Book of Life

  It was time to let Jane go. It was time to let her body lie where it needed to be.

  I disappeared from the In-between, not wanting to know any more of what Jane thought. Waking in the pergola, my hand just inches from Jane’s still one, I looked to the guards that were watching me closely. I looked back at Jane’s dead body, the very same body that walked with Stella’s soul. How could this happen? I was beginning to see that it was unnatural to keep her in this state. She was nothing but a sad memory. I looked around at the other bodies, suspended in time like stone. None of them should be here. Somewhere else in this world the universe had already reused their looks, and after all, that’s all they were, a shell.

  Snow fell all around the pergola. I wanted to touch Jane’s skin, and inching my hand closer to hers, I did. I heard the guards rustle immediately and I jerked my hand away. Her skin had been frigid—unreal. I turned suddenly, my boots scraping across the floor. The guards were ready, but I didn’t threaten. I walked simply from the pergola and onto the path out of the cemetery. I was halfway through the cemetery when a familiar, sweet scent fell over me. I stopped suddenly, a figure appearing to the side of my vision. I looked up from my stride, my heart already skipping a beat. For a moment I was transported through time, back to a day long ago when snow fell just as it was, collecting on her shoulders in the very same way.

  “Avery.” I nearly stammered as I said her name, but composed myself quickly.

  Her face was neither hateful nor happy. She wore a long white cloak with a white fur trim, hood pulled over her hair as it came down over her forehead, stopping just above her inky blue eyes. Her arms were hidden below the cloak and it made me nervous, remembering the ice dagger of before. She seemed to notice my discomfort, taking a step toward me as her hands crept out from under her cloak, revealing that she held nothing. Did it really matter if she had held a dagger? Killing me would have saved me the step.

  “What do you want?” I asked in a neutral tone.

  I wasn’t quite sure what her presence meant. Was she here with the Black Angels, or had she heard what I said to her? Could she really come back to us?

  Her plain expression broke and she smiled gently. “I want to come back.”

  At first her words felt foggy. Had they been real?

  She took another step toward me. “I want my life back, Max. I want you back.”

  My heart sank. “I told you that . . .”

  She held her hand up to my lips as she’d approached me quickly. “Not like that.” She smiled.

  It was an expression I had forgotten she could express. I didn’t sense a hidden agenda, or lies hidden behind the eagerness of her gaze. She was coming from a place of truth.

  “I miss my life, Max. I miss all this.” She looked past me over my shoulder. “I feel so much guilt over the things I’ve done. I thought that after all that there was no way I could ever come back. Greg made me believe that all there was left was death and destruction.” Her eyes fell as her whole frame sank sadly.

  I grasped her shoulder to comfort her. “That’s what he does.”

  She was shaking her head, but not at what I said, but rather in her own shame. “I considered what you said about love. Greg is not love for me, at least not the way he is.”

  “But you’ll find it,” I pressed, revisiting my previous encouragements.

  She smiled weakly. “Perhaps, but right now I don’t think I deserve it. My life here will be long. I should have the patience to realize that there is so much time left. Meeting you in my first century and believing it was that easy was naïve on my part. I see that now.”

  I massaged her arm.

  “I do love you, Max. I love you more now than before, but it’s a different love. Your support has helped me so much. I want you to know that, I want you to understand that I still need you, but as my friend. I may be here, but I’m still so weak to the darkness. It grips at me with long fingers, threatening to pull me down. It’s a weight I fear I cannot tackle alone, but with your help, I think I can. All I ask is that you take the time.”

  I shut my eyes, jaw fixed. I had been on a mission to die but again that dream was being thwarted by guilt. Here she was, perhaps the greatest evil our world had seen in some time and I had the power to change that. Dying all of a sudden felt bitterly selfish. How could she ask this of me?

  Avery reached up and put her hand on my upper arm as my hand remained grasped with her other. She urged me to let go. “I know this is a lot to ask. I can understand in the way about you that my request has left you confused and lost. I know you well enough to see that. But, Max, I’m asking for help. If you help me, I promise I’ll help you. I promise I’ll get Jane back.”

  My throat felt thick hearing her say her name. It was hard to forget that she was the reason Jane was gone in the first place. “I doubt you can.” I couldn’t help the bitterness.

  “I can try. Just as you told me, just as you encouraged me just days ago—we can try. How else are we going to find happiness?”

  I didn’t want to let myself listen. “There are too many elements at play now, too many things preventing her return. You don’t understand.”

  She shook her head, her face appearing stronger than before. “I do understand. I’ve seen the other girl. I’ve seen who she looks like but you have to remember that she is just a shell. Your Jane is going to come back, just perhaps not the same way as before. Did you ever think of it that way?”

  “If she’s reborn she’ll forget me. Finding her will be as hard as before,” I struggled through the words.

  Avery shook her head. “No. Just as that girl did it with Jane’s body, Jane can do it, too. We can try,” she repeated.

  The idea of having Jane look anything other than the Jane I knew was unsettling.

  “You can’t be so choosy.” Avery could obviously see my apprehension.

