A Beautiful Dark

by Jocelyn Davies

  “Doesn’t matter what I believe.”

  “Let’s pack it in for the night. We’ll resume tomorrow at three fifteen sharp. On the school roof.”

  School. I had school tomorrow. After everything I’d learned that day, I almost laughed. How could I go back there and pretend to be normal when that was anything but how I felt?

  “Skye?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

  Devin’s wings closed in a rush of movement so fast I felt the wind on my face. Seconds later, he had vanished. Whether he had simply flown away or dissolved into thin air, I couldn’t tell.

  I looked down at my hands. Could I create fire? Wind? Would I be able to heal someone else’s pain as Devin could? Did I truly have these powers churning inside?

  A few feet away from where I stood, a branch hung from a nearby tree, broken and hanging at an awkward angle. I brought my hands up and pushed the air in front of me, hard. I focused all of my energy through my fingers, trying to channel what Devin had told me about healing. Visualize the wound. Gather it to you. Feel the life force flow. Correct the balance.

  The branch swayed slightly in the wind.

  That was it.

  “Hey,” came a voice from the darkness.

  It was Asher. I hadn’t even noticed he was standing there; his wings bled into the darkness as if they weren’t solid.

  “You have to rest.”

  “I want to keep trying,” I said as I began to walk toward the tree.

  Asher walked behind me, keeping pace. “You have to stop for the night,” he persisted. “This is your first day. You don’t want to burn out.”

  I ignored him.

  “Did you get that? Just trying some Rebellion humor. . . .”

  Instead of answering him, I wrapped my hands around the split in the branch, where it hung like an arm from a broken shoulder. That was how Devin had healed my ankle. He’d wrapped his hands around the swelling, his grip intense, and seconds later, the pain was gone. What if I could make pain disappear? What a useful power that would be. Could I heal more than physical pain? I wondered if I could cure emotional pain, too.

  The branch broke off in my hand. I cursed under my breath.

  I felt hands fall gently on my shoulders.

  “Come on,” Asher said. “Let’s go.”

  My car was still on the road where we’d left it.

  We’d walked back across the field in silence; Asher held a small flame in his hand to help us find our way. I took my keys from my pocket, and before I could even press the unlock button, Asher snatched them from my grasp.

  “I’m driving,” he said.

  “I can do it,” I told him testily.

  “You’re tense and exhausted,” he countered. “Just get in.”

  I stared at him, trying to wear him down. He didn’t budge.

  “Fine,” I said. “But if you wreck my car, you’re dead.”

  I walked around and climbed into the passenger seat. When he settled behind the wheel, I asked, “Do you even know how to drive?”

  “I know how to do everything.”

  I laughed and settled back against the seat. As my mind worked to process everything I’d learned the past couple of days, Asher’s hand came to rest on mine. How was it that he always seemed to know exactly what I needed right when I needed it?

  We pulled into my driveway, and he cut the engine. Without the hum of the motor, the quiet was vast.

  “Thanks for driving me home,” I said.

  “No problem. You think I’d let you come home alone after a day like this?”

  “Devin did.”

  “Devin is his own rare species of weird,” Asher muttered. “Don’t let him play mind games with you.”

  It was obvious the topic upset him so I let it go. I didn’t stop thinking about it, though.

  Are you playing mind games with me? I wondered. It was suddenly so hard to comprehend what was real and what wasn’t. This hidden world, these magical powers—the unbelievable truth about my parents. How could they have never told me? Couldn’t they have left me a journal or something? But then they hadn’t expected to be ripped from my life so soon, either.

  “Asher,” I said in the dark. “Do you want to see something?”

  He nodded without saying a word. I opened my car door and got out. Seconds later, he did the same. I took his hand and pulled him with me around to the side of the house, looking upward. The ladder crawled up the deep brown shingles, disappearing where the roof ledge dropped off into the velvety black sky. It was tangled in vines that had grown over the years, mistaking it for a trellis.

  “Come on,” I said, starting to climb. It was a route I could travel in my sleep.

  Asher put his hand on the bottom rung. “I get the feeling I should have asked where we were going.” In the shadows, I couldn’t see his face. I can trust him, I thought. Right?

  “Come on,” I challenged. “What are you, afraid of heights?” I kept climbing. My shoulders worked and my legs stepped carefully and it felt good just to move, upward, and think. Or not think.

  Soon I crested the roof ledge and crawled several feet across the sloping surface. Asher was right behind me. I pulled my knees to my chest and stared out at the stars. He sat down next to me. Our breath made clouds of steam in the freezing night air.

  “Is that where angels are from?” I nodded at the stars.

  He chuckled. “Nah. It’s really more of an alternate realm than a city in the sky. I’ve never even been there.” He looked up. “Anyway, the Rebellion camp is somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  He looked pensive. “On Earth, actually.”

  “Where?” I asked again.

  “Far, far away.”

  It was so quiet on the roof. I couldn’t even hear any passing cars from the road. The only sound, for miles, was the distant howl of a coyote.

  “Maybe you’ll see it, one day,” Asher said.

