Earth/Sky (Earth/Sky Trilogy)

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  “I’m not picking out your friends! Why can’t you see that? I’m trying to keep you out of the path of a zombie! Do you understand me? They preserve themselves to stay alive, to keep themselves from degenerating into monsters. Do you know what creatures like him can do?”

  Insulted, I stood up from his bed. “Yeah, they help lost little girls find their way home! Very terrifying.”

  “You don’t understand. He could change on a dime, any of them can. Just because the Coopers found a way around their condition doesn’t mean they’re safe. That’s why Kreelings are stationed anywhere they live, as a guard in case that happens. The second they change, they’ll be killed. But it might be too late for you, and anyone else they come across-”

  “Adriel-”

  “I don’t want your thread to end!” Adriel exclaimed. “Jessa, he could tear you apart in less time than it takes me to fly across this room! And if he hasn’t literally torn you to pieces, if he bites you in his attack, you’ll rise as one of them. Dead yet alive, soulless but breathing, and then what? Inject yourself with their concoction and hope it works for you, too? If it doesn’t, the Kreelings will hunt you all over this world as you decay to madness more and more every year!”

  Drina knocked on the door. “Heads up, we’re going. See you there.”

  “Okay,” Adriel called. We looked away from one another in discomfort. Blue and silver raced by the window one more time as a door closed downstairs.

  Then Adriel’s eyes moved over me. He was reading something from my soul. What he saw there did not please him, and he said through tight lips, “You won’t listen.”

  “I’ll listen. I won’t obey.”

  “If his mood ever changes for the worse around you, back up fast. Don’t ask what’s wrong or try to reason with him. Even with their preservatives, they are not in one hundred percent control. Most of the time, yes. Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent even, according to Silea. But a sudden change in body chemistry, a miscalculation in titration of their medication, a huge rise in temperature, everything could fall apart. And I don’t want to see you taken apart. You can’t know how ugly this world can be, how fast your fortunes can change.”

  I’d known that since I went over the cliff. When I didn’t respond, he said, “Please don’t underestimate how dangerous Zakia is just because he was kind to you as a child and that he’s a friend now.” Opening the door, Adriel said, “I’ll drop you off at home.”

  Startled, I said, “I can’t go along to watch you guys fly?”

  “Do you still want to?”

  “Yes!”

  “Okay. You’re just really mad right now.”

  Mad or not, I still wanted to go. We walked downstairs and out through the foyer to the driveway, where a red car was idling at the gate. A back door opened and Cadmon jumped out to run over the lawn to the other cars. He was wearing a shirt now. Beating us to the silver one, he waited patiently at the door.

  “I guess he’s going with you!” Kishi yelled from the red car, and closed the door that he had left open.

  Once we got in, Cadmon said, “Music? Music, Adriel?”

  “Sure,” Adriel said. Since he was starting the car, I turned on the radio. It was already on a classical station. Piano music serenaded us down the driveway, turning to flutes once we were on the road.

  “Is he truly an absence, or does he just feel like an absence to you?” I said.

  “Those are one and the same,” answered Adriel, which I didn’t find to be a satisfactory answer though my anger had ebbed away.

  Cadmon’s little voice came from the back seat. “Who is an absence?”

  “Do you remember the girl on the sidewalk when we were driving, Cadmon?” Adriel asked. “Months ago? You were upset that you couldn’t see her light. She was one of the cut.”

  “What happened to them to cause this?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, not to them specifically,” Adriel said. “It wasn’t my place to ask that of Silea. But I saw it as an angel-”

  “We saw it,” Cadmon corrected, his comment on track yet his eyes in a distant place out the window.

  “Yes, we saw it. The cut threads in the tapestry; the people above when they should be below. One of the cut can infect dozens, hundreds of people before the decay becomes so great that they can no longer walk. It’s a slow degradation over many years with them growing ever wilder and more unpredictable.”

  Leaning forward, Cadmon pressed his cheek to the side of my seat. “I moved her away. One of my guarded souls. I moved her away.”

