Unearthly

Chapter 15 Tucker Me Out

Our trip to Yellowstone is marred only by me accidentally speaking Korean to a tourist who’d lost track of her five-year-old son. I help her talk to the ranger, and they locate the kid. Happy story, right? Except for the part where Tucker stares at me like I’m a mutant until I lamely explain that I have a Korean friend back in California and I’m good with languages. I don’t expect to see him after that, assuming that my birthday gift from Wendy is all used up. But Saturday there’s a knock on my door and there he is again, and an hour later I find myself in a large, inflated raft with a group of out-ofstate tourists, feeling enormous and bloated in the bright orange life jacket we all have to wear. Tucker perches on the end of the boat and rows in the direction of the rapids, while the other guide sits at the front and shouts orders. I watch Tucker’s strong, brown arms flex as he tugs the oars through the water. We hit the first set of rapids. The boat lurches, water sprays everywhere, and the people in the raft scream like we’re on a roller coaster. Tucker grins at me. I grin back.

That night he takes me to the party at Ava Peters’s house and stays by me through the entire thing, introducing me to people who don’t know me past my name. I’m amazed at how being with him changes everything for me, socially speaking. When I walked the halls of Jackson Hole High, the other students looked at me with careful disinterest, not entirely hostile, but definitely like I was an intruder on their turf. Even Christian’s attention in those final weeks hadn’t made much of a difference in getting people to talk to me instead of about me. Now with Tucker by my side the other students actually converse with me. Their smiles are suddenly real. It’s easy to see that they all, regardless of what clique they belong to or how much money their parents rake in, genuinely like Tucker. The boys yell, “Fry!” and bump fists with him or do their shoulder bump thing. The girls hug him and murmur their hellos and look me over with curious but friendly expressions.

While Tucker goes to the kitchen to get me a drink, Ava Peters grabs my arm.

“How long have you and Tucker been together?” she asks with a sly smile.

“We’re just friends,” I stammer.

“Oh.” She frowns slightly. “Sorry, I thought. ”

“You thought what?” asks Tucker, suddenly standing beside me with a red plastic cup in each hand.

“I thought you two were an item,” says Ava.

“We’re just friends,” he says. He meets my eyes briefly, then hands me one of the cups.

“What is this?”

“Rum and Coke. I hope you like coconut rum.”

I’ve never had rum. Or tequila or vodka or whiskey or anything but the tiniest bit of wine at a fancy dinner now and then. My mom lived during Prohibition. But right now she’s a thousand miles away probably sound asleep in her hotel room in Mountain View, completely unaware that her daughter is at an unsupervised teen party about to guzzle down her first hard liquor.

What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. Cheers.

I take a sip of the drink. I don’t detect even the slightest hint of coconut, or alcohol. It tastes exactly like regular old Coca-Cola.

“It’s good, thank you,” I say.

“Nice party, Ava,” Tucker says. “You really pulled out all the stops.”

“Thanks,” she says serenely. “I’m glad you made it. You, too, Clara. Good to finally get to know you.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s good to be known.”

Tucker’s so different from Christian, I muse on the way home from the party. He’s popular in a completely different way, not because he’s rich (which he’s definitely not, in spite of his many jobs — he doesn’t even have a cell phone) or because he’s good-looking (which he definitely is, although his appeal is this kind of sexy-rugged whereas Christian’s is sexy-broody). Christian’s popular because, like Wendy always says, he’s kind of like a god. Beautiful and perfect and a little removed. Made to be worshipped. Tucker’s popular because he has this way of putting people at ease.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks because I haven’t said anything in a while.

“You’re different than I thought you were.”

He keeps his eyes on the road but the dimple appears in his lean cheek. “What did you think I was?”

“A rude hick.”

“Geez, blunt much?” he says, laughing.

“It’s not like you didn’t know. You wanted me to think that.”

He doesn’t reply. I wonder if I’ve said too much. I can never seem to hold my tongue around him.

