Mrs. English turned her Good-Eye Side on me. “Mr. Wate. Why don’t you start off as John Proctor, and then we’ll switch around later on in the period?” I was the guy who was about to have his life destroyed by a bunch of Emily Ashers. “Lena, you can be our Abigail. We’ll start with the play and then spend the rest of the week on the actual cases the play was based on.”
I went over to my chair in one corner, and Lena went to the other.
Mrs. English waved to my dad. “Let’s start rolling, Mitchell.”
“I’m ready, Lilian.”
Everyone in class turned to look at me.
The reenactment went off without a hitch, which really meant it went on with all the customary hitches. The camera battery died in the first five minutes. The chief magistrate had to use the bathroom. The afflicted girls got caught texting, and the confiscation of their phones was a bigger affliction than the one the Devil was supposed to have brought on them in the first place.
My father didn’t say a word, but I knew he was there. His presence kept me from speaking, moving, or breathing when I could help it. Why was he here? What was he doing hanging out with Mrs. English? There was no rational explanation.
Ethan! You’re supposed to give your defense.
What?
I looked up at the camera. Everyone in the room was staring at me.
Start talking, or I’m going to have to fake an asthma attack, like Link did during the biology final.
“My name is John Proctor.”
I stopped. My name was John.
Just like John at County Care. And John sitting on Ridley’s pink shag carpet. Once again, there was me, and there was John.
What was the universe trying to tell me now?
“Ethan?” Mrs. English sounded annoyed.
I looked back down at my paper. “My name is John Proctor, and these allegations are false.” I didn’t know if it was the right line. I looked back at the camera, but I didn’t see my father standing behind it.
I saw something else. My reflection in the lens started to shift, like a ripple in the lake. Then it slowly came back into focus. For a second, I was staring at myself again.
I watched my image as the corners of my mouth turned up into a lopsided smile.
I felt like someone had punched me.
I couldn’t breathe.
Because I wasn’t smiling.
“What the hell?” My voice was shaking. The afflicted girls started laughing.
Ethan, are you okay?
“Do you have anything else to add to that poignant defense, Mr. Proctor?” Mrs. English was more than annoyed. She thought I was screwing around.
I shuffled through my notes, my hands shaking, and found a quote. “ ‘How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul, leave me my name.’ ”
I could feel her glass eye on me.
Ethan! Say something!
“Leave me my soul. Leave me my name.” It was the wrong line, but something about it felt right.
Something was following me. I didn’t know what it was, or what it wanted.
But I knew who I was.
Ethan Wate—son of Lila Jane Evers Wate and Mitchell Wate. Son of a Keeper and a Mortal, disciple of basketball and chocolate milk, of comic books and novels I hid under my bed. Raised by my parents and Amma and Marian, this whole town and everyone in it, good and bad.
And I loved a girl. Her name was Lena.
The question is, who are you? And what do you want from me?
I didn’t wait for an answer. I had to get out of that room. I pushed my way through the chairs. I couldn’t get to the door fast enough. I slammed against it as hard as I could, and ran down the hall without looking back.
Because I already knew the words. I’d heard them a dozen times, and every time they made less sense.
And every time, they made my stomach turn.
I’M WAITING.
11.01
Demon Queen
One of the things about living in a small town is you can’t get away with ditching class in the middle of a historical reenactment that your English teacher spent weeks organizing. Not without consequences. In most places, that would mean suspension, or at least detention. In Gatlin, it meant Amma forcing you to show up at your teacher’s house with a plateful of peanut butter cookies.
Which is exactly where I was standing.
I knocked on the door, hoping Mrs. English wasn’t home. I stared at the red door, shifting my weight uncomfortably. Lena liked red doors. She said red was a happy color, and Casters didn’t have red doors. To Casters, doors were dangerous—all thresholds were. Only Mortals had red doors.
My mom had hated red doors. She didn’t like people who had red doors either. She said having a red door in Gatlin meant you were the kind of person who wasn’t afraid to be different. But if you thought having a red door would do that for you, then you really were just like the rest of them.
I didn’t have time to come up with my own theory on red doors, because right then this one swung open. Mrs. English was standing there in a flowered dress and fuzzy slippers. “Ethan? What are you doing here?”
“I came to apologize, ma’am.” I held out the plate. “I brought you some cookies.”
“Then I suppose you should come in.” She stepped back, opening the door wider.
This wasn’t the response I was expecting. I figured I’d apologize and give her Amma’s famous peanut butter cookies, she would accept, and I would be out of there. Not following her into her tiny house. Red door or not, I definitely wasn’t happy.
“Why don’t we have a seat in the parlor?”
