White
Angelina J. Steffort
MK
White
The Wings Trilogy
* * *
First published 2017
* * *
Copyright © by Angelina J. Steffort 2017
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
* * *
All rights reserved.
* * *
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN 978-3-9504418-1-9
AISIN B071QYGJH1
* * *
MK
www.ajsteffort.com
Contents
Foreword
Prologue
1. Stories
2. Angel
3. Party
4. Library
5. History
6. Confessions
7. Supernatural
8. Ben
9. Unintended
10. Books
11. Intermezzo
12. Friday
13. The Date
14. Good and True
15. Unexpected
16. Stolen Moments
17. Good Guys and Bad Guys
18. Questions
19. Catalyst
20. A Flash of Silver
21. An Heirloom of Wisdom
22. Funeral
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Angelina J. Steffort
The course of true love never did run smooth.
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1.1
Prologue
There always has to be somebody who takes responsibility for our sins. When I was a child, I thought it was God. When I didn’t believe in God anymore, there was a time when I thought others would take the blame. Now I know it is me, and no one but me. Everything else is a lie, and lying is a sin…
Stories
I could tell many stories about my life. I could tell the things others said about me.
I could start with the simple version of the story: That I was the strange girl who had been on her own most of the time since her first day at the new high school. The girl who was punctual and polite, who blended in very well—maybe too well. There had to be something wrong. Maybe she was insane. Or she was trying to hide a secret.
I could tell the cool story: That I’d been living with my sister for the last three years, and I didn’t have to follow any stupid parental rules. That I could go out every Friday and Saturday if I liked. That my sister gave nice parties at our house where most of the boys were college guys.
I could tell the freaky story: That my parents had left my sister and me alone because they had had problems with the law. That I had had to move in with my sister. People had been whispering that I’d missed a year of school because of drug issues.
They had been inventing new stories about me lately, but I didn’t care anymore. People always talked when they didn’t understand what was going on.
I could repeat all the stupid things people had been saying about me—the gossip they had been spreading since the first day I had got here. Things they’d only been guessing. Stories they had heard somewhere. Or I could simply tell the truth.
My name is Claire Gabriel. I’d turned eighteen on the seventeenth of October last year. My parents had died in an accident three years ago. Yes, I’d missed a year of school. I had repeated it because the accident had happened shortly before final exams. I had needed a few months to get back on my feet again. Then I’d had to move to Aurora to live with my sister, the only family I had left. Luckily my sister had already been old enough to legally take responsibility for me.
There was little to say about me. I was ordinary. No one you would look at in the street, no one you would notice. Nobody would have noticed me here either if it hadn’t been for the wild stories they had started telling about me.
Not too much of the gossip was true. I had never had any problems with drugs, and I had no intentions of gaining experience in this area. My parents hadn’t left us because of problems with the law—I wished it was that way. I had to admit that my sister’s parties indeed were something that I didn’t want to miss. The guys from college were a lot more interesting than the boys at school in many ways. In a certain way, people had been right about the part of me being insane—there had been times when I hadn’t been sure if I might have gone nuts. And I definitely had a secret to hide, who doesn’t. So that was true, too.
Whenever I looked in the mirror I saw an average girl. My hair was ash blond, my eyes were an undefinable gray or blue—I couldn’t tell, it depended on the light. I was a bit taller than the average, and maybe also a bit more slender, but otherwise I couldn’t see anything special. I wasn’t the cheerleader type. I didn’t show any signs of outstanding beauty or grace.
I liked books. They were like small universes you could find the weirdest stories in. Sometimes you even found a part of yourself. Books were easy company, they were patient, they didn’t demand attention, they didn’t care when you threw them aside. They were only too happy to give you their stories as you picked them up to read again.
Music was an important part of my life. It gave me some peace of mind if I could listen to a piece of music that matched my mood.
Sometimes I liked animals better than people. They were honest and loved you for what you were, not for what you pretended to be.
I had made some friends in the past few years. It was not that easy when you were new and people talked about you, but I had found some I could trust.
Amber Finn, a clever girl. She was both beautiful and glib, and a magnet of attention. Many girls didn’t like her. They couldn’t stand the way the world seemed to spin around her. Most boys had tried to ask her out more than once, but she always said she didn’t like wasting her time with fools that asked her because of her looks. I could understand. I wouldn’t either, but nobody would take notice of me next to her.
Lydia Porters, a shy girl with short brown hair and soft brown eyes. She was the type you could trust with anything. We lived on the same street, so it was easy to just drop by several times a week to do homework or just talk a little.
