Hallowed

by Cynthia Hand

  “Okay, Sensei, let’s go,” she cracks.

  They both close their eyes. I lean forward, watching, waiting for the glow to start, trying to contain my envy that it’s Angela up there and not me. But nothing happens. They just stand there like they’re suspended in time.

  “None of that in here!” comes a voice from the lobby. Anna must be afraid to come in.

  Angela and Christian drop hands, open their eyes. For a minute Angela looks disappointed, but then a mischievous smile spreads across her face.

  “That was so hot,” she says. She turns to look at me with one eyebrow arched. “Right, Clara?”

  “Uh—”

  “I think you wanted to tell me something, too,” she purrs to Christian, totally faking and he knows it. I remember how she told me once that she and Christian played spin the bottle in ninth grade and she thought kissing him was like kissing a brother.

  “Oh yes,” he replies without inflection, “that was pretty hot, Ange. You’re like my dream girl. I always wanted to tell you that.”

  “None of that in here!” Anna Zerbino calls again.

  We all bust up laughing.

  A loud noise wakes me in the middle of the night. For a minute I lie in bed, listening, not sure what’s happening. I feel like I’ve just woken up from a bad dream. I glance at the alarm clock. It’s four in the morning. The house is absolutely quiet. I close my eyes.

  Something crashes. I sit up in bed. The best weapon I can come up with this time is a can of hair spray, like that will do any good if Samjeeza’s here.

  Note to self: buy some nunchucks or something.

  Another crash reverberates through the house, then a loud curse, the sound of breaking glass.

  The noise is coming from Jeffrey’s room.

  I throw on my robe and hurry down the hall. There’s another loud bang. He’s going to wake Mom up if he hasn’t already. I open his door.

  “What are you doing?” I call into the dark, irritated.

  I flip on the light.

  Jeffrey is standing in the middle of the room with his wings out, dressed in just his jeans. He yells in surprise as the light goes on, then swings around with his hand in front of his eyes like I’ve blinded him. His wings catch a stack of books on his desk, which crash to the floor. He’s soaking wet, his hair clinging to his face, a pool forming under him on the hardwood. And he’s laughing.

  “I can’t remember how to retract my wings,” he says, which he obviously finds hilarious.

  I look beyond him to the open window, where the blinds are all twisted up and dangling from one side.

  “Did you just get home?” I ask.

  “No,” he says, grinning. “I went to bed early. I’ve been here all night.”

  He takes a step toward me and stumbles. I catch him by the arm to steady him. That’s when he laughs into my face and I get the full, nasty brunt of his breath.

  “You’re drunk,” I whisper in amazement.

  “At least I didn’t drive,” he says.

  This is bad.

  I stand there for a minute, hanging on to him, trying to get my brain to function at four in the morning. I could go get Mom, assuming she isn’t already on her way up the stairs to find out what the racket is about. If she still has the strength to make it up the stairs. I don’t even know what she’ll do or, worse, what this might do to her. This is way beyond any kind of punishment she’s ever had to dole out. This is like grounded-for-a-year kind of behavior.

  He’s still laughing like he finds this whole situation incredibly funny. I grab him by the ear. He yelps, but he can’t really fight me off. I drag him over to his bed and push him down on it, face-first. Then I tackle his wings, trying to fold them, press them down to rest against his back. I wish there was some magic word in Angelic that would instantly retract them—fold yourself! comes to mind—but at least if I can get them to fold up he won’t do any more damage.

  Jeffrey says something into the pillow.

  “I can’t hear you, moron,” I reply.

  He turns his head. “Leave me alone.”

  “Whatever,” I mutter, still trying to get his wings lined up. “Where’s your shirt? And how did you get all wet?”

  That’s when I notice his gray feathers. The wings are lighter than when I saw them the night of the fire. Then they were a dark gray, I hoped from soot. My wings were covered that night too, but it washed off, mostly. Jeffrey’s wings are still gray. Dove gray, I would call it. And there are a couple of feathers on the back of one wing that are the color of tar.

  “Your feathers . . .” I lean in closer to look at them.

