by Cynthia Hand
“But maybe I could—”
“No. I don’t need you messing up my life right now.” He looks embarrassed, like he just caught on to how rude he sounds. “I mean, I have to make it on my own, Clara. All right? But I’m okay. That’s what I came to tell you. You don’t have to worry. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” I murmur, my voice suddenly thick. I clear my throat, get a hold of myself. “Jeffrey—”
“I’ve got to get back,” he says.
I nod like it totally makes sense that he would have somewhere he needs to be at five in the morning. “Do you need money?”
“No,” he says, but he waits while I sprint up to my room to get my wallet, and he takes some when I give it to him.
“If you need anything, call me,” I order him. “I mean it. Call me.”
“Why, so you can boss me around?” he says, but he sounds good-natured about it.
I walk him to the front door. It’s chilly outside. I worry that he’s not wearing a coat. I worry that the forty-two dollars I gave him won’t be enough to keep him safe and fed. I worry that I’ll never see him again.
“Now’s when you let go of my arm,” he says.
I make my fingers release.
“Jeffrey, wait,” I say as he starts to walk away.
He doesn’t stop walking, doesn’t turn back. “I’ll call you, Clara.”
“You’d better,” I yell after him.
He rounds the corner of the building. I wait for all of three seconds before I run after him, but when I get there, he’s gone.
That stupid crow is hanging out at my happiness class, perched on a branch right outside the window, watching me. I’m supposed to be meditating right now, which means I have to sit and look like I’m chilling with the sixty or so students who are spread out in various meditative positions on the floor, letting go of all my worldly thoughts and whatnot, which I can’t do because if I did I’d start glowing like a tanning bed. I’m supposed to have my eyes closed, but I keep opening them to see if the bird is still there, and it is every time I check, looking straight at me through the glass with those bright yellow eyes, taunting me, like, Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it?
It’s a coincidence, I think. It’s not the same bird. It can’t be. It looks like the same bird, but then, don’t all crows look alike? What does it want?
This is clearly putting a major kink in my quest for inner peace.
“Excellent job, everyone,” says Dr. Welch, stretching his arms over his head. “Now let’s take a few minutes to write in our gratitude journals, and then we’ll start the discussion.”
Go away, I think at the bird. Don’t be a Black Wing. Just be a stupid bird. I don’t want to deal with a Black Wing right now.
It cocks its head at me, caws once, and flies off.
I take a deep breath and let it out. I’m being paranoid, I tell myself again. It’s only a bird. It’s only a bird. Stop wigging yourself out.
I am grateful that meditation time is over, is what I write in my journal. Just to be snarky.
The guy sitting next to me looks over, sees what I’ve jotted onto my paper, and smirks.
“I’m not good at it, either,” he says.
If only he knew. But I smile and nod.
“You’re Clara, right?” he whispers. “I remember you from that stupid introductory game we played on the first day.”
Dr. Welch clears his throat and looks pointedly at the two of us, which means, You’re supposed to be grateful right now. Not talking.
The guy grins and turns his notebook slightly so I can see what he’s writing. I’m Thomas. I’m grateful that this class is pass/fail.
I smile and nod again. I already knew his name. I’ve been privately referring to him as Doubting Thomas, since he’s always the first one to question everything Dr. Welch says. Like last week, for instance, Dr. Welch said that we have to stop chasing after material things and work to be content with ourselves, and Thomas’s hand shot up, and he said something like, “But if we all sat around content with exactly where we were in life, nobody would strive for excellence. I want to be happy, sure, but I didn’t come to Stanford because I wanted to find happiness. I came because I want to be the best.”
Humble, this guy.
My phone vibrates, and Dr. Welch looks over again. I wait a few minutes before I sneak it out of my pocket. There’s a text from Angela asking me to meet her at Memorial Church.
