Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Author:Cynthia Leitich Smith [Leitich Smith, Cynthia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781406333763
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
Published: 2011-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

As the laptop booted, I could hear animal paws—too small to be a shifter—padding around on the Moraleses’ roof. I hadn’t noticed them before, but I hadn’t been on full alert to the same extent, and I didn’t have Meara’s hearing either.

Varmints, Roberto had called them.

Angelina had stuck her head out of Meghan’s room as I’d come up the stairs that night, but she and her pups were quiet.

I keyed flaming sword into a search engine, clicked a link on related mythology, and started reading. After making a page of notes in Frank, I tried the keywords again. As I scrolled a bit, a reference to the Garden of Eden caught my attention.

Without pausing to think too hard about it, I went to the bookshelf for Grandma Morris’s Bible and turned to Genesis.

I recalled the reappearance of  The Banana in Sanguini’s back lot… the first time I’d seen Zachary, battling a vampire not far from a certain failed hex-removal spell… the way he’d saved my hairspray-shellacked head from the falling tray of flaming brandied peaches and ice cream… how he and his friends had filled the open jobs and leased my house and invited me to move back to my bedroom whenever.

I remembered Zachary standing against the hazy neon of South Congress on Sanguini’s roof and the way he’d been so protective of me against the Mullet Man and Mole Woman, both in the dining room and in the neighborhood.

A flaming sword.

I heard a skittering from above and a woof  from down the hall. Glancing at the ceiling, I kissed the leather-bound Bible and returned it to its place on the shelf next to my parents’ wedding album. Then I crossed to the window, crawled outside, and began scaling up the front of the Morales house.

Even though I’d come up to the roof planning to confront Zachary, it still delighted me to find him there, sitting with what might’ve been the same three young raccoons from the park. One walked across his lap while the other two sniffed around.

“You’re not a werelion,” I announced, pushing up to stand.

“Are you trying to start an argument?” he began. “Because I never said I was.”

I crossed my arms. “How about this one: you’re an angel.”

“What?” he replied, not meeting my gaze. “Who? What?”

Nice comeback. Raising my voice, I replied, “I said—”

“Shhh!” he scolded. “Kieren’s mom might hear us.”

“You want to play it that way, fine,” I said, opening my arms wide. “Catch.”

I free-fell backward off the two-story McMansion, and before I could panic or doubt, strong arms scooped me up safe. I glimpsed enormous white wings and then was plopped down barefoot on the dry grass in the side yard, faced with a very cranky angel.

“What were you thinking?” His wings had vanished, apparently at will. “You could’ve broken bones, severed your spine, ended up in a wheelchair or with permanent brain damage. Do you want to spend your supposedly immortal existence in a vegetative state?”

“I knew you’d catch me,” I exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

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