Authors: Avery Williams

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #General

Impossibility of Tomorrow (30 page)

I’m surprised to feel a single tear sliding down my cheek.

“Everything I did, every person I hurt, it was all for you,” Cyrus tells me.

I pity him. “We’re broken, Cyrus. It will never be how it was.”

“Never say never,” he argues, with what could almost pass for a smile. “You know better than anyone that life isn’t short.”

“It’s been too long,” I answer.

“Sometimes it feels like this whole awful life is just a dream. A chemical reaction in my head. That I’ll wake up, and we’ll be together at that masquerade ball. We’ll dance the whole night, and I’ll ask your father for your hand.” He cocks his head. “Do you know what I mean?”

“You can’t undo what’s happened,” I answer. “I should go.”

“Wait,” he says, as I turn to go. “Please, Sera. Don’t leave me.”

“This is good-bye, Cyrus.”

“Maybe,” he says affably, “maybe not. But the moment I get out, I’ll come looking for you.”

Suddenly, I’m so angry I want to reach out and smack him all the way back to solitary. “I’ll be long gone by then,” I say, but he persists.

“Where are you headed?”

“I know there are others out there, Cyrus. I read your book.”

He nods. “I will always find you,” he promises. “You can’t escape destiny.”

“Destiny? As if there is such a thing.” When I laugh in his face, he smiles at me in pride.

“That’s my girl,” he says delightedly.

“Good-
bye
, Cyrus.”

I hang up the phone and stand as the orderlies start to pull Cyrus away. He doesn’t break eye contact with me until he’s literally dragged through the door. “Good-bye,” I whisper even though I know he can’t hear it.

FORTY-FIVE

Luna crouches in the grass, tail switching as she watches the nonchalant butterfly. Finally, with a great burst of speed, she pounces, but the winged insect has already fluttered maddeningly out of her reach. Charlotte and Sébastien explode in laughter, delighted by the novelty of a cat that doesn’t hate them. Luna is not impressed. She stares at them balefully, her dignity wounded, before licking her silky gray paw as if to say, “That butterfly? I didn’t want it, anyway. I meant to let it escape.”

“There’s nothing we can say to make you come with us?” Charlotte tries again, but I shake my head. My place
is here in Berkeley, in this verdant backyard with its stately redwood tree, this dilapidated tree house where a certain mortal boy kissed me for the first time.

“I can’t wait to hear what you find,” I answer.

“Or
who
we find, Sébastien corrects me with a grin, his teeth very white against his chocolate skin. The two of them were as stunned as I had been to see the hidden page in Cyrus’s book. Their sense of betrayal was quickly overcome by their thirst for adventure, and they made plans to set off at once in search of the lost Incarnate covens. Sébastien’s already hired a swarm of private investigators to convert the seven-hundred-year-old list of names into viable leads.

“And you have the phone, right? You have to always keep it with you, Sera.” He nods, satisfied, when I dig the tiny cell phone out of my pocket and show it to him.

“The batphone shall always be charged,” I vow.

Posing as concerned relatives, Sébastien and Charlotte have bribed a guard at the hospital to call this number if there’s ever an incident with “Madison.” Cyrus will have close to ten years in Madison’s body before it begins to fail. If in that time he ever manages to kiss one of the guards, if anything happens to him, they’ll call and alert me within minutes. If that phone rings, I need to leave, no matter what, no matter where I am.

“And
you
promise you’ll keep in touch,” I say.

I know they think I’m crazy not to go with them. They don’t understand why I would choose to be a high school student over traveling the world with my own kind. But they haven’t lived as Kailey, here in Berkeley, so they can never really understand.
You have my life. Don’t waste it.

“What are you going to do about Noah?” Sébastien asks gently.

I bite my lip and look down at the yellow sour-grass blossoms that carpet the Morgans’ lawn. Noah never came back to see me at the hospital, and some instinct prevents me from contacting him. Is he afraid of me now? “He won’t say anything,” I tell Sébastien. “We can trust him.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he replies. “We thought you were going to make him one of us. Why else would you tell a human the truth?”

“I don’t even have the elixir,” I protest. “And as for making it myself, well . . .” I’m distracted by the pointed stare Sébastien shoots Charlotte. They’re communicating without words. Even in my bewilderment, I’m happy to see that they’ve grown so close.

“Sera,” Charlotte says at last. “I have something for you.” She pulls her black backpack into her lap and rummages inside, finally unearthing the very last thing I would have expected: a silver clutch purse marred with streaks of dried blood. The bag that Cyrus was carrying the night of the dance.

Charlotte opens the clasp with milk-white fingers and pulls out the small glass vial. The vial that Cyrus had worn around his neck for the last six centuries.

“It’s yours now,” she murmurs, pressing it into my palm. “To use . . . or not. Keep it safe.”

“I won’t be like him,” I promise. “We can share it. Char, if you ever need it—”

“I know where to find you,” she finishes for me. “And I plan on visiting often.”

I stare wonderingly at the tiny silver object in my palm. So much death from one small vial. So much life, too. The Morgans’ back door opens with a creak, and I quickly stuff the elixir in my pocket.

