Torment

For an instant, she thought she saw Daniel's hands tighten around the steering wheel. "If your goal is not to go to sleep," he said, cracking a smile, "then I really shouldn't delve into the minutiae of the eight-hour-long Council of the Angels meeting I was stuck in all day yesterday. See, the board met to discuss an amendment to proposition 362B, which details the sanctioned format for cherubic participation in the third circuit of-- "

"Okay, I get it." She swatted him. Daniel was joking, but it was a strange new kind of joke. He was actually being open about being an angel, which she loved--or at least she would love it, once she'd had a little more time to process it. Luce still felt like her heart and brain were both struggling to catch up to the changes in her life.

But they were back together for good now, so everything was in nitely easier. There was nothing to hold back from one another anymore. She pulled on his arm. "At least tell me where we're going."

Daniel inched, and Luce felt a knot of cold unfold inside her chest. She moved to put her hand on his, but he pulled away to downshift.

"A school in Fort Bragg called Shoreline. Classes start tomorrow."

"We're enrolling at another school?" she asked. "Why?" It sounded so permanent. This was supposed to be a provisional trip. Her parents didn't even know she'd left the state of Georgia.

"You'll like Shoreline. It's very progressive, and a lot better than Sword and Cross. I think you'll be able to ... develop there. And no harm will come to you. The school has a special, protective quality. A camou age-like shield."

"I don't get it. Why do I need a protective shield? I thought coming out here, away from Miss Sophia, was enough."

"It's not just Miss Sophia," Daniel said quietly. "There are others."

"Who? You can protect me from Cam, or Molly, or whoever." Luce laughed, but the cold feeling in her chest was spreading to her gut.

"It's not Cam or Molly, either. Luce, I can't talk about it."

"Will we know anyone else there? Any other angels?"

"There are some angels there. No one you know, but I'm sure you'll get along. There's one more thing." His voice was at as he stared straight ahead. "I won't be enrolling." His eyes didn't once veer o the road. "Just you. It's only for a little while."

"How little?"

"A few ... weeks."

Had Luce been the one behind the wheel, this was when she would have slammed on the brakes.

"A few weeks?"

"If I could be with you, I would." Daniel's voice was so at, so steady, that it made Luce even more upset. "You saw what just happened with your du el bag and the trunk. That was like my shooting up a are into the sky to let everyone know where we are. To alert anyone who is looking for me--and by me, I mean you. I am too easy to nd, too easy for others to track down. And that bit with your bag? That is nothing compared to the things I do every day that would draw the attention of ..." He shook his head sharply. "I won't put you in danger, Luce, I won't."

"Then don't."

Daniel's face looked pained. "It's complicated."

"And let me guess: You can't explain."

"I wish I could."

Luce drew her knees to her chest, leaned away from him and against the passenger-side door, feeling somehow claustrophobic under the big blue California sky.

For half an hour, the two of them rode in silence. In and out of patches of fog, up and down the rocky, arid terrain. They passed signs for Sonoma, and as the car cruised through lush green vineyards, Daniel spoke. "It's three more hours to Fort Bragg. You going to stay mad at me the whole time?"

Luce ignored him. She thought of and refused to give voice to hundreds of questions, frustrations, accusations, and--ultimately--apologies for Luce ignored him. She thought of and refused to give voice to hundreds of questions, frustrations, accusations, and--ultimately--apologies for acting like such a spoiled brat. At the turno for the Anderson Valley, Daniel forked west and tried again to hold her hand. "Maybe you'll forgive me in time to enjoy our last few minutes together?"

She wanted to. She really wanted to not be ghting with Daniel right now. But the fresh mention of there being such a thing as a "last few minutes together," of his leaving her alone for reasons she couldn't understand and that he always refused to explain--it made Luce nervous, then terri ed, then frustrated all over again. In the roiling sea of new state, new school, new dangers everywhere, Daniel was the only rock she had to hold on to. And he was about to leave her? Hadn't she been through enough? Hadn't they both been through enough?

It was only after they'd passed through the redwoods and come out into a starry, royal-blue evening that Daniel said something that broke through to her. They'd just passed a sign that read WELCOME TO MENDOCINO, and Luce was looking west. A full moon shone down on a cluster of buildings: a lighthouse, several copper water towers, and rows of well-preserved old wooden houses. Somewhere out beyond all that was the ocean she could hear but couldn't see.

Daniel pointed east, into a dark, dense forest of redwood and maple trees. "See that trailer park up ahead?"

She never would have if he hadn't pointed it out, but now Luce squinted to see a narrow driveway, where a lime-caked wooden placard read in whitewashed letters MENDOCINO MOBILE HOMES.

"You used to live right there."

"What?" Luce sucked in her breath so quickly, she started to cough. The park looked sad and lonesome, a dull line of low-ceilinged cookie-cutter boxes set along a cheap gravel road. "That's awful."