  “From one of the cut?” I asked.

  “Long, long ago. A cut was coming. I made her think to hide.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew the Kreelings that well,” I said to Adriel.

  “Of course I know them. They’re an ancient hunting tribe, the kreolos, going back thousands of years. One was an anchor thread of mine to guard. Many times I intervened in his battles, until the last time when I was not to do so. He had accomplished what the tapestry held by then. Kreelings know of angels, of every strange being this world has.”

  “I take it they don’t hunt fallen angels.”

  “Yes, they do. Not all fallen angels are like us. They’ll hunt anything of supernatural ability or origin that preys on humans, to kill what can be killed, and bind what can only be bound. The day we moved to Spooner, we drove down there to make it clear to them that our intentions were benign. To not have done so would look suspicious to their way of thinking.”

  Why would a fallen angel prey on humans? I was about to ask when Cadmon patted my shoulder sweetly and said, “Up?” I turned up the music.

  The Point was part of a state park to the north of Spooner. The state only kept open its more popular parks with budget cuts, and this was not on the list of the favored. It was a long drive to get there, our surroundings growing ever more remote. More cars were going back to civilization than were headed in our direction, which held nothing but trees and shafts of the setting sun piercing through them in blinding rays.

  We turned at a sign and stopped at a thick metal bar extended over the road. Taurin got out of the passenger side of the red car and pushed it open to let us through. Again we drove, now heading directly for the sun. I lowered the visor and eventually held my hand in front of my face. The road was shaggy from overgrown plants along the sides, eating away at it one leaf and twig at a time. Turning down the music a little, I said, “If you were to dump me off here, wherever we are, I would never find my way back.”

  “I have no intention of dumping you off,” Adriel said in all seriousness.

  “It was a joke, Adriel. I meant that I have no sense of direction.”

  “We’re going to fly,” Cadmon said breathily. He squirmed around in the back and released his seatbelt to take off his shirt.

  “Are you excited?” I asked.

  “Kishi will carry me. She goes fastest.”

  The Point was a craggy cliff that pressed up right to the ocean’s edge. We stopped in the parking lot and climbed the steps carved into the cliff up to the top. It was a long drop to the waves bashing into the rock. The sun was almost below the horizon, only a fiery rind of it still cresting the blue. The sky to the east was deepening. A black pit was here for those who wished a fire, although it hadn’t been used in a long time. Drina and Taurin were unloading the trunk of their car, which had a cooler, lawn chairs, jackets, and a picnic blanket inside. Fixing Cadmon with the evil eye, Drina said, “No flying until a little later!”

  “How safe is this?” I asked Adriel.

  “Safe, especially as it gets dark. No one lives in this area.” He took the blanket from Taurin and snapped it out as Drina brought over the cooler. Kishi kicked a sparkling lavender ball over the ground to Cadmon. It bounced wildly, one of those two-dollar inflatable balls for kids that popped the second it hit something sharp. He kicked it back and I ducked as it rocketed to me. Bouncing off the bumper, it launched for the stairs with Kishi in pursuit. />
  “Sorry you came?” Drina asked, taking a seat on the blanket.

  “Not at all,” I said. Her inquisitive look told me that she wanted to know whatever question I was withholding. “How old are you?”

  Gathering up her hair as the breeze tossed it around, she twisted it twice and put it over her shoulder. “Darling, I have no idea. It was ancient times when I fell, and for long centuries I lived a hermitic life. I never counted nor cared.”

  As annoying as it was to have my emotional privacy intruded upon, it was nice to be able to voice what I was thinking and have my innocent intentions come across without awkward explanations necessary. “I bet you’ve seen pretty much everything, whatever the number is.”

  She chuckled and opened the cooler for a bottle of water. “People still surprise me. Just when I think that I have seen it all, I’m proven wrong. It serves to keep one humble.”

  “I’m two hundred and one, thank you very much,” Kishi volunteered, returning with the ball under her arm. Pinching it between her legs, she peeled off her sweatshirt. Underneath, she wore a halter-top. “I only know because I almost fell on Taurin on my way down and he carted me home with him. So we know the exact year, even if I can’t remember much about it.”

