I pulled my hand away, and Lena grabbed the book.
"I'm sorry, L."
She was furious.
"I thought it was just a book. I mean, it looks like a book. I didn't think you would leave your notebook lying around where anyone could read it."
She wouldn't look at me, clutching the book to her chest.
"Why aren't you writing anymore? I thought you loved to write."
She rolled her eyes and opened the notebook to show me. "I do."
She fluttered the blank pages, and now they were covered with line upon line of tiny scribbled words, crossed out again and again, revised and rewritten and revisited a thousand times.
"You Charmed it?"
"I Shifted the words out of Mortal reality. Unless I choose to show them to someone, only a Caster can read them."
"That's brilliant. Since Reece, the person most likely to read it, happens to be one." Reece was as nosy as she was bossy.
"She doesn't need to. She can read everything in my face." It was true. As a Sybil, Reece could see your thoughts and secrets, even things you were planning to do, just by looking you in the eye. Which was why I generally avoided her.
"So, what's with all the secrecy?" I flopped down on Lena's futon. She sat next to me, balancing on her crisscrossed legs. Things were less comfortable than I was pretending they were.
"I don't know. I still feel like writing all the time. Maybe I just feel less like being understood, or less like I can be."
My jaw tightened. "By me."
"That's not what I meant."
"What other Mortals would be reading your notebook?"
"You don't understand."
"I think I do."
"Some of it, maybe."
"I would understand all of it if you'd let me."
"There's no letting, Ethan. I can't explain it."
"Let me see it." I held out my hand for her notebook.
She raised an eyebrow, handing it to me. "You won't be able to read it."
I opened it and looked at it. I didn't know if it was Lena, or the book itself, but the words appeared on the page in front of me slowly, one at a time. It wasn't one of Lena's poems, and it wasn't song lyrics. There weren't many words, just strange drawings, shapes and swirls snaking up and down the page like some collection of tribal designs.
At the bottom of the page, there was a list. what i remember mother ethan macon hunting the fire the wind the rain the crypt the me who is not me the me who would kill two bodies the rain the book the ring amma's charm the moon
Lena grabbed the book out of my hand. There were a few more lines on the page, but I never got to read them. "Stop it!"
I looked at her. "What was that?"
"Nothing, it's private. You shouldn't have been able to see that."
"Then why could I?"
"I must have done the Verbum Celatum Cast wrong. The Hidden Word." She looked at me anxiously, her eyes softening. "It doesn't matter. I was trying to remember that night. The night Macon ... disappeared."
"Died, L. The night Macon died."
"I know he died. Of course he died. I just don't feel like talking about it."
"I know you're probably depressed. It's normal."
"What?"
"It's the next stage."
Lena's eyes flashed. "I know your mom died, and my uncle died. But I have my own stages of grief. This isn't my feelings journal. I'm not your dad, and I'm not you, Ethan. We aren't as much alike as you think."
We looked at each other in a way we hadn't in a long time, maybe ever. There was a nameless moment. I realized we'd been speaking out loud since I got there, without Kelting a word. For the first time, I didn't know what she was thinking, and it was pretty clear she didn't know how I felt either.
But then she did. She held out her arms and drew me into them because, for the first time, I was the one who was crying.
When I got home, all the lights were out, but I still didn't go inside. I sat down on the porch and watched the fireflies blinking in the dark. I didn't want to see anyone. I wanted to think, and I had a feeling Lena wouldn't be listening. There's something about sitting alone in the dark that reminds you how big the world really is, and how far apart we all are. The stars look like they're so close, you could reach out and touch them. But you can't. Sometimes things look a lot closer than they are.
I stared into the darkness for so long that I thought I saw something move by the old oak in our front yard. For a second, my pulse quickened. Most people in Gatlin didn't even lock their doors, but I knew there were plenty of things that could get past a deadbolt. I saw the air shift again, almost imperceptibly, like a heat wave. I realized it wasn't something trying to break into my house. It was something that had broken out from another one.
Lucille, the Sisters' cat. I could see her blue eyes shining in the darkness as she stalked onto the porch.
"I told everyone you'd find your way back to the house sooner or later. You just found the wrong house." Lucille cocked her head to the side. "You know the Sisters are never gonna let you off that clothesline again after this."
Lucille stared back at me as if she understood perfectly. As if she had known the consequences when she took off but, for whatever reason, she left anyway. A firefly blinked in front of me, and Lucille leaped off the step.
It flew higher, but that dumb cat kept reaching for it. She didn't seem to know how far away it really was. Like the stars. Like a lot of things.
6.12
The Girl of My Dreams
Darkness.
I couldn't see a thing, but I could feel the air draining out of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. The air was filled with smoke, and I was coughing, choking.