9.15
A Fork in the Road
We barely spoke as we drove back to my house. I didn’t know what to say, and Lena just looked grateful I wasn’t saying it. She let me drive, which was good because I needed something to distract me until my pulse slowed back down. We passed my street, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t ready to go home. I didn’t know what was going on with Lena, or her house, or her uncle, but she was going to tell me.
“You passed your street.” It was the first thing she’d said since we left Ravenwood.
“I know.”
“You think my uncle is crazy, like everyone else. Just say it. Old Man Ravenwood.” Her voice was bitter. “I need to get home.”
I didn’t say a word as we circled the General’s Green, the round patch of faded grass that encircled just about the only thing in Gatlin that ever made it into the guidebooks—the General, a statue of Civil War General Jubal A. Early. The General stood his ground, just as he always had, which now struck me as sort of wrong. Everything had changed; everything kept changing. I was different, seeing things and feeling things and doing things that even a week ago would have seemed impossible. It felt like the General should have changed, too.
I turned down Dove Street and pulled the hearse over alongside the curb, right under the sign that said welcome to gatlin, home of the south’s most unique historic plantation homes and the world’s best buttermilk pie. I wasn’t sure about the pie, but the rest was true.
“What are you doing?”
I turned the car off. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t park with guys.” It was a joke, but I could hear it in her voice. She was petrified.
“Start talking.”
“About what?”
“You’re kidding, right?” I was trying not to shout.
She pulled at her necklace, twisting the tab from a soda can. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about explaining what just happened back there.”
She stared out the window, into the darkness. “He was angry. Sometimes he loses his temper.”
“Loses his temper? You mean hurls things across the room without touching them and lights candles without matches?”
“Ethan, I’m sorry.” Her voice was quiet.
But mine wasn’t. The more she avoided my questions, the angrier it made me. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you tell me what’s going on.”
“With what?”
“With your uncle and his weird house, that he somehow managed to redecorate within a couple of days. With the food that appears and disappears. With all that talk about boundaries and protecting you. Pick one.”
She shook her head. “I can’t talk about it. And you wouldn’t understand, anyway.”
“How do you know if you don’t give me a chance?”
“My family is different from other families. Trust me, you can’t handle it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Face it, Ethan. You say you’re not like the rest of them, but you are. You want me to be different, but just a little. Not really different.”
“You know what? You’re as crazy as your uncle.”
“You came to my house without being invited, and now you’re angry because you didn’t like what you saw.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t see out the windows, and I couldn’t think clearly, either.
“And you’re angry because you’re afraid. You all are. Deep down, you’re all the same.” Lena sounded tired now, like she had already given up.
“No.” I looked at her. “You’re afraid.”
She laughed, bitterly. “Yeah, right. The things I’m afraid of, you couldn’t even imagine.”
“You’re afraid to trust me.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You’re afraid to get to know someone well enough to notice whether or not they show up for school.”
She dragged her finger through the fog on her window. It made a shaky line, like a zigzag.
“You’re afraid to stick around and see what happens.”
The zigzag turned into what looked like a bolt of lightning.
“You’re not from here. You’re right. And you’re not just a little different.”
She was still staring out the window, at nothing, because you still couldn’t see out of it. But I could see her. I could see everything. “You’re incredibly, absolutely, extremely, supremely, unbelievably different.” I touched her arm, with just my fingertips, and immediately I felt the warmth of electricity. “I know because deep down, I think I am, too. So tell me. Please. Different how?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
A tear dripped down her cheek. I caught it with my finger, and it burned. “Why not?”
“Because this could be my last chance to be a normal girl, even if it is in Gatlin. Because you’re my only friend here. Because if I tell you, you won’t believe me. Or worse, you will.” She opened her eyes, and looked into mine. “Either way, you’re never going to want to talk to me again.”
There was a rap on the window, and we both jumped. A flashlight shone through the fogged-in glass. I dropped my hand and rolled down the window, swearing under my breath.
“Kids get lost on your way home?” Fatty. He was grinning like he’d stumbled across two doughnuts on the side of the road.
“No, sir. We’re on our way home right now.”
“This isn’t your car, Mr. Wate.”
“No, sir.”
He shined his flashlight over at Lena, lingering for a long time. “Then move on, and get home. Don’t want to keep Amma waitin’.”
“Yes, sir.” I turned the key in the ignition. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I could see his girlfriend, Amanda, in the front seat of his police cruiser, giggling.
I slammed the car door. I could see Lena through the driver’s window now, as she idled in front of my house. “See you tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
But I knew we wouldn’t see each other tomorrow. I knew if she drove down my street that was it. It was a path, just like the fork in the road leading to Ravenwood or to Gatlin. You had to pick one. If she didn’t pick this one, now, the hearse would keep on going the other way at the fork, passing me by. Just as it had the morning I first saw it.
If she didn’t pick me.
You couldn’t take two roads. And once you were on one, there was no going back. I heard the motor grind into drive, but kept walking up to my door. The hearse pulled away.
She didn’t pick me.
I was lying on my bed, facing the window. The moonlight was streaming in, which was annoying, because it kept me from falling asleep when all I wanted was for this day to end.
Ethan. The voice was so soft I almost couldn’t hear it.
I looked at the window. It was locked, I had made sure of it.
Ethan. Come on.
I closed my eyes. The latch on my window rattled.
Let me in.
