“Dark Matter? Dark Fire? What is this, the Big Bang for Casters?”
“What about Lilum? I’ve never heard of any of this, but then again, nobody tells me anything. I didn’t even know my own mother was alive.” She tried to sound sarcastic, but I could hear the pain in her voice.
“Maybe Lilum is an old word for Casters, or something.”
“The more I find out, the less I understand.”
And the less time we have.
Don’t say that.
The bell rang and I stood up. “You coming?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to stay out here a while longer.” Alone, in the cold. More and more, it was like that; she hadn’t even looked me in the eye since the Disciplinary Committee meeting, almost as if I were one of them. I couldn’t really blame her, considering the whole school and half the town had basically decided she was the institutionalized, bipolar child of a murderer.
“You better show up in class sooner or later. Don’t give Principal Harper any more ammunition.”
She looked back toward the building. “I don’t see how it matters now.”
For the rest of the afternoon, she was nowhere to be found. At least, if she was, she wasn’t listening. In chemistry, she wasn’t there for our quiz on the periodic table.
You’re not Dark, L. I would know.
In history, she wasn’t there while we reenacted the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and Mr. Lee tried to make me argue the Pro-Slavery side, most likely as punishment for some future “liberally minded” paper I was bound to write.
Don’t let them get to you like this. They don’t matter.
In ASL, she wasn’t there while I had to stand up in front of the class and sign “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” while the rest of the basketball team just sat there, smirking.
I’m not going anywhere, L. You can’t shut me out.
That’s when I realized she could.
By lunch, I couldn’t take it anymore. I waited for her to come out of Trig and I pulled her over to the side of the hall, dropping my backpack to the floor. I took her face in my hands, and drew her in to me.
Ethan, what are you doing?
This.
I pulled her face into mine with both hands. When our lips touched, I could feel the warmth from my body seep into the coldness of hers. I could feel her body melting into mine, the inexplicable pull that had bound us together from the beginning, bringing us together again. Lena dropped her books and wrapped her arms around my neck, responding to my touch. I was becoming light-headed.
The bell rang. She pushed away from me, gasping. I bent down to pick up her copy of Bukowski’s Pleasures of the Damned and her battered spiral notebook. The notebook was practically falling apart, but then again, she’d had a lot to write about lately.
You shouldn’t have done that.
Why not? You’re my girlfriend, and I miss you.
Fifty-four days, Ethan. That’s all I have. It’s time to stop pretending we can change things. It’ll be easier if we both accept it.
There was something about the way she said it, like she was talking about more than just her birthday. She was talking about other things we couldn’t change.
She turned away, but I caught her arm before she could turn her back on me. If she was saying what I thought she was saying, I wanted her to look at me when she said it.
“What do you mean, L?” I almost couldn’t ask.
She looked away. “Ethan, I know you think this can have a happy ending, and for a while maybe I did, too. But we don’t live in the same world, and in mine, wanting something badly enough won’t make it happen.” She wouldn’t look at me. “We’re just too different.”
“Now we’re too different? After everything we’ve been through?” My voice was getting louder. A couple of people turned and stared at me. They didn’t even look at Lena.
We are different. You’re a Mortal and I’m a Caster, and those worlds might intersect, but they’ll never be the same. We aren’t meant to live in both.
What she was saying was she wasn’t meant to live in both. Emily and Savannah, the basketball team, Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Harper, the Jackson Angels, they were all finally getting what they wanted.
This is about the disciplinary meeting, isn’t it? Don’t let them—
It isn’t just about the meeting. It’s everything. I don’t belong here, Ethan. And you do.
So now I’m one of them. Is that what you’re saying?
She closed her eyes and I could almost see her thoughts, tangled up in her mind.
I’m not saying you’re like them, but you are one of them. This is where you’ve lived your whole life. And after this is all over, after I’m Claimed, you’re still going to be here. You’re going to have to walk down these halls and those streets again, and I probably won’t be there. But you will, for who knows how long, and you said it yourself—people in Gatlin never forget anything.
Two years.
What?
That’s how long I’ll be here.
Two years is a long time to be invisible. Trust me, I know.
For a minute, neither of us said anything. She just stood there, pulling shreds of paper from the wire spine of her notebook. “I’m tired of fighting it. I’m tired of trying to pretend I’m normal.”
“You can’t give up. Not now, not after everything. You can’t let them win.”
“They already have. They won the day I broke the window in English.”
There was something about her voice that told me she was giving up on more than just Jackson. “Are you breaking up with me?” I was holding my breath.
“Please don’t make this harder. It’s not what I want, either.”
Then don’t do it.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. It was like time had stopped again, the way it had at Thanksgiving dinner. Only this time, it wasn’t magic. It was the opposite of magic.
“I just think things will be easier this way. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” She looked up at me, her big green eyes sparkling with tears. Then she turned and fled down a hallway that was so quiet you could’ve heard a pencil drop.
Merry Christmas, Lena.
But there was nothing to hear. She was gone, and that wasn’t something I would have been ready for, not in fifty-three days, not in fifty-three years, not in fifty-three centuries.
