The money thing is the new bone of contention with her. Here I am, Miss Moneybags, Mom’s been loaded since the Second World War, investing in things like, say computers back when one computer took up an entire room, and I get a scholarship. Not a huge one, granted, and one that’s alumni-related, because of my “grandmother,” but more than I need, all the same. And Angela (of course she was accepted) is going to have to scrimp and save and stretch and take loans to make tuition. She got scholarships too, because she’s like, Super Student, but not a full ride.

I should feel guilty about my indecision, but I don’t. I don’t have room for fresh guilt in the massive clutter of conflicting emotions in my head. What I’m turning over, what’s been on my mind ever since earlier in the post office when I saw the Stanford logo on the envelope, is that I don’t have to go. I’m formulating a different plan. A new and improved plan. A great one.

“Maybe I won’t go to college this year,” I say as casually as I can manage. “I might take a year or two off.”

“To do what?” she sputters.

“I’d stay here. Then I’d get to stick around while Jeffrey finishes high school. I’d get a job.”

“What, like working in a gift shop? Selling fudge on the boardwalk? Waitressing?”

“Sure, why not?”

“You’re an angel-blood, that’s why not. You’re supposed to be doing something special with your life.”

I shrug. There are other angel-bloods in Jackson, and they work regular jobs. Besides, I like this plan. It feels right. I can stay here in Jackson. I can make sure Jeffrey’s okay. It’s a good plan, one where I don’t have to leave my house or my family (or at least, what will be left of it, after Mom goes), and I can build myself a nice, normal life.

Angela shakes her head, gold eyes narrowing. “This is about Tucker.”

“No.” I glare at her. But I confess that part did cross my mind.

“Oh my God, you’re going to throw Stanford away so you can stay with Tucker,” Angela says in disgust.

“Lay off, Angela,” Christian says suddenly. He’s been in his usual spot at one of the far tables, doing his homework while this whole conversation was going on. “It’s Clara’s life. She can do what she wants.”

“Yeah, what he said.” I shoot Christian a grateful smile. “Anyway,” I say to Angela, “you only want me to go to Stanford so you won’t have to be out there by yourself and face your purpose alone.”

She looks down, smoothes the tablecloth like she’s taking a momentary rest before she’s going to jump up and punch me in the nose. I brace myself.

“Okay, so maybe that’s true,” she admits then, which surprises me. “You’re my best friend, Clara, and you’re right. I don’t want to go alone.”

“Ange, I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’re the most advanced, most knowledgeable, most capable angel-blood the world has seen in a thousand years. If anyone is going to totally kick butt at fulfilling her purpose, it’s you.”

“I know,” she says, with a pleased smile. “It’s not that. It’s . . .” She pauses, looks up at me with serious catlike eyes. “I know you go to Stanford, C. Because I’ve seen you there.”

“What?”

“In my vision. I’ve seen you.”

I spend the next fifteen minutes standing on the stage, trying to concentrate on bringing the glory, trying to ground myself, but all I can think about is how unfair it is that my future keeps getting plotted out for me. First by my own visions. Now by Angela’s.

“Okay, I can’t take it anymore,” Christian says (again suddenly, since he’s never much of a talker at Angel Club), slamming his textbook closed. I open my eyes.

“Huh?”

“I can’t stand to watch you, like, fake meditate like that.” He jogs up the steps onto the stage and crosses swiftly toward me. “Let me help you.”

My heartbeat picks up. “What, you know how to call the glory?”

“See, that’s exactly what you’ve got wrong. You think it’s like calling something, like glory is out here”—he gestures into the empty black space around us—“instead of in here.” He lays a hand on his chest, takes a deep breath. “It’s inside you, Clara. It’s part of you, and it will come out naturally if you stop standing in your own way.”

I’m embarrassed but intrigued. “You can do it?”

He shrugs. “I’ve been learning.”

He holds out his hand. I stare at it, his fingers extended, beckoning, and I instantly flash back to my vision, the moment when we take hands under the trees as the fire roars down the mountain. Then I remember my dream, where holding his hand is what brings me back to myself when I think I’m going to float away on a cloud of misery. I put my hand in his.

Heat zings through me. He holds my hand carefully but casually, not squeezing or stroking his thumb over my knuckles the way he did in my forest-fire vision, that move that used to drive me crazy thinking about what it might mean.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

Blood rushes to my face. “What?”

“When you try for glory, what do you think about?”

“Oh. Well . . .” Most of the time I try to think about Tucker, about how I love him, which only really worked for me that one time in the forest, but it worked then, when it really counted. “I . . . I think about times when I was happy.”

“Okay, forget that.” He grabs my other hand, turns me so we’re standing facing each other in the middle of the stage, palm to palm. I see Angela lean forward to watch us, her head resting in one hand, the other poised to write in her notebook.

“Don’t look at her,” Christian says. “Don’t think about her, or the past, or anything else.”

“All right . . .”

“Just be here,” he says softly. His eyes are gorgeous under the stage lights, amber flecks shooting out sparks. “Be in the present.”

Let go of everything else, he urges in my mind. Just be here. With me.

I stare at him, allow myself to focus on his face in a way I typically avoid, tracing the angles of his cheekbones, the lines of his mouth, the sweep of his dark eyelashes and the curve of his brow, the shape of the shoulders that I memorized so long ago. I don’t think. I let myself look at him. Then the heat from our joined hands moves up my body, settles into my chest as I let myself fall into his eyes.

I feel what he feels. Certainty, always so much certainty with Christian, no matter what he said about the absence-of-certainty thing before. He knows himself. He knows what he wants. I see myself from his point of view, understand my beauty through his eyes, my hair a messy golden halo around my face, the contrast of pale skin and pink lips and cheeks so striking, the stormy luminous eyes that right now seem blue, like a deep pool of blue you could slip into. It’s like he’s laughing inside, so pleased with himself, because I am glowing, the light in me pushing through, we’re glowing together, light breaking at where our hands come together, his own hair starting to shine now, a radiance rising around us.

He wants to tell me something. He wants to open himself up completely, let me see everything, let me know everything about him, rules be damned. . . . Suddenly we’re walking together in the cemetery, the sun warm on our backs, and he’s holding my hand, leading me. I feel so strong in this moment, strong and alive and full of energy.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” screams a voice.

Christian and I spring back from each other. The light around us dissipates. For a moment I’m completely blinded in the sudden transition from light to dark, but as my eyes adjust, I see Angela’s mom standing in the aisle staring at us. She brings a hand up to her mouth, her face ashen. Angela jumps up and goes to her, barely getting to her in time to catch her as she falls to her knees.

“Mom, it’s okay,” Angela says, tugging her back to her feet. “They were just trying something.”

“None of that in here,” Anna whispers, her dark eyes boring into me with such intensity it makes me avoid looking at her. “None of that in here, I told you.”