Hallowed (24 page)

“You were amazing tonight, Clara,” Mom adds. “You faced him. You kept everyone safe.

You summoned glory all by yourself, under an incredible amount of pressure, and you held it until help came. I have never been so proud of you.”

There’s wet stuff on my cheeks. I wipe at it.

“Oh, honey,” Mom says, taking me by the arm, drawing me into the living room, where I think she means to plop me down in front of the fire and try to make everything better with words.

I pull my arm away. “How about you tell me now, Mom?”

“What?”

“Samjeeza said there’s something you’re not telling me, about my purpose or my visions or something strange about me. Is there?”

She flinches like I slapped her. She and Billy exchange a look that’s a silent argument.

So there is something.

“Samjeeza had some sort of plan,” I say. “He wanted to make you stay with him this time.”

Mom frowns and goes quiet. Then Billy says, out of the blue, “Mags, don’t even think about it.”

“I wasn’t,” Mom says.

“You were. I know you. That man, if you want to call him a man, can’t be redeemed.

He’s made his bed. You can’t talk him out of being a Black Wing.”

“He thought if he took you to hell with him, it would make things right with the other Black Wings. What does that mean?” I ask.

“He was supposed to kill me, once,” Mom says like it’s no big deal. “He didn’t do it. For that he was punished.”

“He hasn’t been quite right since then,” fills in Billy. “He’s fractured. Which is why there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m going to let you anywhere near that crazy-ass angel.

He’ll kill you.”

Mom sighs. “Bill, I’m already dying. I don’t have anything to lose.” Mr. Phibbs coughs. “I’m with Billy. I think it best that you stay away from him. You have everything to lose. He could grab on to your soul and not let you go, keep you down there with him for who knows how long.”

“He couldn’t keep me,” Mom argues. Her gaze flickers over to Billy. “Not forever. No matter what he thinks.”

Mr. Phibbs shrugs. “It’s not the kind of place I’d want to spend even ten minutes.”

“All right.” Mom’s mouth twists in frustration. “I won’t get near him. I’ll stay right here and fade away.”

It’s the first time she’s ever come off as anything but graciously accepting of what’s happening to her. The first time I’ve ever seen her act truly beaten.

“You should go to bed,” she says to me. “We can talk more about this later, but you’re exhausted. You need to sleep.”

“I guess I’d better go pack,” I say as I turn toward the stairs.

Mom gives me a blank look.

“Don’t we have to get out of here? I mean, Samjeeza said he’d been watching me. He must know where we live. We’re not safe here. He’ll come back. You know he will.” She nods. “I’d say that’s a given. It’s only a matter of when. But he knows you now, Clara. If he truly wants to find you, he will. It won’t do us any good to run away.” Somehow I don’t find that comforting.

She closes her eyes like she needs a nap, right now. “We have to stay here, Clara. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

She means that this is where she’s supposed to die. I swallow.

“The house is safe,” she says.

“And the school grounds,” adds Mr. Phibbs. “I saw to that years ago.”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “How is it safe?”

“Hallowed,” he answers. “The ground’s been consecrated. A Black Wing can’t set foot on holy ground, it’s too painful for them.”

“So our house is on hallowed ground?” I ask. The word is familiar. The congregation was talking about whether or not the cemetery was hallowed.

“Yes,” Mr. Phibbs answers.

I think back to the day I first saw our house, the sense of warmth and security and well-being that filled me as soon as I got out of the car. I wonder if that was its hallowed-ness, or whatever you’d call it.

And school. That’s why Mom had Angela and me go to the school, that time I had the sorrow attack. Because it was safe.

Mr. Phibbs turns back to Mom. “Billy and I can shuttle the children to and from school every day.”

“All right,” Mom says. “We’ll work out a schedule. I’m sorry, Clara, but I’m afraid it will feel a bit like being grounded.”

“What about me?” Jeffrey asks.

I’d totally forgotten he was there, standing in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest.

Mom’s midnight eyes flash with sadness. “You’ll have to stay home, too. I’m sorry.”

“Fantastic,” he mutters. “Just what I needed, another heavenly dictate. For how long?”

“Until I’m gone,” Mom says.

He turns and glares at me like this is my fault, his jaw flexing like he’s clenching his teeth, then off he goes to his room to brood about it. We listen to the door slam.

