Beautiful Darkness

The Girl of My Dreams

Darkness.

I couldn't see a thing, but I could feel the air draining out of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. The air was filled with smoke, and I was coughing, choking.

Ethan!

I could hear her voice, but it was distant and faraway.

The air around me was hot. It smelled like ash and death.

Ethan, no!

I saw the glint of a knife, over my head, and I heard the sinister laughter. Sarafine. Only I couldn't see her face.

As the knife plunged into my stomach, I knew where I was.

I was at Greenbrier, on top of the crypt, and I was about to die.

I tried to scream, but I couldn't make a sound. Sarafine threw back her head and laughed, her hands on the knife in my stomach. I was dying, and she was laughing. The blood was running all around me, rushing into my ears, my nostrils, my mouth. It had a distinct taste, like copper or salt.

My lungs felt like two heaving sacks of cement. When the rush of blood in my ears drowned out her voice, I was overwhelmed with the familiar feeling of loss. Green and gold. Lemons and rosemary. I could smell it through the blood, the smoke, and the ashes. Lena.

I always thought I couldn't live without her. Now I wasn't going to have to.

"Ethan Wate! Why don't I hear that shower runnin' yet?" I bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat. I ran my hand under my T-shirt, over my skin. There was no blood, but I could feel the raised impression where the knife had cut me in the dream. I pulled up my shirt and stared at the jagged pink line. A scar cut across my lower abdomen, like a stab wound. It had appeared out of nowhere, an injury from a dream.

Only it was real, and it hurt. I hadn't had one of the dreams since Lena's birthday, and I didn't know why they were coming back now, like this. I was used to waking up with mud in my bed or smoke in my lungs, but this was the first time I had ever woken up in pain. I tried to shake it off, telling myself it didn't really happen. But my stomach throbbed. I stared at my open window, wishing Macon was around to steal the end of this dream. I wished he was around for a lot of reasons.

I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, to see if Lena was there. But I already knew she wouldn't be. I could feel when she had pulled away, which was most of the time, lately.

Amma called up the stairs again. "If you're fixin' to be late for your last examination, you'll be sittin' on your sweet corncakes in that room a yours all summer. That's a promise."

Lucille Ball was staring at me from the foot of my bed, the way she did most mornings now. After Lucille showed up on our porch, I took her back home to Aunt Mercy, but the next day she was sitting on our porch again. After that, Aunt Prue convinced her sisters that Lucille was a deserter, and the cat moved in with us. I was pretty surprised when Amma opened the door and let Lucille wander in, but she had her reasons. "Nothin' wrong with havin' a cat in the house. They can see what most people can't, like the folks in the Otherworld when they cross back over -- the good ones and the bad. And they get rid a mice." I guess you could say Lucille was the animal kingdom's version of Amma.

By the time I made it into the shower, the hot water rolled off me, pushing everything away. Everything except the scar. I turned it up even hotter, but I couldn't keep my mind in the shower. It was tangled up in the dreams, the knife, the laughter --

My English final.

Crap.

I'd fallen asleep before I finished studying. If I failed the test, I would fail the class, Good-Eye Side or not. My grades were not stellar this semester, and by that I mean I was running neck and neck with Link. I wasn't my usual don't-study-and-get-by self. I was already close to failing history, since Lena and I had ditched the mandatory Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill on her birthday. If I failed English, I'd be spending all summer in a school so old it didn't even have air conditioning, or I'd be looking at sophomore year all over again. It was the particularly penetrating problem a person with a pulse should be prepared to ponder today. Assonance, right? Or was it consonance? I was screwed.

This was day five of supersized breakfasts. We'd had finals all week, and Amma believed there was a direct correlation between how much I ate and how well I would do. I had eaten my weight in bacon and eggs since Monday. No wonder my stomach was killing me and I was having nightmares. Or at least, that's what I tried to tell myself.

I poked at the fried eggs with my fork. "More eggs?"

Amma squinted at me suspiciously. "I don't know what you're up to, but I'm in no mood for it." She slid another egg onto my plate. "Don't try my patience today, Ethan Wate."

