“Except you. Jerk.” She jabbed me playfully in the ribs.
“Exactly. Because I’m not a Caster, I’m a puny Mortal. And you said yourself, if she told me to jump off a cliff, I’d do it.”
Lena tossed her hair. “Didn’t your mamma ever ask you, Ethan Wate, if your friends were about to jump right off a cliff, would you jump, too?”
I drew my arms around her, feeling happier than I should’ve, given last night. Or maybe it was Lena who was feeling better, and I was just picking up on it. These days, such a strong current flowed between us that it was hard to sort out what was me, and what was her.
All I knew was, I wanted to kiss her.
You’re going Light.
And so I did.
Definitely, Light.
I kissed her again, pulling her up into my arms. Kissing her was like breathing. I had to do it. I couldn’t help myself. I pressed my body against hers. I could hear her breathing, feel her heart beating against my chest. My whole nervous system started firing at once. My hair was standing on end. Her black hair spilled into my hands, and she relaxed into my body. Every touch of her hair was like a prick of electricity. I had been waiting to do this since I had first met her, since I had first dreamed about her.
It was like lightning striking. We were one thing.
Ethan.
Even in my head, I could hear the urgency in her voice. I felt it too, like I couldn’t get close enough to her. Her skin was soft and hot. I could feel the pinpricks intensifying. Our lips were raw; we couldn’t kiss each other any harder. The bed started to shake, and then lift. I could feel it swaying underneath us. I felt like my lungs were collapsing. My skin went cold. The lights in the room flashed on and off, and the room was spinning, or maybe growing dark, only I couldn’t tell and I didn’t know if it was me, or if it was the light in the room.
Ethan!
The bed crashed to the floor. I heard the sound of splintering glass, in the distance, as if a window had shattered. I heard Lena crying.
Then the voice of a child. “What’s wrong, Lena Beana? Why are you so sad?”
I felt a small, warm hand on my chest. The warmth radiated out from the hand, through my body, and the room stopped spinning, and I could breathe again, and I opened my eyes.
Ryan.
I sat up, my head pounding. Lena was next to me, her head pressed against my chest, just like she had been an hour before. Only this time, her windows were broken, her bed had collapsed, and a little blond ten-year-old was standing in front of me with her hand on my chest. Lena, still sniffling, tried to push part of a broken mirror away from me, and what was left of her bed.
“I think we figured out what Ryan is.”
Lena smiled, wiping her eyes. She pulled Ryan close. “A Thaumaturge. We’ve never had one in our family.”
“I’m guessing that’s a fancy Caster name for a healer,” I said, rubbing my head.
Lena nodded and kissed Ryan’s cheek.
“Something like that.”
Just Your Average American Holiday
After Halloween, it felt like the calm after the storm. We settled into a routine, even though we knew the clock was ticking. I walked to the corner to hide from Amma, Lena picked me up in the hearse, Boo Radley caught up with us in front of the Stop & Steal and followed us to school. With the occasional exception of Winnie Reid, the only member of the Jackson Debate team, which made debating difficult, or Robert Lester Tate, who had won the State Spelling Bee two years in a row, the only person who would even sit with us in the cafeteria was Link. When we weren’t at school eating on the bleachers, or being spied on by Principal Harper, we were holed up in the library rereading the locket papers and hoping Marian might slip up and tell us something. No sign of flirty Siren cousins bearing lollipops and death grips, no unexplained Category 3 storms or ominous black clouds in the sky, not even a weird meal with Macon. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Except for one thing. The most important thing. I was crazy about a girl who actually felt the same way about me. When did that ever happen? The fact that she was a Caster was almost easier to believe than the fact that she existed at all.
I had Lena. She was powerful and she was beautiful. Every day was terrifying, and every day was perfect.
Until out of nowhere, the unthinkable happened. Amma invited Lena to Thanksgiving dinner.
“I don’t know why you want to come over for Thanksgiving anyway. It’s pretty boring.” I was nervous. Amma was obviously up to something.
Lena smiled, and I relaxed. There was nothing better than when she smiled. It blew me away every time. “I don’t think it sounds boring.”
“You’ve never been to Thanksgiving at my house.”
“I’ve never been to Thanksgiving at anyone’s house. Casters don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a Mortal holiday.”
“Are you kidding? No turkey? No pumpkin pie?”
“Nope.”
“You didn’t eat much today, did you?”
“Not really.”
“Then you’ll be okay.”
I had prepped Lena ahead of time so she wouldn’t be surprised when the Sisters wrapped extra biscuits in their dinner napkins and slipped them into their purses. Or when my Aunt Caroline and Marian spent half the night debating the location of the first public library in the U.S. (Charleston) or the proper proportions for “Charleston green” paint (two parts “Yankee” black and one part “Rebel” yellow). Aunt Caroline was a museum curator in Savannah and she knew as much about period architecture and antiques as my mom had known about Civil War ammunition and battle strategy. Because that’s what Lena had to be ready for—Amma, my crazy relatives, Marian, and Harlon James thrown in for good measure.
I left out the one detail she actually needed to know. Given how things had been lately, Thanksgiving probably also meant dinner with my dad in his pajamas. But that was something I just couldn’t explain.
Amma took Thanksgiving really seriously, which meant two things. My dad would finally come out of his study, although technically it was after dark so that wasn’t a big exception, and he would eat at the table with us. No Shredded Wheat. That was the absolute minimum Amma would allow. So in honor of my dad’s pilgrimage into the world the rest of us inhabited every day, Amma cooked up a storm. Turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, butter beans and creamed corn, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, honey ham and biscuits, pumpkin and lemon meringue pie, which, after my evening in the swamp, I was pretty sure she was making more for Uncle Abner than the rest of us.
I stopped for a second on the porch, remembering how I felt standing on the veranda at Ravenwood the first night I showed up there. Now it was Lena’s turn. She had pulled her dark hair away from her face, and I touched the place where it managed to escape, curling around her chin.
You ready?
She pulled her black dress loose from her tights. She was nervous.
I’m not.
You should be.
I grinned and pushed open the door. “Ready or not.” The house smelled like my childhood. Like mashed potatoes and hard work.