  “So we’re not so different,” I said quietly, almost more to myself than to him. Asher glanced at me sideways, shifting uncomfortably.

  “In that way, no.”

  “Do you ever regret leaving the Order?”

  “I was never in it. Most of us weren’t. Only the very first Rebel Elders were a part of it. And we’re not allowed back there now.” He paused. “So I live here. But based on how bound Devin is to his commands . . . I have to say that I’m very glad not to be part of the Order.”

  “Why does he think they’re so important?”

  “He’s brainwashed.”

  Or was Asher? How could I know which side was the right side—if either was right? How did I know which was where I truly belonged? Maybe I belonged here, exactly where I was. It had been a very long time since I’d missed my parents so desperately. I wished they could be here to guide me.

  “I came up here every day over the summer,” I said.

  He was silent.

  “It’s a good place to think. When I’m not skiing, this is where I feel the most at peace.”

  We just sat there. After a second or two, I rested my head against his shoulder and breathed deep. He smelled like grass and pine needles. Our breath intertwined in the cold air.

  “I know,” Asher said quietly.

  It took me a moment to figure out what he was saying.

  “You know what?” When he didn’t respond, my heart beat faster. “You know this is where I feel the most at peace?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “How do you know that?” I asked, sitting up.

  Asher sighed, as if he’d been avoiding this. “When we met? That wasn’t the first time I’d seen you.”

  “Then what was?” I stared at him. “Enough with the cloak and dagger—just tell me.”

  “Before that.”

  “Like how far before that?”

  “Pretty far.”

  “Like what, a year?”

  He was silent.

  “What, two years?” Nothing. “Three?”
/>   “Long enough to know you pretty well.” He coughed and cleared his throat awkwardly. “It was, um, part of the assignment. That’s how we knew when to make ourselves known to you. When your eyes flashed that first time, things were about to start.”

  When my eyes flashed. I tried to remember something my father used to tell me when I was little. Holding me up to the bathroom mirror each night before I went to bed. Something I couldn’t quite retrieve, some memory I couldn’t reach . . . we were staring at my eyes. . . .

  “Wow,” I whispered. I didn’t know whether to feel scared or protected . . . or a little of both. “Have you . . . seen things? I mean, what do you know about me?”

  “Everything, Skye.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” I said, getting ruffled.

  “Try me.”

  “Fine.” I shoved him. “Okay. What’s my favorite lunch?”

  “Turkey sandwich and an apple,” he said, buffing his nails on his shirt and mock-yawning.

  “Too easy,” I said. “You could have seen that this month. What about favorite color?”

  “Obvious.” He snorted. “Sky blue. Has been since kindergarten.”

  “Lucky guess. You just said that because of my name. Favorite book?”

  “Persuasion, by Jane Austen—though you’d never admit it to anyone. You secretly think it’s romantic that they have all these feelings for each other that they can’t express.”

  I looked out at the constellations. “You lie,” I said.

  “No way, it’s true. You did your seventh grade end-of-year presentation on how it was bullshit, but anyone really watching you knew you loved that book.” He shifted his position and added, “It’s why you stayed with Jordan for so long, even though you knew he cheated on you. You were hoping he still loved you.”

  I hadn’t told Asher about my evil ex-boyfriend.

  Slowly I turned to face him. He was still looking off into the distance, squinting like the light from the moon hurt his eyes. In that moment, I almost let myself think he was kind of beautiful.

  “What else do you know?”

  “I know you haven’t dated anybody since him.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So?”

  “I know you haven’t let yourself like anybody since him.”

  I fiddled at a stray yarn on one of my gloves.

  “You don’t know a thing about me,” I said, looking away. “Not really.”

  “I know a lot more about you than you know.” He looked out past the moon again. “During the day, you get this look. It’s like no matter how much fun you’re having or who you’re talking to, there’s still something haunting you. Ever since the day I first saw you. But when you sleep, this”—he touched his index finger to the little worry crease between my eyebrows—“goes away.”

  He let his hand fall away, the back of his fingers trailing down my cheek. Goose bumps pricked along my neck and arms.

  I swallowed, trying to keep it together.

  “You watch me when I sleep?”

  “Once or twice.” He smiled. “I don’t exactly make a habit of it. It’s a weird feeling, being in someone’s room when they don’t know you’re there.”

  “No kidding! How would you like it if I spied on you?”

  “You’d have to find me first.”

  I punched his arm—hard. He didn’t even flinch. “Don’t ever come into my room uninvited again.”

  “I was watching over you.”

  “Yeah, well, do it from somewhere else.” And I thought of something else. “Does Devin come into my room?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him there.”

  “Does he know that you’ve been watching me? It seems like you have an unfair advantage.”

  He looked away. “I’m sure Devin has other things he should be more concerned about.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Like Raven.”

  He whipped around. In a second, his eyes had grown cold, sharp.

  “How do you know about her?” he asked.

  Was he not supposed to know?

  “Is she here?” he said.

  “What? No, no. I just heard, I mean, from Devin—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Skye, I swear to god—”

  “Isn’t that a little blasphemous?”