I wasn't about to argue with her. I had enough problems of my own.

My dad wandered into the kitchen and opened the cupboard, searching for his Shredded Wheat. "Don't tease Amma. You know she doesn't like it." He looked up at her, shaking his spoon. "That boy of mine is downright S. C. A. B. R. O. U. S. As in ..."

Amma glared at him, slamming the cupboard doors shut. "Mitchell Wate, I'll give you a scab or two all your own if you don't stop messin' with my pantry." He laughed, and a second later I could have sworn she was smiling, and I watched as my own crazy father started turning Amma back into Amma again. The moment vanished, popping like a soap bubble, but I knew what I'd seen. Things were changing.

I still wasn't used to the sight of my dad walking around during the day, pouring cereal and making small talk. It seemed unbelievable that four months ago my aunt had checked him into Blue Horizons. Although he wasn't exactly a new man, as Aunt Caroline professed, I had to admit I barely recognized him. He wasn't making me chicken salad sandwiches, but these days he was out of the study more and more, and sometimes even out of the house. Marian scored my dad a position at the University of Charleston as a guest lecturer in the English department. Even though the bus ride turned a forty-minute commute into two hours, there was no letting my dad operate heavy machinery, not yet. He seemed almost happy. I mean, relatively speaking, for a guy who was previously holed up in his study for months scribbling like a madman. The bar was pretty low.

If things could change that much for my dad, if Amma was smiling, maybe they could change for Lena, too.

Couldn't they?

But the moment was over. Amma was back on the warpath. I could see it in her face. My dad sat down next to me and poured milk over his cereal. Amma wiped her hands on her tool apron. "Mitchell, you best have some a those eggs. Cereal isn't any kind a breakfast."

"Good morning to you, too, Amma." He smiled at her, the way I bet he did when he was a kid.

She squinted at him and slammed a glass of chocolate milk next to my plate, even though I barely drank it anymore.

"Doesn't look so good to me." She sniffed and started pushing a massive amount of bacon onto my plate. To Amma, I would always be six years old. "You look like the livin' dead. What you need is some brain food, to pass those examinations a yours."

"Yes, ma'am." I chugged the glass of water Amma had poured for my dad. She held up her infamous wooden spoon with the hole in the middle, the One-Eyed Menace -- that's what I called it. When I was a kid, she used to chase me around the house with it if I sassed her, even though she never actually hit me with it. I ducked, to play along.

"And you better pass every single one. I won't have you hangin' around that school all summer like the Pettys' kids. You're gonna get a job, like you said you would." She sniffed, waving the spoon. "Free time means free trouble, and you got heaps of that already."

My dad smiled and stifled a laugh. I bet Amma had said exactly the same thing to him when he was my age.

"Yes, ma'am."

I heard a car honk, and the sound of way too much Beater bass, and grabbed my backpack. All I saw was the blur of the spoon behind me.

I slid into the Beater and rolled down the window. Gramma had gotten her way, and Lena had come back to school a week ago, for the end of the year. I had driven all the way out to Ravenwood to take her to school on her first day back, even stopping at the Stop & Steal to get her one of their famous sticky buns, but by the time I got there Lena was already gone. Ever since then, she had been driving herself to school, so Link and I were back in the Beater.

Link turned down the music, which was blasting through the car, out the windows, and down the block.

"Don't you embarrass me over at that school a yours, Ethan Wate. And you turn down that music, Wesley Jefferson Lincoln! You're goin' to knock over my whole row a rutabagas with that ruckus." Link honked back at her. Amma knocked her spoon against the post, put her hands on her hips, and then softened. "You do well on those tests a yours, and maybe I'll bake you a pie."

"That wouldn't be Gatlin peach, would it, ma'am?"

Amma sniffed and nodded her head. "Just might be."

