Amma turned to the Greats. "I'm much obliged."
The Greats disappeared, as if they had never been there at al .
It probably would've been better if I had disappeared with the Greats, because one look at Amma's face made it clear that she had only saved us so she could kil us herself. We would've had better odds against the Vex.
Amma was seething, her eyes narrow and focused on her main targets, Link and me.
"V. E. X. A. T. I. O. N." She grabbed us by our col ars at the same time, as if she could have thrown us up the Doorwel behind her with a single toss. "As in, trouble. Worry. Agitation. Botheration. Need me to go on?"
We shook our heads.
"Ethan Lawson Wate. Wesley Jefferson Lincoln. I don't know what business the two a you think you have down in these Tunnels." She was shaking her bony finger as she pointed at us. "You don't have a lick a sense between you, but you think you're ready to be battlin' Dark forces."
Link tried to explain. Big mistake. "Amma, we weren't tryin' to battle any Dark forces. Honest. We were just --"
Amma advanced, that finger barely an inch from Link's eyes. "Don't you tel me. When I get through with you, you're gonna wish I'd told your mamma about what you were doin' in my basement when you were nine years old." He backed up until he hit the wal behind him, next to the Doorwel . Amma matched him step for step. "That story's as sad as the day is long."
Amma turned to Liv. "And you're studyin' to be a Keeper. But you don't have any more sense than they do. Knowin' what you do and stil lettin' these boys drag you into this dangerous business. You're in a world a trouble with Marian." Liv slunk down a few inches.
Amma whipped around to face me. "And you." She was so angry she was talking with her jaw clenched. "You think I don't know what you're up to? You think because I'm an old woman, you can fool me? It'l take you three lifetimes before you can sel me a raft that doesn't float. Soon as Marian told me you were down here, I found you straightaway." I didn't ask her how she'd found us. Whether it was chicken bones or tarot cards or the Greats, she had her ways. Amma was the closest thing I'd ever seen to a Supernatural without actual y being one.
I didn't look her in the eye. It was like avoiding a dog attack. Don't make eye contact. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Instead, I kept walking, with Link looking back at Amma every few steps. Liv wandered behind us, confused. I knew she hadn't counted on a run-in with a Vex, but Amma was more than she could handle.
Amma shuffled along behind us, muttering to herself or the Greats. Who knew? "Think you're the only one who can find somethin'? Don't need to be a Caster to see what you fools are up to." I could hear the bones rattling against the beads. "Why do you think they cal me a Seer? Because I can see the mess you're into just as soon as you're into it."
She was stil shaking her head as she disappeared up the Doorwel , 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 stairwel 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
Revelations
By the time I crawled into my bed, it was nearly sunrise. There would be even more hel 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 fel asleep before I hit the pil ow.
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. Al 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 stil shrouded in shadow, but now her fingers were touching me, moving along my shoulders, my neck, and final y 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 chil 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 Lucil e, 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, pul ing 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 cal ed 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 tal 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 al 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 fil ing from the bowl into a pie shel . 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 technical y 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 pul ed up in front of Ravenwood's twisted iron gates and turned off the engine. I sat in the car with the windows rol ed 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 al . The key was stil 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 tel me which one of us was gone.
When I final y 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 al 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 pul ed 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 real y 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 tel 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 al at once. Sometimes I wondered what she saw when I walked into this room. Maybe I didn't want to know.
"Yeah, I wanted to say good-bye. When are you leaving?"
Reece was sorting through books in the dining room, but I could stil see her scowl. I looked away, out of habit. The last thing I needed was Reece reading everything that had happened last night in my face. "Not until Sunday, but Lena hasn't even packed. Don't distract her," Reece cal ed out.