L. Are you there? Can you hear me? I’m waiting. I know you’ll find the Book soon.
You wouldn’t believe this place. I feel like I’m living in a ten-thousand-year-old temple, or
maybe a fortress. You wouldn’t believe this guy either. My friend Xavier. At least I think he’s my
friend. He’s like a ten-thousand-year-old monk. Or maybe some kind of ancient temple wombat.
Do you know what waiting feels like in a world where no time passes? Minutes feel like
centuries—eternities—only worse, because you can’t even tell which is which.
I find myself counting things. Compulsively. It’s the only way I know how to mark the time.
Sixty-two plastic buttons. Eleven broken strands of between fourteen and thirty-six pearls each.
One hundred and nine old baseball cards. Nine AA batteries. Twelve thousand seven hundred and
fifty-four dollars and three cents in coins, from six countries. Or maybe just six centuries.
More or less.
I didn’t know how to count the doubloons.
This morning I counted grains of rice falling through the split seam of a stuffed frog. I don’t
know where Xavier finds this stuff. I made it to nine hundred ninety-nine, and then I lost my place
and had to start over again.
That was how I spent today.
Like I said, a person could go crazy trying to pass the time in a place with no time. When you
find The Book of Moons, L, I’ll know. I’ll be out of here the second I can. I keep my stuff ready to
go, by the mouth of the cave. Aunt Prue’s map. An empty flask of whiskey and a tobacco tin.
Don’t ask.
Can you believe, after everything, that the Book is still coming between us? I know you’re
going to find it. One day. You will.
And I’ll be waiting.
I’m not sure if thinking about Lena makes the time pass faster or slower. But it doesn’t matter. I
couldn’t stop thinking about her if I tried. Which I have—playing chess with these creepy figures
Xavier collects. Helping him catalog everything from bottle caps and marbles to ancient Caster
volumes. Today it’s stones. Xavier must have hundreds of them, ranging from raw diamonds as big
as strawberries to chunks of quartz and plain old rocks.
“It’s important to keep careful records of everything I have.” Xavier added three hunks of coal
to the list.
I stared at the rocks in front of me. Gravel, Amma would say. Just the right shade of gray for
Dean Wilks’ driveway. I wondered what Amma was doing right now. And my mom. The two
women who raised me were in two totally different worlds, and I couldn’t see either of them.
I held up a handful of dusty driveway gravel. “Why do you collect these, anyway? They’re just
rocks.”
Xavier looked shocked. “Stones have power. They absorb people’s feelings and their fears.
Even their memories.”
I didn’t need anyone else’s fears. I had enough of my own.
I reached into my pocket and took out the black stone. I rubbed the smooth surface between
my fingers. This one was Sulla’s. It was shaped like a thick teardrop, while Lena’s was rounder.
“Here.” I held it out to Xavier. “You can add it to your collection.”
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need it to cross the river again. I would either find my way back
home or I would never leave here. Somehow I knew that, even if I didn’t know anything else.
Xavier stared at the stone for a long minute. “You keep it, dead man. Those aren’t—”
After that, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. My vision started to blur, Xavier’s leathery
black skin and the stone in my palm shifting until they started to bleed together into a single dark
shadow.
Sulla sat at an old wicker table, an oil lamp illuminating the small room. A spread was
laid out in front of her, the Cards of Providence lined up in two neat rows, each stamped
with a black sparrow in the corner—Sulla’s mark. A tall man sat across from her, his
smooth head gleaming in the light.
“The Bleeding Blade. Blind Man’s Rage. Liar’s Promise. The Stolen Heart.” She
frowned and shook her head. “Can tell you, none a this is good. What you’re chasin’,
you ain’t never gonna find. And it’ll be worse if you do.”
The man ran his huge hands over his scalp nervously. “What’s that supposed to
mean, Sulla? Stop talking in circles.”
“It means they’re never gonna give you what you want, Angelus. The Far Keep
doesn’t need a spread to know you’ve been breakin’ their rules all along.”
Angelus pushed away from the table violently. “I don’t need them to give me what I
want. I have other Keepers behind me. Keepers who want to be more than scribes. Why
should we be forced to record history when we can be the ones who make it!”
“Can’t change the cards—that’s all I know.”
Angelus stared at the beautiful woman with the golden skin and delicate braids.
“Words can change things, Seer. You just have to put them in the right book.”
Something caught Sulla’s eye, and she was distracted for a moment. Her
granddaughter crouched behind the door, listening. On any other night, Sulla wouldn’t
have minded. Amarie was seventeen, older than Sulla was when she learned to read
cards. Sulla didn’t want the girl to see this man. There was something evil inside him.
She didn’t need the cards to see that much.
Angelus started to stand, his huge hands clenched into fists.
Sulla tapped a card at the top of the spread, with a pair of golden gates inked
across the face. “This one here’s a wild card.”
The man hesitated. “What does it mean?”
“Means sometimes we make our own fate. Things the cards can’t see. Depends on
which side a the gate you choose.”
Angelus picked up the card, crumpling it in his hand. “I’ve stood outside the gates
long enough.”
