Unearthly (Unearthly 1)

“We’re never to reveal ourselves,” Mom says, looking at me for an instant, “although there are exceptions. Glory has a strange effect on humans.”

“Like what?”

“It terrifies them.”

I sit up a little. I didn’t know that, and neither did Angela.

“Oh, I see,” says Angela, really cooking with gas now. “But what is glory? It has to be more than just light, to have that kind of effect, right?”

Mom clears her throat. She’s in uncomfortable territory now, stuff she’s never told me.

“You’re always saying how much easier flying would be if I could tap into glory,” I pipe up, not about to let her off the hook. “You make it sound like an energy source.”

She gives a barely perceivable sigh. “It’s how we connect with God.”

Angela and I mull that over.

“Like how?” asks Angela. “Like when people pray?”

“When you’re in glory, you’re connected with everything. You can feel the trees breathing. You could count the feathers on a bird’s wing. You know if it’s going to rain. You’re part of it, that force which binds all life.”

“Will you teach us how to do it?” asks Angela. This whole conversation is clearly blowing her mind. She’s itching to whip out her notebook and take some major notes.

“It can’t be taught. You have to learn to still yourself, to strip away everything but the core of what makes you, you. It’s not your thoughts or your feelings. It’s the self under all of that.”

“Okay, so that sounds hard.”

“I was forty before I was able to do it well,” Mom says. “Some angel-bloods never get to that state at all. Although it can be triggered by powerful events or feelings.”

“Like Clara’s hair thing, right? You told her that gets triggered by emotions,” Angela says.

Mom gets up from the table and crosses to the window.

“Oh. My. God. Shut up,” I whisper to Angela.

“There’s a blue truck in the driveway,” Mom says after a moment. “Wendy’s here.”

I abandon Mom and Angela and run to meet Wendy, who, unbeknownst to her, will save me from this angel conversation.

Tucker drove her over. He’s leaning against Bluebell in the driveway, staring out at the woods, and somehow it feels like he shouldn’t be allowed to be here, shouldn’t be allowed to peer into my woods or listen to my stream or enjoy my birds singing.

“Hey, Carrots,” he says when he spots me. I look around for Wendy, who I find rummaging around in the truck for something. “Beautiful day for shopping,” he adds.

He’s mocking me, I think. I don’t have a comeback.

“Yep,” I say.

Wendy slams the door of the truck and steps up onto the porch right as Angela exits the house. “Hey, Angela,” she says brightly. She’s apparently determined to be friendly with this other best friend of mine. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” says Angela.

“I’m so excited to go to Idaho Falls. I haven’t been there in forever.”

“Me neither.”

Tucker’s not leaving. He’s looking at my woods again. Against my better judgment, I step down off the porch and walk over to him.

“Shopping for prom dresses, huh?” he asks as I come up beside him.

“Um, kind of. Wendy needs shoes. Angela’s after accessories, since her mom’s making her dress. And I’m along for the ride, I guess.”

“You’re not going to prom?”

“No.” I glance away uncomfortably, back toward the house, where suddenly Wendy seems very into her awkward conversation with Angela.

“Why not?”

I give him a “why do you think?” glare.

“No one’s asked you?” He looks at me.

I shake my head. “Shocking, right?”

“Yeah, actually, it is.”

He rubs the back of his neck, then gazes at the woods. He clears his throat. For a second I get the crazy idea that he might be about to ask me to prom, and my heart does all kinds of stupid erratic leaps in my chest from sheer terror at the idea. Because I’d have to reject him right in front of Wendy and Angela, who are acting like they’re talking but I can tell they’re paying attention, and then he’d be humiliated. I have no real desire to see Tucker humiliated.

“Go stag,” he says instead. “That’s what I would do.”

I almost laugh with relief. “I guess.”

He turns and calls to Wendy. “I gotta take off. Come here a sec.”

“Clara’s going to take me home, so I won’t be needing your services anymore today, Jeeves,” says Wendy like he’s her chauffeur. He nods and takes her arm and draws her over to the side of the truck where he speaks in a low voice.

“I don’t know what prom shoes cost, but this might help,” he says.

“Tucker Avery,” Wendy says. “You know I can’t take that.”

“I don’t know anything.”

She snorts. “You’re sweet. But that’s rodeo money. I can’t take it.”

“I’ll get more.”

He must keep holding the money out to her, because then she says no more emphatically.

“Okay, fine,” he grumbles. He gives her a quick hug and gets in his truck, pulls around the circle, and stops, then rolls down the window to lean out.

“Have fun in Idaho. Don’t provoke any potato farmers,” he says.

“Right. Because that would be bad.”

“Oh, and, Carrots . . .”

“Yes?”

“If you end up going to prom, save me a dance, okay?”

Before I have time to process this request, he drives away.

“Men,” Angela says from beside me.

“I thought that was nice,” says Wendy.

I sigh, flustered. “Let’s just go.”

Suddenly Wendy gasps. She pulls a fifty-dollar bill out of her sweatshirt pocket.

“That little stink,” she says, smiling.

The second I lay eyes on the dress, I’m in love with it. If I were going to prom, this would be it. The one. Sometimes you just know with dresses. They call to you. This one’s Greek inspired, strapless with an empire waist and a swath of fabric that comes up the front and over one shoulder. It’s a deep blue, a little brighter than navy.

“Okay,” says Angela after I’ve been staring at it on the rack for five minutes. “You have to try it on.”