Boundless (Unearthly) (8 page)

“I always liked Angela,” Dad says now, which startles me because as far as I know, he only met her that one time. “She’s very passionate in her desire to do what is right. You should look out for her.”

I make a mental note to call Angela as soon as I have a minute. We’ve reached Roble by this point, and Dad stands looking at the building with its ivy-covered facade while I park the bike on the rack outside.

“Do you want to see my room?” I ask a bit awkwardly.

“Perhaps later,” he says. “Right now we need to find a place where we won’t be disturbed.”

I can’t think of anywhere better than the basement of the dorm, where there’s a study room with no windows. People mostly use it to make phone calls when they don’t want to bother their roommates. “It’s the best I can do on short notice,” I say, as I lead Dad down there. I unlock the door and hold it open for him to see.

“It’s perfect,” he says, and goes right in.

I’m nervous. “Should I stretch out or something?” My voice echoes strangely in this claustrophobic little room. It smells in here, like dirty socks, sour milk, and old cologne.

“First we should decide where you would like to train,” he says.

I gesture around us. “I’m confused.”

“This is the starting point,” he says. “You must decide the ending point.”

“Okay. What are my options?”

“Anywhere,” he answers.

“The Sahara desert? The Taj Mahal? The Eiffel Tower?”

“I think we’d make quite a spectacle practicing swordplay at the Eiffel Tower, but it’s up to you.” He grins goofily, then sobers. “Try somewhere you know well, where you’ll be comfortable and relaxed.”

That’s easy. I don’t even have to think about it for two seconds. “Okay. Take me home. To Jackson.”

“Jackson it is.” Dad moves to stand in front of me. “We will cross now.”

“And what is crossing, exactly?” I ask.

“It’s …” He searches for the words, finds them. “Bending the rules of time and space in order to move from one place to another very quickly. The first step,” he adds dramatically, “is glory.”

I wait for something to happen, but nothing does. I look at Dad. He nods his head at me expectantly.

“What,
I’m
going to do it?”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you? You brought your mother back from hell.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Brick by brick, my dear,” he says.

I swallow. “What, I’m like building Rome now? Maybe we should start with something smaller.” I close my eyes, try to center myself in the now, try to stop thinking, stop processing, just be. I listen to my breath drag in and out of my body, try to empty myself, forget myself, because only then can I reach that quiet place inside me that’s part of the light.

“Good,” Dad murmurs, and I open my eyes to glory’s golden wash around us.

“In this state,” he says, “you have access to anything you ask for. You must simply learn how to ask.”

“Anything?” I repeat skeptically.

“If you ask and you believe, yes. Anything.”

“So if I really wanted a cheeseburger, like right now …”

He laughs, and the sound echoes around us like a chorus of bells. His eyes are molten silver in this light, his hair gleaming.

“I suppose I’ve had stranger requests.” He holds out his hand, and something golden brown appears in it. I take it. It’s like bread, only lighter.

“What is it?” I ask. Because it’s so not a cheeseburger.

“Taste it.”

I hesitate, then take a bite. It explodes on my tongue, like the best buttery croissant I’ve ever had, almost melting in my mouth, leaving a faint aftertaste of honey. I scarf down the rest, and afterward I feel completely satisfied. Not full. But content.

“This stuff is amazing,” I say, resisting the urge to lick my fingers. “And you can produce this out of thin air, anytime you want?”

“I ask, and it comes,” he says. “But now, focus. Where were we?”

“You said that in glory we can access anything.”

“Yes. That is how one passes between heaven and earth, and how it’s possible for me to travel from one place on earth to another. One time to another.”

I get momentarily excited. “Are you going to teach me how to move through time, too?”

I like the idea of giving myself an extra hour to study for exams, or finding out who’s going to win the Stanford-Berkeley game before it happens. Or—a lump jumps up in my throat—I could go to see Mom. In the past.

Dad frowns. “No.”

“Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Not part of the plan, huh?”

He puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezes gently. “You will see your mother again, Clara.”

“When?” I ask, my voice suddenly hoarse. “When I die?”