“And as for you,” Billy says, “absolutely no more middle-of-the-night trips to the Lazy Dog. I will be the one nailing your windows shut, I swear. This is no time to be gallivanting off to see your boyfriend.”

Tucker. I keep flashing back to the look on his face when Samjeeza was going to hurt him.

The way I felt in that moment, unable to stop it.

But you were able to stop it,
says my inner voice.

Yeah, but what about next time? What about Wendy, her arm broken in two places, moderate concussion, her confused expression at the hospital when she woke up and they explained what had happened.
A moose?
she kept saying.
I don’t remember. . . .

All my fault. They would never have been in danger if not for me.

“How is Tucker?” Mom asks. “Is he okay?”

“He’s shaken up. But he’s fine. They say Wendy’s going to be okay, too.” I don’t want to think anymore about what might have happened. I’m too thrashed. “I think I have to go to bed now. Good night. Or should I say, good morning?”

Mom nods. “Good night.” Then as I’m climbing the stairs, she says, “You really did make me proud tonight. I love you, don’t forget that.”

I know she loves me. But she’s keeping something from me. Still.

The secrets never end.

The sun is coming up by the time I get out of the shower. I put on a clean cami and pajama pants, then gather my ruined ball gown from where I left it by the bathroom door, take it and dump it in a corner, where it lays like a deflated balloon.

No more dances for me. No more formal wear. No more stupid guys doing stupid things like fighting over who gets to dance with me, who I belong with.

No more car.

But Tucker is alive.

I detect movement outside, and jump back, heart beating fast even though now I know Samjeeza can’t come here. Then Christian moves into the window, stands there looking in like he has every right to be here. I wait for his voice in my head or a flicker of what he’s feeling now, but I get nothing. My head is completely quiet, locked up tight.

Christian frowns. Then he reaches up and taps softly on the window.

I’m so freaking tired. It’s like every muscle registers the night I’ve had at the same time. I want to ignore him, stumble over to my bed and hide under the covers.

Instead I go to the window and force it open.

“It’s not a good time,” I say.

“Are you okay? I came by earlier, to apologize for being such an idiot at the dance, and your mom said you got in a car accident.”

I don’t have the energy to tell him the story. So I reach out the window, lay my hand on his shoulder, and unlock my mind for him, let him see every terrifying moment of the entire ordeal. When I’m done his face is pale. An involuntary shiver passes through him. He coughs.

“Are
you
okay?” I ask.

He leans against the windowsill. “I’ve never done that before,” he says. “Had something like that . . . dumped directly into my head. It’s a lot.”

“Try living it.”

“And your mom is sure you’re safe here? She doesn’t think it would be safer to—”

“Flee? Run screaming for the hills? Go into the witness protection program? Nope. Mom says it won’t do us any good. Plus the house is on hallowed ground.” He nods like that nugget of information is no surprise. Of course my house is on hallowed ground. Aren’t all the good houses?

“I wish I could have been there for you,” he says. “Helped you.” He means it. And it’s nice. But I’m crabby. I’m tired. I’m not in the mood for nice.

“I should go,” he says.

“You really should.”

“I am sorry about what happened at the dance,” he says. “I don’t want you to think that I’m that kind of guy.”

He thinks I’m mad at him about that. Like I’m still thinking about that.

“What kind of guy?”

“Who’d move in on another guy’s girlfriend.”

“I don’t. Think you’re that kind of guy. So it’s okay, really.”

“I do want us to be friends, Clara. I like you. I’d like you even if it weren’t for all the duty stuff. I wanted you to know that.”

Seriously, I am way too tired to be having this conversation. “We are friends. And right now I have to tell you, as your friend, go home, Christian. Because I really need this day to be over now.”

He summons his wings and goes. I shut the window. And even though I’m exhausted, and the last thing I want to think about is the dance and my purpose and how all arrows still seem to be pointing at him being at the center of it, now that he’s gone I feel lonely, as lonely as I’ve ever felt.

I hate these freaking stairs in the woods. I hate how well I know them, how I’ve got every inch of them memorized, the cracks, the grooves in the cement, the dark green moss like velvet pushing its way out. I hate the rough scrape they make under my feet. I hate the rail I cling to. If I had a choice right now, I’d take a jackhammer to these stairs, shatter them to pieces, take the pieces one by one and drop them at the bottom of Jackson Lake.

