Beautiful Darkness (11 page)

“Yes, ma'am.” I chugged the glass of water Amma had poured for my dad. She held up her infamous wooden spoon with the hole in the middle, the One-Eyed Menace — that's what I called
it. When I was a kid, she used to chase me around the house with it if I sassed her, even though she never actually hit me with it. I ducked, to play along.

“And you better pass every single one. I won't have you hangin’ around that school all summer like the Pettys’ kids. You're gonna get a job, like you said you would.” She sniffed, waving the spoon. “Free time means free trouble, and you got heaps of that already.”

My dad smiled and stifled a laugh. I bet Amma had said exactly the same thing to him when he was my age.

“Yes, ma'am.”

I heard a car honk, and the sound of way too much Beater bass, and grabbed my backpack. All I saw was the blur of the spoon behind me.

I slid into the Beater and rolled down the window. Gramma had gotten her way, and Lena had come back to school a week ago, for the end of the year. I had driven all the way out to Ravenwood to take her to school on her first day back, even stopping at the Stop & Steal to get her one of their famous sticky buns, but by the time I got there Lena was already gone. Ever since then, she had been driving herself to school, so Link and I were back in the Beater.

Link turned down the music, which was blasting through the car, out the windows, and down the block.

“Don't you embarrass me over at that school a yours, Ethan Wate. And you turn down that music, Wesley Jefferson Lincoln! You're goin’ to knock over my whole row a rutabagas with that ruckus.” Link honked back at her. Amma knocked her spoon against the post, put her hands on her hips, and then softened. “You do well on those tests a yours, and maybe I'll bake you a pie.”

“That wouldn't be Gatlin peach, would it, ma'am?”

Amma sniffed and nodded her head. “Just might be.”

She would never admit it, but Amma had finally developed a soft spot for Link, after all these years. Link thought it was because Amma felt sorry for his mom after her invasion-of-the- body-snatchers experience with Sarafine, but that wasn't it. She felt bad for Link. “Can't believe that boy has to live in the house with that woman. He'd be better off if he was bein’ raised by wolves.” That's what she'd said last week before she packed up a pecan pie for him.

Link looked at me and grinned. “Best thing that ever happened to me, Lena's mom gettin’ mixed up with my mom. Never had so much a Amma's pie in my life.” It was about as much as he ever said about Lena's nightmare of a birthday anymore. He floored it, and the Beater went skidding down the road. It almost wasn't worth mentioning that we were late, as usual.

“Did you study for English?” It wasn't really a question. I knew Link hadn't cracked a book since seventh grade.

“Nah. I'm gonna copy offa someone.”

“Who?”

“What do you care? Somebody smarter than you.”

“Yeah? Last time you copied off Jenny Masterson, and you both got D's.”

“I didn't have time to study. I was writin’ a song. We might play it at the county fair. Check it out.” Link sang along with the song, which sounded weird because he was singing along to a recording of his own voice. “Lollipop Girl, took off without a word, was callin’ out your name, but you never heard.”

Great. Another song about Ridley. Which shouldn't have
surprised me, since he hadn't written a song about anything but Ridley for four months now. I was beginning to think he would always be hung up on Lena's cousin, who was nothing like her. Ridley was a Siren, who used her Power of Persuasion to get what she wanted with one lick of a lollipop. Which, for a while, was Link. Even though she had used him and disappeared, he hadn't forgotten her. But I couldn't blame him. It was probably tough being in love with a Dark Caster. It was pretty tough sometimes with a Light one, too.

I was still thinking about Lena, despite the deafening roar in my ears, until Link's voice was drowned out altogether, and I heard
Seventeen Moons.
Only now the words had changed.

Seventeen moons, seventeen turns,

Eyes so dark and bright it burns,

Time is high but one is higher,

Draws the moon into the fire …

Time is high? What did that even mean? It wasn't going to be Lena's Seventeenth Moon for eight more months. Why was time high now? And who was the one, and what was the fire?

I felt Link smack the side of my head, and the song disappeared. He was shouting over his demo tape. “If I can get the backbeat down, it'll be a pretty rockin’ tune.” I stared at him, and he knocked me in the head again. “Shake it off, man. It's just an exam. You look as crazy as Miss Luney, the hot-lunch lady.”

Thing is, he wasn't that far off.

When the Beater pulled into the Jackson High parking lot, it still didn't feel like the last day of school. For the seniors, it wasn't. They would have graduation tomorrow, and a party that lasted all night and usually gave more than a few people a brush with alcohol poisoning. But for us sophomores and juniors, we had one more exam until we were free.

Savannah and Emily walked past Link and me, ignoring us. Their short skirts were even shorter than usual, and we could see bikini strings hanging out from under their tank tops. Tie-dye and pink gingham.

“Check it out. Bikini season.” Link grinned.

