Beautiful Darkness

  Aunt Del let go of my hand.

  “Holy crap!” Link was way beyond remembering his manners in front of a lady. He was green, and stuck his head between his knees immediately, like he was coming in for a crash landing. I hadn’t seen him like that since the day after Savannah Snow dared him to drink an old bottle of peppermint schnapps.

  “I’m so sorry. I know it’s difficult to acclimate after a trip.” Aunt Del patted Link’s back. “You’re doing fine for your first time.”

  I didn’t have time to think about everything I’d seen. So I focused on one thing: She knew how to find it, without the star. John was talking about the Great Barrier. He thought my mom knew something about it, something she may have written in her journal. Liv and I must have been thinking the same thing, because we touched the old trunk at the same time.

  “It’s heavy. Be careful.” I started to pull it away from the wall. It felt like someone had filled it with bricks.

  Liv reached for the wall, working the board free. But she didn’t reach into the opening. I put my hand inside and immediately touched the battered leather. I pulled out the journal, feeling the weight of it in my hand. It was a piece of my mother. I flipped to the back. My mother’s delicate handwriting stared back at me from the front of the envelope.

  Macon

  I ripped it open, unfolding the single sheet.

  If you’re reading this, it means I wasn’t able to get to you in time to tell you myself. Things are much worse than any of us could have imagined. It may already be too late. But if there is a chance, you are the only one who will know how to prevent our worst fears from becoming reality.

  Abraham is alive. He’s been in hiding. And he’s not alone. Sarafine is with him, as devoted a disciple as your father.

  You have to stop them before we all run out of time.

  – LJ

  My eyes dragged across the bottom of the page. LJ. Lila Jane. I noticed something else—the date. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. March 21st. A month before my mother’s accident. Before she was murdered.

  Liv stepped away, sensing she was witnessing something private and painful. I flipped through the pages of the journal, looking for answers. There was another copy of the Ravenwood Family Tree. I’d seen it before in the archive, but this one looked different. Some of the names were crossed out.

  As I turned the pages, a loose paper slipped out and floated to the floor. I picked it up, unfolding the fragile sheet. It was vellum, thin and slightly transparent, like tracing paper. There were strange shapes penned on one side. Misshapen ovals, with dips and rises, as if a child were drawing clouds. I turned to Liv, holding the vellum open so she could see the shapes. She shook her head without a word. Neither one of us knew what it meant.

  I folded the delicate paper and replaced it in the journal, skipping ahead to the end. I turned to the last page. There was something else that didn’t make any sense, at least not to me.

  In Luce Caecae Caligines sunt,

  Et in Caliginibus, Lux.

  In Arcu imperium est,

  Et in imperio, Nox.

  Instinctively, I ripped out the page and shoved it in my pocket. My mother was dead because of the letter, and possibly what was written on these pages. They belonged with me now.

  “Ethan, are you all right?” Aunt Del’s voice was full of concern.

  I was so far from right I couldn’t remember what it felt like. I had to get out of this room, away from my mom’s past, out of my head.

  “Be right back.” I bolted down the stairs to the guest room and lay on the bed in my dirty clothes. I stared at the ceiling, painted sky blue, just like the one in my bedroom. Stupid bees. The joke was on them, and they didn’t even know.

  Or maybe on me.

  I was numb, the way you get when you try to feel everything at once. I might as well have been Aunt Del walking into this old house.

  Abraham Ravenwood wasn’t a piece of the past. He was alive, hiding in the shadows with Sarafine. My mother had known, and Sarafine had killed her because of it.

  My eyes were blurry. I wiped them, expecting tears, but there was nothing there. I squeezed my eyes shut, but when I opened them all I could see were colors and lights flashing by me, as if I was running. I saw bits and pieces—a wall, dented silver trash cans, cigarette butts. Whatever I’d experienced when I was staring into my bathroom mirror was happening again. I tried to get up, but I was too dizzy. The pieces kept flying by, finally slowing so my mind could catch up.

  I was in a room, a bedroom, maybe. It was hard to tell from where I was standing. The floor was gray concrete, and the white walls were covered in the same black designs I had seen on Lena’s hands. As I looked at them, they seemed to move.

  I scanned the room. She had to be here somewhere.

  “I feel so different from everyone else, even other Casters.” It was Lena’s voice. I looked up, following the sound.

  They were above me, lying on the black-painted ceiling. Lena and John were head to head, talking back and forth without looking at each other. They were staring at the floor the way I stared at my ceiling at night, when I couldn’t fall asleep. Lena’s hair fell around her shoulders, flat against the ceiling as if she was lying on the floor.

  It would seem impossible, if I hadn’t already seen it. Only this time, she wasn’t the only one on the ceiling. And I wasn’t there to pull her back down.

  “No one can explain my powers to me, not even my family. Because they don’t know.” She sounded miserable and far away. “And every day I wake up, and I can do things I couldn’t the day before.”

  “It’s the same for me. One day I woke up and thought about somewhere I wanted to go, and a second later I was there.” John was tossing something up in the air and catching it, over and over. Except he was tossing it toward the floor instead of the ceiling.

