The Fallen Sequence (47 page)

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 acting like such a spoiled brat. At the turnoff 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 fighting 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 terrified, 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 flannel 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 fight 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 first 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 off your hands.”

Luce looked at her hands, her pale, tapered fingers 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 first time you met me,” she said. “The
very
first time. What was that like?”

After a long pause, he finally 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 floor-to-ceiling front windows.

The block was full of quirky, quaint buildings that reminded Luce of a less stuffy 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 reflexive 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 fingers 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 first time I saw you,” Daniel continued, “it wasn’t any different than any other time I’ve seen you since. The world was newer, but you were just the same. It was—”

“Love at first sight.” That part she knew.

He nodded. “Just like always. The only difference was, in the beginning, you were off-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.

“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 off-limits.

“You gave it all up? For me?”

He touched his forehead to hers. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“But I was nothing,” Luce said. She felt heavy, like she was dragging. Dragging him down. “You had to give up so much!” She felt sick to her stomach. “And now you’re damned forever.”

Turning off the car, Daniel gave her a sad smile. “It might not be forever.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on,” he said, hopping out of the car and coming around to open her door. “Let’s take a walk.”

They ambled to the end of the street, which didn’t dead-end after all, but led to a steep, rocky staircase going down to the water. The air was cool and moist with sea spray. Just to the left of the steps, a trail led away. Daniel took her hand and moved to the cliff’s edge.

“Where are we going?” Luce asked.

Daniel smiled at her, straightening his shoulders, and unfurled his wings.

Slowly, they extended up and out from his shoulders, unfolding with an almost inaudible series of soft snaps and creaks. Fully flexed, they made a gentle, feathery
fwump
like a duvet being flung over a bed.

For the first time, Luce noticed the back of Daniel’s t-shirt. There were two tiny, otherwise invisible slits, which parted now to let his wings slip through. Did all of Daniel’s clothes have these angelic alterations? Or did he have certain, special things he wore when he knew he planned on flying?

Either way, his wings never failed to leave Luce speechless.

They were enormous, rising three times taller than Daniel, and curved up into the sky and to either side like broad white sails. Their broad expanse caught the light of the stars and reflected it more intensely, so that they glowed with an iridescent shimmer. Near his body they darkened, shading into a rich earthy cream color where they met his shoulder muscles. But along their tapered edges, they grew thin and glowed, becoming almost translucent at the tips.

Luce stared at them, rapt, trying to remember the line of every glorious feather, to hold all of it inside her for when he went away. He shone so bright, the sun could have borrowed light from him. The smile in his violet eyes told her how good it felt for him to let his wings out. As good as Luce felt when she was wrapped up in them.

“Fly with me,” he whispered.

“What?”

“I’m not going to see you for a little while. I have to give you something to remember me by.”

Luce kissed him before he could say anything else, lacing her fingers around his neck, holding him as tightly as she could, hoping to give him something to remember her by, too.

With her back pressed to his chest, and his head over her shoulder, Daniel traced a line of kisses down her neck. She held her breath, waiting. Then he bent his legs and gracefully pushed off the edge of the cliff.

They were flying.

Away from the rocky ledge of the coastline, over the crashing silver waves below, arcing across the sky as if they were soaring for the moon. Daniel’s embrace shielded her from every rough gust of wind, every brush of ocean chill. The night was absolutely quiet. As if they were the only two people left in the world.

“This is Heaven, isn’t it?” she asked.

Daniel laughed. “I wish it were. Maybe one day soon.”

When they had flown out far enough that they couldn’t see land on either side of them, Daniel banked gently north, and they swooped in a wide arc past the city of Mendocino, which glowed warmly on the horizon. They were far above the tallest building in town and moving incredibly fast. But Luce had never felt safer or more in love in her life.

And then, all too soon, they were descending, gradually nearing a different cliff’s edge. The sounds of the ocean grew louder again. A dark single-lane road wound
off the main highway. When their feet touched down lightly on a cool patch of thick grass, Luce sighed.

“Where are we?” she asked, though of course she already knew.

The Shoreline School. She could see a large building in the distance, but from here it looked completely dark, merely a shape on the horizon. Daniel held her pressed to him, as if they were still in the air. She craned her head around to look at his expression. His eyes were damp.

“The ones who damned me are still watching, Luce. They have been for millennia. And they don’t want us to be together. They will do anything they can to stop us. That’s why it isn’t safe for me to stay here.”

She nodded, her eyes stinging. “But why am
I
here?”

“Because I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, and this is the best place for you now. I love you, Luce. More than anything. I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.”

She wanted to protest, but stopped herself. He’d given up everything for her. When he let her out of his embrace, he opened his palm and a small red shape inside it began to grow. Her duffel bag. He’d taken it from the back of the car without her even knowing, carried it all the way here inside his hand. In just a few seconds, it had filled out entirely, back to its full size. If she hadn’t been so heartbroken about what it meant for him to hand it over to her, Luce would have loved the trick.

A single light went on inside the building. A silhouette appeared in the doorway.

“It’s not for long. As soon as things are safer, I’ll come for you.”

His hot hand clasped her wrist and before she knew it, Luce was caught up in his embrace, drawn to his lips. She let everything else fall away, let her heart brim over. Maybe she couldn’t remember her former lives, but when Daniel kissed her, she felt close to the past. And the future.

The figure in the doorway was walking toward her, a woman in a short white dress.

The kiss Luce had shared with Daniel, too sweet to be so brief, left her just as out of breath as their kisses always did.

“Don’t go,” she whispered, her eyes closed. It was all happening too fast. She couldn’t give Daniel up. Not yet. She didn’t think she ever could.

She felt the rush of air that meant he’d already taken off. Her heart went after him as she opened her eyes and saw the last trace of his wings disappear inside a cloud, into the dark night.

TWO