I had almost forgotten. We were only an exam away from an afternoon at the lake. Everyone who was anyone was wearing bathing suits under their clothes today, since summer didn't officially start until you had taken your first swim off the shores of Lake Moultrie. Kids from Jackson had a place we hung out, up past Monck's Corner, where the lake opened deep and wide into what felt like an ocean when you were swimming in it. Except for all the catfish and the swamp weeds, you could be out to sea. This time last year, I rode to the lake in the back of Emory's brother's truck with Emily, Savannah, Link, and half the basketball team. But that was last year.

“You goin’?”

“Nah.”

“I've got an extra suit in the Beater, but it's not as cool as these puppies.” Link pulled up his shirt so I could see his bathing suit, which was bright orange and yellow plaid. About as low-key as Link was.

“I'll pass.” He knew why I wasn't going, but I wouldn't say it. I had to act like things were okay.

Like Lena and I were okay.

Link wasn't giving up today. “I'm sure Emily's savin’ you half her towel.” It was a joke, because we both knew she wasn't. Even the pity parade had moved on, along with the hate campaign. I guess we were such easy targets these days, the sport was gone, like shooting fish in a barrel.

“Give it a rest.”

Link stopped walking and put his hand up to stop me. I shoved his hand away before he could start talking. I knew what he was going to say, and as far as I was concerned, the conversation was over before it started.

“Come on. I know her uncle died. Quit actin’ like you're both still at the funeral. I know you love her, but …” He didn't want to say it, even though we were both thinking it. He never brought it up anymore, because he was Link, and he sat at the lunch table with me when nobody else would.

“Everything's fine.” It was going to work out. It had to. I didn't know how to be without her.

“It's hard to watch, dude. She's treatin’ you like —”

“Like what?” It was a challenge. I could feel my fingers curling into a fist. I was waiting for a reason, any reason. I felt like I was going to explode, that's how badly I wanted to hit something.

“The way girls usually treat me.” I think he was waiting for me to hit him. Maybe he even wanted me to, if it would've helped. He shrugged.

I uncurled my fingers. Link was Link, whether or not I felt like kicking his butt sometimes. “Sorry, man.”

Link laughed a little, taking off down the hall a little faster than usual. “No problem, Psycho.”

As I walked up the steps toward inevitable doom, I felt a familiar pang of loneliness. Maybe Link was right. I didn't know how much longer things could go on like this with Lena. Nothing was the same. If Link could see it, maybe it was time to face facts.

My stomach started to ache, and I grabbed my side, as if I could squeeze out the pain with my hands.

Where are you, L?

I slid into my desk just as the bell rang. Lena was sitting in the seat next to mine, on the Good-Eye Side, like she always had. But she didn't look like herself.

She was wearing one of those white V-neck undershirts that was too big, and a black skirt, a few inches shorter than she would've ever worn three months ago. You could barely see it under the shirt, which was Macon's. I almost didn't notice anymore. She also wore his ring, the one he used to twist on his finger when he was thinking, on a chain around her neck. It hung on a new chain, right next to my mother's ring. The old chain had broken the night of her birthday, lost somewhere in the ash. I had given her my mom's ring out of love, though I wasn't sure it felt like that to her now. Whatever the reason, Lena loyally carried our ghosts with her, hers and mine, refusing to take off either one. My lost mother and her lost uncle, caught in circles of gold and platinum and other precious metals, hanging above her charm necklace and hidden in layers of cotton that didn't belong to her.

Mrs. English was already passing out the tests, and she didn't look amused that half the class was wearing a bathing suit or carrying a beach towel. Emily was doing both.

“Five short answers, ten points each, multiple-choice, twenty-five points, and the essay, twenty-five. Sorry, no Boo Radley this time. We're covering
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
. It's not summer yet, people.” We had been reading
To Kill a Mockingbird
in the fall. I remembered the first time Lena had shown up for class, carrying her own broken-in copy.

“Boo Radley's dead, Mrs. English. Stake through the heart.” I don't know who said it, one of the girls sitting in the back with Emily, but we all knew she was talking about Macon. The comment was meant for Lena, just like old times. I tensed up as the ripple of laughter died down. I was waiting for the windows to shatter or something, but there wasn't even a crack. Lena didn't react. Maybe she wasn't listening, or she didn't care what they said anymore.

“I bet Old Man Ravenwood isn't even in the town graveyard. That coffin's probably empty. If there is one.” The voice was loud enough for Mrs. English to direct her eye toward the back of the room.

“Shut up, Emily,” I hissed.

This time, Lena turned around and looked right at Emily. That's all it took — one look. Emily opened her test, like she had any idea what
Jekyll and Hyde
was about. No one wanted to take on Lena. They just wanted to talk about her. Lena was the new Boo Radley. I wondered what Macon would have had to say about that.

I was still wondering, when I heard a scream from the back of the room.

“Fire! Someone help!” Emily was holding her test, and it was burning up in her hand. She dropped the test on the linoleum floor and kept screaming. Mrs. English picked up her sweater off the back of her chair, walked to the back of the room, and
swiveled so she could use her good eye. Three good slaps and the fire was out, leaving a charred and smoking test in the charred and smoking spot on the floor.