01 Unearthly

by Cynthia Hand

  “So, I heard you’re going to prom with Jason Lovett,” I say to Wendy, closing my book. I can’t stand being trapped inside my own head a moment longer. “Is that a big woo-hoo or what?”

  “Yeah,” she says with a happy smile.

  “What are you going to wear?”

  She bites her lip. There is clearly a snag in the wardrobe department.

  “You don’t have a dress yet?” I ask.

  “I have something,” she says, trying to sound cheerful. “I wear it to church, but I think I can fancy it up a bit.”

  “Oh no. No church dress.” I jump up and run to the back of my closet, where I grab two formal gowns that I wore for dances in California, then march back to Wendy. I hold the dresses out to either side of me. “Just pick the one you like.”

  Wendy suddenly has trouble meeting my eyes.

  “But what about you?” she stammers.

  “I’m not going.”

  “I can’t believe somebody hasn’t asked you yet.”

  I shrug.

  “Well, why don’t you ask someone? I mean, what good is women’s lib if we can’t use it to ask guys to dances? I asked Jason.”

  “There’s no one I want to go with.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to let that one slide.”

  “Anyway, Jason Lovett’s going to be your Prince Charming on prom night, and you’re totally going to need a Cinderella dress. So pick one.”

  She’s already eyeing the pale pink gown in my left hand with hungry eyes.

  “I think it would rock on you,” I say, waving it at her.

  “Really? You don’t think I’d look ridiculous?”

  “Try it on.”

  She snatches it out of my hand and runs into the closet to try it.

  “You’re too tall,” she whines through the door.

  “That’s what heels are for.”

  “You have bigger boobs than I do.”

  “Impossible.”

  The door swings open. She stands there uncertainly, her long golden brown hair tumbling around her neck and shoulders. The gown sags around her feet, but it’s nothing a hem won’t fix.

  “You look amazing.” I rummage around in my jewelry box for the matching sparkly necklace. “We should go into Jackson tomorrow and find you some earrings. Too bad the nearest mall is all the way in Idaho Falls. Claire’s has the best prom stuff. What is that, like two hours away?”

  “Two and a half,” she answers. “But I don’t have pierced ears.”

  “I think I can find a potato and a sharp needle.”

  She gasps and puts her hands up to cover her earlobes.

  “What did you ever do for fun before I came along?” I ask.

  “Cow tipping.”

  There’s a sharp knock on my door and my mom sticks her head in. Wendy instantly flushes to the roots of her hair and starts backing toward the closet door, but Mom charges right in to look at her.

  “What? Dress up! How come I wasn’t invited?” she exclaims.

  “Prom. Saturday after next. I told you, remember?”

  “Oh yes,” she says. “And you’re not going.” She sounds disappointed.

  “Did you want something, Mom?”

  “Yes, I wanted to remind you that you and I have a date to practice our yoga tonight.”

  It takes me a second to catch up. And freak out a little.

  “Couldn’t we do it some other time? I’m kind of busy at the—”

  “I know you girls are having such fun, but I have to steal you for some mother-daughter time.”

  “I need to go, anyway,” mumbles Wendy. “I’ve got to finish this homework.”

  “You look lovely, Wendy,” says Mom, beaming at her. “What about shoes?”

  “I think my black pumps will work.”

  Mom shakes her head. “No black pumps with that dress.”

  “We’re going to look for earrings in Jackson tomorrow,” I offer. “We could look for shoes too.”

  Wendy starts to squirm unhappily at the suggestion. There aren’t any shoe stores in Jackson that aren’t priced for tourists.

  “Or,” Mom says, “we could skip Jackson and bring out the big guns. Road trip to Idaho Falls this weekend?”

  I can’t tell if she’s been eavesdropping or if she and I just think on the same wavelength. “Sometimes,” I tell her with a grin, “it’s like you can read my mind.”

