by Cynthia Hand
I sling myself off him awkwardly, and do my best to pretend that what almost happened didn’t almost happen. He sits up and starts brushing snow from his shoulders. Then from the top of the hill a voice suddenly booms down on us. Ski patrol. “Everybody all right down there?”
“Yeah,” Christian calls back. “We’re fine.” He looks at me and his expression suddenly changes. “I found it,” he says, reaching into the snow beside him. “It was here all along.”
“What?” I ask a bit dazedly.
“Your ski.”
That and something else.
“You look like you’ve been having fun.” This from Tucker, who I happen to bump into in the lodge at lunchtime. I feel my cheeks burn, and for a moment I can hardly take a breath, although I try to act calm. Christian, thankfully, is off getting us some food.
“Yep, fun, fun, fun,” I finally respond. “I think I know what I’m doing now. On the slopes, I mean. I’m solidly blue square. Not sure I’m up to black diamonds yet.”
He grins. “I’m glad you finally decided to come up. You hardly ever use that fancy season pass your mom bought you at Christmas.” This is a serious accusation, coming from him. A season pass is more than two thousand smackers. Not using it is like tossing money into the fireplace. It’s a crime.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been kind of preoccupied lately.”
He immediately shifts gears into super-supportive-boyfriend mode.
“Everything going okay?” he asks. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s all right. Having a harder time getting around, I guess.”
“Anything I can do, you holler,” he says. “I’m here for you.”
“Thanks.”
“Want to ski later? I’m teaching Tiny Tot lessons until four, but then we can carve up this mountain. I bet I could still teach you a thing or two.”
“That sounds great, but . . .”
“You probably have to get home to your mom,” he assumes, his eyes sympathetic.
“No, I . . .”
Christian picks this minute to appear behind Tucker, carrying a tray.
“Sorry that took so long. I put everything on it,” he says, nodding at my cheeseburger. “I didn’t know what you liked.”
Tucker turns, looks at Christian, looks at the food, looks at Christian again. “She doesn’t like onions,” he says. He turns back to me. “You came up here with him?”
“Uh, he asked me and I thought it sounded like a good idea. I kind of needed to get out of the house for a while.”
Tucker nods absently, and I’m suddenly aware of how my hair is still wet from the snow melting into it, my cheeks flushed, my skin bright, and it’s not just from the cold.
Get a grip, Clara, I tell myself. Nothing happened. You and Christian are friends, and Tucker gets that, and it’s okay to go skiing with your friend. Nothing happened.
Sorry, Christian says in my head. I’m getting you in trouble, aren’t I?
No. It’s all good, I reply, mortified that he can hear me thinking right now, picking out the guilty thoughts from my brain.
“I was a bit afraid to ask her, frankly,” Christian says to Tucker.
Tucker crosses his arms. “Is that right?”
“I went skiing with her last year, and she almost killed us both.”
Hey, I protest silently. I did not almost kill us. Don’t tell him that.
“Come on, don’t bother denying it,” Christian aims at me.
“It was my first time on a chairlift. Cut me some slack,” I shoot back.
“Well, she was just telling me that she’s getting so much better now,” Tucker says.
“I took her up to Dog Face,” Christian tells him. “You should have seen the wipeout she had. Killer.”
“Oh yeah? I didn’t know she ever fell,” Tucker says.
It’s like watching a train wreck, this conversation.
“Partial yard sale,” Christian says. “Biffed it big-time.”
“Hello? I’m standing right here.” I punch him on the arm.
“It was pretty damn—”
“It was not funny,” I cut him off. “It was cold.”
“You’re supposed to be immune to cold,” he says. “It’s good practice.”
“Right. Uh-huh.” I try not to smile. “Practice.”
“Sounds hilarious,” Tucker says. He glances at his watch. “Okay, so I have to go. Some of us have to work.” He leans in and kisses my cheek, which is a bit awkward with the ski boots and the full winter gear and all, but we manage. “So, meet me at four at the bottom of the Moose Creek quad? I can take you home, if Chris here doesn’t mind.”
