Hallowed

by Cynthia Hand

  My eyes snap open. Christian wasn’t here earlier, when I got up onstage and started trying this bring-the-glory thing, but here he is now, sitting at one of the tables down in the audience at the Pink Garter, staring up at me with amusement like he’s watching a show. For a split second our eyes meet and then I glance down at my hand, which is definitely not glowing. No glory.

  Clearly I suck at bringing glory if it’s not a do-it-or-die situation.

  “What flicker?” I ask.

  One side of his mouth hitches up. “Must have been my imagination.”

  Uh-huh. Insert another one of the classic Christian-Clara awkward silences. Then he coughs and says, “Sorry I interrupted your glory practice. Carry on.”

  I should close my eyes and try again, but I know it’s no use. There’s no way I’m going to achieve glory with him watching me.

  “God, this is frustrating!” Angela exclaims. She slams her laptop closed and pushes it across the table, blowing out a long, aggravated breath. She’s been scouring college websites, trying to figure out what college she’s supposed to go to, which to most people is a pretty big deal, but for Angela, it’s a huge deal, the hugest, since she thinks it’s a college campus she’s seeing in her visions. Talk about pressure.

  “Didn’t get that ancient text you wanted on eBay?” asks Christian.

  She glares at him. “Funny.”

  “Sorry, Ange,” I say. “Can I help?”

  “The vision doesn’t give me very much to go on. There’s a set of wide steps, a bunch of stone archways, and people drinking coffee. That describes practically any college in the country.”

  “Look for trees,” I tell her. “I have a good book if you’re trying to identify what area certain trees grow in.”

  “Well, I hope I get something decent to go on soon,” mutters Angela. “I have to apply, you know? Like, now.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Christian says nonchalantly. He glances down at his notebook, where I think he’s working on calculus homework. “You’ll figure it out when you’re supposed to figure it out.” Then he looks up, and his eyes catch mine again.

  “Did you?” I can’t help but ask, even though I know the answer. “Did you figure it out when you were supposed to?”

  “No,” he admits with a short, almost bitter laugh. “I don’t know why I said that. Drilled into me, I guess. That’s what my uncle always tells me.”

  He hasn’t talked much about his uncle. Or his purpose, outside of the initial “I was having visions of you in the forest fire, I thought I was supposed to save you, and now I’m confused” conversation. Once, he showed us that he could fly without flapping his wings, Superman style, hovering over the stage like David Blaine while Angela, Jeffrey, and I gaped up at him like idiots. Occasionally he gives Angela some random angel fact, so she’ll be satisfied with what he’s contributing to the group. He seems to know more than we do, but mostly he’s been pretty tight lipped.

  “So,” Angela says, and the expression on her face makes me nervous. She gets up and crosses to stand next to Christian’s table. “What happens now?”

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “You haven’t fulfilled your purpose, right?”

  He stares at her.

  “All right,” she says when he doesn’t say anything. “At least answer this: when you had your vision before, did it come during the day, or at night?”

  He looks off at the shadows in the back of the stage area for a minute, deciding, then glances back at her. “At night.”

  “You dreamed it?”

  “Usually. Except one time I was awake.”

  Prom. When we danced, and then we had the vision, together.

  “Well, Clara’s having a new dream,” Angela says. I give her what I hope is my most angry glare, but she ignores it, of course. “Like maybe it could be a vision. We need to figure out what it is.”

  Christian looks at me, immediately interested. I’m literally standing in the spotlight, so I jump down from the stage and walk over to them, feeling his gaze following me.

  “What vision?” he asks.

  “It might only be a dream,” Angela answers for me. “But you’ve had it what, Clara, ten times now?”

  “Seven. I’m walking up a hill,” I explain, “through a forest, but not like the hill in my—in our vision. It’s a sunny day, no fire. Jeffrey’s there, and he’s wearing a suit for some reason. Angela’s there—at least she was last time I had it. And some other people too . . .” I hesitate. “And you’re there,” I say to Christian.

