Beautiful Darkness (12 page)

“I swear, it was some kinda spot-aneous combustion. It just started burnin’ while I was writin’.”

Mrs. English picked up a shiny black lighter from the center of Emily's desk. “Really? pack up your things. You can explain it all to Principal Harper.”

Emily stormed out the door while Mrs. English marched to the front of the classroom. As she passed me, I noticed the lighter was emblazoned with a silver crescent moon.

Lena turned back to her own test and started writing. I stared at the baggy white undershirt, her necklace jingling beneath it. Her hair was up, twisted into a weird knot, another new preference she never bothered to explain. I poked her with my pencil. She stopped writing and looked up at me, curving her mouth into a crooked half-smile, which was about the best she could do these days.

I smiled back at her, but she looked down at her test, as if she would rather consider assonance and consonance than look at me. Like it actually hurt to look at me — or, worse, she just didn't want to.

When the bell rang, Jackson High turned into Mardi Gras. Girls peeled off their tank tops and went running through the parking lot in their bikini tops. Lockers were emptied, notebooks dumped into the trash. Talking turned into shouting, then screaming, as sophomores turned into juniors and juniors into seniors. Everyone finally had what they'd been waiting for all year — freedom, and a fresh start.

Everyone but me.

Lena and I walked to the parking lot. Her bag swung as she walked, and we brushed against each other. I felt the electricity from months ago, but it was still cold. She stepped to the side, avoiding me.

“So, how'd you do?” I was trying to make conversation, as if we were total strangers.

“What?”

“The English final.”

“I probably failed it. I didn't really do any of the reading.” It was hard to imagine Lena not doing the reading for class, considering she had answered every question for months when we read
To Kill a Mockingbird
.

“Yeah? I aced it. I stole a copy of the test off Mrs. English's desk last week.” It was a lie. I would have failed before I cheated in the House of Amma. But Lena wasn't listening anyway. I waved my hand in front of her eyes. “L? Are you listening to me?” I wanted to talk to her about the dream, but first I had to get her to notice I was here.

“Sorry. I have a lot on my mind.” She looked away. It wasn't much, but it was more than I'd gotten out of her in weeks.

“Like what?”

She hesitated. “Nothing.”

Nothing good? Or nothing you can talk about here?

She stopped walking and turned to face me, refusing to let me in. “We're leaving Gatlin. All of us.”

“What?” I hadn't seen this coming. Which must have been what she wanted. She was shutting me out so I couldn't see inside, where things were happening, where she hid the feelings she didn't want to share. I kept thinking she just needed time. I didn't realize it was time away from me.

“I didn't want to tell you. It's only for a few months.”

“Does it have anything to do with —” The familiar panic in my stomach dropped like a stone.

“It has nothing to do with her.” Lena looked down. “Gramma and Aunt Del think if I get away from Ravenwood, I might think about it less. About him less.”

If I get away from you
. That's what I heard.

“It doesn't work like that, Lena.”

“What?”

“You aren't going to forget Macon by running away.”

She tensed at the mention of his name. “Yeah? Is that what your books say? Where am I? Stage five? Six, tops?”

“Is that what you think?”

“Here's a stage for you. Leave it all behind and get away while you still can. When do I get to that one?”

I stopped walking and looked at her. “Is that what you want?”

She twisted her charm necklace on the long silver chain, touching the littlest bits of us, the things we had done and seen together. She twisted it so tight, I thought for a minute it would snap. “I don't know. Part of me wants to leave and never come back, and part of me can't bear to go because he loved Ravenwood and left it to me.”

Is that the only reason?

I waited for her to finish — to say she didn't want to leave me. But she didn't.

I changed the subject. “Maybe that's why we're dreaming about that night.”

“What are you talking about?” I had her attention.

“The dream we had last night, about your birthday. I mean, it seemed like your birthday except for the part when Sarafine
killed me. It seemed so real. I even woke up with this.” I held up my shirt.

Lena stared at the raised pink scar, creating a jagged line across my abdomen. She looked like she was going to pass out. Her face went pale, her expression panicked. It was the first time I had seen any kind of emotion in her eyes in weeks. “I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't have a dream last night.” There was something about the way she said it, and the look on her face. She was serious.

“That's weird. Usually we both do.” I tried to sound calm, but I could feel my heart starting to pound. We had been having the same dreams since before we met. They were the reason for Macon's midnight visits to my room — to take the pieces of my dreams he didn't want Lena to see. Macon had said our connection was so strong that Lena dreamed my dreams. What did it say about our connection if she couldn't anymore?

“It was the night of your birthday, and I heard you calling me. But when I got to the top of the crypt, Sarafine was there and she had a knife.”

Lena looked like she was going to be sick. I probably should have stopped there, but I couldn't. I had to keep pushing, and I didn't even know why. “What happened that night, L? You never really told me. Maybe that's why I'm dreaming about it now.”

Ethan, I can't. Don't make me.