I’d bulldoze this entire cemetery.

I’d burn this black dress I’m wearing. I’d chuck Mom’s nice shoes in the garbage.

But I can’t. I’m in the dream, and in the dream the one in control is future-Clara, who hardly feels her feet moving. She wears her numbness like a cloak around her, hiding, weighing her down so each step forward is an effort. She thinks that she should cry. But she can’t. She wants to let go of Christian’s hand, but she doesn’t. It’s like we’re both paralyzed, incapable, in this moment, of any kind of action other than walking, always with the freaking walking, always up, to the spot where the people are gathering.

To the hole in the ground.

To death. My mother’s death. And there’s a Black Wing on the fringes of my mind, grieving, out-of-his-mind grieving, a gaping hole in his heart.

Mom wasn’t joking about it like being grounded, that next week. Every morning Billy drives us to school. She always acts casual, like it’s no biggie, but she’s hyperalert.

I made a case for quitting school altogether, spending the time with Mom, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “What would Stanford say?” she jokes.

“You have cancer. I’m pretty sure they’d understand,” I reply. A solid argument.

No go. Mom has this thing about normalcy. Acting like everything’s fine for as long as you can. It’s annoying, because since when have we ever been normal? It feels pointless to pretend otherwise. But she’s adamant. Normal kids go to school. So to school we will go.

I want my life back. I want to go to the Garter and hang out with Angela. I want to have dinner at the Averys on Sunday nights, smooch Tucker on the back porch. That’s what normal people do, right? See their friends? Their boyfriends? Plus I want to fly. Sometimes I feel the presence of my wings like they’re itching to stretch themselves out in the wide-open sky, aching to feel the wind carry me.

“That sucks,” Angela says at lunch on Thursday, four days post-crash. She takes a huge bite of a green apple and chews it noisily. “But you did get attacked by a Black Wing, Clara.

Better safe than sorry.”

“I feel safe
and
sorry.”

She gives me her no-nonsense, snap-out-of-it look. “Okay, better safe than dead.”

“Good point.”

“God, I wish I could have been there,” she exclaims, so loudly that two people passing by pause like, what’s gotten into Angela Zerbino? She glares at them and they move on.

“You have all the fun without me,” she whines more quietly.

“It wasn’t fun. Trust me.”

“I bet it was a rush. All that adrenaline pumping. Nerves firing.”

“Since when are you an adrenaline junkie?” I ask. “And no, it was not a rush. Just terrifying. I-hope-I-don’t-soil-myself, I-hope-I-don’t-die kind of terrifying.”

“The Black Wing was magnificent though, wasn’t he? Was he something spectacular to look at? Did you see his wings?”

“He’s not an animal in the wild, Ange.”

“Definitely not a moose, that’s for sure,” she says with a sniff.

“Did I mention the terrifying? The whole time I was thinking, that’s it, that’s why Tucker’s not at the cemetery. Samjeeza’s going to kill him.” She stops mid-bite with her apple. “What cemetery?”

Crapzol.

Angela looks at me intently. “Clara, what cemetery?”

I might as well tell her.

“My recurring dream is a vision. That strange forest with the stairs, it’s Aspen Hill Cemetery. It’s a graveside. At first I thought it was Tucker who was going to die, because he’s not there, in my vision, but then it turned out to be my mom.” She puts her hands to her head like I am blowing her mind. “How’d you figure it out?”

“Christian. His mom is buried there. Although I probably would have figured it out on my own, eventually. It’s pretty obvious now.”

“So you told Christian.” She looks truly hurt. “You told Christian and not me.” I try to come up with a good excuse, like that I didn’t want to distract her from her purpose, I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure what it was about, point out that I didn’t even tell my mom until I had to, but all I can say is, “Hey, you’re the one who made me tell Christian about the dream in the first place.”

“Don’t you trust me?” she asks.

She’s about to say something else, but suddenly there’s an upset in the cafeteria. A public breakup, that much is obvious right away, in the middle of the lunchroom. A girl starts crying, not a hysterical kind of cry, nothing so dramatic as, like, Kay last year, but the crowd still moves away from her. Then I recognize this pathetic creature as Kimber, my brother’s girlfriend. And Jeffrey, like an impassive stone statue beside her.