Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

They would never laugh about me or keep a secret from me or even fight about me. My mom and Lena were the two most important people in my life, or afterlife, and I could never have both of them together.

That’s what I was thinking when I closed my eyes. When I opened them, my mom was gone—as if she’d known I couldn’t leave her. As if she’d known I wouldn’t be able to walk away.

Truthfully, I didn’t know if I could have done it, myself.

Now I’d never find out.

Maybe it was better that way.

I pocketed the two stones and made my way down the front steps, closing the door carefully behind me. The smell of fried tomatoes came wafting out the door as it shut.

I didn’t say good-bye. I had a feeling we’d see each other again. Someday, somehow.

Aside from that, there wasn’t anything I could tell my mom that she didn’t already know. And no way to say it and still walk out the door.

She knew I loved her. She knew I had to go. At the end of the day, there wasn’t much more to say.

I don’t know if she watched me go.

I told myself she did.

I hoped she didn’t.

CHAPTER 15

The River Master

As I stepped inside the Doorwell, the known world gave way to the unknown world more quickly than I expected. Even in the Otherworld, there are some places that are noticeably more other than others.

The river was one of them. This wasn’t any kind of river I’d seen in the Mortal Gatlin County. Like the Great Barrier, this was a seam. Something that held worlds together without being in any one of them.

I was in totally uncharted territory.

Luckily, Uncle Abner’s crow seemed to know the way. Exu flapped overhead, gliding and hanging in circles above me, sometimes landing on high branches to wait for me if I fell too far behind. He didn’t seem to mind the job either; he tolerated our quest with only the occasional squawk. Maybe he enjoyed getting out for a change. He reminded me of Lucille that way, except I didn’t catch her eating little mice carcasses when she was hungry.

And when I caught him looking at me, he was really looking at me. Every time I started to feel normal again, he would catch my eye and send shivers down my spine, like he was doing it on purpose. Like he knew he could.

I wondered if Exu was a real bird. I knew he could cross between worlds, but did that make him supernatural? According to Uncle Abner, it only made him a crow.

Maybe all crows were just creepy.

As I walked farther, the swamp weeds and cypress trees jutting out of the murky water led to greener grass beyond the bank, grass so tall I could barely see over it in places.

I wove through the grass, following the black bird in the sky, trying not to remember too much about where I was going or what I was leaving behind. It was hard enough not to imagine the look on my mother’s face when I walked out the door.

I tried desperately not to think about her eyes, about the way they lit up when she saw me. O

r her hands, the way she waved them in the air as she talked, as if she thought she could pull words out of the sky with her fingers. And her arms, wrapping around me like my own house, because she was the place where I was from.

I tried not to think about the moment the door closed. It would never open again, not for me. Not like that.

It’s what I wanted. I said it to myself as I walked. It’s what she wanted for me. To have a life. To live.

To leave.

Exu squawked, and I beat back the tall brush and the grass.

Leaving was harder than I ever could’ve imagined, and part of me still couldn’t believe I had done it. But as much as I tried not to think about my mom, I tried to keep Lena’s face in my mind, a constant reminder of why I was doing this—risking everything.