by Cynthia Hand
“You are my daughter,” he says.
“I know.”
“But how do you know you’re my daughter? Because your mother told you so?”
“No, because … because I feel a connection between us that’s like …” I don’t have the right word for it. “Something inside me, like in my blood or whatever.”
“Flesh of my flesh,” he says. “Blood of my blood.”
“Now you’re getting weird.”
He chuckles. “Focus on that feeling. Believe that simple truth. You are my daughter.”
I focus. I believe. I know it to be true.
“Open your eyes,” Dad says.
I do, and gasp.
Right before my eyes is a vertical bar of light. It’s definitely glory, that light, a rippling mix of golden warmth and cool silver, the sun and moon combined. I can feel its power moving through me. I glance down at my outstretched arm, watch the glory curl around my elbow, down my forearm, to where I’m grasping the light like it has a kind of handle; then I sweep my gaze up the length again, to the tip, and it seems to have an edge to it. A point.
Yep. It’s a sword.
I look over at Christian, who grins and gives me a mental thumbs-up. Dad lets go of my wrist and steps back, admiring our handiwork.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says.
“Yeah. Now what do I do with it?”
“Whatever you want,” he says.
“Do I have to be careful with it? Can I cut myself?”
Dad responds by forming his own glory sword and swinging it at Christian, so fast that he doesn’t even have time to move, let alone duck out of the way, before the sword cuts through him. I bite back a scream, sure I’m about to see my best friend cut in half, but the blade passes through like a sunbeam cutting through clouds. Christian stands there totally shocked, his own glory sword abruptly gone from his hand, then looks down at his stomach. A long section of his T-shirt flutters to the ground, cleanly severed. But there’s not a scratch on his body.
“Holy …” Christian lets out a breath. “You could warn a guy before you attack him like that. I liked that shirt.”
“If you were a Triplare,” Dad says matter-of-factly, “you’d be dead.”
I frown. “He is a Triplare.”
“One of theirs, I mean,” Dad clarifies. “Those with the dark wings.”
“So we can’t hurt each other?” I ask. “I mean, if we spar with glory swords, they’ll pass through like that?”
“As long as you are aligned with the light, glory will not harm you,” Dad answers. “It is part of you, after all.”
Christian’s chewing on his bottom lip, which is not like him. “My wings aren’t all white,” he confesses, meeting Dad’s eyes. “They have black specks. What does that mean?”
“It happens when a child is born from a white-winged mother and one of the Sorrowful Ones,” Dad says thoughtfully. “It’s a mark the Black Wings leave to identify their Triplare children.”
“But our wings are a reflection of our souls, right?” I ask, confused. “You’re saying that Christian’s father marked his soul?”
Dad doesn’t answer, but his grim look says it all.
Christian looks like he’s going to be sick to his stomach.
Time for some stress relief, I think.
I move my arm slowly back and forth, watch the way the light lingers in the air, trailing my movement. It’s almost dark now, the sky a deep navy, and the sword against it reminds me of sparklers on the Fourth of July. On an impulse I write my name with it. C. L. A. R. A.
“Come on,” I say to Christian. “You try.”
He recovers himself and focuses until a bright blade appears in his hand, then starts writing his own letters in the air. We start to goof around, turning circles, making patterns, then taking swipes at each other’s exposed arms and legs. Just as Dad said, the blades pass right through. The warmth and power of the glory makes me a bit giddy, and I keep laughing as I maneuver the sword. For a minute I forget about the visions. There’s nothing that can touch me, with this. Nothing to fear.
“I’m glad you understand now,” Dad says, and there’s relief in his voice. “Because this is our last session.”
Christian and I both drop our arms and look at him, startled. “The last session?” I repeat.
“Of your training,” he says.
“Oh.” I lift the sword again. My heart is suddenly heavy, and the sword dims in my hand, flickers. “Will we be—will I be seeing you around?”
“Not for a long while,” he says.
The sword goes out. I turn to him, stricken, fearful that I haven’t been taught enough. I’ve learned so much in this small amount of time: how to fly better, how to fight, how to cross and transport others, which has already come in handy when I need to get Christian and me to the beach on our own, how to almost instantaneously call glory and shape it, and use it more efficiently for healing. He’s also taught us to speak to each other in our minds one-to-one, so that we can talk silently without being heard by anyone else, not even angels, which I’m sure every now and then he regrets doing, when it’s clear that Christian and I are talking about him behind his back. It’s been harder work than any of my courses at Stanford, but I’ve loved the training, truth be told, as scared as it makes me feel. It’s brought me closer to my dad, more a part of his life. It’s made me feel closer to Christian. But I don’t feel ready for any kind of Black Wing–Triplare battle. He didn’t even teach us to use the actual glory swords until today. “How long?”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got some trials ahead of you, I’m afraid, and I can’t help you. I can’t interfere, as much as I’d like to.”
That doesn’t sound good. “Any more hints you’d like to give me?”
“Follow your vision,” he says. “Follow your heart. And I’ll be with you again soon.”
