Black Halo (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  He lied to me. He lied to me about my mother’s death, hid from me the fact that Samael, the archangel of death who had served as Robert’s mentor and best friend, had been sent to kill not just my mother, but me as well. It was unexplainable why I had not died as intended, but whether or not it could have been, Robert chose never to reveal any of it to me, instead letting me believe that the car accident that had killed my mother had been unintentional and merely a random event.

  But, as I learned not once, but twice, dying cannot be escaped, only postponed. Robert had somehow convinced Sam not to take my life after I was mowed down by a drunk driver. But this had only set into motion a series of events that would later convince Sam that I was more of a threat to him than he was to me, and so he tried to take my life…again.

  I must have had a guardian angel by my side that night because I somehow managed to survive his attack. The events that occurred afterwards remain a mystery to me, but I had been led to believe by Robert that Sam was dead and unable to hurt me or anyone else again. But Sam wasn’t dead. Until Robert’s confession two weeks ago, I had no idea that because I hadn’t died like I was supposed to; Sam had done nothing wrong, and had never been punished. I was the one who should be dead.

  Because I had chosen to remain ignorant of what it was that Robert did, and how it was done, I never asked him how he knew who was supposed to die. Not wanting to know was simply my way of trying to appease this growing obsession within me to maintain a sense of normalcy in my life—what little I could, anyway.

  And now it was clear to me that for however long I had left to live, my life would be as far from normal as humanly possible.

  ***

  The bells ringing in the school hallways and classrooms sounded like a scream, announcing the tightness that had built up in my chest. First period loomed ahead as students around me began to stand up and gather their bags and books, homeroom now over.

  Mr. Frey, who had died from an aortic embolism shortly after confessing to the hit and run that had nearly killed me, had left behind many unanswered questions that the students still spoke about. His confession had further served to confuse and titillate my fellow classmates, who found the idea of me somehow being a jinx to be quite amusing.

  There was some merit to the idea, of course, when one looked at the evidence that had been compiled against me. The first point being that Graham Hasselbeck, Heath High’s star quarterback, had somehow managed to lead Heath to its biggest loss ever at Homecoming last year, with the largest point deficiency in probably all of Ohio. Maybe even the world.

  Erica Hamilton, Graham’s ex-girlfriend, had been publically humiliated during a first quarter assignment with me. It hadn’t been my intention—I had only wanted to keep from being thoroughly trashed in front of what I later learned was nearly half of the school—but the results were just the same. I had cemented myself as enemy number one in Erica’s eyes.

  Stacy Kim, one of my best friends, had suffered as a result of that hatred when Erica had confused her with me and shoved her into a doorway, causing a significant gash on her head and a concussion. Erica had received a mild suspension, but not until after I blackmailed the vice-principal.

  And then there was my biology teacher, Mr. Branke, whom I had first accused of being the person who had run me over. He had been known as the Octopus in school because he was always putting his hands on every girl in his class, including me. My accusation had destroyed what little good faith the students had held for him, and he had retreated into himself. Though he no longer touched the girls, he had also seemed to have lost whatever it was that had made his classes tolerable and even semi-enjoyable.

  Finally, there was Mr. Frey. No one wanted to believe that quiet Mr. Frey had been an alcoholic who had lost his family to his drinking, much less a hit-and-run driver who had mowed me down, but his confession couldn’t be ignored. Unfortunately, its importance had been lost in the news that he had died just as suddenly as he had confessed.

  I had spent a decade being called Grace the Freak by my classmates and even adults, but it appeared that I would spend the rest of my high school career being called Graveyard Grace—I killed reputations, careers, and now…people.

  And even now, as everyone began to head towards the door, their whispered mutterings echoed to me like they were on loudspeakers. I tried my best to ignore them, but it was difficult when there were only two voices absent from the overwhelming consensus that I was, without a doubt, a walking jinx, and one of those absent voices belonged to a very pale, exhausted looking Stacy.

  “So what did the doctor say about that experimental-drug-thing?” I asked her as I pulled my backpack onto my shoulder.

  “He said that I’m a good candidate for the drug trial, but that it can only happen when my markers get to a certain level. That means that I’ll have to get a whole lot sicker before they’ll let me be a part of it,” she replied as she slowly stood up, her body under obvious strain.

  Stacy had suffered from Leukemia as a child, finally going into remission just after her eighth birthday. A few months ago, a routine exam and blood test showed that the cancer had returned. Stubbornly, she had chosen not to tell anyone but Graham, and the doctors have given her less than a year to live.

  “I think Sean is trying to rush me to the grave—he caught a cold from his new girlfriend and brought it home to everyone else. I was up all night last night coughing. I must’ve I hacked up half a lung and the leftovers from last month’s school lasagna.”

  Stacy started walking and I joined her, not minding at all that her pace was unusually slow; whatever it took to postpone the inevitability of me having to enter Madame. Hidani’s classroom and face Robert. “Thanks for the visual,” I said half-jokingly. “It’ll really help me stick to my diet.”

  “Speaking of which, you really should start eating more, Grace. You look worse than I do, and I’m the one dying here, remember?” Stacy chided.

