Unearthly

Chapter 21 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

I beeline it for Fox Creek Road. I’m so frazzled by all that’s happened, but I just fly and my wings seem to know the way. I drop onto the road right in the spot where my vision usually begins.

I look around. There’s no silver Avalanche parked along the road, no orange sky, no fire. Everything looks completely normal. Peaceful, even. The birds are singing, leaves are rustling gently on the aspens and all seems right with the world.

I’m early.

I know the fire is on the other side of the mountain, moving steadily toward this place. It will come here. All I have to do is wait.

I move off the road, sit down against a tree, and try to focus. Impossible. Why would Christian even be here? I wonder. What could possibly bring him all the way out to Fox Creek Road? Somehow I have a hard time picturing him in hip waders, flicking a fishing line back and forth over the stream. It doesn’t seem right.

None of this is right, I think. In my vision, I’m not sitting here waiting for him to show up. He gets here first. I come down when the truck is already parked, and walk up into the forest, and he’s already there. He’s watching the fire as it comes.

I glance at my watch. The hands aren’t moving. It’s stopped at eleven forty-two. I left the house at about nine in the morning, probably had my big crash around ten thirty, so at eleven forty-two.

At eleven forty-two I was in hell. And I have no idea what time it is now.

I should have stayed with Mom. I had time. I could have taken her home or to the hospital. Why did she insist that I leave her? Why would she want to be alone? My heart seizes with fear at the thought that she might be hurt much worse than she let on and she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it much longer, so she made me go. I picture her lying on the bank of the lake, the water lapping at her feet, dying. Dying all alone.

Don’t, I scold myself. If you start crying again now, you’ll never stop. You still have work to do.

All these months of having the vision, over and over and over again, all these months of trying to make sense of it, and now it’s finally here and I still don’t know what to do, or why I will do it. I can’t get over the feeling that I’m already doing something wrong. That I was supposed to go on that date with Christian, maybe something important would’ve happened to lead him here today. Maybe I’ve already failed.

That’s pretty bleak to consider. I lean my head back against the tree trunk just as my phone rings. It’s from a number I don’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Clara?” says a familiar, worried voice.

“Wendy?”

I try to pull it together. I wipe at the remnants of tears on my face. It feels really strange to be having a normal conversation all of a sudden. “Are you home?”

“No,” she says. “I’m supposed to fly in on Friday. But I’m calling about Tucker. Is he with you?”

A dart of pain shoots through me. Tucker.

“No,” I say awkwardly. “We broke up. I haven’t seen him in a week.”

“That’s what my mom said,” says Wendy. “I guess I was hoping you’d gotten back together or something, and he was with you since he has the day off.”

I look around. The air is getting heavier. I can distinctly smell the smoke. The fire’s coming.

“My mom called me when she saw the news. My parents are in Cheyenne at an auction and they don’t know where he is.”

“What news?”

“Don’t you know? The fires?”

So the fire is on the news. Of course.

“What are they saying? How big is it?”

“What?” she says, confused. “Which one?”

“What?”

“There are two fires. One pretty close, moving fast down Death Canyon. And a second one, over in Idaho near Palisades.”

A cold, sick dread crashes over me.

“Two fires,” I repeat, stunned.

“I called the house but Tucker wasn’t there. I think he might be hiking. He loves the fishing out there at the end of Death Canyon. And Palisades, too. I was hoping you were with him with your phone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I just have a bad feeling.” She sounds close to tears.

I have a bad feeling, too. A very, very bad feeling. “You’re sure he’s not home?”

“He might be out in the barn,” she says. “The phone doesn’t ring out there. I’ve left him like a million messages. Could you go check?”

I don’t have a choice now. I can’t leave here, not with the fire so close, not without knowing how long it will be until it comes.

“I can’t,” I say helplessly. “Not right now.”

There’s a minute of silence.

“I’m really sorry, Wendy. I’ll try to find him as soon as I can, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. “Thank you.”

She hangs up. I stand for a minute staring at the phone. My mind races. Just to make sure, I call Tucker’s house and agonize while the phone rings and rings. When the answering machine picks up I hang up.

How long would it take me to fly to the Lazy Dog Ranch from here? Ten minutes?

Fifteen? It’s not far. I start to pace. My gut says that something is wrong. Tucker is lost. He’s in trouble. And I’m just standing here waiting for who knows what to happen.

I’ll go. I’ll fly as fast as I can, then come right back.

I summon my wings and stand for a minute in the middle of Fox Creek Road, still trying to decide.

No one said there wouldn’t be sacrifices. You belong here, in this moment.

I can’t think. I find myself in the air, shooting toward Tucker’s house as fast as my wings will take me.

It’s okay, I tell myself. You have time. You’ll just go find him and come right back.

