Lost in Thought (30 page)

Most of the time, anyway.

“The day Allen left, I knew he’d be fine, no thanks to me. Any high school boy who can save up more money working part time jobs than Willie brought home in a year was going to make something of himself. And he did. That lawyer who called after Allen died, he said Allen’d left me a ‘small sum’ of money in his will. Maybe it was ‘small’

by his definition, but it was a fortune to me. It’s been enough to keep me here in my home in my old age, and to put some away for my other grandchildren too. Allen saved me twice with his generosity, so I guess maybe I did something right by raising him after all.”

Carter nodded, as if he’d heard what he wanted to hear. I didn’t bother to correct Mrs. Young that my Uncle Martin wasn’t a lawyer. I didn’t know how much my father had left her in his will, but I did know it truly was a small sum compared to how much he’d left me.

How Chastine had described my father corresponded with my aunt’s descriptions too. There was something special about my father, and it must have been his Sententia gifts.

“What happened to his mother?” I asked suddenly. “To Virginia.”

In all of this, I’d nearly forgotten about her.

Mrs. Young shook her head sadly. “She hung herself.”

was a Hangman. The last Marwood, the last of my kind.

My father had been the last before me, and his mother before him. Though horrible, the irony of Virginia Marwood’s choice of I suicide wasn’t lost on me. Mrs. Young explained how she’d seen it in the newspaper, a story about the body of a young, unidentified girl found a few days after she’d seen her. They looked for her family, but not very hard, and though Mrs. Young wanted to contact the authorities, or at least Virginia’s mother, to tell them she knew who the girl was, she couldn’t do it without bringing too many questions about my father and breaking her promise to keep him a secret.

I walked around in a distracted fog for the next few days. I wasn’t sure why being a Hangman was harder to accept than all the other bizarre things I’d come to accept in the months since November, but I was having trouble processing it. Maybe it was the nature of the new gift that came with this fact. I’d gotten used to being a Grim Diviner rather easily, because it was a concern of my daily existence, and because it was easier; that gift couldn’t cause anyone harm but me.

Carter repeatedly told me not to worry, that I would never use the ability accidentally: the ability to stop someone’s heart with only my

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touch and a thought. Or Thought. I was back to considering it in capital letters. I also believed Carter was likely wrong. My father had almost certainly used the ability accidentally. Maybe now that I knew what I could do, I never would, but it worried me. I could have, and that was bad enough.

Based on my abilities, and the similar comments about my father made by my aunt, Uncle Martin, and Mrs. Young—his luck, his seeming ability to avoid bad events—Carter was certain that my father and
his
father had been Diviners. Nothing else made sense. Without any real proof, we guessed that my father could sense possible outcomes, or even just bad outcomes, thus being able to avoid them. Whatever he’d been able to do exactly, it had translated in me to the ability to sense only one outcome—someone’s death.

“I still don’t understand how this works,” I said to Carter at our next practice session. “Why can we do such different things, my father and I…you and your father and, well, I don’t know what your mother could do?”

“My mother was dormant,” Carter replied, not elaborating further.

“And the rest of us, it’s not completely different, what we do. It’s all related. My father knew when he’d seen or heard something before.

It’s similar to what I can do, and my aunt, and what their parents could do. Same with you. You can do something similar, if not precisely the same, to what it seems like your father could do. Eventually it all gets muddled together.” He thought for a minute, then said, “Think of the way you look like your grandmother. Did your father look like her?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I never thought I looked like either of my parents, not really. I was always a little sad about that, by the way. My mother was very beautiful. My father was handsome too, but I’d have loved to look like my mother…My dad and I do have kind of the same eyes, only a different color. Otherwise, yeah, I guess I look just like Virginia Marwood.”

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“Who is certainly as beautiful in her own way as your mother must have been in hers,” he said with a smile, and a brief kiss of my hand, but was quickly back to business. “So that appearance is in your family history, even if your father didn’t share it. It’s the same with Sententia abilities…they can skip generations, or express themselves in slightly different ways. It’s the same with…regular people too. If your aunt had a child, he or she might inherit her artistic abilities but excel in a different area. Oil painting or something. Or nothing. Our abilities can manifest strongly, weakly, even not at all, in comparison to our parents’ and families’. Sometimes parents who have average skills produce children who are exceptionally talented or vice versa.”

“How…how can we be certain that I’m a Hangman then? It’s not like I’m going to test it, and you just said I could be…average.”

His smile was a mixture of amusement and sadness. “You’re far from average, Lainey.” I didn’t think he was talking about only my Sententia abilities, and I blushed again. I couldn’t help it. How was it possible I could learn to control an ability that allowed me to see the future, but I couldn’t keep myself from blushing every time Carter said something remotely flirty? It boggled the mind.

Oblivious to my internal struggles, Carter went on. “I suppose we can’t. There’s a possibility you didn’t inherit the death touch”—I shuddered at the phrase—“but since you did turn out a
Grim
Diviner, I’m guessing you’ve got it. I’d be surprised if you
didn’t.”

I sighed. Really, I should accept the idea and move on. But I couldn’t, not when Carter reminded me of something I dreaded almost as much as the gift itself.

“I still have to tell my uncle,” he said quietly, and I knew he didn’t mean Jeff Revell.

“And I still don’t want you to,” I countered. I got up from the table and paced around in frustration. “Why can’t it be a secret, Carter?

I’m rare enough to begin with, or so you say. That should be enough. I

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will
never
use the gift. Not for anyone, and definitely not for the Perceptum.”