Fifty-three minutes later, I sat alone, staring out the window, which was a statement right there, considering how crowded the lunchroom was. Gatlin was gray; the clouds had drifted in. I wouldn’t call it a storm, exactly; it hadn’t snowed in years. If we were lucky, we got a flurry or two, maybe once a year. But it hadn’t snowed a single day since I was twelve.
I wished it would snow. I wished I could hit rewind and be back in the hallway with Lena. I wished I could tell her I didn’t care if everyone in this town hated me, because it didn’t matter. I was lost before I found her in my dreams, and she found me that day in the rain. I knew it seemed like I was always the one trying to save Lena, but the truth was she had saved me, and I wasn’t ready for her to stop now.
“Hey, man.” Link slid onto the bench across from me at the empty table. “Where’s Lena? I wanted to thank her.”
“For what?”
Link pulled a piece of folded notebook paper out of his pocket. “She wrote me a song. Pretty cool, huh?” I couldn’t even look at it. She was talking to Link, just not to me.
Link grabbed a slice of my untouched pizza. “Listen, I got a favor to ask you.”
“Sure. What do you need?”
“Ridley and I are goin’ up to New York over break. If anyone asks, I’m at church camp in Savannah, far as you know.”
“There’s no church camp in Savannah.”
“Yeah, but my mom doesn’t know that. I told her I signed up because they have some kind of Baptist rock band.”
“And she believed that?”
“She’s been actin’ a little weird lately, but what do I care. She said I co
uld go.”
“It doesn’t matter what your mom said, you can’t go. There are things you don’t know about Ridley. She’s… dangerous. Stuff could happen to you.”
His eyes lit up. I had never seen Link like this. Then again, I hadn’t seen him too much lately. I’d been spending all my time with Lena, or thinking about Lena, the Book, her birthday. The stuff my world revolved around now, or did, until an hour ago.
“That’s what I’m hopin’. Besides, I got it bad for that girl. She really does somethin’ to me, ya know?” He took the last slice of pizza off my tray.
For a second I considered telling Link everything, just like the old days—about Lena and her family, Ridley, Genevieve, and Ethan Carter Wate. Link had known everything in the beginning, but I didn’t know if he would believe the rest, or if he could. Some things were just asking too much, even from your best friend. Right now I couldn’t risk losing Link, too, but I had to do something. I couldn’t let him go to New York, or anywhere else, with Ridley. “Listen man, you’ve gotta trust me. Don’t get mixed up with her. She’s just using you. You’re gonna get hurt.”
He crushed a Coke can in his hand. “Oh, I get it. If the hottest girl in town is hangin’ out with me, she must be usin’ me? I guess you think you’re the only one who can pull a hot chick. When did you get so full of yourself?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
Link got up. “I think we both know what you’re sayin’. Forget I asked.”
It was too late. Ridley had already gotten to him. Nothing I said was going to change his mind. And I couldn’t lose my girlfriend and my best friend in the same day. “Listen, I didn’t mean it like that. I won’t say anything, not like your mom is speaking to me anyway.”
“It’s cool. It’s gotta be hard to have a best friend who’s good lookin’ and as talented as me.” Link took the cookie off my tray and broke it in half. It might as well have been the dirty Twinkie off the floor of the bus. It was over. It would take a lot more than a girl, even a Siren, to come between us.
Emily was eyeing him. “You’d better go before Emily rats you out to your mom. Then you won’t be going to any church camp, real or imaginary.”
“I’m not worried about her.” But he was. He didn’t want to be stuck in the house with his mom the whole winter break. And he didn’t want to be frozen out by the team, by everyone at Jackson, even if he was too stupid or too loyal to realize it.
On Monday, I helped Amma bring the boxes of holiday decorations down from the attic. The dust made my eyes water; at least, that’s what I told myself. I found a whole little town, lit by little white lights, that my Mom used to lay out every year under the Christmas tree, on a piece of cotton we pretended was snow. The houses were her grandmother’s, and she had loved them so much that I had loved them, even though they were made of flimsy cardboard, glue, and glitter, and half the time they fell over when I tried to stand them up. “Old things are better than new things, because they’ve got stories in them, Ethan.” She would hold up an old tin car and say, “Imagine my great-grandmother playing with this same car, arranging this same town under her tree, just like we are now.”
I hadn’t seen the town since, when? Since I’d seen my mom, at least. It looked smaller than before, the cardboard more warped and tattered. I couldn’t find the people in any of the boxes, or even the animals. The town looked lonely, and it made me sad. Somehow the magic was gone, without her. I found myself reaching for Lena, in spite of everything.
Everything’s missing. The boxes are there, but it’s all wrong. She’s not here. It’s not even a town anymore. And she’s never going to meet you.
But there was no response. Lena had vanished, or banished me. I didn’t know which was worse. I really was alone, and the only thing worse than being alone was having everyone else see how lonely you were. So I went to the only place in town where I knew I wouldn’t run into anyone. The Gatlin County Library.
“Aunt Marian?”
The library was freezing, and completely empty, as usual. After the way the Disciplinary Committee meeting had gone, I was guessing Marian hadn’t had any visitors.