“No problem,” Christian says like it doesn’t bother him at all. “At four o’clock, she’s all yours. That still leaves us what, three good hours of skiing?”
“Great,” Tucker says. Then he says to me, “Try not to hurt yourself, okay?”
Tucker hardly talks on the drive home.
“You okay?” I ask him, which I know is the dumbest question ever, but I can’t help myself. The silence is killing me.
Suddenly he pulls over to the side of the road and puts the old farm car in park.
“You finish each other’s sentences.” He turns and stares at me with quiet accusation in his eyes. “You and Christian. You finish each other’s sentences.”
“Tuck. It’s no big—”
“Yes, it is big. It’s more than that. It’s like you can read each other’s minds.”
I put my hand on his arm, search for the right words.
“He was making you smile,” he says softly, refusing to look into my eyes again.
“We’re friends,” I say.
His jaw tightens.
“We’re connected,” I admit. “We’ve always been kind of connected. It’s because of the visions. But we’re just friends.”
“Do you hang out with him, as friends? Outside of that Angel Club thing of Angela’s?”
“A few times.”
“A few times,” he repeats slowly. “Like how many? Three? Four?”
I make a mental count of the times he’s shown up on the roof of my house. “Maybe five. Six. I don’t keep count, Tuck.”
“Six,” he says. “See now, that’s more than a few. I’d say that counts as ‘quite a few.’”
“Tucker—”
“And you didn’t tell me because . . .”
I sigh. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be—”
I can’t say it.
“Jealous,” he fills in. “I’m not.”
He leans back against the seat, closes his eyes for a minute, then blows out a long breath. “Actually, you know what? I’m crazy jealous.”
He opens his eyes and looks at me with a kind of puzzled amusement. “Wow. I hate being that guy. All afternoon I’ve been about a horse hair from going all Bruce Banner and Hulk-smashing a locker. I bet that’s attractive, right?”
I can’t tell if he’s serious, so I act like he’s joking. “Actually, it’s kind of cute, in a caveman sort of way. Green is definitely your color.”
He looks at me steadily. “You can’t blame me, though. You had the hots for Prescott all last year.”
“But that was because I thought he was my . . .” Again, I can’t say it.
“Your destiny,” Tucker says. “Why does that not make me feel any better?”
“See, now who’s finishing my sentences? He and I are friends,” I insist again. “I admit I was a bit obsessed by the idea of Christian last year. But it was an idea. I didn’t even know him. You’re the real deal.”
He laughs. “I’m the real deal,” he scoffs, but I can tell he likes it.
“Christian is my past. You’re my future.”
Now I’m talking in clichés.
“You’re my right now,” I say quickly, and that’s not any better.
The side of his mouth lifts in an attempt at a smile. “Sheesh, Carrots, did you just say I’m your Mr. Right Now?”
&
nbsp; “Sorry.”
“Man, do you ever have a way with words. Be still my heart.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“So you and Prescott are friends. Friendly, friendly friends. That’s fine. I can be cool with that. But tell me one thing: did anything happen between you and Christian, for real, not in your visions or what your people want from you or anything like that, but in real life, anything I should know about? Even before we started dating?”
Uh . . . I think we’ve established that I’m not the best liar. Most of the time, when confronted by the choice between fessing up and concocting a whopper, even if it’s for a good reason, like protecting my family or keeping the world from finding out about the angel stuff, I freeze, my face gets all wooden, my mouth gets dry. In other words, I choke. Which is why I surprise myself right then by looking straight up into Tucker’s vulnerable blue eyes, those eyes that say he loves me but he wants to know the truth, no matter how much it hurts, and I say in this perfectly calm and steady voice: “No. Nothing happened.”
And he believes me.
I feel sorrow then. Just a flash, there and gone in the space of a few heartbeats, so fast that Tucker doesn’t notice the single tear that slips down my face.