He was quiet for a minute. “It’s too important not to share,” he said finally. “And I’m an Historian. I work for the Perceptum. I’ve made a commitment to share what I discover about the Sententia. I have to share this.”

So
that
was the real reason. He felt bound by his job, which was a sort of promise. I didn’t know how to react to that. I wanted to be more important than his work, but really, I’d only been part of his life for a few months. And it was more than a job to Carter. If I was from a special family line, so was he. He was a Penrose. Being Sententia and working for the Perceptum was practically ingrained in his whole existence. He’d even worked for them since he was fifteen, when he abandoned regular schooling. It was a breach of protocol, but between his incomparable ability and his uncle at the helm, it hadn’t been much of a challenge for him to be accepted.

I thought this was our first real fight, though we weren’t really arguing. Disagreement might have been a better term for it. It only took a few months for it to happen. I imagined what it would be like to be a regular couple, like Caleb and Amy, arguing about mundane things like sports and what movie to watch, and not have our relationship affected by being part of a secret world. On the other hand, my friends argued about things that ultimately seemed unimportant to me compared to, oh, whether or not I told a secret organization that I was their long-lost assassin.

I felt stuck, caught between wanting to be with Carter and wanting little or nothing to do with the world he inhabited so completely. This would not be the last time I had this feeling, I was sure.

“The Perceptum already thinks my family has died out, or disappeared, or whatever. Please can’t we let them keep thinking that? It would be that simple,” I said.

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It was Carter’s turn to sigh and start pacing. Between the two of us, the library’s third floor carpet was in serious danger of being worn into paths. “It’s
not
that simple for me, Lainey. I’m sorry.”

I decided to try a diversionary technique. It had worked before. I stopped in front of him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Do this for me?” I whispered. I didn’t give him time to reply before kissing him soundly and enthusiastically. My plan, at least, was a lot of fun, and it worked. For a little while.

Carter finally broke away from me and stepped out of my reach, running his hands through his hair as he went. The caramel waves were an absolute mess tonight, a sign of how frustrated he was.

“You’re killing me here,” he groaned. “It’s not that I
want
to tell them; I just…I
have
to. Please understand. And don’t ask me to choose between you and my family. Either way, I can’t win.”

The last part defeated me. I
was
asking him to make that choice, and suddenly I felt bad about it. Not bad enough that I was ready to acquiesce, but pretty bad. I decided to try for another compromise.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. But maybe we can wait a little longer…until we’ve figured out my
whole
family tree. This Legacy had to come from somewhere, and I think it had to have been my grandfather. My dad must have met him that one time.” A new idea dawned on me.

“He…he had to have known Virginia was pregnant too, even if she thought he didn’t! Dr. Stewart told me the Legacy was established the year my father was born.”

“That makes sense,” he replied. “Chastine also said Virginia described the man as older and important. ‘Important’ usually means rich. He had to have come from money, considering the size of your Legacy endowment. And…okay. Yes, we can wait a little longer. But I have to tell them, Lainey. I can’t not do it.”

“I understand.” I wandered over to the stacks with the Academy history, musing to myself. “It worked once, so maybe it can work

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again…let’s look at the yearbooks from the first years Virginia would have attended the Academy. It could be one of the upperclassmen when she was a new student. Maybe we’ll see something.”

And with that decision, my whole world took another bizarre twist.

I stopped in the row by the yearbooks and scanned the shelves for a few years prior to Virginia’s graduation. Carter was just walking up to join me. The years I needed were on a shelf above my reach, and I grabbed the rolling ladder that connected to the stacks. But it hadn’t been attached correctly by whoever used it last. As I gave it a good tug—the ladders were old, and heavy—to move it down the rail, it detached from the top of the stack and came falling fast, straight at me.

But it didn’t hit me.

It should have smacked me soundly in the head, but it suddenly, inexplicably, changed course and fell in the other direction, where it landed hard and cracked down the side. Carter was there, with eyes wide and flashing, just opposite where the ladder had fallen. And like that, I knew.

Carter Penrose had a secret of his own.

I stumbled backward and caught myself ungracefully on the shelves, tumbling over sideways before I, too, ended up on the floor.

What the ladder failed to do, my own shock accomplished perfectly well, along with what I was sure would be a wicked bruise on my thigh. At least my head was undamaged. I flipped over and stared up at Carter, as wide-eyed as he was.

“You did that,” I breathed.

He gave me the measured look I was certain he had patented. “I did,” he admitted after a moment.

“What…” I couldn’t form words to finish the question. But thankfully, I didn’t have to.

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So softly I could barely hear him, he said, “I can move almost anything.”

“But…” I fumbled again. “But you’re a Historian.”

“I am. But that’s not all I am.”

e reached a hand out to help me up, but I stayed stuck on the floor. My brain whirled with a million questions, but landed H on one thought: Thought. “You’re…”

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. When he opened them, they were sad, and scared, and maybe a little bit angry. “A Thought Mover, yes. Partially. But I can’t pick you up except with my hand, so please take it.” He reached down for me again.

I accepted his help, warily, but when I held his hand, he still felt like the same Carter I thought I knew before the ladder fell on me. Or
almost
fell on me, I corrected. Carter had saved me from a black eye, for sure, or maybe worse. Yet I still felt like I’d been hit squarely in the head.

He had me standing, but what I really needed to do was sit down. I stumbled my way back to the table where we’d been working and planted myself in my chair. I stared at my suddenly unfamiliar boyfriend. He followed me back to the table and sat down in his chair across from mine. Without thinking about it, I scooted a little farther away from him.