I didn’t say anything. Instead I stumbled over my thoughts, crashing and burning in the silence while Mr. Littleton tried to convince us how fascinating World History was going to be. He failed. I tried to come up with something to say that would rescue me from the awkwardness of the next ten seconds. I failed.
Because even though Liv wasn’t at Jackson, and she spent all her days in the Tunnels with Macon, she was still the elephant in the room. The thing Lena and I didn’t talk about. I had only seen Liv once since the night of the Seventeenth Moon, and I missed her. Not like I could tell anyone that.
I missed her crazy British accent, and the way she mispronounced Carolina so it sounded like Carolin-er. I missed her selenometer that looked like a giant plastic watch from thirty years ago, and the way she was always writing in her tiny red notebook. I missed the way we joked around and the way she made fun of me. I missed my friend.
The sad part was, she probably would have understood.
I just couldn’t tell her.
9.07
Off Route 9
After school, Link stayed to play basketball with the guys. Ridley wouldn’t leave without him as long as the cheer squad was in the gym, even though she wouldn’t admit it.
I stood inside the gym doors and watched Link dribble down the court without breaking a sweat. I watched him sink the ball from the paint, from the top of the key, from the three-point mark, from center court. I watched the other guys stand there with their mouths hanging open. I watched Coach sit back on the bleachers with his whistle still stuck in his mouth. I enjoyed every minute, almost as much as Link.
“You miss it?” Lena was watching me from the doorway.
I shook my head. “No way. I don’t want to hang out with the rest of those guys.” I smiled. “And for once, no one’s looking at us.” I held out my hand and she took it. Hers was warm and soft.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
Boo Radley was sitting at the corner of the lot by the stop sign, panting like there wasn’t enough air in the world to cool him off. I wondered if Macon was still watching us and everyone else through the Caster dog’s eyes. We pulled up next to him and opened the door. Boo didn’t even hesitate.
We drove up Route 9, where Gatlin’s houses disappeared and turned into rows of fields. This time of year, those fields were usually a mix of green and brown—corn and tobacco. But this year there was nothing but black and yellow, as far as the eye could see—dead plants, and lubbers eating their way right onto the road. You could hear them crunching beneath the tires. It looked wrong.
It was the other thing we didn’t like to talk about. The apocalypse that had settled over Gatlin in place of fall. Link’s mom was convinced that the heat wave and the bugs were the results of the wrath of God, but I knew she was wrong. At the Great Barrier, Abraham Ravenwood had promised that Lena’s choice would affect both the Caster and Mortal worlds. He wasn’t kidding.
Lena stared out the window, her eyes locked on the ravaged fields. There was nothing I could say that would make her feel any better, or less responsible. The only thing I could do was try to distract her. “Today was crazy, even for the first day of school.”
“I feel bad for Ridley.” Lena pushed her hair up off her shoulders, twisting it into a messy knot. “She’s not herself.”
“Which means she’s not an evil Siren secretly working for Sarafine. How sorry should I be?”
“She seems so lost.”
“My prediction? She’s gonna mess with Link’s head again.”
Lena bit her lip. “Yeah, well. Ridley still thinks she’s a Siren. Messing with people is part of the job description.”
“I bet she’ll bring down the whole cheer-amid before she’s done.”
“Then she’ll get expelled,” Lena said.
I pulled off at the crossroads, turning off Route 9 and onto the road to Ravenwood. “Not before she burns Jackson to the ground.”
The oak trees grew and arched over the road leading up to Lena’s house, bringing the temperature down a degree or two.
The breeze from the open window blew through Lena’s dark curls. “I don’t think Ridley can stand being in the house. My whole family is acting crazy. Aunt Del doesn’t know if she’s coming or going.”
“That’s nothing new.”
“Yesterday Aunt Del thought Ryan was Reece.”
“And Reece?” I asked.
“Reece’s powers have been all over the place. She’s always complaining about it. Sometimes she looks at me and freaks out, and I don’t know if it’s because of something she’s read in my face or because she can’t read anything at all.”
Reece was already cranky enough, under normal circumstances.
“At least you have your uncle.”
“Sort of. Every day Uncle Macon disappears into the Tunnels, and he won’t say what he’s doing down there. Like he doesn’t want me to know.”
“How is that weird? He and Amma never want us to know anything.” I tried to act like I wasn’t worried even as the tires rolled over more lubbers.
“He’s been back for weeks now, and I still don’t know what kind of Caster he is. I mean, except Light. He won’t talk about it, not to anyone.” Not even me. That’s what she was saying.