“You’re different than I thought you were too,” he says.

“You thought I was this spoiled California chick.”

“I still think you’re a spoiled California chick.” I punch him hard on the shoulder. “Ow.

See?”

“How am I different?” I ask, trying to mask my nervousness. It’s amazing how much I suddenly care about what he thinks of me. I look out the window, dangling my arm out as we drive through the trees toward my house. The summer night air is warm and silky on my face. The full moon overhead spills a dreamy silver light onto the forest. Crickets chirp. A cool, pine-scented breeze rustles the leaves. A perfect night.

“Come on, how am I different?” I ask Tucker again.

“It’s hard to explain.” He rubs the back of his neck. “There’s just so much to you that’s under the surface.”

“Hmm. How mysterious,” I say, trying hard to keep my voice light.

“Yep, you’re like an iceberg.”

“Gee, thanks. I think the problem is that you always underestimate me.”

We pull up to my house, which seems dark and empty, and I want to stay in the truck. I’m not ready for the night to be over.

“Nope,” he says. He puts the truck in park and turns to look at me with somber eyes.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you could fly to the moon.”

I suck in a breath.

“You want to pick huckleberries with me tomorrow?” he asks.

“Huckleberries?”

“They sell in town for fifty bucks a gallon. I know this spot where there are like a hundred bushes. I go out there a few times a summer. It’s early in the season, but there should be some berries because it’s been so hot lately. It’s good money.”

“Okay,” I say, surprising myself. “I’ll go.”

He jumps out and circles around to open the door for me. He holds out his hand and helps me climb down from the truck.

“Thanks,” I murmur.

“Night, Carrots.”

“Night, Tuck.”

He leans against the truck and waits as I go inside. I flip on the porch light and observe him from a corner of the living room window until the back of the rusty truck disappears in the trees. Then I run upstairs to my bedroom and watch the taillights as they move smoothly down our long driveway to the main road.

I look at myself in the full-length mirror on my closet door. The girl who stares back was tossed around by a wild river and her tangerine-colored hair dried in loose waves all around her face. She’s starting to tan, even though angel-bloods don’t burn or tan easily. And tomorrow she’ll be on the side of some mountain, hunting for huckleberries with a real-live rodeo cowboy.

“What are you doing?” I ask the girl in the mirror. She doesn’t answer. She gazes at me with bright eyes like she knows something I don’t.

I’m not totally cut off from the world. Angela emails me every now and then, tells me about Rome and says, in her own version of code, that she’s finding out amazing stuff about angels. She’ll write things like, It’s dark outside right now. I’m turning on the light, which I take to mean she’s getting a lot of good info on Black Wings. When she writes, It’s so hot I have to change my clothes all the time, I think she’s telling me she’s practicing changing the form of her wings. She doesn’t say much more.

Nothing about the mysterious Italian lover, but she sounds happy. Like she’s having a suspiciously good time.

I also hear from Wendy occasionally, whenever she can make it to a pay phone. She sounds tired but content, spending her days with horses, learning from the best. She doesn’t mention Tucker, or the time I’ve been spending with him lately, but I suspect that she knows all about it.

When I get a text from Christian I realize it’s been a while since I’ve thought about him. I’ve been so busy running around with Tucker. I haven’t even had the vision lately. This week I almost forgot I was an angel-blood and simply let myself be a regular girl having a perfectly normal summer. Which is nice. And makes me feel guilty, because I’m supposed to be focusing on my purpose.

His text says:

Have you ever been to a place you’re supposed to love, but all you can think about is home?

Cryptic. And as usual when it comes to Christian, I don’t know how to respond.

I hear a car pulling into the driveway, and then the sound of the garage door. Mom’s home. I do a quick sweep around the house to make sure everything is in order, dishes washed, laundry folded, Jeffrey still in a food coma upstairs. All is right in the Gardner house. When she comes in, towing her huge suitcase, I’m sitting at the kitchen counter with two tall glasses of iced tea.

