I didn’t know why Link was having so much trouble believing that Ethan was still there, that he could come home again. Wasn’t Link the one who was part Incubus? He knew as well as anyone that strange things happened around here all the time. Why was it so hard for him to believe that this particular strange thing could be happening?
Maybe losing Ethan was harder on Link than it was for the rest of them. Maybe he couldn’t let himself risk losing his best friend all over again, even if it was only the idea of him. No one knew what Link was going through.
Except me.
While Link and Liv returned to arguing about whether or not Ethan was actually gone, I felt myself slipping into the fog of nagging doubts that I worked so hard to push out of my mind.
They just kept coming.
What if this whole thing really was my imagination, like Reece and Gramma kept saying? What if they were right, and it was just too hard for me to accept my life without him? And it wasn’t just them—Uncle Macon wouldn’t try anything to bring him back either.
And if it was real—if Ethan could hear me—what would I say?
Come home.
I’m waiting.
I love you.
Nothing he didn’t already know.
Why bother?
I refused to write, but the words were hard to even think now.
words same as always
same as nothing
when nothing is the same
There was no point in saying it to myself.
John kicked Link again, and I tried to focus on the present. The kitchen and the conversation. All the things I could do for Ethan, rather than all the things I felt about him.
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Ethan is—around.” Liv looked at Link, who kept quiet this time. “Like I said, it seemed he spent all his energy trying to convince us of that a few weeks ago.”
“Right around the time you measured the energy spiking at Ravenwood,” John reminded her. Liv nodded, flipping pages in her notebook.
“Or maybe Reece was just usin’ the microwave,” Link muttered.
“Which was the same time Ethan moved the button at his grave,” I said obstinately.
“Or maybe it was just windy.” Link sighed.
“Something was definitely going on.” John moved his foot closer to Link, the threat of another good kick shutting Link up for a while. I thought about slapping a Silentium Cast on him, but it didn’t seem right. Plus, knowing Link, it would take more than magic to shut him up.
Liv went back to examining the papers in front of her. “But then, quite soon, his messages began to change. It’s like he figured something out. What he needed to do.”
“To come home,” I said.
“Lena, I know you want to think that’s what’s happenin’.” Amma’s voice was bleak. “And I felt my boy here, same as you. But we don’t know which end is up. There are no easy answers, not when it comes to gettin’ someone in or outta the Otherworld. Believe me, if there was an easy way, I would’ve already done it.”
She sounded so haggard and tired. I knew she had been working on getting Ethan home as hard as I had. And I’d tried everything at first—everything and everyone. The problem was trying to get Light Casters to talk about raising the dead. And I didn’t have quite the access to the Dark Casters that I used to. Uncle Macon had come for me the moment I’d set foot in Exile. I suspected he made some kind of deal with the bartender, a shifty-looking Blood Incubus who looked like he’d do anything if he was thirsty enough.
“But we don’t know that’s not it,” I said, looking at Liv.
“True. The logical assumption would be that wherever Ethan was, he would be trying to get back.” Liv carefully erased a small mark in the margin. “To where you are.” She didn’t look at me, but I knew what she meant. Liv and Ethan had a history of their own, and even though Liv had found something better for her with John, she was always very careful of how she spoke about Ethan, especially to me.