Beautiful Darkness(61)

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 all 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 pulled 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 really 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 tell 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 all 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 still 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 called out.

Two days. She was leaving in two days, and I didn't know. Was she even planning to say good-bye?

I ducked my head and stepped into the parlor to say hi to Gramma. She was an immovable force sitting in her rocking chair, with a cup of tea and the paper, as if the bustle of the morning didn't apply to her. She smiled, folding the paper in half. I had assumed it was The Stars and Stripes, but it was written in a language I didn't recognize.

“Ethan. I wish you could come with us. I will miss you, and I'm sure Lena will be counting the days until we get back.” She rose from the chair and hugged me.

Lena might be counting the days, but not for the reason Gramma thought. Her family had no idea what was going on with us anymore, or with Lena, for that matter. I had a feeling they didn't know she was hanging out in underground Caster clubs like Exile, or hitching rides on the back of John's Harley. Maybe they didn't know about John Breed at all.

I remembered when I first met Lena, the long list of the places she'd lived, the friends she had never made, the schools she'd never been able to go to. I wondered if she was going back to a life like that.

Gramma was staring at me curiously. She put her hand on my cheek. It was soft, like the gloves the Sisters wore to church. “You've changed, Ethan.”

“Ma'am?”

“I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's different.”

I looked away. There was no point in pretending. She would sense that Lena and I were no longer connected, if she hadn't already. Gramma was like Amma. She was usually the strongest person in the room, by sheer force of will alone. “I'm not the one who changed, ma'am.”

She sat down again, picking her newspaper back up. “Nonsense. Everyone changes, Ethan. That's life. Now go tell my granddaughter to get packing. We need to go before the tides change and we're marooned here forever.” She smiled as if I was in on the joke. Only I wasn't.

Lena's door was open just a crack. The walls, the ceiling, the furniture — everything was black. Her walls weren't covered in Sharpie anymore. Now her poetry was scrawled in white chalk. Her closet doors were covered with the same phrase over and over: runningtostandstillrunningtostandstillrunningto standstill. I stared at the words, separating them the way I often had to when it came to Lena's writing. Once I did, I recognized them from an old U2 song and realized how true they really were.

It's what Lena had been doing all this time, every second since Macon died.

Her little cousin, Ryan, was sitting on the bed, holding Lena's face in her hands. Ryan was a Thaumaturge and only used her healing powers when someone was in great pain. Usually it was me, but today it was Lena.

I barely recognized her. She looked like she hadn't slept last night. She was wearing an oversize, faded black T-shirt as a nightgown. Her hair was tangled, her eyes red and swollen.

“Ethan!” The minute Ryan saw me, she was a regular kid again. She jumped into my arms, and I picked her up, swinging her legs from side to side. “Why aren't you coming with us? It's going to be so boring. Reece is going to boss me around the whole summer, and Lena isn't any fun either.”

“I have to stick around here and take care of Amma and my dad, Chicken Little.” I put Ryan down gently.

Lena looked annoyed. She sat down on her unmade bed, with her legs folded under her, and waved Ryan out of the room. “Out now. Please.”