by Cynthia Hand
I let Christian tell it. I struggle to keep my face passive as I listen to him relate the events without embellishment, the way we talked about on the drive over, without getting too much into the gritty details. Christian keeps it simple: We showed up. Asael wanted Angela’s baby. He told one of his minions to kill Anna Zerbino, then left, taking Angela, leaving the others to burn the place. We found where Angela had hidden Web, fought our way out of the Garter, and fled. The bare bones of what happened.
After that the congregation peppers us with some questions Christian doesn’t know how to answer. “How did Asael know about the baby?” and “How did Angela know to hide the baby before the Black Wings arrived?” and, finally, “How did you fight them off?”
“With a glory sword,” Christian replies, which makes them collectively gasp. I guess how to wield a glory sword isn’t common knowledge among them. “My uncle taught me.”
The first of the lies we plan to tell tonight.
It sucks not being wholly honest with the congregation, but if there’s anything that Christian and I have had ingrained in us by our parents, it’s that we should never admit to being Triplare. Not to anyone. We don’t even want to let on that we know the Triplare exist. That’s why Corbett asked us to tell our story this way, so we can spin it the way we need to, without revealing ourselves, or Web. Only Corbett and Billy know the truth.
“So the girl’s body they found in the Garter isn’t Angela,” someone confirms. I locate the source of the voice: Julia. The voice of dissent every time we had a meeting last year. Not my favorite person.
“No. Asael took Angela,” Christian answers.
“Why? What would he want with her?” Stephen asks.
“She’s his daughter,” Christian says. “At least, that’s the way he was talking. Like he’d been keeping tabs on her.”
My throat closes briefly. Asael had been using Phen to keep tabs on Angela. All that time, all of what she felt for Phen, all that she thought she knew about him, was a lie. He was following orders. He didn’t seem to enjoy following them, but that doesn’t change the truth. She was a job to him.
If I thought Stephen’s expression was serious before, it’s apocalyptically serious now.
“I see,” he says. “And who is the father of Angela’s child?”
“Some guy at school,” I reply quickly. Lie number two.
Stephen frowns. “Some guy?”
“His name’s Pierce. He lives in our dorm. But it doesn’t matter who the father is,” I say, my voice louder than usual. “We need to find Angela. We need to get her back. Web needs her. So I’m really hoping you’ve got some awesome kind of plan.”
Silence. Even Corbett looks uncomfortable for a minute.
“We do have a plan,” he says gently. “But it involves the baby, not Angela.”
“What do you mean? How can it involve the baby and not Angela?” I hug Web tighter to me.
“We think it might be best if you give the baby to Billy. She’s agreed to care for him, guard him, and protect him, perhaps indefinitely. Until there are further developments.”
“Further developments?” I exclaim. “What does that mean?”
“Clara,” Christian murmurs. “Calm down. They’re doing their best.”
“What, you don’t care?” I challenge. “Angela’s one of us. She’s been kidnapped. Aren’t we even going to try to get her back?”
“It’s not that we don’t care,” Billy says. She’s been quiet up to now, sitting behind the fire, stirring the embers with a stick. “It’s that we don’t have the power to save her. From what you’ve told us”—her eyes meet mine across the fire, meaning from what you’ve told me—“it sounds like they took her to hell.”
I knew that. They took her to hell, and I did nothing to stop them.
I clear my throat. “Well, then, we have to get her out of there.”
Corbett shakes his head sadly. “We can’t get into hell. Even if we had the ability to move between dimensions, it’d be impossible to find her. Hell is as vast as the earth, or so we believe. You couldn’t hope to locate Angela without some kind of guide, some idea of where to go.”
“A guide. Like an angel?” I ask.
Corbett scratches at his beard. “A real, full-blooded angel could do it. But none of us here know any of those.”
My dad could help us, I think, but he said he was going away for a while. He said I’d have to make it on my own. He said he couldn’t help me.
