Hallowed (10 page)

“But Mom,” I sputter. “I can’t go camping this weekend.” She fixes me with a steady, no-nonsense look. “Why, because you want to stay home and sneak over to Tucker’s?”

“Busted,” laughs Jeffrey.

I guess I wasn’t being as quiet as I thought sneaking out of the house.

“I call shotgun,” Jeffrey says, and that’s that.

So by ten o’clock we’re all showered and dressed and packed and bundled into the car, the heater on full blast. Mom passes me back a thermos of hot chocolate. She’s still in this supernaturally good mood. She puts the car in four-wheel drive and turns the windshield wipers on to clear away the dusting of snow that’s coming down, humming along with the radio as she drives into Jackson. Then she pulls up in front of the Pink Garter.

“Okay, Clara,” she says with a mischievous smile. “You’re up.” I’m confused.

“Go get Angela. Tell her to pack a bag for the weekend.”

“Is she expecting me?” I ask. “Does she know that she’s going on some loony camping trip in the snow?”

Mom’s smile widens. “For once, Angela doesn’t know anything about it. But she’ll want to come, I have a feeling.”

I go to the door of the theater and knock. Angela’s mom answers. Her dark eyes go immediately past me to my mom, who’s now out of the car and coming toward us. For a second, Anna Zerbino looks like she’s going to pass out. Her face gets this strange, part-terrified, part-reverent expression, her hand involuntarily coming up to touch the gold cross dangling around her neck. Apparently Angela’s enlightened her about my family being made up of angel-bloods, and in Anna Zerbino’s experience, we’re something to be feared and worshipped.

“Hi, Anna,” my mom says in her nicest, sweetest, trust-me voice. “I wonder if I might borrow your daughter for a couple of days.”

“This is about the angels,” Anna whispers.

“Yes,” answers my mom. “It’s time.”

Anna nods silently, clutching at the doorway like she suddenly needs it for support. I dart up the stairs to find Angela.

“I think my mom might be hypnotizing your mother, or something,” I say as I push open the door to Angela’s room. She’s sprawled out on her stomach on her bed, writing in her black-and-white composition book. She’s wearing a red Stanford hoodie and only a blind person wouldn’t notice the huge Stanford banner she’s tacked on the wall over her bed.

“Wow, go Cardinals,” I comment.

“Oh hey, C,” she says, surprised. She flips her notebook closed and tucks it under her pillow. “Were we supposed to hang out today?”

“Yep, it’s written in the stars.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve come to steal you away for a magical two days and one night in the freezing-cold snowy wilderness. Courtesy of my mom.”

Angela sits up. For a minute she looks like an exact replica of her mother, except for the golden eyes. “Your mom? What?”

“Like I said, she’s taking us camping, and you’re invited. We’ve got tents and sleeping bags and even those metal poles you roast hot dogs on.”

“I don’t understand,” Angela says. Her gaze flits to the window. “It’s snowing.”

“So true. I don’t understand either, believe me,” I say. “So are you coming camping with us or not?”

In less than ten minutes she’s packed a duffel and is seat-belted into the back of our SUV, looking like she’s had a few too many cups of coffee, she’s that jittery. To some extent, Angela is always this way around my mom. It has something to do with her never knowing any other angel-bloods before she met us. Certainly she’s never had an adult angel-blood to look up to, just her quiet, broody, fully human mom with all her religious beliefs, who right now is standing on the boardwalk waving good-bye with tears in her eyes, like she’s afraid she’ll never see Angela again.

Mom rolls down the window. “It’s all right, Anna. I’ll bring her back to you safe and sound.”

“Yeah, it’s fine, Mom,” Angela mutters, embarrassed. “I’ll be home Sunday night.”

“Yes, okay,” Anna says in a low voice. “You have a good time.” It’s quiet on the drive into the mountains. Jeffrey turns the radio on, but Mom lowers the volume so we can barely hear it. Then we wind our way up a series of hairpin turns, the road narrowing to a single lane, one side cut against the sheer rocky face of the mountain, the other dropping to a ravine below. I wonder what would happen if we came upon somebody on the way down. Finally, after more than an hour, the road levels into a small turnout. Mom pulls over and parks.

“This is as far up as we go in the car. We’ll have to hike from here.” She gets out. We’re met by a blast of absolutely freezing air as we open our doors to grab our packs from the back.

