She closed her eyes. I closed mine. I touched the pages with my hands, and began to chant—at first slowly, then louder and louder.
“CRUOR PECTORIS MEI, TUTELA TUA EST.
VITA VITAE MEAE, CORRIPIENS TUAM, CORRIPIENS MEAM.”
I spoke the words with confidence. A certain confidence that only comes from truly not caring whether you live or die.
“CORPUS CORPORIS MEI, MEDULLA MENSQUE,
ANIMA ANIMAE MEAE, ANIMAM NOSTRAM CONECTE.”
I called out the words to the frozen landscape, though there was nobody but Amma to hear them.
“CRUOR PECTORIS MEI, LUNA MEA, AESTUS MEUS.
CRUOR PECTORIS MEI. FATUM MEUM, MEA SALUS.”
Amma reached for me, taking my trembling hands in her strong ones, and we spoke the Cast again, together. This time we spoke in the language of Ethan and his mother, Lila, of Uncle Macon and Aunt Del and Amma and Link and little Ryan and everyone who loved Ethan, and who loved us. This time, what we spoke became a song.
A love song—to Ethan Lawson Wate, from the two people who loved him most. And would miss him the most, if we failed.
BLOOD OF MY HEART, PROTECTION IS THINE.
LIFE OF MY LIFE, TAKING YOURS, TAKING MINE.
BODY OF MY BODY, MARROW AND MIND,
SOUL OF MY SOUL, TO OUR SPIRIT BIND.
BLOOD OF MY HEART, MY TIDES, MY MOON.
BLOOD OF MY HEART. MY SALVATION, MY DOOM.
Lightning struck me, the Book, the crypt, and Amma. At least, that’s what I thought had happened. But then, I remember it feeling that way to Genevieve, too, in the visions. Amma was thrown back against the wall of the crypt, her head knocking against the stone.
I felt the electricity course through my body and relaxed into it, accepting the fact that if I died, at least I would be with Ethan. I felt him, how near he was to me, how much I loved him. I felt the ring, burning on my finger, how much he loved me.
I felt my eyes burning, and everywhere I looked, I saw a haze of golden light, as if it were coming from me somehow.
I heard Amma whisper. “My boy.”
I turned toward Ethan. He was bathed in gold light, just like everything else. He was still motionless. I looked at Amma in panic. “It didn’t work.”
She leaned against the stone altar, closing her eyes.
I screamed, “It didn’t work!”
I stumbled away from the Book, into the mud. I looked up. The moon was there again. I raised my arms above my head, toward the heavens. Heat burned through my veins where there should have been blood. The anger welled inside me, with nowhere to go. I could feel it eating away at me. I knew if I didn’t find a way to release it, it would destroy me.
Hunting. Larkin. Sarafine.
The predator, the coward, and my murderous mother, who lived to destroy her own child. The gnarled branches of my Caster family tree.
How could I Claim myself when they had already claimed the only thing that mattered to me? The heat surged up through my hands, as if it had a will of its own. Lightning streaked across the sky. I knew where it was going even before it hit.
Three points on a compass, with no North to guide me.
The lightning exploded into flame, striking its three targets simultaneously—the ones who had taken everything from me tonight. I should have wanted to look away, but I didn’t. The statue that had been my mother a moment before was strangely beautiful, engulfed in flame, in the moonlight.
I lowered my arms, wiping the dirt and ash and grief from my eyes, but when I looked back she was gone.
They were all gone.
The rain began to fall, and my blurred vision sharpened until I could see the sheets of rain hitting the smoking oaks, the fields, the thickets. I could see clearly for the first time in a long time, maybe ever. I made my way back toward the crypt, toward Ethan.
But Ethan was gone.
Where Ethan’s body had been lying moments before, now there was someone else. Uncle Macon.
I didn’t understand. I turned to Amma for answers. Her eyes were enormous, frightened. “Amma, where’s Ethan? What happened?”
But she didn’t answer me. For the first time ever, Amma was speechless. She was staring at Uncle Macon’s body, dazed. “Never thought it would end like this, Melchizedek. After all those years, holdin’ the weight a the world on our shoulders together.” She was talking to him as if he could hear her, even though her voice was tinier than I had ever heard it. “How am I gonna hold it up on my own?”
I grabbed her shoulders, her sharp bones digging into my palms. “Amma, what’s going on?”
She raised her eyes to meet mine, her voice barely a whisper. “You can’t get somethin’ from the Book, without givin’ somethin’ in return.” A tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek.
It couldn’t be true. I knelt next to Uncle Macon and slowly reached out to touch his perfectly shaven face. Usually, I would find the misleading warmth associated with a human being, fueled by the energy of the hopes and dreams of Mortals, but not today. Today, his skin was ice cold. Like Ridley’s. Like the dead.
Without giving something in return.
“No… please no.” I had killed Uncle Macon. And I hadn’t even Claimed myself. I hadn’t even chosen to go Light, and I had still killed him.
The rage began to well up inside me again, the wind whipping up around us, swirling and churning like my emotions. It was beginning to feel familiar, like an old friend. The Book had made some kind of horrible trade, one I didn’t ask for. Then I realized.
A trade.
