Birth, not death.
She pictured the images in her mind, willing it to be so. The images ran in a loop over and over in her mind.
Birth, not death.
Ethan choked. She opened her eyes, and their eyes met. For an instant, time seemed to stop. Then, Ethan’s eyes closed, and his head rolled to one side.
Genevieve closed her eyes again, visualizing the images. It had to be a mistake. He couldn’t be dead.
She had summoned her power. She had done it a million times before, moving objects in her mother’s kitchen to play tricks on Ivy, healing baby birds that had fallen from their nests.
Why not now? When it mattered?
“Ethan, wake up. Please wake up.”
I opened my eyes. We were standing in the middle of the field, in exactly the same place we’d been before. I looked over at Lena. Her eyes were shining, about to spill over. “Oh, God.”
I bent down and touched the weeds where we had been standing. A reddish stain marked the plants and the ground around us. “It’s blood.”
“His blood?”
“I think so.”
“You were right. The bracelet was keeping us from seeing the vision. But why would Uncle Macon tell me it was for protection?”
“Maybe it is. That’s just not the only thing it’s for.”
“You don’t have to try to make me feel better.”
“There’s obviously something they don’t want us to find out, and it involves the locket and, I’m willing to bet, Genevieve. We’ve got to find out as much as we can about them both, and we have to do it before your birthday.”
“Why my birthday?”
“Last night, Amma and your uncle were talking. Whatever they don’t want us to know, it has something to do with your birthday.”
Lena took a deep breath, like she was trying to hold it together. “They know I’m going to go Dark.
That’s what this is about.”
“What does that have to do with the locket?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. In four months, I’m not going to be me anymore. You saw Ridley. That’s what I’m going to turn into, or worse. If my uncle is right and I am a Natural, then I’ll make Ridley look like a volunteer for the Red Cross.”
I pulled her toward me, wrapping my arms around her like I could protect her from something we both knew I couldn’t. “You can’t think like that. There has to be a way to stop it, if that’s really the truth.”
“You don’t get it. There’s no way to stop it. It just happens.” Her voice was rising. The wind was starting to pick up.
“Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe it just happens. But we’re going to find a way to make it not happen to you.”
Her eyes were clouding over like the sky. “Can’t we just enjoy the time we have left?” I felt the words for the first time.
The time we have left.
I couldn’t lose her. I wouldn’t. Just the thought of never being able to touch her again made me crazy.
Crazier than losing all my friends. Crazier than being the least popular guy in school. Crazier than having Amma perpetually angry at me. Losing her was the worst thing I could imagine. Like I was falling, but this time I would definitely hit the ground.
I thought about Ethan Carter Wate hitting the ground, the red blood in the field. The wind began to howl. It was time to go. “Don’t talk like that. We’re going to find a way.”
But even as I was saying it, I didn’t know if I believed it.
10.13
Marian the Librarian
It had been three days, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ethan Carter Wate had been shot, and he was probably dead. I had seen it with my own eyes. Well, technically, everyone from back then was dead by now. But, from one Ethan Wate to another, I was having trouble getting over the death of this particular Confederate soldier. More like, Confederate deserter. My greatgreat-greatgreat-uncle.
I thought about it during Algebra II, while Savannah choked on her equation in front of the class, but Mr. Bates was too busy reading the latest issue of Guns and Ammo to notice. I thought about it during the Future Farmers of America assembly, when I couldn’t find Lena and ended up sitting with the band.
Link was sitting with the guys a few rows behind me, but I didn’t notice until Shawn and Emory started making animal noises. After a while, I couldn’t hear them anymore. My mind kept going back to Ethan Carter Wate.