“Welcome home,” I say brightly.

She puts her suitcase down and holds out her arms. I jump off my stool and step sheepishly into her hug. She squeezes me tight, and it makes me feel like a kid again. Safe. Right. Like nothing was normal when she was gone.

She pulls back and looks me up and down. “You look older,” she says. “Seventeen suits you.”

“I feel older. And stronger lately, for whatever reason.”

“I know. You should be feeling stronger every day now, the closer we get to your purpose. Your power is growing.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence. What are my powers, exactly?

“I can fly now,” I blurt out suddenly. It’s been two weeks since Inspiration Point, a hundred crashes and scrapes, but I’ve finally gotten the hang of it. It feels like something she should know. I lift my pant leg to show her a scratch on my shin from the top of a pine tree I passed over too closely.

“Clara!” she exclaims, and she tries to act pleased but I can tell she’s disappointed that she hadn’t been there, like I’m a baby taking my first steps and she missed it.

“It’s easier for me when you’re not watching,” I explain. “Less pressure or something.”

“Well, I knew you’d get it.”

“I totally love the dress you gave me,” I say in an attempt to change the subject.

“Maybe we could go out to dinner tonight and I’ll wear it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She releases me, grabs her suitcase, and lugs it down the hall toward her bedroom. I follow.

“How was work?” I ask as she lays her suitcase on her bed, opens her top dresser drawer, and begins to stack her underwear and socks neatly inside. I have to shake my head at what a neat freak she is, all her panties folded, arranged by color in perfect little rows. It seems impossible that we’re related, she and I. “Did you get it all straightened out?”

“Yes. It’s better, anyway. I really needed to go out there.” She moves on to the next drawer. “But I’m sorry I missed your birthday.”

“It’s okay.”

“What did you do?”

For some reason I’ve been dreading telling her about Tucker, the Jumping Tree, and the time I’ve been spending with him all week, hiking, picking huckleberries, white-water rafting, speaking Korean to random people in front of him. Maybe I’m afraid that she’ll call Tucker what I know deep down that he is: a distraction. She’ll tell me to get back to work on the Saving Christian mission. Then I’ll have to tell her that, even though I’m feeling stronger lately, finally flying, I still can’t get that heavy duffel bag off the ground. And then she’ll give me that look, that speech about lightness and strength and how much I am capable of if only I put my mind to it. I just don’t want to go there. Not yet, anyway. But I have to give her something.

“Wendy loaned me her brother and a pair of hiking boots, and he took me out to this place where all the kids go to jump into the Hoback River,” I say all in one breath.

Mom looks at me suspiciously.

“Wendy loaned you her brother?”

“Tucker. You met him that time our car slid off the road, remember?”

“The boy who brought you home from prom,” she says thoughtfully.

“Yep, that’s him. And thanks so much for bringing that up.”

For a minute neither of us says anything else.

“I brought you something,” she says finally. “A present.”

She unzips a compartment of her suitcase and pulls out something made of dark purple fabric. It’s a jacket, a gorgeous corduroy jacket the exact color of Mom’s African violet on the kitchen windowsill. It will play down the orange of my hair and play up the blue in my eyes. It’s perfect.

“I know you have your parka,” Mom says, “but I thought you could use something lighter. And besides, you can never have too many jackets in Wyoming.”

“Thanks. I love it.”

I reach to take it from her. And the moment my fingers touch the soft, velvety fabric, I’m in the vision, walking through the trees.

I trip and fall, scraping the palm of my right hand. I haven’t had the vision in weeks, since prom when I saw myself fly away from the fire with Christian in my arms. It doesn’t feel as familiar to me now, as I make my way up the hillside toward him. But he’s still there waiting for me, and when I see him I call his name, and he turns, and I run to him. I missed him, I realize, although I don’t know if it’s what I’m feeling now or in the future. He makes me feel complete. The way he always looks at me, like he needs me. Me, and no one else.

