It takes us a bit to get her upright. Her abdomen is healing but still tender. We have to adjust the bed to the right angle, shift her cords and blankets several times before she’s comfortable. It’s while I’m attempting to straighten the collar of her gown that she notices the mirrored halo on my wrist.
“How long have you had that?” she says.
I’ve been trying not to think about it, trying to ignore everything that happened last night. Especially my selfish tirade.
Miss Macy situated, I sit back in my chair. “Since the day before your accident, I think.”
“Where’s your other one?” she asks. “The one Jake gave you?” She looks a little disoriented now, like the move from horizontal to vertical was a really bad idea. I don’t want to talk about the halo—either one, actually—but I don’t really think Miss Macy does either. Her eyes are moving slowly over my face, searching for something.
“Are you all right?” I ask. “Can I get you anything? A drink, maybe? Breakfast?”
“I want to tell you about my dream,” she says. next to Canaan’s.3 for a
“Okay.” She’s so insistent, I’m curious despite my reservations.
“There was a mirror,” she says, glancing at my wrist. “A very big, very long mirror. It hung over Stratus like a dome. Like a gigantic canopy.”
I run a finger over the halo, my throat tight.
“Mostly we just ignored the mirror. We went about our business. The things we do every day. Work and play, family, church.” Her eyes drift from mine to the window and then back to mine again, her hands twisting in her sheets. “But then a day came when a great black river broke through the streets. Up through Main, bursting through, flooding the town. Roofs were lifted off buildings, homes were destroyed. Lives were lost.”
She clears her throat and reaches for the glass of water at her bedside. I hand it to her, and she sips through the straw. “It was in our desperation that we realized we needed help. That there was no one in town who could save us. Help had to come from outside, it had to come from . . .”
“The heavens,” I whisper.
“Yes, from the heavens. But when we looked skyward, all we saw was a great reflection of ourselves. Our own misery, our own failures. Our weaknesses. Our own blackness. We couldn’t see past it. So we wallowed. We waded through it. We succumbed to the misery of our circumstances.”
I see the regret on her face, the loss. “What happened then, Miss Macy?”
“Fire,” she says, “a rain of fire fell from above. From above the mirror even, and at first we couldn’t see it, we could only hear the
hammering of the fire against the back of the mirror. We didn’t know what was happening. It was just noise, just hellish, terrifying noise, and we thought the worst had come. We ran.”
Her breathing is suddenly labored, and I can’t tell if it’s fear that’s making it hard for her to breathe or if it’s sadness. Or maybe something else. Maybe it’s something to do with her recovery. I try to hook my finger into the dark halo, try to tug it free so I can call on my celestial eyes, but it’s too tight and my finger won’t fit.
“But then a crack.”
“In the mirror?”
“And then another and another. And soon the whole thing, this massive looking glass, was splintered. And then the first shard fell.” She turns her face to mine now. “You can imagine how that panicked us.
The
sky
is
falling, the sky is falling.
But as the mirror fell ow. His sister
I
’ve just sat down on the curb in front of Fancy Hill’s Barbershop when Jake steps out of Photo Depot and onto Main. All sorts of angsty feelings war in my gut, but there’s no condemnation in his eyes when he sits next to me. I want to curl into his chest. I want to apologize. I want to hear him say he loves me.
But it’s possible I’ve lost the right to all those things.
The wind is warm as it blows through, ruffling our hair, our clothes. Jake tips his face to the sky, and I do the same. It’s grown even darker since I left the hospital. Smoky black clouds swirl overhead, turning the morning strange and shadowed.
I set my arm on Jake’s knee. The sleeve of my sweater shifts, the dark halo reflecting the clouds above. It’s impossible not to think of Miss Macy’s dream.
“I can’t get it off,” I say.
He lifts my sleeve and looks at the halo, tries to slide it free. “What do you mean, you can’t get it off?”
I pull my arm away. “It hurts.”
“I’ll be careful,” he says, taking my arm again, gently this time. I feel the warmth of his hands and wonder if maybe, just maybe
they could fix me. But their heat doesn’t penetrate the Prince’s halo, and I start to understand just how big a mistake I’ve made.
“It wasn’t this tight before,” he says. “It’s not squeezing . . .”
“No, it’s not squeezing. But I think it’s attached itself to my skin. I can feel it pull when I move.”
Jake’s golden face drains of color. “We have to get it off.”
My hands shake, my legs too. I can’t see the fear, but I know it’s there. And invisible, it’s just as bad.
“I don’t know how,” I say.
And then the warm breeze turns hot. Violently hot. It rips down Main Street, knocking over trash cans, forcing pedestrians indoors. It presses and pulls, threatens to tip us over. Jake wraps his arms around my shoulders, and we huddle together against it.
“Do you think it’s the veil?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“We need to get home. To where the veil was thinnest.” I look left and right down Main, my eyes drying in the heat. “Where’s your car?”
“Canaan dropped me off,” he yells, pulling me to my feet.
Of course he did.
Jake takes my hand and we run. The dark halo pulls at my wrist, but it refuses to fall off. I will it to. Pray it will.
The wind catches my hair and yanks it backward.
On we run.
Down Main. We pass Photo Depot and The Donut Factory. And then the theatre flies by on our left, Jelly’s on our right. We slip and slide to a stop as we leave the main stretch. There’s only highway between here and home. Between here and the tear in the veil.
I shield my hand with my eyes, looking in the direction of home. I can’t see my house from here, but aside from the fiery wind, there’s no sign anything’s changed.
Jake jumps off the embankment and into the wooded area I ran through last night. It stretches all the way to our houses, past them, really, extending into the next town over. He reaches his hands up for my waist. I crouch and let him lift me down.