  “I didn’t realize the fall was literal,” I said.

  “Temporal. A temporal shift that feels like falling.” She dropped the sweatshirt to the blanket and retrieved the ball. “It’s not like people actually see us falling out of the sky. I was just suddenly flat on my naked rear end and surrounded by a crowd. Freaked out, ran into the woods, freaked out more since some men were chasing me, and then Taurin swooped in and grabbed me up.”

  “I hadn’t been expecting that,” Taurin said mildly. “Good timing though, Drina and I were in desperate need of a distraction from each other. It had been just the two of us for too long.”

  “Go enjoy eternity with yourself,” Drina said. She leaned back into him in the companionable way of long intimates. Kishi dropkicked the ball, which flew high and far toward the end of the cliff. Cadmon dashed after it, but with a bounce on the edge, it flew over the side. Drina sighed to see him jump off the cliff. “I give up.” I swallowed on a yell at seeing a child leap off into nothing but air.

  “You did say a little later, and it is a little later than when you said it,” Kishi said with a grin. “I was never that bad.”

  “You? You were awful,” Drina exclaimed. Taurin just chuckled. “How many hundreds of shirts did you rip in two? I’d shout no wings and you’d shout no wings back in my face while your wings were right out there for everyone to see! I had to tell people you were wearing a costume.”

  “I’d better make sure he’s okay,” Kishi said innocently when Cadmon did not return. A streak of blue raced over the cliff and disappeared. I stared, not even having seen her wings blossom to life.

  “She’s fast,” Adriel said to my amazement.

  “Adriel was the good one,” Drina concluded. “Of all the newly fallen angels we’ve cared for, not just of these three. Never defiant. Just sad.”

  I squeezed Adriel’s leg, wishing there was something to say and knowing there wasn’t anything. The ball bounced back and rolled to the blanket. I picked it up before it could keep on rolling and settled it in my lap as blue and silver streaks spiraled up to the sky. They were entwined so closely together that I thought Kishi might have been carrying him.

  “They should darken-” Drina was saying just as the brilliant lights muted. If I hadn’t known they were there, I wouldn’t have seen them. It was like a smudge of cloud or smoke being whisked along fast by wind, except that it was going up rather than over. Shielding my eyes, I watched until it disappeared into the heavens. The first part of the trail had already dissipated, and the rest rapidly dispersed.

  “This wasn’t what you were expecting from a year in Spooner,” Taurin said.

  “Not at all,” I replied.

  “And they’re back,” Drina said a minute later. The smudge of smoke was shooting down so fast that I could hardly see it. Suddenly they were in full color, a dazzling blue and silver light catching the last gasp of sunlight and heading straight for the sea. I passed the ball to Adriel and got up swiftly to watch what they would do once they passed the crest of the cliff.

  Down they went to the very tip of a wave, where they ricocheted off the surface and separated in spins over the water. The silver raced back to the blue and they climbed again into the sky, darkening and soaring ever upwards. A strange bluish-yellow fire was blazing in the pit when I turned back and I looked at Adriel curiously since there hadn’t been nearly enough time for a fire of this size to get started. Nor was there any wood in the pit, yet a fire was still burning there undaunted.

  “Archus,” Adriel said. “It’s angel fire.”

  We toasted marshmallows and ate them while the evening grew. The fire was so hot that I learned quickly to not hold the marshmallows too close. Blue and silver dropped down to the ocean over and over. Then Kishi reappeared on the cliff with Cadmon in her arms. He looked almost asleep as she walked him over to the fire. Lying down on the blanket, he curled up with his eyes closed.

  “Looks like you wore him out,” I said.

  “Just for now,” Kishi said. I handed her a tine with a marshmallow speared upon it. As she roasted it with the angel fire, she added, “He’ll be up in half an hour for more.”

  We talked about Los Angeles, all of them knowing it well from trips. I checked my cell phone since it was getting late and was surprised to have service. Stepping away from the fire, I called Grandpa Jack at home. After four rings, he picked up and I said, “Did you get my note?”

