I bend my knees, jump, and make it a few feet off the ground. For all of five seconds I think I might have done it. Then I come down hard, at an angle, twisting my ankle. Off balance, I crash onto the lawn, a tangle of limbs and wings.

For a minute I lie there in the soggy grass, gasping for breath.

“Clara,” says Mom.

“Don’t.”

“Are you hurt?”

Yes, I’m hurt. I will my wings to vanish.

“Keep trying. You’ll get it,” Mom says.

“No, I won’t. Not today.” I get to my feet carefully and brush dirt and grass off my pants, refusing to meet her eyes.

“You’re used to everything coming easy for you. You’re going to have to work at this.”

I wish she’d stop saying that. Every time, her face gets this look like I’ve let her down, like she expected more. It makes me feel like a big fat failure, both as a human, where I’m supposed to be remarkable—beautiful, fast, strong, sure on my feet, able to do anything that’s asked of me—and as an angel. As a regular girl, I’m not proving to be anything magnificent. And as an angel, I am simply abysmal.

“Clara.” Mom moves toward me, opening her arms like we’re going to hug now and everything will be okay. “You have to try again. You can do this.”

“Stop being so soccer mom about it, okay? Just leave me alone.”

“Honey—”

“Leave me alone!” I screech. I look into her startled eyes.

“All right,” she says. She turns and walks swiftly back toward the house. The door slams. I hear Jeffrey’s voice in the kitchen, and her voice, low and patient, answering him. I rub my burning eyes. I want to run away but there’s nowhere to go. So I stand there, my neck and shoulders and ankle aching, feeling sorry for myself until the yard is dark and there’s nothing left to do but limp inside.

Chapter 11

Idaho Falls

Angela shows up at our house a whole hour early on Saturday morning, and the minute I see her standing on the porch I know this girls-day-out idea is a big mistake. She looks like a kid on Christmas morning. She’s totally freaked-excited to meet my mom.

“Just play it cool, all right?” I tell her before I let her come in. “Remember what we talked about. Casual. No angel talk.”

“Fine.”

“I mean it. No angel-related questions at all.”

“You told me like a hundred times already.”

“Ask her about Pearl Harbor or something. She’d probably like that.”

Angela rolls her eyes.

She doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that our friendship largely depends on how clueless she appears to my mom. That if Mom knew what Angela and I’ve been talking about all these afternoons after school, the angel research and questions and Angela’s wacky theories, I’d probably never be allowed to go to the Pink Garter again.

“Maybe it’d be best if you don’t talk at all,” I say. She puts her hand on her hip and glares at me. “Okay, okay. Come with me.”

In the kitchen Mom is setting a huge plate of pancakes on the table. She smiles.

“Hello, Angela.”

“Hi, Mrs. Gardner,” Angela says in this completely reverential tone.

“Call me Maggie,” Mom says. “It’s good to finally meet you face-to-face.”

“Clara’s told me so much about you I feel like I already know you.”

“All good, I hope.”

I glance at Mom. We’ve hardly said three sentences to each other since the botched flying lesson. She smiles without showing her teeth, her company smile. “Clara hasn’t really told me that much about you,” she says.

“Oh,” says Angela, “well there’s not that much to tell.”

“Okay, so pancakes,” I say. “I bet Angela’s starved.”

Mom turns to get a plate out of the cupboard, and I shoot Angela a warning look.

“What?” she whispers.

She’s completely starstruck by my mom. She stares at her all through breakfast. Which would have been okay—weird, but okay—except that after about two bites into pancakes she blurts out, “How high can an angel-blood fly? Do you think we could fly in space?”

Mom just laughs and says that sounds cool but she’s pretty sure we still need oxygen. “No Superman trips to the moon,” she says.

They smile at each other, which bugs me. If I asked that question, Mom would say she didn’t know, or it wasn’t important, or she’d change the subject. I know what she’s doing: She’s trying to figure Angela out. She wants to know what Angela knows. Which I definitely do not want to happen.

But there’s no stopping Angela. “What about the light thing?” she asks.

“The light thing?”

“You know, when the angels shine with the heavenly light? What’s that about?”

“We call that glory,” Mom answers.

“So what’s the point of it?” Angela asks.

Mom sets down her glass of milk and acts like this is a deep question that requires some serious thought. “It has many uses,” she says finally.

“I’ll bet the light comes in handy,” says Angela. “Like your own personal flashlight. And it makes you look angelic, of course. No one would doubt you if you show the wings and the glory. But you’re not supposed to do that, right?”

“We’re never to reveal ourselves,” Mom says, looking at me for an instant, “although there are exceptions. Glory has a strange effect on humans.”

“Like what?”

“It terrifies them.”

I sit up a little. I didn’t know that, and neither did Angela.

“Oh, I see,” says Angela, really cooking with gas now. “But what is glory? It has to be more than just light, to have that kind of effect, right?”

Mom clears her throat. She’s in uncomfortable territory now, stuff she’s never told me.

“You’re always saying how much easier flying would be if I could tap into glory,” I pipe up, not about to let her off the hook. “You make it sound like an energy source.”

She gives a barely perceivable sigh. “It’s how we connect with God.”

Angela and I mull that over.

“Like how?” asks Angela. “Like when people pray?”

“When you’re in glory, you’re connected with everything. You can feel the trees breathing. You could count the feathers on a bird’s wing. You know if it’s going to rain. You’re part of it, that force which binds all life.”

“Will you teach us how to do it?” asks Angela. This whole conversation is clearly blowing her mind. She’s itching to whip out her notebook and take some major notes.

“It can’t be taught. You have to learn to still yourself, to strip away everything but the core of what makes you, you. It’s not your thoughts or your feelings. It’s the self under all of that.”

“Okay, so that sounds hard.”

“I was forty before I was able to do it well,” Mom says. “Some angel-bloods never get to that state at all. Although it can be triggered by powerful events or feelings.”

“Like Clara’s hair thing, right? You told her that gets triggered by emotions,” Angela says.

Mom gets up from the table and crosses to the window.

“Oh. My. God. Shut up,” I whisper to Angela.

“There’s a blue truck in the driveway,” Mom says after a moment. “Wendy’s here.”

I abandon Mom and Angela and run to meet Wendy, who, unbeknownst to her, will save me from this angel conversation.

Tucker drove her over. He’s leaning against Bluebell in the driveway, staring out at the woods, and somehow it feels like he shouldn’t be allowed to be here, shouldn’t be allowed to peer into my woods or listen to my stream or enjoy my birds singing.

“Hey, Carrots,” he says when he spots me. I look around for Wendy, who I find rummaging around in the truck for something. “Beautiful day for shopping,” he adds.

He’s mocking me, I think. I don’t have a comeback.

“Yep,” I say.