“What is it you need me to do in here, Aunt Marian?” I didn't feel like talking about it.
She sighed and turned back to the archive. “I thought maybe you could help me sort through some of this. Obviously a great deal of the material in here relates to the locket and Ethan and Genevieve. Now that we know the end of that story, we might want to make some room for the next one.”
“What's the next one?” I picked up the old photo of Genevieve wearing the locket. I remembered the first time I looked at it with Lena. It felt like years since then, instead of months.
“It would seem to me that it's yours and Lena's. The events on her birthday raised a number of questions, most of which I can't answer. I've never heard of an incident when a Caster didn't have to choose Light or Dark on the night of their Claiming — except in the case of Lena's family, when the choice is made for them. Now that we don't have Macon to help us, I'm afraid we're going to have to search out the answers ourselves.” Lucille jumped up onto my mother's chair, her ears perking up.
“I wouldn't know where to start.”
“‘He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to.’ ”
“Thoreau?”
“Harry Emerson Fosdick. A bit older and more obscure, but still quite relevant, I think.” She smiled and put her hand on the edge of the door.
“Aren't you going to help me?”
“I can't leave Olivia alone for long, or she'll reshelve the entire collection, and then we'll all have to learn Chinese.” She paused for a moment, watching me, looking so much like my mom. “I think you can handle this one on your own. At least the beginning.”
“I don't have a choice, do I? You can't really help me since you're a Keeper.” I was still bitter about Marian's revelation that she had known my mother was involved with the Caster world, but she would never explain why or how. There were so many things about my mother and her death that Marian had never told me. It always came back to the endless rules that Bound Marian to her job as a Keeper.
“I can only help you help yourself. I can't determine the course of events, the unraveling of Darkness and Light, the Order of Things.”
“That's such a load of crap.”
“What?”
“It's like the prime directive on Star Trek. You have to let the planet evolve at its own pace. You can't introduce hyperspace or warp speed until they discover it for themselves. But Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise always end up breaking the rule.”
“Unlike Captain Kirk, there is no choice in my case. A Keeper is powerfully Bound to act neither for the Dark nor the Light. I couldn't change my destiny, even if I wanted to. I have my own place in the natural order of the Caster world, in the Order of Things.”
“Whatever.”
“It's not a choice. I don't have the authority to change the way things work. If I so much as tried, I might destroy not only myself but the very people I was trying to help.”
“But my mom still ended up dead.” I don't know why I said it, but I couldn't understand the logic. Marian had to remain uninvolved to protect the people she cared about, but the person she cared about most died anyway.
“Are you asking me if I could've prevented your mother's death?” She knew I was. I looked down at my sneakers. I wasn't sure I was ready to hear the answer.
Marian put her hand under my chin and pulled my face up to meet hers. “I didn't know your mother was in danger, Ethan. But she knew the risks.” Her voice was uneven, and I knew I had gone too far, but I couldn't help it. I'd been trying to get up the courage to have this conversation for months now. “I would have gladly taken her place in that car. Don't you think I have wondered a thousand times if there was something I knew or could have done that might have saved Lila …” Her voice trailed off.
I feel the same way. You're just holding on to a different edge of the same jagged hole. We're both lost. That's what I wanted to say. Instead, I let her put her arm around my shoulder and pull me into a rough hug. I barely felt it when the arm slipped away and the door closed behind her.
I stared at the stacks of paper. Lucille jumped down from the chair and onto the table. “Be careful. These are a lot older than you.” She tilted her head and looked at me with her blue eyes. Then she froze.