Unearthly

and simply let myself be a regular girl having a perfectly normal summer. Which is nice. And makes me feel guilty, because I’m supposed to be focusing on my purpose.

His text says:

Have you ever been to a place you’re supposed to love, but all you can think about is home?

Cryptic. And as usual when it comes to Christian, I don’t know how to respond.

* * *

I hear a car pulling into the driveway, and then the sound of the garage door. Mom’s home. I do a quick sweep around the house to make sure everything is in order, dishes washed, laundry folded, Jeffrey still in a food coma upstairs. All is right in the Gardner house. When she comes in, towing her huge suitcase, I’m sitting at the kitchen counter with two tall glasses of iced tea.

“Welcome home,” I say brightly.

She puts her suitcase down and holds out her arms. I jump off my stool and step sheepishly into her hug. She squeezes me tight, and it makes me feel like a kid again. Safe. Right. Like nothing was normal when she was gone.

She pulls back and looks me up and down. “You look older,” she says. “Seventeen suits you.”

“I feel older. And stronger lately, for whatever reason.”

“I know. You should be feeling stronger every day now, the closer we get to your purpose. Your power is growing.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence. What are my powers, exactly?

“I can fly now,” I blurt out suddenly. It’s been two weeks since Inspiration Point, a hundred crashes and scrapes, but I’ve finally gotten the hang of it. It feels like something she should know. I lift my pant leg to show her a scratch on my shin from the top of a pine tree I passed over too closely.

“Clara!” she exclaims, and she tries to act pleased but I can tell she’s disappointed that she hadn’t been there, like I’m a baby taking my first steps and she missed it.

“It’s easier for me when you’re not watching,” I explain. “Less pressure or something.”

“Well, I knew you’d get it.”

“I totally love the dress you gave me,” I say in an attempt to change the subject.

“Maybe we could go out to dinner tonight and I’ll wear it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She releases me, grabs her suitcase, and lugs it down the hall toward her bedroom. I follow.

“How was work?” I ask as she lays her suitcase on her bed, opens her top dresser drawer, and begins to stack her underwear and socks neatly inside. I have to shake my head at what a neat freak she is, all her panties folded, arranged by color in perfect little rows. It seems impossible that we’re related, she and I. “Did you get it all straightened out?”

“Yes. It’s better, anyway. I really needed to go out there.” She moves on to the next drawer. “But I’m sorry I missed your birthday.”

“It’s okay.”

“What did you do?”

For some reason I’ve been dreading telling her about Tucker, the Jumping Tree, and the time I’ve been spending with him all week, hiking, picking huckleberries, white-water rafting, speaking Korean to random people in front of him. Maybe I’m afraid that she’ll call Tucker what I know deep down that he is: a distraction. She’ll tell me to get back to work on the Saving Christian mission. Then I’ll have to tell her that, even though I’m feeling stronger lately, finally flying, I still can’t get that heavy duffel bag off the ground. And then she’ll give me that look, that speech about lightness and strength and how much I am capable of if only I put my mind to it. I just don’t want to go there. Not yet, anyway. But I have to give her something.

“Wendy loaned me her brother and a pair of hiking boots, and he took me out to this place where all the kids go to jump into the Hoback River,” I say all in one breath.

Mom looks at me suspiciously.

“Wendy loaned you her brother?”

“Tucker. You met him that time our car slid off the road, remember?”

“The boy who brought you home from prom,” she says thoughtfully.

“Yep, that’s him. And thanks so much for bringing that up.”

For a minute neither of us says anything else.

“I brought you something,” she says finally. “A present.”

She unzips a compartment of her suitcase and pulls out something made of dark purple fabric. It’s a jacket, a gorgeous corduroy jacket the exact color of Mom’s African violet on the kitchen windowsill. It will play down the orange of my hair and play up the blue in my eyes. It’s perfect.

“I know you have your parka,” Mom says, “but I thought you could use something lighter. And besides, you can never have too many jackets in Wyoming.”

“Thanks. I love it.”

I reach to take it from her. And the moment my fingers touch the soft, velvety fabric, I’m in the vision, walking through the trees.

I trip and fall, scraping the palm of my right hand. I haven’t had the vision in weeks, since prom when I saw myself fly away from the fire with Christian in my arms. It doesn’t feel as familiar to me now, as I make my way up the hillside toward him. But he’s still there waiting for me, and when I see him I call his name, and he turns, and I run to him. I missed him, I realize, although I don’t know if it’s what I’m feeling now or in the future. He makes me