My dad reached for the newspaper and started reading where I left off. “ ‘Memorial services will be held at the Chapel at Wader’s Creek.’ ” My mind flashed on Amma and Macon, standing face to face in the middle of the foggy swamp on the wrong side of midnight.
“Aw, hell, I tried to tell anyone who would listen. Amma doesn’t want a service.” He sighed.
“Nope.”
“She’s fussing around somewhere right now, saying, ‘I don’t see why you’re wastin’ good time mournin’ me. Sure as my Sweet Redeemer, I’m not wastin’ my time mournin’ you.’ ”
I smiled. He cocked his head to the left, just like Amma did when she was on the rampage. “T. O. M. F. O. O. L. E. R. Y. Ten down. As in, this whole thing’s nothin’ but hodgepodge and nonsense, Mitchell Wate.”
This time I laughed, because my dad was right. I could hear her saying it. She hated being the center of attention, especially when it involved the infamous Gatlin Funerary Pity Parade.
My dad read the next paragraph. “ ‘Miss Amma Treadeau was born in Unincorporated Gatlin County, South Carolina, the sixth of seven children born to the late Treadeau family.’ ” The sixth of seven children? Had Amma ever mentioned her sisters and brothers? I only remembered her talking about the Greats.
He skimmed the length of the obituary. “ ‘By some count, her career as a baker of local renown spanned at least five decades and as many county fairs.’ ” He shook his head again. “But no mention of her Carolina Gold? Good Lord, I hope Amma’s not reading this from some cloud up on high. She’ll be sending lightning bolts down, left and right.”
She’s not, I thought. Amma doesn’t care what they say about her now. Not the folks in Gatlin. She’s sitting on a porch somewhere with the Greats.
He kept going. “ ‘Miss Amma leaves behind her extended family, a host of cousins, and a circle of close family friends.’ ” He folded up the paper and tossed it back onto the table. “Where’s the part where Miss Amma leaves behind two of the sorriest, hungriest, saddest boys ever to inhabit Wate’s Landing?” He tapped his fingers restlessly on the wood tabletop between us.
I didn’t know what to say at first. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to be okay, you know?”
It was true. That’s what she’d been doing all this time, if you thought about it. Getting us ready for a time when she wouldn’t be there to get us ready for all the times after that.
For now.
My dad must have understood, because he let his hand fall heavily on my shoulder. “Yes, sir. Don’t I know it.”
I didn’t say anything else.
We sat there together, staring out the kitchen window. “Anything else would be downright disrespectful.” His voice sounded wobbly, and I knew he was crying. “She raised us pretty well, Ethan.”
“She sure did.” I fought back the tears myself. Out of respect, I guess, like my dad said. This was how it had to be now.
This was real.
It hurt—it almost killed me—but it was real, the same way losing my mom was real. I had to accept it. Maybe this was the way the universe was meant to unravel, at least this part of it.
The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.
Amma had taught me that, better than anyone.
“Maybe she and Lila Jane are taking care of each other now. Maybe they’re sitting together, talking over fried tomatoes and sweet tea.” My dad laughed, even though he was crying.
He had no idea how close to the truth he was, and I didn’t tell him.
“Cherries.” That was all I said.
“What?” My dad looked at me funny.
“Mom likes cherries. Straight out of the colander, remember?” I turned my head his way. “But I’m not sure Aunt Prue is letting either one of them get a word in edgewise.”
He nodded and stretched out his hand until it brushed against my arm. “Your mom doesn’t care. She just wants to be left in peace with her books for a while, don’t you think? At least until we get there?”
“At least,” I said, though I couldn’t look at him now. My heart was pulled so many different ways at once, I didn’t know what I was feeling. Part of me wished I could tell him that I’d seen my mom. That she was okay.
We sat like that, not moving or talking, until I felt my heart start to pound.
L? Is that you?
Come out, Ethan. I’m waiting.
I heard the music before I saw the Beater roll into view through the windowpanes. I stood up and nodded at my dad. “I’m going up to Lena’s for a while.”
“You take all the time you need.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
As I turned to leave the kitchen, I caught one last sight of my dad, sitting alone at the table with the newspaper. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave him like that.
I reached back for the paper.
I don’t know why I took it. Maybe I just wanted to keep her with me a little while longer. Maybe I didn’t want my dad to sit alone with all those feelings, wrapped in a stupid paper with a bad crossword puzzle and a worse obituary.
Then it came to me.
I pulled open Amma’s drawer and grabbed a #2 pencil. I held it up to show my dad.
He grinned. “Started out sharp, and then she sharpened it.”
“It’s what she would have wanted. One last time.”
He leaned back in his chair until he could reach the drawer and tossed me a box of Red Hots. “One last time.”
I gave him a hug. “I love you, Dad.”
