“What? Oh, no!” Elena exclaimed, staring at the title on the jacketless spine of one of the books. She began to laugh helplessly, and after a moment Stefan and Mrs. Flowers joined in.
The top hardback Stefan was holding was a very old-fashioned school geography text, practically dust-free and plainly labeled.
* * *
Three days after the discovery of the geography book and the drawing of the entrance to the Nether World, Elena sat with her head on her hand. Mrs. Flowers was pouring herbal tea with a look of forced cheer on her face, and Stefan was leaning back in his chair with his eyes shut. Bonnie was slumped across the crowded kitchen table, the quartz crystal necklace lying abandoned near the atlas.
“It’s no good,” she said huskily. “Or maybe I’m no good. But it’s not working.”
Elena had seldom in her life felt absolute futility, with no hope of a plan A or B. Now, she had an uneasy feeling that this was a record-breaking new instance.
Bonnie had been doing almost nothing but dousing for four long days and three nights. She had gone through Stefan’s atlas and Mrs. Flowers’s old geography text page by page. She had even gone through a modern atlas that Meredith had ordered from Amazon.com and had rush-shipped to the boardinghouse once she had found out what they were doing. Meredith and Matt had visited several times in the last few days to encourage and support Bonnie, but at night it always wound up with this same group of four sitting around the kitchen table.
“Of course it has nothing to do with you,” Elena said sharply to Bonnie. “How can you even think you’re no good?” She noticed that the more anxious she felt, the sharper her voice got.
“Then it’s even worse,” Bonnie whispered. “It means he isn’t out there . . . anywhere, in any form. He’s just . . . gone. I mean, we always knew that was a possibility, didn’t we, Mrs. Flowers? You said that—Damon’s—soul could be drifting through the aether, or it could have . . . simply disappeared.” She looked up, her doe eyes enormous, begging to be told that she was wrong. Elena also noted the way she hesitated before speaking Damon’s name aloud.
“I wish,” Mrs. Flowers said slowly, her voice fluttery with an anxiety she could no longer hide, “that dear Mama would be more helpful. She keeps repeating the same thing, about the young witch trying her powers. And I must say that there’s no other candidate for the young witch,” she told Bonnie with the shadow of a worried smile. “You’ve been doing very well, dear child. If I had ever thought that I could do better or guide you in any way, I should have told you.”
Stefan opened his eyes. “She’s right, Bonnie, you’ve done a wonderful job.” He sat up and leaned forward. “I’ve seen your aura while you’re doing this. It’s brilliant. You’re using a remarkable amount of Power, and you’ve been patient and careful, too. But, Mrs. Flowers, what does Grandmama say about all this?”
Mrs. Flowers sighed. All at once, she looked both frail and old. Fancy Mrs. Flowers looking old, Elena thought, st
artled.
“Grandmama’s in a teasing mood. She’s given me a . . . disturbing quote from a poem by Robert Service. I’m not sure what it really means—or if she means what it says, since she’s quite definitely an example of immortal life herself, as a ghost. Would you like to hear the quote?”
Glances all around. At last Elena spoke for all three of the listeners. “Yes. I think we have to.”
Mrs. Flowers nodded and spoke quietly. “‘Yea, life's immortal, swift it flows—alike in reptile and in rose—but as it comes, so too it goes . . .’” Mrs. Flowers stopped and sighed. “And that’s all she’ll say.”
A hush fell upon the three hearers. We certainly weren’t expecting it to be as bad as like that, Elena thought. Stefan’s green eyes were wide, and Bonnie’s face looked deathly pale.
Now what? Elena wondered. She sought for something comforting to offer, something hopeful, but her mind was a blank.
Bonnie broke the lengthening silence by saying in a barely audible voice, “There’s something I’ve wanted to ask from the beginning. You talked about a soul drifting in the æther then. What is the æther, anyway?”
“I think it’s everywhere, now that the Higgs boson was discovered,” Stefan said after a moment. “It used to mean the space in between worlds.”
“So his soul . . . could be just floating around anywhere?” Now Bonnie’s face looked pinched. “What would that be like?”
“I don’t know, Bonnie. I really don’t. Elena, are you all right?” Stefan asked.
Think. Think. We’ve looked everywhere—every place we went, every place we can even think of, except the Celestial Court and we know that Damon didn’t go there. What are we missing? We’re missing something.
I won’t let you be dead and gone, she thought toward Damon. I won’t let you be floating in space. . . .
But other lines of poetry were flashing through her mind. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: and this same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying. Robert Herrick. A flower unplucked is but left to the falling, and nothing is gained by not gathering roses. . . . Robert Frost. Three Roberts in a row, and all of them warning that roses were short-lived . . .
But not souls, Elena thought more fiercely than ever. Damon, you have an immortal soul—I’ve seen it! I’ll find it somehow!
What am I missing?
The others were talking in quiet voices, but Elena’s concentration blocked them out. She found herself glaring at the globe from Stefan’s room, at the beautiful but useless lapis lazuli oceans and the impractical continents of smoky quartz, black opal, chalcedony and malachite; at the jade green islands and the moonstone and abalone snows of the polar ice caps.
Something . . . something was nagging at her.
She found herself staring at the base of the globe and then at the ice caps once more. The base was round and sturdy, the color of steel. Base . . . abalone. Base . . . moonstone. Moonstone. Moonstone . . .