The door slammed, and Amarie stepped out from her hiding place. “Who was that,
Grandmamma?”
The older woman picked up the crumpled card, smoothing it with her hands. “He’s
a Keeper from up north. A man who wants more than any man should have.”
“What does he want?”
Sulla’s eyes met Amarie’s, and for a second she was not sure if she would answer
the girl. “To tamper with fate. Change the cards.”
“But you can’t change the cards.”
Sulla looked away, remembering what she’d seen in the cards the day Amarie was
born. “Sometimes you can. But there’s always a price.”
When I opened my eyes, Xavier was standing above me, his features twisted in concern. “What did
you see, dead man?”
The black stone was warm in my hand. I squeezed it tighter, as if it could somehow bring me
closer to Amma. To the memories locked within its shiny black surface. “How many times has
Angelus changed The Caster Chronicles, Xavier?”
The Gatekeeper looked away, wringing his long fingers nervously.
“Xavier, answer me.”
Our eyes met, and I saw the pain in his. “Too many times.”
“Why is he doing it?” What did Angelus have to gain?
“Some men want to be more than Mortal. Angelus is one of those men.”
“Are you saying he wanted to be a Caster?”
Xavier nodded slowly. “He wanted to change fate. To find a way to defy supernatural law and
mix Mortal and Caster blood.”
Genetic engineering. “So he wanted Mortals to have powers like Casters?”
Xavier ran his abnormally long hand over his bald head. “There is no reason to have power if
you are left with no one to torment and control.”
It didn’t make sense. It was too late for Angelus. Was he, like Abraham Ravenwood, trying to
create some kind of hybrid child? “Was he experimenting on children?”
Xavier turned away, and for a long moment he was silent. “He experimented on himself using
Dark Casters.”
A chill ran up my spine, and I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t imagine what the Keeper must have
done to them. I was trying to find the right words to ask, but Xavier told me before I had a chance.
“Angelus tested their blood, tissue—I don’t know what else. And he injected a serum made
from their blood into his own. It didn’t give him the power he wanted. But he kept trying. Each
injection made him paler and more desperate.”
“That sounds horrible.”
He turned his deformed face back toward mine. “That was not the horrible part, dead man.
That would come later.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What happened?”
“Eventually, he found a Caster whose blood gave him a mutated version of his own power. She
was Light and beautiful and kind. And I…” He hesitated.
“Did you love her?”
His features looked more human than ever before. “I did. And Angelus destroyed her.”
“I’m so sorry, Xavier.”
He nodded. “She was a powerful Telepath before she went mad from Angelus’ experiments.”
A mind reader. Suddenly I understood.
“Are you saying Angelus can read minds?”
“Only Mortal ones.”
Only Mortal ones. Like mine and Liv’s and Marian’s.
I needed to find my page in The Caster Chronicles and get back home.
“Don’t look so sad, dead man.”
I watched the hands on Xavier’s clocks turn in different directions, marking the passage of
time that didn’t exist here. I didn’t want to tell him that I wasn’t sad.
I was afraid.
I kept my eyes on those clocks, but I still couldn’t keep track of the time. Sometimes it got so bad
that I started to forget what I was waiting for in the first place. Too much time will do that to you.
Blur the edges between your memories and your imagination until everything feels like something
you saw in a movie instead of your life.
I was beginning to give up on ever seeing The Book of Moons again. Which meant giving up on
a whole lot more than some old Caster book.
It meant giving up on Gatlin, the good and the bad of it. Giving up on Amma and my dad and
Aunt Marian. Link and Liv and John. Jackson High and the Dar-ee Keen and Wate’s Landing and
Route 9. The place where I first realized Lena was the girl from my dreams.
Giving up on the Book meant giving up on her.
I couldn’t do that.
I wouldn’t.
After what had to be a few days or a few weeks—it was impossible to know—Xavier realized I
was losing more than time.
He was sitting on the dirt floor inside the cave, cataloging what looked like thousands of keys.
“What did she look like?”
“Who?” I asked.
“The girl.”
I watched him sort the keys by size, then shape. I wondered where they came from, whose
doors they opened, as I searched for the right words. “She was… alive.”
“Was she beautiful?”
Was she? It was getting harder to remember.
“Yeah. I think so.”
Xavier stopped sorting the keys, watching me. “What did she look like, the girl?”
How could I tell him everything was swirling in my mind, blending together in a way that made
it impossible to picture her clearly?
“Ethan? Did you hear me? You have to tell me. Otherwise you will forget. That’s what happens
if you spend too much time here. You’ll lose everything that made you who you were. This place
takes it from you.”
I turned away before I answered. “I’m not sure. It’s all a blur.”
“Was her hair gold?” Xavier loved gold.
“No,” I said. I was pretty sure, though I couldn’t remember why. I stared at the wall in front
of me, trying to picture her face. Then a single thought came to me, and I opened my eyes. “There
were curls. Lots and lots of curls.”
“The girl?”
“Yes.” I looked at the rocky outcroppings at the top of the cave. “Lena.”
“Her name is Lena?”
I nodded as tears began to stream down my face. I was so relieved I could still remember her
name. Hurry, Lena. I don’t have much time left.
