As I sat there, listening to Amma’s pencil scratching, and my dad’s scratchy old holiday record, something caught my eye. It was small and dark, and snagged in a fold, between layers of the cotton snow. It was a star, about the size of a penny, painted silver and gold, and surrounded by a twisted halo made of what looked like a paper clip. It was from the town’s pipe-cleaner Christmas tree, which we hadn’t been able to find in years. My mom had made it in school, as a little girl in Savannah.
I put it in my pocket. I’d give it to Lena next time I saw her, for her charm necklace, for safekeeping. So it didn’t get lost again. So I didn’t get lost again.
My mom would have liked that. Would like that. Just like she would have liked Lena—or maybe even, did.
Claim yourself.
The answer had been in front of us, all along. It was just locked away with all the books in my father’s study, stuck between the pages of my mother’s cookbook.
Snagged a little in the dusty snow.
1.12
Promise
There was something in the air. Usually, when you heard that, there wasn’t really something in the air. But the closer it got to Lena’s birthday, the more I had to wonder. When we came back from winter break, the halls had been tagged with spray paint, covering the lockers and walls. Only it wasn’t the usual graffiti; the words didn’t even look like English. You wouldn’t have thought they were words at all, unless you had seen The Book of Moons.
A week later, every window in our English classroom was busted out. Again, it could have been the wind, except there wasn’t even a breeze. How could the wind target a single classroom, anyway?
Now that I wasn’t playing basketball, I had to take P.E. for the rest of the year, by far the worst class at Jackson. After an hour of timed sprints and rope burn from climbing a knotted rope to the gym ceiling, I got back to my locker to find the door open and my papers scattered all over the hall. My backpack was gone. Though Link found it a few hours later, dumped in a trashcan outside the gym, I had learned my lesson. Jackson High was no place for The Book of Moons.
From then on, we kept the Book in my closet. I waited for Amma to discover it, to say something, to cover my room with salt, but she never did. I had pored over the old leather book, with and without Lena, using my mom’s battered Latin dictionary, for the past six weeks. Amma’s oven mitts helped me keep the burns to a minimum. There were hundreds of Casts, and only a few of them were in English. The rest were written in languages I couldn’t read, and the Caster language we couldn’t hope to decipher. As we grew more familiar with the pages, Lena grew more restless.
“Claim yourself. That doesn’t even mean anything.”
“Of course it does.”
“None of the chapters say anything about it. It’s not in any description of the Claiming in the Book.”
“We just have to keep looking. It’s not like we’re going to read it in the Cliff Notes.” The Book of Moons had to have the answer, if we could just find it. We couldn’t think about anything else, except the fact that a month from now we could lose it all.
At night, we stayed up late talking, from our respective beds, because even now, every night seemed closer to the night that could be our last.
What are you thinking, L?
Do you really want to know?
I always want to know.
Did I? I stared at the creased map on my wall, the thin green line connecting all the places I had read about. There they were, all the cities of my imaginary future, held together with tape and marker and pins. In six months, a lot had changed. There was no thin green line that could lead me to my future anymore. Just a girl.
But now, her voice was small, and I had to strain to hear her.
There’s a part of me that wishes we’d never met.
You’re kidding, right?
She didn’t answer. Not right away.
It just makes everything so much harder. I thought I had a lot to lose before, but now I have you.
I know what you mean.
I knocked the shade off the lamp next to my bed and stared straight into the bulb. If I stared right at it, the brightness would sting my eyes and keep me from crying.
And I could lose you.
That’s not gonna happen, L.
She was quiet. My eyes were temporarily blinded by swirls and streaks of light. I couldn’t even see the blue of my bedroom ceiling, though I was staring right at it.
Promise?
I promise.
It was a promise she knew I might not be able to keep. But I made it anyway because I was going to find a way to make it true.
I burned my hand as I tried to turn out the light.
2.04
The Sandman or Something Like Him
Lena’s birthday was in a week.
Seven days.
One hundred and sixty-eight hours.
Ten thousand and eight seconds.
Claim yourself.
Lena and I were exhausted, but we ditched school anyway to spend the day with The Book of Moons. I had become an expert at Amma’s signature, and Miss Hester wouldn’t dare to ask Lena for a note from Macon Ravenwood. It was a cold, clear day, and we curled together in the freezing garden at Greenbrier, huddled under the old sleeping bag from the Beater, trying to figure out for the thousandth time if anything in the Book could help.
I could tell Lena was starting to give up. Her ceiling was completely covered in Sharpie, wallpapered with the words she couldn’t say and thoughts she was too scared to express.
darkfire, lightdark / dark matter, what matters? the great darkness swallows the great light, as they swallow my life / caster/girl super/natural before/first sight seven days seven days seven days 777777777777777.
I couldn’t blame her. It did seem pretty hopeless, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I never would be. Lena slumped against the old stone wall, crumbling like what little chance we had left. “This is impossible. There are too many Casts. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
There were Casts for every conceivable purpose: Blinding the Unfaithful, Bringing Forth Water from the Sea, Binding the Runes.
