01 Unearthly

by Cynthia Hand

  Quickly I look away, the name settling into the pit of my stomach like wet cement. Bozo. As in, the clown. As in, I may never show my face (or my hair) in public again for the rest of my life.

  And the hits just keep on coming.

  “She’s got big eyes, doesn’t she? Like an owl,” the other guy says. “Hey, maybe she’s stalking you, Prescott. I mean, she’s hot, but she kind of gives off that crazy chick vibe, don’t you think?”

  Shawn laughs. “Dude. Hot Bozo. Best nickname ever.”

  I know he’s not trying to be mean to my face; he reasonably assumes that I can’t hear him from the other side of the noisy restaurant. But I hear his words like he’s speaking into a microphone. A flash of intense heat darts from my head to my toes. My stomach churns. I have to get out of there fast, because the longer I stand there, the more certain I become that one of two things is going to happen: I’m going to puke or I’m going to cry. And I’d rather die than do either in front of Christian Prescott.

  “Cut it out, guys,” mutters Christian. “I’m sure she’s just here getting lunch.”

  Yes, yes I am. And now I’m leaving. Right now.

  British History, thirty minutes later. I’ve parked myself at the desk farthest away from the door. I try not to think the word Bozo. I wish I had a hoodie to pull up over my clown hair.

  Mr. Erikson sits on the edge of the table, wearing an oversize black tee that reads, CHICKS DIG HISTORIANS.

  “Before we start today, I want to assign you to your partners for the special projects you’ll be doing,” he announces, opening his grade book. “Together you’ll need to choose a topic—anything goes as long as it’s related in some way to the history of England, Wales, Ireland, or Scotland—research it thoroughly over the next few months, then you’ll present what you’ve learned to the class.”

  Someone kicks the back of my chair.

  I dare a glance over my shoulder. Tucker. How does this guy always end up behind me?

  I ignore him.

  He kicks my chair again. Hard.

  “What is your problem?” I whisper over my shoulder.

  “You.”

  “Could you please be more specific?”

  He grins. I resist the urge to turn around and bash my hefty Oxford Illustrated History of Britain textbook across his skull. Instead I go with a classic: “Stop it.”

  “Is there a problem, Sister Clara?” asks Mr. Erikson.

  I contemplate telling him that Tucker’s having a hard time keeping his feet to himself. I can feel all the eyes turning toward me, which is the last thing I want to happen. Not today.

  “No, just excited about the project,” I say.

  “Good to be excited about history,” says Mr. Erikson. “But try to contain yourself until I’ve assigned you a partner, okay?”

  Just don’t pair me with Tucker, I pray, as serious a prayer as I’ve ever had. I wonder if the prayers of angel-bloods count more than regular people’s. Maybe if I close my eyes and wish with all my heart to get paired with Christian, it will miraculously happen. Then we’ll have to spend time together after school working on our project, time when Kay can’t interfere, time when I can prove to him that I’m no owl-eyed crazy Bozo chick, and I will finally get something right.

  Christian, I request to the heavens. Please, I add, just to be polite.

  Christian gets paired with King Brady.

  “Don’t forget that you’re a serf,” says Brady.

  “No, sire,” replies Christian humbly.

  “And last, but certainly not least, I thought Sister Clara and Lady Angela might make a dynamic duo,” says Mr. Erikson. “Now please take a few minutes with your partner to plan some time to work on your project.”

  I try to smile to mask my disappointment.

  As usual, Angela is sitting at the front of the class. I drop into the seat next to hers and pull my desk closer.

  “Elvis,” she says, looking at my tee. “Nice.”

  “Oh. Thanks. I like yours, too.”

  Her shirt’s a copy of that famous Bouguereau painting of the two little naked angels, the boy angel leaning in to kiss the girl angel on the cheek.

  “That’s like, Il Primo Bacio, right? The First Kiss?”

  “Yes. My mom drags me off to see her family in Italy every summer. I got this shirt in Rome for two Euros.”