I take his hand. The sorrow’s there, too, mixed with everything else: elation and fear and determination and even a serving of good old-fashioned lust. I feel it all, but overshadowing every other emotion is the grief, the sense that I’ve lost the most important thing in the world, even as I seem to be gaining it. I bend my head and look at where our hands join, Christian’s hand so finely constructed, like a surgeon’s hand. The nails are neatly clipped, his skin smooth and almost hot to the touch. His thumb strokes over my knuckles, sending a shiver through me. Then I realize.

I’m wearing the purple jacket.

I come back to myself to find Mom sitting next to me on her bed, her arm around my shoulders. She smiles sympathetically, her eyes worried.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be, silly,” she says. “I know what it’s like.”

Sometimes I forget that Mom had a purpose once upon a time. It was probably a hundred years ago if she was my age at the time. Which (I do the math quickly in my head) would put her at sometime between 1907 and 1914, approximately. Which means ladies in long, white dresses and men with top hats and big, bristly mustaches, horse-drawn carriages, corsets, Leo DiCaprio about to win his ticket on the Titanic. I try to picture my mother in that time, reeling with the force of her visions and lying awake in the dark trying to put the pieces together, trying to understand what it was she was meant to do.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“I’m going to wear that jacket,” I say shakily. It’s lying on the floor near the bed. It must have slipped out of my hands when the vision struck me.

“Good,” says Mom. “I thought it would look good on you.”

“No. In the vision. I’m wearing that jacket.”

Her eyes widen slightly.

“It’s happening.” She calmly smoothes a strand of my hair behind my ear.

“Everything’s aligning for you. It’s going to happen this year, this fire season, I’m sure of it.”

That’s weeks away. Just weeks.

“What if I’m not ready?”

She smiles knowingly. Her eyes are twinkling again with that strange inner light. She lifts her arms and stretches them over her head, yawning. She looks a lot better. Not so tired. Not so worn down and frustrated about everything. She looks like her old self, like she’s ready to jump up and get started on my training again, like she’s excited about my purpose and determined to help me succeed at it.

“You’ll be ready,” she says.

“How do you know?”

“I just know,” she says firmly.

The next morning I sneak quietly down the stairs and get myself a quick bowl of granola cereal, standing in the middle of the kitchen eating it, waiting for the familiar rattle of Tucker’s truck in the driveway. Mom startles me by appearing as I’m pouring a glass of orange juice.

“You’re up early.” She examines the new woodsy version of me in the hiking boots, water resistant shorts, sports polo, the backpack hanging off one shoulder. I’m sure I look like I walked out of an Eddie Bauer ad. “Where are you off to?”

“Fishing,” I say, swallowing my juice quickly.

Her eyebrows lift. I’ve never been fishing in my life. The closest I’ve come is marinating salmon steaks for dinner.

“With who?”

“Some kids from school,” I say, inwardly wincing. Not quite a lie, I tell myself. Tucker is a kid from school.

She cocks her head to one side.

“What’s that smell?” she asks, wrinkling up her nose.

“Bug spray.” Mosquitoes never bother me, but apparently they eat Tucker alive if he forgets bug spray. So I wear it for solidarity. “All the kids wear it,” I explain to Mom.

“They say the mosquito is the Wyoming state bird.”

“You’re really fitting in now.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly friendless before,” I say a little too sharply.

“Of course not. But something’s new, I think. Something’s different.”

“Nah.”

She laughs.

“Nah?”

I blush.

“Okay, so I talk more like the kids at school,” I say. “You hear it so much, you pick it up. Jeffrey does it too. They tell me I still talk too fast to be from Wyoming.”

“That’s good,” she says. “Fitting in.”

“It’s better than sticking out,” I say nervously. I just caught sight of the rusty blue truck snaking its way through the trees in front of the house.

“Gotta run, Mom.” I give her a quick hug. Then I’m out the door, down the driveway, jumping into Tucker’s truck while it’s still moving. He yelps in surprise and slams on the brake.

