Broken Wings (An Angel Eyes Novel) (20 page)

Jake drops from the tree.

“This is it,” I say. “The girl was wearing it in my dream.”

“The girl in the hallway?”

“Yes and no. It was the same girl, but she was younger, happier. Until . . .”

I have a terrifying thought. “Jake, I think the nightmares are coming from the Throne Room. I think they’re telling me something.”

“Why do you think I’m freaking out?” A cold wind blows through the cemetery, too cold for July. The willow shivers and my hair whips about. I tie it back in a knot, my mind trying to place the puzzle pieces. And now there are just so many.

“Marco found a picture in Ali’s journal. It’s of a woman with three scars marking her arm.”

“Like the girl?” Jake asks, his face distractingly close to mine. Still, I soldier on.

“Exactly like the girl. And Marco was telling me this story that seems—”

“We need to talk to Canaan,” Jake says. “He’s the best at reading the Throne Room’s intentions. I just . . . why weren’t these things delivered as clues? If we’re supposed to do something with what we know, why isn’t the Throne Room using the chest?”

It’s a good question. Why isn’t Canaan the one putting these pieces together?

“Maybe because we won’t always have the chest,” I tell him, the idea strange but sensible. “If Canaan’s reassigned and you stay with me . . .” But there’s the other possibility. That I’m the one having nightmares because they could both choose to leave and I’m supposed to piece this together myself. “You
are
staying with me?”

“I’m not leaving, Elle,” he says, tipping my chin to his and speaking soft words into my mouth. “I’ve told you that. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay.”

There’s something in his eyes that makes my stomach clench, makes it crave. It’s longing, I realize, and that scares me a little. There are things we can’t share just yet. Things we shouldn’t share. Until Jake, I never realized how easy it’d be to give up something that isn’t mine to part with.

I step back, Jake’s eyes falling to the necklace in my hand.

“What do you think about the necklace?” he asks, his voice thick.

I breathe away some of the tension and turn the wood flower in my hands.

“It’s beautiful, but there’s nothing to indicate it came from Mom’s grave.”

“Except the debris, of course,” Jake says, looking around.

“Yeah, there is that.”

“You could ask your dad,” he says.

“As if.” I blow a strand of hair from my face. “Although . . .”

“Although?”

“Dad’s not the only one who might able to tell me if this belonged to Mom.”

“Who then?”

“Miss Macy,” I say.

“Grandmother Tutu?”

I slide the necklace over my head. “She hates that nickname, by the way, but yeah. She’s the one who introduced Mom and Dad. She and Mom were BFFs back in the day.”

“Then let’s ask her,” Jake says.

“Don’t you have to work?”

“Took the day off,” he says, pulling a leaf from my hair. “My girlfriend needs me.”

But Miss Macy’s not home. We check the studio too, but it’s dark inside. A sign on the door says she’s sorry for the last-minute closure.

“That’s weird,” I say. “She never cancels class. Can I borrow your phone?”

But she’s not answering her cell either.

Jake calls Canaan, but the call rolls to voice mail.

“Okay, let’s just figure this out ourselves,” I say. “We can do that, right? We’re smart.”

Jake pulls the car into the drive-thru at Burgerville. “I’m much smarter after I’ve eaten.”

We pick up shakes and onion rings and drive out to Crooked Leg Bridge. The sky is clear and blue, Mount Bachelor rising in the distance, crowning a horizon of evergreens with a tipsy white dunce hat. We sit side by side on the bridge, our feet dangling, and I tell him about my nightmares. All of them. And because I can’t shake the thought that it’s related, I tell him about Olivia’s mom dying in that fire.

With all the pieces laid before us, a story begins to take shape.

“It’s Olivia,” Jake says. “It has to be.”

I gather a handful of pebbles and drop them one at a time off the bridge. I can’t see them fall, can’t see them hit the water, but the ripples they make—I can see those.

“I know you hate her, Elle, but think about it.”

“Is it possible to want to save someone and knock someone’s face in all at the same time?”

“You tell me,” Jake says. “Is it possible?”

“Seems so. What does that mean about Javan? If what I saw took place years ago, it’s possible he’s still in the pit, right? We don’t have to worry about him coming to Stratus?”

“Canaan’s fairly certain he’s in hell.”

The next question makes my hands sweaty. I dust the remaining pebbles from my hands and watch as the river below is freckled with ripples. Uncountable.

“And the woman, then, that Olivia spoke to at the hospital, that was my mom. Olivia was with her when she died.”

Jake tosses his own rock into the water. Big, round. It makes a splash.

“We don’t have all the pieces yet. That might be too big a leap to make.”

“But if you were guessing . . .”

His words are soft, but they still cut. “It’s not a bad guess, Elle.”

I stare at the skies over Bachelor, wondering just what the Sabres’ role is in all this. Was it just to unearth the emptiness of Mom’s grave? That’s why they came all this way?

“You know, for a second I let myself believe Mom was out there somewhere. I conjured up this reality that she’d survived somehow, and we’d find her.” I can’t help fingering the necklace hanging against my chest. “But if that was my mom Olivia was talking to at the hospital, then I’ve looked out through her eyes. I’ve felt the sickness inside her.”

Jake leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead. “I’m so sorry.”

I lay my head on his shoulder. The bridge is warm beneath our legs and our breathing resolves into the same rhythm. We sit like that for a long time. Until the summer eve is wrapped around us, and the trees are stained pink with the rays of the
setting sun. How easy it would be to ignore the ugly parts of this world. The broken parts.

“Jake?”

“Hmm?”

