Unearthly u-1

by Cynthia Hand

  Then I walk in a daze toward the side of the road, brushing past the shadow of a big silver pickup in my mind’s eye. I turn, one foot leading the other, and move off into the forest. I faintly hear Tucker calling me, but I keep walking. I don’t know if I could stop even if I tried. I push on through the trees. Once I stumble, slipping to one knee on the needle-strewn ground, but even then I keep going, deeper into the forest, not even bothering to brush myself off.

  And then I stop.

  It’s all here. The little clearing. The ridge.

  The air’s full of smoke. The sky a golden orange. Christian wearing his black fleece jacket, his hands tucked up into his pockets, hips slightly shifted to the side. He’s standing very still, looking up at the top of the ridge.

  Oh God, I think. I can see the flames. I step toward him. Everything’s so dry. I lick my lips, glance down at my hands, which are shaking. It’s like I’m leaving my whole life behind in this moment. I’m so sad I could cry.

  “Christian,” I croak out.

  He turns. I don’t know how to read his expression. His strong, well-defined eyebrows are drawn together.

  “It’s you,” he says.

  “It’s me. I’m. ”

  He crosses toward me. I keep walking to him. In another minute we both stop, arm’s length away from each other, and stare. I feel like I’m on drugs or something. I want to touch him so badly it feels like pain not to. I reach out. His hand wraps around mine. His skin’s so hot, feverish. I close my eyes for a second against the wave of sensation. Recognition blasts through me.

  We belong together.

  I open my eyes. He steps closer. His gaze brushes across my face like a touch. He looks at my lips, then my eyes, then my lips again. He lifts a hand to touch my cheek.

  I’m crying, I realize, tears slipping down my cheeks.

  “It’s really you,” he whispers. Then his arms are around me and the fire rushes at us, moving swiftly over the ground like a monster stalking us, clouds of thick, white smoke curling from its nostrils, crackling and roaring its warning. I press my body into Christian’s and summon my wings, grab at the air with all my strength, and push us skyward.

  Only I don’t fly. I sink to the ground on the forest floor, my hands clutching at empty air, because Christian isn’t there. And then everything goes black.

  * * *

  I become vaguely aware of being carried. I know without even having to open my eyes that it’s Tucker carrying me. I’d be able to identify his sun and- man smell anywhere. My head’s lolling back across his arm, my arms dangling.

  I’ve had the vision. Again. If vision is even the right word for it now. I’ve done so much more than see it. I’ve been there.

  And apparently I fainted. Again.

  I try to sit up a little, regain the use of my arms and legs, but the minute I move I start coughing. As if I inhaled some smoke. Tucker immediately stops walking.

  “Oh thank God,” he says. “You’re okay.”

  I don’t know if I’d go that far. Okay seems like the last thing that I am. I cough and cough and my lungs finally clear and I look up into Tucker’s crazy worried eyes and try to smile. And promptly cough some more.

  “I’m fine,” I say. Hack, hack, hack.

  “Hold on. We’re almost there.”

  He starts walking again and in a couple minutes we’re back at the truck. He opens the back, grabs that big familiar blanket, and spreads it out, all with one hand as he holds me with the other. He lays me gently down into the bed of his truck. Then he climbs in beside me.

  “Thanks,” I rasp. “You’re my hero.” Understatement. The coughing, at least, has stopped.

  “What happened?”

  I stare up at the sky, the big, fluffy clouds slowly lumbering over us. A tiny shiver passes through me. Tucker notices.

  “You can tell me.”

  “I know.”

  I look at him. His sweet blue eyes are filled with so much love and concern it makes a lump rise in my throat.

  “Are you all right? Do you need a doctor?”

  “No, I just passed out.”

  He waits. I take a deep breath.

  “I had a vision,” I tell him.

  Then the story comes tumbling out.

  “Where are we?” I ask when I’m done. We’re both sitting up now, Tucker leaning back against the cab trying to process it all. I can’t tell if he’s mad about the Christian aspect of the whole thing or relieved that my obsession with Christian Prescott was for a good reason. He hasn’t said anything for an entire ten minutes.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask when I can’t stand it anymore.

  “I think it’s amazing.”

  That word again.

  “It’s like a sacred duty you have to do.”

  “Right.”

  Of course the version I told Tucker doesn’t include those pesky little details about the hand-holding and the cheek touching, the way we both, Christian and I, were totally into each other in all kinds of ways at that moment. I don’t know what to think about that stuff myself.

  “So where are we?” I ask again.

  “We’re good, I think. Don’t you?”

  “No, I mean, where are we? Literally?”

  “Oh. We’re out on Fox Creek Road.”