We stand for a minute staring at the trailhead and the distant ridges of the mountain over the treetops.

“At least it stopped snowing,” Jeffrey says.

Mom leads us into the fresh powder, followed by Jeffrey, then Angela and me walking side by side. The snow on the trail is halfway up our boots. We walk for a long time. The air seems to get thinner. The whole trip reminds me of the time Mom brought me to Buzzards Roost when I was fourteen, where she told me about the angel-bloods and flew out across the valley to prove that she was serious. I wonder what she’s going to reveal to us this time.

After a couple of hours of monotonous trudging, Mom turns off the trail and toward a deeply wooded part of the forest. It’s colder here, darker, in the shade of the towering pines. The snow is much deeper off the trail, sometimes almost to the knees. Within minutes I am chilled to the bone, shivering so violently that my hair pops loose from its ponytail. Beside me, Angela suddenly slips and falls, getting herself completely covered with snow. I reach down to help her up.

“Bet you’re wishing you’d given this whole camping trip thing a bit more thought,” I say through chattering teeth. Her nose and cheeks are bright pink, almost clownlike against her shock of black hair.

“We’re supposed to have an immunity to cold,” she says with her eyebrows drawn together, like she just can’t figure out why it’s not working.

From ahead of us, Mom barks with laughter.

“Sometimes, Angela,” she says, not without affection, “you really are full of crap.” Angela’s mouth opens in shock for a second, but then Mom keeps laughing, and it quickly spreads to the rest of us, even Angela.

“I read it in a book,” she protests. “Seriously.”

“It’s when you use glory,” Mom explains. “Glory keeps you warm. Otherwise, I’m reasonably certain you could freeze to death.”

“Like now, for example,” I chime in.

“Okay,” says Angela sheepishly. “I’ll have to write that down. Just as soon as I can make my hands work again.”

“It’s not much farther,” Mom promises. “Hang in there.”

Sure enough, after another ten minutes of miserable progress in the snow through the deep woods, Mom stops us. She lifts her head and smells the air, smiles in a kind of serene way, then tells Jeffrey to make a sharp right turn.

“There,” she says, pointing to a narrow gulley a bit farther down the mountain. “We need to go through there.”

Jeffrey leads the way, taking us down the slippery trail until he stops so suddenly that Mom almost crashes into him. His pack slips from his shoulder. Mom grins, a tired but triumphant gloaty expression, and steps aside to let Angela and me pass through so we can see what they’re looking at. Then we stop too, our mouths dropping open, our own packs dropping to the ground.

“Holy . . . ,” breathes Jeffrey.

Yep. That’s the right word.

It’s some sort of meadow, a vast, flat stretch of land surrounded on two sides by mountains, the third edge a beautiful shining lake that’s clear enough that you can see the landscape reflected back perfectly. A few feet from where we’re standing the snow disappears, becoming instead a long, soft grass, so green it almost hurts the eyes to look at it after so many hours of white on white. It’s not snowing here. The sun is sinking behind the far mountain, and the sky is a riot of oranges and blues. Birds are winging their way back and forth across the meadow, like they too can’t believe that they’ve stumbled into this paradise out here in the middle of nowhere.

But the meadow’s not what we’re looking at. What has the three of us (not Mom, of course, since she obviously knows all about this) gaping stupidly out into the sunshine is the fact that the meadow is crowded with tents. About two dozen people are bustling around, some building campfires, some fishing on the lake, some simply standing or sitting or lying down in the grass talking.

My eyes are drawn to one particular woman, mahogany-skinned with long, lustrous dark hair, a face like the Sacagawea golden dollar. And a pair of dazzling wings folded like a magnificent white robe against her back.

“This,” Mom says, gesturing around the meadow, “is what’s called a congregation. A gathering of angel-bloods.”

“Congregarium celestial,”
breathes Angela.

The lady with the wings sees us and waves. Mom waves back.

“That’s Billy,” she says. “Come on.” She removes her coat and the rest of her winter gear until she’s only wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. Then she strides off barefoot into the grass.

“Come on,” she calls back to us again. “They’ll be eager to meet you.” We leave our packs at the edge of the grass and move hesitantly into the meadow. Several people stop what they’re doing to watch us.

“What is this?” Jeffrey asks beside me, still confused.

