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She nodded, wiping her cherry-stained hand on her jeans.
I knew I wasn’t anywhere I’d been before. I knew it wasn’t Gatlin, and I knew it wasn’t Heaven. Still, something about the word seemed farther away than anything I’d ever known. Farther even than death. Even though I could smell the dusty concrete of our back patio and the fresh cut grass stretching beyond it. I could feel the mosquitoes biting and the wind moving and the splinters of the old wooden steps at my back. All it felt like was loneliness. It was just us now. My mom, and me, and my backyard full of cherries. Some part of me had been waiting for this ever since her accident, and another part of me knew, maybe for the first time, it would never be enough.
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweet boy?”
“Do you think Lena still loves me, back in the Mortal realm?”
She smiled and tousled my hair. “What kind of silly question is that?”
I shrugged.
“Let me ask you this. Did you love me when I was gone?”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to.
“I don’t know about you, EW, but I knew the answer to that question every day we were apart. Even when I didn’t know anything else about where I was or what I was supposed to be doing. You were my Wayward, even then. Everything always brought me back to you. Everything.” She smoothed my hair out of my face. “You think Lena’s any different?”
She was right.
It was a stupid question.
So I smiled and took her hand and followed her inside. I had things to figure out and places to go—that much I knew. But some things I didn’t
have to figure out. Some things hadn’t changed, and some things never would.
Except me. I had changed, and I would give anything to change back.
CHAPTER 3
This Side or the Next
Go on, Ethan. See for yourself.”
I didn’t look back at my mom when I reached for the doorknob.
Even though she was telling me to go, I was still uneasy. I didn’t know what to expect. I could see the painted wood of the door, and I could feel the smooth iron of the handle, but I had no way of knowing if Cotton Bend was on the other side.
Lena. Think about Lena. About home. This is the only way.
Still.
This wasn’t Gatlin anymore. Who knew what was behind that door? It could be anything.
I stared down at the knob, remembering what the Caster Tunnels had taught me about doors and Doorwells.
And portals.
And seams.
This door might look normal enough—any Doorwell looked pretty much like the next—but that didn’t mean it was. Like the Temporis Porta. You never knew where you were going to end up. I’d learned that the hard way.
Quit stalling, Wate.
Get on with it.
What are you, chicken? What do you have to lose now?