  “Dammit, Skye, can you be serious for like two seconds?”

  “Oh, you’re one to talk! You’re going to tell me to be serious? I don’t think you’ve stopped cracking jokes at my expense since you’ve been here! Oh, wait, no, I’m sorry, since I knew you were here!”

  “I’m only doing it to protect you! Do you think this is easy for me? To lurk in the shadows and watch like some poor creep and not be able to do a damn thing about it? To not help you? Warn you?”

  “Well, you’re sure making up for lost time with your party tricks and your snow caves and your fire. God, you’re infuriating. You come here with this insane news and then you let me go on a ski trip? You let me eat lunch in the—in the cafeteria? While you flirt with other girls as if you hadn’t just shattered my entire life?”

  “Do you know why I joke all the time?” He stood up as if he’d been wound up and sprung. His eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Do you know why I’ve been keeping things all light and devil-may-care? Because if you knew—if you really knew what was happening—inside of you, within the Order, within the Rebellion, if you knew what the angels are saying, what’s waiting for you, you would be sobbing, Skye. You would be paralyzed with fear. That’s why I tease you. I’m doing it for you. Because if I didn’t, you wouldn’t make it. You wouldn’t last another week.”

  I stood up, too, brushing snow off my jeans and pulling my hat down tighter over my ears. “Well, how lucky for you,” I said. “I’m about two seconds away from crying anyway.”

  Asher shoved his hands in his pockets. “Shit,” I heard him mutter.

  I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Raven is dangerous. If she’s here, something bad is up.”

  “Go,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”

  Asher turned and started walking toward the ladder. When he got there, he turned around. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  “You were mad that I was flirting with other girls?”

  “Go!” I yelled.

  Chapter 22

  Wednesday morning, I walked into homeroom with blinders on, determined not to meet anyone’s gaze. After last night, the last thing I wanted was to be confronted by Devin or Asher. Actually, I didn’t want to be confronted by either of them at all that day.

  Busy scribbling in her notebook, Cassie barely glanced up as I took my seat. I was kind of grateful, because I knew she’d notice the dark circles beneath my eyes. I felt terrible. Bleary-eyed. I’d barely slept.

  I kept replaying my fight with Asher over in my head. What did Raven being here mean? I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling me. Something they both weren’t telling me.

  Throughout the morning I managed to outmaneuver them. If one of them was walking down the hall, I ducked into the bathroom. If I saw either of them approaching me, I whipped around and pretended to be deep in conversation with whoever was nearest. Instead of going to the cafeteria for lunch, I went to the library and settled at a table in a back corner.

  I had intended to catch up on some studying. Instead I grabbed a book on angels from the shelves and flipped through the pages. The past two nights, I’d done extensive research on the internet, but it hadn’t proved very helpful. As Devin had said, a lot of myths and stories were associated with angels. How could I even begin to identify what was truth and fiction?

  I knew I could go to the source—Devin or Asher—but I couldn’t help but feel that they each had an agenda. They were on opposite sides and I was caught in the middle.

  I jerked back as Devin dropped into the chair across from me.

  “You’re avoiding us again,” he said, his v
oice low. Not because he was respectful of library rules but because he didn’t want anyone to hear us, I figured. Although with his hang-up about rules—who knew?

  “You’re paranoid,” I whispered, turning another page.

  “You won’t find what you need to know in there.”

  “You don’t know what I need.”

  “I know you need to concentrate on accepting and controlling your powers.”

  “Right now, the only power I’m interested in is the one that will make you leave me alone. By the way, our appointment at three fifteen? Forget it. I have ski practice.”

  “Your destiny is more important.”

  Folding my arms on the table, I leaned forward. “Do the Gifted see me on that roof today?”

  His cheeks turned red, and he looked uncomfortable.

  “They don’t, do they?”

  He glanced around as though everyone around us was eavesdropping. His voice was even lower, more secretive when he spoke. “There’s a lot about you they don’t know. You’re an enigma. It’s . . . troubling.”

  Taking pity on him, I reached across and placed my hand on his. He laced our fingers together and then stared at them as though he’d never before seen intertwined fingers.

  “I’m sorry, Devin. I just need some time. A couple of days.”

  He lifted his gaze to mine, and I could see the earnestness in the deep blue. “You’d be happy with the Order.”

  “Are you happy?”

  “Not when I’m here. There’s too much . . .”

  “Chaos,” I filled in for him, my mouth twitching.

  His eyes sparkled. “Yes.”

  His fingers tightened around mine. “You know, you are special, Skye.”

  “Because of who my parents are.”

  “No, because of who you are. You’re smart and funny and determined. You’re like no one I’ve ever met before.”

  I smiled. “Back at you.”

  “Meet us today on the roof.”

  “I can’t. Not today.”

  I almost caved in when I saw the look of disappointment on his face. “I made a commitment to the team,” I tried to explain. “It’s a responsibility. Just like yours to the Order.”

  “But all this”—he threw his hand out in a gesture that encompassed everything—“is pointless if you come back to the Order with me.”