  Fox Creek Road. Such a simple, unassuming name for this place where destiny’s going to go down. Now I know the where. And the who, and the what.

  All I have to figure out is the when.

  And the why.

  Chapter 18

  My Purpose-Drive Life

  I’m sitting in a boat with Tucker, smack in the middle of Jackson Lake, when Angela finally calls me back.

  “Okay, what’s up?” she asks. I hear bells ringing in the background. “Has the fire happened yet?”

  “No.”

  “Did you finally get some action with Christian?”

  “No!” I stammer, completely flustered. “He’s — I’m not — He’s not in town.” I glance at Tucker. He raises his eyebrows and mouths, “Who’s that?” I shake my head slightly.

  “So what’s the big emergency?” she asks impatiently.

  “I sent that email weeks ago. You only now got it?”

  “I haven’t had an internet connection for a while,” she says a bit defensively. “I’ve been kind of off the beaten path. So everything’s okay now? Crisis averted?”

  “Yes,” I say, still looking at Tucker. He smiles. “Everything’s fine.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Do you want me to take us in?” Tucker asks. I shake my head again and smile to show him that everything is, like I said, completely fine.

  “Can I call you back later?” I ask Angela.

  “No, you can’t call me back later! Who was that?”

  “Tucker,” I answer with forced lightness. He moves across the boat and slides into the seat next to me, grinning wickedly the whole time in a way that makes my breath catch and my heart accelerate.

  “Tucker Avery,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “And Wendy’s there, too?”

  “No, Wendy’s still in Montana.”

  Tucker lifts my free hand in his and starts to kiss my knuckles one by one. I shiver and try to pull my hand away, but he doesn’t let go.

  “So just Tucker,” Angela says.

  “Right.” I stifle a laugh as Tucker nips one of my fingers.

  “What are you doing with Tucker Avery?”

  “Fishing.” We’ve spent the afternoon turning in slow circles on the lake, kissing, splashing each other, eating grapes and pretzels and turkey sandwiches, kissing some more, snuggling, tickling, laughing, oh yeah, some kissing, but in there somewhere was definitely fishing. I distinctly remember a fishing pole in my hands at some point during the day.

  “No,” says Angela in a low voice.

  “What?”

  “What are you doing with Tucker Avery?” she asks again, pointedly.

  Sometimes sh
e’s too smart for her own good.

  I sit up and pull away from Tucker. “This really isn’t a good time. I’ll call you back.”

  She refuses to be sidetracked.

  “You’re screwing it up, aren’t you?” she says. “You’re losing your focus at the time when you should be sharpening it, preparing yourself. I can’t believe you’re messing around with Tucker Avery now. What about Christian? What about destiny, Clara?”

  “I’m not screwing up.” I stand up and walk carefully to the other end of the boat. “I can still do what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Oh, right. Sounds like you’ve got it all under control.”

  “Leave me alone. You don’t know anything.”

  “Does your mom know?”

  When I don’t answer, she gives a short, bitter little laugh.

  “This is perfect,” she says. “Wow.”

  “It’s my life.”

  “Yes, it is. And you are totally screwing it up.”

  I hang up on her. Then I turn and face Tucker’s questioning blue eyes.

  “What was that all about?” he asks softly.

  He doesn’t know about Angela’s angel-blood status, and it’s not my secret to tell.

  “Nothing. Just somebody who’s supposed to be my friend.”

  He frowns. “I think we should go in. We’ve been out here long enough.”

  “Not yet,” I plead.

  Overhead there are storm clouds darkening. Tucker gazes up at them.

  “We really should get off the lake. We’re starting into storm season, when the thunderstorms pop up out of nowhere. They only last for like twenty minutes but they can be brutal. We should go.”

  “No.” I grab him by the hand and tug him to the end of the boat, where I pull him down and sit curled against him, arranging his arms around me and retreating safely into his heat, his familiar, comforting smell. I press a kiss against the pulse that beats in his neck.

  “Clara—”

  I put a finger to his lips. “Not yet,” I whisper. “Let’s just stay here a little longer.”

  * * *

  The next time the phone chirps at me I’m eating pork tenderloin with apples and fennel, one of Mom’s more impressive recipes. It’s delicious, of course, but I’m not thinking about the food. I’m not thinking about Angela either. It’s been two days since the phone call on the lake and I’m doing my best to forget about it. Instead, I’m all wrapped up in some Tucker daydream. He’s been out on the river for the last couple days, working so he’ll have the money to buy his girlfriend a steak dinner for our monthiversary, he said. We’ve been together one entire month, which is crazy. Every time he calls me his girlfriend I still get a thrill. He’s going to take me dancing, teach me how to two-step and line dance and everything.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” Mom asks, arching an eyebrow across the dinner table. Jeffrey stares at me, too. I try to collect my jumbled thoughts. I pull the cell out of my pocket and look at it.