But nothing that said Cast to Uncurse Your Family from a Dark Binding, or Cast to Undo the Act of Trying to Bring Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandmother Genevieve’s War Hero Back to Life, or Cast to Avoid Going Dark at Your Claiming. Or the one I was really looking for—Cast to Save Your Girlfriend (Now That You Finally Have One) Before It’s Too Late.
I turned back to the Table of Contents: OBSECRATIONES, INCANTAMINA, NECTENTES, MALEDICENTES, MALEFICIA.
“Don’t worry, L. We’ll figure it out.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t so sure.
The longer the Book stayed on the top shelf of my closet, the more I felt like my room was becoming haunted. It was happening to both of us, every night; the dreams, which felt more like nightmares, were getting worse. I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours in days. Every time I closed my eyes, every time I fell asleep, they were there. Waiting. But even worse, it was the same nightmare replayed again and again in a constant loop. Every night, I lost Lena over and over again, and it was killing me.
My only strategy was to stay awake. Jacked up on sugar and caffeine from drinking Coke and Red Bull, playing video games. Reading everything from Heart of Darkness to my favorite issue of Silver Surfer, the one where Galactus swallows the universe, over and over. But as anyone who hasn’t slept in days knows, by the third or fourth night you’re so tired you could fall asleep standing up.
Even Galactus didn’t stand a chance.
Burning.
There was fire everywhere.
And smoke. I choked on the smoke and ash. It was pitch-black, impossible to see. And the heat was like sandpaper scraping against my skin.
I couldn’t hear anything except the roar of the fire.
I couldn’t even hear Lena screaming, except in my head.
Let go! You have to get out!
I could feel
the bones in my wrist snapping, like tiny guitar strings breaking one by one. She let go of my wrist like she was preparing for me to release her, but I’d never let go.
Don’t do that, L! Don’t you let go!
Let me go! Please… save yourself!
I’d never let go.
But I could feel her sliding through my fingers. I tried to hold on tighter, but she was slipping….
I bolted upright in bed, coughing. It was so real, I could taste the smoke. But my room wasn’t hot; it was cold. My window was open again. The moonlight allowed my eyes to adjust more quickly than usual to the darkness.
I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Something was moving, in the shadows.
There was someone in my room.
“Holy crap!”
He tried to get out before I noticed him, but he wasn’t fast enough. He knew I’d seen him. So he did the only thing he could do. He turned to face me.
“Although I myself don’t consider it particularly holy, who am I to correct you after such an ungraceful exit?” Macon smiled his Cary Grant smile and approached the end of my bed. He was wearing a long black coat and dark slacks. He looked like he was dressed for some kind of turn-of-the-century night on the town, instead of a modern-day breaking and entering. “Hello, Ethan.”
“What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?”
He seemed at a loss, for Macon, which just meant he didn’t have an immediate and charming explanation on the tip of his tongue. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, uncomplicate it. Because you climbed in my window in the middle of the night, so either you’re some kind of vampire or some kind of perv, or both. Which is it?”
“Mortals, everything is so black and white to you. I’m not a Hunter, nor a Harmer. You would be confusing me with my brother, Hunting. Blood doesn’t interest me.” He shuddered at the thought. “Neither blood nor flesh.” He lit a cigar, rolling it between his fingers. Amma was going to have a fit when she smelled that tomorrow. “In fact, it all makes me a bit squeamish.”
I was losing my patience. I hadn’t slept in days and I was tired of everyone dodging my questions all the time. I wanted answers, and I wanted them now. “I’ve had enough of your riddles. Answer the question. What are you doing in my room?”
He walked over to the cheap swivel chair next to my desk and sat down in one sweeping movement. “Let’s just say I was eavesdropping.”
I picked up the old Jackson High basketball T-shirt balled up on the floor and pulled it over my head. “Eavesdropping on what, exactly? There’s no one here. I was sleeping.”
“No, actually you were dreaming.”
“How do you know that? Is that one of your Caster powers?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m not a Caster, not technically.”
My breath caught in my throat. Macon Ravenwood never left his house during the day; he could make himself appear out of nowhere, watch people through the eyes of his wolf that masqueraded as a dog, and nearly squeeze the life out of a Dark Caster without flinching. If he wasn’t a Caster, then there was only one explanation.
“So you are a vampire.”
“I most certainly am not.” He looked annoyed. “That’s such a common phrase, such a cliché, and so unflattering. There are no such things as vampires. I suppose you believe in werewolves and aliens, too. I blame television.” He inhaled deeply from his cigar. “I hate to disappoint you. I’m an Incubus. I’m sure it was just a matter of time before Amarie told you herself, since she seems so intent on revealing all my secrets.”
An Incubus? I didn’t even know if I should be scared. I must have looked confused, because Macon felt compelled to elaborate. “By nature, gentlemen like myself do have certain powers, but those powers are only relative to our strength, which we must replenish regularly.” There was something disturbing about the way he said replenish.
