“Tucker!” I call.

My wing catches a stray branch and I lose my balance and spin toward the ground. I right myself in the nick of time, jolting down hard on the forest floor but managing to stay on my feet. I’m close, I think. I’ve been to Tucker’s land maybe five times this summer, and I recognize the shape of the mountain. Then the smoke drifts for a moment and I can clearly see the road snaking its way up. It’s too hard to try to fly, too many obstacles, so I sprint onto the road and hurry up it.

“Tucker!”

Maybe he’s not here, I think. My lungs fill with smoke and I start coughing. My eyes water. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you’ve done all this and he’s over at Bubba’s getting an early dinner.

It’s my first moment of real doubt, but I quickly squash it. He’s close, he just can’t hear me. I don’t know how, but I know this is where I’ll find him, and when the road turns and I come up to the clearing at the edge of his land, I’m not surprised to see his truck parked there with the trailer attached.

“Tucker!” I call again hoarsely. “Tucker, where are you?”

No answer. I glance around wildly, looking for some clue to where he’s gone. At the edge of the clearing is a trail, very faint, but definitely a trail. I can make out hoofprints stamped in the dust.

I look down the road. The fire has already swallowed up the road at the bottom of the ridge. I can hear it coming, branches crackling as they burn, this loud popping and snapping. Animals flee before it, rabbits and squirrels and snakes, even, all running away. Smoke moves toward me along the ground like an unrolling carpet.

I have to find him. Now.

I can see much better now that I’m ahead of the fire, but still not great. There’s so much smoke. I glide above the trail yelling his name and peering ahead through the trees.

“Tuck!” I call again and again.

“Clara!”

Finally I see him, coming toward me on Midas as fast as the horse can go on such steep terrain. I drop down onto the trail at the same time that he slides off the horse’s back. We run toward each other through the smoke. He stumbles but keeps running. Then we’re in each other’s arms. Tucker crushes me to him, wings and all, his mouth close to my ear.

“I love you,” he says breathlessly. “I thought I wasn’t going to get to tell you.” He turns away and coughs hard.

“We have to go,” I say, pulling away.

“I know. The fire’s blocking the way out. I tried to find a way over the top but Midas couldn’t do it.”

“We’ll have to fly.”

He stares at me, his blue eyes uncomprehending.

“Wait,” he says. “But Midas.”

“Tuck, we have to leave him.”

“No, I can’t.”

“We have to. We have to go. Now.”

“I can’t leave my horse.” I know how this must be for him. His most prized possession in this world. All the rodeos, the rides, the times when this animal felt like his best friend in the whole world. But there’s no choice.

“We will all die here,” I say, looking into his eyes. “I can’t carry him. But I can carry you.”

Tucker suddenly turns away from me and runs to Midas. For a minute I think he’s going to run away and try to make it out with the horse. Then he unfastens the horse’s bridle and throws it onto the side of the trail.

The wind shifts, like the mountain is taking a breath. The fire is moving quickly from branch to branch, and any minute the trees around us will catch.

“Tuck, come on!” I yell.

“Go!” he shouts at Midas. “Get out of here!”

He hits the horse on the rump and it makes a noise like a scream and darts away back up the mountain. I run to Tucker and grab him tight around the middle, under the arms.

Please, I pray even though I know I have no right to ask. Give me strength.

For a moment I strain with all the muscle in my body, arms, legs, wings, you name it. I reach toward the sky with everything I have. We push off in a burst of sheer will, rising up through the trees, through the smoke, the ground dropping away beneath us. He holds me tight and presses his face into my neck. My heart swells with love for him. My body tingles with a new kind of energy. I lift Tucker effortlessly, with more grace than I’ve ever had in the air before. It’s easy. It’s like being carried on the wind.

Tucker gasps. For a few seconds we see Midas running along the side of the mountain, and I feel Tucker’s sorrow over losing his beautiful horse. When we get higher we can see the flames pushing steadily up. There’s no way to tell if Midas will make it. It doesn’t look good. Below us Tucker’s land, the little clearing where I first showed him my wings, has already been engulfed. Bluebell is burning, sending out thick, black plumes of smoke.

I turn us in the air and then move away from the mountain, out into the open where I can fly more smoothly and the air is clearer. Three green fire trucks are tearing up the highway toward the fire, sirens blaring.

“Look out!” yells Tucker.

A helicopter shoots past us to the fire, so close we feel the force of its blades cutting the air. It pours a sheet of water onto the flames, then circles back toward the lake.

Tucker shudders in my arms. I tighten my grip on him and head for the closest place that I know will be safe.

When I come down in my backyard, I let go of Tucker and we both stumble and fall onto the lawn. Tucker rolls onto his back on the grass, covers his eyes with his hands, and lets out a low groan. I fill up with a relief so overwhelming that I want to laugh. All I care about in this moment is that he’s safe. He’s alive.

“Your wings,” he says.

I look over my shoulder at my reflection in the front window of our house. The girl staring back ripples with power the way heat shimmers over a sidewalk. I can suddenly see part of that other creature in her, like the one behind the Black Wing. Her eyes are shadowed with sorrow. Her wings, half folded behind her, are a dark, sweet gray. It’s clear even in the hazy reflection of the glass.

“What does it mean?” asks Tucker.

“I have to go.”

At that exact moment my mom pulls up in the Prius.

“What happened?” she asks. “I heard on the radio that the fire just passed Fox Creek Road. Where’s—”

Then she sees Tucker kneeling in the grass. The smile fades. She looks at me with wide, stricken eyes.

“Where’s Christian?” she asks.

I can’t meet her eyes. The fire has been at Fox Creek Road, she said. She crosses quickly over to me and grabs me by the wing, turning me so that she can get a good look at the dark feathers.

“Clara, what have you done?”

“I had to save Tucker. He would have died.”

She looks so fragile in that moment, so drained and broken and lost. Her eyes so hopeless. They close for a moment, then open.

“You need to go find him now,” she says then. “I’ll look after Tucker. Go!”

Then she kisses my forehead like she’s saying good-bye to me forever and turns toward the house.

Chapter 22

Down Came the Rain

I’m too late, but then I knew I would be.

The fire has already been here.

I land. The place where I usually start my vision is scorched and black. There’s nothing alive. The trees are blackened poles. The silver Avalanche is parked on the side of the road, smoke still rolling off it, charred and gutted by fire.

I run up the hillside to the place where he always stands in my vision. He isn’t there. The wind picks up and hurls hot ash into my face. The forest looks like the hell dimension, the land the same as I knew it, but burned. Empty of everything beautiful and good. No color or sound or hope.