“Talk to me.”
“I will, but right now I don’t even know what to tell you.” I stood up to leave. I shouldn’t have said anything. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening, and the more Marian pushed, the faster I wanted to get away. “I’d better get going.”
She followed me to the door of the archive. “Don’t be gone so long this time, Ethan. I’ve missed you.”
I smiled and hugged her, looking over her shoulder into the Gatlin County Library—and almost jumped out of my skin.
“What happened?”
Marian looked as surprised as I did. The library was a catastrophic, floor-to-ceiling disaster. It looked like a tornado had struck while we were in the archive. Stacks were leveled, and books were thrown open everywhere, along the tabletops, the checkout counter, even the floor. I’d only seen something like this once before, last Christmas, when every book in the library opened to a quote that had to do with Lena and me.
“This is worse than last time,” Marian said quietly. We were thinking the same thing. It was a message meant for me. Just as it had been then.
“Uh-huh.”
“Well. There we go. Are you feeling Vexed yet?” Marian reached for a book sitting on top of the card catalog. “Because I certainly am.”
“I’m starting to.” I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “Wish I knew the Cast for reshelving books without actually having to pick them all up.”
Marian bent and handed me the first. “Emily Dickinson.”
I opened it as slowly as a person can open a book, and found a random page.
“ ‘Much Madness is divinest Sense…’ ”
“Madness. Great.” What did it mean? And, more important, what did it mean for me? I looked at Marian. “What do you think?”
“I think the Disorder of Things has finally reached my stacks. Go on.” She opened another book and handed it to me. “Leonardo da Vinci.”
Great. Another famous crazy person. I handed it back to her. “You do it.”
“ ‘While I thought that I was learning how to live, I’ve been learning how to die.’ ” She closed the book softly.
“Madness and now death. Things are looking up.”
She put one hand around my neck and let the book slide from her other. I’m here with you. That’s what her hands said. My hands didn’t say anything except that I was terrified, which I was pretty sure she could tell from how hard they were shaking. “We’ll take turns. One reads while the other cleans.”
“I call cleaning.”
Marian gave me a look, handing me another book. “You’re calling the shots in my library now?”
“No, ma’am. That wouldn’t be very gentlemanly.” I looked down at the title. “Oh, come on.” Edgar Allan Poe. He was so dark he’d make the other two look cheerful in comparison. “Whatever he has to say, I don’t want to know.”
“Open it.”
“ ‘Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing / Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before…’ ”
I snapped the book shut. “I get it. I’m losing it. I’m going crazy. This whole town is cracked. The universe is one big nuthouse.”
“You know what Leonard Cohen says about cracks, Ethan?”
“No, I don’t. But I get the feeling I could open a few more books in this library and tell you.”
“ ‘There is a crack in everything.’ ”
“That’s helpful.”
“It is, actually.” She put her hands on my shoulders. “ ‘There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’ ”
She was pretty much exactly right—or at least the Leonard Cohen guy was. I felt happy and sad at the same time, and I didn’t know what to say. So I dropped to my knees on the carpet and started stacking books.
“Better get going on this mess.”
Marian understood. “Never thought I’d hear you say that, EW.” She was right. The universe really must be cracked, and me right along with it.
I hoped somehow the light was finding a way in.
9.19
The Devil You Know
I was dreaming. Not in a dream—so real I could feel the wind as I fell, or smell the metallic stench of blood in the Santee—but actually dreaming. I watched as whole scenes played out in my mind, only something was wrong. The dream felt wrong—or didn’t, because I couldn’t feel anything. I might as well have been sitting on the curb watching everything as it passed by….
The night Sarafine had called the Seventeenth Moon.
The moon splitting in the sky above Lena, its two halves forming the wings of a butterfly—one green, one gold.
John Breed on his Harley, Lena’s arms wrapped around him.
Macon’s empty grave in the cemetery.
Ridley holding a black bundle, light escaping from beneath the fabric.
The Arclight resting on the muddy ground.