“And she believed that?”
“She’s been actin’ a little weird lately, but what do I care. She said I co
uld go.”
“It doesn’t matter what your mom said, you can’t go. There are things you don’t know about Ridley. She’s… dangerous. Stuff could happen to you.”
His eyes lit up. I had never seen Link like this. Then again, I hadn’t seen him too much lately. I’d been spending all my time with Lena, or thinking about Lena, the Book, her birthday. The stuff my world revolved around now, or did, until an hour ago.
“That’s what I’m hopin’. Besides, I got it bad for that girl. She really does somethin’ to me, ya know?” He took the last slice of pizza off my tray.
For a second I considered telling Link everything, just like the old days—about Lena and her family, Ridley, Genevieve, and Ethan Carter Wate. Link had known everything in the beginning, but I didn’t know if he would believe the rest, or if he could. Some things were just asking too much, even from your best friend. Right now I couldn’t risk losing Link, too, but I had to do something. I couldn’t let him go to New York, or anywhere else, with Ridley. “Listen man, you’ve gotta trust me. Don’t get mixed up with her. She’s just using you. You’re gonna get hurt.”
He crushed a Coke can in his hand. “Oh, I get it. If the hottest girl in town is hangin’ out with me, she must be usin’ me? I guess you think you’re the only one who can pull a hot chick. When did you get so full of yourself?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
Link got up. “I think we both know what you’re sayin’. Forget I asked.”
It was too late. Ridley had already gotten to him. Nothing I said was going to change his mind. And I couldn’t lose my girlfriend and my best friend in the same day. “Listen, I didn’t mean it like that. I won’t say anything, not like your mom is speaking to me anyway.”
“It’s cool. It’s gotta be hard to have a best friend who’s good lookin’ and as talented as me.” Link took the cookie off my tray and broke it in half. It might as well have been the dirty Twinkie off the floor of the bus. It was over. It would take a lot more than a girl, even a Siren, to come between us.
Emily was eyeing him. “You’d better go before Emily rats you out to your mom. Then you won’t be going to any church camp, real or imaginary.”
“I’m not worried about her.” But he was. He didn’t want to be stuck in the house with his mom the whole winter break. And he didn’t want to be frozen out by the team, by everyone at Jackson, even if he was too stupid or too loyal to realize it.
On Monday, I helped Amma bring the boxes of holiday decorations down from the attic. The dust made my eyes water; at least, that’s what I told myself. I found a whole little town, lit by little white lights, that my Mom used to lay out every year under the Christmas tree, on a piece of cotton we pretended was snow. The houses were her grandmother’s, and she had loved them so much that I had loved them, even though they were made of flimsy cardboard, glue, and glitter, and half the time they fell over when I tried to stand them up. “Old things are better than new things, because they’ve got stories in them, Ethan.” She would hold up an old tin car and say, “Imagine my great-grandmother playing with this same car, arranging this same town under her tree, just like we are now.”
I hadn’t seen the town since, when? Since I’d seen my mom, at least. It looked smaller than before, the cardboard more warped and tattered. I couldn’t find the people in any of the boxes, or even the animals. The town looked lonely, and it made me sad. Somehow the magic was gone, without her. I found myself reaching for Lena, in spite of everything.
Everything’s missing. The boxes are there, but it’s all wrong. She’s not here. It’s not even a town anymore. And she’s never going to meet you.
But there was no response. Lena had vanished, or banished me. I didn’t know which was worse. I really was alone, and the only thing worse than being alone was having everyone else see how lonely you were. So I went to the only place in town where I knew I wouldn’t run into anyone. The Gatlin County Library.
“Aunt Marian?”
The library was freezing, and completely empty, as usual. After the way the Disciplinary Committee meeting had gone, I was guessing Marian hadn’t had any visitors.
“I’m back here.” She was sitting on the floor in her overcoat, waist high amidst a pile of open books, as if they had just fallen off the shelves around her. She was holding a book, reading aloud, in one of her familiar book-trances.
“‘We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His Sun-shine, and His showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.
The Darling of the world is come…’”
She closed the book. “Robert Herrick. It’s a Christmas carol, sung for the king at Whitehall Palace.” She sounded as far away as Lena had been lately, and I felt now.
“Sorry, don’t know the guy.” It was so cold I could see her breath when she spoke.
“Who does it remind you of? Turning the ground to flowers, the darling of the world.”
“You mean Lena? I bet Mrs. Lincoln would have something to say about that.” I sat down next to Marian, scattering books in the aisle.
“Mrs. Lincoln. What a sad creature.” She shook her head, and pulled out another book. “Dickens thinks Christmas is a time for people ‘to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures.’”