“When you need it most,” he says, ambiguous as ever.

I clear my throat. “But for now, I can what,
cross
to wherever I want to go?”

He takes my hands in his, looks into my eyes. “Yes. You can.”

“That could come in extremely handy when I’m running late for class.”

“Clara.” He wants me to be serious now. “Crossing is a vital skill. And it’s not as difficult as you might think to achieve,” he says. “We are all connected, everything that lives and breathes in this world, and glory is what binds us.”

Next thing he’ll be talking about the Force, I know it.

“And every place has a piece of that energy, as well. A signature, if you will. So to move from here to there, you must first connect to that energy.”

“Glory. Check.”

“Then you must think of the place you wish to go. Not the location on a map, but the life of that place.”

“Like … the big aspen tree in my front yard in Jackson?”

“That would be ideal,” he says. “Reach for that tree, the power it’s generating from the sun, the roots stretching themselves out in the earth, drinking, the life of the leaves….”

For a minute I’m hypnotized by the sound of his voice. I close my eyes, and I can see it so clearly: my aspen tree, the leaves starting to turn colors and drop, the movement of the chilly autumn wind through the branches, the whispering as it stirs the leaves. It actually makes me shiver, imagining it.

“You’re not imagining it,” Dad says. “We’re here.”

I open my eyes. Gasp. We’re standing in my front yard under the aspen tree. Just like that.

Dad lets go of my hands. “Well done.”

“That was me? Not you?”

“All you.”

“It was … easy.” I’m shocked by how simple it was, such an impossible-sounding thing as going almost a thousand miles in the literal blink of an eye.

“You’re very powerful, Clara,” Dad says. “Even for a Triplare, you’re remarkable. Your connection is strong and steady.”

This makes me want to ask him a dozen questions, like,
If that’s true, why don’t I feel more, I don’t know, religious? Why aren’t my wings whiter? Why do I have so many doubts?
Instead I say, “Okay, let’s do this. Teach me something else.”

“With pleasure.” He takes off his hat and suit jacket and lays them carefully on the porch railing, then goes to the house and returns with Mom’s kitchen broom, which he promptly snaps into two pieces like it’s a strand of uncooked spaghetti. He holds out one half to me.

“Hey,” I gasp. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal, but I connect the broom with Mom dancing around the kitchen, sweeping theatrically, mock singing “Whistle While You Work” in her most nasally high-pitched Snow White voice. “You broke my broom.”

“I apologize,” he says.

I take my half of the broom, narrow my eyes suspiciously on his face. “I thought this was about glory swords.”

“Brick by brick,” he says again, raising his half of the broom, which is the end with the bristles on it. He brushes it behind my calves, and I jump. “First let’s work on your stance.”

He teaches me about balance, and angles, and anticipating the moves of my opponent. He teaches me to use the strength of my core rather than the muscles of my arm, to feel the blade—er, broom—as an extension of my body. It’s like dancing, I realize very quickly. He moves, and I move in response, keeping time with him, staying light, quick, up on the balls of my feet, avoiding his blows rather than blocking them.

“Good,” he says at last. I think he might even be sweating.

I’m relieved because this fighting thing isn’t too difficult. I thought it might be one of those things like flying, where I totally sucked for a while, but I pick it up pretty quickly, all things considered.

I guess I’m my father’s daughter.

“You are,” Dad says with pride in his voice.

On the other hand, while part of me is all glowy and sweaty and proud that this is going so well, another part finds it crazy. I mean, who uses swords anymore? It feels like theater to me, like play, trouncing around the backyard whacking at my dad with a stick. I can’t imagine it as something dangerous. I’m holding this broom like a sword, and half the time I want to bust out laughing it’s so ridiculous.

But underneath it all, the idea of really wielding a weapon, trying to cut someone with it, totally freaks me out. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t want to fight. Please don’t let it be that I have to fight.

The thought makes me miss a step, and Dad’s section of the broomstick is at my chin. I look up into his eyes, swallow.

“That’s enough for today,” he says.

I nod and drop my piece of broom into the grass. The sun is going down. It’s getting dark now, and cold. I hug my arms to my chest.