If Uncle Macon was here, where Ethan had been lying dead, could that mean that maybe Ethan was out there alive?
I was on my feet, running toward the crypt. The frozen landscape tinted in that golden light. I could see Ethan, lying in the grass in the distance next to Boo, where Uncle Macon had been just moments ago. I made my way over to him. I reached for Ethan’s hand, but it was cold. Ethan was still dead and now Uncle Macon was gone, too.
What had I done? I had lost them both. Kneeling in the mud, I buried my head in Ethan’s chest and wept. I held his hand against my cheek. I thought of all the times he had refused to accept my fate, refused to give up, to say good-bye.
Now it was my turn. “I won’t say good-bye. I won’t say it.” It had come to this, just a whisper in a field of smoldering weeds.
Then I felt it. Ethan’s fingers began to curl and uncurl, searching for mine.
L?
I could barely hear him. I smiled as I cried, and kissed the palm of his hand.
Are you there, Lena Beana?
I laced my fingers through his, and swore I would never let them go. I held up my face and let the rain fall upon it, washing away the soot.
I’m here.
Don’t go.
I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you.
2.12
Silver Lining
I looked at my cell. It was broken.
The time still read 11:59.
But I knew it was well after midnight, because the fireworks finale had started, even though it was raining. The Battle of Honey Hill was over for another year.
I lay in the middle of the muddy field, letting the rain wash over me. As I watched the small-time fireworks attempt to explode in the still drizzling night sky, everything was cloudy. My mind just couldn’t focus. I had fallen, hit my head and a few other places, too. My stomach, my hip, my whole left side ached. Amma was going to kill me when I came home, banged up like this.
All I remembered was, one second I was holding onto that stupid angel statue, and the next second I was lying flat on my back in the mud, here. I thought a piece of that statue broke off when I was trying to climb to the top of the crypt, but I wasn’t really sure. Link must have carried me out here after I knocked myself out like an idiot. Aside from that, it was like my mind had been wiped clean.
I guess that’s why I didn’t understand why Marian, Gramma, and Aunt Del were huddled near the crypt, crying. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I finally stumbled over there.
Macon Ravenwood. Dead.
Maybe he had always been dead, I didn’t know, but now he was gone. I knew that much. Lena threw herself onto his body, the rain drenching both of them.
Macon, wet from the raindrops for the first time.
The next morning, I pieced together a few things about the night of Lena’s birthday. Macon was the only casualty. Apparently, Hunting had overpowered him after I lost consciousness. Gramma explained that feeding on dreams was much less substantial than feeding on blood. I guess he had never really stood a chance against Hunting. Still, it hadn’t stopped him from trying.
Macon always said he would do anything for Lena. In the end, he was a man of his word.
Everyone else seemed to be all right, at least physically. Aunt Del, Gramma, and Marian had dragged themselves back to Ravenwood, with Boo trailing behind them, whimpering like a lost pup. Aunt Del couldn’t understand what had happened to Larkin. Nobody knew how to break the news to her that she had not one but two bad seeds in her family, so no one said a thing.
Mrs. Lincoln didn’t remember anything, and Link had a hard time explaining what she was doing in the middle of the battlefield in her petticoat and pantyhose. She had been appalled to find herself in the company of Macon Ravenwood’s family, but had been civil as Link helped her to the Beater. Link had a lot of questions, but I figured it could wait until Algebra II. It would give us both something to do when things returned to normal, whenever that would be.
And Sarafine.
Sarafine, Hunting, and Larkin were gone. I knew that because when I came to, they had disappeared, and Lena was there, leaning against me as we walked back toward Ravenwood. I was fuzzy on the details, like everything else right now, but it appeared that Lena, Macon, all of us had underestimated Lena’s powers as a Natural. She had somehow managed to block out the moon and save herself from being Claimed after all. Without the Claiming, it looked like Sarafine, Hunting, and Larkin had fled, at least for now.
Lena still wasn’t talking about it. She still wasn’t talking much at all.
I had fallen asleep on the floor of her bedroom, next to her, our hands still intertwined. When I woke up, she was gone and I was alone. Her bedroom walls, the same ones that had been so covered with writing you couldn’t see an inch of the white walls underneath all the black, were now completely blank. Except for one, the wall that faced the windows was covered from floor to ceiling with words, only the writing no longer looked like Lena’s. The girly script was gone. I touched the wall as if I could feel the words, and I knew she had been up all night, writing.
macon ethan i lay my head down on his chest and cried because he had lived because he had died a dry ocean, a desert of emotion happysad darklight sorrowjoy swept over me, under me i could hear the sound but i could not understand the words and then i realized the sound was me, breaking in one moment i was feeling everything and i was feeling nothing i was shattered, i was saved, i lost everything, i was given everything else something in me died, something in me was born, i only knew the girl was gone whoever i was now, i would never be her again this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper claim yourself claim yourself claim yourself claim gratitude fury love despair hope hate first green is gold but nothing green can stay don’t try nothing green can stay T. S. Eliot. Robert Frost. Bukowski. I recognized some of the poets from her shelf and her walls. Except for the Frost, Lena got it backward, which wasn’t like her. Nothing gold can stay, that’s how the poem goes.