by Cynthia Hand
He’s speaking calmly, but I can feel that he’s getting mad.
I’ve seen him mad before. It’s not pretty. He tends to do things like launch fireballs at your head.
Headlights turn onto the road. My breath freezes in my lungs. I nearly lose the glory. It flickers, dims, but I hold on.
“Come now, enough foolishness,” Samjeeza says impatiently. “You and I must go.” It’s too late. The vehicle approaches us slowly. Stops, a squeak of brakes. But it isn’t an ambulance. It’s a beat-up silver Honda with a rusty green fender. I strain to look past my own radiance to see the figure inside. A man with white hair and a beard.
Mr. Phibbs.
I’ve never seen a more welcome sight than Mr. Phibbs in his tacky brown polyester suit, strolling toward us with a smile like he’s taking a leisurely walk in the middle of the night. I feel stronger as he nears, like I can do this, whatever I’m asked, whatever it takes. I feel hope.
“Evening,” Mr. Phibbs says, nodding to me. “How’s everybody?”
“She’s hurt.” I point down to Wendy. Still breathing, thank God. “The paramedics are on their way. They should be here soon.”
Samjeeza eyes him.
“I see,” Mr. Phibbs says. He turns his attention to the brooding Black Wing. “What seems to be the problem here?”
“Who are you?” Samjeeza asks.
“I’m a teacher.” Mr. Phibbs readjusts his glasses. “These are my students.”
“I have business with the girl,” Samjeeza says almost politely. “We’ll be on our way, and then you can tend to the others.”
“Afraid I can’t allow that,” says Mr. Phibbs. “Yes, you could probably squash me like a bug if you took a mind to. If you could get to me,” he adds. “But I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, whom you have defiled. So slither back into the dark, Watcher.” I hope, for our sake, that he’s not bluffing.
Samjeeza doesn’t move.
“Are you having trouble hearing me?” Mr. Phibbs asks like this fallen angel is a tardy student. “I see you have some damage to your ear. That your doing, Clara?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Well, good for you.” He turns back to Samjeeza.
“Be careful, old man,” growls the angel. Around him the air starts to crackle with energy.
I begin to get very worried that he’s going to zap us into hell.
“Corbett,” I say nervously.
Faster than a blink, Mr. Phibbs holds up one of his hands and the light surrounding us brightens into it, swirling itself into a long, thin shape with a point of fiercely shining light at the end. An arrow, is my first thought, an arrow made from glory, and before I even have time to analyze what that could mean, Mr. Phibbs makes a sweeping motion with his arm and fires the thing straight at Samjeeza.
I watch in slow motion as the arrow arcs through the air like a falling star, then strikes the angel in the shoulder. It makes a noise like a knife sinking into a watermelon. He looks at it, startled, then back at Mr. Phibbs incredulously. The light from the arrow seeps from his shoulder like blood, and wherever it touches it hisses, eating away that second layer that he wears over his true self. He reaches up and closes his hand around the shaft. His brows knit together, then he wrenches the arrow out. He howls in pain as it comes free. He drops it, and it bursts into tiny sparkles when it strikes the ground. Breathing hard, he looks right at me, not at Mr. Phibbs or Tucker but at me, and his eyes are sad. His body suddenly has a transparent quality to it, muted and gray, even his skin, like he’s becoming a ghost.
And then he’s gone.
Beside me Mr. Phibbs exhales slowly, the only indication that any of this was mind-blowingly scary. I finally let go of the glory, and it fades.
“Well, now we know why he’s mad at me, don’t we?” he says cheerfully.
“How did you do that?” I gasp. “That was so cool.”
“David and Goliath, my dear,” he answers. “All it takes is one smooth little pebble to drop a giant. Although, to be honest, I was aiming for his heart. I’ve never been the best shot.” Tucker stumbles off a few steps into the weeds to throw up. Mr. Phibbs wrinkles up his nose as we listen to him losing his dinner.
“Humans and glory don’t mix well, I’m afraid,” Mr. Phibbs says.