  “Wendy doesn’t have a lot of money, you know,” I say to Mom when Wendy is safely off the property. The sun’s setting behind the mountains. I’m standing in a tank top and sweatpants in the backyard, shivering, trying to wrap a wool scarf around my neck. “So this thing in Idaho Falls for shoes, don’t go dragging us into some fancy department store. It will embarrass her.”

  “I was thinking Payless,” Mom says primly. “I thought it might be nice to have some girl time. You really haven’t had much of that since we moved here.”

  “Okay.”

  “I also thought you could bring Angela along. Does she have a date for prom?”

  I stop fiddling with the scarf and stare at her. “Yeah. She does.”

  “So she can come too.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know your friends, Clara. You bring Wendy to the house all the time, but you never bring Angela. So I want to meet her. I think it’s time.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I know you’re nervous about it, but you shouldn’t be,” she says. “I’ll behave.”

  It’s not really Mom I’m worried about. Or maybe it is. “Okay, I’ll ask her.”

  “Wonderful. Lose the scarf,” says Mom.

  “It’s freezing!”

  “It could snag.”

  She has a point. I dump the scarf.

  “Do we have to do this now? I’m taking a class in aerodynamics at school, you know. I’m acing it, by the way.”

  “That’s about flying a plane. This is about you. You need to train, Clara. I’ve let you have all winter to get adjusted. Now you need to focus on your purpose so you’ll be ready when fire season starts. It’s only a few months away.”

  “I know,” I say glumly.

  “Now, please.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  I unfold my wings behind me. It’s been a while since I’ve had them out. At least it’s gotten easier to summon them; I don’t have to say the words in Angelic anymore. I still think my wings are beautiful—soft and white and perfect as an owl’s. But at the moment they seem huge and silly, like a cheesy prop in a bad movie.

  “Good, stretch them out,” says Mom.

  I extend them as far as I can, until their weight begins to strain my shoulders.

  “To get off the ground you must lighten yourself.” She keeps saying this and I have no clue how to do it.

  “Next you’re going to sprinkle me with pixie dust and tell me to think happy thoughts,” I grumble.

  “Clear your mind.”

  “Done.”

  “Starting with the attitude.”

  I sigh.

  “Try to relax.”

  I stare at her helplessly.

  “Try closing your eyes,” she says. “Take deep breaths in your nose and out through your mouth. Imagine yourself becoming lighter, your bones weighing less.”

  I close my eyes.

  “This really is like yoga,” I say.

  “You’ve got to empty yourself out, let go of all the things that mentally weigh you down.”

  I try to clear my mind. Instead I see Christian’s face. Not from the vision, surrounded by fire and smoke, but a breath away like when he leaned over me on the ski slope. His dark, thick eyelashes. His eyes with their spatters of gold. Full of warmth. The way the corners crinkle when he smiles.

  My wings don’t feel as heavy then.

  “That’s good, Clara,” says Mom. “Now try to lift off.”

  “How?”

  “Flap your wings.”

  I imagine my
wings catching the air the way hers did that time at Buzzards Roost. I think about shooting up into the sky like a rocket, streaking past clouds, brushing the treetops. It’d be wonderful, wouldn’t it, to soar like that? To answer the call of the sky?

  Nothing so much as twitches.

  “It might help if you open your eyes now,” Mom says with a laugh.

  I open my eyes. Flap, I order my wings silently.

  “I can’t,” I pant after a minute. I’m sweating, in spite of the chilly air.

  “You’re overthinking it. Remember, your wings are like your arms. You don’t have to think at your arms to move them, you just move them.”

  I glare at her. My teeth clench in frustration. Then my wings slowly flex back and forth.

  “That’s it,” says Mom. “You’re doing it!”

  Only I’m not doing it. My feet are still firmly planted on the ground. My wings are moving, fanning the air, blowing my hair all over my face, but I’m not lifting off.

  “I’m too heavy.”

  “You need to make yourself light.”

  “I know!”

  I try to think of Christian again, his eyes, his smile, anything tangible, but suddenly I can only picture him from the vision now, standing with his back to me. The fire coming.