After class I book it down the main stairs of Meyer Library, where happiness is held, and Thomas calls after me. “Hey, Clara, wait!” I don’t have a lot of time for this, but I stop. I scan the skies nervously for the mysterious crow, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“Um, do you—” Thomas pauses, like he’s forgotten what he was going to say now that he’s got my attention. “Do you want to get something to eat? There’s this place behind Tresidder that makes these amazing chicken burritos. They put in rice and beans and pico de gallo—”
“I can’t. I’m meeting somebody,” I interrupt before he can really get going on the burritos. Which are incredibly tasty—it’s true. But I am meeting someone, and besides that, I really do not want to go out with Doubting Thomas. That much I know.
His face falls. “Some other time, then,” he says, and shrugs one shoulder like it’s no big deal, but I feel a prickle of wounded pride coming off him, a “who does she think she is” kind of vibe, which makes me feel immediately less guilty for turning him down.
Angela’s text—C, meet me at MemChu. 5:30 p.m. Important—has me jogging through the archways of the arcade, my footsteps echoing on the checkered stones. Her vision is going to take place here at Stanford, after all—it’s the entire reason we all ended up here—so important could be pretty darn monumental. I check my watch—five thirty-five—and canter across the quad, not slowing as I often do to take in the sight of the church, its gleaming golden mosaics at the front, the Celtic cross perched at the apex on the roof. I shove my shoulder against the heavy wooden door and step inside, pause for a minute in the vestibule to let my eyes adjust to the dimness within.
I don’t immediately see Angela among the scattering of students who are gathered here, most of them walking slowly in an indiscernible pattern at the front of the sanctuary. I wander down the red-carpeted aisle toward them, past the rows of mahogany pews, my skin prickling at the depictions of angels everywhere, in the stained-glass windows, in the mosaics on both sides of me, in the space between the arches on the ceiling: angels everywhere, gazing down, always with their wings unfurled behind them. One of them is probably Michael, I think. All I have to do to find my dad is go to church.
I spot Angela. She’s with the others, walking inside a circle at the top of the steps at the front. Something’s laid out on the floor like an enormous rug, deep blue with white patterns on it, a kind of path that goes in loops. She doesn’t see me. Her lips are pursed in concentration, and then they move like she’s saying something, but I don’t hear a sound outside of the shuffling of feet, the whisper of clothing as people walk. She stops in the center of the circle, bends her head for a long moment, her hair obscuring her face, then starts up again, walking slowly, her arms swinging by her sides.
My empathy surges to life. I can feel them all, every single one of the people inside the circle. There is a girl on my left who’s homesick. She misses the big city, her family’s walk-up in Brooklyn, her two little sisters. A guy who’s stopped in the center wants desperately to ace his first calculus test. Another guy is wondering about a blonde in his film-studies class, whether she thinks he has good taste in movies, whether she likes him, and then he feels guilty for thinking about such things in a church. Their emotions and the entwined thoughts are like wafts of air hitting me in the stillness of this place—hot and cold, fear and loneliness and hope and happiness—but I get a sense that it’s all emptying out, as if the feelings cluttering their brains are slowly being drawn into the circle like water swirling down a drain.
And above the rest of them I feel Angela. Focused. Full of purpose. Determination. Seeking the truth with the persistence of a guided missile.
I take a seat in the front pew and wait, lean forward onto my knees and close my eyes. I have a sudden memory of Jeffrey as a kid, back when we went to church when I was little, falling asleep in the middle of a sermon. Mom and I had a hard time trying not to laugh at him, all slumped over like that, but then he started snoring, and Mom poked him in the ribs, and he jolted upright.
What? he whispered. I was praying.
I stifle a laugh, remembering that. I was praying. Classic.
I open my eyes. Someone is sitting next to me putting on shoes: a pair of boots, beat-up and black with ratty laces. Angela’s. I look over at her. She’s wearing a baggy black sweatshirt and purple leggings, a little grungier than usual, no makeup, not even the normal black around her eyes. She’s got that same look on her face that she got last year when she was trying to figure out what college to go to: a mix of frustration and excitement.