“You okay?” I call to Tucker.
He straightens up and comes back out to the road, wiping his mouth on his tux sleeve.
“Will he be back?” he asks.
I look to Mr. Phibbs, who sighs.
“I’d assume so.”
“But you wounded him,” I say, my voice straining. “Doesn’t it take time for them to heal?
I mean, I tore his ear off months ago, and that wasn’t fixed yet.” Mr. Phibbs nods grimly. “I should have struck at the heart.”
“Would that have killed him?”
“Lord, no. You can’t kill an angel,” he says.
“Look.” Tucker points off in the distance, where we see a police car, followed by an ambulance and a fire truck, tearing along the highway toward us.
“Took them long enough,” I say.
Mr. Phibbs kneels to examine Wendy, his fingers touching lightly at her neck. Her eyes flutter, but she doesn’t wake. She moans. It’s kind of a beautiful sound.
“Will she be okay?” Tucker asks, his face still a bit green.
“Oh yes, right as rain, I think,” Mr. Phibbs answers.
Then we’re all quiet as the sirens get closer, the pitch changing as it draws near, until we’re bathed in the red and blue flashing lights of the clueless people coming to help.
Chapter 14
Sing a Song of Sorrow
It’s almost morning when I walk through the front door, still wearing my stained-and-rumpled prom dress, missing my shoes. Jeffrey and Mom are waiting in the living room. She makes this strangled cry when she sees me, gets up so fast that it alarms Billy, and practically falls into my arms to hug me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says against my hair. “Are you all right?” Dumb question.
“Mom . . . ,” I say awkwardly, holding her. “I’m okay.”
Behind me, Mr. Phibbs clears his throat. He stayed with me the whole time at the emergency room, even after Billy showed up, through all the unnecessary exams they put me through, waiting in the lobby with the Averys for news about Wendy, who was okay, just as Mr.
Phibbs said she would be, and the barrage of questions from the police I didn’t know how to answer.
Mom pulls away from me, looks at Mr. Phibbs with shining eyes. “Thank you, Corbett.”
“Welcome,” he says gruffly.
“What did you tell them happened?” Jeffrey asks, and by “them” he means everybody fully human.
“The official story is that she hit a moose.” Corbett chuckles.
A moose. Maybe someday I’ll find that funny. But not today.
“I shouldn’t have tried to hit him with the car,” I say, rubbing my temples. “That was stupid.”
“Are you kidding? That was gutsy as all get-out,” Billy says.
“You were amazing tonight, Clara,” Mom adds. “You faced him. You kept everyone safe.
You summoned glory all by yourself, under an incredible amount of pressure, and you held it until help came. I have never been so proud of you.”
There’s wet stuff on my cheeks. I wipe at it.
“Oh, honey,” Mom says, taking me by the arm, drawing me into the living room, where I think she means to plop me down in front of the fire and try to make everything better with words.
I pull my arm away. “How about you tell me now, Mom?”
“What?”
“Samjeeza said there’s something you’re not telling me, about my purpose or my visions or something strange about me. Is there?”
She flinches like I slapped her. She and Billy exchange a look that’s a silent argument.
So there is something.
“Samjeeza had some sort of plan,” I say. “He wanted to make
you stay with him this time.”
Mom frowns and goes quiet. Then Billy says, out of the blue, “Mags, don’t even think about it.”
“I wasn’t,” Mom says.
“You were. I know you. That man, if you want to call him a man, can’t be redeemed.
He’s made his bed. You can’t talk him out of being a Black Wing.”
“He thought if he took you to hell with him, it would make things right with the other Black Wings. What does that mean?” I ask.
“He was supposed to kill me, once,” Mom says like it’s no big deal. “He didn’t do it. For that he was punished.”
“He hasn’t been quite right since then,” fills in Billy. “He’s fractured. Which is why there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m going to let you anywhere near that crazy-ass angel.
He’ll kill you.”