She would never admit it, but Amma had finally developed a soft spot for Link, after all these years. Link thought it was because Amma felt sorry for his mom after her invasion-of-the- body-snatchers experience with Sarafine, but that wasn't it. She felt bad for Link. "Can't believe that boy has to live in the house with that woman. He'd be better off if he was bein' raised by wolves." That's what she'd said last week before she packed up a pecan pie for him.

Link looked at me and grinned. "Best thing that ever happened to me, Lena's mom gettin' mixed up with my mom. Never had so much a Amma's pie in my life." It was about as much as he ever said about Lena's nightmare of a birthday anymore. He floored it, and the Beater went skidding down the road. It almost wasn't worth mentioning that we were late, as usual.

"Did you study for English?" It wasn't really a question. I knew Link hadn't cracked a book since seventh grade.

"Nah. I'm gonna copy offa someone."

"Who?"

"What do you care? Somebody smarter than you."

"Yeah? Last time you copied off Jenny Masterson, and you both got D's."

"I didn't have time to study. I was writin' a song. We might play it at the county fair. Check it out." Link sang along with the song, which sounded weird because he was singing along to a recording of his own voice. "Lollipop Girl, took off without a word, was callin' out your name, but you never heard."

Great. Another song about Ridley. Which shouldn't have surprised me, since he hadn't written a song about anything but Ridley for four months now. I was beginning to think he would always be hung up on Lena's cousin, who was nothing like her. Ridley was a Siren, who used her Power of Persuasion to get what she wanted with one lick of a lollipop. Which, for a while, was Link. Even though she had used him and disappeared, he hadn't forgotten her. But I couldn't blame him. It was probably tough being in love with a Dark Caster. It was pretty tough sometimes with a Light one, too.

I was still thinking about Lena, despite the deafening roar in my ears, until Link's voice was drowned out altogether, and I heard Seventeen Moons. Only now the words had changed.

Seventeen moons, seventeen turns,

Eyes so dark and bright it burns,

Time is high but one is higher,

Draws the moon into the fire ...

Time is high? What did that even mean? It wasn't going to be Lena's Seventeenth Moon for eight more months. Why was time high now? And who was the one, and what was the fire?

I felt Link smack the side of my head, and the song disappeared. He was shouting over his demo tape. "If I can get the backbeat down, it'll be a pretty rockin' tune." I stared at him, and he knocked me in the head again. "Shake it off, man. It's just an exam. You look as crazy as Miss Luney, the hot-lunch lady."

Thing is, he wasn't that far off.

When the Beater pulled into the Jackson High parking lot, it still didn't feel like the last day of school. For the seniors, it wasn't. They would have graduation tomorrow, and a party that lasted all night and usually gave more than a few people a brush with alcohol poisoning. But for us sophomores and juniors, we had one more exam until we were free.

Savannah and Emily walked past Link and me, ignoring us. Their short skirts were even shorter than usual, and we could see bikini strings hanging out from under their tank tops. Tie-dye and pink gingham.

"Check it out. Bikini season." Link grinned.

I had almost forgotten. We were only an exam away from an afternoon at the lake. Everyone who was anyone was wearing bathing suits under their clothes today, since summer didn't officially start until you had taken your first swim off the shores of Lake Moultrie. Kids from Jackson had a place we hung out, up past Monck's Corner, where the lake opened deep and wide into what felt like an ocean when you were swimming in it. Except for all the catfish and the swamp weeds, you could be out to sea. This time last year, I rode to the lake in the back of Emory's brother's truck with Emily, Savannah, Link, and half the basketball team. But that was last year.

"You goin'?"

"Nah."

"I've got an extra suit in the Beater, but it's not as cool as these puppies." Link pulled up his shirt so I could see his bathing suit, which was bright orange and yellow plaid. About as low-key as Link was.

"I'll pass." He knew why I wasn't going, but I wouldn't say it. I had to act like things were okay.

Like Lena and I were okay.

Link wasn't giving up today. "I'm sure Emily's savin' you half her towel." It was a joke, because we both knew she wasn't. Even the pity parade had moved on, along with the hate campaign. I guess we were such easy targets these days, the sport was gone, like shooting fish in a barrel.