“Let’s go.” I flash him an innocent smile. His eyes narrow.

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing.”

He frowns. He can always tell when I lie. It’s annoying when there’s so much I have to hide from him. I sigh.

“My mom’s back,” I confess.

“And you don’t want her to see you with me?” he asks, offended. I glance over my shoulder, out the window of the truck where I clearly see Mom’s face in the front window. I wave at her, then look back at Tucker.

“No, silly,” I say. “I’m stoked to learn fly-fishing, that’s all.”

He still doesn’t believe me, but he lets it slide. He tips his Stetson at Mom through the windshield. Her head vanishes from the window. I relax. It’s not that I don’t want Mom to see me with Tucker. I just don’t want to give her the chance to question him.

Or question me about what I think I’m doing with him. Because I have no idea what I’m doing with Tucker Avery.

“Fly-fishing is easy,” Tucker says about two hours later, after he’s shown me all the elements of fishing from the relative safety of the grass along the Snake River. “You just have to think like a fish.”

“Right. Think like a fish.”

“Don’t mock,” he warns. “Look at the river. What do you see?”

“Water. Stones and sticks and mud.”

“Look closer. The river’s its own world of fast and slow, deep and shallow, bright and shadowed. If you look at it like that, like a landscape where the fish live, it’ll be easier to catch one.”

“Nicely said. Are you some kind of cowboy poet?”

He blushes, which I find completely charming.

“Just look,” he mumbles.

I gaze upriver. It does seem like its own little corner of paradise. There are golden motes of sunlight cutting through the air, deep pockets of shade along the bank, aspen and cottonwoods rustling in the breeze. And above everything else is the sparkling river. It’s alive, rushing and bubbling, its green depths full of mysteries. And supposedly full of wonderful, tasty fish.

“Let’s do it.” I lift the fly rod. “I promise, I’m thinking like a fish.”

He snorts and rolls his eyes.

“All right, fish.” He gestures to the river. “Right there’s a sandbar you can stand on.”

“Let me be sure I’ve got this right. You want me to stand in the middle of the river?”

“Yep,” he says. “It’ll be a bit chilly, but I think you can handle it. I don’t have any waders your size.”

“This isn’t another one of your ploys to have to rescue me, is it?” I tilt my head and squint at him in the sun. “Because don’t think I’ve forgotten the Jumping Tree.”

“Nah,” he says with a grin.

“Okay.” I take a step into the river, gasping at the cold, then another and another until I’m standing up to just above my knee. I stop on the edge of the narrow sandbar that Tucker pointed out, trying to get a firm footing on the smooth river rocks under my feet. The water is cool and strong against my bare legs. I straighten my shoulders and adjust my hands on the rod the way he showed me earlier, pull the line through the guides and wait as he wades out next to me and starts to tie on the fly.

“This is one of my favorites,” he says. His hands move quickly, gracefully, to fasten on the bit of fluff and hook meant to look like an insect on the water. “Pale Morning Dun.”

“Nice,” I say, although I have no clue what he’s talking about. It looks kind of like a moth to me. To a fish it’s supposed to look like prime rib, apparently.

“All set.” He releases the line. “Now try it like we practiced on the grass. Two beats back to two o’clock, one beat forward to ten. Pull out a little line, and back again.

Once you cast the line forward, relax it to about nine o’clock.”

“Ten and two,” I repeat. I raise the rod and cast the line backward, to what I hope is about two o’clock, then whip it forward.

“Gently,” coaches Tucker. “Try to hit along that log over there, so the fish thinks it’s a nice juicy bug.”

“Right, think like a fish,” I say with an embarrassing giggle. I try it. Ten and two, ten and two, over and over, the line looping around and around. I think I’m getting it, but after about ten minutes no fish has even looked at my Pale Morning Dun.

“I don’t think I’m fooling them.”

