Leah Ravenwood studied her brother. “Macon, what are you thinking?”
Macon walked around the table until he was standing directly across from me. “I’m more interested in what Ethan is thinking.” Macon’s green eyes started to glow. They reminded me of the luminescent color from the Arclight.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Leah, who looked shocked.
“I knew Macon’s powers changed when he became a Caster. But I had no idea he could Mindhunt.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” It didn’t sound good, considering that Macon was completely focused on me.
“The mind is a labyrinth, and Macon can navigate his way through it.”
It sounded like one of Amma’s answers, the kind that doesn’t really tell you anything. “You mean he can read minds?”
“Not the way you’re thinking. He can sense disturbances and anomalies, things that don’t belong.” Leah was staring at Macon.
His green pupils were glowing and sightless now, yet I knew he was watching me. It was disturbing to be seen without being seen. Macon stared at me for a long minute. “You, of all people.”
“I what?”
“It seems you have brought something—no, someone— here with you this evening. An uninvited guest.”
“Ethan would never do that!” Lena sounded as surprised as I was.
Macon ignored her, still watching me. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something has changed.”
“What are you talking about?” A sick feeling was building inside me.
Marian stood up slowly, as if she didn’t want to startle him. “Macon, you know the Order is affecting everyone’s powers. You aren’t immune. Is it possible you are perceiving something that isn’t there?”
The green light faded from Macon’s eyes. “Anything is possible, Marian.”
My heart was pounding in my chest. A second ago he was accusing me of bringing someone into Ravenwood, and now he had what—changed his mind?
“Mr. Wate, it seems you are not yourself. Something quite significant is missing. Which explains why I sensed a stranger in my house, even if the stranger is you.”
Everyone was staring at me. I felt my stomach lurch, as if the ground was still moving beneath my feet. “Missing? What do you mean?”
“If I knew, I would tell you.” Macon started to relax. “Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure.”
I didn’t know what Macon was talking about, and I didn’t care anymore. I wasn’t going to sit here and be accused of things I hadn’t done, because his powers were all screwed up and he was too arrogant to deal with it. My world was collapsing around me, and I needed answers. “I hope you had fun hunting, or whatever you call it. But that’s not what I came to talk about.”
“What did you come to talk about?” Macon sat back down at the head of the table. He said it like I was the one wasting everyone’s time, which only made me angrier.
“The Eighteenth Moon isn’t about Ravenwood or Lena. It’s about John Breed. But we don’t know where he is or what’s going to happen.”
“I think he’s right.” Liv chewed on the end of her pen.
“I thought you might want to know so we can find him.” I stood up. “And I’m sorry if I don’t seem like myself. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the world is falling apart.”
Ethan, where are you going?
This is bullshit.
“Ethan, calm down. Please.” Marian started to get up.
“Tell that to the Vexes that destroyed the whole town. Or Abraham and Sarafine and Hunting.” I looked right at Macon. “Why don’t you turn your X-ray vision on them?”
Ethan!
I’m done here.
He doesn’t mean—
I don’t care what he means, L.
Macon was watching me.
“There are no coincidences, right? When the universe warns me about something, it’s usually my mom talking. So I’m going to listen.” I walked out before anyone could say anything. I didn’t need to be a Wayward to see who was lost.
Rubbery Chicken
All I could see was fire. I felt the heat and saw the color of the flames. Orange, red, blue. Fire was so many more colors than people thought.
I was in the Sisters’ house, and I was trapped.
Where are you?
I looked down at my feet. I knew he would be there any minute. Then I heard the voice, through the flames below me.
I’M WAITING.
I ran down the stairs, toward the voice, but the staircase crumbled under my feet, and suddenly I was falling. As the floor gave way, I hit the basement beneath me, my shoulder crashing through the burning wood below.
I saw orange, red, blue.
I realized I was in the library, when I should have been in Aunt Prue’s basement. Books were burning all around me.
Da Vinci. Dickinson. Poe. And another one.
The Book of Moons.
And I saw a flash of gray that wasn’t part of the fire at all.
It was him.
The smoke swallowed me, and I blacked out.
I woke up on the floor. When I looked in the bathroom mirror, my face was black with soot. I spent the rest of the day trying not to cough up ash.
I had been sleeping even worse than usual since my argument with Macon, or whatever you’d call it. Fighting with Macon usually led to fighting with Lena, which was more painful than fighting with everyone I knew combined. But now everything was different, and Lena didn’t know what to say any more than I did.
We tried to avoid thinking about what was happening around us—the things we couldn’t stop and the answers we couldn’t find. But it was always lurking in the back of our minds, even if we didn’t admit it. We tried to focus on things we could control, like keeping Ridley out of trouble and the lubbers out of our houses. Because when every day is the End of Days, after a while they feel pretty much like every other day, even though you know that’s crazy. And nothing is the same.
The bugs got hungrier, the heat got hotter, and the whole town got crazier. But more than anything, it was still the heat we all noticed. It was proof that no matter who was scoring or dating or lying in a bed at County Care—underneath everything, from the minute you woke up in the morning to the minute you fell asleep, and all the minutes in between—something was wrong and it wasn’t getting better. It was getting worse.
But I didn’t need to feel the heat outside to prove it to me. I had all the proof I needed inside—in our kitchen. Amma was practically connected to our old stove on a cellular level, and when something was going on in her head, it found its way into the kitchen. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with her, and she sure wasn’t going to tell me. I could only piece it together from the few clues she left, in the language she used the most—cooking.
Clue number one: rubbery chicken. Rubbery chicken was useful, mostly in terms of establishing a state of mind and a timeline, like rigor mortis on a cop show. For Amma, who was famous in three counties for her chicken ’n’ dumplings, rubbery chicken meant two things: a) she was distracted, and b) she was busy. She didn’t just forget to take the chicken out of the oven. She didn’t have time to deal with it once it was out. So the chicken sat too long in the heat, and even longer on the cooling rack. Waiting for Amma to come around, like the rest of us. I wanted to know where she was and what she was up to all that time.
Clue number two: a general lack of pie. Pie was gone, and when it wasn’t, there was no sign of Amma’s famous lemon meringue. Which meant a) she wasn’t speaking to the Greats, and b) she definitely wasn’t speaking to Uncle Abner. I hadn’t checked the liquor cabinet, but a lack of Jack Daniels would seal the deal for Uncle Abner, too.