  I shrugged my shoulders at her scolding. “I’m not exactly on the live-long-and-prosper list either, you know. Besides, I had a donut this morning for breakfast—my dad brought them.”

  The change of subject seemed to lift Stacy’s mood considerably. “They’re back already? How was the honeymoon? Any baby news yet?”

  I nodded, but didn’t return her smile. “Janice started having some early contractions, so Dad took her to the hospital this morning after picking up her hospital bag. The doctor says it’s too early for her to have Matthew so I think they’re going to try and stop the contractions from coming.”

  “Wow. That must have been some honeymoon.”

  I looked at her in shock and semi-disgust. “Stacy! That’s my dad you’re talking about! Ew—there are some things a kid should never have to—just…ew!”

  She laughed at my reaction and her pace picked up as a result. “I think it’s cute—they’re still all lovey-dovey at their age. The only thing my parents ever do is ask each other to pass the soy sauce.”

  “Well, it should be pretty obvious that they’re into each other—they did just get married, after all,” I pointed out.

  “That’s true, but a lot of people get married who simply have nothing between them other than a bank account and some debts.”

  I bit back a reply when I realized that we had come to my classroom door. It was shut, which meant that my entrance would draw everyone’s attention.

  “You can do it, Grace. It’s just French,” Stacy said reassuringly. “Plus, I don’t think he’s going to be in there.”

  I looked at her, surprised. I opened my mouth to ask why, but closed it quickly. I didn’t want to know why. At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself.

  “Bye, Stacy. See you at third period,” I said with a wan smile and opened the door.

  As I had expected, every eye was on me as soon as I entered the class. Madame Hidani smiled at me weakly. I managed to avoid eye contact with everyone and found my seat at the back of the class. The chair beside me was em
pty, just as Stacy had suggested, and though I should have felt a sense of relief, instead I felt the burn of disappointment.

  As the bell rang, and class began, I felt the occasional stares, but chose not to turn my head to see whose eyes they belonged to. Instead, I focused on what lessons Madame Hidani had in store for us this quarter. She spoke about the year’s final, and what it was she expected us to know. I began to jot down some notes, listening to her lilting French as she explained the different methods of testing that we’d be given, and wondering just when it was that I had become able to write so neatly and efficiently.

  The rest of class passed by at a snail’s pace. It took a strong effort to not believe that Madame Hidani had somehow morphed into the unseen teacher in all of those Peanuts cartoons as I fought against the pull of exhaustion. I felt a silent cheer run through me when the bell announcing the end of class finally rang. I gathered my backpack and ushered myself out of the classroom as quickly as possible, avoiding any attempt at distraction and conversation by the girls around me; I knew it would be patronizing at best.

  The walk to Mrs. Hoppbaker’s second period calculus class felt like a funeral procession, and I was the corpse. My legs felt numb, but they continued to propel me forward until I was once again seated in that all too familiar chair, trying to ignore the growing number of eyes that trained on me.

  When the bell rang, and the teacher launched into her usual comic monologue that preceded every class, I removed my text book and binder, preparing for an hour of what would hopefully be more mind-numbing, and altogether help me forget everything that kept creeping up to the edge of my mind, ready to leap out. The laughter that surrounded me was staggered; it was proof that once again, I was topic for whispered discussion and hidden glances of curiosity…or worse.

  As humor gave way to derivatives, the class quieted down, leaving me to stew in my thoughts. I tried not to wonder why Robert wasn’t in school. It wasn’t for me to know anymore and I shouldn’t want to, either.

  But the question was there, sitting in front of me like a stupid birthday cake, and I was a starving, sugar-crazed child needing a fix.

  I looked up at the clock and groaned when I saw that we still had more than half an hour before class was over. I picked up my pencil and opened my binder—what was the point in thinking when my thoughts weren’t going to cooperate—and resigned myself to working on formulas for the remainder of class.

  I bit back a squeak.

  I closed my binder and looked to the seat next to me, giggling nervously when I saw that it was empty.

  A few heads turned in my direction to glare at me for what they probably assumed was typical freakish behavior from me before turning away, shaking with disgust. I grit my teeth and pressed my hand against my lips as I once again opened my binder.

  On a single sheet of paper was a flawless drawing of Robert. It would have been remarkable all on its own had it not been for one minute detail that I knew would have been missed by anyone else but me.

  The lines that made up the chiseled angle of his jaw, the curve and spikes of his hair, the bends and bows of his mouth, even the silver of his irises were made up by the spelling of my name. Grace Anne Shelley ran throughout the construction of his face, down to his torso, and finally extending outwards, into the dark wings that separated him from the rest of his kind. The detail was amazing, the script small and tight, yet freely flowing and moving, fluid in its purpose. I was awed.

  And angry.

  And hurt.

  I placed my hand on the sheet and began to squeeze my fingers around it, prepared to crumple it up and toss it into the trash on my way out, but I stopped. The image was too intricate to destroy—I wasn’t about to be the person responsible for that—and so I simply closed my binder once more and waited for class to end.

