by Cynthia Hand
My black hoodie, the one I was wearing all through this whole ordeal, is laid carefully across the back of the couch. I pick it up. It smells like lake water and blood. I walk to the laundry room to toss it in there, but first I check the pockets.
Inside the left pocket is a silver charm bracelet. I hold it in my palm, examining each charm. A horse, for when they took off across the countryside. A fish, for when they met. A heart. And now a new charm.
A tiny silver sparrow.
I put it on. It tinkles against the bones of my wrist as I walk down the hallway to Mom’s old room. My heart starts to beat fast, my breath quickens, but I don’t hesitate. I want to see him. I open the door.
The bed’s empty, the sheets pulled up in a messy way, like someone tried to straighten the covers in a hurry. No one’s here. I frown.
Maybe I took too long to come find him. Maybe he left.
I smell something burning.
I find Tucker in the kitchen, attempting and spectacularly failing to make scrambled eggs. He pushes at the blackened mess with a spatula, tries to flip it, burns himself, fights back a cuss word, and starts shaking his hand like he can get the pain off it. I laugh, and he whirls around, startled. His blue eyes widen.
“Clara!” he says.
My heart lifts looking at him. I walk up to him and take the spatula out of his hand.
“I thought you’d be hungry,” he says.
“Not for that.” I smile and grab a dish towel, pick up the frying pan, march it over to the trash can, and scrape the eggs into it. Then I go to the sink and rinse it out. “Let me,” I say.
He nods and pulls himself up onto one of the kitchen stools. He’s not wearing a shirt, just a pair of my brother’s old pajama pants. Even so he looks like Sunday morning, I think the expression goes. I try not to flat-out stare as I go to the refrigerator and get out a carton of eggs, crack them into a bowl, add milk, whisk it all together.
“How are you?” he asks. “Jeffrey told me you were sleeping.”
“You saw Jeffrey?”
“Yeah, he was here for a while. He seemed kind of distracted. He tried to give me an envelope full of money.”
“Uh, sorry?” I offer.
“You California yuppies think you can buy anything,” Tucker jokes.
And he is joking. He’s getting pretty fond of California yuppies.
“I’m good,” I say with a cough, to answer his initial question. “How are you?”
“Never felt better,” he says.
I stop whisking and look him over. He doesn’t seem changed, I think. He doesn’t look like any prophet I’ve ever heard of.
“What?” he asks. “Do I have egg on my face?”
“I’m not really hungry,” I say, pushing aside the eggs. “I need to talk to you.”
He swallows. “Please don’t let this be the part where you tell me what’s best for me again.”
I shake my head, laugh. “Why don’t you put on some clothes?”
“That’s a great idea,” he says. “But they seem to be missing. I guess they got thrashed beyond repair earlier. Maybe you could take me home real quick.”
“Sure.” I walk over to him and take his hand, draw him off the stool. He looks at me uncertainly.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
I delight in his quick intake of breath as I reach up and cover his eyes with both of my hands. I call the glory, a warm, pulsing circle of light around us. I close my eyes, smiling, and send us both to the Lazy Dog. To the barn. On purpose.
“Okay, you can look,” I say, and take my hands away, and the light slowly fades around us, and he gasps.
“How did you do that?”
I shrug. “I click my heels three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’”
“Uh-huh. So … you think this is your home? My barn?”
His tone is playful, but the look he’s giving me is dead serious. A question.
“Haven’t you guessed by now?” I say, my heart hammering. “My home is you.”
He’s got a kind of laughing disbelief all over his face. He clears his throat. “And I don’t feel sick with the glory this time. Why is that?”
“I’ll tell you all about it,” I promise. “Later.”
“So,” he says. “Does poking that guy through the heart with a sword mean you don’t have to run away now?”
“I’m not running away.”
He grins. “That’s the best news I’ve ever heard. Ever.” He puts his hand on my waist, pulls me closer. He’s going to kiss me. “So did you really mean all that stuff you said when I was a dead man?”
“Every word.”
“Could you say it again?” he asks. “My memory’s a little fuzzy.”
“Which part? The part where I said I wanted to stay with you forever?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs, his face close to mine, his breath hot on my cheek.
“When I said that I love you?”
He pulls back a little, searches my eyes with his. “Yes. Say it.”
“I love you.”
He takes a deep, happy breath. “I love you,” he says back. “I love you, Clara.”
