A Shimmer of Angels

by Lisa M Basso

  I pushed off the bench. He followed. “I never had to pick up my sister. I lied. Obviously, I’m not clear of heart.”

  I took a few steps, but had to glance back at him, had to get another look at him. He stood with his arms crossed, watching me go, contemplation stamped on his features. The glance didn’t ease the tension circling the thin springs of my sanity like I’d hoped.

  I rushed home, knowing I was going to be in the deepest trouble with Dad. My suspicions were confirmed the moment I stepped through the front door.

  “Aunt Nora called to check up on you,” Laylah shouted from the living room. Her voice prickled like the thorns of a stinging nettle. Good to know we were getting along again.

  I wished I’d been around for Aunt Nora’s call, though. Sometimes, if I closed my eyes and concentrated, she sounded like Mom.

  Dad loomed in the kitchen doorway, shaking a tiny screwdriver at me. “Where on Earth have you been, Ray? It’s almost five. By my count, that makes you nearly an hour late for your curfew.”

  Sweat built up in my palms, and my stomach flip-flopped.

  “Sorry, Dad. I, uh, took a new route home and … got a little lost.” The fire of my half-truth stretched across my forehead, where sweat beaded. “But I have good news.” I thought about my secret notebook hidden within my backpack and hiked it up higher, looping my thumbs possessively through the straps. “I start at Roxy’s Diner tomorrow after school.” I rushed through the living room to the stairs. “Which means I’d better get those chapter questions for Anatomy done tonight. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

  He followed me into the living room. “Not so fast, kiddo.” Dad said, his tone very dad-ly. “How was school today?”

  I stopped with my foot on the first stair. “Fine. Can I go now?”

  “Not yet. Any news about that girl’s funeral? I’ve decided we should go. After talking it over with Dr. Graham—”

  My mouth dropped open. I turned on him, ready to strike. “We talked about this. I don’t want to see or talk to Dr. G. You put me there over and over again for three years! It won’t happen again. Just ‘cause you don’t know how to deal with your adolescent daughter—”

  “He hasn’t had any problems with me,” Laylah interjected from the couch. It was the first time I’d seen her detached from her friends, the other Musketeers, since we’d moved. “Not everything revolves around you, Ray.”

  “This has nothing to do with you.”

  She hopped off the couch and stomped toward me, reminding me of the nine-year-old Laylah who had visited me inside the very first time I was admitted. It was the first time we’d ever been apart. Separated for twenty-four days. She’d changed in that short amount of time, and I couldn’t believe how much she’d looked like Mom. Then, and now.

  She’d run into the SS Crazy’s visiting area, arms wide, tears streaming. I’d never felt like more of a failure than I had in that moment. I was the big sister. It was my job to protect her. Instead, I’d made things harder.

  I’d stayed with her the night of my first release. I lay in her bed, stroking her hair as she drifted off to sleep. That night I had promised her I’d never go away again.

  The memory overshadowed the present, where Laylah yelled and screamed, pointing her finger in my face, but I’d heard none of what she said. I replayed the slow, painful memory, so vastly different from the way she advanced on me now.

  Dad’s voice roared over Laylah’s. “We’re supposed to be a family, girls!”

  I cupped my hands over my ears to muffle the shouting and lost myself to another flashback. This one was cold, frightening—a memory of a time when even through my cell walls, I could hear the screams. Anxiety built up inside me, spurring my heart to beat faster. “This isn’t the right environment for me.”

  A blanket of silence covered the room. My hands hovered an inch from my ears before I dropped them to my sides. The constriction in my chest loosened to let me breathe again.

  Laylah crossed her arms and hoisted her chin. “Then maybe you should go back to the crazy house where you belong. We don’t need you here. Dad and I were doing just fine without you. They should’ve never released you, then we wouldn’t have had to move. For you. Again.”

  “Laylah!” Dad scolded.

  She kept going. “First we left Arizona to be closer for your treatments in Sonora, then we had to leave to move to San Francisco so you would feel better! No one wants you here, Ray. You’re still as crazy as the first day you went in.” She stormed back to the couch and snatched the remote off the coffee table.