  He chooses that moment to remember how to retract his wings. I fall on him clumsily, then scramble off. He laughs.

  “You are in such deep trouble,” I say furiously.

  He rolls over on his back and looks at me with an expression that’s so mean it literally sends shivers down my spine. It’s like he hates me.

  “What, you’re going to tell Mom?”

  “I should,” I stammer.

  “Go ahead,” he snarls. “It’s not like you never sneak out. Tell Mom. I dare you. See what happens.”

  He sits up. He’s still glaring like any minute he’s going to lunge at me. I take a few steps back.

  “All you ever do is think about yourself,” he says. “Your vision. Your dumb dreams. Your stupid boyfriend.”

  “That’s not true,” I say shakily.

  “You’re not the only one who’s important here, you know. You’re not the only one with a purpose.”

  “I know—”

  “Just leave me alone.” He smiles, a hard, ironic baring of his teeth. “Leave me the hell alone.”

  I get out of his room. I fight the urge to scream. I want to run downstairs and wake up Mom and get her to fix it. Fix him. Instead I go to the linen closet. I get a towel. Then I go back to Jeffrey’s room and throw the towel at him. It hits him in the chest. He looks up at me, startled.

  “I know your life is crap,” I tell him. “It’s not exactly a picnic being me either.” My heart is pounding, but I try to look cool and collected. “I won’t tell Mom this time. But I swear, Jeffrey, if you don’t pull yourself together, you’ll be sorry. You pull anything like this again, Mom will be the last thing you have to worry about.”

  Then I march out of his room before he can see me cry.

  Chapter 13

  Go Out with a Bang

  “You look lovely, Clara,” Billy says when I come into Mom’s bedroom in my prom dress. Just for her sake I do a twirl, the layers of my red silk ball gown ballooning around my legs. The dress is a little extreme. Plus it cost a small fortune, but when Angela, Billy, and I saw it in the mall in Idaho Falls last week, it kind of called to me. Wear me, it said. Then Billy said something like what the heck, it’s your last formal dance of high school, go out with a bang. The theme of prom this year is Paradise Found—yep, organized by seniors who were forced to read Paradise Lost with Mr. Phibbs this year. My favorite book of all time.

  It’s either this or a fig leaf.

  I tried not to fixate on that spot in front of the GNC where I first felt Samjeeza’s gaze on me. I used to find it mildly funny that I saw a Black Wing at the mall. I tried to picture him shopping, drifting through the bookshelves of Barnes & Noble with the latest Dan Brown novel, in Macy’s fingering the ties, perusing the underwear, because even angels need underwear if they’re going to walk among us, right? I remember laughing about it with Angela, and when I think about that now, how we could joke about it, I think, man, we were dumb. We knew Black Wings were terrifying and powerful, we knew Mom’s face went sheet white that day in the mall, we were scared too, but we had no idea. So I tried not to look at where he stood and I tried not to remember the way his voice rasped into my ear telling me not to be afraid. The way he thought of me as something he could take. And almost did.

  The other off thing about this mall trip was that this time, Mom wasn’t there. She sent Billy. It f
eels like Billy is already stepping in for Mom, always in the house these days, cracking Mom-style jokes, taking me shopping, and now it’s Billy and not Mom who helps me fix my hair for prom. It’s Billy who tells me how lovely I am, while Mom lays back against the pillows, watching with tired eyes.

  “Doesn’t she look amazing, Mags?” Billy prompts when Mom doesn’t say anything. “Red’s your color, Clara.”

  “Yes,” Mom agrees faintly. “You’re beautiful.”

  “Trust me, Tucker’s jaw is going to drop when he sees you,” Billy says, ushering me out of the room so Mom can rest. “He’s going to feel like a millionaire with you on his arm.”

  “I’m arm candy, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Tonight, yes,” Billy says. “Own it.”

  I have to go pick Tucker up, since this year he’s rideless—the old ranch car finally kicked the bucket. Wendy’s riding with us too, since Jason Lovett’s car broke down two days ago, so she agreed to meet him there. Not the most romantic arrangement for any of us, but I’m sure we’ll make it work.

