The reenactment went off without a hitch, which really meant it went on with all the customary hitches. The camera battery died in the first five minutes. The chief magistrate had to use the bathroom. The afflicted girls got caught texting, and the confiscation of their phones was a bigger affliction than the one the Devil was supposed to have brought on them in the first place.
My father didn’t say a word, but I knew he was there. His presence kept me from speaking, moving, or breathing when I could help it. Why was he here? What was he doing hanging out with Mrs. English? There was no rational explanation.
Ethan! You’re supposed to give your defense.
What?
I looked up at the camera. Everyone in the room was staring at me.
Start talking, or I’m going to have to fake an asthma attack, like Link did during the biology final.
“My name is John Proctor.”
I stopped. My name was John.
Just like John at County Care. And John sitting on Ridley’s pink shag carpet. Once again, there was me, and there was John.
What was the universe trying to tell me now?
“Ethan?” Mrs. English sounded annoyed.
I looked back down at my paper. “My name is John Proctor, and these allegations are false.” I didn’t know if it was the right line. I looked back at the camera, but I didn’t see my father standing behind it.
I saw something else. My reflection in the lens started to shift, like a ripple in the lake. Then it slowly came back into focus. For a second, I was staring at myself again.
I watched my image as the corners of my mouth turned up into a lopsided smile.
I felt like someone had punched me.
I couldn’t breathe.
Because I wasn’t smiling.
“What the hell?” My voice was shaking. The afflicted girls started laughing.
Ethan, are you okay?
“Do you have anything else to add to that poignant defense, Mr. Proctor?” Mrs. English was more than annoyed. She thought I was screwing around.
I shuffled through my notes, my hands shaking, and found a quote. “ ‘How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul, leave me my name.’ ”
I could feel her glass eye on me.
Ethan! Say something!
“Leave me my soul. Leave me my name.” It was the wrong line, but something about it felt right.
Something was following me. I didn’t know what it was, or what it wanted.
But I knew who I was.
Ethan Wate—son of Lila Jane Evers Wate and Mitchell Wate. Son of a Keeper and a Mortal, disciple of basketball and chocolate milk, of comic books and novels I hid under my bed. Raised by my parents and Amma and Marian, this whole town and everyone in it, good and bad.
And I loved a girl. Her name was Lena.
The question is, who are you? And what do you want from me?
I didn’t wait for an answer. I had to get out of that room. I pushed my way through the chairs. I couldn’t get to the door fast enough. I slammed against it as hard as I could, and ran down the hall without looking back.
Because I already knew the words. I’d heard them a dozen times, and every time they made less sense.
And every time, they made my stomach turn.
I’M WAITING.
11.01
Demon Queen
One of the things about living in a small town is you can’t get away with ditching class in the middle of a historical reenactment that your English teacher spent weeks organizing. Not without consequences. In most places, that would mean suspension, or at least detention. In Gatlin, it meant Amma forcing you to show up at your teacher’s house with a plateful of peanut butter cookies.
Which is exactly where I was standing.
I knocked on the door, hoping Mrs. English wasn’t home. I stared at the red door, shifting my weight uncomfortably. Lena liked red doors. She said red was a happy color, and Casters didn’t have red doors. To Casters, doors were dangerous—all thresholds were. Only Mortals had red doors.
My mom had hated red doors. She didn’t like people who had red doors either. She said having a red door in Gatlin meant you were the kind of person who wasn’t afraid to be different. But if you thought having a red door would do that for you, then you really were just like the rest of them.
I didn’t have time to come up with my own theory on red doors, because right then this one swung open. Mrs. English was standing there in a flowered dress and fuzzy slippers. “Ethan? What are you doing here?”
“I came to apologize, ma’am.” I held out the plate. “I brought you some cookies.”
“Then I suppose you should come in.” She stepped back, opening the door wider.
This wasn’t the response I was expecting. I figured I’d apologize and give her Amma’s famous peanut butter cookies, she would accept, and I would be out of there. Not following her into her tiny house. Red door or not, I definitely wasn’t happy.
“Why don’t we have a seat in the parlor?”
I followed her into a tiny room that didn’t look like any parlor I’d ever seen. It was the smallest house I’d ever been in. The walls were covered with black and white family portraits. They were so old and the faces so small that I would’ve had to stop and stare to look at any of them, which made them all strangely private. At least, strange for Gatlin, where our families were on display at all times, the dead and the living.