  I could barely breathe through the horrible lump in my throat. I felt like I’d just gone ten rounds with a garbage truck.

  Dad said nothing, proving just how right Laylah was. The sound of channels changing assaulted the still room.

  I needed to make it up the stairs before the ground came out from under me. “I’ve got loads of homework.” My voice was low and soft, but the tears never came.

  Once upstairs, I slammed my backpack onto my bed. My things spilled across the white and lavender bedspread. I waded through the new mess for my iPod. Anger boiled away my usual need for neatness. I jammed the earbuds in my ears and cranked the music, but even at full blast, it couldn’t drown out the screaming in my head.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I straddled my bedroom windowsill, hesitating. I’d tried everything I could think of to get my mind off Laylah’s words—music, homework, drawing, even conspiring in the secret notebook that shouldn’t have come home with me—but nothing worked. This seemed the only way. Though I had no idea what this was.

  My walls were closing in, and all I could think of was getting out. I didn’t know if I was escaping, jumping, or crying out for help.

  If I got caught, I’d probably be taken back to the SS Crazy. But the way things were going, I’d be shipped back there soon anyway, especially after Laylah’s accusation. If my sister really wanted me gone, Dad would pick her happiness over my own. If roles were reversed, I wouldn’t blame them. Dealing with someone like me couldn’t be easy.

  Dad could walk in at any moment, push past my wicker chair barricade, find my room empty, and call the police, but it probably wouldn’t happen. Dad was predictable enough to shy away from his feelings, which—thanks to me—included his crazy teenage daughter.

  I carefully stretched a leg over my planter box. The copper, purple, and pink mums sprouted around the front edges of the white box, with the bright pink sedum dazzleberry filling in the back. I wondered if anyone would water them if I didn’t come back. If anyone would watch the butterflies flock to the sedum before it died off for the season. Maybe if I left a note for Laylah … No. She’d probably dump them over the window just to spite me.

  Out. I just needed out for now. I could figure out the rest later.

  The tree branch was a finger’s length out of reach. I grabbed the molding around the window and stood on the ledge of my planter box, careful not to crush any of my flowers. The two-and-a-half-story fall could probably kill me if I hit the ground wrong. I ignored my fear, held my breath, and jumped for the tree.

  My hands grated against the rough bark of a branch. For a moment, I just dangled there. Across the street, the faint illumination of dusk circled Lafayette Park. A halo of light broke through the tree from the streetlight above.

  I shimmied toward the trunk, the sweat on my palms slicking the bark. The trunk was only one or two short scoots away, but my fingers burned with the effort. I summoned my strength and reached forward—driving my palm into the point of a broken branch. I cursed, yanking my hand back. Blood coursed down my palm.

  My balance wavered as I held on to the tree with one hand and my knees. When I reached forward to grab the branch again, sweat and blood made the branch impossible to hold on to. My grip slipped and I fell. The ground rushed toward me.

  The feeling of falling was both terrifying and freeing. I closed my eyes and waited for the hard landing to come.

  I
t didn’t. Instead, the tug of gravity disappeared, and I found myself wrapped in a cushion of arms. I peeked through one eye and looked directly into a set of midnight-black feathers.

  I squirmed, struck by a sudden sense of familiarity. With the halo of light bursting through the tree’s canopy and those dark wings opened wide, it looked exactly like Allison’s painting. Even his face was obscured by the lighting.

  His hold around me constricted. “Relax.” The dark-winged man’s voice was low and gruff, but somehow smoother than I’d expected—for a creature with black-freaking-wings.

  Trepidation slithered up my spine, and I kicked for dear life. “Let me go!”

  Several heart-stopping moments passed until I swore he’d hike me over his shoulder and fly away. I’d never be seen again. Never found. Just another girl on a lost poster stapled to a telephone pole. My squirming made no difference.

  After half an eternity, he lowered me.

  The moment the toe of my Converse touched the ground, I scrambled from his arms, drawing back until my spine matched up against the tree trunk.