This time I don’t even consider that it might be a Black Wing. It’s me.
I brush it away.
Chapter 11
Storm’s Coming
Last year when the snow melted, it was great to pack up our winter coats, breathe in that new earth smell, and feel that first hint of warmth return to the valley. But this year, the sight of the snowmelt dripping off the roof, tiny sprouts pushing up and out of the flower beds, green leaves uncurling on the aspens, it all fills me with dread.
It’s spring. Between now and summer, my mother will leave us.
In the latest dream I’m in the cemetery, walking up the hillside among the graves on a sunny day. Looking at the people around me, I realize that this crowd is largely made up of the congregation. Walter holding a handkerchief. Billy, who doesn’t look sad in the least, cheery even, and smiles at me when I catch her eye. Mr. Phibbs in a gray tweed sport coat. Then there are others who I don’t recognize, angel-bloods from other parts of the world, people my mom lived and worked with during her one hundred and twenty years on earth.
It seems so obvious now that this was about my mom. Why couldn’t I see that from the start?
The answer is simple: because Tucker never shows up. Never. Not in any of the visions. Not this time, either. I try to ignore my growing sense of betrayal, that there could be no possible reason that’s good enough for him not to be there at my mother’s funeral. He’s not dying, which is a huge relief. But he’s not there.
If only there was something that this vision’s telling me to do, an action to take, some sense of—pardon the pun—purpose in all of this, a way to train and plan and prepare the way I did for the forest fire. But the dream doesn’t seem to be telling me to do anything but to get ready for the biggest loss of my life. I feel like a bug waiting under God’s enormous shoe, and all this dream is telling me, all it’s leading me to, is to show up and stand there and wait to be crunched.
If I ever do get to meet God, the way Mom used to talk about, then He’s going to have some serious explaining to do, is all I’m saying. Because this just feels mean.
In the dream, we reach a place near the top of the hill where everybody stops. I walk like I’m underwater, one slow foot in front of the other. As the crowd parts to let me pass, something starts to freeze up inside of me. I stop breathing as I take the final steps. I think, I don’t want to see.
But I do see, and nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my mother’s coffin, a rich and gleaming mahogany-colored coffin, topped with a mass of white roses.
I have the weirdest thought at this moment. I can’t tell if it’s me or future-Clara, but I think, Did Mom pick the coffin herself? It’s so her. I imagine her coffin shopping, strolling around a showroom eyeballing coffins the way she does antique furniture, sizing them up, finally glancing over at the salesman and pointing to one and saying, “I’ll take this one.”
This one.
My vision blurs. I sway on my feet. Christian’s hand abruptly leaves mine. He steps closer to me, encircling my waist with his arm, steadies me. Then his other hand, his right hand this time, returns to mine. He squeezes briefly.
Do you need to sit down? he asks gently in my mind.
No, I reply. My sight clears. I stare at Jeffrey, who’s gazing at the coffin so intently I think it could burst into flames, fists clenched at his sides. At first I want to look everywhere but at the coffin, and then when I do, when I cast around it, all I get are people’s faces, searching eyes, sympathetic expressions. I force myself to focus on a single white rose. The light is filtering through the trees at an angle, which strikes this one small rosebud, just beginning to open its petals, a perfect glowing white.
Then the sorrow comes, a wave of grief so fierce I struggle to suppress the choking sound in the back of my throat. I feel strangely detached, floating away. Someone moves to the other side of the coffin, clears his throat. It’s a red-haired man with solemn hazel eyes. It takes me a second to place him. Stephen. A priest or something. He meets my eyes.
He wants to know if you’re ready, says Christian in my mind.
Ready?
For him to start.
Please. Yes.
Stephen nods solemnly.
“Dearly beloved,” he says.
That’s when I check out. I don’t hear what he says as he goes on in his slight Irish brogue. I’m sure he’s saying good things about my mother. About her wit. Her kindness. Her strength. Words that couldn’t even begin to describe her.