Gregory Milton-Davis, my best fiend. A very sporty guy, very active and a little bit too friendly for just friendship lately.
My sister took care of me. Sophie was four years older than me. She was going to Med School and always had a lot of work to do. It had started to feel as if she regretted taking me into her home. The first year had been hard for both of us as we were mourning for our parents. As happy as we were that we had each other, it was strange seeing her in the responsible role. Sophie had never been somebody to take responsibility for anything in her entire life. No matter what had happened, she had always found someone to blame. When we had been children, she had frequently blamed me for all kinds of stuff she had done. When she hadn’t been able to blame me, she had blamed our parents or the neighbours’ children. Later, she had blamed her countless boyfriends. When the first shock had vanished weeks after the accident, she started to blame me for our parents’ deaths. I could understand why. I had been blaming myself a lot for what had happened that day. I could still recall the memory easily, and it would vividly replay before my inner eye again and again.
<
br /> Our parents had been on their way to pick me up from my best friend’s birthday party. I still remembered the moment I had seen their car turning the corner. A truck had smashed them into a wall. I remembered the pictures too clearly. Sometimes I still dreamed of that cursed day. My best friend’s father had caught me around the waist and pulled me away so I wouldn’t see the smashed car. I had heard the screams of the people around, and the sound of the ambulance arriving minutes later. They had pulled me into the house and shoved me into a chair in the kitchen where Emily, my best friend back then, had tried to talk to me for what seemed like hours. Her mother had run in and out of the kitchen. Every time she had come in her face had shown another emotion. First it had looked like relief, then concern, then panic, then sadness, then relief again. Finally, she had dragged me to a car, her husband at her side. Emily had stayed behind with her older brother Philip.
I remembered the ride to the hospital. Emily’s mother hadn’t talked a lot. When we arrived in the parking lot she had turned to face me. “Claire …” she hesitated. “What I’m going to tell you right now will not be easy to understand …” Her eyes had looked up as if she was asking heaven for help. “Claire, I don’t know how to make this sound right, but I have to tell you—your mother didn’t make it to the hospital. She died on the way.” …died on the way …died on the way, it had echoed in my head. Sometimes I can still hear it today. “Claire …. Claire! Look at me!” Emily’s mom had grabbed my arm, her eyes trying to lock mine in place. “Claire, your father is alive. He is at the emergency room. We are going to go there in a few minutes, but first you have to tell me: Are you alright? Claire?”
I heard her words, but they hadn’t made sense, not at all. My mom—dead? I had seen the accident, but it just hadn’t made sense. The first stage of mourning—denial.
We had walked up the stairs to the entrance a short while after this one way conversation. I had needed to see my father. As we entered the hospital Emily’s father had rushed to the reception desk to ask where to find my dad. His face had filled with fury as he had started screaming at the nurse. He had pointed at me emphasizing the words daughter, fifteen and alone. The nurse had shuffled over to us, asking for my name. “Claire Gabriel,” I had answered completely perplexed.
“Follow me.” The nurse had led us to a room only a few steps away. “He is lucky to have survived at all …”
“Claire!” I had heard Sophie’s voice carry across the room. Somebody must have had told her, and she had come. I hadn’t known if she knew what had happened. She had already been at my side when I had finished wondering how I would tell her. “Claire, the hospital called, dad’s in here, mom is dead. They said it was an accident. What happened?” So she had known the worst part. Mom was dead. Luckily I hadn’t had to tell this part of the story.
I remembered the picture of my father lying in the hospital bed with all kind of tubes and needles stuck into him, his eyes closed. It had been horrible, but we hadn’t had to bear it for too long. It had been only a few minutes before one of the machines tied to his tubes and needles had started beeping. The nurse had shoved us out the door and a team of white dressed women and men had hurried to her aid to save my father. They hadn’t succeeded. He had died only minutes after we left the room.
Neither my mother nor my father had any sisters or brothers, so there was no aunt or uncle option. Our grandparents had all been dead, except for my father’s father. His identity was unknown. My father’s mother had died ten years ago. I had many memories of her. She had been a warm, caring person. My mother’s parents had died many years ago and I had never known them.
We hadn’t had many options to choose from. My sister had gotten custody of me. So that was, briefly, how I had ended up living in Aurora, Illinois.
* * *
We had to completely rearrange our lives. It hadn’t been easy. Sophie had sold our parents’ house in Indianapolis and bought a small one in Aurora. It had been the easiest way for her to gather some money and stay in college. Both of us worked several times a month to add to our income. Sophie worked in a restaurant every so often, and I worked at the public library almost every Thursday. We had enough money to survive.