  “Are you saying that you didn’t know you could Travel?”

  “Not until I did it.” He closed his eyes, but he didn’t stop tossing the ball.

  “What about your parents? Did they know?”

  “I never knew my parents. They took off when I was little. Even Supernaturals know a freak when they see one.” If he was lying, I couldn’t tell. His voice was bitter and hurt, which sounded genuine to me.

  Lena rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow so she could see him. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful. At least I had my gramma to take care of me.” She looked at the ball and it froze in midair. “Now I don’t have anyone.”

  The ball dropped to the floor. It bounced a few times and rolled under the bed. John turned to look at her. “You have Ridley. And me.”

  “Trust me, once you get to know me, you won’t be able to get away fast enough.”

  They were only inches apart now. “You’re wrong. I know what it’s like to feel alone even when you’re with other people.”

  She didn’t say anything. Is that what it was like when she was with me? Did she feel alone even when we were together? When she was in my arms?

  “L?” I felt sick when he said it. “When we get to the Great Barrier, it’s gonna be different, I promise.”

  “Most people say it doesn’t exist.”

  “That’s because they don’t know how to find it. You can only get there through the Tunnels. I’m going to take you there.” He lifted her chin so she could see into his eyes. “I know you’re scared. But you have me, if you want me.”

  Lena looked away, wiping one of her eyes with the back of her hand. I could see the black designs, which looked darker now. Less like Sharpie and more like Ridley’s and John’s tattoos. She was staring right at me, but she couldn’t see me. “I have to make sure I can’t hurt anyone else. It doesn’t matter what I want.”

  “It matters to me.” John ran his thumb under her eye, catching her tears, leaning closer to her. “You can trust me. I’d never hurt you.” He pulled her to his chest, her head resting on his shoulder.

  Can I?

/>   I couldn’t hear anything else, and it became harder to see her, like I was zooming out somehow. I blinked hard, trying to stay focused, but when I opened my eyes again, all I could see was the swirling blue ceiling. I turned on my side, facing the wall.

  I was back in Aunt Caroline’s room, and they were gone. Together, wherever they were.

  Lena was moving on. She was opening up to John, and he was reaching a part of her I thought was gone. Maybe I was never meant to reach it.

  Macon had lived in the Dark, and my mom in the Light.

  Maybe we weren’t meant to find a way that Mortals and Casters could be together, because we weren’t meant to be.

  Someone knocked on the door, even though it was open. “Ethan? Are you okay?” Liv. Her footsteps were quiet, but I could hear them. I didn’t move.

  The edge of the bed sank a little when she sat down. I felt her hand as she rubbed the back of my head. It was soothing and familiar, as if she’d done it a thousand times. That was the thing about Liv—it was like I’d known her forever. She always seemed to sense what I needed, as if she knew things I didn’t even know about myself.

  “Ethan, it’s going to be okay. We’ll figure out what it all means, I promise.” I knew she meant it.

  I rolled over. The sun had set, and the room was dark. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. But I could make out her silhouette as she stared down at me.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to get involved.”

  “I’m not. It’s the first thing Professor Ashcroft taught me.” She paused. “But I can’t help it.”

  “I know.”

  We stared at each other in the darkness, her hand resting against my jaw, where it had fallen when I rolled over. But I was really seeing her, the possibility of her, for the first time. I felt something. There was no denying it, and Liv felt it, too. I could tell every time she looked at me.

  Liv slid down and curled up against me, leaning her head on my shoulder.

  My mom found a way to move on after Macon. She had fallen in love with my dad, which seemed to prove you could lose the love of your life and fall in love all over again.

  Didn’t it?

  I heard a quiet whisper, not from inside my heart but a breath away from my ear. Liv leaned closer. “You’ll figure this out, like everything else. Besides, you have something most Waywards don’t have.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “An excellent Keeper.”

  I slid my hand to the back of Liv’s neck. Honeysuckle and soap—that’s what she smelled like.

  “Is that why you came? Because I needed a Keeper?”

  She didn’t answer right away. I could sense her trying to work it out in her mind. How much she should say, what she should risk. I knew that’s what she was doing, because I was doing the same thing.

  “It’s not the only reason, but it should be.”

  “Because you aren’t supposed to get involved?”

  I could feel her heart beating against my chest. She fit under my shoulder perfectly.

  “Because I don’t want to get hurt.” She was scared, but not of Dark Casters or mutant Incubuses or golden eyes. She was afraid of something simpler but equally dangerous. Smaller but infinitely more powerful.

  I pulled her closer. “Me neither.” Because I was afraid of it, too.

  We didn’t say anything else. I held her close, and I thought about all the ways a person could get hurt. The ways I could hurt her and hurt myself. Those two things were intertwined somehow. It’s hard to explain, but when you were as closed off as I was the past few months, opening up felt about as wrong as stripping naked in church.

  Hearts will go and Stars will follow, One is broken, One is hollow.