  “Cool.” I don’t know what else to say. I examine her shirt more closely. In the painting, the boy angel’s wings are tiny and white. Highly unlikely that they’d be able to lift his chubby body off the ground. The girl angel is looking down, like she’s not even into the whole kissing thing. She’s taller than the boy, leaner, more mature. Her wings are dark gray.

  “So, I thought we could meet Monday at my mom’s theater, the Pink Garter. There’s no show being rehearsed right now so we have a lot of space to work,” says Angela.

  “Sounds terrific,” I say with about a teaspoonful of enthusiasm. “So, after school on Monday?”

  “I have orchestra. It gets out around seven. Maybe I could meet you at the Garter at seven thirty?”

  “Great,” I say. “I’ll be there.”

  She’s staring at me. I wonder if she calls me Bozo, too, with her friends, whoever they are.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah, sorry.” My face feels hot and tight as a sunburn. I manage another wooden smile. “It’s just been one of those days.”

  That night I dream of the forest fire. It’s the same as always: the pines and aspens, the heat, the approaching flames, Christian standing with his back turned watching it. Smoke curls through the air. I walk to him.

  “Christian,” I call out.

  He turns toward me. His eyes capture mine. He opens his mouth to say something. I know what he says will be important, another clue, something crucial to understanding my purpose.

  “Do I know you?” he asks.

  “We go to school together,” I say to remind him.

  Nothing.

  “I’m in your British History class.”

  Still not ringing any bells.

  “You carried me to the nurse’s office on my first day of school. I passed out in the hall, remember?”

  “Oh, right, I remember you,” he says. “What was your name again?”

  “Clara.” I don’t have time to remind him of my existence. The fire’s coming. “I have to get you out of here,” I say, grabbing his arm. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I just know we have to go.

  “What?”

  “I’m here to save you.”

  “Save me?” he says incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  He smiles, then puts his fist up to his mouth and laughs into it.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “But how could you save me?”

  “It was just a dream,” says Mom.

  She pours me a cup of raspberry tea and sits down at the kitchen counter, looking serene as ever, if not a bit tired and rumpled, which is only fair since it’s four in the morning and her daughter just woke her up freaking out.

  “Sugar?” she offers.

  I shake my head.

  “How do you know it was a dream?” I ask.

  “Because it seems like your vision always happens while you’re awake. Some of us dream our visions, but not you. And because I have a very hard time believing that Christian wouldn’t remember your name.”

  I shrug. Then, because that’s what I always do, I tell her everything. I tell her about the way I feel drawn to Christian and the few times in class when we talked and how I never know what to say. I tell her about Kay, and my brilliant idea to invite myself to lunch at Christian’s table, and how it had backfired big-time. And I tell her about Bozo.

  “Bozo?” she says with her quiet smile when I’m finally done talking.

  “Yeah. Although one guy decided to go with Hot Bozo.” I sigh and drink a swallow of tea. It burns my tongue. “I’m a freak.”

  Mom playfully shoves me. “Clara! They called
you hot.”

  “Um, not exactly,” I say.

  “Don’t go feeling too sorry for yourself. We should think of some other ones.”

  “Other ones?”

  “Other names they could call you. So if you ever hear them again you’ll be prepared with a comeback.”

  “What?”

  “Pumpkinhead.”

  “Pumpkinhead,” I repeat slowly.

  “That was a major insult, when I was a kid.”

  “Back in what, 1900?”

  She pours herself some more tea. “I got Pumpkinhead many times. They also called me Little Orphan Annie, which was a popular poem back then. And Maggot. I hated Maggot.”

  It’s hard for me to imagine her as a child, let alone one that other kids picked on. It makes me feel slightly (but only slightly) better about being called Bozo.

  “Okay, what else you got?”

  “Let’s see. Carrots. That’s another common one.”

  “Somebody already called me that,” I admit.

  “Oh, oh—Pippi Longstocking.”

