I opened my eyes.
I was standing in the front hallway of Lena’s house. It worked. I had crossed. I was back in
Gatlin, in the world of the living. I was overwhelmed with relief; it was still here.
Gatlin remained. Which meant Lena remained. Which meant everything I’d lost—everything I’d
done—hadn’t been for nothing.
I leaned against the wall behind me. The room stopped spinning, and I lifted my head and
looked around at the old plaster walls.
The familiar flying staircase. The shining lacquered floors.
Ravenwood.
The real Ravenwood. Mortal, solid, and heavy beneath my feet. I was back.
Lena.
I closed my eyes and fought away the prickling tears.
I’m here, L. I did it.
I don’t know how long I stood frozen in place, waiting for a response, like I thought she was
going to come running around the corner and into my arms.
She didn’t.
She didn’t even feel me Kelting.
I drew in a deep breath. The enormity of it all was still hitting me.
Ravenwood looked different than the last time I was here. It wasn’t really a surprise—
Ravenwood was always changing—but even so, I could tell from the black sheets hanging over all
the mirrors and windows that this time things had changed for the worse.
It wasn’t just the sheets. It was the way the snow fell from the ceiling, even though I was
inside. The cold white drifts piled in the doorways and filled the fireplace, swirling into the air like
ash. I looked up to see the ceiling crowded with storm clouds that wound all the way up the
stairwell to the second floor. It was pretty cold even for a ghost, and I couldn’t stop shivering.
Ravenwood always had a story, and that story was Lena’s. She controlled the way the house
looked with her every mood. And if Ravenwood looked like this…
Come on, L. Where are you?
I couldn’t help but listen for her to answer, even though all I heard was silence.
I made my way through the slick ice of the front hall until I reached the familiar sweep of the
grand front stairwell. Then I climbed the white steps, one at a time, all the way to the top.
When I turned to look down, there were no footprints at all.
“L? You in there?”
Come on. I know you can feel me here.
But she didn’t say anything, and as I slipped through the cracked doorway into her bedroom, it
was almost a relief to see she wasn’t inside. I even checked the ceiling, where I had once found her
lying along the plaster.
Lena’s bedroom had changed again, like it always did. This time the viola wasn’t playing by
itself, and there wasn’t writing everywhere, and the walls weren’t glass. It didn’t look like a prison,
the plaster wasn’t cracked, and the bed wasn’t broken.
Everything was gone. Her bags were packed and neatly stacked in the center of the room. The
walls and the ceiling were completely plain, like an ordinary room.
It looked like Lena was leaving.
I got out of there before I could think what that would mean for me. Before I tried to figure out
how I would visit her in Barbados, or wherever she was going.
It was almost as hard to think about as leaving her the first time around.
I found my way out through the massive dining room where I had sat on so many other strange
days and nights. A thick layer of frost covered the table, leaving a dark, wet rectangle on the carpet
immediately below. I slipped through an open door and escaped out to the back veranda, the one
that faced the sloping green hill leading to the river—where it wasn’t snowing at all, just overcast
and gloomy. It was a relief to be back outside, and I followed the path behind the house until I came
to the lemon trees and the crumbling stone wall that told me I was at Greenbrier.
I knew what I was looking for the second I saw it.
My grave.
There it was, among the bare branches of the lemon trees, a mound of fresh soil lined with
stones and covered with a sprinkling of snow.
It didn’t have a headstone, only a plain old cross made of wood. The new dirt hill looked like
something less than a final resting place, which actually made me feel better, rather than worse,
about the whole thing.
The clouds overhead shifted, and a glimmer from the grave caught my eye. Someone had left a
charm from Lena’s necklace on the top of the wooden cross. The sight of it made my stomach flip
over.
It was the silver button that had fallen off her sweater the night we first met in the rain on
Route 9. It had gotten caught in the cracked vinyl of the Beater’s front seat. In a way, it felt like we
had come full circle now, from the first time I saw her to the last, at least in this world.
Full circle. The beginning and the end. Maybe I really had picked a hole in the sky and
unraveled the universe. Maybe there was no kind of slipknot or half hitch or taut-line that could ever
keep it all from coming undone. Something connected my first glimpse of the button to this one,
even though it was just the same old button. Some small bit of universe had stretched from Lena to
me to Macon to Amma to my dad and my mom—and even Marian and my Aunt Prue—back to me
again. I guess Liv and John Breed were in there somewhere, and maybe Link and Ridley. Maybe all
of Gatlin was.
Did it matter?
