seemed to swirl in the air as Jaden’s hair fell forward with his nod and brilliant smile. I saw Lydia’s eyes widen involuntarily.

  “Mind if we join you?” Amber was working this moment pretty hard and I wondered if it really was too late to grab my books and go. I disguised my upcoming eye roll with a blink and quickly looked back at my pizza.

  “Everywhere else is full,” Jaden said helpfully, with a tiny glint of amusement as he looked at me. Lydia responded by taking her bookbag off a vacant chair and setting it on the floor.

  “Please,” she gestured an invitation aimed more at Jaden, I thought, than Amber. I couldn’t blame her. He was amazing. They sat down, Amber making sure to take the chair next to me, putting Jaden across the table.

  “Jaden’s from Washington D.C. and is going to spend his final year of school here in Aurora.” Amber was practically chirping with delight.

  “Oh, really, Washington,” I acknowledged, smiling a little in spite of myself. Probably Jaden knew Washington inside out and could be convincing as anything if there were questions.

  “What made you move from the capital to this, well, whatever it is at the back of beyond?” Lydia asked with what seemed like honest interest, although little enthusiasm for Aurora.

  “Didn’t have a choice,” Jaden said, “My father got a new job. But Aurora seems like a pretty nice place.” His eyes flickered toward me for a microsecond, not long enough to alarm Amber. I admired how smoothly he told his story.

  “His father’s a lawyer...” Amber took over to tell Jaden’s story. It seemed a little like she wanted to show us how very well she had gotten to know the new guy in the past few days. I stopped listening after a while, watching her body language instead. The big word claim was written in her eyes and I saw it from the way she looked at him from the corner of her eyes. In her imagination, she was already planning their wedding.

  I saw it coming that she would hate me, blame me when Jaden wasn’t interested in her. If Jaden was watching out for me, his attention would inevitably focus on me and, unable to provide her the real reason, Amber would make up her own version of the story. She was going to get hurt and it was going to be my fault.

  “Claire?” a voice tore me from my horror visions. It was familiar. Jaden.

  “Sorry, what?” I looked at him and he locked his eyes on mine, not letting my gaze escape his.

  “Amber just told me about your problems with history,” he said.

  “Did she?” I replied coldly. “Thank you, Amber,” I muttered at her without being able to take my eyes off Jaden.

  “Hey, I didn’t know this was a secret,” Amber defended herself.

  “If you need any help,” Jaden continued as if Amber hadn’t spoken at all, “I’d be honored to lend you a hand.”

  My eyes were sinking into his, falling deep into the light brown of his irises. A minute ago, I had wanted him to stay away, to leave me alone to deal with my problems my way. Now I felt the heat of his nearness and I wanted him to stay with me forever. I wanted the people around us to vanish and time to stop. I felt oddly at home with him. All my sorrows had suddenly disappeared—all, but that bleeding heart of mine. I took a deep breath and kept falling deeper into his gaze.

  Amber cleared her throat a little too violently to sound natural. I jumped in my seat and the connection between Jaden and me was gone.

  “Thank you, but I have somebody who helps me,” I croaked, knowing that Amber would throttle me if I accepted Jaden’s offer. My gaze lowered back to my plate and I lifted the rest of my pizza to my mouth and took a big bite, indicating that I was finished with talking.

  “Oh,” Jaden’s disappointed voice was almost swallowed by the noise of the crowd around us.

  Amber turned towards him and pulled his attention back to her with detailed questions about his life in Washington. Lydia shot me another inquisitive look and this time I just shook my head at her and continued eating.

  On my way from school to the library, I had a little time to think about everything that had happened lately. Jenna being an angel. Chris not being able to spread wings. Jaden becoming a student. Amber crushing on Jaden. The strange feeling I’d had as I had exchanged gazes with Jaden.

  Mr. Baker, my boss at the public library, was already waiting for me as I hurried from my car into the building.

  “You’re late,” he told me with a cranky expression on his wrinkled face.

  “Sorry, Mr. Baker.” I dropped my bag behind the counter and got to work. A box of new books was waiting to be numbered and registered in the system and some people were strolling through the rows of shelves.

  I used to work at the public library most Thursdays, but I hadn’t in the past few weeks for reasons I’d rather not have had. It felt strange to be back here. It felt almost like everything was back to normal and I was reminded of the Claire I had been six months ago. But that girl didn’t exist any more than the reason that had made her change in so many ways. I took a deep breath and started to take books from the box, register them, and carry them to their designated places on the shelves.

  It was an ordinary afternoon at the library. Between books and customers, there always were minutes left in which I could ponder my situation.

  “Excuse me, Miss.” A bald man around the age of fifty said in a tenor voice. I looked up from the counter to see what he needed.

  “I’d like to borrow these.” He handed me two books. One was some novel by a French author I didn’t know, and the other was ‘A Compendium of Seashells’ by Anthony Shriner.

  I too
k the books from his hands and scanned them into the system as lent, then handed them back to the man.

  “Thank you,” the man said in a kind tone as he took the books from my hands and let them sink into a bag made of sand-colored fabric.

  “You are welcome,” I said and pursed my lips while I waited for him to leave.

  As I watched him straighten the handles of the bag, I took a closer look at his appearance. His clothes reminded me a bit of a mad professor—a scientist, maybe. Cord trousers in a muddy brown collar and a woolen pullover under a beige trench coat. His belly was round and he wasn’t much taller than I was. I made a mental note to ask him what the ‘Compendium of Seashells’ was about. Was it a novel or scientific literature? I was curious.

  “Good bye,” the bald man said and turned to leave.

  “Thanks and good bye,” I said in return and watched him walk to the door in small, shuffled steps. He seemed a bit lost and I wondered if he was going to make it to the door without stumbling over his own feet.

  He did make it. A few seconds later, he was squeezing out through the door he was holding half-open with his free hand. I shook my head about the odd man and returned to a completely different thought. How was I going to help Chris? I had seen it in his eyes the day before that he was hurting, that he needed help, but I had no idea what I could do.

  My fingers drummed on the wood of the counter absentmindedly as my thoughts ran laps in my head, trying to find some point where I could be of use to Chris. To help him in any form, I needed information. There were only some things I knew about his situation, but I was pretty sure that I knew the most important things. He was traumatized just like I was, only it was a lot worse for him—he had lost his mark, I had just lost my angel. Then there was the shock about Jenna being an angel, too. I didn’t know exactly how he had taken this news in the first place. And then there was the danger this meant for his second son, Ben.