Beautiful Darkness (29 page)

She was still shaking her head as she disappeared up the Doorwell, not a speck of mud on her sleeves or a rumple in her dress. What had felt like a rabbit hole on the way down was a
broad stairwell on the way up, as if it had expanded out of respect for Miss Amma herself.

“Takin’ on a Vex, as if a day with this child wasn't trouble enough …” She sniffed with every step. It went on like that the whole way back. We dropped Liv off on our way through the Tunnels, but Link and I kept walking. We didn't want to be too close to that finger, or those beads.

6.16

B
y the time I crawled into my bed, it was nearly sunrise. There would be even more hell to pay in the morning when Amma saw me, but I had a feeling Marian wasn't expecting me to be on time for work. She was as scared of Amma as anyone. I kicked off my shoes and fell asleep before I hit the pillow.

Blinding light.

I was overwhelmed by the light. Or was it the dark?

I felt my eyes ache, as if I had been staring at the sun too long, creating spots of darkness. All I could make out was a silhouette, blocking out the light. I wasn't scared. I knew this particular shadow intimately, the slight waist, the delicate hands and fingers. Every strand of hair, twisting in the Casting Breeze.

Lena stepped forward, reaching out for me. I watched, frozen, as her hands moved out of the darkness and into the light where I was standing. The light crept up her arms, until it hit her waist, her shoulders, her chest.

Ethan.

Her face was still shrouded in shadow, but now her fingers were touching me, moving along my shoulders, my neck, and finally my face. I held her hand against my cheek, and it burned me, though not with heat but cold.

I'm here, L.

I loved you, Ethan. But I have to go.

I know.

In the darkness, I could see her eyelids lift and the golden glow — the eyes of the curse. The eyes of a Dark Caster.

I loved you, too, L.

I reached out my hand and gently closed her eyes. The chill of her hand disappeared from my face. I looked away and forced myself to wake up.

I was prepared to face Amma's wrath when I got downstairs. My dad had gone to the Stop & Steal to get a newspaper, and it was just the two of us. The three of us if you counted Lucille, who was staring at the dry cat food in her bowl, something she'd probably never seen before. I guess Amma was mad at her, too.

Amma was at the stove, pulling out a pie. The table was set, but breakfast wasn't cooking. There were no grits or eggs, not even a piece of toast. It was worse than I thought. The last time she baked in the morning instead of making breakfast was the
day after Lena's birthday, and before that, the day after my mom died. Amma kneaded dough like a prizefighter. Her fury could generate enough cookies to feed the Baptists and the Methodists combined. I hoped the dough had taken the brunt of it this morning.

“I'm sorry, Amma. I don't know what that thing wanted with us.”

She slammed the oven door shut, her back to me. “Of course you don't. There's a lot you don't know, but that didn't stop you from wanderin’ around where you didn't have any business. Now did it?” She picked up her mixing bowl, stirring the contents with the One-Eyed Menace, as if she hadn't used it to scare Ridley into submission the day before.

“I went down there looking for Lena. She's been hanging out with Ridley, and I think she's in trouble.”

Amma spun around. “You think she's in trouble? You have any idea what that thing was? The one that was about to take you outta this world and into the next?” She stirred madly.

“Liv said it was called a Vex, and it was summoned by someone powerful.”

“And Dark. Someone who doesn't want you and your friends pokin’ around in those Tunnels.”

“Who would want to keep us out of the Tunnels? Sarafine and Hunting? Why?”

Amma slammed the bowl on the counter. “Why? Why are you always askin’ so many questions about things that are none a your concern? I reckon it's my fault. I let you run me ragged with those questions when you weren't tall enough to see over this counter.” She shook her head. “But this is a fool's game. There can't be a winner.”

Great. More riddles. “Amma, what are you talking about?”

She pointed her finger at me again, the same way she had last night. “You've got no business in the Tunnels, you hear me? Lena's havin’ a hard time and I'm ten kinds a sorry, but she's got to figure all this out for herself. There's nothin’ you can do. So you stay out a those Tunnels. There are worse things down there than Vexes.” Amma turned back to her pie, pouring the filling from the bowl into a pie shell. The conversation was over. “You go on to work now, and keep your feet aboveground.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

I didn't like lying to Amma, but technically I wasn't. At least, that's what I told myself. I was going to work. Right after I stopped by Ravenwood. After last night, there was nothing left to say, and everything.

I needed answers. How long had she been lying to me and sneaking around behind my back? Since the funeral, the first time I saw them together? Or the day she took the picture of his motorcycle in the graveyard? Were we talking about months or weeks or days? To a guy, those distinctions mattered. Until I knew, it would gnaw away at me and what little pride I had left.

Because here's the thing: I heard her, inside and out. She'd said the words, and I saw her with John.
I don't want you here, Ethan.
It was over. The one thing I never thought we'd be.

I pulled up in front of Ravenwood's twisted iron gates and turned off the engine. I sat in the car with the windows rolled
up, even though it was already sweltering outside. The heat would be suffocating in a minute or two, but I couldn't move. I closed my eyes, listening to the cicadas. If I didn't get out of the car, I wouldn't have to know. I didn't have to drive through those gates at all. The key was still in the ignition. I could turn it and drive back to the library.

Then none of this would be happening.

I turned the key, and the radio came on. It wasn't on when I turned the car off. The Volvo's reception wasn't much better than the Beater's, but I heard something buried in the static.

Seventeen moons, seventeen spheres,

The moon before her time appears,

Hearts will go and stars will follow,

One is broken, One is hollow …

The engine died, and the music with it. I didn't understand the part about the moon, except that it was coming, which I already knew. And I didn't need the song to tell me which one of us was gone.

When I finally opened the car door, the stifling Carolina heat seemed cool by comparison. The gates creaked as I slipped inside. The closer I got to the house, the sorrier it looked now that Macon was gone. It was worse than the last time I was here.

I walked up the steps of the veranda, listening to each board creak under my feet. The house probably looked as bad as the garden, but I couldn't see it. Everywhere I looked, the only thing I saw was Lena. Trying to convince me to go home the first night I met Macon, sitting on the steps in her orange prison
jumpsuit the week before her birthday. Part of me wanted to walk the path out to Greenbrier, to Genevieve's grave, so I could remember Lena huddled up next to me with an old Latin dictionary while we tried to make sense of
The Book of Moons.

But those were all ghosts now.

I studied the carvings above the doorway and found the familiar Caster moon. I fingered the splintery wood on the lintel and hesitated. I wasn't sure how welcome I would be, but I pressed it anyway. The door swung open, and Aunt Del smiled up at me. “Ethan! I was hoping you would come by before we left.” She pulled me in for a quick hug.

Inside it was dark. I noticed a mountain of suitcases by the stairs. Sheets covered most of the furniture, and the shades were drawn. It was true. They were really leaving. Lena hadn't said a word about the trip since the last day of school, and with everything else that had happened, I'd almost forgotten. At least, I wanted to. Lena hadn't even mentioned they were packing. There were a lot of things she didn't tell me anymore.

“That's why you're here, isn't it?” Aunt Del squinted, confused. “To say good-bye?” As a Palimpsest, she couldn't separate layers of time, so she was always a little lost. She could see everything that had happened or would happen in a room the minute she walked in, but she saw it all at once. Sometimes I wondered what she saw when I walked into this room. Maybe I didn't want to know.