  I can’t tell him about how he takes my hand, how he whispers straight into my mind without saying anything out loud.

  “It’s probably only a dream, you know?” I manage. “Like my subconscious working something out, my fears, maybe, or like those dreams where you show up to school naked.”

  “What does the forest look like?” he asks.

  “That’s the weird thing about it. It’s like a normal forest, but there are these stairs—a set of concrete stairs in the middle of the trees. And a fence.”

  “What about you, have you been having any strange dreams?” asks Angela. “Some clue to add to all this craziness?”

  Christian finally drags his gaze away from mine to look at her.

  “No dreams.”

  “Well, personally I think it’s more than a dream,” she says. “Because it’s not over.”

  “What?”

  “Your purpose. There’s no way you go through all that, the visions and the fires and everything, and then that’s it. No way. There has to be more.”

  My empathy chooses this moment to kick in, and I get a jolt of what Christian’s feeling: Resolve. Determination. A yearning underneath everything that makes me catch my breath. And certainty. Pure, absolute certainty. That Angela is right. That it’s not over. That there is more to come.

  That night when I come into my room there’s someone standing on the eaves outside my window. In a split second all my mom’s baloney about Samjeeza being injured and vain and biding his time to come after us seems like exactly that— baloney—and I think, it’s him, it was his sorrow I felt the other day, I knew it, and my heart goes into crazy-panicked mode and my blood starts pumping and I glance wildly around my room for a weapon. Which is a joke because, a) I don’t have weapons so much as average teenage girl stuff in my room, and b) even if I were to procure something other than a nail file to defend myself with, what weapon works on a Black Wing? Glory, I think, got to call glory, but then I also think, wait. Why is he just standing there? Why hasn’t he started in on the cheesy evil I-will-kill-you-little-bird lines yet?

  It’s not Samjeeza, I realize then. It’s Christian. I can feel his presence plain as day, now that I’ve calmed down enough to think straight. He’s come to tell me something. Something important.

  I sigh, put on a sweatshirt, and open the window.

  “Hey,” I call out.

  He looks over from his spot on the edge of the roof, a place that perfectly overlooks the mountains, which are still glowing a faint snow-dusted white in the dark. I climb out the window and sit down next to him. It’s freezing outside, raining a chilly, miserable drizzle. I immediately hug my arms around myself and try not to shiver.

  “Cold?” he asks.

  I nod. “Aren’t you?” He’s wearing a black T-shirt and his usual Seven jeans, gray this time. I hate that I recognize his clothes.

  He shrugs. “A little.”

  “Angela says that angel-bloods are supposed to be immune to cold. It helps with the flying at high altitudes, I guess.” I shiver again. “I must not have gotten the memo.”

  He smiles. “Maybe that power only applies to mature angel-bloods.”

  “Hey, are you calling me immature?”

  “Oh no,” he says, his smile blossoming into a full-blown grin. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “Good. Because I’m not the one peeping into someone else’s window.”

  “I wasn’t peeping,�
� he protests.

  Right. Something important.

  “You know, there’s this new amazing invention,” I tease. “It’s called a cell phone.”

  “Yeah, because you and I have such amazing heart-to-heart conversations over the phone,” he shoots back.

  It’s quiet for a second, then we both start laughing. He’s right. I don’t know why it’s easier here, but it is. Out here we can finally talk. It’s a bona fide miracle.

  He turns toward me, his knee brushing mine. In the dim light from my window, his eyes are a deep, dark green.

  He says, “In your dream, the fence you mentioned, it’s a chain-link fence, on the right as you climb the hill.”

  “Yes, how did you—”

  “And the stairs you see, they have moss growing on the edges, and a railing to hold on to, metal, with black paint?”

  I stare at him. “Right.”

  “On the left side, back behind the trees, there’s a stone bench,” he continues. “And a rosebush, planted beside it. But the roses never bloom—it’s too cold up there for roses.”