“Your line is too tight — your fly is dragging. Try not to cast like windshield wipers,”

says Tucker. “You have to pause on the back cast. You’re forgetting to pause.”

“Sorry.”

I can feel him watching me, and frankly it’s wrecking my concentration.

I suck at fly-fishing, I realize. I don’t suck because I’m holding back; I just plain suck.

“This is fun,” I say. “Thanks for bringing me.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of my favorite thing. You wouldn’t believe some of the fish I’ve caught in this river: brook trout, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, some brown trout. The native cutthroat are getting rarer, though; the introduced rainbows breed them out.”

“Do you throw them back?” I ask.

“Mostly. That way they grow to be bigger, smarter fish. Better to catch next time. I always release the cutthroat. But if I catch the rainbows I’ll take them home. Mom makes a fierce fish dinner, just fries them up in butter with some salt and pepper, a bit of cayenne sometimes, and it almost melts in your mouth.”

“Sounds heavenly.”

“Well, maybe you’ll catch one today.”

“Maybe.”

“I have tomorrow off,” he says. “You want to meet me at the butt crack of dawn and hike up to watch the sun rise from the best place in Teton? It’s kind of a special day for me.”

“Sure.” I have to admit that as distractions go, Tucker is top-notch. He keeps asking me to do things and I keep saying yes. “I can’t believe summer’s going by so fast.

And I thought it would drag on forever. Ooh, I think I see a fish!”

“Hold on,” groans Tucker. “You’re just waving it around now.”

He steps toward me at the exact moment that I cast the line back. The fly catches his cowboy hat and jerks it off his head. He swears under his breath, lunges to grab it, and misses.

“Whoops! I’m so sorry.” I draw the line in and manage to snag the hat and free it from the hook. I hold it out to him, trying not to giggle. He looks at me with a little mock scowl and snatches it out of my hands. We both laugh.

“I guess I’m lucky it was my hat and not my ear,” he says. “Stay still for a minute, all right?”

He wades into the river and sloshes over to stand behind me in his hip waders, suddenly so close that I can smell him: sunscreen, Oreo cookies for some mysterious reason, a mix of bug spray and river water, and a hint of musky cologne.

I smile, suddenly nervous. He reaches over and takes a strand of my hair between his fingers.

“Your hair isn’t really red, is it?” he asks, and my breath freezes in my lungs.

“What do you mean?” I choke out. When in doubt, I’ve learned from Mom, answer a question with a question.

He shakes his head. “Your eyebrows. They’re, like, dark gold.”

“You’re staring at my eyebrows now?”

“I’m looking at you. Why are you always trying to hide how pretty you are?”

He seems to gaze right into me, like he’s seeing me for who I truly am. And in that moment, I want to tell him the truth. Crazy, I know. Stupid. Wrong. I try to take a step back, but my foot slips and I almost go headfirst into the river but he catches me.

“Whoa,” he says, snaking both hands around my waist to steady me. He pulls me closer to him, bracing against the current. The water parts around us, icy and relentless, tugging and pulling at us as we stand there for a few slow-passing seconds trying to regain our balance.

“You got your legs under you?” he asks, his mouth close to my ear. Goose bumps jump up all along my arm. I turn slightly and get a really close look at his dimple. His pulse is going strong in his neck. His body’s warm against my back. His hand closes over mine on the fishing rod.

“Yeah,” I rasp. “I’m fine.”

What am I doing here? I think dazedly. This is beyond distraction. I don’t know what this is. I should—

I don’t know what I should do. My brain has suddenly checked out.

He clears his throat. “Watch the hat this time.”

We lift the rod together and swing it back, then forward, Tucker’s arm guiding mine.

“Like a hammer,” he says. “Slow back, pause on the back cast, and then”—he casts the rod forward so that the line whirs by our heads and unrolls gently on the water—

“fast hammer forward. Like a baseball pitch.” The dun lights delicately on the surface and hesitates a moment before the current swirls and carries it on. Now that it’s riding on the water, it does resemble an insect, and I marvel at its play on the water.

