She went into the bathroom and followed Angel's instructions precisely without asking why. Then she went to get David to take her home from the party.
"I'm ready. Now tell me what I can do."
Gillian was sitting on her bed, wearing the pajamas with little bears on them. It was well after midnight and the house was quiet and dark except for the lamp on her night stand.
"You know, I think you are ready."
The voice was quiet and thoughtful-and outside her head. In the air about two feet away from the bed, a light began to grow.
And then it was Angel, sitting lotus style, with his hands on his knees. Floating lotus style. He was about level with Gillian's bed and he was looking at her searchingly. His face was earnest and calm, and all around him was a pale, changing light like the aurora borealis.
As always, Gillian felt a physical reaction at the first sight of him. A sort of shock. He was so beautiful, so unearthly, so unlike anyone else.
And right now his eyes were more intense than she had ever seen them.
It scared her a little, but she pushed that-and the physical reaction-away. She had to think of David.
David, who'd so trustingly taken her home when she "got sick" an hour ago, and who right now had absolutely no idea what was in store for him on Monday.
"Just tell me what to do," she said to Angel.
She was braced. She had no idea what it would take to stop Tanya, but it couldn't be anything pleasant-or legal. Didn't matter. She was ready.
So Angel's words were something of a letdown.
"You know you're special, don't you?"
"Huh?"
"You've always been special. And underneath, you've always known it."
Gillian wasn't sure what to say. Because it sounded terribly cliche-but it was true. She was special. She'd had a near-death experience. She'd come back with an angel. Surely only special people did that. And her popularity at school-everyone there certainly thought she was special. But her own inner feeling had started long before that, sometime in childhood. She'd just imagined that everybody felt that way... that they were different from others, maybe better, but certainly different.
"Well, everybody does feel that way, actually," Angel said, and Gillian felt a little jolt. She always felt it when she suddenly remembered her thoughts weren't private anymore.
Angel was going on. "But for you it happens to be true. Listen, what do you know about your great-grandma Elspeth?"
"What?" Gillian was lost. "She's an old lady. And, um, she lives in England and always sends me Christmas presents..." She had a vague memory of a photograph showing a woman with white hair and white glasses, a tweed skirt and sensible shoes. The woman held a Pekingese in a little red jacket.
"She grew up in England, but she was born American. She was only a year old when she was separated from her big sister Edith, who was raising her. It happened during World War One. Everyone thought she had no family, so she was given to an English couple to raise."
"Oh, really? How interesting." Gillian was not only bewildered but exasperated. "But what on earth-"
"Here's what it's got to do with David. Your great-grandma didn't grow up with her real sister, with her real family. If she had, she'd have known her real heritage. She'd have known..."
"Yes?"
"That she was born a witch."
There was a long, long silence. It shouldn't have been so long. After the first second Gillian thought of things to say, but somehow she couldn't get them past the tightness of her throat.
She ought to laugh. That was funny, the idea of Great-grandma, with her sensible shoes, being a witch.
And besides, witches didn't exist. They were just stories-
-like angels-
-or examples of New Age grown-ups acting silly.
"Angels," Gillian gasped in a strangled voice. She was beginning to feel wild inside. As if rules were breaking loose.
Because angels were true. She was looking at one. He was floating about two and a half feet off the floor. There was absolutely nothing under him
and he could hear her thoughts and disappear and he was real. And if angels could be real...
Magic happens. She'd seen that on a bumper sticker somewhere. Now she clapped both hands to her mouth. There was something boiling up inside her and she wasn't sure if it was a scream or a giggle.
"My great-grandma is a witch?"
"Well, not exactly. She would be if she knew about her family. That's the key, you see-you have to know. Your great-grandma has the blood, and so does your grandma, and so does your mom. And so do you, Gillian. And now... you know." The last words were very gentle, very deliberate. As if Angel were delicately putting into place the last piece of a puzzle.
Gillian's laughter had faded. She felt dizzy, as if she had unexpectedly come to the edge of a cliff and looked over. "I'm... I've got the blood, too."
"Don't be afraid to say it. You're a witch."
"Angel..." Gillian's heart was beating very hard suddenly. Hard and slow. "Please ... I don't really understand any of this. And... well, I'm not."
"A witch? You don't know how to be, yet. But as a matter of fact, kid, you're already showing the signs.
Do you remember when that mirror broke in the downstairs bathroom?"
"And when the window broke in the cafeteria. You asked me if I did those things. I didn't. You did. You
were angry and you lashed out with your power... but you didn't realize it."
"Oh, God," Gillian whispered.
"It's a frightening thing, that power. When you don't know how to use it, it can cause all kinds of damage. To other people-and to you. Oh, kid, don't you understand? Look at what's happened to your mother."
"What about my mother?"
"She ... is ... a ... witch. A lost witch, like you. She's got powers, but she doesn't know how to channel them, she doesn't understand them, and they terrify her. When she started seeing visions-"
"Visions!" Gillian sat straight up. It was as if a light had suddenly gone on in her head, illuminating five years of her life.
"Yeah." Angel's violet eyes were steady, his face grim. "The hallucinations came before the drinking, not after. And they were psychic visions, images of things that were going to happen, or that might have happened, or that happened a long time ago. But of course she didn't understand that."