Happy Sweet Sixteen. No wonder you didn’t want to come out of your room.
Now you see what I was talking about.
When Lena reached the last stair she paused and looked back at me. She looked so out of place in her old jeans and my oversized Jackson High hoodie. I doubted Lena had ever dressed like this in her whole life. I think she just wanted to keep a piece of me with her as long as she could.
Don’t be scared. It’s just the Binding, to keep me safe until Moonrise. The Claiming can’t happen until the moon is high.
I’m not scared, L.
I know. I was talking to myself.
She let go of my hand and took the last step down from the landing. When her foot touched the polished black floor, she was transformed. The flowing dark robes of the Binding now hid the curves of her body. The black of her hair and the black of the robes blended into a shadow that covered her from head to toe, with the exception of her face, which was as pale and luminescent as the moon itself. She touched her throat, my mother’s gold ring still hanging at her neck. I hoped it would help to remind her that I was there with her. Just as I hoped it was my mom who had been trying to help us all along.
What are they going to do to you? This isn’t going to be some freaky pagan sex thing, is it?
Lena burst out laughing. Aunt Del looked over at her, horrified. Reece smoothed her robe primly with one hand, looking superior, while Ryan started to giggle.
“Compose yourself,” Macon hissed. Larkin, somehow managing to look as cool in a black robe as he did in a leather jacket, snickered. Lena smothered the giggles down into the folds of her robe.
As their candles moved, I could see the faces nearest to me: Macon, Del, Lena, Larkin, Reece, Ryan, and Barclay. There were also faces that were less familiar. Arelia, Macon’s mother, and an older face, wrinkled and tanned. But even from where I stood, or tried to stand, she looked enough like her granddaughter that I instantly knew who she was.
Lena saw her at the same time I did. “Gramma!”
“Happy birthday, sweetheart!” The circle broke, briefly, as Lena ran over to fling her arms around the white-haired woman.
“I didn’t think you would come!”
“Of course I did. I wanted to surprise you. Barbados is an easy trip. I was here in the blink of an eye.”
She means that literally, right? What is she? Another Traveler, an Incubus like Macon?
A Frequent Flyer, Ethan. On United.
I could feel what Lena was feeling, a brief moment of relief, even if I was only feeling stranger and stranger. Okay, so my dad was certifiable, and my mom was dead, sort of, and the woman who raised me knew a thing or two about voodoo. I was okay with all of that. It was just, standing there, surrounded by the actual card-carrying, candle-bearing, robe-wearing Casters, it felt like I needed to know about a lot more than living with Amma had prepared me for. Before they started in with all the Latin and the Casting.
Macon stepped forward in the circle. Too late. He held his candle high. “Cur Luna hac Vinctum convenimus?”
Aunt Del stepped up next to him. Her candle flickered as she raised it, translating. “Why on this Moon do we come together for the Binding?”
The circle responded, holding high their candles as they chanted. “Sextusdecima Luna, Sextusdecimo Anno, Illa Capietur.”
Lena answered them in English. Her candle flared up until the flames almost seemed like they would burn her face. “On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, She will be Claimed.” Lena stood in the center of the circle, with her head high. The candlelight was cast across her face from all directions. Her own candle began to burn into a strange green flame.
What’s going on, L?
Don’t worry. This is just part of the Binding.
If this was just the Binding, I was pretty sure I wasn’t ready for the Claiming.
Macon began the chant I remembered from Halloween. What had they called it?
“Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.
Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.
Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.
Blood of my blood, protection is thine!”
Lena went pale. A Sanguinis Circle. That was it. She held the candle high over her head, closing her eyes. The green flame erupted into a massive orange-red flame, exploding from her candle to every other candle in the circle, lighting them as well.
“Lena!” I shouted over the sound of the explosion, but she didn’t answer. The flame sprayed up into the darkness overhead, so high I realized there couldn’t be a roof, any ceiling at all in Ravenwood tonight. I threw my arm over my eyes as the fire turned hot and blinding. All I could think about was Halloween. What if it was happening all over again? I tried to remember what they were doing that night, to fight off Sarafine. What had they been chanting? What had Macon’s mother called it?
The Sanguinis. But I couldn’t remember the words, didn’t know the Latin, and for once I wished I had joined the Classics Club.
I heard a pounding on the front door, and in an instant, the flames were gone. The robes, the fire, the candles, the darkness and the light were gone. It all just vanished. Without missing a beat, they became a regular family, standing around a regular birthday cake. Singing.
What the—?
“—Happy birthday to you!” The last few notes of the song ended, as the pounding on the front door continued. A massive birthday cake, three tiers of pink, white, and silver, sat on the coffee table in the center of the parlor, along with a formal tea service and white linens. Lena blew out the candles, waving the smoke away from her face, where seconds before there had been billowing flame. Her family burst into applause. Back in my Jackson High sweatshirt and jeans, she looked like any other sixteen-year-old.
“That’s our girl!” Gramma put down her knitting and started to cut the cake, while Aunt Del scurried to pour the tea. Reece and Ryan carried in an enormous stack of presents while Macon sat in his Victorian wingback chair and poured himself and Barclay a scotch.
What’s going on, L? What just happened?
Someone’s at the door. They’re just being careful.
I can’t keep up with your family.
Have some cake. This is supposed to be a birthday party, remember?
The pounding on the door continued. Larkin looked up from his thick triangle of red velvet cake, Lena’s favorite. “Isn’t anyone goin’ to get the door?”
Macon brushed a crumb from his cashmere jacket, looking calmly at Larkin. “By all means, see who it is, Larkin.”
Macon looked at Lena and shook his head. She wouldn’t be answering the door today. Lena nodded and leaned back into Gramma. Smiling over cake like the doting granddaughter she really was. She patted the cushion next to her. Great. It was my turn to meet Gramma.
Then I heard a familiar voice at the door, and I knew I would rather face anyone’s gramma than what was waiting outside the door right now. Because it was Ridley and Link, Savannah and Emily and Eden and Charlotte, with the rest of their fan club, and the Jackson basketball team. None of them were wearing their daily uniform, Jackson Angels T-shirts. Then I remembered why. Emily had a smudge of dirt on her cheek. The Reenactment. I realized Lena and I had missed most of it already, and now we were going to fail history. By now, it was all over, except the evening campaign and the fireworks. Funny how an F would seem like a big deal on any other day.