The wind is relentless. It pummels and pushes. It screams, a fiery siren kind of scream. We have to run. We have to get there, but I’m scared of what will happen when we do. What will the tear in the veil do to Stratus? How much will it burn?
I think of Miss Macy’s dream. I think of the rain.
“You ready?” Jake asks.
I nod, the knot in my throat too tight for anything else. He takes my left hand again. My skin pulls against the cuff that’s melded to my wrist, but I bite back the cry building in my chest. He presses my third finger to his lips.
“There’s a ring made for this finger. A diamond set by the Creator Himself, made of gold fired in heavenly places. I will find it, Elle.”
“But . . .”
“And we’ll get this thing off you.” He glares at the cuff on my wrist. At the mirrored shine. He hates it as much as I do.
He twists his fingers into mine and we run. Through overgrown summer grasses and trees that are smeared in shadow. My arm aches with the heaviness of the Prince’s halo. I’m so tired of the thing that I don’t even spare it a glance, but the wind slices through my sweater, stinging my arm, and I can tell it’s cut into me.
I can’t believe I thought it would help. That not seeing would help.
It’s a shackle. A mirrored chain that keeps &tiinowme prisoner.
We adjust our angle a bit, veering around a thick patch of trees. We clear them, and the houses come into view. Mine first and then Jake’s, a hundred yards away. And that’s when I see the tear, a gigantic isosceles triangle towering over the two houses. The orange celestial sky is visible beyond it, its edges rippling against the black clouds. This wind—this firestorm—is coming from beyond the veil.
“The Sabres have torn through,” Jake says.
“Now everyone can see.”
But it’s not just the wind. It’s like the northern lights are shining here in Stratus. The familiar, the ordinary, the very ugly town I’ve always wanted to escape is draped in heaven’s colors. Tendrils of worship—green and blue, violet and red—curl around the two houses, around the trees, lifting into the sky. Those that curl beyond the edges of the tear are invisible to me.
And I’m reminded again of the wretched halo on my wrist.
Jake pulls us to a stop. “Are you okay?”
I’m sobbing. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t believe I sacrificed seeing this. I can’t believe I entertained ignorance.
“We’ll get it off, Elle,” he says, mopping my face with his warm hands. But I’m a lost cause, my face a mess, my hair whipping about, stuck to my tears. Finally he gives up. “Come on.”
My legs ache, but we run. I let myself cry. There’s no reason not to. It’s my fear I’m ashamed of, not my tears.
As we close in, I realize how loud the Sabres are, louder than I’ve ever heard them. Their song has changed again. It’s not the same melancholy strain they’ve been playing over the past few days. This is different. It sounds like a victory march.
We run faster, my heart swelling with hope.
I lift my arm and cradle it against my chest, taking the weight off my wrist. I count our footfalls to keep my mind off the pain, but it’s another eighty-seven of them before we’re close enough to slow.
Dad’s truck is parked in the drive, but Slugger’s still gone, which means Marco’s not back yet. We run past the house and into the field, the old Miller place just ahead.
From here, the fact that it’s a veil is more obvious. It hangs open, the edges of the tear more defined. Beyond it I see several Sabres, their wings whirling, their mouths open. The Palatine are there too. Trying to intercede. Trying to fight. But the Sabres’ wings are too fast, too sharp, and anything that approaches them is shredded. We watch as the sword of a Palatine warrior is batted from his hand by the wings of a Sabre. The fallen one tries to pull back, but the blades suck him closer, and like that he’s a burst of sulfuric ash.
We don’t watch alone. Dad’s here&6RowpD;. And Kaylee. She has a phone pressed to her ear, my phone, and she’s yelling into the speaker. When she sees us, she ends the call and stumbles closer, leaving Dad staring into the light alone.
“That was Becky,” she says. “The Sadler twins are awake. Both of them.”
“They’re okay?” I cry.
“Running tests now,” she says. “But yeah. Looks like they’re going to be all right.”
Jake squeezes my hand, and I try to wrap my injured arm around Kaylee, but the movement tears my skin and I scream.
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m okay.”
She grabs it and shoves my sleeve away. The skin around the dark halo is feverish and bleeding.
“You put it on,” she says. “I didn’t think you’d—” She shakes her head. “Elle, it’s cutting you. Jake, have you seen this?”
I pull my arm away, ashamed. But Jake steps closer, the three of us forming our own sad little triangle.
“Take it off,” she tells me.
“I can’t.” Tears fall down my face, but the celestial wind is so hot they’re dry before they reach my chin.
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I mean I can’t. I’ve tried. Jake’s tried. We can’t get it off.”
Jake places a gentle hand under my forearm. “Why didn’t you tell me you were bleeding?” he says. “I might not be able to get it off, but my hands are good for something.”
With both of his hands, he wraps my arm. The blazing wind and the long run have me sweltering. But when Jake’s hands start doing their thing, the heat makes me weak. I close my eyes and lay my head on Kaylee’s shoulder. Slowly we sit, the three of us at once.
When Jake takes his hands away, the cuts have healed. It’s far from comfortable, but it’s not bleeding.
“Thank you,” I tell Jake.
“It’s torturing her,” Kaylee says. She’s angry, her voice uneven. “We have to get it off.”
“We will,” Jake says.
I yank my sleeve down over the offensive thing. “Stop making promises.”
“I said we’ll get it off. Come on.”
He stands and reaches a hand down for me. I slide my right hand into his and stand, cradling my left to my chest. We watch as the tear rips further, stretching higher and higher. Where the top is, I can’t say. It extends into the black clouds above, a strange
triangular window into the heavens. I wonder if the tear’s visible from town now. Wonder what it looks like to everyone else.
Jake leads us toward Dad, the wind loud in my ears. I have to grab Dad’s hand to get his attention.
“You okay?” I ask.