  Billy stops me on my way out the door to spritz some amazing, yummy perfume in the air and has me walk through it.

  “Home by twelve thirty or I’ll come looking,” she says, and I can’t tell if she’s serious.

  “Yes, Mom,” I mutter.

  She smiles sympathetically. “Have a good time at the dance.”

  I plan to. Spring is passing too quickly, marching relentlessly toward the cemetery and summer and college and all the other things I don’t want to think about. This night might be the only good time I get for a while. I’m going to live it up.

  The dance this year is at the Snow King ski lodge. The prom committee has done up the place like a jungle, fake trees, big fake flowers, even a giant apple tree in the corner with a plastic snake coiled in the branches.

  Last year was classier.

  But it doesn’t matter. This year, I’m with Tucker. Normally, in his cowboy clothes, his boots and T-shirts and tightish jeans, his flannels and Stetson, he’s unbelievably attractive. There’s a ruggedness about him that’s crazy sexy. But then there are times like these, when he shaves and puts on a rented tuxedo, wears a tie and everything, combs his hair just so, when he’s like a movie star.

  “They’re looking at you,” I whisper as we pass through the lobby, and a group of girls turns around to stare.

  “Nah,” he says. “They’re looking at you. That is one amazing dress.”

  We dance. Tucker’s not a great dancer, but what he lacks in skill he makes up for in jokes. He has me laughing the entire time. He tries to teach me to two-step at one point, then to western swing. Then a slow song starts and I lay my head on his shoulder and try to savor the moment, like it’s just him and me here, no worries, no work schedules, no impending calamities, no future plans at all.

  I feel Christian watching me before I see him. He’s dancing with Ava Peters on the other side of the dance floor. I lift my head and peek over Tucker’s shoulder at him expertly maneuvering Ava through the crowd. Ava laughs up at him, says something coy while looking at him through her false eyelashes.

  I press my cheek back into Tucker’s shoulder, close my eyes. But when I open them again I still automatically look for Christian, and when I find him, he looks right at me, meets my gaze and holds it.

  Will you dance with me, Clara? he asks. Just one time tonight?

  Before I can answer, Tucker pulls away. He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses it, thanks me for the dance. I smile at him.

  “Let’s get something to drink,” he says. “It’s hot in here.”

  I let him lead me over to the punch bowl and get me a glass. We stand for a few minutes by the door, the cool air washing over us.

  “You having a good time?” he asks.

  “Super.” I grin. “But I was wondering, where are your other dates?”

  “My other dates?”

  “If I remember correctly, last year you brought three different women to prom. Where’s the elusive Miss Allison Lowell?”

  “This year I only have eyes for you.”

  “Good answer.” I loop my arms around his neck and sneak in a kiss.

  “Ah, ah, ah, people,” says Mr. Phibbs, clearing his throat.

  Chaperone. I give him my best go-away look.

  “Chastity is a virtue,” he quips.

  “Yes, sir,” says Tucker with a respectful nod. Mr. Phibbs nods back and moves off to find some other couple’s bliss to break up.

  I slip into the bathroom to powder my nose and happen to bump into Kay Patterson. She’s examining herself with approval, reapplying her lipstick. She looks ravishing, wearing a long black mermaid-style dress, sparkling with what I hope are fake jewels.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your mom,” she says.

  I meet her big brown eyes in the mirror. I don’t think she’s uttered a single word to me since last year, back when she and Christian had just broken up.

  “Uh, thanks.”

  “My dad died of colon cancer,” she says flatly. “I was three. I don’t remember it.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  I can’t think of anything to say, so I start washing my hands at the next sink. She finishes perfecting her already perfect face and returns her lipstick to her bag. But then she stands there staring at me. I brace myself for an insult.

  “Most people don’t know. I have a stepdad, and everybody assumes that he’s my father.”

  I nod, unsure why she’s telling me this, and glance at the door.

  “Anyway,” continues Kay, “I want to offer my condolences. Whatever that’s worth.”