  “You don’t make that escape very often, do you?” he asked. “Your landing could use some work.” His dark eyes were the only visible part of his face. A bar of light slanted right across them. Everything else remained cast in shadows.

  My feet itched to move, to run. But I forced myself to stay calm. “I don’t typically need saving, but today doesn’t seem to be my day.”

  Maybe Cam wasn’t the winged creature I should be worried about.

  “Something the matter?” His words were slow and measured, the pace and tone of a man who never needed to speak up to be heard. He inhaled deeply. The sound set me on edge, like he was savoring my scent.

  “No,” I said too quickly. Shivers racked my body.

  The shadows covering his face lightened just enough to reveal one corner of his mouth, drawn up in a daunting curve. It wasn’t a smile, more a show of teeth. It was nothing like Cam’s smile.

  Fear twisted my insides, but I wouldn’t scream. I wouldn’t scream. I wouldn’t—

  I gasped and sat up in my bed. My pulse thrummed. Sweat tacked my hair to my face. Daylight trickled in through my lilac-colored sheers. I pushed my hair back and looked at my hand. Not even a scratch marred my skin. It should have been bloody from the broken tree limb. My escape, my fall, the black-winged man, it was all a dream.

  I fought the sweaty sheets down. Books were strewn around the bed. I must have fallen asleep doing history homework.

  The bedside clock read eight thirty-four. Still shaken, I scrambled out of bed, rushed through a shower, and packed my book bag on my way out the door.

  I crept through the back door ten minutes into second period, only to be met by a slew of teary-eyed faces. An unfamiliar man handed out neon-green leaflets. He scribbled an eight hundred number on the chalkboard behind him, followed by the words “suicide hotline.”

  As I slid into my seat, the man at the front of class with Mr. Ratchor started discussing the signs of suicidal thoughts. Since I could probably write a book on that particular subject, I tuned him out.

  Guilt clawed at me, again, for the third day in a row. I should have recognized some of the signs in Allison, but I’d never seen any. She’d always seemed so happy.

  Except for that painting. Was it what I remembered seeing, or was I imagining wings where there were none?

  I looked around, making sure no one was paying attention to me. More tears; nobody cared about what I was doing. Maybe they had been in shock yesterday and were in a better position to mourn her loss today.

  I pulled my secret notebook and a set of colored pencils from my backpack and sketched the dark-winged figure I saw in this morning’s nightmare.

  When I was done, I almost closed the notebook, but stopped myself. I flipped to the sketch I drew in Art class yesterday. Then I folded the pages between it and today’s drawing, so I could see the two side by side. The same dark wings stared back at me from both pages.

  Black wings. I’d never seen one with black wings before, only annoyingly bright ones like Cam’s. Maybe I could ask Cam what was up with this dark-winged guy. He seemed intent on talking to me; maybe we could go for another walk together after school, get to know each other a little better, and then I could ask him—

  Stop. Conspiracy theories about a dark-winged man being involved in Allison’s death, then finding his way into my very vivid nightmare wouldn’t do anything to help my case. Neither would talking to Cam. I couldn’t let myself go down that long, insane road. It led directly to the SS Crazy.

  These drawings had to be a coincidence, right?

  I looked closer at my drawings. I knew better now than to dismiss anything this similar as coincidence. My subconscious must have made me dream about Allison’s painting. That’s all. There couldn’t be a real man with dark wings out there somewhere.

  With that dismissal, an odd feeling tugged at me, not allowing me to let it go. Still, I fought it. I’d just gotten the unbelievable gift of my sanity back. No way was I going to jeopardize it again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You thought all this was for Allison?” Lee popped a handful of M&M’s into his mouth.

  We’d made it almost to the end of lunch before reverting to gossip, which Lee soaked up like a sponge.

  “Isn’t it?” I pushed away the other half of my turkey sandwich, my appetite slipping at the thought of Allison’s death.

  He grimaced. “Nuh uh. Tony DiMeeko died last night.”

  Oh God. That’s what I’d missed by being late to class this morning. The cafeteria spun. I felt almost too sick to ask. Almost. “Do you know what happened?”

