The Mortal Heart

That old clock has to be wrong. Marian double-checked the mother-of-pearl face on the thin, silver-strapped watch her best friend, Lila Wate, had given her. Seems like seven thousand years ago. At least two lifetimes.

Marian pulled out a Tupperware container of homemade lilac shortbread, sliding one piece onto each of the three mismatched saucers she’d set out on her desk in the archive. At least she knew how to roll out a decent cookie. She wished the same could be said of Lilian English’s biscuits, her chicken, her pies, or even her chili-ghetti. Taking over the cooking in Amma’s kitchen wouldn’t be easy for anyone, let alone Mitchell Wate’s future bride. Still, Marian had been relieved when she wasn’t invited to one of Mitchell and Lilian’s subpar chicken and biscuit dinners. Now that the engagement was official, there were more than a few tiers of relatives who had to be rotated in and out before the couple tied the knot next summer. Anyway, Marian knew that Ethan would make the time to see her on his way out of town—and she wasn’t surprised when the bell on the library door jingled.

“Aunt Marian?” Ethan bounded through the door, with Lena right behind him.

“Ethan—”

A hug was the first order of business, long and more articulate than anything they could possibly say to each other in words.

Marian pulled back to take a good look. “Let me see you.”

There he was, her boy. The closest thing she’d ever had to a son. Ethan looked good, if a bit older, in a raggedy sweater and ripped jeans. “You’ve grown some.” Her mouth twisted into a smile.

College kids, she thought. Amma probably can’t stand to check in on him anymore from the Otherworld, with him dressed like this.

“Have I?” Ethan left a hand on Marian’s shoulder. “Because I was starting to think you were shrinking.”

Marian swatted him away, reaching for Lena, who was standing behind Ethan. Macon’s child—that was how Marian always thought of Lena. The girl was never more than a few feet away from Lila’s son, and she looked radiant—how she always looked when Ethan was nearby.

That’s how those two are whenever they’re together. Glowing like a string of lights on a Christmas tree. It almost makes you believe love can work out for a person.

Almost.

Ever since Ethan had returned from the Otherworld, he and Lena were as together as two people could be. “I can’t explain it,” Ethan had told Marian once. “Except that I know what I lost, and I don’t want to lose it again. Not even for a minute.”

Marian had understood what he meant the moment he’d said it. She’d felt the same way when Ethan stepped off the water tower.…

When he died.

Only Marian, Amma, and a few Casters knew the truth about what had happened to Ethan—that he hadn’t gone to visit his aunt in Savannah when he disappeared. It still haunted her. All her knowledge as a Keeper and all the books in the Lunae Libri had been useless.

I was useless.

Lila was the one who had set Ethan on the right path in the Otherworld, and Lena overturned Heaven and Earth to help him find his way home again. But Amma was the one who gave her own life to make sure he stayed.

I should have been able to do more. Marian shook off the thought. Ethan was here now, safe and happy.

“Why, Lena Duchannes, is that a color you’re wearing?” Marian touched the ratty sleeve of Lena’s sweater, woven with as many colors as Joseph’s proverbial coat, and with about as many loose strings.

“I knit it myself,” Lena said proudly. “During my classes.”

“Her gramma taught her,” Ethan said, with his mouth full. He opened Marian’s box of shortbread cookies and helped himself to the remaining stash.

“I can tell,” Marian said, ignoring him. “How are my old friends Dante, Shakespeare, and Virgil? And, of course, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf?”

Lena put down her cup. “They send their love. Also, they might want me to borrow your library’s copy of To the Lighthouse—or at least to read the notes in the margins. I’m working on a paper, and I remember writing some good ideas in your copy, back in high school.”

Marian raised a stern eyebrow at the thought of anyone writing in her books—even Lena Duchannes—but pointed to the back of the stacks. “That way. And we will never speak of this again.”

“Aunt Marian,” Ethan began the moment Lena was gone. “I want to ask you something.”

“Anything.”

“It’s about my mom. When I saw her over there—”

“I can’t begin to imagine,” Marian said.

“Mom told me she had loved Macon but that she had also loved my dad. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, now that Dad is engaged to Mrs. English and everything.”

“Your father is happy.” It wasn’t a question. Everyone knew that the Mitchell Wate who became a ghost when his wife died had come back from the dead; fewer folks knew it was around the same time that his son had, as well.

“He is, and I want him to be. My mom thinks so, too. At least that’s what she said, when I—you know—saw her.”