Beautiful Darkness(77)

“Talking about some place called the Great Barrier. Where everything will be perfect and they can live happily ever after, according to John.” I tried not to sound bitter.

“They actually said they were going to the Great Barrier? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Why?” I could feel the Arclight, suddenly warm in my pocket.

“The Great Barrier is one of the most ancient Caster myths. A place of powerful old magic, long before there was Light or Dark — a sort of Nirvana. No logical person believes it really exists.”

“John Breed does.”

Liv looked up at the sky. “Or so he says. It's rubbish, but it's powerful rubbish. Like thinking the Earth is flat. Or that the sun orbits the Earth.” Like Galileo. Of course.

I had come here looking for a reason to go back to bed, back to Jackson and my life. An explanation for why I could see Lena in my bathroom mirror that didn't mean I was crazy. An answer that didn't lead back to Lena. But I found the opposite.

Liv kept talking, oblivious to the sinking stone in my stomach, and the one burning in my pocket. “The legends say if you follow the Southern Star, you'll eventually find the Great Barrier.”

“What if the star isn't there?” With that one thought, another began to stir, and then another, all coming loose in my mind.

Liv didn't answer because she was frantically adjusting her telescope. “It has to be there. There must be something wrong with my telescope.”

“What if it's gone? The galaxy changes all the time, right?”

“Of course. By the year three thousand, Polaris won't be the North Star anymore, Alrai will be. It means ‘the shepherd’ in Arabic, since you asked.”

“By the year three thousand?”

“Exactly. In a thousand years. A star can't suddenly disappear, not without a serious cosmic bang. It's not a subtle thing.”

“ ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.’ ” I remembered the line from a T. S. Eliot poem. Lena couldn't get it out of her head, before her birthday.

“Yes, well, I love the poem, but the science is a bit off.”

Not with a bang but a whimper. Or was it not with a whimper but a bang? I couldn't remember the exact words, but Lena had written it into a poem on the wall of her bedroom when Macon died.

Had she known where this was going all along? I had a sick feeling in my stomach. The Arclight was so hot, it was singeing my skin.

“There's nothing wrong with your telescope.”

Liv studied her selenometer. “I'm afraid something is off. It's not just the scope. Even the numbers don't follow.”

“Hearts will go and Stars will follow.” I said it without thinking, as if it was any old song stuck in my head.

“What?”

“Seventeen Moons. It's nothing, just a song I keep hearing. It has something to do with Lena's Claiming.”

“A Shadowing Song?” She looked at me in disbelief.

“Is that what it is?” I should've known it would have a name.

“It foreshadows what's to come. You've had a Shadowing Song this whole time? Why didn't you tell me?”

I shrugged. Because I was an idiot. Because I didn't like to talk about Lena with Liv. Because horrible things came out of that song. Take your pick.

“Tell me the whole verse.”

“There's something about spheres, and a moon before her time appears. Then it says the part about the stars following where the hearts go…. I can't remember the rest.”

Liv sank down onto the top step of the porch. “A moon before her time appears. Is that exactly what the song said?”

I nodded. “First the moon. Then the star follows. I'm sure.”

The sky was now streaked with light. “Calling a Claiming Moon out of time. That would explain it.”

“What? The missing star?”

Liv closed her eyes. “It's more than the star. Calling a moon out of time could change the whole Order of Things, from every magnetic field to every magical one. It would explain any shift in the Caster sky. The natural order in the Caster world is as delicately balanced as our own.”

“What could do that?”

“You mean who.” Liv hugged her knees.

She could only be talking about one person. “Sarafine?”

“There are no records of a Caster powerful enough to call out the moon. But if someone is pulling a moon out of time, there's no way to know when the next Claiming will come. Or where.” A Claiming. Which meant Lena.

I remembered what Marian said in the archive. We don't get to choose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it.

“If we're talking about a Claiming Moon, this is about Lena. We should wake up Marian. She can help us.” But even as I said it, I knew the truth. She might be able to help us, but that didn't mean she would. As a Keeper, she couldn't get involved.

Liv was thinking the same thing. “Do you really think Professor Ashcroft is going to let us chase after Lena in the Tunnels, after what happened the last time we were down there? She'll have us locked up in the rare-books collection for the rest of the summer.”

Worse, she'd call Amma, and I would be carting the Sisters to church every day in Aunt Grace's ancient Cadillac.