Broken Wings (An Angel Eyes Novel)

17

Brielle

Saturday’s turning into a day of double duty for me. Between classes at Miss Macy’s and our new program at the community center, I’m exhausted. The nightmares don’t help. I find myself scanning all my students’ faces to see if anyone resembles the girl from the marble hallway. I look for her on the street and at the supermarket. Yesterday I terrified a poor old man having lunch with his granddaughter. I’d do anything for a really good, dreamless nap.

Since that doesn’t seem possible, I’ve been trying to pay attention to the scene that captures me when I sleep. I try to let my eyes wander, try to pick up anything that tells me what to do with what I’m seeing. So far I’ve not been able to see anything beyond the girl’s own gaze, but I’m determined. If figuring this dream out is the only way to get rid of it, I have to keep trying. Canaan did check Henry’s place for me. He’s been there several times now, to the city, to the townhouse Henry owns. The old man’s there, he says, but he swears Javan’s nowhere to be found.

“Dad, I’m home.” The cool linoleum of the kitchen floor soothes my tired toes. I tug open the fridge and feel unexpectedly violent. A wall of amber-colored beer bottles separate me from the pitcher of filtered water behind. I shove them aside and free the pitcher.

“Seriously, Dad. This is ridiculous. You stocking up for the apocalypse?”

When I kick the door shut with my sweaty foot, I see my father. He’s leaning against the archway separating the kitchen from the living room.

“Am I out of beer? Can you pick me up a six-pack?” Each word carries the hint of a slur, and sick runs down his shirt. Speckles of it fleck his beard.

“Really, Dad?” I say, shaking the pitcher at him. “Really?”

He just stares at me, his eyes on my wrist. I plop the pitcher down and yank the halo off, shoving it into my back pocket. Dad pushes past me and grabs a half-empty beer from the counter.

“You really think you need another one?”

“It’s Saturday, all right?” he says, swatting at the air like a petulant child.

“Saturday is not synonymous with ‘drink yourself stupid,’ Dad. Neither is Tuesday or Wednesday or—”

“Independence Day.”

“Exactly.”

“I am sorry about that, Elle.” He takes a few wobbly steps into the kitchen and pulls a glass from the cupboard next to the sink. He presses two hands flat on the counter, steadying himself, before he picks up the pitcher. He fills the glass, sloshing water onto the counter, and hands it to me.

“And yet here you are, drinking yourself stupid again. What is going on with you?”

The fur lining his lip trembles. His eyes slide back and forth behind red-rimmed lids, veins blossoming like roses against the yellowing whites of his eyes.

“I just miss you, Hannah.”

There are moments when looking like my mom royally sucks.

“Dad . . .”

My phone beeps. Dad and I both turn our eyes to my pocket, where the light of my screen penetrates my jeans. It beeps again.

“That your boyfriend?”

“It’s probably Kaylee. We’re supposed to—”

“Bet it’s your boyfriend.”

I yank the phone from my pocket intending to prove him wrong, but when I look up again, he’s trundling away. He falls into his La-Z-Boy, his eyes unfocused. My phone beeps again—the call going to voice mail—but I power off the phone, watching instead as the strongest man I’ve ever known opens another bottle of beer.

It’s still light, but the sky is streaked with pink and orange, the sun finally going down on this long summer day. So I slide into an old tank top and a pair of boxers and give myself permission to call it a night.

Turns out it was Jake on the phone earlier. I text him, promising to see him tomorrow, and crawl into bed far too aware that a nightmare is waiting for me. It doesn’t matter. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

The halo won’t prevent the nightmare, but I slide it under my pillow anyway. I think it eases the transition, and it certainly makes drifting off more pleasant. Warm, soft. I close my eyes as the celestial heat of the halo spreads down my back, my hamstrings, my calves, even my heels. Color assaults my mind, and I surrender to it. How pleasant this used to be before the nightmares. As sleep takes me, I pray for a reprieve.

Instead, the nightmare changes.

It’s the girl again, her face emerging from the colors. But I’m closer and I get a better look this time. She has large, dark eyes and raven hair that frames her face. She’s young, younger than she was the last time I saw her. I ponder the impossibility of that as my ears prick at a sound.

She’s talking to me. “Are you sick?”

I blink, looking around. It’s bright here. Much brighter than the marble hallway. We’re in a waiting room. At a hospital, I think.

“You look sick.”

“Do I?”

She nods, scribbling away at the coloring book in her lap. I feel my face stretch as I offer her a smile.

“Daddy looked like you before he died.”

My smile falls away. I feel that too. My stomach is sick, but I don’t know if it’s the child’s words that have done that or if it’s part of my illness.

“The doctors think the medicine will make me better,” I say.

“I hope so.”

“Me too.” My voice is weak and crackles with phlegm. I want to clear my throat, but I don’t seem to have any control over my body. “Are you here to see the doctor too?”

She shakes her head and points her red crayon at the woman in scrubs manning the reception counter. “Mama has to work. She helps people.”

“That’s nice. Maybe she’ll help me.”

“Maybe.”

I watch her coloring the picture of a unicorn. A red unicorn. “I have a little girl,” I say.

Her eyes light up. “Is she here?”

“No, she’s home with a friend. Sleeping, I hope.”

“Will you bring her next time?” she asks. “It’d be nice to have someone to play with.”

“Maybe,” I say, trying and failing to produce a smile. “She’s younger than you. Would that be okay?”

“Sure,” she tells me, coloring the unicorn’s tail blue. “I can be her babysitter. Like Amy. That would be okay.”

I’m tired. My arms are heavy and my neck is weak. “Do you always come to work with your mom?”

“Not always. Just when Amy can’t watch me. She’s pretty. She has a boyfriend with a motorcycle.”

I let my head fall sideways on my shoulder. “My husband has a motorcycle.”

Her large eyes get even bigger. “Does he let you ride it?”

“Sometimes.” My eyelids are heavy. The girl’s face swims before me. Her eyes. Her necklace, so pretty with the beaded rope and the charm. Is it . . . is it a flower?

I’m going to be sick. I’m going to be sick and it’s so very, very dark.

“Mama! Mama! The lady’s dying. She’s dying like daddy.”

Her voice bounces around the darkness, tugging at my consciousness. It’s not me, not my body that’s dying. I know that, but the fear of death is suffocating.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die!

“You’re not dying, Brielle. Sit up. You’re not dying. You’re dreaming.”

I blink my room into view. It’s still dark. The clock on my side table says it’s three a.m. Helene stands next to me, her hair braided back, her face tense.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I had another nightmare.”

She runs her hand under my pillow. “And with the halo too.”

“I don’t understand why it keeps happening.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” she tells me. “Are you presentable?”

“Yes, of course.”

Without another word, she lifts me from my bed and pulls me into the Celestial, the fear of death melting within her wings.