Unearthly (8 page)

“Clara.” I don't have time to remind him of my existence. The fire's coming. “I have to get you out of here,” I say, grabbing his arm. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I just know we have to go.

“What?”

“I'm here to save you.”

“Save me?” he says incredulously.

“Yes.”

He smiles, then puts his fist up to his mouth and laughs into it.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “But how could
you
save
me
?”

“It was just a dream,” says Mom.

She pours me a cup of raspberry tea and sits down at the kitchen counter, looking serene as ever, if not a bit tired and rumpled, which is only fair since it's four in the morning and her daughter just woke her up freaking out.

“Sugar?” she offers.

I shake my head.

“How do you know it was a dream?” I ask.

“Because it seems like your vision always happens while you're awake. Some of us dream our visions, but not you. And because I have a very hard time believing that Christian wouldn't remember your name.”

I shrug. Then, because that's what I always do, I tell her everything. I tell her about the way I feel drawn to Christian and the few times in class when we talked and how I never know what to say. I tell her about Kay, and my brilliant idea to invite myself to lunch at Christian's table, and how it had backfired big-time. And I tell her about Bozo.

“Bozo?” she says with her quiet smile when I'm finally done talking.

“Yeah. Although one guy decided to go with Hot Bozo.” I sigh and drink a swallow of tea. It burns my tongue. “I'm a freak.”

Mom playfully shoves me. “Clara! They called you hot.”

“Um, not exactly,” I say.

“Don't go feeling too sorry for yourself. We should think of some other ones.”

“Other ones?”

“Other names they could call you. So if you ever hear them again you'll be prepared with a comeback.”

“What?”

“Pumpkinhead.”

“Pumpkinhead,” I repeat slowly.

“That was a major insult, when I was a kid.”

“Back in what, 1900?”

She pours herself some more tea. “I got Pumpkinhead many times. They also called me Little Orphan Annie, which was a popular poem back then. And Maggot. I
hated
Maggot.”

It's hard for me to imagine her as a child, let alone one that other kids picked on. It makes me feel slightly (but only slightly) better about being called Bozo.

“Okay, what else you got?”

“Let's see. Carrots. That's another common one.”

“Somebody already called me that,” I admit.

“Oh, oh—Pippi Longstocking.”

“Oh, snap,” I laugh. “Bring it on, Matchstick!”

And so on it goes, back and forth until we're both laughing hysterically and Jeffrey appears in the doorway, glaring.

“I'm sorry,” Mom says, still giggling wildly. “Did we wake you?”

“No. I have wrestling.” He brushes past us to the refrigerator, gets out a carton of orange juice, pours himself a glass, drinks it in about three gulps, and sets it on the counter while we try to simmer down.

I can't help it. I turn to Mom.

“Are you a member of the Weasley family?” I ask.

“Nice one. Ginger Nut,” she shoots back.

“What does that even mean? But you, you definitely have gingervitis.”

And off we go again like a couple of hyenas.

“You two need to seriously consider cutting back on the caffeine. Don't forget, Clara, you're driving me to practice in like twenty minutes,” says Jeffrey.

“You got it, bro.”

He goes upstairs. Our laughter finally dies down. I wipe my eyes. My sides hurt.

“You kind of rock, you know that?” I say to Mom.

“This was fun,” she says. “It's been too long since I've laughed that hard.”

It gets quiet.

“What's Christian like?” she asks then, offhandedly like she's just making small talk. “I know he's gorgeous, and apparently he has a bit of hero complex, but what's he like? You've never told me.”

I blush.

“I don't know.” I shrug awkwardly. “He's a big mystery, and it feels like it's my job to unlock it. Even his T-shirt today was like a code. It said, ‘What's your sign?' and underneath there was a black diamond, a blue square, and a green circle. I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.”

“Hmm,” says Mom. “That
is
mysterious.”

She darts into her office for a few minutes, then emerges smiling with a page she's printed off the internet. My hundred-year-old mother can Google with the best of them.