“But I thought you said not for a long while—”
He smiles almost embarrassedly. “It’s a matter of perspective.”
He turns to Christian. “As for you, young man, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you. You have a fine spirit. Take care of my daughter.”
Christian swallows hard. “Yes, sir,” he says.
Dad turns back to me. “Now, try again with the sword, on your own this time.”
I close my eyes and try again, going through the steps carefully, and it works. The sword fills my hand. Dad draws his own, and we all spend a little more time there, just a little more time, together on the beach, Christian and Dad and I, writing our shining names onto the air.
“I heard about Angela,” Wendy says as we walk out of the Teton Theatre in Jackson a few days later. I called her, like I promised, asked her to hang out, and since I picked her up it’s been like old times, her and me joking around, shooting the breeze, and I’ve done an admirable job, I must say, of not showing that I think about Tucker every single time that I see any of his expressions cross her face.
Sometimes it really sucks that they’re twins.
“What did you hear?” I ask her.
“That she had a baby.”
“Yep, she did, a boy,” I say a bit guardedly. I’m protective when it comes to the subject of Angela and her baby. Maybe because I feel like they don’t have anybody else to protect them, and there is so much in this world that they might need protecting from, starting with the nasty gossip that’s surely going around about them in Jackson. Word here travels fast.
“That’s tough,” Wendy says.
I nod. Last time I called Angela, I could hear Web wailing the whole time in the background, and she said, “What do you want, Clara?” all monotone, and I said, “I’m calling to see how you are,” and she said, “I’m a clueless teen mom whose baby never stops freaking crying. I’m covered in milk and puke and crap, and I haven’t had more than two hours of sleep in a week. How do you think I am?” And then she hung up on me.
She obviously hasn’t come around to seeing how sh
e’s blessed.
“She’ll get through it,” I say to Wendy. “She’s smart. She’ll figure it out.”
“I never thought she’d be the kind to …” Wendy trails off. “Well, you know. She’s not exactly the motherly type.”
“She has her mom to help her,” I say.
We head toward the square, where the antler arches greet us at the four corners. I think about how long ago it feels since I first came here and stood under one of those arches, when my hair started to glow and my mom decided we needed to dye it. Just to get me by until I learned to control it, she’d said, and I’d laughed and said something like, I’ll learn to control my hair? and it had felt crazy, saying that. Now I can control it. If my hair started to glow at this moment, I’m fairly certain I’d be able to put it out pretty quick, before anybody noticed.
I’ve grown up, I think.
We walk into the park and take a seat on a bench. In one of the trees over our heads there’s a small dark bird staring at us, but I refuse to look closely enough to see if it’s a bird or a particularly annoying angel. I haven’t been seeing as much of Sam these days, only twice since February, and neither time he spoke to me, although I’m not sure why. I wonder if I offended him, last time. I take a sip of the soda I got for the movie. Sigh.
“It’s nice to be back,” I say.
“I know,” Wendy says. “You haven’t talked much about what’s going on with you. How’s Stanford?”
“Good. Stanford is good.”
“Good,” she says.
“Stanford is great, actually.”
She nods. “And you’re going out with Christian Prescott?”
I nearly spit out my soda. “Wendy!”
“What? I’m not allowed to ask you about your love life?”
“What about your love life?” I counter. “You haven’t said anything about that.”
She smiles. “I’m dating a guy named Daniel; thanks for asking. He’s studying business communications, and we were in the same English composition class last fall, and I helped him with some of his papers. He’s cute. I like him.”
“I bet that’s not all you helped him with,” I tease.
She doesn’t take the bait. “So what’s going on with you and Christian?”
I’d rather have my teeth pulled than have this conversation, her staring at me expectantly with her version of Tucker’s hazy blue eyes.
“We’re friends,” I stammer. “I mean, we’ve been on a date. But …”
She quirks an eyebrow at me. “But what? You’ve always liked him.”
“I do like him. He makes me laugh. He’s always there for me, whenever I need him. He understands me. He’s amazing.”
“Sounds like a match made in heaven,” she says. “So what’s the problem?”
“Nothing. I like him.”
“And he likes you?”
My cheeks are getting hot. “Yes.”
“Well.” She sighs. “It’s like my daddy always says. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
I don’t know what she means, but I have the distinct feeling that she’s getting at something Tucker-related. I laugh like I get it, and look off across the street, where there’s a sudden flurry of noise and movement. Some kind of show is being put on. They’ve blocked off part of the road, and a number of costumed guys are standing in the middle of it, shouting something about how the notorious Jackson gang has robbed a bank in Eagle City.
“What is this?” I ask Wendy.
“You’ve never seen this before?” she asks incredulously. “Cowboy melodrama. One of the other great things about this town. Where else on earth can you go and witness a good old-fashioned Wild West shoot-out? Come on, let’s go have a look.”
I follow her across the street toward the action. The cowboy actors are quickly drawing a crowd from the tourists on the boardwalk. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I notice that the actors all tote rifles or pistols.
Wendy turns to me. “Fun, right?”
