“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, sitting up next to me. “I get it. It’s top-secret angel stuff. You can’t tell.”
I shake my head. I decide that I am not my mother.
“Angela’s forming a club, for angel-bloods,” I say as a start, even though I know this isn’t what he asked me.
This is so not what Tucker thought I was going to say. “Angela Zerbino’s an angel-blood.”
“Yes.”
He snorts. “Well, I guess that makes sense. There’s always been something off about that girl.”
“Hey. I’m an angel-blood. Are you saying there’s something off about me, too?”
“Yep,” he answers. “But I like it.”
“Oh, okay, then.” I lean in to kiss him. Then I pull away.
“Christian is an angel-blood too,” I say, trying to be brave and look him in the face and say it. “I didn’t know until the night of the fire, but he is. A Quartarius. Like me.” Tucker’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says in this emotionless voice, and looks away. “Like you.”
For a long time neither of us speaks. Then he says, “Big coincidence, huh, all these angel-bloods popping up in Jackson?”
“It was a pretty big surprise, that’s for sure,” I admit. “I don’t know about coincidence.” He swallows, and there’s this little click in his throat. I can see how hard he’s trying to play it cool, pretend that the angel stuff doesn’t scare him or make him feel like he’s standing in the way of something more important than him. He’d still step aside, I realize, if he thought he was distracting me from my purpose. He’s already putting on the breakup face. Like he did before.
“I don’t know what was supposed to happen that night,” I say quickly. “But the fire’s over.
I’m moving on with my life.” I hope he doesn’t detect the touch of desperation in my voice, how much I want to make the words true just by saying them. I don’t want to think about the possibility that my purpose could last another hundred years. “So I’m all yours now,” I say, and the words ring false, so terribly false, in my ears. And here I started out determined to tell him the truth.
Only I don’t know the truth. Or maybe I don’t want to know.
“All right,” he says then, although I can tell he’s not sure if he believes me. “Good.
Because I want you all to myself.”
“You’ve got me,” I whisper.
He kisses me again. And I kiss him back.
But the image of Christian Prescott, standing with his back to me at Fox Creek Road, waiting for me, always waiting, suddenly flashes through my mind.
When I get home Jeffrey’s out in the yard, chopping wood in the rain. He sees me and nods his head, lifts his arm and wipes sweat from above his top lip with his sleeve. Then he grabs a log, lifts the ax again, and splits it easily. He splits another. And another. The pile of chopped wood at his feet is already pretty big, and he doesn’t look like he’s stopping anytime soon.
“You deciding to stock up for the whole winter? Can’t wait for the snow?” I ask. “You do know it’s only September.”
“Mom’s cold,” he says. “She’s in there in her flannel pj’s, wrapped up in blankets drinking tea, and she’s shivering. I thought I’d build her a fire.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s nice of you.”
“Something happened to her that day. With the Black Wing,” he says, trying out the words. He looks up, meets my eyes. Sometimes he looks so young, like a vulnerable little boy.
Other times, like now, he looks like a man. A man who’s seen so much sadness in this life. How is that possible? I wonder. He’s fifteen.
“Yeah,” I say, because I’ve concluded the same thing. “I mean, he tried to kill her. It was a pretty rough fight.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I think so.” The glory healed her. I watched it wash over her like warm water, taking away the burns, the bruises from Samjeeza’s hands. But thinking about it brings back the image of her dangling from his arm, flailing, gasping for breath as his hand tightened around her throat, her kicks growing weaker and weaker until she went still. Until I thought she was dead. My eyes burn at the memory and I quickly turn away to look at the house so Jeffrey won’t see my tears.
Jeffrey chops some more wood, and I pull myself together. It’s been a long day. I want to crawl into bed, pull the covers up over my head, and sleep it all away.
“Hey, where were you that day?” I ask suddenly.
He goes with playing dumb. “When?”
“The day of the fire.”
He grabs another block of wood and places it on the stand. “I told you. I was in the woods, looking for you. I thought maybe I could help.”
“Why don’t I believe that?”
He falters and the ax strikes the log unevenly and sticks. He makes a noise like a growl and jerks it out.
“Why wouldn’t you believe me?” he asks.
“Um, maybe because I know you, and you’re acting all weird. So where were you? Cut the crap.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.” He throws the ax in the dirt, then gathers an armload of the chopped wood and pushes past me toward the house.
“Jeffrey. .”
“It was nothing,” he says. “I got lost.” Suddenly he looks like he’s the one about to cry.
He goes into the house, and I can hear him offering to make a fire for Mom. I stand in the yard until the first curls of smoke drift out of the top of our chimney. I remember his face when he flew out of the trees that night, tight with fear and something like pain. I remember the hollow way he laughed at me when I told him that I saved Tucker, and suddenly I’m all twisted up with worry for him, because whatever he was doing out there that day, my gut tells me that it wasn’t good.
My brother has his secrets, too.
This time in the dream, there are stairs. A set of ten or twelve concrete steps, complete with a black handrail, leading up between two aspen trees. Why would there be stairs in the middle of the forest? And where do they lead to? I grab the rail. It’s rough, the paint flaking off to expose patches of rust. The steps are edged with moss. As I climb I notice I’m wearing nice shoes, Mom’s sensible black pumps, the ones she always loans me for formal occasions.
I see Jeffrey ahead of me in the trees. Others wait there too, shadowy figures at the top of the hillside, people I recognize: Angela, Mr. Phibbs, Wendy. It feels like they’re all staring at me, and I don’t know why. I glance back, and the heel on my nice shoe catches. I lose my balance on the stairs, almost falling, but Christian’s there again, his hand at my waist, steadying me. For a moment we stare at each other. His body radiates a kind of heat that makes me want to step closer to him.
“Thanks,” I whisper, and I open my eyes to my bedroom ceiling, a strong cold wind still rattling the trees outside.
“You’re freaking out,” Angela observes with a mouthful of green bean salad. We’re sitting at a booth in the Rendezvous Bistro in Jackson on a Saturday night, post — action movie, eating salad because that’s all we can afford at this place.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You are so not fine. You should see yourself.”
“Well, it sucks, okay? I just wish I knew if it’s a dream or another vision, or what.” Angela nods thoughtfully. “Your mom said that some angel-bloods have their visions as dreams, right, while they’re sleeping?”
“Yeah, she said that, before I started having mine, way back when she was okay with telling me useful information. But I’ve always had my visions while I was awake.”
“Me too,” Angela says.
“So it makes me wonder, is this dream thing for real, or is it, you know, the result of bad chow mein at dinner? Is this a divine message, or my subconscious talking here? And either way, what’s it telling me?”
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