When I saw Lena for the very first time at school, how could I possibly have known where
this was all headed? And if I had, would I have changed a single thing? I doubted it.
I picked up the silver button carefully. The second my fingers touched it they moved more
slowly, as if I had plunged my hand to the bottom of the lake. I felt the weight of the worthless tin
like it was a pile of bricks.
I put it back on the cross, but it rolled off the edge, falling onto the mounded dirt of the grave.
I was too tired to try to move it again. If someone else was here, would they have seen the button
move? Or did it only seem like that to me? Either way, that button was hard to look at. I hadn’t
thought about what it would feel like to visit my own grave. And I wasn’t ready to rest, in peace or
not.
I wasn’t ready for any of this.
I’d never really thought past the whole dying-for-the-sake-of-the-world part of things. When
you’re alive, you don’t dwell on how you’re going to spend your time once you’re dead. You just
figure you’re gone, and the rest will pretty much take care of itself.
Or you think you’re not really going to die. You’re going to be the first person in the history of
the world who doesn’t have to. Maybe that’s some kind of lie our brains tell us to keep us from
going crazy while we’re alive.
But nothing’s that simple.
Not when you were standing where I was.
And nobody’s any different from anyone else, not when you come right down to it.
These are the kinds of things a guy thinks about when he visits his own grave.
I sat down next to my headstone and flopped back on the hard soil and grass. I plucked a
single blade poking through the scattering of snow. At least it was coming in green. No dead,
brown grass and lubbers now.
Thank the Sweet Redeemer, as Amma liked to say.
You’re welcome. That’s what I’d like to say.
I looked at the grave next to me and touched the fresh, cold soil with my hand, letting it fall
through my fingers. Not a bit dry either. Things really had changed around Gatlin.
I was brought up a good Southern boy, and I knew better than to disturb or disrespect any
grave in town. I had walked circles around graveyards, trailing my mom carefully to avoid
accidentally putting a stray foot on someone’s sacred plot.
It was Link who didn’t know better than to lie on top of the graves and pretend to sleep where
the dead were resting. He wanted to practice—that’s what he said. A dry run. “I want to see what
the view is like from down there. You wouldn’t want a guy to head out for the rest a his life
without knowin’ where it was all takin’ him in the end, would you?”
But when it came to graves, it was a different thing to worry about disrespecting your own.
That’s when a familiar voice caught in the wind, surprising me with how close it was. “You
get used to it, you know.”
I followed the voice a few graves over, and there she was, red hair blowing wild. Genevieve
Duchannes. Lena’s ancestor, the first Caster who had used The Book of Moons to try to bring back
someone she loved—the original Ethan Wate. He was my great-great-great-great-uncle, and it
hadn’t worked out any better for him than it had for me. Genevieve failed, and Lena’s family was
cursed.
The last time I saw Genevieve, I was digging up her grave with Lena, looking for The Book of
Moons.
“Is that—Genevieve? Ma’am?” I sat up.
She nodded, curling and uncurling a loose strand of hair with her hand. “I thought you might
be coming around. I wasn’t sure when. There’s been a lot of talk.” She smiled. “Though your kind
tends to stay in Perpetual Peace. Casters, we go where we like. Most of us stay in the Tunnels. I
feel better here.”
Talk? I bet there was, though it was hard to imagine a town full of ghostly Sheers doing the
talking. More like my Aunt Prue, probably.
Her smile faded. “But you’re just a boy. It’s worse, isn’t it? That you’re so young.”
I nodded in Genevieve’s direction. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, you’re here now, and that’s what matters. I suppose I owe you, Ethan Lawson Wate.”
“You don’t owe me anything, ma’am.”
“I hope to repay the debt one day. Returning my locket meant the world to me, but I don’t
think you’ll see much gratitude from Ethan Carter Wate, wherever he may be. He always was a bit
stubborn that way.”
“What happened to him? If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am.” I’d always wondered about
Ethan Carter Wate—after he came back to life for only a second. I mean, he was the beginning of
all of this, everything that had happened to Lena and me. The other end of the thread we pulled, the
one that had unraveled the entire universe.
Didn’t I have a right to know how his story ended? It couldn’t have been much worse than
mine, could it?
“I don’t really know. They took him away to the Far Keep. We couldn’t be together, but I’m
sure you know that. I learned it myself, the hard way,” she said, her voice sad and far away.
Her words caught in my mind, snagging on others I’d tried to push off until now. The Far
Keep. The Keepers of The Caster Chronicles—the same ones my mom refused to talk about.
Genevieve didn’t look like she wanted to elaborate either.
