Hallowed (2 page)

“So pretty, so pretty,” Miss Colbert keeps saying, an eyelash away from coming right up and stroking my head. I stick with the story that Mom and I came up with earlier about Mom finding an amazing colorist in California this summer and paying some astronomical fee for her to transform me from orange nightmare to strawberry fabulous. Saying all that in high school–level French while pretending I don’t speak the language perfectly is an especially fun part of the morning. I’m ready to go home before nine a.m. Then I duck into AP Calculus, the bell rings, and it’s like the whole fiasco starts all over again.
Your hair, your hair, so pretty.
Then again, in third period art class, like they could all start drawing me and my amazing hair.

And fourth period, AP Government, is worse. Christian is there.

“Hi again,” he says as I stand in the doorway gawking at him.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. There are only around six hundred students at Jackson Hole High School, so the odds are in favor of us having a class together. Tucker’s supposed to be in this class too, last time I checked.

Where the—
heck
is Tucker this morning? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Wendy either.

“You going to come in?” Christian asks.

I slide into the seat next to him and rummage around in my bag for my notebook and a pen. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, roll my head from one side to the other to try to release some of the tension in my neck.

“Long day already?” he asks.

“You have no idea.”

Right then, Tucker breezes in.

“I’ve been looking for you all day,” I say as he claims the desk on the other side of me.

“Did you just get to school?”

“Yeah. Car trouble,” he says. “We have this old crap car that we use around the ranch, and it wouldn’t start this morning. If you thought my truck was junk, you should see this thing.”

“I never thought Bluebell was junk,” I tell him.

He clears his throat, smiles. “How about that? We’re in a class together, you and I, and I didn’t even have to bribe anybody this year.”

I laugh. “You bribed somebody last year?”

“Not officially,” Tucker admits. “I asked Mrs. Lowell, the lady in the office in charge of scheduling, real nice if she could get me into Brit. History. At the last minute, too, I mean like ten minutes before class started. I’m friends with her daughter, which helped.”

“But why . . . ?”

He laughs. “You’re cute when you’re slow.”

“Because of me? No way. You hated me. I was that yuppie California chick who insulted your truck.”

He grins. I shake my head in bewilderment.

“You’re crazy, you know that.”

“Aw, and here I thought I was being sweet and romantic and stuff.”

“Right. So, you’re friends with Mrs. Lowell’s daughter? What’s her name?” I ask with mock jealousy.

“Allison. She’s a nice girl. She was one of the girls I took to prom last year.”

“Pretty?”

“Well, she’s got red hair. I kind of have a thing for red hair,” he says. I punch him lightly on the arm. “Hey. I kind of have a thing for tough girls, too.” I laugh again. That’s when I feel the surge of frustration, so strong it wipes the smile right off my face.

Christian.

This kind of thing’s been happening lately. Sometimes, usually when I least expect it, it’s as if I’m allowed access into other people’s heads. Like now, for instance, I can perceive Christian’s presence on the other side of me so keenly that it’s like he’s boring holes into me with his eyes. I don’t get what he’s thinking in words so much as what he feels—he notices how natural it is for me to fall into this easy conversation with Tucker. He wishes that I would joke around with him that way, that we could finally speak to each other, finally connect. He wants to make me laugh like that.

Knowing this, by the way, totally sucks. Mom calls it empathy, says that it’s a rare gift among angel-bloods. Rare gift, ha. I wonder if there’s a return policy.

Tucker looks over my shoulder and seems to notice Christian for the first time.

“How you doing, Chris? Have a nice summer?” he asks.

“Yeah, fantastic,” answers Christian, and his mind suddenly retreats from mine into a wave of forced indifference. “How about you?”

They stare at each other, one of those high-testosterone stares. “Amazing,” Tucker says.

There’s a challenge in his voice. “Best summer of my life.” I wonder if it’s too late to get out of this class.

“Well, that’s the thing about summers, isn’t it?” says Christian after a minute. “They have to end sometime.”

It’s a relief when class is over. But then I have to stand at the doorway of the cafeteria and decide what to do about lunch.

Option A: My usual. Invisibles table. Wendy. Chitchat. Maybe some awkward talk about how I’m dating her twin brother now, and maybe her asking about what exactly happened out there in the woods the day of the fire, which I don’t know how to answer. Still, she’s one of my best friends, and I don’t want to keep avoiding her.