“You did well,” Dad says.

“Yeah, you said that already.” I turn away, kick at a fallen pinecone.

I hear him come up behind me. “Sometimes it’s difficult to be the bearer of a sword,” he says gently.

Dad’s known for being tough, the guy who’s called in whenever some big baddie needs a slap-down. Phen talked about him like he was the bad cop in the “good cop/bad cop” scenario, the one who smacks the criminals around. In the old artwork Michael’s always the stern-faced angel hacking up the devil with a sword. His nickname is the Smiter, Phen said. That job would definitely suck. But when I try to peek inside Dad’s mind, all I get is joy. Certainty. An inner stillness like the reflection on the surface of Jackson Lake at sunrise.

I glance over my shoulder at Dad. “You don’t seem too conflicted about bearing a sword.”

He reaches down and picks up my half of the broom, holds the pieces together for a few seconds, then hands the broom back to me in one piece. My mouth drops open like a kid at a magic show. I run my fingers over the place where it was jagged, but I find it perfectly smooth. Not even the paint is marred. It’s like it was never broken.

“I’m at peace with it,” he says.

Together we turn and walk back toward the house. Somewhere off in the trees I hear a bird singing, a bright, simple call.

“Hey, I was wondering….” I stop and work up the guts to bring up something that’s been in the back of my mind ever since he mentioned the word
sword
. “Would it be okay if Christian trained with us?” His gaze on me is steady and curious, so I go on. “He’s having a vision of using a flaming—I mean glory—sword, and his uncle’s been training him some, but his uncle’s not going to be around much longer, and I think it would be nice—I mean, I think it would be useful for both of us—if you trained us together. Could that be part of the plan?”

He’s quiet for such a long time I’m sure he’s going to say no, but then he blinks a few times and looks at me. “Yes. Perhaps when you’re home for Christmas break, I’ll train you together.”

“Great. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says simply.

“Do you want to come in?” I say at the edge of the porch. “I think I can scrounge up some cocoa.”

He shakes his head. “Right now it’s time for the next part of your lesson.”

“The next part?”

“You remember how to cross?”

I nod. “Call the glory, think of the place, click your heels together three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

“I’ve seen that movie,” he says. “One of your mother’s favorites. We watched it every year.”

Us too. Thinking about it makes a sudden tightness in my throat.
WOO
, she called it. She read the book to me out loud every night before bed when I was seven, and when we were finished, we watched it on DVD, and we sang the songs together, and we tried to do that walk they do when they’re on the yellow brick road, stepping over each other’s legs.

No more
WOO
with Mom, ever.

“So now what?” I ask Dad, refusing to let myself get choked up again.

He grins, a wicked grin, even though he’s an angel. “Now you get yourself home.”

And just like that, he vanishes. No glory or anything. Just
fft
. Gone.

He expects me to cross back to California on my own.

“Dad? Not funny,” I call.

In answer, the wind picks up and sends a bunch of red aspen leaves into my hair.

“Great. Just great,” I mutter.

I put the broom in the hallway, near the door, in case we need it again. Then I wander back into the yard and summon a circle of glory. I check my watch and determine that Wan Chen’s going to be in class for another hour, so I close my eyes and concentrate on my room, the lavender bedspread, the small desk in the corner that is always messy with papers and books, the air conditioner in the window.

I can picture it all perfectly, but when I open my eyes, I’m still in Jackson.

Dad told me to focus on something living, but we don’t even own a houseplant. Maybe this isn’t going to be so easy after all.

I close my eyes again. There’s the smell of mountain snow on the air. I shiver. I would have brought a coat if I’d known I was going to be in Wyoming today. I’m a wuss about cold.

You’re my California flower,
I remember Tucker saying to me once. We were sitting on the pasture fence at the Lazy Dog, watching his dad break in a colt, the leaves in the trees red just like they are today. I started shivering so hard my teeth actually began to chatter, and Tucker laughed at me and called me that—his delicate California flower—and wrapped me in his coat.

All at once I become aware of the smell of horse manure. Hay. Diesel fuel. A hint of Oreos.