  “Oh, snap,” I laugh. “Bring it on, Matchstick!”

  And so on it goes, back and forth until we’re both laughing hysterically and Jeffrey appears in the doorway, glaring.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom says, still giggling wildly. “Did we wake you?”

  “No. I have wrestling.” He brushes past us to the refrigerator, gets out a carton of orange juice, pours himself a glass, drinks it in about three gulps, and sets it on the counter while we try to simmer down.

  I can’t help it. I turn to Mom.

  “Are you a member of the Weasley family?” I ask.

  “Nice one. Ginger Nut,” she shoots back.

  “What does that even mean? But you, you definitely have gingervitis.”

  And off we go again like a couple of hyenas.

  “You two need to seriously consider cutting back on the caffeine. Don’t forget, Clara, you’re driving me to practice in like twenty minutes,” says Jeffrey.

  “You got it, bro.”

  He goes upstairs. Our laughter finally dies down. I wipe my eyes. My sides hurt.

  “You kind of rock, you know that?” I say to Mom.

  “This was fun,” she says. “It’s been too long since I’ve laughed that hard.”

  It gets quiet.

  “What’s Christian like?” she asks then, offhandedly like she’s just making small talk. “I know he’s gorgeous, and apparently he has a bit of hero complex, but what’s he like? You’ve never told me.”

  I blush.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug awkwardly. “He’s a big mystery, and it feels like it’s my job to unlock it. Even his T-shirt today was like a code. It said, ‘What’s your sign?’ and underneath there was a black diamond, a blue square, and a green circle. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”

  “Hmm,” says Mom. “That is mysterious.”

  She darts into her office for a few minutes, then emerges smiling with a page she’s printed off the internet. My hundred-year-old mother can Google with the best of them.

  “Skiing,” she announces triumphantly. “The symbols are posted on signs at the top of ski runs to indicate the difficulty of the slope. Black diamond is difficult, blue square’s intermediate, and green circle is, supposedly, easy. He’s a skier.”

  “A skier,” I say. “See? I didn’t even know that. I mean, I know he’s left-handed and he wears Obsession and he doodles in the margins of his notebook when he’s bored in class. But I don’t know him. And he really doesn’t know me.”

  “That will change,” she says.

  “Will it? Am I even supposed to get to know him? Or just save him? I keep asking myself, why? Why him? I mean, people die in forest fires. Maybe not a lot of people, but some do every year, I’m sure. So why am I being sent here to save him? And what if I can’t? What happens then?”

  “Clara, listen to me.” Mom leans forward and takes my hands in hers. Her eyes aren’t sparkling anymore. The irises are so dark they are nearly purple. “You aren’t being sent on a mission that you don’t have the power to accomplish. You have to find that power inside you somewhere, and you have to refine it. You were made for this purpose. And Christian isn’t some random boy that you’re supposed to encounter for no reason. There is a reason, for all of this.”

  “You think Christian might be important, like he’ll be president someday or find the cure for cancer?”

  She smiles.

  “He’s terribly important,” she says. “And so are you.”

  I really want to believe her.

  Chapter 6

  A-Skiing I Will Go

  Sunday morning we drive to Teton Village, a big, famous ski resort area a few miles outside Jackson. Jeffrey dozes in the backseat. Mom looks tired, probably from too many late nights working and too many serious discussions with her daughter in the wee hours of the morning.

  “We turn before we hit Wilson, right?” she asks, clutching the wheel at the ten and two positions and squinting through the windshield like the sun is hurting her eyes.

  “Yeah, it’s like Highway 380, on the right.”

  “It’s 390,” says Jeffrey, his eyes still closed.

  Mom pinches the bridge of her nose, blinks a few times, then adjusts her hands on the steering wheel.

  “What’s with you today?” I ask.

  “Headache. There’s a project for work not coming together as I’d planned.”

  “You’re sure working a lot. What kind of project?”

  She turns carefully onto Highway 390.

  “Now what?” she asks.

  I consult the MapQuest directions I printed.