“Hi,” I start to say, but she shushes me, gestures to the door. I follow her out of the church, glad for the fresh air on my face, the sudden sun, the breeze that shifts the fronds in the palm trees at the edge of the quad.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Angela says.
“What is that thing anyway, in the church?”
“It’s a labyrinth. A knockoff of one, anyway. It’s made of vinyl so they can roll it up and move it around. It’s patterned after these huge stone labyrinths they have in churches in Europe. The idea is that walking in circles can free the mind so that you can pray.”
I arch an eyebrow at her.
“I was thinking about my purpose,” she says.
“Does it work? Was your mind freed?”
She shrugs. “At first I thought it was pointless, but I’ve been having a hard time concentrating lately.” She clears her throat. “So I tried it, and after a while I got this amazing clarity. It’s weird. It just steals over you. Then I figured out that I could make the vision come to me this way.”
“Make the vision come? On purpose?”
She scoffs. “Of course on purpose.”
Knowing this instantly makes me want to go back inside and try it. Maybe I’d get more than that little bit of darkness. Maybe I’d figure my vision out. But there’s another part of me that shudders at the thought of going to the pitch-black room voluntarily.
“So. Why I texted you,” Angela says, her shoulders tense. “I have the words.”
I stare at her. She throws her hands up in exasperation.
“The words! The words! All this time—I mean, for years, C—I’ve been seeing this place in my visions, and I know I’m supposed to say something to somebody, but I never hear myself say the words. It’s been driving me crazy, especially since I got here and I know it’s going to happen pretty soon—within the next four years, I’m guessing anyway. I’m supposed to be a messenger, at least that’s what I thought, but I never knew the message, until now.” She takes a breath, sighs it out. Closes her eyes. “The words.”
“So what are they?”
She opens her eyes, her irises a flash of eager gold.
“The seventh is ours,” she says.
Okay. “So what does that mean?”
Her face falls, like maybe she was expecting me to know the answer and share it with her. “Well, I know that the number seven is like the most significant of all the numbers.”
“Why, because there are seven days in a week?”
“Yes,” she says, completely straight-faced. “Seven days in a week. Seven notes on the music scale. Seven colors in the spectrum.”
She is seriously obsessed with this. But I guess that comes as no real surprise. It’s Angela.
“Huh. So your vision is brought to you by the number seven,” I joke. I can’t help but think of Sesame Street. This episode is brought to you by the number twelve and the letter Z.
“Hey, C, this is serious,” she says. “Seven is the number of perfection and divine completion. It’s God’s number.”
“God’s number,” I repeat. “But what does it mean, Ange? ‘The seventh is ours’?”
“I don’t know,” she confesses, frowning. “I have considered that it might be an object of some kind. Or a date, I suppose. But …” She grabs my hand. “Here, come with me.”
She pulls me across the quad again, essentially retracing the route I used to get here, all the way out into the arcade, where there’s a group of black statues, a replica of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, six mournful-looking men with ropes around their necks. I don’t know the history or what doom they’re supposed to be going toward, but they’re clearly walking to their deaths, which I’ve always found weird and unsettling to run into in the middle of Stanford’s bustling campus. Kind of a downer.
“I see them, in my vision.” Angela pulls me past the burghers, until we’re standing at the top of the steps looking out at the Oval and beyond it Palm Drive, the long street that’s lined with giant palm trees and marks the official entrance to the university. The sun is setting. Students are playing Frisbee in the grass wearing shorts and tank tops, sunglasses, flip-flops. Others are stretched out under trees, studying. Birds are singing, bicycles whirring by. A car makes its way around the circle with a surfboard strapped to the roof.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think: October in California.
“It happens here.” Angela stops and plants her feet. “Right here.”
I look down. “What, you mean where we’re standing?”
She nods. “I’m going to come from that direction.” She points to the left. “And I’m going to climb up these five little steps, and there’s going to be someone waiting for me, right here.”