  “Sure did.”

  “I just wanted to tell you that I’m out with the Graystone family and won’t be back for a few hours, so don’t wait on dinner for me.”

  “Okay, will do. Thanks for letting me know,” said Grandpa Jack. “I’m having dinner right now, as a matter of fact.”

  “Does it include a vegetable?” I teased.

  A chip was crunched on the other end. “Does that answer your question?”

  I laughed. This man was impossible. “See you later.”

  When I returned, everyone was getting up in preparation to fly. Shirts and sweatshirts were tossed onto the blanket, Cadmon standing at the edge of the cliff with his arms outspread. Perhaps he was hearing some small strain of the music in the beating of the waves, because his face was rapturous. I closed my eyes to listen to the steady thudding, the roar and the wash of it myself. Adriel stepped up beside me and said, “Don’t go too close to the edge.”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  The five of them formed a line along the ridge, their wings beating, and they lifted into the air. Though there was no light to make them shine so much, their wings blazed as brightly as the fire. Taurin’s were crimson. He was the first to lift higher than the rest, and then he was racing up with Kishi’s sapphire surpassing him. Gold shot up in their wake, my heart rushing even though I was not flying with Adriel this time.

  Still hovering at the edge were Drina and Cadmon. Her green wings burned with emerald points. She extended her hands to him with a smile, and he took them. They looked up, the other three winking out of sight by darkening their wings, and raced after them in a spiral of emerald and silver.

  Once they were all gone, I looked out to the water. This would be one of those memories I had to carry always, every sound and sight and sensation of it, so I memorized the beating of the waves, the chill of the wind, the taste of salt on my tongue.

  Then they were shooting back to earth in full color, weaving around one another as they dropped and Kishi spiraling about all of them. At the ocean surface they split apart, flying in five different directions and coming together to soar up the cliff and over my head. Racing away into the night, they darkened at great heights and let their colors show at lower ones.

  As they dipped and weaved and zigzagged across the sky, I thought the world had more u
gliness than anyone could bear, yet the same could be said for the beautiful.

  Chapter Ten: The Bridges

  “I can’t stand it,” London said abruptly at lunch on Friday. Spoken in a tone of absolute exasperation, everyone around the table looked up to see what was wrong. Slamming shut a textbook, which was on top of another textbook since both her fifth and sixth periods were having exams on the same day, she glared at all of us like we had done something truly appalling. “I can’t stand one more minute of it. We’re driving up to Seataw tomorrow, and I don’t care what your excuses are for not coming. You’re coming. Shopping, the park to walk the bridges, movies, the arcade, anything! We don’t have to stay together in one huge group; we just need to see something beyond Spooner.”

  “Totally there,” Savannah agreed.

  “I was going to-” Diego started, and snapped his mouth shut as London glared at him. She turned to another table and shouted an invitation to Kitts, who also had a textbook open since she and London shared the same sixth period American Literature class.

  Once her attention was back on our table, she delivered an icy stare to Adriel and me. “And I don’t care what you lovebirds have planned, but I’m telling you now that it involves Seataw.”

  “I guess we’re going to Seataw,” I said to Adriel. We hadn’t talked yet about the weekend. Nailed with two exams myself the day before, I hadn’t even gotten to it. My brain was so fried by the time I got to sixth period that I’d forgotten to wipe down my hand with anti-bacterial cream after Mr. Rogers shook it. This morning I’d been lucky not to wake up with a sore throat and the sniffles.

  “Seataw it is,” Adriel said. I wished I could be as blasé about exams as he was, but if that meant I had to attend high schools until infinity, then I didn’t. Once through was enough.

  “What is Seataw?” I asked, and everyone cracked up.

  “It’s where you go for a little culture when you don’t feel like driving all the way down to San Francisco,” London explained. “Just a twenty-five minute drive north. Small but darling, especially all of the bridges, and there’s fantastic shopping. I want to get some new shirts. My clothes have been boring me all week.”