“Consider me entertained.” I turn, laughing, pressed in by the people around me, when suddenly I see Tucker farther up the boardwalk, coming out of what appears to be the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum, another place I’ve never been to even though I’ve considered Jackson my home for more than two years. He’s smiling with his dimples out, his teeth a flash of white against his tanned face. I can hear the faint sound of his laugh, and I can’t help it, it makes me smile to hear it. I love his laugh.
But he’s not alone. Another second and Allison Lowell, the girl from the rodeo, the girl who was one of his dates at prom the year I went with Christian, the girl who’s had a giant crush on him pretty much her whole life, follows Tucker out of the building, and she’s laughing too, her long red hair in a fish-tailed braid over her shoulder, peering up at him exactly the way I know I used to look at him. She puts her hand on his arm, says something else to make him smile. He folds his arm around her hand, like he’s escorting her somewhere, always the perfect gentleman.
Shots ring in the air. The crowd laughs as one of the villains staggers around melodramatically, then dies and lies twitching.
I know how he feels.
I should go. They’re coming this way, and any second he’s going to see me, and there isn’t even a word for how awkward that’s going to be. I should go. Now. But my feet don’t move. I stand like I’ve been frozen, watching them as they walk along together, their talk easy, familiar, Allison glancing over at him from under her lashes, wearing a western-style shirt with those vees on the shoulders, tight jeans, boots. A Wyoming girl. His type of Wyoming girl, specifically.
I can’t stop thinking about how much better she’d be for him than I am.
But I also kind of want to tear her hair out.
They’re close now. I can smell her perfume, light and fruity and feminine.
“Uh-oh,” I hear Wendy say behind me, noticing them at last. “We should—” Get out of here, she’s about to say, but then Tucker glances up.
The smile vanishes from his face. He stops walking.
For all of ten long seconds we stand there, in the middle of the crowd of tourists, staring at each other.
I can’t breathe. Oh man. Please don’t let me start crying, I think.
Then Wendy pulls on my arm, and my feet magically work again, and I turn and run—oh yes, I’m that dignified—and I’m about three blocks away, around the corner, before I slow down. I wait for Wendy to catch up to me.
“Well,” she says breathlessly. “That was exciting.”
She’s not talking about the gunfight.
We take the long way getting back to my car. When we’re both seat-belted in, ready to go, she suddenly reaches and takes the keys out of the ignition.
“So you’re still in love with my brother,” she says, and when I try to grab the keys, she adds, “Oh no, we’re going to talk about this.”
Silence. I fight the humiliating urge to cry again.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Let’s get it all out in the open. You still love him.”
I bite my lip, then release it. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve moved on, and he’s moved on. Clearly he’s with Allison now.”
Wendy snorts. “Tucker is not in love with Allison Lowell. Don’t blow stuff out of proportion.”
“But—”
“It’s you, Clara. You’re the only one, from the first day he saw you. He looks at you exactly the same way my daddy looks at my mom.”
“But I’m not good for him,” I say miserably. “I have to let him go.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
“We’re not meant to be,” I murmur.
This gets another snort. “That,” she says, “is a matter of opinion.”
“Oh, so it’s your opinion that Tucker and I, that we—”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “But I do know that he loves you. And you love him.”
“I’m at Stanford. He’s here. You said
yourself that long-distance relationships don’t work out. You and Jason—”
“I didn’t love Jason,” she says. “Plus, I didn’t know what I was talking about.” She sighs heavily. “Okay, so I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, as a matter of fact. He’d kill me. But Tucker applied to college this year. And he’s going, in the fall.”
“What? Where?”
“UC Santa Clara. You see, don’t you, why this is important?”
I nod, stunned. UC Santa Clara just so happens to be in my part of California.
My heart is in my throat. I try to swallow it down. “You suck.”
Wendy puts her hand on mine. “I know. It’s my fault, partly. I kind of threw you two together that summer with the boots.”
“You really did.”
“You’re my friend, and I want you to be happy, and he’s my brother, and I want him to be happy, too. And I think you could make each other happy, if you’d give it a real chance.”
If only it were so simple.
“I think you should talk to him again, that’s all,” she says.
“Oh yeah? And what should I say?”
“The truth,” she says solemnly. “Tell him how you feel.”
Fantastic, I think. I’m crying over Tucker. Not very women’s lib of me, I know. It goes against everything I believe about myself, all that my mother taught me—that I am strong, that I am capable, that I don’t need a man to make me happy—but here I am, all curled up on the couch in the fetal position, an uneaten bowl of microwaved caramel popcorn on the floor by my feet, sobbing into the cushions because all I wanted was to watch a stupid movie to get my mind off things and all Netflix has lined up for me is romantic comedies.
I’m replaying that moment on the boardwalk over and over, Allison Lowell looking up at Tucker, her brown eyes all doe-like and alluring and crap, and how she touched him the way I’ve touched him. How she smiled.
And he smiled back at her.
But he’s also apparently going to college about twenty miles from me. The possibility of that, Tucker nearby, expands into an aching, hopeful, confused mess in my soggy brain.