“I’m back here.” She was sitting on the floor in her overcoat, waist high amidst a pile of open books, as if they had just fallen off the shelves around her. She was holding a book, reading aloud, in one of her familiar book-trances.
“‘We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His Sun-shine, and His showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.
The Darling of the world is come…’”
She closed the book. “Robert Herrick. It’s a Christmas carol, sung for the king at Whitehall Palace.” She sounded as far away as Lena had been lately, and I felt now.
“Sorry, don’t know the guy.” It was so cold I could see her breath when she spoke.
“Who does it remind you of? Turning the ground to flowers, the darling of the world.”
“You mean Lena? I bet Mrs. Lincoln would have something to say about that.” I sat down next to Marian, scattering books in the aisle.
“Mrs. Lincoln. What a sad creature.” She shook her head, and pulled out another book. “Dickens thinks Christmas is a time for people ‘to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures.’”
“Is the heater broken? Do you want me to call Gatlin Electric?”
“I never turned it on. I guess I got distracted.” She tossed the book back onto the pile surrounding her. “Pity Dickens never came to Gatlin. We’ve got more than our share of shut-up hearts around here.”
I picked up a book. Richard Wilbur. I opened it, burying my face in the smell of the pages. I glanced at the words. “‘What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you.’” Weird, that was exactly how I was feeling. I snapped the book shut and looked at Marian.
“Thanks for coming to the meeting, Aunt Marian. I hope it didn’t make trouble for you. I feel like it was all my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Feels like it was.” I tossed the book down.
“What, now you’re the author of all ignorance? You taught Mrs. Lincoln to hate, and Mr. Hollingsworth to fear?”
We both just sat there, surrounded by a mountain of books. She reached over and squeezed my hand. “This battle didn’t start with you, Ethan. It won’t end with you either, I’m afraid, or me, for that matter.” Her face grew serious. “When I walked in this morning, these books were in a pile on the floor. I don’t know how they got there, or why. I locked the doors when I left last night, and they were still locked this morning. All I know is, I sat down to look through them, and every single book, every one of them, had some kind of message for me about this moment, in this town, right now. About Lena, you, even me.”
I shook my head. “It’s a coincidence. Books are like that.”
She plucked a random book out of the pile and handed it to me. “You try. Open it.”
I took the book from her hand. “What is it?”
“Shakespeare. Julius Caesar.”
I opened it, and began to read.
“‘Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’
“What does that have to do with me?”
Marian peered at me, over her glasses. “I’m just the librarian. I can only give you the books. I can’t give you the answers.” But she smiled, all the same. “The thing about fate is, are you the master of your fate, or are the stars?”
“Are you talking about Lena, or Julius Caesar? Because I hate to break it to you, but I never read the play.”
“You tell me.”
We spent the rest of the hour going through the pile, taking turns reading to each other. Finally, I knew why I had come. “Aunt Marian, I think I need to go back into the archive.”
“Today? Don’t you have things you need to be doing? Holiday shopping at least?”
“I don’t shop.”
“Spoken wisely. As for myself, ‘I do like Christmas on the whole…. In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier every year.’”
“More Dickens?”
“E. M. Forster.”
I sighed. “I can’t explain it. I think I need to be with my mom.”
“I know. I miss her, too.” I hadn’t really thought about what I would say to Marian about how I was feeling. About the town, and how everything was wrong. Now the words seemed stuck in my throat, like another person was stumbling through them. “I just thought, if I could be around her books, maybe I could feel how it was before. Maybe I could talk to her. I tried to go to the graveyard once, but it didn’t make me feel like she was there, in the ground.” I stared at a random speck on the carpet.
“I know.”
“I still can’t think about her being there. It doesn’t make sense. Why would you stick someone you love down in a lonely old hole in the dirt? Where it’s cold, and dirty, and full of bugs? That can’t be how it ends, after everything, after everything she was.” I tried not to think about it, her body turning into bone and mud and dust down there. I hated the idea that she had to go through it alone, like I was going through everything alone now.
“How do you want it to end?” Marian laid her hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t know. I should, somebody should build her a monument or something.”
“Like the General? Your mom would have had a good laugh about that.” Marian pulled her arm around me. “I know what you mean. She’s not there, she’s here.”
She held out her hand, and I pulled her up. We held hands all the way back to the archive, as if I was still a kid she was babysitting while my mom was at work in the back. She pulled out a thick ring of keys and opened the door. She didn’t follow me inside.
Back in the archive, I sank into the chair in front of my mom’s desk. My mom’s chair. It was wooden, and bore the insignia of Duke University. I think they had given it to her for graduating with honors, or something like that. It wasn’t comfortable, but comforting, and familiar. I smelled the old varnish, the same varnish I’d probably chewed on as a baby, and right away I felt better than I had in months. I could breathe in the smell of the stacks of books wrapped in crackling plastic, the old crumbling parchment, the dust and the cheap file cabinets. I could breathe in the particular air of the particular atmosphere of my mother’s very particular planet. To me, it was the same as if I was seven years old, sitting in her lap, burying my face in her shoulder.