“Brill,” said Charlotte, patting her arm as Gabby took her seat, trembling a little.
“Told ya,” said Sam.
“You were great,” added Aria.
Relief and happiness swirled inside Gabby. It felt … amazing. To be seen this way. Knowing that none of the attention had to do with Marco’s sickness. It didn’t have to do with Marco at all.
It belonged to her.
It made her feel, as Aria had said, like a who.
The happiness followed Gabby all the way to the hospital. She didn’t even mind that Aria was still being quiet, because for once, Gabby felt loud. She couldn’t wait to tell Marco about the singing. She knew he’d be proud of her. But when she was nearly at his room, she drew up short.
Something was wrong.
She could hear someone shouting. No, she could hear Marco shouting.
But Marco never shouted. He hardly ever even raised his voice.
She hurried toward the noise. Aria said something but Gabby ignored her. She reached the door just in time to hear a water glass shatter against it from the other side.
A nurse was hurrying down the hall with a capped syringe in hand, and Gabby grabbed her sleeve. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, his friend,” said the nurse. “I’m afraid he …” She didn’t finish, and Gabby didn’t need her to.
Her stomach twisted. Henry. How had it happened? When had it happened?
Beyond the door, Gabby heard her mom trying desperately to calm Marco down, a stream of soothing Spanish pouring from her lips. But Marco pitched the nearest thing — a book — at the wall and beat his fists against the bed and screamed about how it wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. And when Mrs. Torres reached for him, he pushed her away, then buried his face in his pillow as he sobbed.
Gabby wanted to go in, to go to him, wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him it would be okay. But maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe none of this would be okay. It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. Death wasn’t fair, and nothing Gabby could say right now would make it any easier to bear. Marco was upset, and he deserved to be upset. No one in this hospital was ever upset enough. They all treated death like a sad routine instead of a tragedy.
Gabby felt Aria wrap her arms around her shoulders, and she stood there numb, watching her brother rail in his room until the nurses gave him something and he went quiet — quiet, but not calm — and she couldn’t bear to see that.
So she pulled away from Aria’s grip and escaped to a bench at the end of the hall, sank onto it, and sobbed.
Aria had been dreading it all day.
She knew it was coming. Maybe not all of her knew it, but part of her knew. Part of her knew as soon as she saw the teenage boy in the hall that morning. As soon as she saw the color of his smoke.
Knowing didn’t make it any easier.
Aria hovered, caught between the quieting sadness in Marco’s room and the growing sadness at the end of the hall, leaving Gabby alone for a few minutes until her crying subsided.
“I’m sorry,” Aria finally whispered as she slid onto the bench beside her.
“What if he was alone?” Gabby’s voice trembled a little as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “When he died?”
“He wasn’t,” said Aria, too quietly for Gabby to hear.
“It’s not fair,” whispered Gabby, balling her hands into fists. “None of this is fair.”
Aria looked up at the ceiling and wished it were the sky. “At least he’s —”
“Don’t,” snapped Gabby. “Don’t say at least he’s at peace now. I hate it when people say that like it makes death better.”
“I don’t think anything makes death better,” said Aria. “But it was time for —”
“It’s never just time,” said Gabby. “And how can you say that?” She shook her head. “I thought you cared about him….”
“I did,” said Aria. “I do. But Henry was … I think he wanted to let go.”
Gabby gave her a long hard look. “You knew.”
Aria’s eyes widened. “What?”
“All day you’ve been weird. You knew this was going to happen. Or that it had happened.”
Aria could feel it. This cusp. The chance to tell Gabby the truth.
“You were with him before school, weren’t you?” pressed Gabby. “That’s where you ran off to. Did something happen? How did you know?”
Aria sighed. She was so tired of keeping secrets. Would it make Gabby feel better, to know Henry hadn’t been alone? To know it was time for him to let go? To know why Aria was here?
“I saw him come this morning,” she said quietly.
“Saw who?”
Aria chewed her lip. “The boy in the hall. I’d been waiting for him. He was a different kind of …” She trailed off.
“Of what?”
Aria didn’t actually like this word. It seemed too large, too heavy, but it was the only way she knew to explain. “Angel.”
She’d braced herself for any number of reactions to the too-big word, everything from disbelief to mockery to awe. But Gabby only stared at her, eyes red.
“A what?” she whispered.
“An angel,” said Aria again. “Like me. I wasn’t sent to help Henry, though,” she added. “I only noticed him because of the smoke. He was surrounded by this dark purple cloud. It’s a marking, a flag for someone … someone like me but not me, and for some reason no one else had come, so I tried to keep an eye on him until they did. And now I think they didn’t come because he just wasn’t ready for their help, wasn’t ready to let go. Like I said, he needed a different kind of …” Aria trailed off.
Gabby was staring at her, horrified. “If you didn’t come for Henry, then why are you here? Is it Marco? Did you come because … oh god, is he going to —”
“I didn’t come for Marco, either,” said Aria. “I came for you.”
Gabby’s eyes widened. “Am I going to die?”