Option B: Angela. Angela likes to eat alone, and people usually give her a lot of space.

Maybe, if I sat with her, they would give me a lot of space. But then I’d have to answer Angela’s questions and listen to her theories, which she’s pretty much been bombarding me with for the past few days.

Option C (not really an option): Christian. Standing casually in the corner, deliberately not looking at me. Not expecting anything, not pressuring me, but there. Wanting me to know he’s there. Hopeful.

No way I’m going in that direction.

Then the decision kind of gets made for me. Angela looks up. She tilts her head to indicate the empty seat next to her. When I don’t hop to it, she mouths, “Get over here.” Bossy.

I go over to her corner and sink into a seat. She’s reading a small, dusty book. She closes it and slides it across the table to me.

“Check this out,” she says.

I read the title. “
The Book of Enoch
?”

“Yep. A really, really, ridiculously old copy, so watch the pages. They’re delicate. We’re going to need to talk about this ASAP. But first—” She looks up, then calls loudly, “Hey, Christian.”

Oh. My. God. What is she doing?

“Angela, wait a second, don’t—”

She waves him over. This could be bad.

“What’s up?” he says, cool and composed as ever.

“You’re going out to lunch, right?” Angela asks. “You always go out.” His eyes flicker over to mine. “I was considering it.”

“Right, well, I don’t want to mess up your plans or anything, but I think you and me and Clara should have a meeting after school. At my mom’s theater, the Pink Garter, in town.” Christian looks confused. “Um, sure. Why?”

“Let’s just call it a new club I’m starting,” says Angela. “The Angel Club.” He glances at me again, and yep, there’s betrayal in his green eyes, because obviously I’ve gone and blabbed his biggest secret to Angela. I want to explain to him that Angela is like a bloodhound when it comes to secrets, virtually impossible to get anything by her, but it doesn’t matter. She knows. He knows she knows. Damage is done. I glare at Angela.

“She’s one too,” I say simply, mostly because I know Angela wanted to spring it on him herself, and it makes me feel better to ruin her plans. “And she’s crazy, obviously.” Christian nods, like this revelation comes as no surprise.

“But you’re going to be there, at the Pink Garter,” he says to me.

“I guess so.”

“Okay. I’m in,” he tells Angela, but he’s still looking at me. “We need to talk, anyway.” Awesome.

“Awesome,” says Angela cheerfully. “See you after school.”

“See you,” he says, then wanders out of the cafeteria.

I turn to Angela. “I hate you.”

“I know. But you need me, too. Otherwise nothing would ever get done.”

“I still hate you,” I say, even though she’s right. Kind of. This whole Angel Club thing actually sounds like a great idea, if it can help me figure out what it means that Christian and I didn’t fulfill our purpose, since my mom still isn’t exactly forthcoming on the subject. Angela’s stellar with research. If anyone could uncover the consequences for angel-blood purpose-failure, it’s her.

“Oh, you know you love me,” she says. She pushes the book at me again. “Now take this and go eat lunch with your boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Over there. He’s clearly pining for you.” She gestures behind us, where, sure enough, over at the Invisibles table, Tucker is chatting with Wendy. They’re both staring at me with identical expectant expressions.

“Shoo. You’re dismissed,” says Angela.

“Shut up.” I take the book and tuck it into my backpack, then head to the Invisibles table.

Ava, Lindsey, and Emma, my other fellow Invisibles, all smile up at me and say hello, along with Wendy’s boyfriend, Jason Lovett, who I guess is eating with us this year instead of his usual computer-games pals.

It’s weird, us having boyfriends.

“What was that all about?” asks Wendy, peering over at Angela with curious eyes.

“Oh, just Angela being Angela. So, what’s on the Jackson High menu for today?”

“Sloppy Joes.”

“Yummy,” I say without enthusiasm.

Wendy rolls her eyes and says to Tucker, “Clara never likes the food here. I swear, she eats like a bird.”