Then I tell myself to shut up and concentrate on moving through the air quickly, trying not to think about what it all means, Tucker and Christian and the choice I’m making.

It only takes a few minutes to reach the Lazy Dog Ranch. I’m screaming Tucker’s name before I even hit the ground. His truck isn’t in the driveway. I stare at the spot where he usually parks, the smear of oil on dirt, the crushed weeds and little wildflowers, and I feel like the bottom has dropped out of my stomach.

He’s not here.

I run into the barn. Everything looks normal, chores all done, stalls cleaned out, the riding tack shining on the pegs. But Midas isn’t there either, I realize. Tucker’s horse isn’t there or the bridle he got for his birthday or the saddle that’s usually propped along the far wall. Back outside in the yard, I see that the horse trailer is gone, too.

He’s out there. On a horse. Away from phones or radios or news.

The sky is turning that familiar golden orange. The fire is coming. I have to get back to Fox Creek Road. I know that this is it, the moment of truth. I was meant to come here to check for Tucker, but that’s all. When I go back to Fox Creek Road, the silver truck will be there. Christian will be standing there waiting for me. I will save him.

Suddenly I’m in the vision. I’m standing at the edge of the road, looking at Christian’s silver Avalanche, about to go to him. My hands clench into fists at my sides, fists so tight that my nails cut into my palms, because I know. Tucker is trapped. I can see him so clearly in my mind, leaning against Midas’s neck, looking around him for a way out of the inferno that has overtaken him, looking for me. He whispers my name.

Then he swallows and bends his head. He turns to the horse and gently strokes its neck. I watch his face as he accepts his own death. In just a few heartbeats, the fire will reach him. And I’m miles away, taking my first steps toward Christian. I am so very far away.

I understand it now. The sorrow in the vision is not the grief of a Black Wing. This sorrow is all mine. It strikes me with such force it feels like someone has struck me in the chest with a baseball bat. My eyes flood with hot, bitter tears.

Tucker’s going to die.

And this is my test.

I jerk back to Lazy Dog, sobbing. I look up into the sky, where storm clouds are gathering in the east, a bit of hell spilling over onto Earth.

You are not a normal girl, Clara.

“This isn’t fair,” I whisper furiously. “You’re supposed to love me.”

“What did the fish say when it hit the concrete wall?”

“What?”

“Dam!”

I love him. He’s mine and I am his. He saved me today. Loving him saved me. I can’t leave him to die.

I won’t.

“Damn it, Tuck.” I throw myself into the air and streak toward Idaho. My instincts tell me that he’ll be at Palisades, at his land. It’s a starting point, anyway.

I fly straight to Palisades, and that’s when I see the other fire.

It’s huge. It has burned right up to the lake line and now it’s eating its way up the mountainside, not moving along the forest floor but higher, in the trees. The flames shoot up at least a hundred feet into the sky, curling and crackling and tearing at the sky. It’s a literal inferno.

I don’t think. I fly right at it. Tucker’s land is hidden somewhere back in those trees.

The fire is making its own wind, somehow, a strong steady stream of wind that I have to fight against to go in the right direction. There’s so much smoke that it’s hard to keep my bearings. I fly lower, trying to get below the smoke to see the road. I can’t see squat. I just fly, and hope that my angel sense will somehow guide me.

“Tucker!” I call.

My wing catches a stray branch and I lose my balance and spin toward the ground. I right myself in the nick of time, jolting down hard on the forest floor but managing to stay on my feet. I’m close, I think. I’ve been to Tucker’s land maybe five times this summer, and I recognize the shape of the mountain. Then the smoke drifts for a moment and I can clearly see the road snaking its way up. It’s too hard to try to fly, too many obstacles, so I sprint onto the road and hurry up it.

“Tucker!”

Maybe he’s not here, I think. My lungs fill with smoke and I start coughing. My eyes water. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you’ve done all this and he’s over at Bubba’s getting an early dinner.

It’s my first moment of real doubt, but I quickly squash it. He’s close, he just can’t hear me. I don’t know how, but I know this is where I’ll find him, and when the road turns and I come up to the clearing at the edge of his land, I’m not surprised to see his truck parked there with the trailer attached.

“Tucker!” I call again hoarsely. “Tucker, where are you?”

No answer. I glance around wildly, looking for some clue to where he’s gone. At the edge of the clearing is a trail, very faint, but definitely a trail. I can make out hoofprints stamped in the dust.

I look down the road. The fire has already swallowed up the road at the bottom of the ridge. I can hear it coming, branches crackling as they burn, this loud popping and snapping. Animals flee before it, rabbits and squirrels and snakes, even, all running away. Smoke moves toward me along the ground like an unrolling carpet.

