Beautiful Chaos (65 page)

I’d been rehearsing this conversation in my mind from the moment I realized the Crucible was me, not John. Thinking of a hundred different ways to tell the person who loved me as much as my mom had that I was going to die.

What do you say?

I still hadn’t figured it out, and now that I was standing in Amma’s kitchen, looking her in the eye, it seemed impossible. But I had a feeling she already knew.

I slid into the seat across from her. “Amma, I need to talk to you.”

She nodded, rolling the bottle between her fingers. “Did everything wrong this time, I reckon. Thought you were the one pickin’ a hole in the universe. Turns out it was me.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“When a hurricane hits, it’s not the weatherman’s fault any more than God’s—no matter what Wesley’s mamma says. Either way, doesn’t matter to those folks left without a roof over their heads, now, does it?” She looked up at me, defeated. “But I think we both know this was all my doin’. And this hole is too big for me to stitch up.”

I put my big hands over her small ones. “That’s what I needed to tell you. I can fix it.”

Amma jerked back in her chair, the worry lines in her forehead deepening. “What are you talkin’ about, Ethan Wate?”

“I can stop it. The heat and the drought, the earthquakes, and the Casters losing control of their powers—all of it. But you already knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you went to the bokor.”

The color drained from her face. “Don’t you talk about that devil in this house! You don’t know—”

“I know you went to see him, Amma. I followed you.” There was no time left to play games. I couldn’t walk away without saying good-bye to her. Even if she didn’t want to hear it. “I’m guessing this is what you saw in the cards, wasn’t it? I know you were trying to change things, but the Wheel of Fate crushes us all, doesn’t it?”

The room was so still that it felt like someone had sucked the air right out of it.

“That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

Neither one of us moved, or breathed. For a second, Amma
looked so spooked that I was sure she was going to bolt or douse the whole house in salt.

But her face crumpled and she rushed at me, clutching my arms like she wanted to shake me. “Not you! You’re my boy. The Wheel doesn’t have any business with you. This is my fault. I’m goin’ to set it right.”

I put my hands on her thin shoulders, watching as the tears ran down her cheeks. “You can’t, Amma. I’m the only one who can. It has to be me. I’m going before the sun comes up tomorrow—”

“Don’t you say it! Not another word!” she shrieked, digging her fingers into my arms like she was trying to keep from drowning.

“Amma, listen to me—”

“No! You listen to me!” she pleaded, her expression frantic. “I’ve got it all worked out. There’s a way to change the cards, you’ll see. Made a deal a my own. You just have to wait.” She was muttering to herself like a madwoman. “I’ve got it all worked out. You’ll see.”

Amma was wrong. I wasn’t sure if she knew it, but I did. “This is something I have to do. If I don’t—you and dad, this whole town, will be gone.”

“I don’t care about this town!” She hissed. “It can burn to the ground! Nothin’s gonna happen to my boy! You hear me?” Amma whipped her head around the room, from one side to the other, like she was looking for someone hiding in the shadows.

When she looked back at me, her knees buckled, and her body swayed dangerously to one side. She was going to pass out. I grabbed Amma’s arms and pulled her up, as her eyes locked on mine. “Already lost your mamma. Can’t lose you, too.”

I lowered her into one of the chairs and knelt next to it, watching as she slowly came back to herself. “Take deep breaths.” I remembered hearing Thelma say that to Aunt Mercy when she had one of her fainting spells. But we were way past deep breaths.

Amma tried to wave me off. “I’m all right. Long as you promise me you won’t do anything stupid. I’m gonna stitch this mess back together. I’m just waitin’ on the right thread.” One dipped in the bokor’s brand of black magic, I was willing to bet.

I didn’t want the last thing I said to Amma to be a lie. But she was beyond reason. There was no way I’d be able to convince her that I was doing the right thing. She was sure there was some kind of loophole, like Lena. “All right, Amma. Let’s get you to your room.”

She held on to my arm as she stood up. “You have to promise me, Ethan Wate.”

I looked her right in the eye. “I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.” It was only half a lie. Because saving the people you love isn’t stupid. It isn’t even a choice.

But I still wanted the last thing I said to Amma to be as true as the sun rising. So after I helped her into her favorite chair, I hugged her tight and whispered one last thing. “I love you, Amma.”

There was nothing truer.

The front door slammed as I pulled Amma’s bedroom door shut.

“Hey everybody. I’m home,” my dad’s voice called from the hall. I was about to answer, when I heard the familiar sound of another door opening. “I’ll be in the study. I have lots of reading to do.” It was ironic. My dad spent all his time researching the Eighteenth Moon, and I knew more about it than I wanted to.

As I walked back through the kitchen, I saw the old Coke bottle sitting on the table, exactly where Amma left it. It was too late to catch anything in that bottle, but I picked it up anyway.

I wondered if there were bottle trees where I was going.