  It’s an unknown number. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I hit the TALK button.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Hey there, stranger,” says a familiar voice.

  Christian.

  I almost drop the phone.

  “Oh, hi. I didn’t recognize your number. Wow, so how are you? How’s your summer?

  How’s New York?” I’m asking too many questions.

  “It was boring. But I’m back now.”

  “Already?”

  “Well, it’s August. We’ve got to go back to school soon, you know. I actually plan to show up this year. Graduate and stuff.”

  “Right,” I say, and try to laugh.

  “So, like I said, I’m back, and I’ve been thinking about you all summer and I’m asking you to have dinner with me tomorrow night. An actual date, in case that wasn’t clear,” he says in a voice that’s deliberately light but has so many serious undertones that it feels like the air suddenly got sucked out of the room. I look up to see Mom and Jeffrey staring at me.

  He waits for me to say yes, yes I’d love to have dinner with you, when can you pick me up, I can’t wait, but I’m not saying anything. What can I say? Sorry, I know it seemed like I was crazy about you before, but that was before. I have a boyfriend now? You snooze you lose?

  “You still there?” he asks.

  “Yeah, sure. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay. ”

  “I can’t tomorrow night,” I say quickly, quietly, but I know Mom heard me. She has very good ears.

  “Oh.” Christian sounds surprised. “That’s okay. How about Saturday?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to get back to you,” I say, totally chickening out.

  “Sure,” Christian says, trying to act like it’s no big deal, but we all know, him and Mom and Jeffrey and me, that it’s a very big deal. “You have my number.” Then he quickly mumbles a good-bye and hangs up.

  I close the phone. There’s a minute of uncomfortable silence. Mom and Jeffrey have nearly the same expression: like I’ve completely lost my mind.

  “Why did you say no?” asks Mom. The million-dollar question, the one I so do not want to answer.

  “I didn’t say no. I just can’t do it tomorrow.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have plans. I have a life, you know.”

  She looks angry. “Yes, and what could possibly be more important to your life right now than Christian?”

  “I’m going out with Tucker.” All this time, I’ve been telling her that I was going out with people from school, and she believed me. She’s never had a reason not to. And she’s been too stressed out and preoccupied with work to pay attention.

  “So cancel,” she says.

  I shake my head and say, “No,” to indicate that she’s misunderstood me. I look at her. “I’m going out with Tucker.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” chokes Jeffrey, and I know it’s not because he doesn’t like Tucker, but because it’s simply so unbelievable to anybody in my family that I’d be interested in anyone but Christian. He’s why we came here, after all.

  “No. Tucker’s my boyfriend.” I love him, I want to say, but I know that would be over the top.

  Mom sets down her fork.

  “Sorry I didn’t tell you before,” I say awkwardly. “I thought — I don’t know what I thought. I mean, I’ll still save Christian, just like in the vision.”

  Only not like in the vision, I think, with the hand-holding and cheek touching and mushy stuff. But I will save him. That much I’ve decided. “I’ve been practicing my flying. I’m getting stronger, like you said. I think I can carry him.”

  “How do you know your purpose is about saving Christian?”

  “Because in the vision I fly him out of the fire. That’s called saving, right?”

  “And that’s all?”

  I look away from her knowing eyes. We belong together. That thought’s been like a piece of glass in my brain ever since I had the latest version of the vision. I’ve been going over and over it, trying to find a way that I might have misinterpreted what it meant. I don’t want to be in love with Christian Prescott. Not anymore.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But I’ll be there. I’ll save him.”

  “This isn’t some random errand you have to do, Clara,” says Mom quietly. “This is your purpose on earth. And it’s time. Teton County went on high fire alert yesterday.

  The fire could happen any minute. You have to focus. You can’t allow yourself to be distracted now. This is your life we’re talking about.”

  “Yeah,” I say, my chin lifting a notch. “It’s my life.”

  I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

  Her face is pale, her eyes stony, lusterless. One morning when we were kids, Jeffrey found a rattlesnake curled up on the patio in our backyard, lethargic with cold. Mom went to the garage and returned with a garden hoe. She ordered us to stay back.

  And then she lifted the hoe and chopped the head off the
snake in one clean blow.

  She has the same expression on her face now, stony and resolved. It scares me.

  “Mom, it’s okay,” I try.

  “It is not okay,” she says very slowly. “You’re grounded.”