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Lena scribbled something and ripped out the page of her notebook. She used a rock to hold the note on top of the cross.
The paper fluttered in the cool breeze but remained where she’d left it.
She wiped a stray tear and smiled.
The paper had only one word on it, but we both knew what it meant. It was a reference to one of the first conversations we’d ever had, when she told me what it said on the poet Bukowski’s grave. Only two words: Don’t try.
But the torn piece of paper on my grave was christened with only one word, in all caps. Still damp and still smelling like Sharpie.
Sharpie and lemons and rosemary.
All the things that were Lena.
TRY.
I will, L.
I promise.
CHAPTER 7
Crosswords
As I watched Link and Lena disappear toward Ravenwood, I knew there was one more place I needed to go, one person I had to see before I went back. She owned Wate’s Landing more than any Wate ever would. She haunted that place even in full flesh and blood.
Part of me was dreading it, imagining how torn up she must be. But I needed to see her, all the same.
Bad things had happened.
I couldn’t change that, no matter how much I wanted to.
Everything felt wrong, and even seeing Lena didn’t make it feel right.
As Aunt Prue would say, things had gone cattywampus.
Whether in this realm or any other, Amma was always the one person who could set me straight.
I sat on the curb across the street, waiting for the sun to go down. I couldn’t get myself to move. I didn’t want to. I wanted to watch the sun dip behind the house, behind the clotheslines and the old trees and the hedge. I wanted to watch the sunlight fade and the lights in the house go on. I watched for the familiar glow in my dad’s study, but it was still dark. He must be teaching at the university, as if nothing had happened. That was probably good, better even. I wondered if he was still working on his book about the Eighteenth Moon, unless restoring the Order had brought an end to that, too.
There was a light in the kitchen bay window, though.
Amma.
A second light flickered through the small square window next to it. The Sisters were watching one of their shows.
Then, in the dwindling light, I noticed something strange. There were no bottles on our old crepe myrtle. The one where Amma hung empty, cracked glass bottles to trap any evil spirits that happened to float our way and to keep them from getting in our house.
Where could the bottles have gone? Why wouldn’t she need them now?
I stood up and walked a little closer. I could see through the kitchen window to where Amma sat at our old wooden table, probably doing a crossword. I could imagine the #2 pencils scratching, could almost hear them.
I crossed the lawn and stood in the driveway, just outside the window. For once I figured it was a good thing no one could see me, because peeping in windows at night in Gatlin is what made even decent folks want to get out their shotguns. Then again, there were lots of things that made folks around here want to get out their shotguns.
Amma looked up and out into the darkness, like a deer in the headlights. I could have sworn she saw me. Then real headlights flashed behind me, and I realized it wasn’t me Amma was looking at.
It was my dad, driving my mom’s old Volvo. Pulling right through me and into the driveway. As if I wasn’t there.
Which, in a whole lot of ways, I wasn’t.