  “Word is he hanged himself in his closet.”

  My stomach bottomed out. It wasn’t just another death; it was another suicide.

  Tony DiMeeko had been a star of the varsity basketball team, and that didn’t even compare to his skills on the pitcher’s mound. Last I’d heard, he’d been accepted to college on a baseball scholarship. He had everything going for him.

  “Why do you think he did it?” I asked Lee.

  He rolled the half-empty bag of candy between his hands. “Beats me. Maybe all that sports pressure got to him.”

  The bell rang, clipping our conversation short.

  “We’ll talk after school.” Lee dumped the rest of his M&M’s into his mouth and left.

  I waited until the cafeteria had cleared out some, then walked to Music class.

  Two of my classmates were dead within days of each other. I stopped in the stairwell to tug my secret notebook from my bag and see if anything I’d written down about Allison also applied to Tony. The idea was stupid. Crazy.

  Either that, or I was crazy. Still.

  I didn’t know what to believe. Except two of my classmates were dead. I couldn’t bring this to Cam; there was no way to know if I’d be able to believe him. Trusting myself was becoming pretty unreliable, too.

  I turned the corner on the second floor, leafing through the notebook for the sketches. I’d been flipping the pictures so many times the one in full color had begun to tear from the book.

  The image brought me back to my nightmare. So terrifying. So real.

  I shook off the memory and kept walking. If I let myself relive that one again, there was no way I’d be able to make it through the day.

  Focus.

  Tony had died last night. Last night around what time? I swallowed, allowing the next thought to fully develop before I wrote it down.

  Could Cam have had enough time after I left him at the park yesterday to find Tony and follow him home? Opportunity? Yes. Motive?

  I lifted my quivering pen from the notebook.

  Could Cam have killed Tony? I mean, he did save my life yesterday.

  I slammed into someone. The notebook tumbled and skittered along the glossy, peach tile floor, and I fell on my ass.

  In hindsight, navigating the halls with my head buried in the mysteries
of those wings wasn’t the brightest thing to do.

  “Sorry, Rayna. Didn’t see you there.” Luke Harper helped me up, then bent to retrieve my notebook. I watched, frozen in horror, as his fingers rolled the notebook into a tube and squeezed.

  The neat-freak in me wanted to scream, and every other part of me wanted to rip the notebook from his hands. But then I saw his absent stare, pricked with red-rimmed eyes. His fingers worried my notebook into submission again and again.

  “No,” I finally said. “It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going. But—is everything okay, Luke?” I focused in on my notebook again.

  “What? Yeah. Fine. Why, if it wasn’t would you kiss it and make it better?”

  Even with panic rising up my throat, I saw through his blatant attempt to distract me. I pulled my gaze away from the notebook and leveled the best glare I could dig up at him.

  “Yeah, okay, I’m freaking out. One of my best friends is dead. How am I supposed to deal with that?” He choked my notebook harder. “We just hung out two days ago. Tony was so happy, gushing about some new private-school girlfriend.”

  Luke lifted his black-and-orange Giants hat and scrubbed the back of his bald head. “Everyone’s sayin’ he offed himself, but he had a life—an awesome one.” He glanced down the hall behind him and lowered his voice. “The new girlfriend even put out.”

  Holding back a grimace, I reminded myself he was grieving.

  Luke sighed and wiped a hand over his eyes. “It doesn’t make any sense. The cops came by last night, asking me all kinds of questions. It sounds like it’s a mystery to them, too.”

  “I know you and Tony were close. I’m sorry. It’s hard to lose someone.”

  God, was it hard.

  He forced a brave I’ll-be-all-right smile. “Thanks, Evans.”

  I lifted my hand to his shoulder, meaning to comfort him. Halfway there, I stopped, with no idea what I was doing. I pulled back a little, struggling. I’d never been good with this stuff, and in the last three years, I’d gotten a lot of “good little schizophrenics keep their hands to themselves” reminders on the inside. Finally, I let my hand drop onto his shoulder. He looked up at me, startled. Our eyes met, and held, for a moment too long.