Beautiful Darkness (30 page)

“Yeah, I wanted to say good-bye. When are you leaving?”

Reece was sorting through books in the dining room, but I could still see her scowl. I looked away, out of habit. The last thing I needed was Reece reading everything that had happened
last night in my face. “Not until Sunday, but Lena hasn't even packed. Don't distract her,” Reece called out.

Two days. She was leaving in two days, and I didn't know. Was she even planning to say good-bye?

I ducked my head and stepped into the parlor to say hi to Gramma. She was an immovable force sitting in her rocking chair, with a cup of tea and the paper, as if the bustle of the morning didn't apply to her. She smiled, folding the paper in half. I had assumed it was
The Stars and Stripes
, but it was written in a language I didn't recognize.

“Ethan. I wish you could come with us. I will miss you, and I'm sure Lena will be counting the days until we get back.” She rose from the chair and hugged me.

Lena might be counting the days, but not for the reason Gramma thought. Her family had no idea what was going on with us anymore, or with Lena, for that matter. I had a feeling they didn't know she was hanging out in underground Caster clubs like Exile, or hitching rides on the back of John's Harley. Maybe they didn't know about John Breed at all.

I remembered when I first met Lena, the long list of the places she'd lived, the friends she had never made, the schools she'd never been able to go to. I wondered if she was going back to a life like that.

Gramma was staring at me curiously. She put her hand on my cheek. It was soft, like the gloves the Sisters wore to church. “You've changed, Ethan.”

“Ma'am?”

“I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's different.”

I looked away. There was no point in pretending. She would sense that Lena and I were no longer connected, if she hadn't
already. Gramma was like Amma. She was usually the strongest person in the room, by sheer force of will alone. “I'm not the one who changed, ma'am.”

She sat down again, picking her newspaper back up. “Nonsense. Everyone changes, Ethan. That's life. Now go tell my granddaughter to get packing. We need to go before the tides change and we're marooned here forever.” She smiled as if I was in on the joke. Only I wasn't.

Lena's door was open just a crack. The walls, the ceiling, the furniture — everything was black. Her walls weren't covered in Sharpie anymore. Now her poetry was scrawled in white chalk. Her closet doors were covered with the same phrase over and over:
runningtostandstillrunningtostandstillrunningto standstill
. I stared at the words, separating them the way I often had to when it came to Lena's writing. Once I did, I recognized them from an old U2 song and realized how true they really were.

It's what Lena had been doing all this time, every second since Macon died.

Her little cousin, Ryan, was sitting on the bed, holding Lena's face in her hands. Ryan was a Thaumaturge and only used her healing powers when someone was in great pain. Usually it was me, but today it was Lena.

I barely recognized her. She looked like she hadn't slept last night. She was wearing an oversize, faded black T-shirt as a nightgown. Her hair was tangled, her eyes red and swollen.

“Ethan!” The minute Ryan saw me, she was a regular kid again. She jumped into my arms, and I picked her up, swinging her legs from side to side. “Why aren't you coming with us? It's
going to be so boring. Reece is going to boss me around the whole summer, and Lena isn't any fun either.”

“I have to stick around here and take care of Amma and my dad, Chicken Little.” I put Ryan down gently.

Lena looked annoyed. She sat down on her unmade bed, with her legs folded under her, and waved Ryan out of the room. “Out now. Please.”

Ryan made a face. “If you two do anything disgusting and you need me, I'll be downstairs.” Ryan had saved my life on more than one occasion when Lena and I had gone too far and the electrical current between us had nearly stopped my heart.

Lena would never have that problem with John Breed. I wondered if it was his shirt she was wearing.

“What are you doing here, Ethan?” Lena stared up at the ceiling, and I followed her eyes to the words on the walls. I couldn't look at her.
When you look up / Do you see the blue sky of what might be / Or the darkness of what will never be? / Do you see me?

“I want to talk about last night.”

“You mean about why you were following me?” Her voice was harsh, which pissed me off.

“I wasn't following you. I was looking for you because I was worried. But I can see how that would be inconvenient when you were busy hooking up with John.”

Lena's jaw tightened, and she stood up, the T-shirt grazing her knees. “John and I are just friends. We weren't hooking up.”

“Do you hang all over all your friends like that?”

Lena stepped closer to me, the ends of her ratty curls beginning to lift gently off her shoulders. The chandelier hanging
from the center of her ceiling began to sway. “Do you try to kiss all of yours?” She looked me right in the eye.

There was a flash of light and sparks, then darkness. The lightbulbs on the chandelier exploded, tiny shards raining down on her bed. I heard the patter of rain on the roof.

“What are you —?”

“Don't bother lying, Ethan. I know what you and your library partner were doing outside Exile.” The voice in my head was sharp and bitter.

I heard you. You were Kelting. “Blue eyes and blond hair”? Sound familiar?

She was right. I was Kelting, and she'd heard every word.

Nothing happened.

The chandelier crashed onto her bed, missing me by inches. The floor seemed to drop out from under me. She'd heard me.

Nothing happened? Did you think I wouldn't know? Did you think I wouldn't feel it?

It was worse than looking Reece in the eye. Lena could see everything, and she didn't need her powers to do it.

“I lost it when I saw you with that guy John, and I wasn't thinking.”