I have to find him. Now.

I can see much better now that I’m ahead of the fire, but still not great. There’s so much smoke. I glide above the trail yelling his name and peering ahead through the trees.

“Tuck!” I call again and again.

“Clara!”

Finally I see him, coming toward me on Midas as fast as the horse can go on such steep terrain. I drop down onto the trail at the same time that he slides off the horse’s back. We run toward each other through the smoke. He stumbles but keeps running.

Then we’re in each other’s arms. Tucker crushes me to him, wings and all, his mouth close to my ear.

“I love you,” he says breathlessly. “I thought I wasn’t going to get to tell you.” He turns away and coughs hard.

“We have to go,” I say, pulling away.

“I know. The fire’s blocking the way out. I tried to find a way over the top but Midas couldn’t do it.”

“We’ll have to fly.”

He stares at me, his blue eyes uncomprehending.

“Wait,” he says. “But Midas.”

“Tuck, we have to leave him.”

“No, I can’t.”

“We have to. We have to go. Now.”

“I can’t leave my horse.” I know how this must be for him. His most prized possession in this world. All the rodeos, the rides, the times when this animal felt like his best friend in the whole world. But there’s no choice.

“We will all die here,” I say, looking into his eyes. “I can’t carry him. But I can carry you.”

Tucker suddenly turns away from me and runs to Midas. For a minute I think he’s going to run away and try to make it out with the horse. Then he unfastens the horse’s bridle and throws it onto the side of the trail.

The wind shifts, like the mountain is taking a breath. The fire is moving quickly from branch to branch, and any minute the trees around us will catch.

“Tuck, come on!” I yell.

“Go!” he shouts at Midas. “Get out of here!”

He hits the horse on the rump and it makes a noise like a scream and darts away back up the mountain. I run to Tucker and grab him tight around the middle, under the arms.

Please, I pray even though I know I have no right to ask. Give me strength.

For a moment I strain with all the muscle in my body, arms, legs, wings, you name it.

I reach toward the sky with everything I have. We push off in a burst of sheer will, rising up through the trees, through the smoke, the ground dropping away beneath us. He holds me tight and presses his face into my neck. My heart swells with love for him. My body tingles with a new kind of energy. I lift Tucker effortlessly, with more grace than I’ve ever had in the air before. It’s easy. It’s like being carried on the wind.

Tucker gasps. For a few seconds we see Midas running along the side of the mountain, and I feel Tucker’s sorrow over losing his beautiful horse. When we get higher we can see the flames pushing steadily up. There’s no way to tell if Midas will make it. It doesn’t look good. Below us Tucker’s land, the little clearing where I first showed him my wings, has already been engulfed. Bluebell is burning, sending out thick, black plumes of smoke.

I turn us in the air and then move away from the mountain, out into the open where I can fly more smoothly and the air is clearer. Three green fire trucks are tearing up the highway toward the fire, sirens blaring.

“Look out!” yells Tucker.

A helicopter shoots past us to the fire, so close we feel the force of its blades cutting the air. It pours a sheet of water onto the flames, then circles back toward the lake.

Tucker shudders in my arms. I tighten my grip on him and head for the closest place that I know will be safe.

When I come down in my backyard, I let go of Tucker and we both stumble and fall onto the lawn. Tucker rolls onto his back on the grass, covers his eyes with his hands, and lets out a low groan. I fill up with a relief so overwhelming that I want to laugh. All I care about in this moment is that he’s safe. He’s alive.

“Your wings,” he says.

I look over my shoulder at my reflection in the front window of our house. The girl staring back ripples with power the way heat shimmers over a sidewalk. I can suddenly see part of that other creature in her, like the one behind the Black Wing.

Her eyes are shadowed with sorrow. Her wings, half-folded behind her, are a dark, sweet gray. It’s clear even in the hazy reflection of the glass.

“What does it mean?” asks Tucker.

“I have to go.”

At that exact moment my mom pulls up in the Prius.

“What happened?” she asks. “I heard on the radio that the fire just passed Fox Creek Road. Where’s—”

Then she sees Tucker kneeling in the grass. The smile fades. She looks at me with wide, blue eyes.

“Where’s Christian?” she asks.

I can’t meet her eyes. The fire has been at Fox Creek Road, she said. She crosses quickly over to me and grabs me by the wing, turning me so that she can get a good look at the dark feathers.

“Clara, what have you done?”

“I had to save Tucker. He would have died.”

She looks so fragile in that moment, so drained and broken and lost. Her eyes so hopeless. They close for a moment, then open.

“You need to go find him now,” she says then. “I’ll look after Tucker. Go!”

Then she kisses my forehead like she’s saying good-bye to me forever and turns toward the house.