The Sententia: Second Thoughts Part 16

It wasn't because of excitement that my hands shook. It was something else.

For a while now, Uncle Dan had been mentally penciled onto my short list of pleasant thoughts. It was hard not to be caught up in his mystique, flattered by the attention he showed me. How many girls could count a U.S. senator among the people taking an active interest in her life? And that wasn't even considering all the other things he was. I'd been clinging to the idea that he was a positive in my life when it had felt like literally every other thing was f.u.c.ked up.

But lately, everything else hadn't been so bad at all. The vision wasn't looming, my friends were mostly happy, and the future seemed like a real possibility again. Maybe that gave me the perspective I'd previously lacked, or purposefully ignored.

If I'd told Amy, or any one of my friends, about the senator's notes, they'd have told me it was strange. Maybe even creepy. The only one who'd understand was Alexis, and she wasn't my friend.

I'd never taken the time to think about how odd it was that the notes had found me at personal moments. I'd accepted it as part of the senator's charm that he preferred hand-written gestures, and thought the strange delivery of them was just further proof of that charm. A minute ago, when I'd unfolded the thick pages of stationery from my four favorite schools, signed personally by the presidents of each and delivered by my own uncle, I'd been awed.

But more than that, I'd been freaked.

It was like my brain flipped a switch. Just like that, I went from fantasy to reality. Just like in the woods with Carter the day I'd visited the cemetery. One second I'd thought one thing, the next I knew the truth.

I'd convinced myself Dan wasn't pressuring me to join them, to take up the Marwood family's mantel. He was giving me solid arguments to help make a difficult decision; he was making my life easier. He was my uncle, this blood relative that only I knew about. Someday I'd have the courage to tell him that, and then he'd love me and I'd have a family, a real family even more than the one I had now.

These were, I realized, my fantasies.

The notes, the acceptances, everything-it wasn't evidence of Senator Astor's charm and thoughtfulness; it was his power and its reach. It went all the way into the deepest parts of my personal life. I'd spent most of the year feeling unsure who to trust, not even myself or Carter, and thinking that maybe Dan could be the one I did.

And now, I wasn't unsure at all. I was certain I'd been wrong.

Restless, and no longer hungry, I abandoned the plan to call Carter. Instead, I threw on my cold weather gear and snuck off campus. What I really wanted to do was go to the shooting range, except for a few more days my right hand was still in a cast. But what I wanted most was the feeling of concentration and exhilaration that came with the shooting. A long run on a clear winter day would be a close approximation.

The cool quiet of the forest welcomed me. At first, I counted my steps, like sheep, like it would lull me into a place where all I could hear were the thumps of my stride and the numbers that ticked off my progress. It worked. With every step, I concentrated a little harder on what I was doing and a little less on the rest of my life. By my second mile, I was in a groove, running fast and watching my footfalls on the packed snow.

No room for the million concerns I'd let creep back into my head. No tingling feeling from any of my supernatural senses. No dawning realization that when my hands shook after I opened Dan Astor's letter it was because I was scared, not pleased. And most of all, no unwelcome and uncomfortable feeling in my stomach that said I was still missing something. I just ran.

Eventually what happened was I thought about running. How I didn't love running, not in the way Carter did. I was halfway decent at it, but because I didn't love it, I didn't push myself to excel. For Carter, running was more like an extension of himself. If he couldn't run, it would be like killing a part of him, part of his very essence.

And that was it.

The word essence.

It was such a pretty word, sibilant and soft, but vital too. Powerful. It was what made things what they were. Made us who we were. It was the heart of who we were.

Essence. Heart. Essence heart essence heart. In my mind, the two words reverberated with each footfall, faster and faster until I was gasping, cras.h.i.+ng to a halt and grabbing a tree to hold me up before my lungs or legs gave out.

When I caught my breath and the stars dancing in front of my eyes began to fade, I slid to a seat at the base of the tree and forced myself to be still. I'd come out here to outrun my mind, but my mind had other ideas. It had run in a different direction and I needed to listen to it. To think, really think, about all the ideas I'd been chasing in incomplete circles since the beginning of the year.

I had this great, big puzzle I was trying to solve, with all these different components, but instead of lining up the edges and filling in the middle, I'd been throwing the pieces on the table and watching them scatter. Chasing them around without any real effort. Kind of like running. If I pushed myself, I could do better. If I forced myself, I would figure this out.

I went back to Jill. She was a piece of the puzzle I'd left dangling at the edge of the table, trying not to examine too closely. But by accident, I'd just found where she fit. It was those two words, heart and essence.

When she'd been revived, she'd lost not just her life but her Sententia gift as well. Only one of them had been temporary. We'd restored the mechanical piece of heart pumping blood and oxygen and animating the body. But she couldn't get back her essence. Thought, capital T, had killed that part of her that made her Sententia. A gene or a tiny piece of her brain or whatever our magic was, a connection to G.o.d or the greater life consciousness. Something. I didn't know where it came from, this essential Sententia piece of ourselves. There was something beyond science about what we were, and I had taken it from Jillian. One gift had expelled another.