We’re going to have to find some other way.
“We think the two of you have been so brave, and faced so much,” Billy says as my mind churns with this new information, and the congregation murmurs their agreement. “You did everything you could, and we’ll do everything we can to help you now. I volunteered to take Web because I thought it’d take some of the burden off you.”
“But what would we do? If we gave Web to you, where would we go?” Christian asks.
Billy nods like she was expecting the question. “We’ve had some disagreements about that, but the majority of us think that you should remain in hiding. We could funnel you to one of our sister outposts, anywhere in the world.” She sighs like the idea totally depresses her.
My hope turns to a leaden ball of dread in the pit of my stomach. “You’re saying we can’t go back. To our old lives. Ever.”
Her smile is sympathetic. “We can’t make that decision for you. But yes, that’s what I’m saying. The general consensus is that it’s not safe for you to go back to California.”
So that’s it. No more Stanford. No more dreams of becoming a doctor. No more normal life. We’re going to be expected to start over.
“I think the baby should stay with us,” Christian says. “We’re doing fine with him.”
“But won’t the Black Wings be looking for a couple with a baby?” Julia says from the circle.
Shut up, Julia.
“I don’t care,” Christian says fiercely. “Web stays with us.”
Because we’re already a family, he feels. Because we’re responsible for him. Because it’s the least we can do, for Angela.
There’s not much to say after that, and the meeting is adjourned. Billy and Christian and I cross through the tall grass toward the trail that leads back to the truck, a sleeping Web snuggled up against Christian’s chest in a baby carrier that someone in the congregation gave us. It’s always full summer here no matter what the season outside, and I try to take a moment to enjoy the sweet air, the smell of grass and fresh water and summer wildflowers. The sky, unsullied by clouds. The stars wheeling bright over our heads.
I’m dragging my feet, literally. Something inside me doesn’t want to leave this place. It’s like I’m waiting for something else to happen.
I stop walking.
“What?” Christian asks. “What’s the matter?”
I can’t make myself go any farther. I’m crying. All this time, since the night the Garter burned, since everything fell apart, part of me has been numb. Silent. Paralyzed. But now I’m crying buckets.
“Oh, kid,” Billy says, enveloping me in her arms, rocking me. “Just breathe. It’s going to be all right, you’ll see.”
I don’t see. How can it be all right, if we’re going to leave Angela in hell? I pull away and wipe at my eyes, then start bawling all over again. I thought we’d find a solution to our problems here. I thought I’d finally be able to do something about what happened that night at the Garter. To save Angela. But here I am, giving up. Going back into hiding. Running away.
I’m a coward. A failure. Weak.
“Clara,” Christian says. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
“You don’t have to shoulder all this by yourself,” Billy says. “I’m here for you, kid. And this guy’s sure here for you.” She jerks her chin at Christian. “We’re all on Team Clara, everybody in this meadow, every single one of us in your corner, even Julia.” She grimaces, and I stifle a laugh that comes out as a sob. “Sure, thin
gs are dark right now. Put us one-on-one against the Black Wings, we’re all weak. We’re scared. We’re easily defeated. But together we’re a force to be reckoned with.”
I nod, dry my eyes on my shirt, and try to smile. It’s not fair of me to expect too much from the congregation. They’ve tried to help us in every way they could. They even offered to send a couple scouts to look for Jeffrey this week, to warn him, but I didn’t think he’d listen to any of them.
“We’ve got to lean on each other,” Billy says, squeezing me.
“Thanks.” I shift my weight to lean heavily against her, and she laughs.
“That’s my girl. Now come on. Let’s get you two on the road.” She keeps her arm around me as we walk to the edge of the meadow. “You call me,” she says, at the point where we’re supposed to say good-bye. “Anytime, day or night. I mean it. I’ve got your back.”
