But she didn’t doubt me. Neither did my uncle, not anymore. In fact, Uncle Macon and Amma were the only ones who really believed me. They understood what I was going through, because they had gone through it themselves. I didn’t know if Uncle Macon would ever get over losing Lila. And Amma seemed to be having as hard a time without Ethan as I was. They had seen the proof, too. Uncle Macon was there when I saw Ethan’s crossword for the first time.
And Amma had all but seen Ethan standing in the kitchen of Wate’s Landing.
I said it out loud again to everyone, for the tenth time. “Of course he’s around. I told you, he’s going somewhere.
He’s got some kind of plan. He’s not just sitting there, waiting in a grave full of dirt. He’s trying to get back to us. I’m sure of it.”
“How sure?” Link asked. “You’re not sure, Lena. Nothin’s sure, except death an’ taxes. And when they said it, I think they were talkin’ more about stayin’ dead, not comin’ back again.” I didn’t know why Link was having so much trouble believing that Ethan was still there, that he could come home again. Wasn’t Link the one who was part Incubus? He knew as well as anyone that strange things happened around here all the time. Why was it so hard for him to believe that this particular strange thing could be happening?
Maybe losing Ethan was harder on Link than it was for the rest of them. Maybe he couldn’t let himself risk losing his best friend all over again, even if it was only the idea of him. No one knew what Link was going through.
Except me.
While Link and Liv returned to arguing about whether or not Ethan was actually gone, I felt myself slipping into the fog of nagging doubts that I worked so hard to push out of my mind.
They just kept coming.
What if this whole thing really was my imagination, like Reece and Gramma kept saying? What if they were right, and it was just too hard for me to accept my life without him? And it wasn’t just them—Uncle Macon wouldn’t try anything to bring him back either.
And if it was real—if Ethan could hear me—what would I say?
Come home.
I’m waiting.
I love you.
Nothing he didn’t already know.
Why bother?
I refused to write, but the words were hard to even think now.
words same as always
same as nothing
when nothing is the same
There was no point in saying it to myself.
John kicked Link again, and I tried to focus on the present. The kitchen and the conversation. All the things I could do for Ethan, rather than all the things I felt about him.
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Ethan is—around.” Liv looked at Link, who kept quiet this time. “Like I said, it seemed he spent all his energy trying to convince us of that a few weeks ago.”
“Right around the time you measured the energy spiking at Ravenwood,” John reminded her. Liv nodded, flipping pages in her notebook.
“Or maybe Reece was just usin’ the microwave,” Link muttered.
“Which was the same time Ethan moved the button at his grave,” I said obstinately.
“Or maybe it was just windy.” Link sighed.
“Something was definitely going on.” John moved his foot closer to Link, the threat of another good kick shutting Link up for a while. I thought about slapping a Silentium Cast on him, but it didn’t seem right. Plus, knowing Link, it would take more than magic to shut him up.
Liv went back to examining the papers in front of her. “But then, quite soon, his messages began to change. It’s like he figured something out. What he needed to do.”
“To come home,” I said.
“Lena, I know you want to think that’s what’s happenin’.” Amma’s voice was bleak. “And I felt my boy here, same as you. But we don’t know which end is up. There are no easy answers, not when it comes to gettin’ someone in or outta the Otherworld. Believe me, if there was an easy way, I would’ve already done it.” She sounded so haggard and tired. I knew she had been working on getting Ethan home as hard as I had. And I’d tried everything at first—everything and everyone. The problem was trying to get Light Casters to talk about raising the dead. And I didn’t have quite the access to the Dark Casters that I used to. Uncle Macon had come for me the moment I’d set foot in Exile. I suspected he made some kind of deal with the bartender, a shifty-looking Blood Incubus who looked like he’d do anything if he was thirsty enough.
“But we don’t know that’s not it,” I said, looking at Liv.
“True. The logical assumption would be that wherever Ethan was, he would be trying to get back.” Liv carefully erased a small mark in the margin. “To where you are.” She didn’t look at me, but I knew what she meant. Liv and Ethan had a history of their own, and even though Liv had found something better for her with John, she was always very careful of how she spoke about Ethan, especially to me.
She tapped the pencil. “First the river rock. Now The Book of Moons . He must need them for something.” John pulled the last puzzle toward him. “If he needs The Book of Moons , it’s a good sign. It has to be.”
“A mighty powerful book, on this side or the other. A book like that would be worth bargaining for.” Amma rubbed my shoulders as she spoke, and I felt a shiver go down my spine.
John looked at both of us. “Bargaining for what? Why?”
Amma said nothing. I suspected she knew more than she was saying, which was usually the case. Plus, she hadn’t even mentioned the Greats in weeks, which was unlike her. Especially now that Ethan was in their care, technically speaking. But I had no idea what Amma was up to any more than I knew what Ethan was planning.
I finally answered for both of us, because there was only one possible answer. “I don’t know. It’s not like I can ask him.”
“Why not? Can’t you Cast something?” John looked frustrated.
“It doesn’t work like that.” I wished it did.
“Some kind of Reveal Cast?”
“There’s nothing to Cast it on.”
“His grave?” John looked at Liv, but she shook her head. No one had an answer, because none of us had ever even contemplated anything like this before. A Cast on someone who wasn’t even on this plane of existence? Short of raising the dead—which Genevieve had done to start this whole mess in the first place, and I had done again, more than a hundred years later—what could anyone do?
I shook my head. “What does it matter? Ethan wants it, and we have to get it to him. That’s the important thing.” Amma chimed in. “Besides, only one kind a bargain my boy would be makin’ over there. Only one thing he wants bad enough. And that would be to get himself back home again, sure as the sunrise.”
“Amma’s right.” I looked at them. “We have to get him the Book.”
Link sat up. “Are you sure, Lena? Are you absolutely death-and-taxes sure it’s Ethan who’s even sendin’ us these messages? What if it’s Sarafine? Or even Colonel Sanders?” He shuddered.
I knew who Link meant. Abraham, in his rumpled white suit and his string tie. Satan himself, at least as far as Gatlin County was concerned.
That really would be the worst-case scenario.
“It’s not Sarafine. I’d know.”
“Would you really know if it was her?” Link rubbed his hair, which was sticking out in a thousand different directions. “How?”
Through the window, I watched as Mr. Wate’s Volvo pulled into the driveway. I knew the conversation was over, even before I felt Amma’s hands stiffen on my shoulders. “I just would.”
Wouldn’t I?
I stared at the stupid crossword puzzle as if it could give me some kind of answer, when all it could tell me was that I knew nothing at all.