  What if I can’t do this? I think. What if the whole thing depends on my ability to fly? What if he dies?

  “Come on!” I scream, straining with everything I have. “Fly!”

  I bend my knees, jump, and make it a few feet off the ground. For all of five seconds I think I might have done it. Then I come down hard, at an angle, twisting my ankle. Off balance, I crash onto the lawn, a tangle of limbs and wings.

  For a minute I lie there in the soggy grass, gasping for breath.

  “Clara,” says Mom.

  “Don’t.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  Yes, I’m hurt. I will my wings to vanish.

  “Keep trying. You’ll get it,” Mom says.

  “No, I won’t. Not today.” I get to my feet carefully and brush dirt and grass off my pants, refusing to meet her eyes.

  “You’re used to everything coming easy for you. You’re going to have to work at this.”

  I wish she’d stop saying that. Every time, her face gets this look like I’ve let her down, like she expected more. It makes me feel like a big fat failure, both as a human, where I’m supposed to be remarkable—beautiful, fast, strong, sure on my feet, able to do anything that’s asked of me—and as an angel. As a regular girl, I’m not proving to be anything magnificent. And as an angel, I am simply abysmal.

  “Clara.” Mom moves toward me, opening her arms like we’re going to hug now and everything will be okay. “You have to try again. You can do this.”

  “Stop being so soccer mom about it, okay? Just leave me alone.”

  “Honey—”

  “Leave me alone!” I screech. I look into her startled eyes.

  “All right,” she says. She turns and walks swiftly back toward the house. The door slams. I hear Jeffrey’s voice in the kitchen, and her voice, low and patient, answering him. I rub my burning eyes. I want to run away but there’s nowhere to go. So I stand there, my neck and shoulders and ankle aching, feeling sorry for myself until the yard is dark and there’s nothing left to do but limp inside.

  Chapter 11

  Idaho Falls

  Angela shows up at our house a whole hour early on Saturday morning, and the minute I see her standing on the porch I know this girls-day-out idea is a big mistake. She looks like a kid on Christmas morning. She’s totally freaked-excited to meet my mom.

  “Just play it cool, all right?” I tell her before I let her come in. “Remember what we talked about. Casual. No angel talk.”

  “Fine.”

  “I mean it. No angel-related questions at all.”

  “You told me like a hundred times already.”

  “Ask her about Pearl Harbor or something. She’d probably like that.”

  Angela rolls her eyes.

  She doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that our friendship largely depends on how clueless she appears to my mom. That if Mom knew what Angela and I’ve been talking about all these afternoons after school, the angel research and questions and Angela’s wacky theories, I’d probably never be allowed to go to the Pink Garter again.

  “Maybe it’d be best if you don’t talk at all,” I say. She puts her hand on her hip and glares at me. “Okay, okay. Come with me.”

  In the kitchen Mom is setting a huge plate of pancakes on the table. She smiles.

  “Hello, Angela.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Gardner,” Angela says in this completely reverential tone.

  “Call me Maggie,” Mom says. “It’s good to finally meet you face-to-face.”

  “Clara’s told me so much about you I feel like I already know you.”

  “All good, I hope.”

  I glance at Mom. We’ve hardly said three sentences to each other since the botched flying lesson. She smiles without showing her teeth, her company smile. “Clara hasn’t really told me that much about you,” she says.

  “Oh,” says Angela, “well there’s not that much to tell.”

  “Okay, so pancakes,” I say. “I bet Angela’s starved.”

  Mom turns to get a plate out of the cupboard, and I shoot Angela a warning look.

  “What?” she whispers.

  She’s completely starstruck by my mom. She stares at her all through breakfast. Which would have been okay—weird, but okay—except that after about two bites into pancakes she blurts out, “How high can an angel-blood fly? Do you think we could fly in space?”

  Mom just laughs and says that sounds cool but she’s pretty sure we still need oxygen. “No Superman trips to the moon,” she says.

