“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.

Chapter 16

Bear Repellent

The next morning my cell phone rings at some ungodly hour. Under the covers, I groan and grope around for it on the nightstand, find it, pull it in with me, and answer cheerfully.

“What?”

“Oh good. You’re up.” Tucker.

“What time is it?”

“Five.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“I’m on my way over,” he says. “I’ll be there in about a half hour. I thought I’d call so you had time to brush your hair and put on your face.”

“You think I’m going to wear makeup to go hiking with you?”

“See, that’s what I like about you, Carrots. You’re not fussy.”

I hang up on him. I throw the blankets off and lie for a minute gazing up at the ceiling. Outside it’s pitch-dark. I was dreaming about him, I realize, although I can’t remember the details. Something about the big red barn on the Lazy Dog Ranch. I yawn. Then I force myself to get up and get dressed.

I don’t shower, because the noise would wake Mom. I splash cold water on my face and put on some moisturizer. I don’t need makeup. My skin lately is starting to have its own natural glow, another sign that things are starting to change, starting to intensify the way Mom said they would. I put on mascara and apply some lip gloss, then turn my attention to the wild waves of hair cascading down my back. There’s a clump of tree sap clinging to a strand, evidence of last night’s flying practice. I spend the next fifteen minutes trying to get rid of the sap, and when I finally remove it, along with a fat chunk of my hair, I hear tires on the gravel road outside.

I slip quietly downstairs. Jeffrey’s right. Mom’s not in her room. On the kitchen counter I write her a note: Mom, going out to see the sunrise with friends. Be back later. I have my cell. C. Then I’m out the door.

This time I’m nervous, but Tucker acts like nothing’s changed, so completely normal that I wonder if maybe I imagined all the tension between us yesterday. I relax into our familiar banter. His smile’s infectious. His dimple’s out the whole drive, and he drives fast enough to have me clutching that handle above the door as we round corners. He takes a secret side road to get into Grand Teton, bypassing the main gate, and then we’re zooming down the empty highway.

“So what day is it?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“You said it was a special day.”

“Oh. I’ll get to that.”

We drive to Jackson Lake. He parks and hops out of the truck. I wait for him to come around and open my door. I’m getting used to his “yes, ma’am” manners, so much that I’m starting to find his gentlemanly ways sweet.

He checks his watch.

“We’ve got to hike fast,” he says. “Sunrise is in twenty-six minutes.”

I lean down to tighten the laces on my boots. And we’re off. I follow him up and out of the parking lot and into the woods.

“So what classes are you taking next year?” he asks over his shoulder as we make our way up the hill on the other side of the lake.

“The usual,” I say. “AP Calculus, College English, government, French, physics, you know.”

“Physics, huh?”

“Well, my dad is a physics professor.”

“No kidding? Where?”

“NYU.”

He whistles. “That’s a long way from here. When did your folks split up?”

“Why are you suddenly so chatty?” I ask a tad sharply. Something about the idea of telling him about my personal history makes me uncomfortable. Like I’ll start telling him and won’t be able to stop. I’ll blab the whole story: Mom’s half-angel, I’m a quarter, my vision, my powers, my purpose, Christian, and then what? He’ll tell me about the rodeo circuit?

He stops and turns around to look at me. His eyes are dancing with mischief.

“We’ve got to talk because of the bears,” he says in a low tone, hamming it up.

“The bears.”

“Got to make some noise. Don’t want to surprise a grizzly.”

“No, I guess we don’t want to do that.”

He starts up the trail again.

“So, tell me about this thing that happened with your grandpa, where your family lost the ranch,” I say quickly before he has a chance to get back to the subject of my family. He doesn’t break his stride but I can almost feel him tense up. The tables are turned. “Wendy says it’s why you hate Californians. What happened there?”

“I don’t hate Californians. Clearly.”

“Whew, that’s a relief.”

“It’s a long story,” he says, “and we don’t have that long to hike.”

“Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine, Carrots. I’ll tell you about it someday. But not now.”

Then he starts to whistle and we stop talking. Which seems to suit us both fine, bears or not.

After a few more minutes of hard climbing, we come out on a clearing at the top of a small rise. The sky’s bathed in a mix of gray and pale yellow, with a tangle of bright pink clouds hanging right above where the Tetons jut into the sky, pure purple mountain majesty, standing like kings on the edge of the horizon. Below them is Jackson Lake, so clear it looks like two sets of mountains and two skies, perfectly replicated.

Tucker checks his watch. “Sixty seconds. We’re right on time.”

I can’t look away from the mountains. I’ve never seen anything so formidably beautiful. I feel connected to them in a way I’ve never felt anywhere else. It’s like I can feel their presence. Just looking at the jagged peaks against the sky makes peace wash over me like the waves lapping on the shore of the lake below us. Angela has a theory that angel-kind are attracted to mountains, that somehow the separation between heaven and earth is thinner here, just as the air is thinner. I don’t know. I only know that looking at them fills me with the yearning to fly, to see the earth from above.