The girl was beautiful with glowing skin, rounded features, and bright eyes. Her rosiness reminded me of a girl in a painting I’d seen, a shepherdess in a bucolic setting.
“Bethany,” I said with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Molly waited patiently at my locker while I rummaged through my bag for the relevant textbook, a spiral notebook, and a handful of pens. Part of me wanted to call Gabriel back and ask him to take me home. I could almost feel his strong arms encircling me, hiding me from everything, and steering me back to Byron. Gabriel had a way of making me feel safe, no matter what the circumstances were. But I didn’t know how to find him in this vast school; he could have been behind any of the numberless doors in any one of the identical corridors; I had no idea how to find the music wing. I silently reproved myself for my dependence on Gabriel. I needed to survive here on a daily basis without his protection, and I was determined to show him that I could. Molly opened the classroom door and we walked in. Of course, we were late.
Mr. Velt was a short, bald man with a shiny forehead. He was wearing a sweater patterned with geometric shapes that looked like it had faded from overwashing. When Molly and I came in, he was in the middle of trying to explain a formula scrawled on the whiteboard to a bunch of students, whose vacant faces indicated they wished they were anywhere but in his classroom.
“Glad you could join us, Miss Harrison,” he said to Molly, who slunk quickly to the back of the room. Having already checked the roll he seemed to know who I was.
“Late on your first day, Miss Church,” he said, clicking his tongue and raising an eyebrow in reprimand. “Not exactly off to a good start. Hurry up and sit down.”
Suddenly he remembered he had forgotten to introduce me. He stopped writing long enough to make a perfunctory introduction. “Everyone, this is Bethany Church. She’s new to
Bryce Hamilton, so please do your utmost to make her feel welcome.”
Almost every pair of eyes in the room followed me as I took the last seat available. It was at the back next to Molly, and when Mr. Velt stopped talking and told us to work through the next set of questions, I was able to study her more closely. I saw now that she wore the top button of her school dress undone and large silver hoops in her ears. She had drawn an emery board from her pocket and was filing her nails under the desk, blatantly ignoring our teacher’s instructions.
“Don’t worry about Velt,” she whispered, seeing my look of surprise. “He’s a total stiff, bitter and twisted after his wife served the divorce papers. The only thing that gets him going these days is his new convertible, which he looks like a loser driving.” She grinned, and I saw she had a broad smile and white teeth. She wore a lot of mascara but her skin had a natural glow.
“Bethany, that’s a pretty name,” she went on. “Kinda old-fashioned though. But hey, I got stuck with Molly, like some character in a picture book.”
I smiled awkwardly at her, not entirely sure how to answer someone so confident and forthright.
“I guess we’re stuck with the names our parents chose for us,” I said, knowing it was a lame attempt at making conversation. I figured I really shouldn’t have been talking at all, seeing as we were in class and poor Mr. Velt needed all the help he could get. It also made me feel like a fraud, as angels didn’t have parents. For a moment I felt like Molly would see right through my lie. But she didn’t.
“So where are you from?” Molly wanted to know, blowing on the nails of one hand and shaking a bottle of fluorescent pink polish.
“We’ve been living overseas,” I told her, wondering what her reaction might be if I told her I was from the Kingdom of Heaven. “Our parents are still there.”
“Really?” Molly seemed impressed. “Whereabouts?”
I hesitated. “Different places. They move around a lot.”
Molly seemed to accept this as if it were fairly commonplace.
“What do they do?” she asked.
I fumbled for the answer in my head. I knew we’d discussed this but my mind went blank.
It would be just like me to make a critical mistake within my first hour of being a student. Then
I remembered.
“They’re diplomats,” I said. “We came with our older brother. He just started as a teacher here. Our parents will join us when they can.” I tried to cram in as much information as I could to satisfy her curiosity and stem further questions. By nature, angels were bad liars. I hoped
Molly hadn’t seen through my story. Technically speaking, none of it was a lie.
“Cool,” was all she said. “I’ve never been overseas but I’ve been to the city a few times.