“Skiing,” she announces triumphantly. “The symbols are posted on signs at the top of ski runs to indicate the difficulty of the slope. Black diamond is difficult, blue square's intermediate, and green circle is, supposedly, easy. He's a skier.”

“A skier,” I say. “See? I didn't even know that. I mean, I know he's left-handed and he wears Obsession and he doodles in the margins of his notebook when he's bored in class. But I don't know him. And he
really
doesn't know me.”

“That will change,” she says.

“Will it? Am I even supposed to get to know him? Or just save him? I keep asking myself, why? Why him? I mean, people die in forest fires. Maybe not a lot of people, but some do every year, I'm sure. So why am I being sent here to save him? And what if I can't? What happens then?”

“Clara, listen to me.” Mom leans forward and takes my hands in hers. Her eyes aren't sparkling anymore. The irises are so dark they are nearly purple. “You aren't being sent on a mission that you don't have the power to accomplish. You have to find that power inside you somewhere, and you have to refine it. You were made for this purpose. And Christian isn't some random boy that you're supposed to encounter for no reason. There is a reason, for all of this.”

“You think Christian might be important, like he'll be president someday or find the cure for cancer?”

She smiles.

“He's terribly important,” she says. “And so are you.”

I really want to believe her.

Chapter 6
A-Skiing I Will Go

Sunday morning we drive to Teton Village, a big, famous ski resort area a few miles outside Jackson. Jeffrey dozes in the backseat. Mom looks tired, probably from too many late nights working and too many serious discussions with her daughter in the wee hours of the morning.

“We turn before we hit Wilson, right?” she asks, clutching the wheel at the ten and two positions and squinting through the windshield like the sun is hurting her eyes.

“Yeah, it's like Highway 380, on the right.”

“It's 390,” says Jeffrey, his eyes still closed.

Mom pinches the bridge of her nose, blinks a few times, then adjusts her hands on the steering wheel.

“What's with you today?” I ask.

“Headache. There's a project for work not coming together as I'd planned.”

“You're sure working a lot. What kind of project?”

She turns carefully onto Highway 390.

“Now what?” she asks.

I consult the MapQuest directions I printed.

“Just keep going for about five miles until we hit the resort somewhere on the left. We shouldn't be able to miss it.”

We drive for a few minutes, past restaurants and business areas, a few dude ranches. Suddenly the ski area opens up on one side of us, the mountain rising behind it cut into big white lanes through the trees, the tram running all the way to the top. It looks crazy steep, all of it. Mount Everest kind of steep.

Jeffrey sits up to get a better look.

“That is one wicked mountain,” he says like he can't wait another minute to toss his body down it. He checks his watch.

“Come on, Mom,” he says. “Do you have to drive like a grandma?”

“Do you need some money?” asks Mom, ignoring his comment. “I gave Clara some money for lessons.”

“I don't need lessons. I just need to get there sometime in the next millennium.”

“Lay off, doofus,” I say. “We'll get there when we get there. We're like less than a mile now.”

“Maybe you should let me out and I could walk. It'd be faster.”

“Both of you, be qu—” Mom starts to say, but then we slide on the ice. She hits the brakes and we drift sideways, picking up speed. Mom and I both scream as the car careens off the road and crashes through a snowbank. We come to a stop at the edge of a small field. She takes a deep, shaky breath.

“Hey, you're the one who said we'd love the winters here,” I remind her.

“Perfect,” says Jeffrey sarcastically. He unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door. The car is resting in about two feet of snow. He glances at his watch again. “That's just perfect.”

“What, you have an important meeting you have to get to?” I ask.

He shoots me a disgusted look.

“Oh, I get it,” I say. “You're meeting up with someone. What's her name?”

“None of your business.”

Mom sighs and puts the car in reverse. The car moves back about a foot and then the tires spin. She pulls forward and tries again. No luck. We're stuck. In a snowbank. In plain sight of the ski hill. It really can't get more humiliating.

“I could get out and push,” says Jeffrey.

“Just wait,” Mom says. “Someone will come.”