I focus on the rose.
The sorrow grows, expanding like a frozen lake inside me. Soon they will lower the coffin into the ground. They will cover it with earth. My beautiful, spirited, sweet Meg will be gone forever. . . .
My heart leaps. This isn’t like the sorrow attacks I had before. These are words, and they’re not my words. Not my sorrow, or my feelings.
There is a Black Wing here, after all.
Samjeeza.
I’m suddenly über-aware of everything. I feel the breeze against my bare arms. Birds sing distantly in the trees. I smell pine, roses, wildflowers. I search all the faces around me, some of which are gazing back mournfully, but I don’t see Samjeeza. His feelings are coming through loud and clear now. It’s him. I’m sure of it. He is watching us from a distance and can’t stand how we can gather so near her grave to say good-bye in her last moments above earth. He loved her, he thinks. He loved her and he’s furious that he lost her, after all these years of waiting for her. He hates us. If his hate were the sun, it would burn us all to ash.
“Okay, everybody, let’s calm down,” says Billy, looking around the circle of angel-bloods who are gathered in the meadow around the campfire. “This is really no big deal.”
“No big deal?” exclaims a woman from across the circle. “She told us that a Black Wing will be at Maggie’s graveside.”
“Maybe she’s wrong. Black Wings can’t enter cemeteries. They’re hallowed ground,” says someone else.
“Is Aspen Hill hallowed, though? It’s not a traditional cemetery. There’s no churchyard.”
“It is hallowed. Others of our kind are buried there,” Walter Prescott says.
Christian meets my eyes across the flickering flames.
I’m not making this up, I send to him as practically the entire congregation starts arguing again. He was there.
I believe you.
“People, please.” Billy raises her hand, and amazingly everybody begins to quiet down. She smiles with the confidence of a warrior princess. “This is one Black Wing we’re talking about, and it’s Samjeeza, who’s probably there to grieve for Maggie, not to fight. We’re all going to be there. We can handle this.”
“I have children to think about,” s
ays a woman stiffly. “I won’t put them in unnecessary danger.”
Billy sighs. I know she’s this close to rolling her eyes. “So don’t bring them, Julia.”
“And there could be more of them,” someone else announces loudly. “It’s dangerous.”
“It’s always dangerous,” rings out an authoritative voice. Walter Prescott, again. “Black Wings could come for any one of us at any time. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
Mom casts a knowing look at Walter.
“How long has it been?” asks Julia, the woman with the kids. “Since you’ve had contact with Samjeeza?”
“We’ve been over this. I hadn’t seen him in fifty years, until this past summer,” Mom says.
“When he happened upon your daughter at Static Peak,” someone else supplies. “And you defended yourself using glory.”
“That’s correct.”
So they all know about it. It’s like there’s an angel tabloid, and I’ve been on the front page. It makes me feel guilty, somehow, like if it hadn’t been for my purpose and my flying over the mountains that day, scouting for the fire, we wouldn’t all be caught up in this unpleasant conversation about fallen angels and where it’s safe for us to be.
“You told us that you didn’t think he’d be back anytime soon,” Julia accuses. “You said he was injured.”
So much for them all treating my mom with reverence, I think. But it makes sense now. It wasn’t reverence, before. It was pity. They all knew that she was going to die, and they treated her like she was delicate, breakable. They weren’t treating her like their leader. They were treating her like an elderly woman. Which now, since her death might turn out to be dangerous or inconvenient for them, is apparently yesterday’s news.
“He was,” Mom answers smoothly. “I was able to grab hold of him while I was in glory, and I took off his ear. I thought he was too vain to show himself until he was fully healed.”
Again with her not wanting them to know the full story of what happened that day. It’s a bald-faced lie. I look at her sharply, but she doesn’t even glance in my direction.
“So he’s healed, then,” Julia says.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “What I do know is that Clara feels his presence in the cemetery.”
