“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.
9.24
The Last Three Rows
You know that expression, “It hit me like a ton of bricks”? It’s true. The minute she turned the car around and ended up on my doorstep in her purple pajamas, that’s how I felt about Lena.