Aria sighed. “I told you, I’m not that kind of angel. I’m a … a guardian. I’m here to help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” said Gabby. “Marco does.”
Aria shook her head. “I can’t help him,” she said. “Not that way. I’m not a healer.”
“So you came here just to do what?” snapped Gabby, the smoke coiling around her. “Offer moral support?”
“I can’t fix people, Gabby.”
“But you just said you’re an angel.”
“I know, but …”
“You said you’re an angel,” repeated Gabby, her voice clawing up, traveling down the hall. “Angels do miracles. Angels fix people. Angels make things better. If you’re an angel, then make this better. Make Marco better. And if you can’t, then just go away.”
Aria pulled back, struck by the words. Her eyes began to burn, and before the tears could spill over, she disappeared.
Gabby stared at the place Aria had been, feeling flushed and breathless.
Good, she thought bitterly as she got to her feet. Run away. Gabby didn’t know what Aria was — or how she’d disappeared — but she wasn’t an angel. She couldn’t be. Gabby didn’t know if she even believed in angels, but if she did, and they were real, they would be able to help her brother. Aria couldn’t.
A tired sadness came over Gabby.
Her mom was pacing up and down the hall on the phone, and she didn’t look up, let alone notice Gabby, as she slipped inside Marco’s room.
He was lying on the bed facing the wall with his back to the room, clutching his pillow. She could tell he wasn’t asleep by the way his chest rose and fell, his rib cage expanding and contracting too much through his shirt.
Gabby kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed beside him. Marco didn’t say anything, didn’t even look over his shoulder, but he scooted forward a few inches on the narrow bed to make room for her. She brought her hand to rest on her brother’s shoulder, and she felt him take a small, shuddering breath.
“I’m sorry,” she whisp
ered, even though she hated the way people tossed around that phrase in hospitals. But she really, really was.
Marco had known Henry for only a few short weeks, but the two had hit it off so quickly. When she’d asked them about it, Henry had shrugged in his usual, easy way.
“When you’re sick,” he’d said, “and you don’t know how much time you have, it’s easy to make friends. You don’t sit around and weigh the pros and cons, or wonder if you have enough in common. It’s a waste of time, so you just say, ‘Hey, I’m stuck here, you’re stuck here, let’s hang out.’”
And it had been easy. Even though everyone could see Henry was sick, and Gabby could see he was sad, he’d brought a kind of light with him, wherever he went.
And now he was gone. And Marco was lost. And Aria had run away.
Strangely, Gabby’s mind went to her journal. Why couldn’t life be like she’d written it? Marco should be out playing soccer and Henry should be in the stands cheering for him, and instead they were here and he was gone and Aria … Gabby didn’t even know where to start with Aria.
When Marco rolled over to face her sometime later, his eyes were feverish.
“¿Dónde estás?” he whispered. Where are you?
“I don’t know,” she whispered back.
“I heard you shouting,” he said. “Who were you fighting with?”
“Aria.”
“Why?”
Gabby realized she couldn’t answer, in part because it would sound ridiculous — my new best friend turned out to be an angel who can’t save you — and in part because that wasn’t a fair reason to be mad at Aria. But she was mad anyway because she wanted to be mad at someone.
“It’s complicated,” she said at last.
“Well, go fix it,” said Marco.
“I can’t,” said Gabby. “I told her to go away, and she did.”
“Look, whatever you’re fighting about,” said Marco. “It’s not worth it. Please, Gabs. I lost a friend today. Don’t go throwing one away.”
Gabby’s heart ached. She knew he was right. “I don’t know where she went,” said Gabby lamely.
“So go find her,” said Marco.
Gabby took a deep breath and nodded. She hugged her brother — he felt really warm — and then she got up and went to find Aria.
Aria sank onto the hospital steps.
It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t fix people. She wanted to fix them, and she would have used her power to do it if she could but … but she couldn’t.
She was there to help, not fix.
Aria considered her bare charm bracelet, running her thumb over the three small, empty loops. She didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of helping. She drew her knees to her chest and looked down at the dull gray hospital steps. She was tired of their sad gray paint, and thought that maybe, if the steps were a happier color, she’d feel happier, too. As soon as she thought it, color spread across the steps beneath her, overtaking the gray until each of the dozen stairs leading from the lot to the front doors was a different, vibrant hue. Stripes of blue and red and green and yellow. She felt her spirits rising a little at the bursts of color, until she remembered Gabby’s words.
Angels do miracles.
Angels fix people.
Angels make things better.
What good was her magic if all she could do was change the color of some concrete? How was that making anything better? It wasn’t a miracle. It was just a stupid magic trick.
She was about to change the steps back, when she heard a noise.
“Oooooooh,” said an old, old woman being helped up the steps by a young man. “Ooooh, Eric, look!”
“That’s nice, Nan.”
The man tried to guide her up the steps, but she had come to a grinding halt. “They’ve painted the stairs!”
“I can see that, Nan.”
“They’ve done it. Look at that. They’ve always been gray, and I’m always telling those doctors you can’t paint a place like this gray. No good for anyone. I told them every time I came. Every time! And look!”