Right on cue, a truck pulls off to the side of the road. A guy gets out and tromps through the snow toward us. Mom rolls down the window.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” he asks.

My mouth falls open. Tucker leans in the window, grinning from ear to ear.

Oh yes, it can get more humiliating.

“Hey, Carrots,” he says. “Jeff.”

He nods to my brother like the two are best buds. Jeffrey nods back. Mom smiles up at him.

“I don't think we've met,” she says. “I'm Maggie Gardner.”

“Tucker Avery,” he says.

“You're Wendy's brother.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“We could really use some help,” she says sweetly as I slump down in the seat and wish I was dead.

“Sure thing. Just sit tight.”

He jogs back to his truck and returns with tow cables, which he hooks to the underside of the car quickly, like he's done this kind of thing a million times before. He gets back in his truck, pulls up behind us, and attaches the cables to his truck. Then he tows us smoothly onto the road. The whole thing takes all of five minutes.

Mom gets out of the car. She gestures for me to do the same. I look at her like she's crazy, but she persists.

“You need to say thank you,” she says under her breath.

“Mom.”

“Now.”

“All right.” I get out. Tucker is kneeling in the snow unhooking the cable from his truck. He looks up at me and smiles again, revealing a dimple in his left cheek.

“In case you couldn't tell, that was my rusty truck towing you out of a snowbank,” he says.

“Thank you so much,” says my mom. She looks pointedly at me.

“Yes, thank you,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Don't mention it,” he says cordially, and in that moment I see that Tucker can be charming when he wants to be.

“And tell Wendy we said hello,” Mom says.

“Will do. Nice to meet you, ma'am.” If he'd been wearing his cowboy hat, he would have tipped it at her. Then he gets back in his truck and drives off without another word.

I look toward the ski hill, the same direction Tucker went, rethinking the whole skiing thing entirely.

But Christian's a skier,
I remind myself. So a-skiing I will go.

“That Tucker seems like a nice young man,” says Mom as we walk back to the car. “How come you've never told me about him before?”

Fifteen minutes later I'm standing in the area where students are supposed to meet their instructors, which is teeming with little, screaming kids wearing helmets and goggles. I feel completely out of my element, like an astronaut about to take his first steps on an alien planet. I'm wearing rented skis, rented ski boots that feel weird and tight and make me walk funny, plus every other kind of snow gear my mom was able to convince me to put on. I drew the line at goggles, and I stuck the unflattering wool hat into my jacket pocket, but from the neck down every inch of me is covered and padded. I don't know if I can move, let alone ski. My instructor, who's supposed to meet me at nine a.m. sharp, is already five minutes late. I just watched my pain-in-the-butt brother jump on the ski lift like it's no big deal and carve his way down a few minutes later like he was born on a snowboard, a blond girl by his side. Life sucks. That and my feet are cold.

“Sorry I'm late,” says a rumbly voice from behind me. “I had to drag some Californians out of a snowbank.”

It can't be true. Fate is not so cruel. I pivot to meet Tucker's blue eyes.

“Lucky for them,” I say.

His lips twitch like he's trying not to laugh. He seems like he's in a good mood.

“So you go around pulling idiots out of the snow and teaching them how to ski,” I say.

He shrugs. “It pays for the season pass.”

“Are you any good at it?”

“Pulling idiots out of the snow? I'm the best.”

“Ha-ha. You're hilarious. No—teaching them to ski.”

“I guess you'll find out.”

He starts right into a lesson on how to balance, position my skis, and turn and stop. He treats me like I'm any other student, which is great. I even relax a little. It all seems fairly simple when you break it down.

But then he tells me to get on the rope tow.

“It's easy. Just hold on to it and let it tug you up the hill. When you get to the top, let go.”

He apparently thinks I'm a moron. I make my way awkwardly over to the line, then struggle up to the edge, where the greasy black cable drags through the snow. I reach down and grab it. It jerks at my arms, and I lurch forward and almost fall, but somehow I manage to get my skis in line and straighten up and let it tug me up the hill. I dart a quick look over my shoulder to see if Tucker is laughing. He's not. He looks like some Olympic judge getting ready to mark a scorecard. Or some guy about to witness a horrific accident.

