ideas about possible ways that Tucker might die, the one that strikes me as the most likely is that a Black Wing shows up and kills him. To get to me. To punish me, maybe, for turning my back on my purpose. To balance the scales. Or maybe simply because Black Wings are bad and they like to do bad things, such as do away with those the good people care about.
The idea terrifies me. But again the sorrow feeling is gone even before Mom gets there.
Like it never happened. Like it’s all in my head.
A few days later, at Angel Club, Jeffrey’s showing us this trick he can do where he bends a quarter in half using only his fingers. Then of course we all have to try it, first me, and Jeffrey’s none too pleased when I can bend the quarter too, then Angela, who tries so hard that her face turns purple and I think she’s going to pass out, then Christian, who can’t do it, either.
“Apparently not my thing,” he says. “Pretty neat, though.”
“It could be genetic,” Angela theorizes. “Something that runs in the family with you and Jeff.”
Jeffrey snorts. “Oh, yes. A quarter-bending gene.”
I think, what good is it that I can bend quarters? What kind of useful skill is that? And suddenly I feel like I want to cry. For no good reason. Bam — tears.
“What’s the matter?” Christian asks immediately.
“Sorrow,” I croak.
We call my mom. Angela is super spazzing out this time because this is her home and it sucks for your home to not feel safe. My mom shows up ten minutes later, all out of breath. This time she doesn’t look that worried. Just tired.
“Still feeling it?” she asks me.
“No.” Which means I am feeling very stupid at this point.
“Maybe it’s your empathy thing,” Angela says to me as she walks me to the door of the theater. “Maybe you’re picking up on people around you who are sad.” I guess that would make sense.
Mom, it turns out, has a different theory. I find this out later that night, when she comes into my room to say good night. It’s still snowing, has been since the night of Midas’s return, coming down in big flakes at a slant outside my window. It’s going to be a cold night.
“Sorry I keep, you know, crying wolf,” I say to Mom.
“It’s all right,” she says, but her expression is pinched, like I’m giving her new wrinkles.
“You don’t really seem that alarmed,” I point out. “Why is that?”
“I told you,” she says. “I don’t expect Sam to come after us so soon.”
“I really feel sorrow, though. At least I think I do, when it happens. Doesn’t that mean something?”
“It means something.” She sighs. “But it might not be a Black Wing’s sorrow you’re feeling.”
“You think it’s somebody else’s?”
“It could be yours,” she says, looking at me with that quasi-disappointed look again.
For a second it feels like all the air is gone from the room. “Mine?”
“Black Wings feel sorrow because they are going against their design. The same thing happens to us.”
I’m stunned. Seriously, I have no words.
“What Black Wings feel is much, much more intense,” she continues. “They have chosen to separate themselves from God, and that causes them an almost unbearable pain.”
“With us it’s a little more subtle, more sporadic,” she says. “But it happens.”
“So,” I choke out after a minute, “you think I’m feeling flashes of sorrow because I didn’t. . fulfill my purpose?”
“What are you thinking about, when it happens?” she asks.
I should tell her about the dream. The cemetery. All of it. But the words stick in my throat.
“I don’t know.” That’s true. I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking about all those times, but I would hazard a guess that it involved Tucker and my dream and how I’m not going to let it happen.
Fighting my purpose.
Which means I’m going against my design.
The sorrow is mine.
Chapter 7
Go Take a Hike
The next morning there’s two feet of snow on the ground. Our yard’s a winter wonderland, covered neatly in a downy white blanket that makes everything seem muffled. That’s the way it is in Wyoming, I’ve learned. One day it’s autumn, red leaves spiraling down from the trees, squirrels running around frantically burying acorns, a tinge of smoke in the air from people’s fireplaces. Then, like overnight, it’s winter. White and soundless. Really freaking cold.
Mom’s downstairs frying up bacon. She smiles when she sees me.