Why didn’t anyone want to talk about the Far Keep? What were The Caster Chronicles really
about?
I looked from Genevieve to the lemon trees. Here we were, at the site of the first big fire. It
was the place where her family’s land had burned, and where Lena tried to face off against Sarafine
for the first time.
Funny how history repeated itself around here.
Funnier still how I was about the last person in Gatlin to figure that out.
But I had learned a few things the hard way myself. “It wasn’t your fault. The Book of Moons
sort of plays tricks on people. I don’t think it was ever meant for Light Casters. I think it wanted to
turn you—” She shot me a look, and I stopped talking. “Sorry, ma’am.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. For the first hundred years or so, I felt that way. Like that book
had stolen something from me. Like I’d been duped…” Her voice trailed off.
She was right. She had gotten the short stick.
“But good or bad, I made my own choices. They’re all I have now. It’s my cross to bear, and
I’ll be the one to bear it.”
“But you did it out of love.” So did Lena and Amma.
“I know. That’s what helps me bear it. I just wish my Ethan didn’t have to bear it, too. The
Far Keep is a cruel place.” She looked down at her grave. “What’s done is done. There’s no
cheating death any more than you can cheat The Book of Moons. Someone always has to pay the
price.” She smiled sadly. “I guess you know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I guess I do.”
I knew it better than anyone.
A twig snapped. Then a voice called out, even louder.
“Stop following me, Link.”
Genevieve Duchannes disappeared at the sound of the words. I didn’t know how she did it, but
I was so startled that I felt myself start slipping away, too.
I clung to the voice—because it was familiar, and I would’ve recognized it anywhere. And
because it sounded like home, chaos and all.
It was the voice that anchored me in the Mortal realm now, the same way it had kept my heart
bound to Gatlin when I had been alive.
L.
I froze. I couldn’t move, even though she couldn’t see me.
“You tryin’ to give me the slip?” Link was stomping around behind Lena, trying to catch up
with her as she made her way through the lemon trees. Lena shook her head like she was trying to
shake Link.
Lena.
She pushed through the brush, and I caught a glimpse of gold and green eyes. That was it; I
couldn’t help myself.
“Lena!” I shouted as loud as I could, my voice ringing across the white sky.
I took off running across the stubbly frozen ground, through the weeds and all the way down
the rocky path. I flung myself into her arms… and went flying to the ground behind her.
“I’m not just trying. I’m giving you the slip.” Lena’s voice floated over me.
I had almost forgotten. I wasn’t really here, not in a way she could feel. I lay back on the
ground, trying to catch my breath. Then I propped myself up on my elbows, because Lena was
really there, and I didn’t want to miss a second of it.
The way she moved, the tilt of her head, and the soft lilt of her voice—she was perfect, full of
life and beauty and everything I couldn’t have anymore.
Everything that didn’t belong to me.
I’m here. Right here. Can you feel me, L?
“I wanted to check on him. I haven’t been out here all day. I don’t want him to be lonely, or
bored, or mad. Whatever he’s feeling.” Lena knelt next to my grave, next to me, grabbing at
handfuls of cold grass.
I’m not lonely. But I miss you.
Link rubbed his hand through his hair. “You just went to check on his house. Then you
checked on the water tower and your bedroom, and now you’re checkin’ on his grave. Maybe you
should find somethin’ to do other than checkin’ on Ethan.”
“Maybe you should find something to do other than bothering me, Link.”
“I promised Ethan I’d look after you.”
“You don’t understand,” she said.
Link looked as annoyed as Lena seemed frustrated. “What are you talkin’ about? You think I
don’t understand? He was my best friend since kindergarten.”
“Don’t say it like that. He’s still your best friend.”
“Lena.” Link wasn’t getting anywhere.
“Don’t Lena me. Out of everyone, I thought you would understand how things work around
here.” Her face was pale, and her mouth looked funny, like she was about to smile or cry, only she
couldn’t decide which.
Lena, it’ll be okay. I’m right here.
But even as I thought about it, I knew nobody could fix this. The truth was, the moment I
stepped off that water tower everything changed, and nothing was going to change back.
Not anytime soon.
I never knew how bad it would feel from this side. At least for me. Because I could see it all,
but I couldn’t do a thing to change it.
I reached for her hand, sliding my fingers around hers. My hands slipped right through, but if I
really concentrated, I could still feel them, heavy and solid.
For the very first time, nothing shocked me. No burning. It wasn’t like sticking my fingers in
an electrical outlet.
I guess being dead will do that for you.