"Give it a rest."

Link stopped walking and put his hand up to stop me. I shoved his hand away before he could start talking. I knew what he was going to say, and as far as I was concerned, the conversation was over before it started.

"Come on. I know her uncle died. Quit actin' like you're both still at the funeral. I know you love her, but ..." He didn't want to say it, even though we were both thinking it. He never brought it up anymore, because he was Link, and he sat at the lunch table with me when nobody else would.

"Everything's fine." It was going to work out. It had to. I didn't know how to be without her.

"It's hard to watch, dude. She's treatin' you like --"

"Like what?" It was a challenge. I could feel my fingers curling into a fist. I was waiting for a reason, any reason. I felt like I was going to explode, that's how badly I wanted to hit something.

"The way girls usually treat me." I think he was waiting for me to hit him. Maybe he even wanted me to, if it would've helped. He shrugged.

I uncurled my fingers. Link was Link, whether or not I felt like kicking his butt sometimes. "Sorry, man."

Link laughed a little, taking off down the hall a little faster than usual. "No problem, Psycho."

As I walked up the steps toward inevitable doom, I felt a familiar pang of loneliness. Maybe Link was right. I didn't know how much longer things could go on like this with Lena. Nothing was the same. If Link could see it, maybe it was time to face facts.

My stomach started to ache, and I grabbed my side, as if I could squeeze out the pain with my hands.

Where are you, L?

I slid into my desk just as the bell rang. Lena was sitting in the seat next to mine, on the Good-Eye Side, like she always had. But she didn't look like herself.

She was wearing one of those white V-neck undershirts that was too big, and a black skirt, a few inches shorter than she would've ever worn three months ago. You could barely see it under the shirt, which was Macon's. I almost didn't notice anymore. She also wore his ring, the one he used to twist on his finger when he was thinking, on a chain around her neck. It hung on a new chain, right next to my mother's ring. The old chain had broken the night of her birthday, lost somewhere in the ash. I had given her my mom's ring out of love, though I wasn't sure it felt like that to her now. Whatever the reason, Lena loyally carried our ghosts with her, hers and mine, refusing to take off either one. My lost mother and her lost uncle, caught in circles of gold and platinum and other precious metals, hanging above her charm necklace and hidden in layers of cotton that didn't belong to her.

Mrs. English was already passing out the tests, and she didn't look amused that half the class was wearing a bathing suit or carrying a beach towel. Emily was doing both.

"Five short answers, ten points each, multiple-choice, twenty-five points, and the essay, twenty-five. Sorry, no Boo Radley this time. We're covering Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's not summer yet, people." We had been reading To Kill a Mockingbird in the fall. I remembered the first time Lena had shown up for class, carrying her own broken-in copy.

"Boo Radley's dead, Mrs. English. Stake through the heart." I don't know who said it, one of the girls sitting in the back with Emily, but we all knew she was talking about Macon. The comment was meant for Lena, just like old times. I tensed up as the ripple of laughter died down. I was waiting for the windows to shatter or something, but there wasn't even a crack. Lena didn't react. Maybe she wasn't listening, or she didn't care what they said anymore.

"I bet Old Man Ravenwood isn't even in the town graveyard. That coffin's probably empty. If there is one." The voice was loud enough for Mrs. English to direct her eye toward the back of the room.

"Shut up, Emily," I hissed.

This time, Lena turned around and looked right at Emily. That's all it took -- one look. Emily opened her test, like she had any idea what Jekyll and Hyde was about. No one wanted to take on Lena. They just wanted to talk about her. Lena was the new Boo Radley. I wondered what Macon would have had to say about that.

I was still wondering, when I heard a scream from the back of the room.

"Fire! Someone help!" Emily was holding her test, and it was burning up in her hand. She dropped the test on the linoleum floor and kept screaming. Mrs. English picked up her sweater off the back of her chair, walked to the back of the room, and swiveled so she could use her good eye. Three good slaps and the fire was out, leaving a charred and smoking test in the charred and smoking spot on the floor.

"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."