Mom sighs. “Bill, I’m already dying. I don’t have anything to lose.” Mr. Phibbs coughs. “I’m with Billy. I think it best that you stay away from him. You have everything to lose. He could grab on to your soul and not let you go, keep you down there with him for who knows how long.”
“He couldn’t keep me,” Mom argues. Her gaze flickers over to Billy. “Not forever. No matter what he thinks.”
Mr. Phibbs shrugs. “It’s not the kind of place I’d want to spend even ten minutes.”
“All right.” Mom’s mouth twists in frustration. “I won’t get near him. I’ll stay right here and fade away.”
It’s the first time she’s ever come off as anything but graciously accepting of what’s happening to her. The first time I’ve ever seen her act truly beaten.
“You should go to bed,” she says to me. “We can talk more about this later, but you’re exhausted. You need to sleep.”
“I guess I’d better go pack,” I say as I turn toward the stairs.
Mom gives me a blank look.
“Don’t we have to get out of here? I mean, Samjeeza said he’d been watching me. He must know where we live. We’re not safe here. He’ll come back. You know he will.” She nods. “I’d say that’s a given. It’s only a matter of when. But he knows you now, Clara. If he truly wants to find you, he will. It won’t do us any good to run away.” Somehow I don’t find that comforting.
She closes her eyes like she needs a nap, right now. “We have to stay here, Clara. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
She means that this is where she’s supposed to die. I swallow.
“The house is safe,” she says.
“And the school grounds,” adds Mr. Phibbs. “I saw to that years ago.”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “How is it safe?”
“Hallowed,” he answers. “The ground’s been consecrated. A Black Wing can’t set foot on holy ground, it’s too painful for them.”
“So our house is on hallowed ground?” I ask. The word is familiar. The congregation was talking about whether or not the cemetery was hallowed.
“Yes,” Mr. Phibbs answers.
I think back to the day I first saw our house, the sense of warmth and security and well-being that filled me as soon as I got out of the car. I wonder if that was its hallowed-ness, or whatever you’d call it.
And school. That’s why Mom had Angela and me go to the school, that time I had the sorrow attack. Because it was safe.
Mr. Phibbs turns back to Mom. “Billy and I can shuttle the children to and from school every day.”
“All right,” Mom says. “We’ll work out a schedule. I’m sorry, Clara, but I’m afraid it will feel a bit like being grounded.”
“What about me?” Jeffrey asks.
I’d totally forgotten he was there, standing in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest.
Mom’s midnight eyes flash with sadness. “You’ll have to stay home, too. I’m sorry.”
“Fantastic,” he mutters. “Just what I needed, another heavenly dictate. For how long?”
“Until I’m gone,” Mom says.
He turns and glares at me like this is my fault, his jaw flexing like he’s clenching his teeth, then off he goes to his room to brood about it. We listen to the door slam.
“And as for you,” Billy says, “absolutely no more middle-of-the-night trips to the Lazy Dog. I will be the one nailing your windows shut, I swear. This is no time to be gallivanting off to see your boyfriend.”
Tucker. I keep flashing back to the look on his face when Samjeeza was going to hurt him.
The way I felt in that moment, unable to stop it.
But you were able to stop it, says my inner voice.
Yeah, but what about next time? What about Wendy, her arm broken in two places, moderate concussion, her confused expression at the hospital when she woke up and they explained what had happened. A moose? she kept saying. I don’t remember. . . .
All my fault. They would never have been in danger if not for me.
“How is Tucker?” Mom asks. “Is he okay?”
“He’s shaken up. But he’s fine. They say Wendy’s going to be okay, too.” I don’t want to think anymore about what might have happened. I’m too thrashed. “I think I have to go to bed now. Good night. Or should I say, good morning?”
Mom nods. “Good night.” Then as I’m climbing the stairs, she says, “You really did make me proud tonight. I love you, don’t forget that.”
I know she loves me. But she’s keeping something from me. Still.
The secrets never end.
The sun is coming up by the time I get out of the shower. I put on a clean cami and pajama pants, then gather my ruined ball gown from where I left it by the bathroom door, take it and dump it in a corner, where it lays like a deflated balloon.
