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“When what happened?”
He took a breath. “Willow, I met your mother in the angels’ world. ”
The words slammed into me. My spine jerked away from the seat. “You what?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Humans who have severe angel burn are like ghosts there. Their physical bodies still exist here in our world, but their minds just…go wandering with the angels. ” He gave a sad smile, his thumb rubbing my palm. “She’s beautiful. She looks just like you. She’s been, like – frozen in time at twenty-one. ”
Alex described his encounter with my mother as I sat stunned, drinking in every word. “She asked about you,” he said. “She wanted to know everything. And…she wished she’d been a better mother. ”
“She did the best she could,” I said fiercely, swiping at sudden tears. “I always knew that – even as a little girl. ”
Alex squeezed my hand hard. “She helped me escape,” he said quietly after a pause. “And, Willow…” He hesitated. “She said you could be the one to link to the energy field in the angels’ world. ”
I straightened, staring. “Me?”
“You’re half angel, half human. You can straddle the two worlds and use their energy field to destroy them. I’m pretty sure that’s what Paschar’s vision meant. ”
Was Paschar’s vision really true, then? I shook my head in a daze. “But, Alex, the immunity to the angels that’s happening here…Jonah thinks that has something to do with me too. ” Quickly, I told him what Jonah had said. “None of this makes any sense!”
“Maybe it does. ”
My hand in his went cold. “How?”
Alex shrugged. “The quakes were the most catastrophic event our world’s ever known – on the ethereal level too. What if, afterwards, humanity started trying to heal itself? Maybe people are unconsciously reaching out to the one thing that could save them from the angels. ”
“Me, in other words,” I said in disbelief.
“Yeah, maybe. Except the only ones who can manage it are those who’ve been around you and know what your energy feels like. ”
I remembered standing above Pawntucket with Seb – that strange sensation of the whole world straining towards me. “Fine, but that doesn’t explain what it is about me that lets them all marshal themselves! Why not Seb?”
Alex’s gaze was level. “Because he’s not the one who could save them. To be able to connect with the angel world’s energy field, you’ll need a link there to ground you, and you’ve got your mother. A piece of her energy is there – you connect to it every time you reach out to her. ”
I opened my mouth; at first nothing came out. “So you’re saying that Paschar was right,” I said finally. “I really am the one who can destroy them. ”
I could sense Alex’s fears for me. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m saying,” he said shortly. “And that means we’ve got to hold the angels back, no matter what. Miranda said that you need to try from Pawntucket – there must be a gate here you can still get through. If the angels destroy it, that’s our last chance gone for ever. ”
My brain felt numb. We’d hoped to defeat them so many times. But oh, god, if this was true… I pressed my fingers against my temples. “Did Mom say where the gate was?”
“No, she didn’t get a chance. ”
“Well, she didn’t get out much, so…maybe it’s somewhere in Aunt Jo’s house?” The idea was bizarre, but no more so than anything else today.
Alex got up. “Okay, let’s check it out. If we’re lucky, we can find it fast and do this before the angels even get here. ” Then he stopped. “Wait, I haven’t had a chance to ask – how are things back at the base?”
My chest went tight. I saw Sam fall again – heard the screams of almost two hundred AKs. The news would devastate Alex. And what good would telling him now do, with thousands of angels about to attack?
I rose too, and ducked my head as I zipped my parka. “They’re all fine. ” I glanced up and managed a smile. “We’ve been recruiting new people, training them… Everyone’s fine. ”
Alex looked relieved. He touched my hair. “Good. When we have time, I want to hear everything that’s been going on, okay?”
That strange emotion flickered again like a dull flame. Remembering how I’d cried myself to sleep at night in the bed we’d shared, I almost said, I don’t think you really want to know, Alex.
I swallowed – and instead of speaking, just hugged him hard.
He was alive. That was all that mattered.
At my Aunt Jo’s old house, I was bracing myself for a black, burned-out shell – instead there was only a vacant lot and a driveway that led to nothing. I couldn’t stop staring. It was like no one had ever lived there at all.
We searched the ethereal plane for hours. Nothing – and when I reached out to ask Mom where she’d meant, her energy was as warm and unresponsive as ever. I tried reading Alex too…and though the image of my mother that was in his mind brought tears to my eyes, I didn’t get anything new.
When it became too dark to search, we went and helped with the fortifications. People were working by torchlight, doing everything they could to prepare the houses for the fighters. We pounded in nails and climbed up and down chilly ladders until my limbs felt numb.
Finally, sometime after midnight, Alex gave an order for people to start grabbing food and sleeping in shifts, and we headed back to the school. As Alex drove, he rested one hand on my thigh; the feel of it brought back a thousand memories. I kept glancing over, taking in his strong profile.
I felt that if I stopped looking at him, he’d vanish.
When we got out of the truck, we saw a tired-looking cluster heading towards us: Jonah and Nina, with Seb, Scott and Rachel. “My group will keep making nail bombs in here tonight,” Seb was saying.
“They know how to make them now?” Alex asked sharply. When Seb nodded, he said, “Good – we need you for something else tomorrow. We’ve got to start searching the town at the crack of dawn. ”
He explained what he’d found out in the angels’ world – and the mood shifted abruptly to excitement. Jonah’s eyes widened. “You mean we could actually defeat them?”
For the past few hours, I’d managed to blank out the fact that the fate of the world apparently depended on me after all. I cleared my throat as we all headed inside the school. “Maybe,” I said. “If I can figure out what to do when we find this place. ”
When – okay, more like if. It looked as if the gate between worlds could be anywhere in town. Finding it could take days – and we didn’t have many left. I tried not to think about it.
It was weird being back in the elementary school again after so long, with its bright posters now all in shadow: the school’s single long corridor was lit with Coleman lanterns.
“We don’t turn on the lights at night,” Nina explained. “Just the heat. ”
Looking distracted, Rachel tucked back an auburn strand of hair. “The kitchen’s probably the best place for us to make the bombs, once the others get here,” she told Seb.
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