“When you’re sixteen? How are you supposed to know who you are and who you want to be for the rest of your life by then?”
“Yeah, well, those are the lucky ones. I don’t even get a choice.”
I almost couldn’t bring myself to ask the next question. “So what will happen to you?”
“Reece says you just change. It happens in a second, like a heartbeat. You feel this energy, this power moving through your body, almost like you’re coming to life for the first time.” She looked wistful. “At least, that’s what Reece said.”
“That’s doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Reece described it as an overwhelming warmth. She said it felt like the sun was shining on her, and no one else. And at that moment, she said you just know which path has been chosen for you.” It sounded too easy, too painless, like she was leaving something out. Like the part about what it felt like when a Caster went Dark. But I didn’t want to put it out there, even if I knew we were both thinking about it.
Just like that?
Just like that. It doesn’t hurt or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.
That was one of the things I was worried about, but it wasn’t the only thing.
I’m not worried.
Me neither.
And this time, we made a point of staying away from what we were thinking, even to ourselves.
The sun crept across the braided rug on Lena’s floor, the orange light turning all the colors of the braid into a hundred different kinds of gold. For a moment, Lena’s face, her eyes, her hair, everything the light touched turned to gold. She was beautiful, a hundred years and a hundred miles away, and just like the faces in the Book, somehow not quite human.
“Sundown. Uncle Macon will be up, any minute. We have to put the Book away.” She closed it, zipping it back into my bag. “You take it. If my uncle finds it, he’ll just try to keep it from me, like everything else.”
“I just can’t figure out what he and Amma are hiding. If all this stuff is going to happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it, why not tell us everything?”
She wouldn’t look at me. I pulled her into my arms, and she lay her head against my chest. She didn’t say a word, but between two layers of sweatshirts and sweaters, I could still feel her heart beating against mine.
She looked over at the viola until the music died out, dimming like the sun in the window.
The next day at school, it was clear we were the only people thinking about anything that had to do with any kind of book. No hands were raised in any classes, unless someone needed the hall pass for the bathroom. Not a single pen touched a scrap of paper, unless it was to write a note about who had been asked, who didn’t have a prayer of being asked, and who had already been shot down.
December only meant one thing at Jackson High: the winter formal. We were in the cafeteria when Lena brought the subject up for the first time.
“Did you ask anyone to go to the dance?” Lena wasn’t familiar with Link’s not-so-secret strategy of going to all the dances stag so he could flirt with Coach Cross, the girls’ track coach. Link had been in love with Maggie Cross, who had graduated five years ago and came back after college to become Coach Cross, since we were in fifth grade.
“No, I like to fly solo.” Link grinned, his mouth full of fries.
“Coach Cross chaperones, so Link always goes by himself so he can loiter around her all night,” I explained.
“Don’t wanna disappoint the ladies. They’ll be fightin’ over me once somebody spikes the punch.”
“I’ve never been to a school dance before.” Lena looked down at her tray and picked at her sandwich. She looked almost disappointed.
I hadn’t asked her to the dance. It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d want to go. So much was going on between us, and every part of it was so much bigger than a school dance.
Link shot me a look. He had warned me this would happen. “Every girl wants to be asked to the dance, man. I have no idea why, but even I know that much.” Who knew Link might actually be right, considering his Coach Cross Master Plan had never panned out?
Link drained the rest of his Coke. “A pretty girl like you? You could be the Snow Queen.”
Lena tried to smile, but it wasn’t even close. “So what’s with the whole Snow Queen thing? Don’t you just have a Homecoming Queen like everywhere else?”
“No. This is the winter formal, so it’s an Ice Queen, but Savannah’s cousin, Suzanne, won every year until she graduated and Savannah won last year, so everyone just calls it the Snow Queen.” Link reached over and grabbed a slice of pizza from my plate.
It was pretty obvious Lena wanted to be asked. Another mysterious thing about girls—they want to be asked to stuff even if they don’t want to go. But I had a feeling that wasn’t the case with Lena. It was almost like she had a list of all the things she imagined a regular girl was supposed to do in high school, and she was determined to do them. It was crazy. The formal was the last place I wanted to go right now. We weren’t the most popular people at Jackson lately. I didn’t mind that everyone stared when we walked down the hall, even if we weren’t holding hands. I didn’t mind that people were probably saying things right now, cruel things, while the three of us sat alone at the only empty table in the crowded lunchroom, or that a whole club full of Jackson Angels was patrolling the halls just waiting for us to screw up.