Beautiful Redemption (15 page)

I wondered if I would’ve been able to figure out the crossword without a more experienced Sheer like my mom helping me.

Amma didn’t need to worry so much about the haint blue and the salt and the charms. This whole haunting thing wasn’t as easy as it was cracked up to be.

Then I noticed how sad Macon looked, studying Lena’s face. I gave up on the newspaper and focused harder on their conversation.

“You may have felt the essence of him, Lena. A burial site is a powerful place, no doubt.”

“I don’t mean I felt something, Uncle Macon. I felt him. Ethan, the Sheer. I’m sure of it.”

The smoke from the fire curled out from the grating. Boo lay with his head in Lena’s lap, the flames reflecting in his dark eyes.

“Because a button fell onto his grave?” Macon’s voice didn’t change, but he sounded tired. I wondered how many of these conversations he’d endured since I died.

“No. Because he moved it.” Lena didn’t give up.

“What about the wind? What about someone else? Wesley could have bumped it off, considering he is not the most graceful of creatures.”

“It was only a week ago. I remember it perfectly. I know it happened.” She was even more stubborn than he was.

A week ago?

Had that much time passed in Gatlin?

Lena hadn’t seen the paper. She couldn’t prove I was still here, not to herself or my family or even my best friend. There was no way to explain about Obidias Trueblood and all the complications in my life, not while she didn’t even know I was in the room with her.

“What about since then?” Macon asked.

She looked troubled. “Maybe he’s gone. Maybe he’s up to something. I don’t know how it works in the Otherworld.” Lena stared into the fire as if she was looking for something. “It’s not just me. I went to see Amma. She said she felt him in the house.”

“Amma’s feelings are not to be trusted when it comes to Ethan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course Amma can be trusted. She’s the most trustworthy person I know.” Lena looked furious, and I wondered how much she actually knew about that night at the water tower.

He didn’t say a word.

“Isn’t she?”

Macon closed his book. “I can’t see the future. I’m not a Seer. All I know is Ethan did what needed to be done. The whole realm—Dark and Light—will always be grateful to him.”

Lena stood up, ripping the ink-stained page from her notebook. “Well, I’m not. I understand he was very brave and noble and whatever, but he left me here, and I’m not sure it was worth it. I don’t care about the universe and the realm and saving the world, not anymore. Not without Ethan.”

She tossed the ripped page into the fire. The orange flames leaped up around it.

Uncle Macon spoke as he watched the fire. “I understand.”

“Really?” Lena didn’t seem to believe him.

“There was a time when I put my heart above all else.”

“And what happened?”

“I don’t know. I got older, I suppose. And I learned that things often are more complicated than we think.”

Leaning against the mantel, Lena stared into the fire.

“Maybe you just forgot what it feels like.”

“Perhaps.”

“I won’t.” She looked at her uncle. “I won’t ever forget.”

She twisted her hand, and the smoke rose up until it curled around her and took shape. It was a face. It was my face.

“Lena.”

My face disappeared at the sound of Macon’s voice, fading away into streaks of gray cloud.

“Leave me alone. Let me have what little I can, what I have left of him.” She sounded fierce, and I loved her for it.

“Those are only memories.” There was sadness in Macon’s voice. “You have to move on. Trust me.”

“Why? You never did.”

He smiled sadly, staring past her into the fire. “That’s how I know.”

I followed Lena up the stairs. Though the ice and snow had melted away since my last visit to Ravenwood, a thick gray fog hung throughout the house, and the air was colder.

Lena didn’t seem to notice or care what was going on around her, even though her breath was curling up toward her face in a quiet white cloud. I noticed the dark rings under her eyes, the way she looked as thin and as frail as she had when Macon died. She wasn’t the same person she had been then, though—she was someone much stronger.

She had believed Macon was gone forever, and we found a way to bring him back. I knew deep down she couldn’t hold out for any less of a fate for me.

Maybe Lena didn’t know I was here, but she knew I wasn’t gone. She wasn’t giving up on me yet. She couldn’t.

I knew, because if I was the one left behind, I couldn’t have either.

Lena slipped into her room, past the pile of suitcases, and crawled into bed without even taking off her clothes. She waved her fingers, and her door slammed shut. I lay down next to her, my face on the edge of her pillow. We were only inches apart.

The tears began to roll down her face, and I thought my heart would break, just watching her.

I love you, L. I always will.

I closed my eyes and reached for her. I wished, desperately, that there was something I could do. There had to be some way I could let her know I was still here.