Then I swept my hand across the length of the kitchen windows, sending salt spraying all over the kitchen floor.
“It’s time to let the ghosts in.”
I only made it halfway down the porch steps before Lena found me. She jumped up into my arms, circling her skinny legs around mine. She clung to me and I held on to her, like neither one of us was ever letting go.
There was electricity, plenty of electricity. But as her lips found mine, there was nothing but sweetness and peace. Kind of like coming home, when a home’s still a shelter and not the storm itself.
Everything was different between us. There was nothing keeping us apart anymore. I didn’t know if it was because of the New Order, or because I’d journeyed to the end of the Otherworld and back. Either way, I could hold Lena’s hand without burning a hole in my palm.
Her touch was warm. Her fingers were soft. Her kiss was just a kiss now. A kiss that was every bit as big and every bit as small as a kiss can be.
It wasn’t an electrical storm or a fire. Nothing exploded or burned or even short-circuited. Lena belonged to me, the same way I belonged to her. And now we could be together.
The Beater honked, and we broke off kissing.
“Any day now.” Link stuck his head out the window. “I’m gettin’ gray hairs sittin’ here watchin’ you kids.”
I grinned at him, but I couldn’t pull myself away from her. “I love you, Lena Duchannes. I always have, and I always will.” The words were as true today as the first time I’d said them, on her Sixteenth Moon.
“And I love you, Ethan Wate. I’ve loved you since the first day we met. Or before.” Lena looked straight in my eyes, smiling.
“Way before.” I smiled back, deep into hers.
“But I have something to tell you.” She leaned closer. “Something you should probably know about the girl you love.”
My stomach flipped a little. “What is it?”
“My name.”
“You’re not serious?” I knew Casters learned their real names after they were Claimed, but Lena was never willing to tell me hers, no matter how many times I asked. I figured it was hers to tell when she felt like the time was right. Which, I guess, was now.
“Do you still want to know?” She grinned because she already knew the answer.
I nodded.
“It’s Josephine Duchannes. Josephine, daughter of Sarafine.” The last word was a whisper, but I heard it, as if she had shouted it from the rooftops.
I squeezed her hand.
Her name. The last missing piece of her family puzzle, and the one thing you couldn’t find on any family tree.
I hadn’t told Lena about her mother yet. Part of me wanted to believe that Sarafine had given up her soul so I could be with Lena again—that her sacrifice was about more than just revenge. Someday I would tell Lena what her mother did for me. Lena deserved to know Sarafine wasn’t all bad.
The Beater honked again.
“Come on, lovebirds. We gotta get to the Dar-ee Keen. Everyone’s waitin’.”
I grabbed Lena’s other hand and pulled her down the front lawn to the Beater. “We have to make a quick stop on the way.”
“Is this gonna involve any Dark Casters? Do I need the shears?”
“We’re just going to the library.”
Link leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. “I haven’t renewed my library card since I was ten. I think I’d have better odds with Dark Casters.”
I stood in front of the car door and looked at Lena. The back door opened by itself, and we both climbed in.
“Aw, man. Now I’m your cabdriver? You Casters and Mortals have a really screwed-up way a showin’ your appreciation to a guy.” Link turned up the music, as if he didn’t want to hear whatever I had to say.
“I appreciate you.” I smacked his head from behind, good and hard. He didn’t even seem to feel it. I was talking to Link, but I was looking at Lena. I couldn’t stop looking at her. She was more beautiful than I remembered, more beautiful and more real.
I curled a strand of her hair through my fingers, and she leaned her cheek against my hand. We were together. It was hard to think or see or even talk about anything else. Then I felt bad for feeling so good when I was still carrying The Stars and Stripes in my back pocket.
“Wait. Check it out.” Link paused. “That’s exactly what I needed to finish my new lyrics. ‘Candy girl. Hurts so sweet she’ll make you want to hurl—’ ”
Lena put her head on my shoulder. “Did I mention that my cousin’s back in town?”
“Of course she is.” I smiled.
Link winked at me in the rearview mirror. I smacked him in the head again as the car pulled down the street.
“I think you’re gonna be a rock star,” I said.
“I gotta get back to workin’ on my demo track, you know? ’Cause as soon as we graduate, I’m headin’ straight to New York, the big time.…”
Link was so full of crap, he could pass for a toilet. Just like the old days. Just like it was supposed to be.
It was all the proof I needed.
I was really home.
CHAPTER 38
Eleven Across
You kids go on in,” Link said, turning up the latest Holy Rollers demo. “I’m gonna wait here. I get enough a books at school.”
Lena and I climbed out of the Beater and stood in front of the Gatlin County Library. The repairs were further along than I remembered. All the major construction was finished on the outside, and the fine ladies of the DAR had already started planting saplings near the door.