You’d better be prepared for a change of lifestyle at Venus Cove. It’s usually pretty chill around here except things have been a bit weird lately.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve lived here my whole life; my grandparents even lived here and ran a local business. And in all that time, nothing really bad has ever happened; there’s been the occasional factory fire and some boating accidents—but now . . .” Molly lowered her voice. “There’s been robberies and freak accidents all over the place—there was a flu epidemic last year and six kids died from it.”
“That’s devastating,” I said weakly, feeling a hollowness in the pit of my stomach. I was starting to get a sense of the extent of the damage done by the Agents of Darkness, and it wasn’t looking good. “Is that all?”
“There was one other thing,” Molly said. “But you’d want to be careful bringing it up at school—a lot of kids are still pretty torn up over it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll watch my mouth,” I assured her.
“Well about six months ago, one of the senior boys, Henry Taylor, climbed up on the school roof to get a basketball that had landed up there. He wasn’t screwing around or anything, he was just trying to get it down. No one saw how it happened, but he slipped and fell. He came down right in the middle of the courts—his friends saw the whole thing. They were never able to completely get rid of the bloodstain, so no one plays there anymore.”
Before I could respond, Mr. Velt cleared his throat and looked daggers in our direction.
“Miss Harrison, I assume you are explaining to our new student the concept of covalent bonding.”
“Um, not exactly, Mr. Velt,” Molly replied. “I don’t want to bore her to death on her first day.”
I saw a vein throb on Mr. Velt’s forehead and realized I should probably intervene. I channeled a calming energy toward him and watched with satisfaction as he started looking less harangued. His shoulders seem to relax, and his face lost its livid hue and returned to a more natural shade. He looked at Molly and gave a tolerant, almost paternal chuckle.
“Your sense of humor is unfailing, Miss Harrison.”
Molly looked confused but was smart enough to refrain from further comment.
“My theory is he’s having a midlife crisis,” she whispered to me instead. Mr. Velt ignored us and busied himself setting up a projector slide. I groaned inwardly and tried to suppress a rising wave of panic. We angels were radiant enough in daylight. In the dark it was worse but concealable, but in the halogen light of an overhead projector, who knew what might happen. I decided it wasn’t worth taking the risk. I asked for permission to go to the bathroom and then slipped out. I hung around just outside, waiting for Mr. Velt to finish his presentation and switch the lights back on. The slides clicked sharply into place, and through the glass panel on the classroom door I could see that they demonstrated a simplified description of the valence bond theory. I was glad I wouldn’t have to study such basic things on a permanent basis.
“Are you lost?”
The voice came from behind, startling me. I spun around to see a boy lounging against the lockers opposite the classroom. Even though he looked more formal with his shirt buttoned, tie neatly knotted, and school blazer, there was no mistaking that face or the nut-colored hair flopping over vivid blue eyes. I hadn’t expected to run into him again, but now the boy from the pier was standing right in front of me, wearing that same wry smile.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, turning away quickly. If he had recognized me, he wasn’t giving himself away. I hoped that turning my back on him, as rude as it seemed, might cut the conversation short. He had caught me unawares, and something about him made me unsure where to look or what to do with my hands. But he seemed in no hurry.
“You know, the more conventional way to learn is from inside the classroom,” he continued.
I was forced to turn back then and acknowledge his presence. I tried to communicate my reluctance to engage in conversation with a cool look, but when I met his eyes, something entirely different happened. I had an instant, gut-wrenching physical reaction as if the world were falling from under me and I had to steady myself to stop from falling with it.
I must have looked like I was about to pass out because he involuntarily put out an arm to catch me. I noticed the fine cord of plaited leather he wore around his wrist, the only item out of keeping with his otherwise traditional appearance.
My memory of him hadn’t done him justice. He had the striking good looks of an actor but without any trace of conceit. His mouth was curved into a half-smile, and his limpid eyes had a depth I hadn’t noticed the first time. He was tall and slender, but underneath his uniform I could make out the shoulders of a swimmer. He was looking at me as though he wanted to help me but didn’t quite know how, and as I stared back at him, I realized that his attractiveness had as much to do with his air of composure as his regular features and smooth skin. I wished I could come up with some witty retort to match his confidence, but I couldn’t think of anything.
“Just feeling a little light-headed, that’s all,” I mumbled. He took a step closer, still looking concerned.
“Do you need to sit down?”
“No, I’m fine now.” I shook my head decisively.