  That had been our song, Lena’s and mine. And I had been broken. Did that mean I had to stay hollow? Or was there something different out there for me? Maybe a whole new song?

  Some Pink Floyd, for a change? Hollow laughter in marble halls.

  I smiled in the darkness, listening to the rhythmic sound of her breathing until it softened into sleep. I was exhausted. Even though we were back in the Mortal world, it still felt as if I was part of the Caster world, and Gatlin was unbelievably far away. I couldn’t make sense of how I had gotten to this place any more than I could measure the miles I had come or the distance I still had to go.

  I drifted into oblivion not knowing what I would do when I got there.

  6.19

  Bonaventure

  I was running, being chased. Scrambling over hedges and skidding across empty streets and backyards. The one constant was the adrenaline. There was no stopping.

  Then I saw the Harley, driving straight at me, the lights getting closer and closer. They weren’t yellow but green, flashing in my eyes so bright I had to cover my face with my hands.…

  I woke up. All I could see was green, flashing on and off.

  I didn’t know where I was, until I realized the green glow was coming from the Arclight, now lit up like the Fourth of July. It was on the mattress, where it must have rolled out of my pocket. Only the mattress looked different, and the light was flashing out of control.

  I remembered slowly—the stars, the Tunnels, the attic, the guest room. Then I realized why the mattress looked different.

  Liv was gone.

  It didn’t take long to figure out where Liv was. “Do you ever sleep?”

  “Not as much as you do, apparently.” As usual, Liv didn’t look up from her telescope, though this one was aluminum and much smaller than the one she kept on Marian’s porch.

  I sat down next to her on the back step. The yard was as calm as my aunt herself, a quiet patch of green spreading underneath a broad magnolia tree. “What are you doing up?”

  “I got a wake-up call.” I tried to sound casual, instead of how I actually felt. Awkward. I motioned at the guest room window on the second floor. Even from down here, you could see pulsing green light shining through the glass panes.

  “Strange. I suppose I got one as well. Take a look through the celestron.” She handed me the miniature scope. It looked like a flashlight except for the large lens fitted to one end.

  Our hands touched as I took it. Not so much as a shock.

  “Did you make this, too?”

  She smiled. “Professor Ashcroft gave it to me. Now stop talking and look. There.” She pointed right over the magnolia, which to my Mortal eye looked like a dark expanse of starless sky.

  I fitted the scope to my eye. Now the sky over the tree was streaked with light, a kind of ghostly aura trailing toward the ground not far from us. “What is that, a falling star? Do falling stars leave trails like that?”

  “It might. If it was a falling star.”

  “How do you know it’s not?”

  She tapped the scope. “It might be falling, but it’s a Caster star falling in the Caster sky, remember? Otherwise we could see it without the scope.”

  “Is that what your crazy watch is saying?”

  She picked it up from the step next to her. “I’m not sure what it’s saying. I thought it was broken until I saw the sky.”

  The Arclight was still flashing in the window, a constant green strobe light.

  I remembered something from my dream. It felt as if the Harley was headed right at me. “We can’t stay here. Something’s happening.” Something here in Savannah.

  Liv strapped her selenometer back onto her wrist. “Whatever it is seems to be happening over there.” She dropped the scope into her backpack and pointed into the distance. It was time to go.

  I held out my hand, but she pulled herself to her feet. “You wake up Link. I’ll get my things.”

  “I still don’t see why this couldn’t wait until mornin’.” Link was grouchy, and his spiky hair was sticking up everywhere.

  “Does this thing look like it could wait until morning?” The Arclight was so bright now, it lit up the whole street in front of us.

  “Can you put it on a lower setting or so
methin’? Switch off the high beams already.” Link shielded his eyes.

  “I don’t think it’s working.” I shook the Arclight, but the flashing green light didn’t stop.

  “Man, you broke the Magic 8 Ball.”

  “I didn’t break it. I—” I gave up, jamming it into my pocket. “Yeah, it’s pretty much broken.” The light was shining through my jeans.

  “It’s possible some sort of Caster power surge triggered it and shifted the normal balance of how the Arclight functions.” Liv was intrigued.

  Link wasn’t. “Like an alarm? That’s not good.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s never good when Commissioner Gordon activates the Bat-Signal. When the Fantastic Four see the number four in the sky.”

  “I get the idea.”

  “Yeah? Can you get one that gets us where we’re tryin’ to go, since Ethan broke the 8 Ball?”

  Liv consulted her selenometer and started walking. “I can get us to the general area where the star fell.” She looked at me. “I mean, if it was a star. But Link might be right. I don’t know exactly where we’re going, or what we’ll find when we get there.”

  “Almost makes a guy wish he had his own pair of garden shears,” I said, following Liv down the street.

  “Speakin’ a things that aren’t normal, look who’s here.” Link pointed to the curb in front of a house with red shutters. Lucille was sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, staring at us as if we were holding her up. “Told you she’d come back.”

  Lucille licked her brown paws sulkily, waiting.

  “Couldn’t live without me, could you, girl? I have that effect on women.” Link grinned, scratching her head. She batted his fingers away.