Then his gaze drops to my lips again, and he leans in, and the rest of the world simply goes away.
EPILOGUE
“Look at me, look at me,” Web shouts from Midas’s back, as Tucker leads him around the pasture.
From the porch, where I’m sitting with Angela drinking lemonade, I raise my hand and wave. Every time I see him he’s like a foot taller, that kid, although he’s small for a nine-year-old, always talking your ear off (he takes after his mother that way), always grinning up at you with mischievous golden eyes from underneath his mop of unruly blue-black hair. As we watch, he gives Midas a little kick to get him to go faster, and Tucker has to jog along beside them to keep up.
“You be careful out there!” Angela calls, more to Tucker than to her son.
Tucker nods, rolls his eyes, pats Midas on the neck, and slows him down. As if falling off a horse would do anything besides startle that indestructible little boy.
“You’re kind of a helicopter parent, you know that?” I tease.
She scoffs and lifts her arms above her head in a stretch. If I look hard I can see the faint markings on her right arm, only a few left now. The tattoos started to fade the moment she held Web in her arms again—like his love is washing her clean, she always says.
Still, I wonder if the words will ever completely go away.
“I think I’m more an attachment-style parent,” she argues.
“Of course you are.”
In a few hours the whole loud bunch of us will be gathered around the Averys’ big table in the farmhouse for supper: Tucker’s parents, Wendy and Dan and little Gracie, Angela and Web up from the Windy City, and, if I play my cards right, Jeffrey. We’ll all eat and laugh and talk about the news and everybody’s jobs, and I’ll almost certainly take some flack, mostly from Angela, for going to Stanford to get my fancy medical degree fully intending to wind back up here as a plain old family doctor. I’ll joke about the fine weather in Wyoming and how I couldn’t bear to leave. Tucker will squeeze my knee under the table. And I will get a brief sense of togetherness, of everything being how it should be, but I’ll also feel an absence, like there’s an empty chair at the table. At that point the topic of conversation will inevitably turn to Christian, as if me thinking about him makes everyone think about him, and Angela will tell us about the buildings he’s working on and Web will gush about the last adventure the two of them went on together: to the Lincoln Park Zoo or the Chicago Children’s Museum or the observatory on the ninety-fourth floor of the John Hancock Center. And then the conversation will move on to other things, and I’ll feel normal again. I’ll feel right.
Angela’s still talking about parenting styles, something called Love and Logic. She offers to loan me her books about it, and I smile
and say I’ll take a look at them. I set my lemonade down and stand up, step off the porch to walk toward the pasture, passing through the shadow of the big red barn, the sky overhead empty and blue.
“Look at me, look at me, Clara,” Web says again when he spots me. After dinner I’ll take him flying, I think, if Angela will let me. The sound of him giggling as Tucker guides the horse along the fence makes me smile. I take a moment to admire the view of Tucker from the back, the way he walks with a kind of funny cowboy grace, the fit of his jeans.
“I see you! Hi there, handsome,” I say to Tucker.
He leans over the fence to kiss me, taking my face between his hands, the plain gold band on his finger cool against my cheek. Then he steps back and drops his head for a minute, his eyes closed in a way I’ve come to be familiar with over the years. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“You okay? Another vision?” I ask.
He glances up at me, grins. “Yes, I’m having a vision,” he says with a laugh in his voice. “I’m having a vision that I just know is going to come true.”
“And what’s that?” I ask him.
“We’re going to be happy, Carrots,” he says, tucking a strand of my flyaway hair behind my ear. “That’s all.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
And now I’ve come to the end of a long road, and there are so many people to thank.
My first big thanks goes to Katherine Fausset. Best. Agent. Ever. You were my pillar of sanity this time around. Thank you for brainstorming sessions, for chocolate chip cookies, for standing by me through the laugh-filled ups and the tear-filled downs, and for always fighting for me. I am so very glad to have you in my corner.
Thank you to my trio of amazing editors, starting with Farrin Jacobs, for believing in Clara and her story from the rough little first draft of Unearthly. I will miss the blue pencil. Thanks to Catherine Wallace, who was with me every step of the way on this journey, quietly asking all the tough questions that would make my book so much better. And a huge thanks to Erica Sussman, my last-minute hero. I can’t express what your enthusiasm, your smart ideas, and your quirky sense of humor meant to me at this stage in the game. I can’t wait to work together again!