Quickly, though, the line pulls it unnaturally and it’s time to cast again.

We try it a few times, back and forth, Tucker setting the rhythm. It’s mesmerizing, slow back, pause, forward, over and over again. I relax against Tucker, resting almost totally against him as we cast and wait for the fish to rise to take the fly.

“Ready to try it on your own again?” he asks after a while. I’m tempted to say no, but I can’t think of any good reason. I nod. He lets go of my hand and moves away from me, back toward the bank where he picks up his own rod.

“You think I’m pretty?” I ask.

“We need to stop talking,” he says a little gruffly. “We’re scaring the fish off.”

“Okay, okay.” I bite my lip, then smile.

We fish for a while in silence, the only noise the burbling of the river and the rustling of trees. Tucker catches and releases three fish. He takes a moment to show me the cutthroat, with their scarlet slash of color beneath the gills. I, on the other hand, don’t get so much as a nibble before I have to retreat from the cold water. I sit on the bank and attempt to rub the feeling back into my legs. I have to face the ugly truth: I’m a terrible fisherwoman.

I know it sounds weird to say this, but that’s a good thing. I enjoy not excelling at everything, for once. I like watching Tucker fish, the way his eyes scan the shadows and riffles, the way he throws the line over the water in perfect, graceful loops. It’s like he’s talking with the river. It’s peaceful.

And Tucker thinks I’m pretty.

Later I drag the good old duffel bag into the backyard and try it one more time. Back to reality, I remind myself. Back to duty. Mom’s in the office on the computer, drinking a cup of tea the way she does when she’s trying to de-stress. She’s been home all of one day and already she seems tired again.

I stretch my arms and wings. I close my eyes. Light, I coach myself. Be light. Be part of the night, the trees, the wind. I try to picture Christian’s face, but suddenly it’s not so clear to me. I try to conjure up his eyes, the flash of green and gold, but I can’t hang on to that either.

Instead I get images of Tucker. His mouth smeared with red as we crouch on the side of the mountain filling empty ice-cream tubs with huckleberries. His husky laugh.

His hands on my waist in the river, keeping me steady, holding me close. His eyes so warm and blue, reeling me in.

“Crap,” I whisper.

I open my eyes. I’m so light the tips of my toes are the only thing on the ground. I’m floating.

No, I think. This isn’t right. It’s supposed to be Christian who makes you feel this way. I am here for Christian Prescott. Crap!

The thought weighs me down and I sink back to the earth. But I can’t get Tucker out of my head. I keep replaying the moments between us over and over in my head.

“What do you see in a guy like Christian Prescott?” he asked me that night when he dropped me off from prom. And what he was really saying then, what would have come through loud and clear if I hadn’t been so blind was, Why don’t you see me?

I know the feeling.

Get a grip, I tell myself. Just fly already.

I tighten my hold on the duffel bag. I lift my wings and stretch them skyward. I push with all the muscle in them, all the strength I’ve gained over months and months of practice. My body shoots up a few feet, and I manage to hold on to the duffel bag.

I pull myself higher, almost to the top of the tree line. I can barely make out the sliver of the new moon. I move toward it, but the duffel bag unbalances me. I lurch to one side, flapping wildly and dropping the bag. My arms feel like they’re going to tear out of my sockets. And then I fall, crashing into the pine tree at the edge of our yard, cussing all the way down.

Jeffrey’s standing at the kitchen sink when I drag myself through the back door, scratched and bruised and close to tears.

“Nice,” he says, smirking.

“Shut it.”

He laughs. “I can’t do it either.”

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t carry stuff when I fly. It gets me off balance.”

I don’t know whether to feel better because Jeffrey can’t do it either, or to feel worse because he’s evidently been watching me.

“You’ve tried?” I ask.