  PROTECTION

  Third period—free period spent in the library—was filled with Stacy lecturing me on the dos and don’ts of walking around campus without either her or Graham at my side. After being left worrying when I had unknowingly walked to second and third period without waiting for her to join me, she had made it her mission to remind me to the point of exhaustion the danger I was in.

  “You know that psycho is just waiting just shove you down some stairs or something,” she chastised from her seat. “You can’t just walk off, Grace. Graham and I already talked about this; I get first half, when I’m feeling the strongest, and he’ll get the second half, after he’s had lunch.”

  I shook my head at how ridiculous that plan sounded. “Let me get this straight. The girl with terminal cancer is supposed to protect me from Erica in the morning, and Graham’s supposed to protect me after eating toxic waste for lunch? Oh yeah. I feel safer just thinking about it.”

  Stacy rolled her eyes at me and pointed to a hand drawn school map. “Just look at this, okay? Erica’s got three classes on the second floor at the same time you do. You two pass each other between fourth and fifth period, plus share sixth period together. That gives her more than enough time to try something.”

  “So what if she does?” I asked. “It’s not like she’s going to kill me. That would totally mess up her hair.” As an attempt at lightening the mood, it failed miserably.

  “This isn’t funny, Grace. You saw what she did to me. She’s not going to stop until something bad happens to you, and Graham and I are both convinced that could very well mean trying to kill you,” Stacy said in a low whisper.

  I looked at her and smiled grimly. “Stacy, you know that my time here isn’t exactly long—you heard it yourself that Sam’s still alive because I’m not dead. You should be more concerned with keeping yourself healthy and stop worrying so much about me. I can take care of myself.”

  “That’s just it, Grace, you can’t. Look, whatever it is this Sam person-angel...thing has against you, Graham and I can’t protect you from him; that’s where Robert and Lark come in. But Erica is one of us and we can take care of her.”

  I started to scratch at the table with my thumb, staring at the small indentation that I was making as I tried very hard to respond without sounding too angry. “Stacy, I know that both you and Graham mean well. I know that Lark does, too. But this is my life, and I’d like to live it as normally as possible. That includes not having body guards being played by my best friends and my ex-boyfriend and his sister, okay?”

  Stacy let out a “humph” and folded her arms across her chest, a stubborn line forming across her forehead. She looked at me quizzically. “Wait. Did you say ‘ex-boyfriend’?”

  I looked at her and then looked away, nodding as I tried to focus on the numerous books sitting on the shelf to my right.

  “Whoa. I thought…I mean, I guess I had hoped that…wow. Are you sure?”

  “I can’t pretend that nothing happened, Stacy. He-”

  She held up her hand to cut me off. “I know that, Grace, but honestly, what he did wasn’t done to hurt you. It was the exact opposite. He did it because he wanted to save you. You can’t break up with the guy for that.”

  I pushed her hand down, furious at her defense of him. My eyes narrowed and my voice lowered to a barely audible hiss. “He did it for himself. He knew about what Sam did to my mother and me, and he put my life in danger all over again because he wanted things done his way.

  “Everything has been his way from the very beginning, and I’ve had no choice but to accept it because he’s the one with the divine wisdom, remember? He never gave me a choice on this matter, never stopped to think what it would do to me. He just went ahead and made the decision to keep me ignorant, all so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of his association with Sam. I can break up with him for that; I did break up with him for that.”

  “Grace, you’re angry and for the right reasons. But what happens when the anger goes away? What will you be left with?” Stacy asked.

  “The same thing that I’ve always had, Stacy. Nothing,” I ground out before grabbing my things and storm
ing out of the library, leaving a path of shocked teachers and students to stare as I left.

  ***

  The open door to the empty classroom was like a gift from Heaven. I walked in and found a hidden corner behind the stacked chairs and dust covered desks. The cold tiled floor offered strange comfort to me as I sat down, throwing my backpack onto the floor beside me. The sparkled sunlight shining through the closed windows cut ribbons of golden light across everything in the room.

  I reached for my bag and pulled out the binder. I flipped it open and stared at the drawing that had awed me less than two hours earlier. “How can someone so beautiful cause so much pain?” I asked it before tearing it out and ripping it into several small pieces.

  “I ask the same question of you.”

  The shredded scraps of paper fell from my fingertips as the voice filled the empty room. I lowered my body to the ground and placed my hands on the floor to look beneath the legs of the desks. No one was there.

  Laughing, I raised myself back up to a sitting position, and reached for the scraps of paper on the ground. They weren’t there. “What?”

  My eyes flicked to the binder that had fallen out of my lap and I heard a sharp intake of air come from within me. The drawing was whole, the paper smooth and straight, locked in the folder like it had never left.

  “Robert?”

  “Yes, Grace?”

  I felt a bubble of anger start to rise in me. “Why did you follow me here?”

  “Because it’s you.”

  I scoffed at the reply that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “Oh how convenient. Just go away, Robert-” I grabbed the sheet of paper from the binder and tore it out. I crumpled it and threw it over the piles of chairs on desks “-and take this with you.”

  “Um…thanks, but I’m not going anywhere.”

  I jumped up at the strange voice. “Oh!”

  “Why are you in my classroom?”