I love you, Ethan. I won’t forget you. I’ll never forget you, and I’ll never stop loving you.

I heard her voice uncurl inside my head. When I opened my eyes, she was staring right through me.

“Never,” she whispered.

“Never,” I said.

I wrapped my fingers in the curls of black hair and waited until she fell asleep. I could feel her nestled up next to me.

I had to make sure she found that newspaper.

As I followed Lena down the stairs the next morning, I was starting to feel a) like some kind of stalker and b) like I was losing my mind. Kitchen sent out as big a breakfast as ever—but thankfully, now that the Order wasn’t broken and the world wasn’t about to end, the food wasn’t so raw that the sight of it made you want to throw up.

Macon was waiting for Lena at the table, and he was already digging in. I still wasn’t used to the sight of him eating. There were biscuits this morning, baked with so much butter it came bubbling up through cracks in the dough. Thick slices of bacon crowded against an Amma-sized mountain of scrambled eggs. Berries piled inside a big piece of pastry crust that Link, before his Linkubus days, would have swallowed whole in one bite.

Then I saw it.
The Stars and Stripes
was folded at the bottom of a whole stack of newspapers—from about as many countries as I could name.

I reached for the paper just as Macon reached for the coffeepot, shoving his hand right through my chest. It felt cold and strange, like I’d swallowed a piece of ice. Maybe like brain freeze from an ICEE, only in my heart rather than in my head.

I grabbed the paper with both hands and pulled on it as hard as I could. One edge slowly peeked out from beneath the pile.

Not good enough.

I looked up at Macon and Lena. Macon had his head buried
in a newspaper called
L’Express
, which looked like it was written in French. Lena had her eyes glued to her plate, like the eggs were going to reveal an important truth.

Come on, L. It’s right here. I’m right here.

I yanked the paper harder, and it slid all the way out from the pile and fluttered onto the floor.

Neither one of them looked up.

Lena stirred milk into her tea. I reached for her hand with mine, squeezing it until she dropped the spoon, splashing tea onto the tablecloth.

Lena stared at her teacup, flexing her fingers. She leaned down to blot the tablecloth with her napkin. Then she noticed the paper on the floor, where it had landed next to her foot.

“What’s this?” She picked up
The Stars and Stripes
. “I didn’t know you subscribed to this paper, Uncle M.”

“I do. I find it’s helpful to know what’s going on in town. You wouldn’t want to miss, I don’t know, the latest diabolical plan of Mrs. Lincoln and the Ladies Auxiliary.” He smiled. “Where would the fun be in that?”

I held my breath.

She tossed it over, facedown on the table.

The crossword was on the back. The Sunday edition, just like I’d planned it back in the office of
The Stars and Stripes
.

She smiled to herself. “Amma would do this crossword in about five minutes.”

Macon looked up. “Less than that, I’m sure. I believe I could do it in three.”

“Really?”

“Try me.”

“Eleven across,” she said. “Apparition or phantasm. A spectral being. A spirit from another world. A ghost.”

Macon looked at her, his eyes narrowing.

Lena leaned over the paper, holding her tea. I watched as she began to read.

Figure it out, L. Please.

It was only when the teacup began to shake and fell to the carpet that I knew she’d gotten it—not the crossword but the message behind it.

“Ethan?” She looked up. I leaned closer, holding my cheek against hers. I knew she couldn’t feel it; I wasn’t back with her, not yet. But I knew she believed I was there, and for now that’s all that mattered.

Macon stared at her, surprised.

The chandelier above the table began to sway. The room brightened until it was blindingly white. The enormous dining room windows began to crack into hundreds of glass spiderwebs. Heavy drapes flew against the walls like feathers in the wind.

“Darling,” Macon began.

Lena’s hair curled in every direction. I closed my eyes as window after window began to shatter like fireworks.

Ethan?

I’m here.

Above everything, that was all I needed her to know.

Finally.

CHAPTER 13

Where the Crow Carries You

L
ena knew I was there. It was hard to drag myself away, but she had figured out the truth. That was the main thing. Amma and Lena. I was two for two. It was a start.

And I was exhausted.

Now I had to find my way back to her for good. I crossed back in about ten seconds flat. If only the rest of the way was that easy.

I knew I should go home and tell my mom everything, but I also knew how worried she’d be about me going to the Far Keep. From what Genevieve and my mom and Aunt Prue and Obidias Trueblood had said, the Far Keep seemed like the last place a person would voluntarily go.