“What do you mean by replenish?”
“We feed, for lack of a better word, on Mortals to replenish our strength.”
The room started to sway. Or maybe Macon was swaying.
“Ethan, sit down. You look absolutely pallid.” Macon strode over and guided me to the edge of the bed. “As I said, I use the word ‘feed’ for lack of a better term. Only a Blood Incubus feeds on Mortal blood, and I am not a Blood Incubus. Although we are both Lilum—those who dwell in the Absolute Darkness—I am something entirely more evolved. I take something you Mortals have in abundance, something you don’t even need.”
“What?”
“Dreams. Fragmented bits and pieces. Ideas, desires, fears, memories—nothing you miss.” The words came rolling out of his mouth as if he was speaking a charm. I found myself struggling to process them, trying to understand what he was saying. My mind felt like it was wrapped in thick wool.
But then, I understood. I could feel the pieces clicking together like a puzzle in my mind. “The dreams—you’ve been taking part of them? Sucking them out of my head? That’s the reason I can’t remember the whole dream?”
He smiled and stubbed his cigar out on an empty Coke can on my desk. “Guilty as charged. Except for the ‘sucking.’ Not the most polite phraseology.”
“If you’re the one sucking—stealing my dreams, then you know the rest. You know what happens, in the end. You can tell us, so we can stop it.”
“I’m afraid not. I selected the bits and pieces I took rather intentionally.”
“Why don’t you want us to know what happens? If we know the rest of the dream, maybe we can stop it from happening.”
“It seems you know too much already, not that I understand it completely myself.”
“Stop talking in riddles for once. You keep saying I can protect Lena, that I have power. Why don’t you tell me what the hell is really going on, Mr. Ravenwood, because I’m tired, and I’m sick of being jerked around.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, son. You’re a bit of a mystery.”
“I’m not your son.”
“Melchizedek Ravenwood!” Amma’s voice rang out like a bell.
Macon started losing his composure.
“How dare you come into this house without my permission!” She was standing in her bathrobe holding a long rope of beads. If I didn’t know better I’d have thought it was a necklace. Amma shook the beaded charm angrily in her fist. “We have an agreement. This house is off-limits. You find somewhere else to do your dirty business.”
“It’s not that simple, Amarie. The boy is seeing things in his dreams, things that are dangerous for both of them.”
Amma’s eyes were wild. “Are you feedin’ offa my boy? Is that what you’re sayin’? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Calm down. Don’t be so literal. I am merely doing what is necessary to protect them both.”
“I know what you do and what you are, Melchizedek, and you will deal with the Devil in due time. Don’t you bring that evil into my house.”
“I made a choice long ago, Amarie. I’ve fought what I was destined to be. I fight it every night of my life. But I am not Dark, not as long as I have the child to concern me.”
“Doesn’t change what you are. That’s not a choice you get to make.”
Macon’s eyes narrowed. It was clear that the bargain between the two of them was a delicate one, and he had jeopardized it by coming here. How many times? I didn’t even know.
“Why don’t you just tell me what happens at the end of the dream? I have a right to know. It’s my dream.”
“It’s a powerful dream, a disturbing dream, and Lena doesn’t need to see it. She’s not ready to see it, and you two are so inexplicably connected. She sees what you see. So you can understand why I had to take it.”
The rage welled up inside me. I was so angry, angrier than when Mrs. Lincoln stood up and lied about Lena at the Disciplinary Committee meeting, angrier then when I found the pages and pages of scribble in my father’s study.
“No. I don’t understand. If you know some
thing that can help her, why won’t you tell us? Or just stop using your Jedi mind tricks on me and my dreams and let me see it for myself?”
“I am only trying to protect her. I love Lena, and I would never—”
“—I know, I’ve heard it. You’d never do anything to hurt her. What you forgot to say is that you won’t do anything to help her, either.”
His jaw tightened. Now he was the one who was angry; I knew how to recognize it now. But he didn’t break character, not even for a minute. “I am trying to protect her, Ethan, and you as well. I know you care for Lena, and you do offer her some sort of protection, but there are things you don’t see right now, things that are beyond any of our control. One day you will understand. You and Lena are just too different.”
A Species Apart. Just like the other Ethan wrote to Genevieve. I understood all right. Nothing had changed in over a hundred years.
His eyes softened. I thought maybe he pitied me, but it was something else. “Ultimately, it will be your burden to bear. It’s always the Mortal who bears it. Trust me, I know.”
“I don’t trust you and you’re wrong. We aren’t too different.”
“Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures.” He was talking to me, but it didn’t feel like he was talking about me anymore. “I apologize for the intrusion. I’ll leave you to your sleep.”
“Just stay out of my room, Mr. Ravenwood. And out of my head.”
He turned toward the door, which surprised me. I expected him to leave the way he had arrived.
“One more thing. Does Lena know what you are?”
He smiled. “Of course. We have no secrets between us.”