“Wait,” I say. I turn to Christian. I want to join the congregation, I say, and I don’t know why it embarrasses me to tell him, but it does. Officially, I mean, I clarify, since it seems like, in some ways, I’ve been a member of this group all along.
I’ve been thinking about this for the entire fourteen-hour drive from Nebraska. Longer than that, even. I’ve thought about becoming a member of the congregation since the first time I came to this meadow. Mom and I had a talk about it. I asked her, “So will I be expected to join the congregation now?” and she smiled and said it was something I would have to decide for myself.
“It’s not something to be done lightly,” she said. “It’s a great commitment, you understand, binding yourself to these people, to this cause, for life.”
“Commitment?” I repeated. “Well, when you put it like that, maybe I’ll wait.”
She laughed. “When the time is right, you’ll know,” she said.
It feels like the time is right.
Do you mind waiting? I ask Christian.
No, of course not, he says. He understands. He joined the congregation last year, but he doesn’t often talk about why.
I did it because I wanted to be part of them, he says. I know on the outside they might seem like a bickering, badgering, half-dysfunctional family, but underneath all that, they’re trying to do the right thing. They’re fighting on the side of good, in every way they know how.
He’s remembering the way they came together after his mother was killed. Protected him. Comforted him. Stopped by with meals so he didn’t starve while his uncle learned how to cook for a ten-year-old vegetarian. They became his family, too.
I turn to Billy, who’s been waiting patiently for me to say something out loud. “I don’t know the rules, if I have to be invited or perform some special task or something, but I want to join the congregation. I want to fight on the side of good.” My voice wobbles on the word fight, because I can’t fight. I’ve already proven that. But this isn’t a fight with glory swords they’re talking about. Christian’s right—it’s family, the only family I have left. I need to do something. I need to stand for something tangible and good, the way my mother did. I need to try. “Can I do that, before I go?”
“You bet,” she says, and she takes me to find Stephen. We find him reclining in one of those collapsible camping chairs near his tent, reading a large leather-bound book.
“Clara would like to join us,” Billy tells him.
For all of two seconds Stephen thinks she just means I want to join them for roasting marshmallows or something, but then he sees the look on my face. “Ah,” he says. “I see. I’ll call the others.”
Within ten minutes I’m standing in the innermost ring of an outward-spreading circle of angel-bloods, the entire congregation assembled again in the middle of the meadow, and every single one of them is looking right at me. I try not to squirm. Stephen asks me a single question: “Do you promise to serve the light, to fight for the side of good, to love and protect the others who serve alongside you?”
I say I do. In that way it’s kind of like a wedding ceremony.
The congregation unfurls their wings. I’ve seen them do this before, with my mother, when they were saying good-bye to her the last time I was here. But now it’s me in the center of the circle, and it’s night, so when they summon glory around me, it kind of feels like the sun rising in my soul. I haven’t felt glory since the Garter, and something releases inside when the light floods me. I feel warm, for the first time in more than a week. I feel safe. I feel loved. Their light fills the meadow, and it’s different from the glory I call up in myself, fuller, like the beating heart of every person in the circle is my heart, and their breath is my breath, their voices my voice.
God is with us, they say in Latin, for what I assume is the team motto, their words a swelling hum around me. Clara lux in obscuro. Bright light in the darkness.
“I’m thinking about Chicago,” Christian says, the day after we get back to Lincoln. He’s sitting at the dining table in our hotel, surfing the internet on his laptop.
I look up from where I’m preparing Web’s morning bottle. “What are you thinking about it?”
“We should move there,” he says. “I’ve found us the perfect little house.”
I promptly lose count of how many spoonfuls of powdered formula I’ve scooped into the bottle. “Oh. A house.” He’s looking at houses. For us. Even though I feel lighter after the glory in the meadow the other night, the idea of hiding away with Christian and Web, creating a whole new identity for myself, still doesn’t sit right.
But Christian’s excited about it. He’s making plans.
