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I focused my eyes on the tall, gaunt figure of Mitchell Wate, just as I had so often since Ethan died. Once he was fixed in my sight, I slowly began reciting the words of the Oblivio Cast that Gramma had taught me to repeat every time I saw Ethan’s dad.
He stared at me, curious. My eyes didn’t even flicker. Only my lips began to move, and I whispered the words as they formed in my mind.
“Oblivio, Oblivio, Non Abest.
Oblivion, Oblivion, He Is Not Gone.”
A bubble expanded inside my chest the moment I formed the Cast, pushing past me toward Ethan’s father, reaching right across the room and wrapping itself around him. The room seemed to stretch and contract, and I thought for a moment the bubble was about to pop.
Then I felt the air snap around us, and suddenly it was over, and the air was just air, and everything seemed normal again.
As normal as things could be.
Mr. Wate’s eyes brightened and glazed over. He shrugged, smiling at me, sticking one hand back inside the cereal box. “Ah well, what are you going to do? He’s a good kid. But if Ethan doesn’t get his tail home from Caroline’s soon, he’s going to be mighty behind when he gets back. At this rate, he’ll be doing homework all the way through spring break. You tell him that for me, will you?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll tell him.” I smiled, wiping at my eye before anything like a tear could fall. “I’ll tell him the next time I talk to him.”
That’s when Amma almost threw the pan of pork chops down on the burner. Link shook his head.
I turned and fled. I tried not to think, but the words followed me, like a curse, like a hex.
oblivion eyes on a cereal box,
the warm blinds of a father
lost and last to know
lost and last to love
last boy lost
you can’t see
even a bubble
once it’s
popped
I fought off the words.
But you couldn’t unpop a bubble.
Even I knew that.
CHAPTER 20
A Deal with the Devil
This is freakin’ nuts. We don’t even have the stupid Book a Moons. You sure The Stars and Sucks didn’t say anythin’ else?”
Link was sitting on the floor again, with only his feet sticking out from under the table—this time the one in Macon’s study. We’d made no progress, but here we were again. New table. Same people. Same problems.
Only the presence of my Uncle Macon, half-hidden in the flickering shadows of the fireplace, changed the conversation. That, and the fact that we’d left Amma back at Wate’s Landing to keep an eye on Ethan’s father.
“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but maybe Link’s right. Even if we all agreed—even if we knew we had no choice but to get Ethan The Book of Moons—it still wouldn’t matter. We don’t know where it is, and we don’t know how to get it to him.” Liv said what we all were thinking.
I said nothing, twisting my charm necklace between my fingers.