I hadn't meant to. I hadn't intended to, I realized was the better word. That was the third key to this puzzle: intent. Carter had used it so long ago to describe Thought Moving. Intention. Changing the intention of things. When I'd turned my gift on Jill, I hadn't known how to use it, how it would work, what it would do except stop hearts because that's what I'd been told. My intention when I'd made the desperate Thought was to save myself. To let Jill die in my place. It had been good enough to work, and it took everything from her.

But why couldn't I be more specific? I used intention in my Diviner gift all the time and it listened. I focused on future or past, on seeking details and seeing the clues. Why couldn't I focus my Hangman ability in the same way, to use intention to hone its effect?

All the other wisps of ideas, the scattered pieces began to coalesce. Everything had a sort of heart, didn't it? An essence? If I could focus on essences, get to the heart of something, what could I do?

I thought about the tree behind me, supporting my back with its wide, old trunk. The tree was so many things all working together. The roots, the branches that in the springtime would fill with leaves, the strong body holding it all together. In a way, each piece had its own heart, its own essence or little piece of life, didn't it? Jill had proved I could do more than stop a literal heart.

Ever since the day I'd been sparked, I'd done two things: touched basically every object in Carter's apartment to see if I could learn more about his father's death and touched every living thing I came into contact with until I could feel its life, like I first had in Carter.

I stood and turned, looking up at the canopy of the great tree, its bare skeleton arms clacking together in the winter breeze. I took off my glove and rested my hand against it. The bark was rough under my skin, but when I opened my senses, I could feel the tingling pulse of life, warmer and more pleasant than the buzz from any object with a death story, but slower and bigger than the sense I'd get from a person. I stood there for a long time, trying to follow the connections, to trace the path from the roots to the branches with my mind. I wished it had leaves so I could try to feel those too.

I wondered how Thought would or could affect it. I'd hoped a sort of map would appear if I concentrated hard enough, but that would have been too easy. My visions were only for the dead. Life, I had to feel. And I could feel it, all connected, each little piece making up the whole.

Maybe all I really needed was intention. Mental focus and my own ability to visualize. Or maybe I was just crazy.

But somehow this felt like the right kind of crazy.

THAT'S HOW I began my new hobby of killing things. I added it to my other hobbies of antiquing, keeping secrets, and worrying.

I couldn't bring myself to harm the oak tree. It was old and strong and beautiful. Also, I couldn't easily observe it. I needed to try something smaller and closer to home, preferably with leaves. I'd once told myself I couldn't practice my Hangman gift, but I was wrong. I wouldn't practice it. I didn't see a need to or even how. Now I did.

The spark had shown me I could feel the life in everything. Surely I could extinguish it, too. This was research, I told myself. Science. I had to do some things I didn't necessarily want to in order to understand the scope of my gift. Plants would be my sacrifice.

My hypothesis wasn't just that I could kill one, but that I could affect it in pieces. There was more to my theory, but this is where I would start. Could I kill a single off-shoot? A single leaf? I understood now, long after the fact, that when I'd tried to kill the rose on the day of my spark, I was too late. It was already dead. It looked alive, but it wasn't, not really. It was just in the beginning process of fading.

While the simplest and least guilt-inducing thing to do would have been to buy a series of plants and experiment on them in an orderly way, I didn't have that luxury. There was no way I could bring a bunch of plants to anywhere on campus without explaining myself to someone, and that was the thing I couldn't do. How did you explain to people, even other Sententia, you were systematically practicing killing things? Dr. Stewart had basically forbidden me from ever using my Carnifex gift on campus, and who could blame her. So instead, I had to seek out plants of convenience.

At Marquise, on a small table between the entry and Ms. Kim's door, was a poinsettia plant that was not fading at all. Since they were pretty and also essentially non-denominational, campus was covered with them at the holidays. The dorm attendants, the adults anyway, had a yearly contest to see who could keep theirs alive the longest. It was silly, since most of them died during winter break or sooner, but some of the staff took it seriously. Ms. Kim had won last year, and I was pretty sure she'd already won this year too. I hoped so, because I felt like s.h.i.+t for what I was about to do.

When I finally got back, without giving myself any more time to think about it, I closed the door behind me, swallowed my guilt, and touched the plant stem near the dirt. I felt the life-tingle as soon as I opened my senses and without further ado, I extinguished it.

It was quick, the sensation of the Thought rus.h.i.+ng up and then dissipating. What replaced it was interesting. I expected maybe there'd be nothing, no feeling, no more vibrations of any kind. But instead, there was a new buzzing, the kind that told me the plant had a death story to tell. I supposed, in a way, it was my signature.