“If my mom’s dead, what happened to her body?”

The sun dips below the horizon and the world turns to shadow.

“I don’t know.”

25
Brielle

H
elene’s sitting at the desk just beyond the small waiting area when I enter the dance studio on Tuesday. She’s lovely in a pale-pink leotard and tights, her auburn hair pulled up like mine. She’s been working alongside me for months, but it’s still strange to see her here. So comfortable in the Terrestrial, so graceful and light on her feet.

I’ll be sad when she’s assigned elsewhere.

“Isn’t your class this afternoon?” I ask.

“I got a call from Miss Macy this morning. She needed to switch. Dentist appointment or something.”

“Ugh.”

I drop my bag next to a white folding chair and slide out of my boots and into my ballet slippers.

“How are you holding up?” she asks.

I shrug. “Managed to avoid Dad again this morning, so that’s a plus. Have you . . . been in touch with Virtue?”

We’re alone, but I keep my voice quiet. Helene leans forward, her hands cupping her chin.

“I haven’t,” she says. “But he’s near. I’ve heard him. Seen him. Elle, I’m fairly certain I know—”

We’re interrupted by the Sadler twins. Four years old, fuzzy red hair, and more freckles than Pippi Longstocking.

“Hey, girls!” Helene says. “You’re up early!”

“Do you mind if I drop them off now?” their mother says. “I got called into the office. I’ll be back on time, I promise.”

“Go ahead,” I tell her. “I was just going to warm up. You girls wanna come?”

Tia and Pria squeal.

“Can we play with the wings?” Tia asks.

“Of course,” I say, waving Mrs. Sadler away and shooing the twins into the studio.

“We’ll talk later,” Helene says.

I nod, my mind a mosaic of mismatched thoughts: Virtue, the absent Miss Macy, Jake, Kaylee and the community center, the Sadler twins and butterfly wings in purple and green.

And Dad. There was another curse-laden message on the answering machine this morning from Dad’s second-in-command. His drinking has to be taking a toll on the business. His truck was gone when I left, so I can only hope he made it to work today.

The girls raid the dress-up clothes and I settle into first position. Helene already has music playing. It’s our warm-up CD—all classical and soft. I take to the floor and lose myself for a bit. The halo seems to agree with my need to forget and warms me through as I lift and stretch, dancing across the floor.

At one point I catch Jake’s eye across the street. He’s chatting with Bob and the guys, chewing on a doughnut. He must be on a break. I stop and wave. They all wave back.

When the rest of my class arrives, I’m ready. Focused on them. Everything else will wait. It’ll have to.

Kaylee arrives just as I’m shooing the last of my girls into the waiting area. She drops into a folding chair just outside the door looking serious, which is unlike her.

“Hey, Kay. You all right?”

“You get my text?”

“No, I’ve been doing
this
all morning,” I say, gesturing to a floor full of sparkly material scraps, feathers, and straight pins on little cushions.

She squints at the mess. “Reupholstering peacocks?”

“Costume adjustments for the summer dance recital.” I wad the turquoise and fuchsia scraps into a ball and drop cross-legged before her. “So what’s up?”

“Marco Mysterioso crashed on my couch last night.”

I’m suddenly awake. “Oh good. Oh yeah. We were worried. How did that . . . Did he call you or something?”

“Showed up at Jelly’s last night all hot and bothered.” I must’ve made a face, because Kaylee quickly rephrases. “All sweaty and rambling.”

“Yeah, he, um, he had a shock.”

“You wanna tell me about the bracelet?” she asks.

And like that, my leotard’s too snug and my tights are itchy. The world has become entirely too uncomfortable. “Wh-What did Marco say?”

“Nothing coherent. He was rambling. Delia took pity on him—I think she’s crushing on him, to be honest.”

“Delia?”

“Yeah, well, in a platonic, he’s-a-cute-kid kind of way. She’s always liked the tall, thin ones. Anyway, she force-fed him coffee
and gyros, but he was going on and on about darkness and evil deeds, so she bundled him into her car and took him away from the customers. When I got home last night, he was curled on the corner of the couch staring at that journal he’s had surgically attached to his hand.”

“It’s Ali’s,” I say quietly.

“I figured. Look, he said something else when I got home.”

“About the . . . about my . . . bracelet?”

“He said it made him see things.”

My pulse pounds against my temples, against the skin of my throat. I feel it in my hands and feet.

“Did he say what he saw?” I ask, my voice rough and shaky.

“You. On fire.”

Kay lives with her Aunt Delia. Her parents live in town, but they’re, well, lost souls, I guess. When we were younger, elementary school age, they were in and out of jail so often Delia set up a room for Kay at her place. Eventually she just never moved out.

Her parents are around—always at birthday parties and family affairs, usually inappropriately clothed or looking for cash—but they can’t seem to get it together enough to really be there in any permanent way.

So, Kay has Delia.

Delia’s given her a home and stability.

And Kay . . . well, Kay’s given Delia someone to mother and quite a lot of messes to clean up.

The two of them live in a little house off of Main on a grassy lot between the train station and the high school. Years and
years ago the place was painted bright green. It’s faded now, the paint peeling away from the wood siding. But instead of the house looking run-down, it has a homey, broken-in feel. The front door is my absolute favorite. The green walls chip and peel, the weather doing its thing, and Delia hardly notices, but every single year she repaints that front door. It’s bright blue, sky blue really. Like all those pictures you see of houses in Greece. Whenever I stand on her front doorstep I feel like I’m traveling to far-off places. Exotic places. With Kaylee as my tour guide.