“Just drop it, okay?”
“Okay.” She picks up her textbook and ACT practice book. “I have to hit the road anyway. I’m meeting Johnny at the movies in half an hour.”
“Johnny the wide receiver?”
She shakes her head. “The tailback. Weird kissing aside, he’s … I don’t know. Nice. And he thinks Trixie Malone looks like a carp.”
I walk her to the door. “You know, Mer, you might actually want to try to get to know this one. Just to mix things up a little.”
“I will, if you promise not to give up on Henry so easily. If you think he’s the one, you can make it work. A lot of couples have made it through worse things than long-distance relationships.”
“Like who?”
“Heathcliff and Catherine?”
“You haven’t finished the book yet, have you?”
She snaps her fingers. “Edward and Vivian.”
I blink.
“You know,” she says, “from Pretty Woman?”
“Better, although I don’t know how I feel about being compared to a prostitute.”
“She’s not any old prostitute. She’s Julia Roberts, for God’s sake.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll see what I can do,” I say, even though it’s a lie. There’s nothing I can do. The typical long-distance relationship has never had to deal with the whole he-lives-in-a-different-century, she-has-a-magical-forest-to-protect angle.
“Pinkie promise?”
I link my pinkie around hers. “Yeah, whatever. Now go talk to Johnny and see if he’s your Prince Charming already.”
She starts through the door.
“Hey, Mer?”
She glances at me over her shoulder.
I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around much lately. I can’t really explain it, but my life is pretty complicated.”
“Clearly. I mean, you have gorgeous British men sleeping over in your room. I’d kill for my life to be that complicated.”
“Man, not men,” I correct her. “Anyway, I’m going to try to do better.”
Mer turns around, taking my hand and giving me a small smile. “Win, you don’t have to explain anything to me, or promise me anything. We’re sisters, and we’ll always be sisters. Even if we went years without talking or seeing each other, that would never change.”
I arch a brow. “We better not go years without doing either of those things.”
Mer laughs. “You know what I mean. We’re cool, so you don’t have to worry. Okay?”
I swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat. “Okay.”
“Now, I’m going to go kiss that frog and see if he’s my prince. Wish me luck.”
I smile. “Good luck!”
I watch her go, feeling the differences between us more keenly than usual. If only I could be her, and Henry could be Johnny, and we could get to know each other over bad action movies and overly buttered popcorn. He could drive me home and kiss me good night and I could write his name with little doodle hearts in my notebook during class.
Now that sounds like real magic.
XXXVI
I do the dishes after Mer leaves, rinsing and drying them as fast as possible. I can feel my time with Henry slipping away from me, and I want to spend every second I can with him before he leaves. It’s an odd sensation, one I wasn’t expecting at all. Just a couple days ago, I couldn’t wait to get rid of him. And now …
Now the thought of Henry leaving makes my soul ache.
“Door open while you’re up there together, Winter,” Mom tells me without looking up from her work while I dry my hands with a dish towel.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I fix Henry a plate of Oreo cookies for dessert and pour two glasses of milk, one for each of us. Balancing the plate on one of the glasses, I head upstairs.
Henry is so intent on his book—his eyes furiously scanning the page, his thumb grazing his bottom lip—that he doesn’t seem to hear my bedroom door squeak open, or my footsteps as I walk in. I carefully set the plate and glasses on my dresser and creep forward. His jaw drops at something on the page, and then—
“Boo!” I yell.
He jumps out of his seat, his hand going to his side as if reaching for a weapon. I bend over laughing.
He takes a deep breath. “Scaring people is not a very becoming attribute in a young lady.”
“Whatever,” I say between barely hushed giggles. “You should’ve seen your face.”
He gives me a half smile. “I will make you pay for this when you least expect it.”
I stop laughing. His smile falters. And neither of us says it, but we know we’re both thinking it: He won’t have the chance to pay me back. These are probably our last hours together.
I clear my throat. “Do you know where your parents are?”
He closes his book and nods. “Brussels.”
“Great. That’s, um, great.” Yeah, you already said that, Miss Honor Roll. Let’s try to think of some other adjectives for next time, shall we?
“Though I’m not certain what time period,” he admits.
“I think there’s only one Brussels threshold, but the council will know for sure. I’ll take you to headquarters as soon as the sun comes up.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you worried?” I ask. “About what the council will do to you once you’ve told them who you are?”
“I am more concerned about what will happen to my parents if I do not act quickly,” he says. “As long as I find them alive, I can withstand any punishment the council may give me. Why? Are you afraid?”
I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid of what’s happening to the wood, afraid of Varo. Afraid of the hope growing in my chest when I think about the fact that Henry’s parents are alive and that maybe, just maybe, if they’re alive, then my dad could be alive, too. Hidden somewhere, like Brussels, or medieval Japan, or ancient Greece. She hasn’t said it, but I know Mom’s holding on to that hope, too, and that scares me even more. I don’t know how she’ll handle it if Dad’s beyond saving, or, perhaps even worse, if he never had anything to do with this in the first place. If his name on Henry’s parents’ desk was just a coincidence. If we will still be left wondering what happened to him. If we will always be stuck in this limbo where we can never truly move forward or backward, but just reside in this vacuous hole of a place where nothing feels like it’ll ever be right again.
I’m afraid of saying good-bye to Henry. Afraid that he may be the only person who will ever truly understand the wood and my destiny, and that I’ll never be able to find another friend, another person, like him. But afraid of what the council will do to me when they discover I helped him find his parents?
“No,” I say. “I’m not afraid.”
His finger taps the cover of Lord of the Flies, and he looks up at me from beneath short, blond lashes that catch the light and shimmer, like fine-spun gold. “I do not know what my parents have been doing to stop Varo, but I assure you they are not the type to simply run and hide when they know something must be done. I will work with them to stop him in any way I can. You will not”—he clears his throat—“I will not let you be alone in this, Winter.”