Mom’s already reached Billy, who throws her arms around my mother like the two are old friends. Then they turn and start back toward us, and when she gets close enough this Billy woman hugs me too, a giant bear hug with surprising strength.

“Clara!” she exclaims. “I can’t believe it. I haven’t seen you since you were knee high to a grasshopper.”

“Uh, hi,” I reply stiffly against her hair, which smells like wildflowers and leather. “I don’t remember. . . .”

“Oh, of course not,” she says with a laugh. “You were tiny.” She peers over my shoulder.

“And this is Jeffrey. Good God above. Already a man.”

Jeffrey doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he’s pleased by this announcement.

“Meet Wilma Fairweather,” announces my mom as a formal introduction.

Wilma smirks at us. “Billy,” she corrects.

“And this is Angela Zerbino,” says my mom, not to overlook any of us.

Billy nods, looking at Angela so intently that Angela actually blushes. “The Pink Garter, am I right?”

“Yeah,” says Angela.

“Welcome! Are you hungry?”

We glance around at each other. Food is the last thing on our minds.

“Of course you are,” Billy says. “Why don’t you go over there and get some grub?” She gestures off to one side of the meadow, where there’s a plume of smoke coming up over what looks like a big stone barbecue grill. “Corbett makes the best burgers, I swear, enough to get me to eat meat a few times a year, anyway.” She laughs again. “Go eat and then you can start setting up your tents. I want you all right by me.” She links her arm with Mom’s. “You finally got the guts to bring them, Mags. I’m proud of you. Although I guess this means—”

“Bill,” Mom says with a warning in her voice, looking at me. Then she shakes it off and smiles at Billy. “We’ve got a million things to talk about, you and I.” And with that, they walk away, leaving us staring after them.

We make our way over to the barbecue. When we get there we can see that it’s being manned by a white-haired guy with a long ponytail wearing a Hawaiian-style flowered shirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops. He’s flipping meat on the grill like a professional.

“What’ll it be, young’uns?” he calls back without bothering to turn around.

“Cheeseburger or regular?”

“Cheese,” answers Jeffrey, who can always be counted on to think with his stomach. “I’ll take two.”

“Right-o,” says the guy, and then he turns and squints at us. “What about you, Clara?” It’s Mr. Phibbs. My English teacher. Mr. Phibbs in flip-flops. My head is going to explode.

“A bit of a shock?” he says good-naturedly, taking in our expressions, as if it has only now occurred to him that we might be surprised to see him. “We decided that it was for the best if you didn’t know.”

“Who decided?” I can’t help but ask.

“Your mother, mostly,” he says. “But it was something we all agreed upon.”

“You’ve known about us all this time?” Angela manages.

He snorts, which is the strangest sound ever coming from him. “But of course. That’s why I’m there. You kids need someone to keep an eye on you.” He turns back to the grill, whistling. He serves us up two hamburgers each, which we balance on paper plates with potato chips and fruit salad like this is a Fourth of July picnic. We wander off dazedly to sit in the grass and eat. I discover that I’m ravenous. And the food is wonderful.

“Oh my God,” Angela says, when she finally stops eating long enough to talk. “This is so cool. I would never have guessed there’s a
group
. The congregation.” She says the word like she’s trying it out on her tongue, like it’s a word with magic powers. “I want to talk to Billy again.

She seemed fabulous. Holy geez,” she exclaims, pointing across the meadow. “That’s Jay Hooper, you know, who manages the rodeo arena in Jackson.”

“Are all these people from Jackson?”

“Don’t think so,” she says. “A few, though. I can’t believe that I’ve lived here for my
entire
life and I didn’t know about this. I wonder if it’s like this in every city, or if it’s just Jackson. I have that theory that angel-bloods are attracted to the mountains, did I ever tell you?

Whoa, that’s Mary Thorton. Wow, I wouldn’t have pinned her as the angelic type.” I stare at her blankly.

“I guess you never know,” Angela says, still looking around. “Oh, and there’s Walter Prescott. He owns the bank.”

“Walter Prescott?” I whip around to see where she’s looking. “Where?”

“The blond one, in front of that big green tent.”

I locate him, a tall light-haired man building a fire. I wouldn’t have guessed he was Christian’s uncle, looking at him, mostly because his hair is that towheaded blond that almost looks white, nothing resembling Christian’s dark messy waves.