“Huh,” he says, eyes twinkling, because that’s not his experience with me at all. Around him I’ve always eaten like a horse. I slide into the seat next to his, and he scoots his chair closer to mine and puts his arm around me. Perfectly G-rated, but I can almost feel the topic of discussion shift in the cafeteria. I guess I’m going to be that girl who holds her boyfriend’s hand as they stroll down the halls, who steals kisses between classes, who makes the moony eyes across the crowded cafeteria. I never thought I’d be that girl.

Wendy snorts, and we both turn to look at her. Her eyes dart from me to Tucker and back again. She knows about us, of course, but she’s never seen us together like this before.

“You guys are kind of disgusting,” she says. But then she scoots her chair closer to Jason’s and slips her hand in his.

Tucker smiles in a mischievous way I know too well. I don’t have time to protest before he leans over for a kiss. I push at him, embarrassed, then melt and forget where I am for a minute.

Finally he lets go. I try to catch my breath.

I am
so
that girl. But being that girl has its perks.

“Ew, get a room,” Wendy says, stifling a smile. It’s hard to read her, but I think she’s trying to be cool with this whole best-friend-dating-my-brother thing by acting completely nauseated. Which I think means that she approves.

I notice that the cafeteria has gone momentarily silent. Then suddenly everything starts up again in a flurry of conversation.

“You do know we’re now officially the talk of the town,” I say to Tucker. He might as well have taken a marker to my forehead and written PROPERTY OF TUCKER in big black letters.

His eyebrows lift. “Do you mind?”

I reach for his hand and lace his fingers with mine.

“Nope.”

I’m with Tucker. In spite of my failed purpose and everything, it looks like I’m actually going to get to keep him. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

Chapter 2

First Rule of Angel Club

Mr. Phibbs, my teacher for AP English, which happens to be—thank God!—my last class of the day, immediately gets us started on our first “College English” assignment, a personal essay on where we see ourselves in ten years.

I take out a notebook, click my pen to the write position. And stare at the blank page. And stare. And stare.

Where do I see myself in ten years?

“Try to visualize yourself,” Mr. Phibbs says, like he’s spotted me back here in the corner and knows that I’m floundering. I always liked Mr. Phibbs; he’s kind of our own personal Gandalf or Dumbledore or somebody cool like that, complete with round, wire glasses and long white ponytail sticking out of the back of his collar. But right now he’s killing me.

Visualize myself, he says. I close my eyes. Slowly, a picture starts to materialize in my mind. A forest beneath an orange sky. A ridge. Christian, waiting.

I open my eyes. Suddenly I’m furious.

No, I think at no one in particular. That is not my future. That’s past. My future is with Tucker.

It’s not hard to imagine it. I close my eyes again, and with a bit of effort I can see the outline of the big red barn at the Lazy Dog, the sky overhead empty and blue. There’s a man walking a horse in a pasture. It looks like Midas, a beautiful glossy chestnut. And there’s—this is the part where the breath suddenly hitches in my throat—a small boy riding the horse, a tiny dark-haired boy giggling as Tucker—the man is definitely Tucker; I’d know that butt anywhere—leads him around the pasture. The boy sees me, waves. I wave back. Tucker walks the horse over to the fence.

“Look at me, look at me,” says the boy.

“I see you! Hi there, handsome,” I say to Tucker. He leans over the fence to kiss me, taking my face between his hands, and that’s when I see the glint of the plain gold band on his finger.

We’re married.

It’s the best daydream of all time. I know somewhere deep down that it’s only a daydream, the combination of my active imagination and wishful thinking. Not a vision. Not the future that’s been set for me. But it’s the one I want.

I open my eyes, tighten my fingers around my pen, and write: “In ten years, I will be married. I will have a child. I will be happy.”

I click the pen closed and stare at the words. They surprise me. I’ve never been one of those girls, either, who dreamed of getting married, never forced a boy to say vows with me on the playground or dressed up in bedsheets and pretended to walk down the aisle. When I was a kid I fashioned swords out of tree branches, and Jeffrey and I chased each other around the backyard yelling, “Surrender or die!” Not that I was a tomboy. I liked the color purple and nail polish and sleepovers and writing my crush’s name in the margins of my notebooks at school as much as any other girl. But I never honestly considered being married. Being Mrs. Somebody. I guess I assumed that I’d get married eventually. It just seemed like it was too far away to worry about.