I followed her into a tiny room that didn’t look like any parlor I’d ever seen. It was the smallest house I’d ever been in. The walls were covered with black and white family portraits. They were so old and the faces so small that I would’ve had to stop and stare to look at any of them, which made them all strangely private. At least, strange for Gatlin, where our families were on display at all times, the dead and the living.
Mrs. English was strange, all right.
“Please, have a seat. I’ll bring you a glass of water.” It wasn’t a question—it seemed to be mandatory. She stepped into the kitchen, which was about the size of two closets. I could hear the running water.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
There was a collection of ceramic figurines on the mantel over the fireplace—a globe, a book, a cat, a dog, a moon, a star. The Lilian English version of the standard junk the Sisters had collected and never let anyone touch, until it was smashed to rubble in their front yard. In the middle of the fireplace was a small television, with rabbit ear antennas that couldn’t have worked for about twenty years. Some kind of spidery-looking houseplant sat on top of it, making the whole thing look like a big planter. Except the plant looked like it was dying, which made the planter that wasn’t a planter, on top of the TV that wasn’t a TV, on top of the fireplace that wasn’t a fireplace, all seem pointless.
A tiny bookcase sat next to the fireplace. It actually appeared to be what it was, seeing as it actually had books on it. I bent down to read the titles: To Kill a Mockingbird. The Invisible Man. Frankenstein. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Great Expectations.
The front door slammed, and I heard a voice I never would have expected to hear in my English teacher’s house.
“Great Expectations. One of my personal favorites. It’s so… tragic.” Sarafine was standing inside the doorway, her yellow eyes watching me. Abraham had ripped into a worn flowered chair in the corner of the room. He looked comfortable, as if he was just another guest. The Book of Moons was resting in his lap.
“Ethan? Did you open the front—” It only took a minute for Mrs. English to come back from the kitchen. I don’t know if it was the strangers in her parlor, or Sarafine’s yellow eyes, but Mrs. English dropped the water, broken glass raining down onto her flowered rug. “Who are you people?”
I looked at Abraham. “They’re here for me.”
He laughed. “Not this time, boy. We came for something else.”
Mrs. English was shaking. “I don’t have anything of value. I’m just a teacher.”
Sarafine smiled, which made her look even more deranged. “Actually, you have something that is very valuable to us, Lilian.”
Mrs. English took a step back. “I don’t know who you people are, but you should leave. My neighbors have probably already called the police. This is a very quiet street.” Her voice was rising. I was pretty sure Mrs. English was only a minute away from a meltdown.
“Leave her alone!” I started to walk toward Sarafine, and she flung open her fingers.
I felt the force, ten times stronger than any hand, slam against my chest. I fell back against the bookcase, sending dusty books falling around me.
“Have a seat, Ethan. I think it’s fitting for you to watch the end of the world as you know it.”
I couldn’t get up. I could still feel the weight of Sarafine’s power on my chest.
“You people are crazy,” Mrs. English whispered, her eyes wide.
Sarafine fixed her terrifying eyes on Mrs. English. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Abraham stubbed his cigar out on Mrs. English’s side table and rose from the chair. He opened The Book of Moons as if he had marked a specific page.
“What are you doing? Calling more Vexes?” I shouted.
This time, they both laughed. “What I’m calling will make a Vex look like a house cat.” He started to read in a language I didn’t recognize. It had to be a Caster language—Niadic, maybe. The words were almost melodic, until he repeated them in English and I realized what they meant.
“ ‘From blood, ash, and sorrow. For the Demons imprisoned below…’ ”
“Stop!” I shouted. Abraham didn’t even look at me.
Sarafine twisted her wrist slightly, and I felt my chest tighten. “You are witnessing history, Ethan—for both Casters and Mortals. Be a little more respectful.”
Abraham was still reading. “ ‘I call their Creator.’ ”
The moment Abraham spoke the last word, Mrs. English gasped, and her body arched violently. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll. Mrs. English’s neck was resting against her chest awkwardly, and all I could think about was how lifeless she looked.
Like she was dead.
Abraham started to read again, but I felt like I was underwater—everything was slow and muffled. How many more people were going to die because of them?
“ ‘… to avenge them. And to serve!’ ” Abraham’s voice echoed through the tiny room, and the walls began to shake. He snapped the Book shut and walked closer to the body of Mrs. English.
The spidery-looking plant fell off the TV, and the pot broke against the stone of the fireplace. The tiny figurines were rocking back and forth, the pieces of Mrs. English’s life breaking apart.
“She’s coming!” Sarafine called to Abraham, and I realized they were both staring at Mrs. English’s body. I tried to get up, but the weight was still bearing down on my chest. Whatever was happening, I couldn’t stop it.
It was already too late.