At the top of the hill I drop the cable and struggle to get away before the next kid plows into me. Then I stand for a moment looking down. Tucker waits at the bottom. It's not a steep slope, and there are no trees to crash into, which is comforting. But behind Tucker the slope keeps dropping, past the ski lift, the lodge, the small shops lined up in a path to the parking lot. I have a sudden picture of myself lying halfway underneath a car.

“Come on!” Tucker shouts. “The snow won't bite.”

He thinks I'm scared. Okay, I
am
scared, but the idea of Tucker thinking I'm chicken makes my jaw tighten in determination. I position my skis in a careful V, the way he showed me. Then I push off.

The cold air rushes my face, catches my hair and flutters it behind me like a banner. I put a bit of pressure on one foot and glide slowly to the left. I try again, this time arcing to the right. Back and forth, I make my way down the hill. I go straight for a while, picking up some speed, then try again. Easy. When I get closer to Tucker, I put my weight evenly on both feet and push the V wider, the way he taught me. I stop. Piece of cake.

“Maybe I could try it the other way,” I say. “With my skis straight.”

He stares at me, frowning, good mood apparently gone.

“I guess you want me to believe that this is your first time skiing,” he says.

I look into his frowning face, startled. Surely he didn't expect me to crash on that little hill? I glance back at the other beginners. They resemble a flock of confused ducklings, just trying not to bump into each other. They don't crash so much as flop over.

I should lie to Tucker now, tell him I've done this before. That'd be the low-profile thing to do. But I don't want to lie to another Avery this week.

“Should I try it again?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I think you should try it again.”

This time he rides up behind me, and when I ski down, he's right beside me. He makes me so nervous that I almost fall a couple of times, but I keep thinking about how humiliating it would be to crash and burn in front of Tucker, and manage to stay upright. When we get to the bottom he demands that we go again, this time skiing parallel style, which I like much better. It's more graceful. It's fun.

“I've been teaching this class for two years,” he says when we get to the bottom around the fifth time, “and this is the first time anyone has ever made it through the whole hour without falling down once.”

“I have good balance,” I explain. “I used to dance. Back in California. Ballet.”

He stares at me with narrowed eyes, like he can't figure out why I'd want to lie about something like that, unless I'm trying to show off. Or maybe he's stumped at the idea that some California yuppie could be good at something other than shopping.

“Well, that's it,” he says abruptly. “End of lesson.”

He turns toward the lodge.

“What should I do now?” I call after him.

“Try a chairlift,” he says, and then he skis away.

For a while I stand outside the line for the beginner's chairlift and watch people get on. They make it seem easy enough. It's all about timing. I wish that Tucker hadn't been such a jerk. It would be nice to get some instruction for this part.

I decide to go for it. I get in line. When I near the front, an employee punches a hole in my ticket.

“You alone?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Single!” he shouts toward the back of the line. “We have a single here!”

So embarrassing. I suddenly wish I had goggles.

“Okay,” says the ski lift guy, waving somebody forward. When the guy gestures at me I shuffle up to the line they've drawn in the snow, position my skis, look over my shoulder, and nervously watch the chair swing toward me. It hits the back of my legs hard. I sit, and the chair lifts me into the air. Then I'm rising quickly up the mountainside, swaying gently. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“That bad, huh?”

I turn to see who I'm sitting with. All my breath leaves me in a rush.

I'm riding the chairlift with Christian Prescott.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hey, Clara,” he replies.

He remembers my name. It was just a dream. Just a stupid, stupid dream.

“Nice day for the slopes, huh?” he says.

“Yeah.” My heart's drumming a crazy rhythm in my ears. He seems perfectly at home on the chairlift. With his forest green ski jacket and black ski pants, a black hat with goggles pushed up onto his head, and some kind of fuzzy neck warmer, he looks like the poster boy for skiing. His eyes are gorgeous against the jacket, a deep emerald green. He's so close I can feel the heat coming off him.