Unearthly (3 page)

“Clara,” Jeffrey whispers urgently close to my ear. “Hey!”

I jerk back to earth. Jackson Hole. Jeffrey. Mom. The lady with the camera. They're all staring at me.

“What's going on?” I'm dazed, disconnected, like some part of me is still up in the sky with the bird.

“Your hair's, like, shining,” murmurs Jeffrey. He glances away like he's embarrassed.

I look down. Gasp. Shining is not the word. My hair is an iridescent silvery-gold riot of light and color. It blazes. It catches the light like a mirror reflecting the sun. I slide my hand down the warm, luminous strands, and my heart, which seemed to beat so slowly a few moments before, begins to thump painfully fast. What's happening to me?

“Mom?” I call weakly. I look up into her wide blue eyes. Then she turns toward the lady, all perfectly composed.

“Isn't it a beautiful day?” Mom says. “You know what they say: You don't like the weather in Wyoming, wait ten minutes.”

The lady nods distractedly, still staring at my supernaturally radiant hair like she's trying to figure out a magician's trick. Mom crosses to me and briskly gathers the length of my hair into her hand like a piece of rope. She shoves it into the collar of my hoodie and pulls the hood up over my head.

“Just stay calm,” she whispers as she moves into place between Jeffrey and me. “All right. We're ready now.”

The lady blinks a few times, shakes her head like she's trying to clear it. Now that my hair is covered, it's like everything returns to normal, like nothing unusual has happened. Like we imagined it all. The lady lifts the camera.

“Say cheese,” she instructs us.

I do my best to smile.

We end up at Mountain High Pizza Pie for dinner, because it's the easiest, closest place. Jeffrey scarfs his pizza while Mom and I pick at ours. We don't talk. I feel like I've been caught doing something terrible. Something shameful. I wear my hood over my hair the entire time, even in the car as we make our way slowly back to the house.

When we get home Mom goes straight into her office and closes the door. Jeffrey and I, for lack of anything better to do, start to hook up the TV. He keeps looking over at me like I'm about to burst into flames.

“Would you stop gawking?” I exclaim finally. “You're freaking me out.”

“That was weird, back there. What did you do?”

“I didn't
do
anything. It just happened.”

Mom appears in the doorway with her coat on.

“I have to go out,” she says. “Please don't leave the house until I get back.” Then, before we can question her, she's gone.

“Perfect,” mutters Jeffrey.

I toss him the remote and retreat upstairs to my room. I still have a lot of unpacking to do, but my mind keeps flashing back to that moment under the archway when it felt like the whole world was trying to crawl inside my head. And my hair! Unearthly. The look on the lady's face when she saw me that way: puzzled at first, confused, then a little frightened, like I was some kind of alien creature who belonged in a lab with scientists looking at my dazzling hair under a microscope. Like I was a freak.

I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I know Mom's standing in the doorway to my bedroom. She tosses a box of Clairol hair dye on my bed. I pick it up.

“Sedona Sunset?” I read. “You're kidding me, right? Red?”

“Auburn. Like mine.”

“But why?” I ask.

“Let's fix your hair,” she says. “Then we'll talk.”

“It's going to be this color for school!” I whine as she works the dye into my hair in the bathroom, me sitting on the closed toilet with an old towel around my shoulders.

“I love your hair. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think it was important.” She steps back and examines my head for spots she might have missed. “There. All done. Now we have to wait for the color to set.”

“Okay, so you're going to explain this to me now, right?”

For all of five seconds she looks nervous. Then she sits down on the edge of the bathtub and folds her hands into her lap.

“What happened today is normal,” she says. It reminds me of when she told me about my period, or how she approached the topic of sex, all clinical and rational and perfectly spelled out for me, like she'd been rehearsing the speech for years.

“Um, hello, how was today normal?”

“Okay, not
normal
,” she says quickly. “Normal for us. As your abilities begin to grow, your angelic side will start to manifest itself in more noticeable ways.”

“My angelic side. Great. Like I don't have enough to deal with.”

“It's not so bad,” Mom says. “You'll learn to control it.”

“I'll learn to control my hair?”

She laughs.

“Yes, eventually, you'll learn how to hide it, to tone it down so that it can't be perceived by the human eye. But for now, dyeing seems the easiest way.”

She always wears hats, I realize. At the beach. At the park. Almost any time we go out in public, she wears a hat. She owns dozens of hats and bandanas and scarves. I'd always assumed it was because she was old school.

“So it happens to you?” I ask.

She turns toward the door, smiling faintly.

“Come in, Jeffrey.”

Jeffrey slinks in from my room, where he's been eavesdropping. The guilt on his face doesn't last long. He shifts straight to rampant curiosity.

“Will I get it, too?” he asks. “The hair thing?”