The wooden shutters banged open. I would say it was the wind, but of course there wasn’t even a breeze. I climbed out of bed and looked outside.
Lena was standing on my front lawn in her pajamas. The neighbors would have a field day, and Amma would have a heart attack. “You come down or I’m coming up.”
A heart attack, and then a stroke.
We sat out on the front step. I was in my jeans, because I didn’t sleep in pajamas, and if Amma had walked out and found me with a girl in my boxers, I would’ve been buried under the back lawn by morning.
Lena leaned back against the step, looking up at the white paint peeling off the porch. “I almost turned around at the end of your street, but I was too scared to do it.” In the moonlight, I could see her pajamas were green and purple and sort of Chinese.
“Then by the time I got home, I was too scared not to do it.” She was picking at the nail polish on her bare feet, which was how I knew she had something to say. “I don’t really know how to do this. I’ve never had to say it before, so I don’t know how it will all come out.”
I rubbed my messy hair with one hand. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I know what it’s like to have a crazy family.”
“You think you know crazy. You have no idea.”
She took a deep breath. Whatever she was about to say, it was hard for her. I could see her struggling to find the words. “The people in my family, and me, we have powers. We can do things that regular people can’t do. We’re born that way, we can’t help it. We are what we are.”
It took me a second to understand what she was talking about, or at least what I thought she was talking about.
Magic.
Where was Amma when I needed her?
I was afraid to ask, but I had to know. “And what, exactly, are you?” It sounded so crazy that I almost couldn’t say the words.
“Casters,” she said quietly.
“Casters?”
She nodded.
“Like, spell casters?”
She nodded again.
I stared at her. Maybe she was crazy. “Like, witches?”
“Ethan. Don’t be ridiculous.”
I exhaled, momentarily relieved. Of course, I was an idiot. What was I thinking?
“That’s such a stupid word, really. It’s like saying jocks. Or geeks. It’s just a dumb stereotype.”
My stomach lurched. Part of me wanted to bolt up the steps, lock the door, and hide in my bed. But then another part of me, a bigger part, wanted to stay. Because hadn’t a part of me known all along? I may not have known what she was, but I had known there was something about her, something bigger than just that junky necklace and those old Chucks. What was I expecting, from someone who could bring on a downpour? Who could talk to me without even being in the room? Who could control the way the clouds floated in the sky? Who could fling open the shutters to my room from my front yard?
“Can you come up with a better name?”
“There’s not one word that describes all the people in my family. Is there one word that describes everyone in yours?”
I wanted to break the tension, to pretend she was just like any other girl. To convince myself that this could be okay. “Yeah. Lunatics.”
“We’re Casters. That’s the broadest definition. We all have powers. We’re gifted, just like some families are smart, and others are rich, or beautiful, or athletic.”
I knew what the next question was, but I didn’t want to ask it. I already knew she could break a window just by thinking about it. I didn’t know if I was ready to find out what else she could shatter.
Anyway, it was starting to feel like we were talking about just another crazy Southern family, like the Sisters. The Ravenwoods had been around as long as any family in Gatlin. Why should they be any less crazy? Or at least that’s what I tried to tell myself.
Lena took the silence as a bad sign. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I told you to leave me alone. Now you probably think I’m a freak.”
“I think you’re talented.”
“You think my house is weird. You already admitted that.”
“So you redecorated, a lot.” I was trying to hold it together. I was trying to keep her smiling. I knew what it must have cost her to tell me the truth. I couldn’t run out on her now. I turned around and pointed to the lit study above the azalea bushes, hidden behind thick wooden shutters. “Look. See that window over there? That’s my dad’s study. He works all night and sleeps all day. Since my mom died, he hasn’t left the house. He won’t even show me what he’s writing.”
“That’s so romantic,” she said quietly.
“No, it’s crazy. But nobody talks about it, because there’s nobody left to talk to. Except Amma, who hides magic charms in my room and screams at me for bringing old jewelry into the house.”
I could tell she was almost smiling. “Maybe you are a freak.”
“I’m a freak, you’re a freak. Your house makes rooms disappear, my house makes people disappear. Your shut-in uncle is nuts and my shut-in dad is a lunatic, so I don’t know what you think makes us so different.”
Lena smiled, relieved. “I’m trying to find a way to see that as a compliment.”
“It is.” I looked at her smiling in the moonlight, a real smile. There was something about the way she looked just at that moment. I imagined leaning in a little farther and kissing her. I pushed myself away, up one step higher than she was.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.” But I wasn’t.
We stayed like that, just talking on the steps, for hours. I lay on the step above; she lay on the step below. We watched the dark night sky, then the dark morning sky, until we could hear the birds.
By the time the hearse finally pulled away, the sun was starting to rise. I watched Boo Radley lope slowly home after it. At the rate he was going, it would be sunset before that dog got home. Sometimes I wondered why he bothered.
Stupid dog.
I put my hand on the brass doorknob of my own door, but I almost couldn’t bring myself to open it. Everything was upside down, and nothing inside could change that. My mind was scrambled, all stirred up like a big frying pan of Amma’s eggs, the way my insides had felt like for days now.
T. I. M. O. R. O. U. S. That’s what Amma would call me. Eight across, as in another name for a coward. I was scared. I’d told Lena it was no big deal that she and her family—were what? Witches? Casters? And not the ten and two kind my dad had taught me about.
Yeah, no big deal.
I was a big liar. I bet even that stupid dog could sense that.