Like the time Link and I were driving to school in the Beater, and one of his songs came on the radio as if the station was playing it. Link was so shocked he'd swerved a good two feet into Mrs. Asher's front hedge. "An accident," Lena said with a crooked smile. "One of Link's songs was stuck in my head." Nobody had ever gotten one of Link's songs stuck in their head. But Link had believed her, which made his ego even more unbearable. "What can I say? I have that effect on the ladies. This voice is as smooth as butter."
A week after that, Link and I had been walking down the hal , and Lena came up and gave me a big hug, right as the bel was ringing. I figured she had final y decided to come back to school. But she wasn't actual y there at al . It was some kind of projection, or whatever the Caster word was for making your boyfriend look like an idiot. Link thought I was trying to hug him, so he cal ed me "Lover Boy" for days. "I missed you. Is that such a crime?" Lena thought it was funny, but I was starting to wish Gramma would step in and ground her, or whatever it was you did to a Natural who was up to no good.
Don't be a baby. I said I was sorry, didn't I?
You're as big a menace as Link in fifth grade, the year he sucked all the juice out of my mom's tomatoes with a straw.
It won't happen again. I swear.
That's what Link said back then.
But he stopped, right?
Yeah. When we stopped growing tomatoes.
"Come down."
"I like it better up here."
I grabbed her hand. A current crept through my arm, but I didn't let go, pul ing her down onto the bed next to me.
"Ouch." She was laughing. I could see her shoulder shudder even though her back was to me. Or maybe she wasn't laughing but crying, which was rare these days. The crying had mostly stopped and had been replaced by something worse. Nothing.
Nothing was deceptive. Nothing was much harder to describe or fix or stop.
Do you want to talk about it, L?
About what?
I pul ed her closer, resting my head on hers. The shaking slowed, and I held her as tight as I could. Like she was stil on the ceiling, and I was the one hanging on.
Nothing.
I shouldn't have complained about the ceiling. There were crazier places you could hang out. Like where we were now.
"I have a bad feeling about this." I was sweating, but I couldn't wipe my face. I needed my hands to stay right where they were.
"That's weird." Lena smiled down at me. "Because I have a very good feeling about it." Her hair was blowing in a breeze, though I wasn't sure which kind. "Besides, we're almost there."
"You realize this is insane, right? If a cop drives by, we're gonna get arrested or sent to Blue Horizons to visit my dad."
"It's not crazy. It's romantic. Couples come here al the time."
"When people go to the water tower, L, they aren't talking about the top of the water tower." Which is where we would be in a minute. Just the two of us, a wobbly iron ladder about a hundred feet above the ground, and a bright blue Carolina sky.
I tried not to look down.
Lena had talked me into climbing to the top. There was something about the excitement in her voice that made me go along with it, as if something so stupid might be able to make her feel the way she did the last time we were here.
Smiling, happy, in a red sweater. I remembered, because there was a piece of red yarn hanging from her charm necklace.
She must have remembered, too. So here we were, stuck on a ladder, looking up so we didn't look down.
Once we reached the top and I looked out at the view, I understood. Lena was right. It was better up here. Everything was so far away that it didn't even matter.
I let my legs dangle over the edge. "My mom used to col ect pictures of old water towers."
"Yeah?"
"Like the Sisters col ect spoons. Only for my mom, it was water towers and postcards from the World's Fair."
"I thought al water towers looked like this one. Like a big white spider."
"Somewhere in Il inois, there's one shaped like a ketchup bottle."
She laughed.
"And there's one that looks like a little house, this high off the ground."
"We should live there. I'd go up once and never come back down." She lay back on the warm white paint. "I guess in Gatlin it should be a peach, a big old Gatlin peach."
I leaned back next to her. "They already have one, but it's not in Gatlin. It's over in Gaffney. Guess they thought of it first."
"What about a pie? We could paint this tank to look like one of Amma's pies. She'd like that."
"Haven't seen one of those. But my mom had a picture of one shaped like a corncob."
"I'd stil rather have the house." Lena stared up at the sky, where there wasn't a cloud in sight.
"I'd take the corncob or the ketchup, if you were there."
She reached for my hand and we stayed like that, at the edge of Summervil e's plain white water tower, looking out at Gatlin County as if it was a tiny toy land ful of tiny toy people. As smal as the cardboard vil age my mom used to keep under our Christmas tree.
How could people that smal have any problems at al ?
"Hey, I brought you something." I watched as she sat up, looking at me like a little kid.
"What is it?"
I looked over the edge of the water tower. "Maybe we should wait until we can't fal to our deaths."
"We're not going to die. Don't be such a chicken."
I reached into my back pocket. It wasn't anything special, but I'd had it for a while now, and I was hoping it might help her find her way back to herself.
I pul ed out a mini Sharpie, with a key ring on it.