Thanks to the rest of the team at HarperTeen: Mary Ann Zissimos, my publicist, who I’m just going to go ahead and thank in advance this time around, Sasha Illingworth, who created such a gorgeous set of covers that people could not help but pick them up, and all of those awesome people who’ve been so supportive from the beginning, including Kate Jackson, Susan Katz, Christina Colangelo, Melinda Weigel, Cara Petrus, and Sarah Kaufman.
I also would like to thank the people who helped me explore and research my northern California setting, starting with my dear friend Wendy Johnston, who chauffeured me to signings and tried out strange pizza and wrangled my kids so I could sneak pictures of a tattoo parlor. Not to mention all the other ways that you are the epitome of a good friend, better than any character I could make up. And I’m sorry all the Wendy scenes keep getting cut….
I owe a big thanks to Keith Ekiss, for helping me find resources at Stanford, and an even bigger thanks to Estela Go, the awesome student who walked me all around campus, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow when I wanted to excessively photograph the laundry room, and answered my hours (oh yes, hours!) of questions. Clara got to experience Band Run and eat Tater Tots and run up to the Dish because of you! Also, thank you to Dayo Mitchell, the dorm advisor at Roble, for helping me understand how one might approach Clara’s undecided-ness and Angela’s delicate situation. Clara’s life at the Farm blossomed after I spent some time with all of you.
While I’m on the subject of Stanford, I’d like to thank Dr. Quynh Le, my boss while I worked at Stanford so many years ago. Thank you for taking a chance on me and for encouraging me to write after my day’s work was finished. You always said I’d be published someday, and that meant so much to me.
And now thanks to my friends: To Lindsey Terrell, my bestest bestie, for being unapologetically Team Christian when everyone else was pulling for Tuck. To Melissa Stockham, who made me feel like my book was “shiny,” even those times when I kind of hated it. To Joan Kremer, for always being so willing to read for me and to write with me. I am so happy we stumbled into each other as newbies. To Sarah Hall, who has cheered from the sidelines and put my book into so many hands at your library. And last, but certainly not least, to Amy Yowell, who impresses and inspires me daily with your own drive and determination as a writer. I have no doubt that you’ll be putting me into your acknowledgments someday soon.
I also want to thank my writer buddies, starting with the amazing and hilarious Brodi Ashton, a kindred spirit if there ever was one. Fate is a funny thing, but I am so glad it drew us together. To Anna Carey, Tahereh Mafi, and Veronica Rossi, for being the best tour mates and confidantes ever. To Jodi Meadows, for her quiet support and knitted fingerless gloves, and the lovely Courtney Allison Moulton, for giving me permission to have Midas chow down on jelly beans the way Pia does. You’re still on to name the horses in my next book. Finally, a huge thank-you to Kiersten White, for waxing poetic on how much you love Erica—I will always be grateful that you put her on my radar. You rock.
And now thanks to my family:
My mother, Carol Ware, for the hours that you hovered in the corners at bookstores and middle schools with my baby strapped to your chest. Thanks for your wholehearted love for Clara and her story, from the first time I read you the prologue over the phone. And to Jack Ware, thank you for your warmth, your kindness, your humor, and for all the innumerable ways that you offer your support. I’m so glad to be part of your family.
My dad, Rod Hand, for listening whenever I called to rant or worry and always making me feel, by the end of those conversations, like I was capable of doing whatever I set my mind to. And to Julie Hand, for always being eager to read my drafts and giving me your honest opinion.
To my beautiful and hilarious children, Will and Maddie, thank you for keeping me grounded and teaching me to see life from fresh eyes. Squeeze, I love you.
And finally, to my husband, John. This year was a long haul for you, too, and there’s so much to thank you for: for being such a smart, insightful first editor, who helped me unravel so many problems and story lines, for all those brainstorming sessions over dinner, all those late-night last-minute read-throughs, for taking care of the kids without complaint when I had to travel or spend a day working, for your insistence that the book was good and I was good and I could do it, and for sometimes just offering me the hug I needed at the end of the day. I would never have come so far without you by my side.
OTHER WORKS
ALSO BY CYNTHIA HAND
UNEARTHLY
HALLOWED
RADIANT: AN UNEARTHLY NOVELLA
(AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK ONLY)
COPYRIGHT
Excerpts from Memorial Church pamphlet
© Office for Religious Life, Stanford University
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Boundless
Copyright © 2013 by Cynthia Hand
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-06-199620-7
EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062103468
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