  I murmur thanks again and start waving my hand in front of the paper towel dispenser to get the infrared mechanism to spit out the paper. Nothing happens. Kay hands me a paper towel from a stack on the counter.

  “Christian’s worried about you,” she says. “I can tell. He lost his mom when he was young, too. That’s one of the first things that we understood about each other.”

  “I know,” I say to Kay smugly. Meaning: he told me too.

  She nods. “You should go easy on him. He deserves to be happy.”

  “He’s not my boyfr—”

  “You’re looking at him,” she says. “You might be all snuggly-wuggly with your boyfriend, but you’re looking at him.”

  “I am not.”

  She rolls her eyes. After a moment, she says, “He dumped me for you, you know.”

  I stare at her, a deer caught in the headlights.

  Her mouth purses up for a minute like she’s suppressing a smile. “He didn’t say that to me, of course. He gave me a bunch of phony lines about being fair to me and what I needed and acted like he was doing me a favor. Not that I didn’t see it coming. He’d been acting weird for a while. Not himself. And I saw how you looked at him and how he looked at you.”

  “He didn’t look at me,” I protest.

  She scoffs. “Whatever.”

  “Christian and I are friends,” I try to explain. “I have a boyfriend.”

  “Maybe you do,” Kay says with a shrug of her bare shoulder. “But you still look at him.”

  My face must be the color of beets.

  Then she looks me up and down, taking in my dress. “You’re going to have to step it up if you want to be with him.”

  “Mind your own business, Kay,” I say then, pissed, and storm out.

  And plow straight into Christian. Just as another slow song begins to play.

  I’m starting to think that prom is forever cursed for me.

  “Hi,” he says. “Dance with me, Clara?”

  We belong together, springs to my mind. I can’t tell if it’s him or me who thinks it.

  Insert fluttery panicky feeling in my chest.

  “What . . . I . . . God,” I stammer, then sigh in exasperation. “Where’s Ava?”

  “Ava’s not my date. I came stag.”

  “Stag. You. Why?”

  �
��So my date wouldn’t get offended when I wanted to dance with you,” he says.

  That’s when I notice Tucker about five feet away, listening. “You’re forgetting one thing,” he says, moving to my side and slipping his arm around my waist. “Clara has a date. Me. So your tough luck.”

  Christian doesn’t look fazed.

  “It’s one dance,” he says. “Clara and I are friends. What’s the big deal?”

  “You had your chance,” Tucker replies coolly. “You blew it. So go step on someone else’s toes.”

  Christian hesitates. Looks at me.

  Tucker shakes his head. “Dude, don’t make me knock you around in here. I don’t want to mess up my tux.”

  A muscle ticks in Christian’s cheek. I get an I-could-kick-your-sorry-butt-if-I-wanted-to vibe from him, clear as day.

  God. Men.

  I step between them.

  “No offense, Tuck,” I say, turning to him, “but I am not a piece of meat, okay? Stop growling over me. I can handle this myself.”

  I turn to Christian. “No,” I say simply. “Thank you for the offer, but I have a date.”

  I decide where I belong, I tell him silently.

  He nods, takes a step back. I know.

  Then I take Tucker’s hand and lead him away to the dance floor, leaving Christian standing there alone.

  The dance isn’t much fun after that. I expend a huge amount of energy trying to block Christian out, while at the same time trying not to think about him at all, which turns out to be impossible. Tucker and I are both tensed up for the rest of the night, quiet, pressing close as we dance, holding on like we’re afraid we might slip away from each other.

  We don’t talk on the way home.

  Before I moved here, I never got the whole love-triangle thing. You know, in movies or romance novels or whatnot, where there’s one chick that all the guys are drooling over, even though you can’t see anything particularly special about her. But oh, no, they both must have her. And she’s like, oh dear, however will I choose? William is so sensitive, he understands me, he swept me off my feet, oh misery, blubber, blubber, but how can I go on living without Rafe and his devil-may-care ways and his dark and only-a-little-abusive love? Upchuck. So unrealistic, I always thought.