Autumn Falls (16 page)

“But I’m not sure I can do that,” I admit. “It’s part of my dad.” Throwing out the journal would be like severing a connection to him.

“You don’t know that, remember?” Jenna reminds me. “That’s just what Eddy said.”

“I know, but that’s how it feels,” I say, swallowing. “When I write in it, I write to him.”

“Okay … okay …”

I can picture her pacing around the circular rug in her room, as if it’s a mini running track.

“You need to go see Eddy,” she finally says. “I know we’ve talked about it before, and I know she’s nuts, but this is serious now. You have to find out if she knows anything that can help.”

I don’t relish the idea of going back to Century Acres, but Jenna’s right, so I reluctantly promise her I’ll go tomorrow after school.

After I hang up I stare at the journal a long time before I fall asleep.

“Brave woman,” J.J. says as I fall into step with him the next morning.

“What do you mean?”

He raises an eyebrow, and I remember the
Winter of My Discontent
site. I’ve been so upset about the horror I did do that I haven’t thought about the horror I didn’t.

“Still bad?” I ask.

“By the end of the day, a few wise souls wondered how you could possibly know a lifetime’s worth of dirt about people you met a couple months ago.”

“Mmmm, you think?” I say sarcastically. “Thank you.”

“But they were vastly outnumbered by idiots with the opposite opinion, many of whom swore they saw you spying on people and taking notes every day at track practice.”

I turn to stare at him. “I wasn’t taking notes, I was watching Sean!”

“Which I mentioned when I was in earshot,” he says. “I don’t know, maybe it’ll be better today. Everyone has something else to talk about.”

We’re walking through the parking lot now, and we see Reenzie. She’s in the passenger seat of Sean’s SUV, which he pulled up to the curb. Her door is open, and she dangles sideways on the seat. Her right leg is in a purple cast that goes all the way up to the middle of her thigh.

“Seriously?” I ask. “She was in the emergency room last night. How is she at school today?”

J.J. snorts. “Are you kidding? She’s in paradise. There’s even a Twitter account devoted to her cast.”

There’s a huge crowd gathered around Sean’s car. They all gape as Reenzie slowly scoots to the edge of her seat. She waits, wincing, as Sean yanks out a pair of crutches.
He brings them around to her and holds them while she eases herself out of the car and onto her good foot.

A crowd of gawkers surrounds Reenzie, pelting her with questions and looking generally amazed that she’s actually standing in their presence. I watch as Sean parks his car, then walks over with his backpack as well as Reenzie’s metallic-and-canvas tote bag, which, of course, he carries for her, proving that he is a gentleman. J.J. and I wait until they’re all inside so we won’t have to squeeze past, then head in ourselves. Jack and Amalita are right there and immediately stop me from apologizing about the website.

“We know it wasn’t you,” Jack says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And if you really must know—”

“Some things are better left unsaid,” Amalita cuts him off, giving me a smile that reminds me that I do have friends here. I can get through this.

It’s so good and normal hanging out with my friends that I can almost forget that the rest of the school hates me. Until I walk down to homeroom and once again become a human pinball. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that I’m so used to the hiss of expletives I barely hear them.

Sean smiles, but no one else even looks at me. All eyes are still on Reenzie, tucked into a desk in the back, her purple-cast-covered leg thrust out to the side.

I sit across the room and surreptitiously watch her all through homeroom. She looks terrible. Beautiful, of course, but pale and glazed over. A cynical part of me
wonders how much of that is for show, but even if she’s playing it up, she still has to be in terrible pain.

And it’s my fault. I did that to her.

When homeroom ends, Sean carries her bag while Reenzie crutches her way to the bathroom. I follow. Sean doesn’t notice me until she’s through the door and he’s alone.

“Oh, hey.” He looks as though he wants to say something but now’s not a good time.

“Hey,” I say. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

I slip into the bathroom and hang by the sinks. I can see one of the stall doors is closed, and I try to imagine the mechanics of handling everything with one leg fully extended. Should I try to help?

I wait.

It takes a long time, but eventually she comes out and crutches her way over to the sinks. She wrinkles her face when she sees me. I’m sure it looks weird that I’m just standing there, stalking her in the bathroom.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I just …” I gesture to her leg. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

My apology is clearly not welcome. “Why? You didn’t do it.”

There’s no good response to that, but I still feel like I should say more. I stand there while she washes her hands.

“You want to be sorry for something,” she says coldly, “you should be sorry for that website.
Winter of My Discontent
? Everyone knows it’s you.”

“It’s not me,” I say, trying to stay in control. “I have an idea who did it, but I can’t prove it. I will, though.”

“Good luck with that.”

She tries to hobble out of the room, but I plant myself in her way.

“What’s your deal with me, Reenzie?” I ask her flat out. “What did I do?”

Reenzie leans on her crutches until our faces are close. “Things just work better when everyone knows their place,” she says.

She lifts her left crutch and I think she’s going to smack me with it, but instead she reaches it past me and bangs it against the door, smashing it open.

I watch her hobble away with Sean, then pull out my phone and text Jenna. Just spoke to Reenzie, I write. Somehow not so upset about breaking her leg anymore.

Jenna doesn’t text back until lunch. Break well deserved but journal still rogue nuke. Talk to Eddy.

She’s right. Century Acres also has the benefit of being one place I won’t run into anyone trashed on “my” website. I take the bus there right after school. There’s no piano player in the lobby today, so I ask at the front desk if Eddy’s in her room.

“Honey, it’s four o’clock,” the attendant says. “She’s having dinner. The dining room’s down the hall and to the left.”

“Thanks.”

In the dining room, Eddy’s holding court. She’s at a
round table with six other white-haired women, all of whom watch her, entranced. Eddy’s on her feet, telling a story with her whole body, like she’s using sign language. Or doing a hula. She freezes when she notices me, then spreads her arms wide.