I couldn't believe it. There she was back in my mind, Kelting again. I tried to crack open the door, an inch further, and get back into hers.

We can talk about this. You have to talk to me.

Whatever Lena was feeling, she shook it off. I felt the door
between our minds slam shut. “You know what happened. You fell, trying to climb onto the crypt, and you were knocked out.”

“But what happened to Sarafine?”

She tugged on the strap of her bag. “I don't know. There was fire everywhere, remember?”

“And she just disappeared?” “I don't know. I couldn't see anything, and by the time the fire died down, she was gone.” Lena sounded defensive, as if I was accusing her of something. “Why are you making such a big deal about this? You had a dream, and I didn't. So what? It's not like the others. It doesn't mean anything.” She started to walk away.

I stepped in front of her and lifted my shirt again. “Then how do you explain this?”

The jagged outline of the scar was still pink and newly healed. Lena's eyes were wide, catching the sunlight of the first day of summer. In the sun, her hazel eyes seemed to glint with gold. She didn't say a word.

“And the song — it's changing. I know you hear it, too. Time is high? Are we going to talk about that?” She started backing away from me, which I guess was her answer. But I didn't care and it didn't matter, because I couldn't stop myself. “Something's happening, isn't it?”

She shook her head.

“What is it? Lena —”

Before I could say anything else, Link caught up to us, snapping me with his towel. “Looks like nobody's goin’ to the lake today, except maybe you two.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at the tires, oh Whipped One. They're all slashed, every car in the lot, even the Beater.”

“Every car?” Fatty, Jackson's truant officer, would be all over this. I calculated the number of cars in the lot. Enough to get the whole mess kicked up to Summerville, maybe even the sheriff's office. This was out of Fatty's league.

“Every car except Lena's.” Link pointed at the Fastback in the parking lot. I still had trouble getting my head around the idea that it was Lena's car. The lot was in total chaos. Savannah was on her cell phone. Emily was screaming at Eden Westerly. The basketball team was going nowhere.

Link bumped his shoulder against Lena's. “I don't really blame you for the rest a them, but did you have to get the Beater? I'm a little short on cash for new tires.”

I looked at her. She was transfixed.

Lena, did you?

“It wasn't me.” Something was wrong. The old Lena would have bitten our heads off for even asking.

“You think it was Ridley or —” I looked over at Link. I didn't want to say Sarafine's name.

Lena shook her head. “It wasn't Ridley.” She didn't sound like herself, or sure of herself. “She's not the only one who hates Mortals, believe it or not.”

I looked at her, but it was Link who said the one thing we were both thinking. “How do you know?”

“I just do.”

Over the chaos of the parking lot, a motorcycle gunned its engine. A guy in a black T-shirt swerved through the parked cars, blowing exhaust into the faces of angry cheerleaders, and disappeared out onto the road. He was wearing a helmet, so you couldn't see his face. Just his Harley.

But my stomach balled itself up, because the motorcycle
looked familiar. Where had I seen it before? Nobody at Jackson had a motorcycle. The closest thing was Hank Porter's ATV, which hadn't worked since he rolled it after Savannah's last party. Or so I'd heard, now that I no longer made the guest list.

Lena stared after the motorcycle as if she had seen a ghost. “Let's get out of here.” She headed for her car, practically running down the stairs.

“Where to?” I tried to catch up to her, Link jogging behind me.

“Anywhere but here.”

6.12

I
f it wasn't Ridley, why weren't your tires slashed?” I pushed again. What happened in the parking lot didn't make sense, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Or the motorcycle. Why did I recognize it?

Lena ignored me, looking out at the water. “It's probably a coincidence.” Neither of us believed in coincidences.

“Yeah?” I grabbed a handful of sand, brown and gritty. Except for Link, we had the lake to ourselves. Everyone else was probably lined up at the BP trying to buy new tires before Ed ran out.

In another town, you might have put your shoes back on and called the sand dirt and this part of our lake a swamp, but the murky water of Lake Moultrie was the closest thing Gatlin had to a swimming pool. Everyone hung out on the northern shore because it was on the edge of the woods and a hike from the cars, so
you never ran into anyone who wasn't in high school — especially not your parents.

I didn't know why we were here. It was weird to have the lake to ourselves, since the whole school had planned to be here today. I hadn't believed Lena when she told me she wanted to come. But she did, and we had, and now Link was thrashing around in the water, and we were sharing a dirty towel Link had grabbed out of the back of the Beater before we left.

Lena turned over next to me. For a minute, it seemed like everything was back to normal and she wanted to be there on my towel. But that only lasted until the silence set in. I could see her pale skin glistening under the thin white undershirt, which was sticking to her in the suffocating heat and humidity of a June South Carolina day. The sound of the cicadas chirping almost drowned out the awkward silence. Almost. Lena's black skirt was riding low on her hips. I wished we had our bathing suits for the hundredth time. I'd never seen Lena in one. I tried not to think about it.