Sophie spent most of her time on the university campus, studying. She wanted to finish her studies quickly, so she could get a real job and earn better money for us. It was a completely new thing, having Sophie taking responsibility for me.
My parents had been buried in a cemetery in Indianapolis. I would have liked to visit their grave more often, but it was not possible. This had made me develop the habit of regularly visiting the local graveyard in Aurora instead. It was like a little ritual of spending time thinking of them. I usually stood there for half an hour, sometimes less, sometimes more. I had even found a favorite place there, impossible as that might seem. I had found a statue of a tall angel made of stone with folded hands and folded wings, looking down onto the grave of a person whose name could no longer be read on the weathered headstone. The stone was mossy, and black and grey with the dust of the years. But still, the angel was standing there over the grave. It had a silent beauty that was hard to describe, like a supernatural lover that had turned to stone grieving for his maiden.
Sophie always told me that it wouldn’t bring them back when I went there every day. She hadn’t liked my obsession with the graveyard at first. But over the years she had gotten used to it. She preferred my going there to the depression that clung to me when I didn’t.
It was the end of my second summer in Aurora. The air was wonderfully warm as my skin was soaking up the last rays of the setting sun. I was sitting in a lawn chair in the back garden. The grass that had been more brown yesterday, was greener since it had rained during the night. My toes were combing through the grass as I let my bare feet slide over the ground.
“You know what?” Sophie said. “I think I’ll start with the big exam straight away this semester.”
“Mmhhh.” I voiced my indifference. I was half dozing in my lawn chair, my head lolling to one side.
“Internal medicine is not that bad,” she continued, ignoring my mental absence. “It’s just a lot of stuff to work through.” She paused, thinking for a moment. “Maybe if I begin tonight I can do it by the end of September.”
“The semester hasn’t even started yet …shut up.” I rolled to my left slightly and tried to return to the comfort of the dozing state.
“School starts tomorrow, Claire.” She poked my shoulder with a finger. “At least for you.”
I heard her climb out of her lawn chair and fold it against the wall. “As it’s the last evening of your temporary freedom, do you have any preferences for dinner?”
I laughed at her and shook my head lazily. Sophie went inside.
I stayed outside to relish the last few minutes of sun, the last few minutes of my temporary freedom, as Sophie had called it.
I knew that with the upcoming school year my life was about to change drastically. The Senior year was a year of hard work and important decisions. I knew Sophie expected me to go to college afterwards, but I didn’t dare to think that far ahead. Step by step, my grandmother had always said. That was what I wanted to do—live through the upcoming unpleasantness step by step. First tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow, then the rest. My brain threatened to burst from what was lying ahead. On the other hand, there were always things I was looking forward to at the beginning of a school year. I would see my friends Amber and Lydia every day, and my best friend Gregory would be within reach again. He had been visiting some relatives in Europe over the summer.
The sun had vanished behind the arched surface of the horizon. The shadows it left were beginning to grow cool and unfriendly. Reluctantly, I sat up and rolled to my feet. I got out of the lawn chair and followed Sophie inside through the back door.
The house smelled of fried fish. I left the back door open and opened the kitchen window so the smell wouldn’t linger in the house.
“Can I
help?” I asked while pushing the window open, but Sophie was already placing the fish on the plates.
“Finished,” she announced and shook her head at my question.
I sat down at the kitchen table and eyed the meal Sophie placed in front of me. “Thanks.”
“Tuck in.” She winked at me.
I took a bite, chewed slowly and, finding it surprisingly edible, decided to swallow it down. Sophie ate thoughtfully. After a while she looked at me.
“I want to go to the library tomorrow morning. I could drive you to school if you want,” she offered.
“Yeah, thanks.” The school wasn’t far away. Only a few minutes by car or a ten to twelve minutes walk. I usually liked walking to school in the morning, but I was sure that getting used to getting up early after the summer would definitely make me feel unbelievably grateful tomorrow morning. I swallowed the last bite of fish, fighting against the tiredness that was creeping through my body already. My eyes wandered over the plain white wall until they lingered on the big clock above the wooden door frame. It was a few minutes to nine. Just knowing the actual time made me yawn widely.
A big, dark gray furball with a speckled nose glided into the room on soft paws.
“Mealtime already?” I asked the cat. Nigel had been a present from my mom and dad, one of the few things that reminded me of them. I pulled the cat food from the drawer, poured a handful of it into Nigel’s dish and placed it on the floor for him. He purred contently and crept around my legs once before he started eating. I watched him eat while I waited for Sophie to finish her meal, and then I started to clear away the dishes.
White (The Wings Trilogy Book 1) Page 1