  I tried to change the subject. “And you’re promising that you’re really back, you’re really going to try to be . . .” I was at a loss for exactly what to say.

  “Be myself again?” she asked, lifting her gaze to mine. She stepped closer, closing the already small gap between us. I shied away slightly, though a part of me still lingered in lost memories of our past, making me want to lean in. She brought a hand to my face, guiding it until her lips met with mine.

  I felt a tingling start in my chest, crawling up my neck and across my tongue. It sprung from my lips to hers. I couldn’t help but open my eyes as I felt it, pulling away.

  Avery’s hand dropped from my face, her eyes slowly opening. The inky blue no longer seemed so dark. I could see into the depths of what was there. I could see an end, though still far away. “I promise. I want this back. Little by little my light will return.”

  The light would not return to her without a true heart that was willing to take it. This I had learned upon my return from seeing her. The prophets were pleased with what I had done, not divulging to me the future, but expressing enough in the smiles upon their faces. It felt so easy, but then again I hadn’t yet factored in what my brother was still capable of. Bringing Avery back only dulled the Black Angels fire to a smolder, but that smolder could be ignited again.

  “So, what should we do?” She smiled, a smile already much more vibrant than it had been a moment ago. “Where do we start with Jane? I have to correct what I’ve done if I’m to heal.” She pulled her white cloak more tightly around her.

  I felt a darkness creep over my thoughts. It felt wrong, but I knew that it was right. The only wrong was tangled in what I’d grown to believe from Srixon, and that was hardly unreliable. “Does your father know you’re back?”

  Avery shook her head.

  “Perfect. The first thing we need to do, then, is get rid of that.” I looked over my shoulder at the pergola where Jane’s body lay, along with all the other false vessels. “It’s a lie to keep them like that. It’s cheating the rules of the universe. We have to convince your father to do something about it.”

/>   Avery seemed to tense at the mention of her father. “I don’t really want my father knowing I’m back. I was hoping we could keep my return away from him as long as possible.”

  I couldn’t really say I was surprised to hear her say that. “I understand. But, I’m still going to do something about this. I’ll approach him alone.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  It still felt weird hearing Avery’s compassion after growing used to expecting only darkness. Never in my life did I expect to hear a pixie be so calm given the situation—they were among the most jealous race.

  “I am. I’m ready to move on.” I meant that in more ways than one, but she didn’t need to know exactly how. For Avery to truly come back to the light, the dreadful truth was that she was going to need me to do it. Though some of her light had already returned, there was still so much more I had to give.

  EMILY:

  A week had gone by since the awkward night with Wes, and though I wanted to convince myself that it had all gotten better, it really hadn’t. “Yeah, I don’t think Stella will be coming to school anytime soon. Could you imagine?” I whispered to Wes, trying to get him to talk to me, look at me, but all he did was look at her. We were standing in Wes’s entry, watching Lacy console Stella at the top of the stairs. Stella stood ruefully like a sad pet watching after her leaving owner. She was pathetic. At least that part of Jane still remained in that body. “Jane is supposed to be dead. I’m not even sure keeping Stella in this town looking like she does is a good idea.”

  Wes nodded, his gaze still on her. “I’ve been thinking of moving her to Winter Wood.”

  I raised a brow. This was a new development. Originally, Wes had insisted Stella stay with Lacy. It had angered me as I wasn’t comfortable having the combination of my dead sister and Wes’s stalker living next door. I was convinced there were still some reserved feelings he felt toward Jane, lingering in this new person, so why was he suddenly pushing her away? His desire to move her took me a little off guard—perhaps I really had nothing to worry about. Regardless, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was losing him. It woke me to the fact that I needed to quit being such a brat. “When will you move her? I thought Winter Wood wasn’t safe with Avery and the Black Angels coming any day.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Wes finally broke his gaze to look at me. “Avery is back in Winter Wood looking for reinstatement. Whatever Max did convinced her to come back.”

  “What?” I gawked—and of course he hadn’t told me this. This was another reason I felt him slipping away, he confided in me less and less. “As in back in town and together? Are they together?” I couldn’t hide the shrillness in my voice.

  Wes laughed at my reaction. “According to Max, no. Chill out.” He touched my arm. “Whatever Max did convinced her to come back and try to be the old Avery—the good Avery.”

  “The good Avery? One exists?” I felt my skin crawl. The only Avery I knew was murderous and mean. How could Wes have thought he’d told me this? This was big news. “And what about Greg?”

  Wes plumped his lips and shrugged. “Dunno. I guess without Avery he’s just Greg. Maybe Max will get him to come around as well.”

  I grumbled a little. “But, what about Max finding my sister?”

  Wes gave me a look that begged not to have to answer that.

  “What is he doing to bring her back? I don’t like that he’s putting so much attention into Avery.”

  Wes shook his head. I’d annoyed him, but this was important. “You know he’ll bring her back. I’m sure that this was just more immediately pressing,” he assured, but all the while he was eyeing Stella from the corner of his eye.