By the time I saw the crow again, I had forgotten. My memories were like dreams, except I never
slept. I watched Xavier. I counted buttons and cataloged coins. I stared at the sky.
That’s what I was trying to do now, but the stupid bird kept shrieking and flapping its
enormous wings.
“Go away.”
He shrieked even louder.
I rolled onto my side and swatted at him. That’s when I saw the Book lying in the dirt in front
of me.
“Xavier,” I said, my voice unsteady. “Come here.”
“What is it, dead man?” I heard him call from the cave.
“The Book of Moons.” I picked it up, and it was warm in my hands. But my hands didn’t burn.
I remembered thinking they should.
As I held the Book, my memories came flooding back to me. Just as this book had brought me
back from the dead once before, so now was it bringing my life back to me again. I could picture
every detail. The places I’d been. The things I’d done. The people I loved.
I could see Lena’s delicate face. Her green and gold eyes and the crescent-shaped birthmark on
her cheek. I remembered lemons and rosemary and hurricane-force winds and spontaneous
combustion. Everything that made Lena the girl I loved.
I was whole again.
And I knew I had to leave this place before it claimed me forever.
I picked up the Book in both hands and carried it into the cave. It was time to make a trade.
With every step, the Book was heavy in my hands. It didn’t slow me down, though. Nothing could,
not now.
Not until there were no more steps to take.
The Gates of the Far Keep rose before me, straight and tall. Now I understood why Xavier was
so obsessed with gold. The Gates were a filthy blackish brown, but underneath I could see the gold
fighting through. They rose in forbidding spires. They didn’t seem to lead anywhere a person would
want to go.
“They look so evil.”
Xavier followed my eyes to the tips of the spires. “They are what they are. Power is neither
good nor evil.”
“Maybe that’s true, but this place is evil.”
“Ethan. You are a strong Mortal. You have more life in you than any dead man I’ve met.”
Somehow, that wasn’t a comfort. “I cannot open the Gates if you do not truly wish to go.” The
words sounded ominous.
“I have to go. I have to get back to Lena, and Amma, and Link. And my dad, and Marian, and
Liv, and everybody.” I saw their faces, every one of them. I felt surrounded by them, by their
spirits, and by mine. I remembered what it was to live among them, my friends.
I remembered what it was to live.
“Lena. The girl with the golden curls?” Xavier sounded curious.
There was no point trying to explain, not to him. I just nodded—it seemed easier.
“And you love her?” He looked even more curious about that.
“Yes.” There was no doubt. “I love her beyond the universe and back. I love her from this
world to the next.”
He blinked, expressionless. “Well. That’s very serious.”
I almost felt like smiling. “Yeah. I tried to tell you. It’s like that.”
He stared at me for a long moment, finally nodding. “All right. Follow me.” Then he
disappeared up the dusty pathway in front of me.
I followed him as the path twisted into an impossibly rocky staircase. We climbed until we
reached a narrow cliff that dropped away into what seemed like oblivion. When I tried to look over
the edge of the rock, all I could see were clouds and darkness.
In front of me were the imposing black Gates. I couldn’t see anything beyond them. But I
could hear terrible sounds—chains rattling, voices wailing and crying.
“It sounds like Hell.”
He shook his head. “Not Hell. Only the Far Keep.”
Xavier moved in front of me, blocking my path to the Gates. “Are you sure you want to do
this, dead man?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes on his disfigured face.
“Human boy. The one called Ethan. My friend.” His eyes went pale and glassy, as if he was
going into some kind of trance.
“What is it, Xavier?” I was impatient, but more than that I was terrified. And the longer we
stood outside listening to the terrible sounds of whatever was going on inside, the worse it seemed
to get. I was afraid of losing my nerve—of giving up and turning back—of wasting everything Lena
had gone through to get The Book of Moons to me.
He ignored me. “You propose a trade, dead man? What do you offer me if I open the Gates?
How do you propose to pay your way for entrance into the Far Keep?”
I just stood there.
He opened one eye, hissing at me. “The Book. Give me the Book.”
I gave it to him, but I couldn’t move my hands away. It was like the Book and I were one
thing, yet somehow connected to Xavier as well.
“What the—”
“I accept this offering, and in return I open the Gates of the Far Keep.” Xavier’s body went
limp, and he collapsed in a heap around the Book.
“Are you okay, Xavier?”
“Shh.” The sound coming from the heap of robes was the only thing that told me he was still
alive.
I heard another sound, like rocks falling or cars crashing, but really it was just the enormous
Gates opening. It seemed like they hadn’t been opened in a thousand years. I watched the black
walls give way to the world inside.
As a rush of relief and exhaustion and adrenaline made my heart race, one thought kept running
through my mind.
It has to be over soon.
This had to be the hardest part. I paid the Ferryman. I crossed the river. I got the Book. I made
the trade.
I made it to the Far Keep. I’m almost home. I’m coming, L.
I could picture her face. Imagined seeing her and holding her in my arms again.
It wouldn’t be long.
At least that’s what I thought as I walked through the Gates.
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