“Autumn! My beautiful granddaughter!” She waggles her fingers until I come close enough for her to hug me tight. Then she pulls my head down and kisses me on the lips. It disturbs me that this is more action than I get from Sean.

“Pull up a chair and sit,” Eddy says. “Have dessert.” She lowers her voice to a stage whisper and says, “Not the chocolate ice cream, though. They put sleeping pills in it. So we don’t bother the staff at night.”

The women all smile politely at me and then begin talking and eating again. “Actually, can I talk to you?” I ask my grandmother. “It’s kind of important.”

“You need me,
querida
, I’m here for you. Let’s go to my room.” She winks. “These people can’t keep a secret for anything.”

The group at the table murmurs good-byes as Eddy hooks her arm through mine and cuddles in close as we walk. She recites a steady stream of Real Housewives of Century Acres gossip until she’s settled in her favorite chair and I’ve closed the door to her room.

“Okay,
cariño
,” she says. “Now we talk about the journal.”

“How did you know that’s what I wanted to talk about?” I ask, incredulous.

“You wrote in it,
sí?
”

“Sí,”
I say.

“And something happened that maybe you didn’t expect?”

There’s a playful twinkle in her eyes. She doesn’t get it. “Not just that I didn’t expect. Eddy, I
hurt
someone.”

“With the book?”

“Yes!” I say frantically. “I could have killed her. Why didn’t you tell me what the journal could do?”

Eddy’s hands flutter nervously in her lap. “I didn’t know. I
don’t
know. I only know what Reinaldo told me. Taino magic, it’s not certain. I didn’t want to tell you something that wasn’t true.”

“Don’t worry about that,” I say, brushing that train of thought aside. “I want to know everything.”

“You have the book with you?”

I pull it out of my bag and give it to her. She smiles as she runs a hand over the cover. “This picture,” she says, “you know what it is?”

“It’s a face, right?”

“
Sí
, but not just a face. A three-point
zemi
. The Taino, the ancient people of Cuba, they believed the
zemi
held the spirits of ancestors, of the dead.”

“This is a
zemi
?” I ask. “This picture? You think it holds dead spirits?” The idea kind of freaks me out a little bit.

“Maybe a piece of a spirit,” Eddy says. “A guardian to help you through a difficult time. Some say I’m a little
chochea
.” She taps her head and raises an eyebrow. “But when I hold this book, I feel closer to Reinaldo. Don’t you?”

“I do,” I admit. “When I write in it, it’s to him.”

Eddy nods. “My husband’s family,” she says, “the Falcianos, they descend from the
bohiques
. These are Taino healers. They know how to reach the
mundo de los espíritus
, the spirit world. This ability, over the generations, it comes and it goes. Your grandfather had none of it, but Reinaldo … he was a true
bohique
. He knew the spirit world, and it told him things. It whispered secrets about the fate of his loved ones, and it told him he’d be joining them sooner than he’d have liked.”

“You said that before,” I remind her, “that he knew he was going to die.”

“You know the story,
sí?
Why he named you Autumn Falls?”

I nod. “My mom told me.”

“She told you what she knows, I tell you what I know.

Reinaldo told me that like that season, that bridge combining the extremes of summer and winter, his little girl would have a mission.
Un destino
. To help bring peace and harmony to the world.”

“My dad told you my mission is world peace?”

Eddy laughs. It’s a warm, cozy sound. “No,
querida
, not the way you’re thinking of it. Your
destino
is to bring peace and harmony to your own little corner of the world. That’s enough. That flows. The journal … well, Reinaldo hoped it would help you. And you tell me it works,
sí?
”

“Kind of,” I say, thinking about everything that’s happened since I’ve had the journal. “When I wish for something 
… when I actually use the words ‘I wish,’ the thing sort of happens. But a lot of it could be coincidence.”

Eddy is studying me closely. “You really believe that?”

I realize I’m biting my lip hard. I stop. “No.”

“Good,” she says, sounding pleased. “You shouldn’t. The journal brings you what you wish, but there are limits.”

“Like what?” I ask, moving closer to her.

“Reinaldo told me three things it cannot do,” she says. “There may be more, I don’t know.”

“What three things?”

“One,” she says, holding up a finger, “the journal cannot change history.”

“Which means it can’t bring someone back from the dead,” I say, not meeting her eyes.

Eddy smiles and puts her hand on my leg. “I’d have tried it too.
Immediatamente
.”

“What’s the second thing?”

“Nothing impossible. The journal won’t make you fly, it won’t let you walk through walls.”

That’s probably a blessing in disguise. “Got it,” I say. “And the third?”

“If it doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.”

I tilt my head. “I don’t get it. If it doesn’t work, how can that not mean it doesn’t work?”

“The journal is like a mule. It’s
obstinado
. You ask it to do something, sometimes it says no.”

She yawns, wide and long.

“Es tarde,”
she says. “You should go. Get some sleep.”

It’s five o’clock.

“But I still don’t understand,” I press, eager to learn as much as I can while she’s making sense. “ ‘Peace and harmony’ is pretty vague. What exactly am I supposed to get the journal to help me do?”

She beckons me close so she can give me another kiss. “
Que pases buenas noches
, Autumn,” she says. “And
no preocuparse
. You’ll find the answer you need. Your father knew. This is the thing you were made to do.”

And then she wants to watch the evening news and I can tell that our Q&A session is over for today.

I call Jenna while I wait for Mom to pick me up.

“She said that?” Jenna asks. “She said it’s the Thing you were made to do?”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding even though she can’t see me. “The Thing. Bringing peace and harmony to my little corner of the world. According to Eddy—and I guess my dad—that’s my Thing.” I can barely believe it. I have a Thing.