  It wasn’t hard to know what he was thinking even if he had his thoughts blocked from me. All week I’d caught the mention of it from one mind after the other when I caught them off guard. They thought that since Stella had been born as this identical Jane that it meant Jane was never going to return. That was bogus, though. Her body was still safe in Winter Wood. So what if there were two of them running around?

  “I don’t know, Emily.” Wes added. “I honestly can’t tell you what will happen. I have nothing left to say that’s going to make you feel any better about any of this—it might be smart of you to start thinking . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  It angered me to have to finish it for him. “That she’ll never come back? Is that what you want to tell me?” I huffed. “You don’t even care, do you? All you care about is that you got her back in some form—that form being her.” My gaze flew like a dart toward Stella.

  Wes went immediately on the defensive. “No, Emily. Leave it alone. I don’t think that.”

  I narrowed my gaze. All I needed was one opening, one slip up of his mind to confirm my accusations. Of course that’s what he was thinking. His distance from me correlated too well with Stella’s appearance here. I would remain jealous until something proved me wrong.

  The doorbell rang and I took the opportunity to walk away from this conversation. I approached the door and opened it, coming face to face with my other demon—Jake. I smiled immediately, unable to help it. His light had engulfed my every dream all week. Perhaps it was my way of coping with Wes’s slow emotional detachment. “Hey, Jake.”

  He tilted his head, looking concerned about my tone of voice.

  “What’s your problem this morning?” I immediately barked in reply. I’d wanted someone to address me with a little reverence.

  He just shook his head and brushed past me. “Come on. What’s the hold up?” He brought the whole room together as Lacy finally stopped consoling Stella. “I’ve been waiting out there for fifteen minutes. Just say bye to your pet.” He was directing this at Lacy, lifting his hand and mockingly waving a goodbye to Stella. “Let’s. Get. Going.” He handed us each a sheet of paper, giving two to Wes as one was for Lacy. Each contained a revised course schedule for our return to Glenwood High. There was a good amount of after school class involved for the first few weeks, but that was to be expected after all the time we’d missed. I didn’t even see the point in returning when Christmas was just two weeks away.

  Stella crossed her arms, giving Jake a nasty glare. Leave me alone, her mind finally erupted. She’d been trying to communicate with Lacy through hand gestures all morning. I guess she’d rather do that than trust me to relay the correct message—I couldn’t blame her.

  Jake turned and walked right back out the door. Lacy sighed and bounded down the stairs, ignoring whatever other rejections Stella had to visually express. She picked her bag up in the hall and threw it over her shoulder.

  “You sure you’re ready for this?” Wes asked his sister.

  She just snorted at him rudely. “I’m going to be a natural. I’ve wanted to go to school for years. I’m ready.”

  There was a lot riding on this day. It was my first day back since Jane’s passing, Lacy’s first day ever—this was sure to be a circus at a school like ours. I couldn’t wait for the storm.

  STELLA:

  I was angry that Lacy would walk away from me like that. All I was trying to tell her was that I didn’t like to be left alone, that I wanted to go to school, too. But, what would I really do there? I had acclimated well to the human world, remembering a lot from this body I was borrowing from this girl named Jane. Still, I couldn’t talk for the life of me and it was starting to weigh heavy on my nerves.

  I watched as they gathered their things, particularly jealous as I watched Wes help Emily with her bag. But, then he glanced at me when her back was turned. It was a quick glance, a glance full of the golden eyes I was falling in love with. I imagined a small smile hiding behind that look, or had it really been there? I wanted to tell him so many things, but all I could do was think it instead—privately of course.

  I sunk to the ground and threw my feet over the top step, lazily leaning with my elbows on my knees. I watched them bundle and then finally grab for the door. Wes opened it for them as both girls were
ushered out by his large, guiding hand. He kept his head down as he turned to leave. To my spirited hopes, he offered me one last glance as he shut the door. I held onto that glance like a picture for the rest of the day.

  EMILY:

  Arriving at school we all piled out of Jake’s car. I happily volunteered to take the back seat despite Wes’s suggestion I have the front. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be close to Jake. That was hardly it. I just didn’t want to have a front row seat to the glances and stares we were sure to receive. My rubber boots slid slightly as they hit the pavement, revealing the black ice that had formed there. I took caution, but refused Wes’s hand when he offered it.

  “What lunch period did you get?” I asked as we walked behind Jake and Lacy.

  He pulled the now crumpled piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. “Looks like I got second lunch. You?”

  I regretfully unfolded mine, holding it with hands wrapped in pink pilled-out gloves. “First,” I grumbled. “Why would they do that? Leave me alone like that? I swear these people . . .” I didn’t allow myself to finish the sentence.

  Jake stopped briefly to let us to catch up to him. “I have first lunch.”

  I snorted. “Eavesdropping much?”

  He shrugged. “Come on, at least you won’t be alone.”

  Wes used to care when I talked to Jake, given the nature of Jake visiting me in my room in the dark only weeks ago, but, like another sign of his distance, he didn’t seem to care anymore. He’d walked on ahead, now playfully laughing with his sister in a way I wish we still could.