“Yes,” she answers. “It happens to most of us. For me the first time was 1908, July, I believe. I was reading a book on a park bench. Then—” She lifts her fist up to the top of her head and opens her hand like a kind of explosion.

I lean toward her eagerly. “And was it like everything slowed down, like you could hear and see things that you shouldn't have been able to?”

She turns to look at me. Her eyes are the deep indigo of the sky just after darkness falls, punctuated with tiny points of light as if she's literally being lit up from within. I can see myself in them. I look worried.

“Was that what it was like for you?” she asks. “Time slowed down?”

I nod.

She makes a thoughtful little
hmm
noise and lays her warm hand over mine. “Poor kid. No wonder you're so shaken up.”

“What did you do, when it happened with you?” Jeffrey asks.

“I put on my hat. In those days, proper young ladies wore hats out of doors. And luckily, by the time that wasn't true anymore, hair dye had been invented. I was a brunette for almost twenty years.” She wrinkles up her nose. “It didn't suit me.”

“But what
is
it?” I ask. “Why does it happen?”

She pauses like she's considering her words carefully. “It's a part of glory breaking through.” She looks slightly uncomfortable, as if we can't quite be trusted with this information. “Now, that's enough class for today. If this kind of thing happens again, in public I mean, I find it works best to just act normally. Most of the time, people will convince themselves that they didn't really see anything, that it was a trick of the light, an illusion. But it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to wear a hat more often now, Jeffrey, to be safe.”

“Okay,” he says with a smirk. He practically sleeps in his Giants cap.

“And let's try not to call attention to ourselves,” she continues, looking at him pointedly, clearly referring to the way he feels the need to be the best at everything: quarterback, pitcher, the all-star varsity kind of guy. “No showing off.”

His jaw tightens.

“Shouldn't be a problem,” he says. “There's nothing to go out for in January, is there? Wrestling tryouts were in November. Baseball's not until spring.”

“Maybe that's for the best. It gives you some time to adjust before you pick up anything extracurricular.”

“Right. For the best.” His face is a mask of sullenness again. Then he retreats to his room, slamming the door behind him.

“Okay, so that's settled,” Mom says, turning to me with a smile. “Let's rinse.”

My hair turns out orange. Like a peeled carrot. The moment I see it I seriously consider shaving my head.

“We'll fix it,” Mom promises, trying hard not to laugh. “First thing tomorrow. I swear.”

“Good night.” I close the door in her face. Then I throw myself down on the bed and have a good long cry. So much for my shot at impressing Mystery Boy with his gorgeous wavy brown hair.

After I calm down I lie in bed listening to the wind knock at my window. The woods outside seem huge and full of darkness. I can feel the mountains, their massive presence looming behind the house. There are things happening now that I can't control—I'm changing, and I can't go back to the way things were before.

The vision comes to me then like a familiar friend, sweeping my bedroom away and depositing me in the middle of the smoky forest. The air is so hot, so dry and heavy, difficult to breathe. I see the silver Avalanche parked along the edge of the road. Automatically I turn toward the hills, orienting myself to where I know I will find the boy. I walk. I feel the sadness then, a grief like my heart's being cut out, growing with every step I take. My eyes fill with useless tears. I blink them away and keep walking, determined to reach the boy, and when I see him, I stop for a minute and simply take him in. The sight of him standing there so unaware fills me with a mix of pain and yearning.

I think, I'm here.

Chapter 3
I Survived the Black Plague

The first thing that catches my eye as I drive into the parking lot of Jackson Hole High School is a large silver truck parked in the back of the lot. I squint to see the license plate.

“Whoa!” yells Jeffrey as I nearly rear-end another much-older, much-rustier blue truck in front of me. “Learn to drive already!”

“Sorry.” I try to wave apologetically to the guy driving the blue truck, but he yells something out his window that I'm pretty sure I don't want to understand and screeches away across the parking lot. I park the Prius carefully in an empty space and sit for a minute, trying to get myself together.

Jackson Hole High doesn't resemble a school so much as a resort, a large brick building framed by a series of huge log beams along the front, kind of like pillars but with a more rustic feel. Like everything else in our new hometown, it's postcard perfect, all shining windows and evenly spaced, white-trunked trees that are beautiful even without leaves, not to mention the gorgeous towering mountains in the background on three sides. Even the fluffy white clouds in the sky look deliberately placed.

“Later,” says Jeffrey, jumping out of the car. He grabs his backpack and swaggers toward the front door of the school like he owns the place. A few girls in the parking lot turn to check him out. He flashes them an easy smile, which immediately starts up the whisper/giggle thing that always trailed him at our old school.