"See? It fits on your necklace, like this." Trying not to fal , I reached for Lena's necklace, the one she never took off. A tangle of charms, each one meant something to her -- the flattened penny from the machine at the Cineplex, where we had our first date. A silver moon Macon had given her the night of the winter formal. The button from the vest she was wearing the night in the rain. They were Lena's memories, and she carried them with her as if she might lose them without proof of those few perfect moments of happiness.
I snapped the Sharpie onto the chain. "Now you can write wherever you are."
"Even on ceilings?" She looked at me and smiled, a little crooked, a little sad.
"Even on water towers."
"I love it." She spoke quietly, pul ing the cap off the Sharpie.
Before I knew it, she was drawing a heart. Black ink on white paint, a heart hidden at the top of the Summervil e water tower.
I was happy for a second. Then I felt like I was fal ing al the way down. Because she wasn't thinking about us. She was thinking about her next birthday, the Seventeenth Moon. She was already counting down.
In the center of the heart, she didn't write our names.
She wrote a number.
5.16
The Call
I didn't ask her about what she'd written on the water tower, but I didn't forget it. How could I, when al we had done for the past year was count down to the inevitable? When I finaly asked why she'd written it or what she was counting down to, she wouldn't say. And I had the feeling she real y didn't know.
Which was even worse than knowing.
It had been two weeks since then, and as far as I could tel Lena stil hadn't written anything in her notebook. She was wearing the little Sharpie on her necklace, but it looked as new as the day I bought it at the Stop & Steal. It was weird not to see her writing, scribbling on her hands or her worn-out Converse, which she didn't wear much these days. She had started wearing her thrashed black boots instead. Her hair was different, too. Almost always tied back, as if she thought she could yank the magic right out of it.
We were sitting on the top step of my porch, the same place we had been sitting when Lena first told me she was a Caster, a secret she had never shared with a Mortal before. I was pretending to read Jekyll and Hyde. Lena was staring down at the blank pages of her spiral notebook, as if the thin blue lines held the answer to al her problems.
When I wasn't watching Lena, I was staring down my street. My dad was coming home today. Amma and I had visited him on Family Day every week since my aunt checked him into Blue Horizons. Even though he wasn't back to his old self, I had to admit he was acting almost like a regular person again. But I was stil nervous.
"They're here." The screen door slammed behind me. Amma was standing on the porch in her tool apron, the kind she preferred over a traditional one, especial y on days like this. She was holding the gold charm around her neck, rubbing it between her fingers.
I looked down the street, but the only thing I saw was Bil y Watson riding his bike. Lena leaned forward to get a better look.
I don't see a car.
I didn't either, but I knew I would in about five seconds. Amma was proud, particularly when it came to her abilities as a Seer. She wouldn't say they were here unless she knew they were coming.
It'll be here.
Sure enough, my aunt's white Cadil ac made the right onto Cotton Bend. Aunt Caroline had the window rol ed down, what she liked to cal 360 air conditioning, and I could see her waving from down the block. I stood up as Amma elbowed her way past me. "Come on, now. Your daddy deserves a proper homecomin'." That was code for Get your butt down to the curb, Ethan Wate.
I took a deep breath.
Are you okay? Lena's hazel eyes caught the sun.
Yeah. I lied. She must have known, but she didn't say a word. I took her hand. It was cold, the way she always was now, and the current of electricity felt more like the sting of frostbite.
"Mitchel Wate. Don't tel me you've been eatin' anybody's pie but mine. 'Cause you look like you fel into the cookie jar and couldn't find your way back out." My dad gave her a knowing look. Amma had raised him, and he knew her teasing held as much love as any hug.
I stood there while Amma fussed over him as if he was ten years old. She and my aunt were chattering away like the three of them had just come home from the market. My dad smiled at me weakly. It was the same smile he gave me when we visited Blue Horizons. It said, I'm not crazy anymore, just ashamed. He was wearing his old Duke T-shirt and jeans, and somehow he looked younger than I remembered. Except for the crinkling lines around his eyes, which deepened as he pul ed me in for an awkward hug. "How you doing?"
My voice caught in my throat for a second, and I coughed. "Good."
He looked over at Lena. "Nice to see you again, Lena. I was sorry to hear about your uncle." Those were hard-bred Southern manners for you. He had to acknowledge Macon's passing, even in a moment as awkward as this one.
Lena tried to smile, but she only managed to look as uncomfortable as I felt. "Thank you, sir."
"Ethan, come on over here and give your favorite aunt a hug." Aunt Caroline held out her hands. I wanted to throw my arms around her and let her squeeze the knot right out of my chest.
"Let's go on inside." Amma waved at my dad from the top of the porch. "I made a Coca-Cola cake and fried chicken. If we don't get in there soon, that chicken'l have a mind to find its way home."
Aunt Caroline looped her arm through my dad's and led him up the stairs. She had the same brown hair and smal frame as my mom, and for a second it felt like my parents were home again, walking through the old screen door of Wate's Landing.