No more dances for me. No more formal wear. No more stupid guys doing stupid things like fighting over who gets to dance with me, who I belong with.
No more car.
But Tucker is alive.
I detect movement outside, and jump back, heart beating fast even though now I know Samjeeza can’t come here. Then Christian moves into the window, stands there looking in like he has every right to be here. I wait for his voice in my head or a flicker of what he’s feeling now, but I get nothing. My head is completely quiet, locked up tight.
Christian frowns. Then he reaches up and taps softly on the window.
I’m so freaking tired. It’s like every muscle registers the night I’ve had at the same time. I want to ignore him, stumble over to my bed and hide under the covers.
Instead I go to the window and force it open.
“It’s not a good time,” I say.
“Are you okay? I came by earlier, to apologize for being such an idiot at the dance, and your mom said you got in a car accident.”
I don’t have the energy to tell him the story. So I reach out the window, lay my hand on his shoulder, and unlock my mind for him, let him see every terrifying moment of the entire ordeal. When I’m done his face is pale. An involuntary shiver passes through him. He coughs.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He leans against the windowsill. “I’ve never done that before,” he says. “Had something like that . . . dumped directly into my head. It’s a lot.”
“Try living it.”
“And your mom is sure you’re safe here? She doesn’t think it would be safer to—”
“Flee? Run screaming for the hills? Go into the witness protection program? Nope. Mom says it won’t do us any good. Plus the house is on hallowed ground.” He nods like that nugget of information is no surprise. Of course my house is on hallowed ground. Aren’t all the good houses?
“I wish I could have been there for you,” he says. “Helped you.” He means it. And it’s nice. But I’m crabby. I’m tired. I’m not in the mood for nice.
“I should go,” he says.
“You really should.”
“I am sorry about what happened at the dance,” he says. “I don’t want you to think that I’m that kind of guy.”
He thinks I’m mad at him about t
hat. Like I’m still thinking about that.
“What kind of guy?”
“Who’d move in on another guy’s girlfriend.”
“I don’t. Think you’re that kind of guy. So it’s okay, really.”
“I do want us to be friends, Clara. I like you. I’d like you even if it weren’t for all the duty stuff. I wanted you to know that.”
Seriously, I am way too tired to be having this conversation. “We are friends. And right now I have to tell you, as your friend, go home, Christian. Because I really need this day to be over now.”
He summons his wings and goes. I shut the window. And even though I’m exhausted, and the last thing I want to think about is the dance and my purpose and how all arrows still seem to be pointing at him being at the center of it, now that he’s gone I feel lonely, as lonely as I’ve ever felt.
I hate these freaking stairs in the woods. I hate how well I know them, how I’ve got every inch of them memorized, the cracks, the grooves in the cement, the dark green moss like velvet pushing its way out. I hate the rough scrape they make under my feet. I hate the rail I cling to. If I had a choice right now, I’d take a jackhammer to these stairs, shatter them to pieces, take the pieces one by one and drop them at the bottom of Jackson Lake.
I’d bulldoze this entire cemetery.
I’d burn this black dress I’m wearing. I’d chuck Mom’s nice shoes in the garbage.
But I can’t. I’m in the dream, and in the dream the one in control is future-Clara, who hardly feels her feet moving. She wears her numbness like a cloak around her, hiding, weighing her down so each step forward is an effort. She thinks that she should cry. But she can’t. She wants to let go of Christian’s hand, but she doesn’t. It’s like we’re both paralyzed, incapable, in this moment, of any kind of action other than walking, always with the freaking walking, always up, to the spot where the people are gathering.
To the hole in the ground.
To death. My mother’s death. And there’s a Black Wing on the fringes of my mind, grieving, out-of-his-mind grieving, a gaping hole in his heart.
Mom wasn’t joking about it like being grounded, that next week. Every morning Billy drives us to school. She always acts casual, like it’s no biggie, but she’s hyperalert.