“The man in the gray suit.” I remember her telling me.
“Yes. And I’m going to tell him, ‘The seventh is ours.’”
“Do you know who he is?”
She makes an irritated noise in the back of her throat, like I am bursting her “guess how brilliant I am” bubble by bringing up something that she doesn’t know. “It feels like I recognize him, in the vision, but he’s got his back to me. I don’t ever see his face.”
“Ah, one of those.” I think back to the days when I had my first vision, the forest fire, the boy watching it, and it was frustrating as all get-out that I could never see what he looked like. It took me a while to get used to seeing Christian from the front.
“I’m going to find out, obviously,” she says, like it’s not important. “But it’s happening. Right here. This is the place.”
“Very exciting,” I say, which is what she wants to hear.
She nods, but there’s something troubled in her expression. She chews on her lip, then sighs.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She snaps out of it. “Right here,” she says again, like this spot has magical properties.
“Right here,” I agree.
“The seventh is ours,” she whispers.
On the way back to Roble we cut through the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden. In among the tall trees there are dozens of sculpted wooden poles and large stone carvings done in the native style. My eye goes right to a primitive version of The Thinker, a man bent over with his huge head framed in his hands, wearing a contemplative expression. Perched on top of his head is a large black crow. As we approach, it pivots to look at me. Caws.
I stop walking.
“What is it?” Angela asks.
“That bird,” I say, my voice dropping in embarrassment at how silly this is going to sound. “This is like the fourth time I’ve seen it since I got here. I think it’s following me.”
She glances over her shoulder at the bird. “How do you know it’s the same bird?” she asks. “There are a lot of birds here, C, and birds act weird around us. That’s kind of a given.”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling, I guess.”
Her eyes widen slightly. You th
ink Samjeeza might have followed you here? she asks silently, which startles me. I forgot that she can speak in my mind. Do you feel sorrow?
I feel instantly dumb that I never thought to feel for sorrow before. Usually around Sam the sorrow overwhelms me without me having to seek it out. I gaze up at the bird, slowly open the door of my mind, and wait to be flooded with Samjeeza’s sad, sweet despair. But before I can discern anything beyond my own anxiety, the bird squawks, almost in a mocking way, and flaps off through the trees.
Angela and I stare after it.
“It’s probably just a bird,” I say. A shudder passes through me.
“Right,” she says, in a voice that conveys she doesn’t believe that for a second. “Well, what can you do? I guess if it’s a Black Wing, you’ll find out soon enough.”
I guess so.
“You should tell Billy about it,” Angela says. “See if she has any, I don’t know, advice for you. Maybe some kind of bird deterrent.”
I want to laugh at her choice of words, but for some reason I don’t think it’s so funny. I nod. “Yeah, I’ll call Billy,” I say. “I haven’t checked in with her for a while.”
I hate this.
I’m sitting on the edge of my bed with my cell in my hand. I don’t know how Billy will react to the news that I’m possibly seeing a Black Wing, but there’s the high likelihood she’ll say I should run away—that’s what you do when you see a Black Wing, we’ve all been taught over and over and over again. You run. You go to someplace hallowed. You hide. You can’t fight them. They’re too strong. They’re invincible. I mean, last year when Samjeeza started showing up at my school, the adults went full lockdown on us. They got scared.
I might have to leave Stanford, is what that would mean.
My jaw clenches. I’m tired of being scared all the time. Of Black Wings and frightening visions and failure. I’m sick of it.
It makes me think of when I was a kid, maybe six or seven, and I went through a scared-of-the-dark phase. I’d lie with the covers clutched up to my chin, convinced that every shadow was a monster: an alien come to abduct me, a vampire, a ghost about to lay its chilly dead hand on my arm. I told my mom I wanted to sleep with the lights on. She humored me that way, or let me sleep in her bed, curled against the security of her warm, vanilla-scented body until the terror faded, but after a while she said, “It’s time to stop being afraid, Clara.”