  He looks away for a minute. A sudden puff of wind stirs his hair, and he brushes it out of his eyes.

  “You’re having the dream, too?” I whisper.

  “Not like yours. I mean, I dream about that place all the time, but—” He sighs, shifts uncomfortably, then looks at me.

  “I’m not used to talking about this,” he says. “I’ve sort of become a professional at not talking about this.”

  “It’s okay. . . .”

  “No, I want to tell you. You should know this. But I didn’t want to tell you in front of Angela.”

  I draw my sweatshirt up to my chin and cross my arms against my chest.

  “My mom died,” he says finally. “When I was ten years old. I don’t even know how it happened. My uncle doesn’t like to talk about it, but I think . . . I think she was killed by a Black Wing. One day she was there, doing long-division flash cards with me at breakfast, driving me to school, kissing me good-bye in front of the boys at school and embarrassing me. . . .” His voice wavers. He stops, looks away, clears his throat lightly. “Then the next minute, they’re pulling me out of class. They say there’s been an accident. And she’s gone. I mean, they let me see her body, eventually. But she wasn’t inside of it. It was just . . . a body.”

  He looks at me then, eyes gleaming. “Her gravestone is a bench. A white stone bench, under the aspen trees.”

  Suddenly my head feels all cloudy. “What?”

  “It’s Aspen Hill Cemetery,” he says. “It’s not a real cemetery—well, it is a real cemetery, with graves and flowers and stuff like that, but it’s also like part of the forest, this beautiful place in the trees where it’s quiet and you can see the Tetons in the distance. It’s probably the most peaceful place I know. I go there sometimes to think, and . . .”

  And talk to his mom. He goes there to talk to his mom.

  “So when you said that thing about the stairs, and the hillside and the fence, I knew,” he says quietly.

  “You knew I was dreaming about the cemetery,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

  I look up at him, choking back a cry, putting it all together, the people wearing suits and me in a black dress, everybody walking in the same direction, the grief I feel, the way everybody looks at me so solemnly, the comfort Christian tries to offer. It all makes perfect sense.

  It’s not a Black Wing’s sorrow I’m feeling, in the dream. It’s mine.

  Someone I love is going to die.

  Chapter 5

  Find Me a Dream

  “Clara? You still with us?”

  Mom nudges me in the shoulder. I blink for a second, then smile up at Ms. Baxter, the guidance counselor. She smiles back.

  “So what do you think?” she asks. “Do you have any ideas about the direction you want to go in, any visions of your future?”

  My eyes flick over to Mom. Oh, I have visions, all right. “You mean, like college?” I direct at Ms. Baxter.

  “Well, yes, education is a big part of that, and we want to encourage all our students to attend college, of course, especially a bright, clearly gifted girl like yourself. But every person has their own special path, whether that leads to college or not.”

  I look down at my hands. “I don’t really know what I want to do, career-wise.”

  She gives an exaggerated, encouraging nod. “Perfectly okay. Lots of students don’t at this point. Have you done any looking around, college visits or surfing the university websites?”

  “Not much.” Or at all.

  “I think maybe that would be a good place to start,” Ms. Baxter says. “Why don’t you check out some of the brochures I have posted outside and make a list of five colleges that appeal to you and why. Then I can help you get started on applications.”

  “Thank you so much.” Mom stands up and shakes Ms. Baxter’s hand.

  “You’ve got a special young lady here,” says Ms. Baxter. I try not to roll my eyes. “I know she’s going to do something remarkable with her life.”

  I nod awkwardly, and we get out of there.

  “She’s right though, you know, in spite of the cheesy lines,” Mom says as we walk out to the parking lot. “You’re going to do remarkable things.”

  “Sure,” I answer. I want to believe her, but I don’t. All I see when I examine my life these days is a messed-up purpose and a not-so-distant future where somebody important to me is going to die.

  “You want to drive?” I ask her as a change of topic.