  “Just keep going for about five miles until we hit the resort somewhere on the left. We shouldn’t be able to miss it.”

  We drive for a few minutes, past restaurants and business areas, a few dude ranches. Suddenly the ski area opens up on one side of us, the mountain rising behind it cut into big white lanes through the trees, the tram running all the way to the top. It looks crazy steep, all of it. Mount Everest kind of steep.

  Jeffrey sits up to get a better look.

  “That is one wicked mountain,” he says like he can’t wait another minute to toss his body down it. He checks his watch.

  “Come on, Mom,” he says. “Do you have to drive like a grandma?”

  “Do you need some money?” asks Mom, ignoring his comment. “I gave Clara some money for lessons.”

  “I don’t need lessons. I just need to get there sometime in the next millennium.”

  “Lay off, doofus,” I say. “We’ll get there when we get there. We’re like less than a mile now.”

  “Maybe you should let me out and I could walk. It’d be faster.”

  “Both of you, be qu—” Mom starts to say, but then we slide on the ice. She hits the brakes and we drift sideways, picking up speed. Mom and I both scream as the car careens off the road and crashes through a snowbank. We come to a stop at the edge of a small field. She takes a deep, shaky breath.

  “Hey, you’re the one who said we’d love the winters here,” I remind her.

  “Perfect,” says Jeffrey sarcastically. He unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door. The car is resting in about two feet of snow. He glances at his watch again. “That’s just perfect.”

  “What, you have an important meeting you have to get to?” I ask.

  He shoots me a disgusted look.

  “Oh, I get it,” I say. “You’re meeting up with someone. What’s her name?”

  “None of your business.”

  Mom sighs and puts the car in reverse. The car moves back about a foot and then the tires spin. She pulls forward and tries again. No luck. We’re stuck. In a snowbank. In plain sight of the ski hill. It really can’t get more humiliating.

  “I could get out and push,” says Jeffrey.

  “Just wait,” Mom says. “Someone will come.”

  Right on cue, a truck pulls off to the side of the r
oad. A guy gets out and tromps through the snow toward us. Mom rolls down the window.

  “Well, well, well, what have we here?” he asks.

  My mouth falls open. Tucker leans in the window, grinning from ear to ear.

  Oh yes, it can get more humiliating.

  “Hey, Carrots,” he says. “Jeff.”

  He nods to my brother like the two are best buds. Jeffrey nods back. Mom smiles up at him.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” she says. “I’m Maggie Gardner.”

  “Tucker Avery,” he says.

  “You’re Wendy’s brother.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We could really use some help,” she says sweetly as I slump down in the seat and wish I was dead.

  “Sure thing. Just sit tight.”

  He jogs back to his truck and returns with tow cables, which he hooks to the underside of the car quickly, like he’s done this kind of thing a million times before. He gets back in his truck, pulls up behind us, and attaches the cables to his truck. Then he tows us smoothly onto the road. The whole thing takes all of five minutes.

  Mom gets out of the car. She gestures for me to do the same. I look at her like she’s crazy, but she persists.

  “You need to say thank you,” she says under her breath.

  “Mom.”

  “Now.”

  “All right.” I get out. Tucker is kneeling in the snow unhooking the cable from his truck. He looks up at me and smiles again, revealing a dimple in his left cheek.

  “In case you couldn’t tell, that was my rusty truck towing you out of a snowbank,” he says.

  “Thank you so much,” says my mom. She looks pointedly at me.

  “Yes, thank you,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t mention it,” he says cordially, and in that moment I see that Tucker can be charming when he wants to be.

  “And tell Wendy we said hello,” Mom says.

  “Will do. Nice to meet you, ma’am.” If he’d been wearing his cowboy hat, he would have tipped it at her. Then he gets back in his truck and drives off without another word.

  I look toward the ski hill, the same direction Tucker went, rethinking the whole skiing thing entirely.

  But Christian’s a skier, I remind myself. So a-skiing I will go.