“I totally agree,” I murmur, and kiss him. “Forever sounds good.”

A shadow passes over us. Tucker and I look up. A bird sails overhead, a huge crow, larger than an eagle, bigger than any other bird I’ve ever seen. It turns in a slow circle high above us, a blot against the blue sky.

Tucker turns to me with worry in his eyes. “It’s only a bird, right?”

I don’t answer. Dread moves like ice freezing in my veins as another bird joins the first, circling, weaving through the air above us. Then another joins, and another, until I can’t keep track. The air seems colder, like the lake could freeze beneath us. I can feel the birds’ eyes on us as they turn, the circle tightening.

“Clara?” Tucker says. His breath comes out in a puff of cloud.

I stare upward, my heart pounding. They’re waiting for the right moment to swoop down, to tear into us with their sharp beaks and claws. To rip us apart.

They’re waiting.

The way vultures will circle a thing that’s dead or dying. That’s how they’re looking at us.

“Oh, well,” says Tucker, shrugging. “We always knew this was too good to last.”

The next morning, Christian and I do dishes. We’re standing shoulder to shoulder at the sink, me washing, him drying, when he says out of the blue, “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Okay,” I say warily.

He goes out of the room for a minute, and when he comes back, he’s holding a black-and-white composition notebook.

Angela’s journal.

“You went back,” I say, astonished.

He nods. “Last night. I flew back to the Garter. I found it in a trunk in her bedroom that didn’t burn.”

“Why?” I gasp. “That was so dangerous! Billy said there are Black Wings there, looking. You could have been—”

Caught. Killed. Taken off to hell. And I would never have known what happened to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t want her journal to fall into the wrong hands. I mean, who knows what Angela wrote about us in here? Or about the congregation? And I just wanted to … do something. I have so many questions. I thought maybe this would give us some answers. I was up all night reading it.”

“So did you find what you were looking for?” I ask softly, not sure whether to be furious at him for taking such a risk or relieved that he came back unharmed.

His mouth twists. “There’s a lot of stuff in there. Research. Poems. A detailed account of all Web’s soiled diapers. A list of songs Anna sang him to get him to sleep. And Angela’s thoughts, how she felt about things. She was tired, and angry, and scared, but she wanted what was best for Web. She was making plans.”

And now she won’t get to carry any of them out, I think. I don’t know exactly where Angela is, not exactly, but I do know something of hell. It’s cold and colorless. Bleak. Full of despair. I get a tightness in my chest, imagining Angela in that place, the hopelessness she must feel. The pain.

“And there was a last entry, written down fast,” Christian says. “She got a text from Phen that night. He warned her that the Black Wings were coming. She only had a minute to hide Web, but Phen gave her that minute.”

So Phen’s not all bad, is what he’s saying. But somehow that doesn’t make me feel much better about him. Because he was the one who got her in this mess to begin with.

“Anyway,” Christian says. “I wanted to tell you.”

He holds the journal out to me, an offering, but I don’t take it. I don’t know how I feel about reading her diary now that she’s gone. That’s her private stuff.

“I’ll put it on the nightstand,” he says. “If you want to read it.”

“No, thanks,” I reply, although I’m curious.

We go back to doing dishes, silent now, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Christian’s thinking about the journal, something that Angela must have written, something about Web and family. After a while he says, “Do you ever think about that day in the cemetery?”

He means do I ever think about the kiss. Do I ever think about us.

I don’t think I can handle this conversation. Not right now. “You’re the mind reader. You tell me,” I joke weakly.

But the truth is, yes, I think about it. When we’re walking together and he naturally takes my hand. When he looks up at me across the table at dinner, laughing at a joke I’ve told, his green-gold eyes all bright. When we pass each other on the way to the bathroom, his hair wet from the shower, his tank top clinging to him damply, the smell of his shaving gel wafting off him. I think about how easy it would be to accept this life. To be with him.

I think about what it would be like to go into the same room at the end of the night. I do. I think about it. Even if that makes me feel like a bad person, because he’s not the only guy I think that way about.

“It’s clean,” he observes, and gently takes the dish I’ve been vigorously scrubbing.

“I think about it,” he says after a minute.

He’s not going to let it go.

“Do you think you would have done it all on your own?” I ask.

He stares at me, surprised at my question. “On my own?”

“Well, kissing me was part of your vision, so you knew what was going to happen. You said, ‘You’re not going to go,’ when I wanted to leave. Because you knew I would stay. You knew you would kiss me, and I would let you.”

Something works in his throat. He drops his head, a curl of hair falling into his eyes, and gazes into the sink like there’s some mysterious answer to be found in the soapy dishwater.

“Yes, I kissed you in a vision,” he says finally. “But it didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought …” I feel his disappointment then, his embarrassment, his wounded pride.

“You thought if we kissed, we’d be together,” I say for him.

“Yes. I thought we’d be together.” He shrugs. “Not my time, I guess.”

He’s waiting. He’s still waiting. He’s given up everything for me. His entire life. His future. Everything, because he wants to keep me safe. Because he believes, in his heart, that he’s my purpose and I’m his.

“For the record, it was on my own.” He tucks the dish towel into the handle of the refrigerator, then steps closer to me. “I wanted to kiss you,” he murmurs. “Me. Not because of some vision I saw. Because of you. Because of what I feel.”

The words hang between us for a second, and then he leans in, strokes my cheek with the back of his hand, and kisses me, gently, without pressure. He keeps his lips against mine for a long moment, brushing softly. Heat rises between us. Time slows. I see the future he imagines: always together, always there for each other. We are partners. Best friends. Lovers. We travel the world together. We build a life with each other, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. We raise Web as our own, and if trouble comes knocking, we face it. Together.

We belong together.

He pulls away. His eyes search mine, the flecks of gold like sparks, asking me a question.

“I …,” I start, but I have no idea how I’m going to answer. I want to say yes, but something’s stopping me.

My cell phone starts to ring.

He sighs. “Answer it,” he says. “Go on.”

I answer the phone.

“All right, kid,” Billy says, not even bothering with a greeting. “It’s time to come in. Can you be in the meadow by Friday night?”

I look at Christian. Should we go back to Wyoming? It’s safe here, where nobody knows where to find us. Web’s safe here. We could stay.

“Sure, why not?” he says, too lightly. “What have we got to lose?”

So much, I think then. There is still so very much to lose.

16

CLARA LUX IN OBSCURO

As far as I can tell, every single member of the congregation is gathered around the campfire by the time we arrive in the meadow on Friday night, and when we step into the circle, me cradling Web in my arms, everyone goes quiet.