World After

46

THE FERRY RIDE to San Francisco is as quiet and gloomy as the one that took me to Alcatraz. The big difference is that humans are guarding us instead of scorpions.

Madeline and her crew go around asking the two dozen of us if we can sew or design costumes, or if we know how to make jewelry. If we answer yes, they write stuff down on their clipboards. I don’t know how to do any of these things but they don’t seem to care.

I’ve lost track of how long it’s been since my last ride on this ferry. It’s dawn now. The sky is tinged with what I always thought of as rosy pink, but this morning it looks more like the color of a fresh bruise.

I try to see if I can talk to the captain, but the guards firmly redirect me to the bathrooms. On my way back, I find a pen and paper on a clipboard hanging on the wall in the stairwell. So I spend the rest of the ride writing down what I want to say to the boat driver, just in case I have to slip him a note instead of being able to talk to him.

I carefully word my argument to try to be as persuasive as I can. When I’m done, I fold the paper and slide it into my pocket, hoping I won’t need it. It’ll be much better if I can persuade the driver in person.

Once we dock, we walk out into the sunlight, unable to believe we’re free from Alcatraz. The scorpions that were injured on the night we were captured are nowhere to be seen. Blood streaks across the splintery dock and into the early morning shadows.

Our human guards don’t veer from their intended course even though there are no scorpions or angels around.

“Why don’t you run?” I can’t help but ask one of the guards.

“And do what?” he says loud enough for all the prisoners to hear. “Fight to scrounge for scraps in the garbage bin? Not be able to sleep because I’m so afraid angels will hunt me down?”

He looks around at all the prisoners. We all look unsure, tentative, and lost. “Angels might hurt others but not me. Their creatures get out of my way when I walk by. I eat three full meals every single day. I stay warm and protected. And you can too. You’ve been chosen. All you have to do is follow instructions.”

He must have been a spin doctor in the World Before, the way he turns my simple question into a propaganda moment. I notice he doesn’t say he’s free.

The piles of weapons, bags, and other precious items that were left on the pier look like they’ve been hurriedly picked through and are scattered near the dock. The only things that remain are the weakest of weapons, upended bags, and toys. I scan the stuff until I see the two things I’m looking for.

Mom’s tracker lies beside a purse, looking like a clunky cell phone. And Raffe’s sword lies near it, just where I left it, half-hidden under a rummaged backpack with clothes spilling out of it. The teddy bear that still hides the sword stares at the sky as if looking for Raffe to fly down and rescue it.

Huge relief floods through me. I run to grab the tracker and sword, hugging the bear like a long lost friend.

“You’ll have to leave them here,” says Madeline. “You won’t be allowed to bring anything into the aerie.”

I should have known. I hate to leave them but at least I might be able to hide them. The other guards leave me alone, probably realizing that Madeline has an agenda with me, and they don’t want to get into trouble with her.

I look at Mom’s tracker. On the screen, my arrow points to San Francisco’s piers. Paige’s arrow points near Half Moon Bay on the Pacific coast.

“Where is the new aerie?” I ask Madeline.

“Half Moon Bay,” she says.

Is Paige really looking for Beliel? I close my eyes, feeling like I’ve been stabbed in the stomach.

I shut off the tracker. I badly want to take it and the sword with me but I don’t have a choice. As much as I want to hide the tracker, I want my mother to have it if I can’t keep it.

The world is littered with abandoned phones. The odds of people leaving the tracker alone are very good. I shut it off and put it back where I found it, forcing myself to turn away.

The sword, on the other hand, needs to be hidden. I got lucky that the looters were probably in a huge rush, otherwise, they would have noticed that the bear’s dress is too long. I can’t resist giving the bear a final caress before hiding it with the sword under a pile of wood and shingles that were once part of a shop.

I’m about to let go of the sword when my vision wavers and fades.

The sword wants to show me something.

I’M  IN the glass-and-marble hotel suite of the old aerie where Raffe and I spent a few hours together. This must be the time after visiting the speakeasy club and before his wing transplant.

The shower is running at the other end of the suite. It would be peaceful and posh here except for the panoramic view of San Francisco’s charred cityscape dominating the living room.

Raffe walks out of the bedroom, looking fantastic in his suit. With his dark hair, broad shoulders, and muscular build, he looks better than any movie star I’ve ever seen. He looks like a guy who belongs in a thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suite. Every move, every gesture conveys elegance and power.

Something catches his eye and he walks to the window. A formation of angels flies past the moon. He leans toward the glass, almost pressing his face to it as he looks up at the angels. Every line of him tells me he longs to fly with them.

I suspect it’s more than just wanting his wings back. We once had exotic fish in a bowl that Paige and I had decorated with seashells. My dad told us that we always had to make sure there were at least two fish in the bowl because some species needed to belong to a group. If one of them was left alone long enough, it would die of loneliness.

I wonder if angels are like that.

When the angels disappear into the night sky beyond the moon, Raffe turns sideways and looks at his reflection in the window. The wings peeking through the slits in his suit jacket look like other wings I’ve seen on angels at the club downstairs, but they’re not. The severed wings are strapped under his clothes and arranged to look normal.

He closes his eyes for a moment, swallowing his sadness. I’m so used to seeing Raffe with his game face on that it’s hard to see him like this.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Then he opens his eyes. He’s about to turn away from the window when he sees something on his white shirt.

He plucks it and holds it up. It’s a strand of hair. He runs his fingers along it. It’s dark and long and looks like mine.

His lips twitch as if it’s funny to think about how my hair might have ended up on his shirt. My guess is that it must have happened when I kissed him in the hallway downstairs by the club. He thinks it’s amusing.

If I had a body in this dream, my cheeks would be burning. It’s embarrassing just to think about it.

He walks over to the marble bar lined with bottles of wine. He looks beneath it and comes up with a small hotel sewing package. Why anyone who can afford a room like this would want a set of emergency thread and buttons, I don’t know, but there it is. He rips open the package and pulls out the thread. It’s the same snowy white as his wings.

He holds the thread and hair together and twirls them with his thumb and forefinger so that the two strands intertwine.

Holding the ends together, he steps over to the sword that lies on the counter and wraps the strand around the sword’s grip.

“Stop complaining,” he says to the sword. “It’s for luck.”

Luck. Luck. Luck.

The word echoes in my head.

I PUT my hand on the splintery dock to steady myself. The world comes back into focus as I take deep breaths.

Did Raffe really keep a strand of my hair?

Hard to believe.

I look carefully at the sword’s hilt. Amazingly, there it is, on the grip at the base of the cross-guard. Snow-white thread mixed with midnight dark.

I run my finger over the hair-thread and close my eyes. I think about Raffe doing the same thing as I feel the alternating texture of thread and hair against my fingertip.

Was the sword wishing me luck?

I know that it misses Raffe. If I don’t come back, I guess it has no chance of ever seeing him again. Even if it bonds with someone else, that person will have no connection with him and no knowledge of what it is. So maybe it does have a reason to wish me luck, along with a little reminder of Raffe.

I hate to leave the sword but I have no choice. I cover it, bear and all, with broken shingles and splintered boards.

I get up and walk away, feeling naked. I hope the looters don’t have the luxury of digging through piles of debris for hidden treasures.