She beamed at Aria.
“Isn’t it lovely?” the old woman asked her. “I told them, and look!”
Aria smiled a little and nodded. “They must have heard you,” she said.
The old woman’s head bobbed cheerfully as she continued up the steps, clutching the young man’s arm and saying, “They heard me; they heard me.”
Aria watched them go inside and decided to leave the steps the way they were. She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath, and tried to remember the smile on the woman’s face. And then she felt someone sit down on the step beside her.
It was Gabby.
Aria braced herself for another fight, but Gabby didn’t scream, didn’t snap, didn’t say anything. She just sat there, looking pale. The blue smoke swirled around her, twisting and curling with questions.
“How long have you been an angel?” she asked.
“Nine days,” said Aria.
Gabby made a small sound of surprise. “And before that?”
Aria frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Gabby, casting a glance around, “were you dead?”
Ari crinkled her nose. “No. Of course not.”
“Then how do you look like that?”
Aria looked down at herself. “Like what?”
“Like … well, like that,” said Gabby, gesturing toward her. “Like someone who’s been alive as long as I have.”
Aria examined her hands, and shrugged. “This is what I’ve always looked like.”
“For nine days.”
“Should I look like someone else?” asked Aria.
“Can you?” asked Gabby.
Aria frowned. It had never occurred to her. She was happy with how she looked, since it was the only way she’d ever looked, but Gabby seemed curious, and that made Aria curious, too. She could change her clothes, but could she change herself?
Aria closed her eyes and tried to picture a new combination of features, different skin and different eyes and different hair.
“Well?” she asked, opening her eyes. “How do I look?”
Gabby shrugged. “You look the same.”
And even though Aria acted like she was disappointed, she was secretly relieved that it hadn’t worked. Silence fell again between them, heavy as a weight.
“If you’re an angel,” asked Gabby at last, “then where are your wings?”
Aria stiffened. “I don’t have them yet,” she said, a little defensively.
“So you can’t fly.”
Aria shook her head vigorously. “No,” she said. “And trust me, I tried. It didn’t go well.”
Gabby’s mouth twitched. “But you can disappear.”
Aria nodded. “And I have a shadow.”
“Everybody has a shadow,” said Gabby.
“Yeah,” replied Aria smiling a little, “but I’m pretty sure most shadows don’t work like mine. Watch,” she said, getting to her feet and turning so the sun struck her back and cast her shadow out in front of her. She looked down at the dark patch on the ground, pointed a finger, and said, sternly, “Stay.”
Gabby looked at Aria the way any rational person would look at someone giving orders to their shadow. But the look slid from her face when Aria took a step back.
And her shadow didn’t.
It stayed stock-still on the ground, as if caught in a game of freeze. Gabby’s mouth fell open. And it stayed open when Aria snapped her fingers, and the shadow turned on like a light. Gabby’s eyes widened in amazement.
That was the look Aria had hoped for when she told Gabby her secret.
“I don’t need wings to get around,” said Aria. “I have this.”
“But what is it?” asked Gabby.
Aria considered the shape on the ground. “I guess it’s a door.”
“Where does it lead?”
Aria shrugged. “Depends on where I need to go.”
Gabby bi
t her lip and looked at Aria’s shadow and then at her own. Even though Aria couldn’t read her mind, she could tell what she was thinking, as if the thoughts were words instead of smoke, swirling around her. She wanted to get away, to escape.
“Want to go somewhere?” asked Aria.
“Where would it take us?” asked Gabby.
Aria shrugged and held out her hand. “Let’s find out.”
Aria made Gabby go first.
“Why?” asked Gabby nervously.
“Because,” said Aria, “you want to know where it will take you. If I go first, it might get confused and take us somewhere else.”
Aria squeezed Gabby’s hand and guided her toward the light-filled shadow. Gabby tensed.
“Are you sure this will work?” Gabby asked.
“No,” answered Aria. She started to say something else, but her voice was swallowed up as they stepped into the light.
It felt like falling but slower, like sinking in a pool. For a moment there was nothing. And then, quick as a blink, there was something. Or rather, somewhere.
Gabby looked around. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Half of her thought that since it was a magical shadow, she’d end up somewhere magical. The other half thought the door might take them to another version of her life. One where Marco wasn’t sick. The kind of life she pretended was real when she was in school. And some small part of her thought that the shadow would take them to the woods behind her old house, the ones that haunted her dreams.
But it didn’t. Aria’s shadow took them to school. To the choir room.
“Why here?” asked Gabby.
Aria shrugged. “Maybe it’s trying to tell you something. Maybe this place” — she looked around — “can help you.” She ran her hand along the edge of the piano. “It’s already starting to.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gabby.
Aria perched on the piano bench. “Remember how I said Henry had been marked for someone, and you’d been marked for me? Well, that marking, it takes the shape of smoke. And when you feel like you don’t matter, like you don’t exist, like you’re not a person, the smoke gets worse, because that’s what your smoke is made of, those problems.”