Luna prances beside Bryan as he strides across the grass. “I have been instructed by our dear mother to invite the heroes to stay for dinner,” he announces gallantly, referring to Charlotte and Sébastien. I smile. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan adore my rescuers.
So cultured,
they say.
So full of stories.

“Heroes, huh?” repeats Sébastien, amused. “I feel like I should have an epic poem written about me. All I did was drive Kailey to the hospital.” Hearing Kailey’s name on Sébastien’s lips is almost as strange as when Noah called me Seraphina, but I like it. My two worlds are merging together.

“I know who could write that poem,” I add, grinning
wickedly. A thought occurs to me. “Hey, Bryan, didn’t you write one called . . .” I search my memory, conjuring the words back through the fog, fully prepared for him to laugh at me or give me his trademark
my-sister-has-totally-lost-it
eye roll. “ ‘So-Called Yellow . . .’ ” I wrinkle my nose, trying to remember the rest.

“ ‘So-Called Yellow
Laboratory
,’ ” he quips, his face appearing at the edge of the tree house. “See, it’s a play on words. A yellow Lab is a dog, right? Anyway, you already dissed it plenty. You don’t need to embarrass me in front of your hero friends.”

A chill runs up my spine and crowns me with ice.

“What’s the matter, Kailey?” Bryan asks, worried. “You look like you saw a ghost. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” I manage to say. I look up at the redwood branches. A gust of wind disturbs the calm dusk, showering me with spent, fragrant needles.
You have my body. You have my name.
I shiver, tilting my head back again. The last honeyed drops of sunlight cover the branches.

Thank you, Kailey,
I say silently.

The sound of wood scraping gravel drags across the dusk. I whip my head toward the gate, where a tall, dark-haired boy is stepping into the yard.

“That’s definitely our cue to go,” Charlotte announces, stepping neatly over the side of the rough platform. “To
dinner
,” she clarifies to my fallen face. “We’ll be waiting for you.”

They depart. I wait in the tree house, in the now-calm twilight, as Noah crosses the yard.

“I missed you,” I greet him when he climbs up over the ladder to join me in the tree house.

“I believe you,” he says at the same time.

In the yard below, the wind chimes stir. I look down and see Luna precariously perched on the eave above them, batting the metal cylinders with her paw.

“I was afraid,” he whispers.

“Of me?” I ask. I’m a little sad but not surprised.

“Of
losing
you,” he corrects me.

“Oh, Noah,” I say, reaching for his face.

“You don’t understand, Kailey.” He hesitates. “
Seraphina
. One day you were the girl I’d known my whole life, who I used to play hide-and-seek with. Who forced her way into the forts I built with Bryan.”

I smile. Impetuous, temperamental Kailey.

He rakes his hair. “And then one day, without warning, I was in love with you. It was like magic.”

My heart flutters. “I’m not magic,” I say. “You should know that. I’m a creature of science.”

“That’s what Mr. Shaw would say.”

“What
Cyrus
would say,” I amend. “But he’s right. You’re
the magical one.” And he is. Noah was made by the stars, his newly minted soul in its intended body. To me, this is a miracle. This is more amazing than a ghost that takes human form.

“It doesn’t matter what you say. Your world is so . . .
big
. And what am I compared to that? How could my tiny existence be enough for you?” The redwood boughs cast shadows on his cheeks, making him look older than he really is.

“I know what you are, Noah. Don’t tell me what you’re not.”

“I know what you are, too.”

“Yes,” I answer softly. “You do.”

The wind stirs. The chimes ring. The night’s first beams of starlight make their way to us, glance across his jaw. I wait. He doesn’t break his gaze.

“I love you,” he says finally.

I find his arms. We find each other. He holds me close, in the tree house that holds us both.

“I want to be like you,” he murmurs against my ear. “I want you to change me the way that Cyrus changed you.”

I pull back, appraise his face. “But I
like
your body,” I protest.

He throws his head back and laughs. “Are you hitting on me? Why, thank you, Kailey. I mean Seraphina.”

“You can still call me Kailey, if you want,” I offer.

He cups my jaw, his face serious once again. “I mean it, though. I want to go with you, wherever it is. I know what I’m asking. You know I do.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I answer. “Not anytime soon, and not without you.” I take his hands in mine. “Let me tell you this. The answer to your question is
yes
. Of course I want to spend forever with you. But you have to do one thing for me in return: You have to wait. There’s no rush.”

He nods.

“The next time you ask me this, I’ll honor your request. So I want you to be sure—be
very
sure—before you ask. Promise me.” It has to be his choice. I am not Cyrus. I won’t decide for him.

“I promise,” he repeats, his lips moving closer. And then we kiss under sighing stars, under ghostly skies.

The back door slams open. “Noah!” Bryan calls. “Kailey! Seriously, guys. I’m
hungry
. You have the rest of your lives to kiss.”

He’s right. We do.

Born the day after Halloween in Los Angeles,
AVERY WILLIAMS
has since lived in five different states due to her father’s job as a radio disc jockey (though she sometimes claims her parents were in the circus). Now she makes her home in Oakland, California, with her husband and two dastardly kittens. She enjoys riding her bicycle around town and working on her hundred-year-old house. She is also a poet.