“Lena, help me out here. I don’t speak chick—you know that—and Rid isn’t here to translate.”
“Chick?” Lena shot him a withering look.
“Aw, come on. I barely speak English, unless we’re talkin’ about the Lowcountry kind.”
“I thought you went looking for Ridley,” Lena said.
“I did, all through the Tunnels. Everywhere Macon sent me and a few places he’d never let me
go. Holy hell—I haven’t found anyone who’s seen her.”
Lena sat down and straightened the line of rocks around my grave. “I need her to come back.
Ridley knows how it all works. She’ll help me figure out what to do.”
“What are you talkin’ about?” Link sat down next to her, and next to me.
Just like old times, when the three of us would sit together on the bleachers at Jackson High.
They just didn’t know it.
“He’s not dead. Just like Uncle Macon wasn’t dead. Ethan will come back—you’ll see. He’s
probably trying to find me right now.”
I squeezed her hand. She was right about that, at least.
“Don’t you think you’d be able to tell, if he was?” Link sounded a little doubtful. “If he was
here, don’t you think he’d give us a shout-out or somethin’ like that?”
I tried her hand again, but it was no use.
Will you two pay attention?
Lena shook her head, oblivious. “It’s not like that. I’m not saying he’s sitting here next to us or
something.”
But I was. Sitting next to them or something.
Guys? I’m right here?
Even though I was Kelting, I felt like I was shouting.
“Yeah? How do you know where he is or isn’t? If you’re so sure and all?” Link’s Sunday
school background wasn’t helping him out here. He was probably busy imagining houses made of
clouds, and cherubs with wings.
“Uncle Macon said that new spirits don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. They
barely know how they died or what happened to them in real life. It’s upsetting, suddenly finding
yourself in the Otherworld. Ethan might not even know who he is yet, or who I am.”
I knew who she was. How could I forget something like that?
“Yeah? Well, say you’re right. If that’s the case, you have nothin’ to worry about. Liv told me
that she’d find him. She has that watch a hers all tweaked up, like some kind a Ethan Wate–
ometer.”
Lena sighed. “I wish it was that simple.” She reached for the wooden cross. “This thing’s
crooked again.”
Link looked frustrated. “Yeah? Well, there’s no merit badge for grave diggin’. Not in Gatlin’s
pack meetin’s.”
“I’m talking about the cross, not the grave.”
“You’re the one who wouldn’t let us get a stone,” Link said.
“He doesn’t need a gravestone when he’s not—”
Then her hand froze, because she noticed. The silver button wasn’t where she’d left it.
Of course it wasn’t. It was where I dropped it.
“Link, look!”
“It’s a cross. Or two sticks, dependin’ on how you look at it.” Link squinted. He was starting
to tune out; I could tell by the glazed look in his eyes, the one I’d seen on every school day.
“Not that.” Lena pointed. “The button.”
“Yep. It’s a button, all right. Any way you slice it.” Link was staring at Lena like she was
suddenly the dense one. It was probably a terrifying thought.
“It’s my button. And that’s not where I put it.”
Link shrugged. “So?”
“Don’t you get it?” Lena sounded hopeful.
“Not usually.”
“Ethan’s been here. He moved it.”
Hallelujah, L. It’s about time. We were making some progress here.
I held my arms out to her, and she threw her arms around Link and hugged him tight. Figures.
She pulled back from Link, excited.
“Hey now.” Link looked embarrassed. “It could have been the wind. It could have been—I
don’t know—wildlife or somethin’.”
“It wasn’t.” I knew the mood she was in. There was nothing anyone could say to change her
mind, no matter how irrational it seemed.
“Seem pretty sure a that.”
“I am.” Lena’s cheeks were pink, and her eyes were bright. She opened her notebook,
unclipping the Sharpie from her charm necklace with one hand. I smiled to myself, because I’d
given her that Sharpie at the top of the Summerville water tower, not so long ago.
I winced at the thought now.
Lena scribbled something and ripped out the page of her notebook. She used a rock to hold the
note on top of the cross.
The paper fluttered in the cool breeze but remained where she’d left it.
She wiped a stray tear and smiled.
The paper had only one word on it, but we both knew what it meant. It was a reference to one
of the first conversations we’d ever had, when she told me what it said on the poet Bukowski’s
grave. Only two words: Don’t try.
But the torn piece of paper on my grave was christened with only one word, in all caps. Still
damp and still smelling like Sharpie.
Sharpie and lemons and rosemary.
All the things that were Lena.
TRY.
I will, L.
I promise.
0 comments:
Post a Comment