On my way to my room I passed the study, where my dad was working. He was sitting at my mom’s old desk, the light filling up the room, his work, and the caffeinated coffee he’d smuggled into the house. I opened my mouth to say something. I didn’t know what—just as he rummaged in the drawer for his earplugs, twisting them into his ears.

Good-bye, Dad.

I rested my forehead on the doorway in silence. I let things be what they were. He would know the rest, soon enough.

It was after midnight when Lena finally cried herself to sleep. I was sitting on my bed reading
Of Mice and Men
one last time. Over the last few months, my memories had faded so much that I couldn’t remember a lot of it, anyway. I still remembered one part, though. The end. It bothered me every time I read it—the way George shot Lennie while he was telling Lennie about the farm they were going to buy one day. The one Lennie would never see.

When we read the novel in English class, everyone agreed that George was making this big sacrifice by killing his best friend. It was ultimately a mercy kill, because George knew Lennie was going to be hanged for accidentally killing the girl at the ranch. But I never bought it. Shooting your best friend in the
head, instead of making a run for it, doesn’t seem like a sacrifice to me. Lennie made the sacrifice, whether he knew it or not. Which was the worst part—I think Lennie would’ve knowingly sacrificed himself for George in a minute. He wanted George to get that farm, to be happy.

I knew my sacrifice wasn’t going to make anyone happy, but it was going to save their lives. That was enough. I also knew none of the people who loved me would let me make that kind of sacrifice for them, which is why I was pulling on my jeans at one in the morning.

I took one last look around my room—the shoe boxes stacked along the walls that held everything important to me, the chair in the corner where my mother sat when she visited me two months ago, the piles of my favorite books hidden under my bed, and the swivel chair that hadn’t swiveled the time Macon Ravenwood sat in it. I wanted to remember it all. As I swung my leg over the windowsill, I wondered if I would.

The Summerville water tower loomed above me in the moonlight. Most people probably wouldn’t have picked this place, but this is where it happened in the dreams, so I knew it was right. I was taking a lot of things on faith lately. Knowing you don’t have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out—more like, they figure themselves out—and everything gets real clear.

Your first kiss isn’t as important as your last.

The math test really didn’t matter.

The pie really did.

The stuff you’re good at and the stuff you’re bad at are just different parts of the same thing.

Same goes for the people you love and the people you don’t—and the people who love you and the people who don’t.

The only thing that mattered was that you cared about a few people.

Life is really, really short.

I took Lena’s charm necklace out of my back pocket and looked at it one last time. Then I reached through the open window of the Volvo and dropped it on the seat. I didn’t want anything to happen to it when this was all over. I was glad she gave it to me. I felt like part of her was here with me.

But I was alone. I wanted it this way. No friends, no family. No talking, no Kelting. Not even Lena.

I wanted to let things feel the way they really were.

The way things felt was terrible. The way things were was worse.

I could feel it now. My fate was coming for me—my fate, and something else.

The sky ripped open a few feet from where I was standing. I expected Link to step out of the darkness with a pack of Twinkies or something, but it was John Breed.

“What’s going on? Are Macon and Liv okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Everyone’s fine, all things considered.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

He shrugged, flipping the top of his lighter open and closed. “I thought you might need a wingman.”

“Why? To push me over the edge?” I was only half kidding.

He snapped the lighter shut. “Let’s just say it’s harder
than you think when you’re up there. Besides, you were there with me, right?” It was twisted logic, but things were pretty twisted.

I didn’t know what to say. It was hard to believe he was the same dirtbag who’d kicked my ass at the fair and tried to steal my girlfriend. He was a halfway decent guy now. Falling in love can do that to you. “Thanks, man. What’s it like? I mean, on the way down.”

John shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”

We walked toward the water tower. An enormous white moon blocked the light of the real one. The white metal ladder was only a few feet away.

I knew she was behind me before John sensed her and spun around.

Amma.

Nobody else smelled like pencil lead and Red Hots. “Ethan Wate! I was there the day you were born, and I’ll be there the day you die, from this side or the other.”

I kept walking.

Her voice grew louder. “Either way, it won’t be today.”

John sounded amused. “Damn, Wate. You sure have a creepy family, for a Mortal.”

I braced myself for the sight of Amma armed with her beads and her dolls and maybe the Bible, too. But when I turned around, my eyes fell on the tangled braids and snakeskin-wrapped staff of the bokor.

The bokor smiled back at me. “I see you haven’t found your
ti-bon-age.
Or have you? It’s easier to find than to capture, isn’t it now?”

“Don’t you talk to him,” Amma snapped. Whatever the bokor was here for, it obviously wasn’t to talk me down off the ledge.

“Amma!” I called her name, and she turned back to face me. For the first time, I could see how lost she was. Her sharp brown eyes were confused and nervous, her proud posture bent and broken. “I don’t know why you brought that guy here, but you shouldn’t be mixed up with someone like him.”