"You lived there before it was a trailer park," Daniel said, easing the car to a stop by the side of the road. "Before there were mobile homes. Your father in that lifetime brought your family out from Illinois during the gold rush." He seemed to look inward somewhere, and sadly shook his head. "Used to be a really nice place."

Luce watched a bald man with a potbelly tug a mangy orange dog on a leash. The man was wearing a white undershirt and annel boxers. Luce couldn't picture herself there at all.

Yet it was so clear to Daniel. "You had a two-room cabin and your mother was a terrible cook, so the whole place always smelled like cabbage. You had these blue gingham curtains that I used to part so I could climb through your window at night after your parents were asleep."

The car idled. Luce closed her eyes and tried to ght back her stupid tears. Hearing their history from Daniel made it feel both possible and impossible. Hearing it also made her feel extremely guilty. He'd stuck with her for so long, over so many lifetimes. She'd forgotten how well he knew her. Better even than she knew herself. Would Daniel know what she was thinking now? Luce wondered whether, in some ways, it was easier to be her and to never have remembered Daniel than it was for him to go through this time and time again.

If he said he had to leave for a few weeks and couldn't explain why ... she would have to trust him.

"What was it like when you rst met me?" she asked.

Daniel smiled. "I chopped wood in exchange for meals back then. One night around dinnertime I was walking past your house. Your mother had the cabbage going, and it stank so badly I almost skipped your house. But then I saw you through the window. You were sewing. I couldn't take my eyes o your hands."

Luce looked at her hands, her pale, tapered ngers and small, square palms. She wondered if they'd always looked the same. Daniel reached for them across the console. "They're just as soft now as they were then."

Luce shook her head. She loved the story, wanted to hear a thousand more just like it, but that wasn't what she'd meant. "I want to know about the rst time you met me," she said. "The very rst time. What was that like?"

After a long pause, he nally said, "It's getting late. They're expecting you at Shoreline before midnight." He stepped on the gas, taking a quick left into downtown Mendocino. In the side mirror, Luce watched the mobile home park grow smaller, darker, until it disappeared completely. But then, a few seconds later, Daniel parked the car in front of an empty all-night diner with yellow walls and oor-to-ceiling front windows.

The block was full of quirky, quaint buildings that reminded Luce of a less stu y version of the New England coastline near her old New Hampshire prep school, Dover. The street was paved with uneven cobblestones that glowed yellow in the light from the streetlamps overhead. At its end, the road seemed to drop straight into the ocean. A coldness sneaked up on her. She had to ignore her re exive fear of the dark. Daniel had explained about the shadows--that they were nothing to be afraid of, merely messengers. Which should have been reassuring, except for the hard- to-ignore fact that it meant there were bigger things to be afraid of.

"Why won't you tell me?" She couldn't help herself. She didn't know why it felt so important to ask. If she was going to trust Daniel when he said he had to abandon her after longing all her life for this reunion--well, maybe she just wanted to understand the origins of that trust. To know when and how it had all begun.

"Do you know what my last name means?" he said, surprising her.

Luce bit her lip, trying to think back to the research she and Penn had done. "I remember Miss Sophia saying something about Watchers. But I don't know what it means, or if I'm even supposed to believe her." Her ngers went to her neck, to the place where Miss Sophia's knife had lain.

"She was right. The Grigoris are a clan. They're a clan named after me, actually. Because they watch and learn from what happened when ... back when I was still welcome in Heaven. And back when you were ... well, this all happened a very long time ago, Luce. It's hard for me to remember most of it."

"Where? Where was I?" she pressed. "I remember Miss Sophia saying something about the Grigoris consorting with mortal women. Is that what happened? Did you ...?"

He looked over at her. Something changed on his face, and in the dim moonlight, Luce couldn't tell what it meant. It was almost like he was relieved that she had guessed it, so he didn't have to be the one to spell it out.

"The very rst time I saw you," Daniel continued, "it wasn't any di erent than any other time I've seen you since. The world was newer, but you were just the same. It was--"

"Love at rst sight." That part she knew.

He nodded. "Just like always. The only di erence was, in the beginning, you were o -limits to me. I was being punished, and I'd fallen for you at the worst possible time. Things were very violent in Heaven. Because of who ... I am ... I was expected to stay away from you. You were a distraction. The focus was supposed to be on winning the war. It's the same war that's still going on." He sighed. "And if you haven't noticed, I'm still very distracted."

"So you were a very high angel," Luce murmured. "So you were a very high angel," Luce murmured.

"Sure." Daniel looked miserable, pausing and then seeming, when he spoke again, to bite out the words: "It was a fall from one of the highest perches."

Of course. Daniel would have to be important in Heaven in order to have caused such a big rift. In order for his love of a mortal girl to be so o - limits.