“So much for not calling attention to ourselves,” I mutter. I apply another coat of lip gloss and inspect my reflection in the rearview mirror, cringing at my humiliating hair color. In spite of my mom's and my best efforts over the past week, it's still orange. We've tried everything, re-dyed it like five times, even tried to dye it jet-black, but the color always washes out to the same horrendous, eye-stabbing orange. It's like some kind of cruel cosmic joke.

“You can't always rely on your looks, Clara,” Mom said after failed-attempt number five. Like she's one to talk. Like she's ever looked less than gorgeous a day in her life.

“I've
never
relied on my looks, Mom.”

“Sure you have,” she said a bit too cheerfully. “You aren't vain about it, but still. You knew that when the other students at Mountain View High looked at you, they saw this pretty strawberry blonde.”

“Yeah, so now I'm not strawberry blonde
or
pretty,” I said miserably. Yes, I was wallowing. But the hair is just so horrifically orange.

Mom put a finger under my chin and forced my head up to look at her.

“You could have neon green hair, and it wouldn't take away how beautiful you are,” she said.

“You're my mother. You're legally required to say that.”

“Let's try to remember that you're not here to win a beauty pageant. You're here for your purpose. Maybe this hair problem means that things aren't going to be as easy for you here as they were in California. And maybe there's a reason for that.”

“Right. A very good reason, I'm sure.”

“At least the dye will cover the bright stuff. So you won't have to worry about keeping your hair covered.”

“Yay for me.”

“You'll just have to make the best of it, Clara,” she said.

So here I am, making the best of it, like I really have a choice. I get out of the car and sneak to the back of the parking lot to inspect the silver truck.
AVALANCHE
, it reads in silver letters across the back fender. License plate 99CX.

He's here.
I force myself to breathe. He's really here.

Now there's nothing left to do but walk into the school with my crazy, unruly, insanely bright-orange hair. I watch the other students stream into the building in their little groups, laughing and talking and goofing around. All total strangers, every single one of them. Except one. Although I'm a stranger to him. My hands are simultaneously sweaty and clammy. A flock of butterflies flaps around in my stomach. I've never been more nervous in my life.

You've got this, Clara, I think. Next to your purpose, this school thing should be a snap.

So I straighten my shoulders, trying for Jeffrey's confidence, and head for the door.

My first mistake, I realize almost immediately, was assuming that even with the designer exterior, this high school would be essentially like any other. Boy, was I ever wrong. The school is as high-end on the inside as it appears on the outside. Almost all of the classrooms have tall ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows with mountain views. The cafeteria is a cross between the inside of a ski lodge and an art museum. There are paintings, murals, and collages in practically every nook and cranny of the place. It even smells better than regular schools: pine and chalk and a fragrant mix of expensive perfumes. My old cinder-block school in California seems like a prison in comparison.

I've stumbled into the land of pretty people. And here I thought I'd come from the land of pretty people. You know how sometimes on TV they'll show you a picture of a celebrity from high school, and that person looks perfectly normal, not really any more attractive than anyone else? And you think, what happened? Why is Jennifer Garner so hot now? I'll tell you: money happened. Facials, fancy haircuts, designer clothes, and personal trainers happened. And the kids at Jackson Hole High had that celebrity polish, except for the few here and there who looked like genuine cowboys, complete with Stetsons, pearl buttons on their western-style plaid shirts, too-tight Wranglers, and scuffed cowboy boots.

Plus, the curriculum is fancy. Sure, you can take an art class, if you feel like learning to draw, but you can also take AP Studio Art, which prepares you to enter Jackson Hole's lively art scene. There's a class called Power Sports, which teaches you how to tune up your motorcycle, ATV, or snowmobile. You can learn how to start your own business, draft your dream house, develop your passion for French cuisine, or take your first steps toward becoming an engineer. Just in case you want to get your pilot's license, the school offers a couple courses in aerodynamics. The world is your oyster at Jackson Hole High.

It's definitely going to take some getting used to.

I thought the other students would be excited to see me, or curious at the very least. I'm fresh meat, after all, and from California, and maybe I have some big-city wisdom to offer the natives. Wrong again. For the most part, they completely ignore me. After I make it through three periods (trigonometry, French III, College Prep Chemistry) where nobody even bothers with a simple howdy, I'm ready to dash for my car and drive straight back to California, where I've known everybody for forever and they've known me, where right this minute my friends and I would be dishing about our holidays and comparing schedules, and I'd be pretty and popular. Where life is ordinary.

But then I see him.

He's standing with his back to me near my locker. A surge of electricity zings through me as I recognize his shoulders, his hair, the shape of his head. In a flash I'm in the vision, seeing him both in the black fleece jacket among the trees and for real, just down the hall simultaneously, like the vision is a thin veil laid on top of reality.

I take a step toward him, my mouth opening to call his name. Then I remember that I don't know it. Like always, it's as if he hears me anyway and starts to turn, and my heart skips a beat when I don't wake up but see his face now, his mouth curling up in a half smile as he jokes with the guy next to him.