  They smile at each other, which bugs me. If I asked that question, Mom would say she didn’t know, or it wasn’t important, or she’d change the subject. I know what she’s doing: She’s trying to figure Angela out. She wants to know what Angela knows. Which I definitely do not want to happen.

  But there’s no stopping Angela. “What about the light thing?” she asks.

  “The light thing?”

  “You know, when the angels shine with the heavenly light? What’s that about?”

  “We call that glory,” Mom answers.

  “So what’s the point of it?” Angela asks.

  Mom sets down her glass of milk and acts like this is a deep question that requires some serious thought. “It has many uses,” she says finally.

  “I’ll bet the light comes in handy,” says Angela. “Like your own personal flashlight. And it makes you look angelic, of course. No one would doubt you if you show the wings and the glory. But you’re not supposed to do that, right?”

  “We’re never to reveal ourselves,” Mom says, looking at me for an instant, “although there are exceptions. Glory has a strange effect on humans.”

  “Like what?”

  “It terrifies them.”

  I sit up a little. I didn’t know that, and neither did Angela.

  “Oh, I see,” says Angela, really cooking with gas now. “But what is glory? It has to be more than just light, to have that kind of effect, right?”

  Mom clears her throat. She’s in uncomfortable territory now, stuff she’s never told me.

  “You’re always saying how much easier flying would be if I could tap into glory,” I pipe up, not about to let her off the hook. “You make it sound like an energy source.”

  She gives a barely perceivable sigh. “It’s how we connect with God.”

  Angela and I mull that over.

  “Like how?” asks Angela. “Like when people pray?”

  “When you’re in glory, you’re connected with everything. You can feel the trees breathing. You could count the feathers on a bird’s wing. You know if it’s going to rain. You’re part of it, that force which binds all life.”

  “Will you teach us how to do it?” asks Angela. This
whole conversation is clearly blowing her mind. She’s itching to whip out her notebook and take some major notes.

  “It can’t be taught. You have to learn to still yourself, to strip away everything but the core of what makes you, you. It’s not your thoughts or your feelings. It’s the self under all of that.”

  “Okay, so that sounds hard.”

  “I was forty before I was able to do it well,” Mom says. “Some angel-bloods never get to that state at all. Although it can be triggered by powerful events or feelings.”

  “Like Clara’s hair thing, right? You told her that gets triggered by emotions,” Angela says.

  Mom gets up from the table and crosses to the window.

  “Oh. My. God. Shut up,” I whisper to Angela.

  “There’s a blue truck in the driveway,” Mom says after a moment. “Wendy’s here.”

  I abandon Mom and Angela and run to meet Wendy, who, unbeknownst to her, will save me from this angel conversation.

  Tucker drove her over. He’s leaning against Bluebell in the driveway, staring out at the woods, and somehow it feels like he shouldn’t be allowed to be here, shouldn’t be allowed to peer into my woods or listen to my stream or enjoy my birds singing.

  “Hey, Carrots,” he says when he spots me. I look around for Wendy, who I find rummaging around in the truck for something. “Beautiful day for shopping,” he adds.

  He’s mocking me, I think. I don’t have a comeback.

  “Yep,” I say.

  Wendy slams the door of the truck and steps up onto the porch right as Angela exits the house. “Hey, Angela,” she says brightly. She’s apparently determined to be friendly with this other best friend of mine. “How’s it going?”

  “Great,” says Angela.

  “I’m so excited to go to Idaho Falls. I haven’t been there in forever.”

  “Me neither.”

  Tucker’s not leaving. He’s looking at my woods again. Against my better judgment, I step down off the porch and walk over to him.

  “Shopping for prom dresses, huh?” he asks as I come up beside him.

  “Um, kind of. Wendy needs shoes. Angela’s after accessories, since her mom’s making her dress. And I’m along for the ride, I guess.”

  “You’re not going to prom?”

  “No.” I glance away uncomfortably, back toward the house, where suddenly Wendy seems very into her awkward conversation with Angela.