“You can tell yourself that, but everything happens for a reason. You almost kissed her, and you did it because you wanted to.”

Maybe I just wanted to piss you off, because I saw you with another guy.

Be careful what you wish for.

I searched her face, the dark circles around her eyes, the sadness.

The green eyes I loved so much were gone — changed into the golden eyes of a Dark Caster.

What are you doing with me, Ethan?

I don't know anymore.

Lena's face fell for a second, but she caught herself. “You've been dying to get that out, haven't you? Now you can run off with your little Mortal girlfriend guilt-free.” She said
Mortal
as if she could hardly stand to say the word. “I bet you can't wait to hang out at the lake with her.” Lena was seething. Whole sections of ceiling were beginning to cave, where the chandelier had fallen.

Whatever pain she might have been feeling was totally eclipsed by her anger. “You'll be back on the basketball team by the time school starts, and she can join the cheer squad. Emily and Savannah will love her.”

I heard a cracking sound, and another stretch of drywall smashed to the ground next to me.

My chest tightened. Lena was wrong, but I couldn't help but think about how easy it would be to date a regular girl, a Mortal girl.

I always knew that's what you wanted. Now you can have it.

Another crash. Now I was covered with the fine white dust of her fallen ceiling, broken chunks scattered on the floor around me.

She was fighting back tears.

That's not what I meant, and you know it.

Do I? All I know is that it shouldn't be so hard. Loving someone shouldn't be so hard.

I never cared about that.

I felt her fading away, pushing me out of her mind and out of her heart. “You belong with someone like you, and I belong with someone like me, someone who understands what I'm
going through. I'm not the same person I was a few months ago, but I guess we both know that.”

Why can't you stop punishing yourself, Lena? It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have saved him.

You don't know what you're talking about.

I know you think it's your fault your uncle's dead, and that torturing yourself is some kind of penance.

There's no penance for what I did.

She started to turn away.

Don't run away.

I'm not running. I'm already gone.

I could barely hear her voice in my head. I moved closer to her. It didn't matter what she'd done or if things between us were over. I couldn't watch her destroy herself.

I pulled her to my chest and wrapped my arms around her, like she was drowning and I just wanted to get her out of the water. I could feel every inch of her burning cold against me. Her fingertips brushed mine. My chest was numb where her face pressed into it.

It doesn't matter if we're together or not. You're not one of them, L.

I'm not one of you either.

Her last words were a whisper. I tangled my hands into her hair. There was no part of me that could let go. I think she was crying, but I couldn't tell for sure. As I watched the ceiling, the last bits of plaster around the hole began to splinter into a thousand fissures, as if the rest of the roof might fall in on us any minute.

So this is it?

It was, but I didn't want her to answer. I wanted to stay in
this moment for a little while longer. I wanted to hold on to her and pretend she was still mine to hold.

“My family leaves in two days. By the time they wake up tomorrow, I'll be gone.”

“L, you can't —”

She touched my mouth. “If you ever loved me, and I know you did, leave it alone. I'm not going to let any more people I care about die because of me.”

“Lena.”

“This is my curse. It's mine. Let me have it.”

“What if I say no?”

She looked at me, her whole face darkening into a single shadow. “You don't have a choice. If you come by Ravenwood tomorrow, I can guarantee you won't feel like talking. And you won't be able to either.”

“Are you saying you're going to put a Cast on me?” It was an unspoken line between us she had never crossed.

She smiled and put her finger over my lips. “
Silentium.
Latin for ‘silence,’ which is what you'll hear if you try to tell anyone I'm leaving before I go.”

“You wouldn't.”

“I just did.”

Finally. Here we were. The only thing left between us was the unimaginable power she had never used against me. Her eyes flared gold and bright. There wasn't a trace of green. I knew she meant every word.

“Swear you won't come back here.” Lena slipped out of my arms and turned away from me. She didn't want to show me her eyes anymore, and I couldn't stand to see them.

“I swear.”

She didn't say a word. She nodded and wiped the tears running down her face. By the time I walked away, it was raining plaster.

I walked through the halls of Ravenwood one last time. The house grew darker and darker the farther I went. Lena was going. Macon was gone. Everyone was leaving, and the house felt dead. I dragged my fingers along the polished mahogany banister. I wanted to remember the smell of the varnish, the smooth feel of the old wood, maybe the faintest smell of Macon's imported cigars, Confederate jasmine, blood oranges, and books.

I stopped in front of Macon's bedroom door. Painted a flat black, it could have been any door in the house. But it wasn't any door, and Boo was sleeping in front of it, waiting for a master who was never coming home. He didn't look like a wolf anymore, just a regular dog. Without Macon, he was as lost as Lena. Boo looked up at me, barely moving his head.

I put my hand on the doorknob and pushed the door open. Macon's room was exactly as I remembered. No one had dared to put a sheet over anything in here. The ebony four-poster bed in the center of the room shined, as if it had been lacquered a thousand times by House or Kitchen, Ravenwood's invisible staff. Black plantation shutters kept the room completely dark, so it was impossible to tell day from night. Tall candlesticks held black candles, and a black wrought iron chandelier hung from the ceiling. I recognized the Caster pattern burned into the iron. At first I couldn't place it, but then I remembered.