He glances up and his eyes meet mine. The hallway melts away. It's only him and me now, in the forest. The vision comes from behind him, the fire on the hillside roaring toward us, faster than it could ever possibly happen.

I have to save him, I think.

That's when I faint.

I wake to a girl with long, golden brown hair sitting on the floor next to me, her hand on my forehead, talking in a low voice like she's trying to calm an animal.

“What happened?” I look around for the boy, but he's gone. Something hard pokes into my back, and I realize I'm lying on my chemistry book.

“You fell,” says the girl, as if that isn't obvious. “Do you have epilepsy or something? It looked like you were having some kind of seizure.”

People are staring. I feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

“I'm okay,” I say, sitting up.

“Easy.” The girl jumps up and reaches down to help me. I take her hand and let her haul me to my feet.

“I'm kind of a klutz,” I say, like that explains it.

“She's okay. Go to class,” the girl says to the kids who are still gawking. “Did you eat this morning?” she asks me.

“What?”

“Could be a blood sugar thing.” She puts her arm around me and steers me down the hallway. “What's your name?”

“Clara.”

“Wendy,” she says in response.

“Where are we going?”

“The nurse.”

“No,” I object, breaking free of her arm. I straighten and attempt to smile. “I'm fine, really.”

The bell rings. Suddenly the hallway's deserted. Then from around the corner bustles a plump, yellow-haired woman wearing blue nursing scrubs, walking fast. Behind her is the boy.
My
boy.

“There she goes again,” Wendy says as I wobble into her.

“Christian,” orders the nurse quickly as they rush toward me.

Christian. His name.

His arm comes under my knees, and he lifts me. My arm is around his shoulder, my fingers inches away from the spot where his neck meets his hair. His smell, a mixture of Ivory soap and some wonderful, spicy cologne, washes over me. I look up into his green eyes, so close that I can see flecks of gold in them.

“Hi,” he says.

Heaven help me, I think as he smiles. It's just too much.

“Hi,” I murmur, looking away, flushing to the roots of my loose, very-orange hair.

“Hold on to me,” he says, and then he's carrying me down the hall. Over his shoulder I see Wendy watching me, before she turns and walks the other way.

When we reach the nurse's office he puts me down gently onto a cot. I do my best not to gape at him.

“Thank you,” I stammer.

“No problem.” He smiles again in a way that makes me glad I'm sitting down. “You're pretty light.”

My jumbled brain tries to make sense of these three words and put them in order, with little success.

“Thank you,” I say again, lamely.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Prescott,” says the nurse. “Now get to class.”

Christian Prescott. His name is Christian Prescott.

“See ya,” he says, and just like that, he's walking away.

I wave as he rounds the corner, then feel like an idiot.

“Now,” says the nurse, turning to me.

“Really,” I say. “I'm fine.”

She looks unconvinced.

“I could do jumping jacks—that's how fine I am,” I say, and I can't wipe the stupid smile off my face.

Thus I arrive at Honors English late. The students have pulled their chairs into a circle. The teacher, an older man with a short, white beard, motions for me to come in.

“Pull up a chair. Miss Gardner, I presume?”

“Yes.” I feel the whole class staring directly at me as I grab a desk from the back of the room and drag it toward the circle. I recognize Wendy, the girl who helped me in the hall. She scoots her desk over to make room for me.

“I'm Mr. Phibbs,” says the teacher. “We're in the middle of an exercise that's largely for your benefit, so I'm glad you could join us. Everyone must give three unique facts about themselves. If anyone else in the circle has one in common, they raise their hand, and the person whose turn it is has to choose something else. We're currently on Shawn, who was finishing up by claiming that he has the most . . . rocking snowboard in Teton County. . . .” Mr. Phibbs raises his bushy eyebrows. “Which Jason here contested.”

“I ride the beautiful pink lady,” brags the boy who I assume is Shawn.

“No one can argue that's unique,” says Mr. Phibbs with a cough. “So now we're on to Kay. And say your name, please, for the new girl.”

Everyone looks to a petite brunette with large brown eyes. She smiles as if it's the most natural thing in the world for her to be the center of attention.

“I'm Kay Patterson,” she says. “My parents own the oldest fudge shop in Jackson. I've met Harrison Ford lots of times,” she adds as her second thing, “because our fudge is his favorite. He said that I look like Carrie Fisher from
Star Wars
.”

So she's vain, I think. Although if you dressed her up in a white gown and put the cinnamon-roll buns on either side of her head, she really could pass for Princess Leia. She's very attractive, definitely one of the pretty people, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and brown hair that falls past her shoulders in perfect curls, so shiny that it almost doesn't look like hair.