Claim yourself.
Lena and I were exhausted, but we ditched school anyway to spend the day with The Book of Moons. I had become an expert at Amma’s signature, and Miss Hester wouldn’t dare to ask Lena for a note from Macon Ravenwood. It was a cold, clear day, and we curled together in the freezing garden at Greenbrier, huddled under the old sleeping bag from the Beater, trying to figure out for the thousandth time if anything in the Book could help.
I could tell Lena was starting to give up. Her ceiling was completely covered in Sharpie, wallpapered with the words she couldn’t say and thoughts she was too scared to express.
darkfire, lightdark / dark matter, what matters? the great darkness swallows the great light, as they swallow my life / caster/girl super/natural before/first sight seven days seven days seven days 777777777777777.
I couldn’t blame her. It did seem pretty hopeless, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I never would be. Lena slumped against the old stone wall, crumbling like what little chance we had left. “This is impossible.
There are too many Casts. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
There were Casts for every conceivable purpose: Blinding the Unfaithful, Bringing Forth Water from the Sea, Binding the Runes.
But nothing that said Cast to Uncurse Your Family from a Dark Binding, or Cast to Undo the Act of Trying to Bring Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandmother Genevieve’s War Hero Back to Life, or Cast to Avoid Going Dark at Your Claiming. Or the one I was really looking for— Cast to Save Your Girlfriend (Now That You Finally Have One) Before It’s Too Late.
I turned back to the Table of Contents: OBSECRATIONES, INCANTAMINA, NECTENTES, MALEDICENTES, MALEFICIA.
“Don’t worry, L. We’ll figure it out.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t so sure.
The longer the Book stayed on the top shelf of my closet, the more I felt like my room was becoming haunted. It was happening to both of us, every night; the dreams, which felt more like nightmares, were getting worse. I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours in days. Every time I closed my eyes, every time I fell asleep, they were there. Waiting. But even worse, it was the same nightmare replayed again and again in a constant loop. Every night, I lost Lena over and over again, and it was killing me.
My only strategy was to stay awake. Jacked up on sugar and caffeine from drinking Coke and Red Bull, playing video games. Reading everything from Heart of Darkness to my favorite issue of Silver Surfer, the one where Galactus swallows the universe, over and over. But as anyone who hasn’t slept in days knows, by the third or fourth night you’re so tired you could fall asleep standing up.
Even Galactus didn’t stand a chance.
Burning.
There was fire everywhere.
And smoke. I choked on the smoke and ash. It was pitch-black, impossible to see. And the heat was like sandpaper scraping against my skin.
I couldn’t hear anything except the roar of the fire.
I couldn’t even hear Lena screaming, except in my head.
Let go! You have to get out!
I could feel the bones in my wrist snapping, like tiny guitar strings breaking one by one. She let go of my wrist like she was preparing for me to release her, but I’d never let go.
Don’t do that, L! Don’t you let go!
Let me go! Please… save yourself!
I’d never let go.
But I could feel her sliding through my fingers. I tried to hold on tighter, but she was slipping….
I bolted upright in bed, coughing. It was so real, I could taste the smoke. But my room wasn’t hot; it was cold. My window was open again. The moonlight allowed my eyes to adjust more quickly than usual to the darkness.
I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Something was moving, in the shadows.
There was someone in my room.
“Holy crap!”
He tried to get out before I noticed him, but he wasn’t fast enough. He knew I’d seen him. So he did the only thing he could do. He turned to face me.
“Although I myself don’t consider it particularly holy, who am I to correct you after such an ungraceful exit?” Macon smiled his Cary Grant smile and approached the end of my bed. He was wearing a long black coat and dark slacks. He looked like he was dressed for some kind of turn-of-the-century night on the town, instead of a modern-day breaking and entering. “Hello, Ethan.”
“What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?”
He seemed at a loss, for Macon, which just meant he didn’t have an immediate and charming explanation on the tip of his tongue. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, uncomplicate it. Because you climbed in my window in the middle of the night, so either you’re some kind of vampire or some kind of perv, or both. Which is it?”