Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles 2)

Link retreated to a safe distance while Liv scrambled forward to help, reaching for Twyla. But Amma grabbed her arm in midair. “Wait.”

Twyla exhaled. The white mist raced from her lips, rising over the circle. Taking form. The mist swirled upward, creating a body as it moved. The bare feet, peeking out beneath a white dress, the torso filling the dress as if inflating a balloon. It was a Sheer, rising from the haze. I watched as the mist snaked upward, creating a torso, a delicate neck, and finally a face.

It was—

My mother.

Staring back at me with the same luminous, ethereal quality unique to Sheers. But beyond the translucence, she looked exactly like my mother. Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked at me. The Sheer didn’t just look like my mother. It was my mother.

She spoke, and her voice was as soft and melodic as I remembered. “Ethan, sweetheart, I’ve been waiting for you.”

I stared at her, speechless. In every dream I’d had of her since the day she died, every photograph, every memory—she was never as real as this.

“There is so much I need to tell you, so much I can’t say. I’ve tried to show you the way, send you the songs.…”

She sent me the songs. The songs only Lena and I could hear. I spoke, but my voice sounded far away, as if it wasn’t my own. Seventeen Moons—the Shadowing Song. “It was you, this whole time.”

She smiled. “Yes. You needed me. But now he needs you, and you need him, too.”

“Who? Are you talking about Dad?” But I knew she wasn’t talking about my father. She was talking about the other man who meant so much to both of us.

Macon.

She didn’t know he was gone.

“Are you talking about Macon?” I saw a spark of recognition in her eyes. I had to tell her. If something had happened to Lena, I would want someone to tell me. No matter how much everything changed. “Macon’s gone, Mom. He died a few months ago. He can’t help me.”

I watched her shimmer in the moonlight. She was as beautiful as the last time I saw her, when she hugged me on the rainy porch before I left for school. “Listen to me, Ethan. He’ll always be with you. Only you can redeem him.” Her image began to fade.

I reached out, desperate to touch her, but my hand only slipped through the air. “Mom?”

“The Claiming Moon has been called.” She was disappearing, vanishing into the night. “If Darkness prevails, the Seventeenth Moon will be the last.” I almost couldn’t see her anymore. The mist was swirling slowly again, above the circle. “Hurry, Ethan. You don’t have much time, but you can do this. I have faith.” She smiled and I tried to memorize her expression, because I knew she was slipping away.

“What if I’m too late?”

I could hear her distant voice. “I tried to keep you safe. I should have known I couldn’t. You were always special.”

I stared at the white haze, churning like my stomach.

“My sweet summer boy. I’ll be thinking of you. I love—”

The words dwindled into nothing. My mom had been here. For a few minutes, I had seen her smile and heard her voice. Now she was gone.

I had lost her all over again.

“I love you, too, Mom.”

6.19

Scars

There’s somethin’ I’ve got to tell you.” Amma wrung her hands nervously. “It’s about the night a the Sixteenth Moon, Lena’s birthday.” It took a second to realize she was talking to me. I was still staring into the center of the circle, where my mother had been a moment before.

This time, my mom wasn’t sending me messages in books or the verses of a song. I had seen her.

“Tell da boy.”

“Hush, Twyla.” Arelia put her hand on her sister’s arm.