“With my luck lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if he shot us both.”
We reached the top of the rise. I could see the thicket of brush, the oaks, and the smoke of the artillery field beyond us.
“We’re over here!” Larkin called, from the other side of the thicket. By the “we,” I could only assume he meant him and Lena, so I ran faster. Like Lena’s life depended on it, because for all I knew maybe it did.
Then I realized where we were. There was the archway to the garden at Greenbrier.
Larkin and Lena were standing in the clearing, just beyond the garden, in the same place where we had dug up Genevieve’s grave a few weeks ago. A few feet behind them, a figure stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight. It was dark, but the full moon was right over us.
I blinked. It was—It was“Mom, what the heck are you doin’ out here?” Link was confused.
Because his mom was standing in front of us, Mrs. Lincoln, my worst nightmare, or at least in my top ten. She looked strangely in—or out of—place, depending on how you looked at it. She was wearing ridiculous volumes of petticoats and the stupid calico dress that cinched her waist way too tightly. And she was standing right at Genevieve’s grave.
“Now, now. You know how I feel about profanity, young man.”
Link rubbed his head. This made no sense at all, not to him, and not to me.
Lena, what’s happening?
Lena?
There was no response. Something was wrong.
“Mrs. Lincoln, are you okay?”
“Delightful, Ethan. Isn’t it a wonderful battle? And Lena’s birthday, too, she tells me.
We’ve been waiting for you, at least, one of you.”
Link stepped closer. “Well, I’m here now, Mom. I’ll take you home. You shouldn’t be out past the Safe Zone. You’re gonna get your head blown off. You know what a bad shot Dad is.”
I grabbed Link’s arm, holding him back. There was something wrong, something about the way she was smiling at us. Something about the panicked look on Lena’s face.
What’s going on? Lena!
Why wasn’t she answering me? I watched as Lena pulled my mom’s ring out of her sweatshirt and grabbed it by the chain in her hand. I could see her lips move in the darkness. I could barely hear something, only a whisper, in the far corner of my mind.
Ethan, get out of here! Get Uncle Macon! Run!
But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t leave her.
“Link, Angel, you are such a thoughtful boy.”
Link? It wasn’t Mrs. Lincoln standing in front of us. It couldn’t be.
Mrs. Lincoln would no more call Wesley Jefferson Lincoln “Link” than she would streak through the streets naked. “Why you would use that ridiculous nickname when you have such a dignified name, I cannot imagine,” she’d say every time one of us accidentally called her house and asked for Link.
Link felt my hand on his arm and stopped. It was starting to register with him, too; I could see it on his face. “Mom?”
“Ethan, get out of here! Larkin, Link, somebody, go get Uncle Macon!” Lena was screaming. She couldn’t stop. She looked more frightened than I’d ever seen her. I ran toward her.
I could hear the sound of a shell being released from a cannon. Then a sudden flurry of gunfire.
My back slammed into something, hard. I felt my head crack and everything sort of went out of focus for a second.
“Ethan!” I could hear Lena’s voice, but I couldn’t move. I’d been shot. I was sure of it. I fought to stay conscious.
After a few seconds, my eyes came back into focus. I was on the ground, my back against a massive oak. The gunshot must have thrown me backward into the tree. I felt around to see where I’d been hit, but there was no blood. I couldn’t find the bullet’s point of entry.
Link was a few feet away, propped awkwardly against another tree. He looked just as out of it as I felt. I got to my feet, stumbling forward toward Lena, but my face slammed right into something and I ended up back on the ground. It felt just like the time I had walked into a sliding glass door at the Sisters’ house.
I hadn’t been shot; this was something else. I’d been hit by a different kind of weapon.
“Ethan!” Lena was screaming.
I got up again and stepped forward slowly. There was a sliding glass door there all right, except this one was some kind of invisible wall encircling the tree and me. I banged on it and my fist smacked against it but it didn’t make a sound. I slammed my palms against it over and over. What else could I do? That’s when I noticed Link banging on his own invisible cage.
Mrs. Lincoln smiled at me, with a smile more wicked than anything Ridley could muster on her best day.
“Let them go!” Lena shrieked.
Out of nowhere, the sky opened up and rain literally poured out of the clouds, like it was being dumped from a bucket. Lena. Her hair was waving wildly. The rain turned to sleet and fell sideways, attacking Mrs. Lincoln from every direction. In a matter of seconds, we were all soaked to the bone.
Mrs. Lincoln, or whoever she was, smiled. There was something about her smile. She looked almost proud. “I’m not going to hurt them. I just want to give us some time to talk.” Thunder rumbled in the sky over her head. “I was hoping I would get a chance to see some of your talents. How I’ve regretted I wasn’t there to help you hone your gifts.”
“Shut up, witch.” Lena was grim. I had never seen her green eyes like this, the steely way they were set on Mrs. Lincoln. Flint hard. Resolute. Full of hate and anger. She looked like she wanted to rip Mrs. Lincoln’s head off, and she looked like she could do it.
I finally understood what Lena had been so worried about all year. She had the power to destroy. I had only seen the power to love. When you discovered you had both, who could figure out what to do with that?
Mrs. Lincoln turned to Lena. “Wait until you realize what you can really do. How you can manipulate the elements. It’s the true gift of a Natural, something we have in common.”
Something they had in common.
Mrs. Lincoln looked up at the sky, the rain running down beside her as if she was holding an umbrella. “Right now you’re making rain showers, but soon you’ll learn to control fire as well. Let me show you. How I do like playing with fire.”
Rain showers? Was she kidding? We were in the middle of a monsoon.
Mrs. Lincoln held up her palm and lightning sliced through the clouds, electrifying the sky. She held up three fingers. Lightning erupted, with the flick of every manicured nail.
Once. Lightning struck the ground, kicking up the dirt, two feet away from where Link was trapped. Twice. Lightning burned through the oak behind me, cleaving the trunk neatly in half. A third time. Lightning struck Lena, who simply held up her own outstretched hand. The flash of electricity ricocheted off her, landing instead at Mrs.
Lincoln’s feet. The grass around her started to smolder and burn.
Mrs. Lincoln laughed and waved her hand. The fires in the grass died out. She looked at
Lena with a glint of pride. “Not bad. I’m happy to see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”