“Lots of times.” He reaches over and pulls a pinecone out of my hair. His eyes are friendly, sympathetic. Out of everybody I know, Jeffrey’s the one person who can really understand what I’m going through. He’s going through it, too. Or at least he will, when his purpose comes.

“Do you—” I hesitate. I look behind him to the hallway toward Mom’s office. He glances over his shoulder, then back at me curiously.

“What?”

“Do you want to try it together?”

He stares at me for a minute. “Sure,” he says finally. “Let’s do it.”

It’s so dark in the backyard that I can’t see much past the edge of the lawn.

“This would be so much easier during the day,” I say. “I’m starting to hate practicing at night.”

“Why not practice during the day?”

“Um — because people could see us?”

He smiles mischievously. “Who cares?” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“People don’t really see you. It’s not like they’re looking up.”

“What? That’s crazy,” I say, shaking my head.

“It’s true. If they notice you at all, they’ll think you’re a big bird or something. A pelican.”

“No way.” But I immediately flashed back to when I flew over Jenny Lake and my reflection was a streak of pure white, like a bird’s.

“It’s no big deal. Mom does it all the time.”

“She does?”

“She flies almost every morning. Just as the sun’s coming up.”

“How have I not noticed this?”

He shrugs. “I get up earlier.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know that!”

“So we can fly during the day. Problem solved. But now let’s get on with it, okay? I’ve got things to do.”

“Of course you do. All right, then. Watch this. Show yourself! ” I yell.

His wings flash out.

“What was that?” he gasps.

“A trick I learned from Angela.”

His wings are a light gray color, several shades darker than mine. Probably nothing to worry about, though. Mom said we’re all varying shades of gray. And his don’t look dark so much as they look. dirty.

“Well, warn me next time, okay?” Jeffrey folds his wings slightly, makes them smaller, and turns his back to me as he walks over to the edge of the lawn where I left the duffel bag. He lifts it easily and jogs over to me. All those muscles from the wrestling team are a big advantage.

“Okay, let’s do this thing.” He holds the bag out, and I grab one of the handles. “On the count of three.”

I suddenly picture the two of us bashing our heads together as we lift off. I take a step back, putting as much space between us as I can while still holding the duffel bag. With him sharing half the weight, it isn’t too heavy at all.

“One,” he says.

“Wait, which direction should we go?”

“That way.” He tilts his head toward the northern end of our property, where the trees are thinner.

“Good plan.”

“Two.”

“How high?”

“We’ll figure that out,” he says in an exasperated tone.

“You know, your voice is starting to sound just like Dad’s. I don’t think I like it.”

“Three!” he exclaims, and then he bends his knees and flexes his wings and heaves upward while I do my best to do the same.

There’s no room for hesitation. We go up and up and up, timing the beats of our wings together, holding the duffel bag between us a bit shakily but in a way that we’re able to handle it. In about ten seconds we’re over the tree line. Then we start to move north. I look over at Jeffrey, and he shoots me a smug, self-satisfied smile, like he knew all along that this would be easy. I’m kind of shocked by how easy it is.

We could have lifted twice as much. My mind races with all that this could mean. If I can’t lift Christian myself, am I meant to have help? Is it against the rules?

“Jeffrey, maybe this is it.”

“This is what?” he says a bit distractedly, trying to pull the duffel bag up to get a better grip on it.

“Your purpose. Maybe we do it together.”

He lets go. The bag jerks me down instantly, and then I let go, too. We watch it crash into the brush on the forest floor.

“It’s not my purpose,” he says in a flat voice. His gray eyes grow cold and distant.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Everything’s not about you, Clara.”

The same thing that Wendy said to me. Like a punch to the gut.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I guess I got excited at the idea of getting some help. I’m having a hard time doing this on my own.”

“We have to do it alone.” He turns away in the air, heading back toward the yard.

“That’s just the way it is.”

I stare after him for a long time, then drop down to the ground to pick up the duffel bag. One of the gallons of water I put inside is broken, and the water leaks out in a slow trickle onto the dry earth.