He sees the freaked-out expression on my face, or maybe he feels it. “Clara, don’t worry. We can take this whole thing really slow. One step at a time, with everything. Let’s stay here for a couple more weeks, if you want. I know it’s hard.”
Does he? I wonder. Walter is gone, I think. Christian’s an only child. He’s not leaving anything behind.
“That’s not fair,” he says quietly. “I had friends at Stanford. I had a life there, too.”
“Stop reading my mind!” I exclaim, then say stiffly, “I have to feed Web,” and leave the room.
I’m being childish, I think. It’s not Christian’s fault we’re on the run.
After Web is fed and changed, I slink back into the kitchen. Christian’s closed his laptop. He’s watching TV. He looks up at me warily.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to yell.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “We’ve been cooped up.”
“Will you take Web for a while? I need to take a walk. Clear my head.”
He nods, and I hand Web over to him.
“Hey, want to hang out, little man?” Christian asks him, and Web coos happily in response.
I beeline it for the door.
It’s raining outside, but I don’t care. The cool air feels good on my face. I stuff my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt, pull up my hood to cover my head, and walk to a park a few blocks from the hotel. It’s deserted. I sit on one of the swings and turn on my phone.
I have to do this one last thing, which I’ve been avoiding—hoping, maybe, that everything would work itself out. But it’s not working itself out.
I have to call Tucker.
“Oh, Clara, thank God,” he says when I say hello. He was sleeping, and I woke him, and his voice is rough-edged. “Are you okay?” he rasps.
I am not okay. Just hearing him brings tears to my eyes, knowing what I’m about to do. “I’m fine,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
“I’ve been going out of my mind, worrying,” he says. “You took off like that, half-cocked and frantic and whatnot, and then the Garter was all over the news. I’m so sorry, Clara. I know Angela was one of your best friends.” He lets out a breath. “At least you’re safe. I thought you were—I thought you might be—”
Dead. He thought I might be dead.
“Where are you?” he asks. “I can come meet you somewhere. I have to see you.”
“No. I can�
�t.” Just do it, I tell myself. Get it out before you lose your nerve. “Look, Tucker, I’m calling because I have to make you understand something. There’s no future for you and me. I don’t even know what my future is, at this point. But I can’t be with you.” A lone tear makes its way down my face, and I wipe at it impatiently. “I have to let you go.”
He gives an aggravated sigh. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” he says, his voice laced with anger. “All that I said to you before, about us, about what I feel, it doesn’t matter. You’re making the choice for both of us.”
He’s right, but that’s just how it has to be. I push on. “I wanted to tell you that wherever I am, whatever happens, I’ll always think of you, and the time we spent together, as my happiest time. I’d do it all over again, if I had the choice. No regrets.”
He’s quiet for a minute. “You’re really saying good-bye this time,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s asking me or simply trying to get his head around the idea.
“I’m really saying good-bye.”
“No,” he says against my ear. “No. I won’t accept that. Clara …”
“I’m sorry, Tuck. I have to go,” I say, and then I hang up. And cry. And cry.
I sit on that swing for a long time, in the rain, thinking, trying to get a grip on myself. I try to picture Chicago, what it will be like, but all I can conjure in my head is a giant silver bean and a bunch of tall buildings. And Oprah. And the Bears.
I gaze up at the gray, shifting clouds.
Is this my destiny? I ask them. To be with Christian? To go with him? To protect Web because his mother can’t be here?
Is this my purpose?
The clouds don’t have a lot of answers.
For the first time in my life, I wish for a vision. I almost miss having them, which is ironic, I know. Every night lately as I lay me down to fragile sleep, I wonder, will it come? Is this the night when the mysterious scene will play like a movie trailer behind my eyelids and the whole process will begin again: sorting through the fragments, the details, the feelings, trying to understand what they add up to? In that moment before I close my eyes and give in to the darkness of night, to sleep, my body tenses under the sheets. My breath quickens. Waiting.