  “No, you go ahead.” She digs around in her purse for her big Audrey Hepburn–style sunglasses, which, paired with the scarf she’s wrapped around her head and her long, sleek trench coat, make her look like a movie star.

  “So, what’s going on?” she asks. “I feel like something’s bothering you, something more than the college stuff. Which will all work itself out, Clara, not to worry.”

  I hate it when she tells me not to worry. It’s usually when I have a pretty darn good reason to worry. It seems like that’s all I can do right now: worry about whose grave I’m going to in this new vision, worry that whoever it is died because of something I did or am supposed to do, worry that the sorrow attacks I’ve been having lately mean that Samjeeza is hanging around just waiting for the perfect moment to kill somebody I love.

  “It’s nothing major,” I say.

  We get into the car. I slide the key into the ignition. But then I stop.

  “Mom, what happened between you and Samjeeza?”

  She doesn’t even look rattled by my question, which surprises me. Then she answers it, which floors me even more. “It was a long time ago,” she says. “He and I were . . . friends.”

  “You were friends with a Black Wing.”

  “I didn’t know he was a Black Wing at first. I thought he was a regular angel.”

  I can’t imagine mistaking Samjeeza for a regular angel. Not that I’ve met any regular angels.

  “Right. Are you friends with lots of angels?” I ask sarcastically.

  “A few.”

  “A few,” I repeat. How can she keep blowing my mind like this? I mean, really—she knows a few angels?

  “Not many.”

  “Angela thinks Samjeeza’s some kind of leader,” I tell her.

  “Ah,” Mom says, nodding. “The Book of Enoch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That much is true. He was the leader of the Watchers, a long time ago.”

  Wow. She is actually telling me this.

  “And what do the Watchers do, exactly?” I ask. “Other than, I assume, watch stuff.”

  “The Watchers gave up heaven so they could be with human women,” she says.

  “I take it God doesn’t dig the idea of angels hooking up with humans.”

  “It’s not that God doesn’t like it,” she explains. “It’s that angels don’t live in linear time like you and I do, which makes having a relationship with a
human woman nearly impossible, since that would require the angel to stay grounded in the same time for a sustained period.”

  Oh. The time stuff again.

  “It’s difficult for us to fully understand how they live, moving between the different planes of existence, through space and time. Angels don’t simply sit around on clouds looking down at us. They are constantly at work.”

  “Married to the job, huh?” I quip.

  A flicker of a smile passes over her face. “Exactly.”

  “And the Watchers did what? Quit?”

  “Yes. And Samjeeza was the first to put in his two-week notice, so to speak.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “The Watchers married human women, had children, and for a while, everything was fine. I imagine they felt some sorrow, being away from heaven, but it was manageable. They were happy. But they never truly belonged on earth, and their children lived a long time and kept multiplying, until there were more Nephilim than humans on the earth. Which became a problem.”

  I think about Angela’s story from The Book of Enoch. “So God sent the flood,” I deduce.

  “Yes,” she says. “And Samjeeza . . .” She stops. Thinks about how much she should tell me. “Samjeeza couldn’t save his family. His children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, every single one of them drowned.”

  No wonder the guy’s pissed.

  “That’s when the Watchers joined the other Black Wings and declared war against heaven,” she says.

  “The other Black Wings?”

  “Satan and his crew.”

  I laugh at the idea of Satan having an entourage, even though I know it’s not funny.

  “They fight the sovereignty of God and try to ruin heaven’s plans whenever possible,” she explains. “But their desire doesn’t stem from grief, it’s just pure evil, being contrary for their own sakes.”

  “Uh-huh. How do you know all this?” I ask her.

  “Sam told me.”

  “Because you were friends.”

  “Yes,” she says. “Once upon a time.”

  Still can’t get my head around that one.

  “He’s in love with you, you know,” I add, just to see her reaction.

  She smoothes her scarf down against her hair. “How do you know?”