Out of a sense of duty, as well as curiosity, I watched it. Given the opportunity, I imagined any other Grim Diviner could see it too. I was glad there were no others on campus. I couldn't use any of my gifts on myself, but the plant, even though it was my victim, gave up its vision easily. I felt strangely detached from the image of myself gripping the stem. It looked like nothing, a girl touching a plant for a few scant seconds, though I knew it was more than that; even if I hadn't just done the deed, my gift told me otherwise. The girl had done it-she was the killer.

I ran up the stairs, trying hard not to cry from the shame, reminding myself it had already had a much longer life than average. The knowledge did not comfort me. I knew it was only a plant, and I probably hadn't ruined Ms. Kim's contest, but I still hated myself for harming it. Intentionally harming it. Maybe the problem was I hated myself for being able to harm things.

But I had to know. I had to know what I could do and the extent of my powers, because they were the best defenses I'd ever have and right now I needed to feel like I had any defenses at all. Plus, if my theories proved true, maybe someday I could use my gifts in a way even I could accept.

What awaited me in my room was a mess of another nature.

Chapter Eighteen.

Amy got caught.

That's what I gathered when I found her pacing in the middle of our room with eyes red from crying. She stopped and looked at me when I opened the door, meeting my eyes for just a second before looking down and starting to pace again. I didn't say anything right away. On my desk was a large coffee from Anderson's which I was, frankly, more happy to see than my roommate right then.

After I picked it up and took a long sip-she'd gotten pretty good at my preferred level of cream and sugar-I stated the obvious. "You got caught."

She stopped again and looked back at me, nodding. She looked like c.r.a.p, tired and worried, with bedraggled curls and unevenly removed eyeliner smudged even worse from crying. I knew before getting caught had ruined everything, she'd probably looked post-dance-bliss cute in a rumpled way. She hadn't brushed her hair on purpose.

Her eyes told how upset she was, pleading with me for something, I didn't know what. To help, to make the problem go away, to not be mad at her. Except I was. I was mad at her. I was sweaty and exhausted, physically and mentally, and had bigger problems fighting for s.p.a.ce on an already too-full plate of them. I'd just killed a freaking defenseless poinsettia plant, for G.o.d's sake.

I sighed, took another sip of my coffee. Looked at her for another few seconds. "I told you," I said. It was a s.h.i.+tty thing to say, but the truth.

Amy swallowed, and the look on her face made clear how bitter that was going down. "No s.h.i.+t, Lane. I should have listened. Obviously."

"Obviously," I snapped back. I could tell Mount St. Amy was brewing, her temper always quick to boil and erupt, but for once, I didn't feel like stopping it. She could get as p.i.s.sed at me as she wanted, because this was a problem all her own. What I really wanted to do was take a shower at least as long as yesterday's, but I drank my coffee and listened instead. "Tell me what happened. And thank you, for this," I added, shaking my cup. We were both angry, but I shouldn't be rude.

She flopped on my bed, because she'd haphazardly unpacked half her bag on hers, and picked at threads unraveling from the hem of her sweats.h.i.+rt. Actually, Caleb's sweats.h.i.+rt. It was gray, with UMa.s.s across the chest in a kind of funny script. The first time I'd seen it, I'd thought it said Wa.s.s, and couldn't figure out what that meant. Everyone had laughed at me and now whenever I was being daft, Amy'd say, "You're such a wa.s.s, Lane." Thinking about that made me a tiny bit less angry.

"It was perfect," she said, softly. "Wasn't it? The dance." From my nightstand, she picked up my crown and tilted it a few times, watching the sparkles.

"Yeah, it was."

"I told you," she said, shaking the crown in my direction.

"I guess we were both right."

"I wish you weren't so freaking n.o.ble all the time and had voted for yourself."

"I don't. It worked out perfectly."

She grimaced. "You had to share. With her."

"I didn't mind," I said, shrugging. "And...I didn't hate it. Being queen." Maybe a piece of me had even loved it, and the look Amy gave me told me she knew just how much I didn't hate it.

"It was perfect," Amy repeated. "Why did Stewart have to be wandering around campus this morning, huh? I mean, where does she even live? Does she sleep in her office? I swear she just haunts this place twenty-four seven."

Ouch. And of all the people to catch her. The headmaster lived in a house on the bookstore side of Main Street, close enough to walk to campus, but outside the bounds of where students could go without permission. Everyone knew that, including Amy. But it really did seem like she was always somewhere on campus. I also wanted to point out that it was afternoon now, but that wouldn't make things any better.

"It should have been fine," Amy continued. "I had the car drop me off by Anderson's and if anyone saw me I could just say I came to get coffee. The cups would be proof when I came back through the gates."

"You look like you haven't been home."

"That's what Dr. Stewart said." She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest.

"And you were carrying your bag."

"I can carry a bag whenever I want!" Her temper was rising again. "It's not like I was still wearing my dress or something. Besides, I thought she was joking with me. It sounded like she was trying to be funny."

Uh oh. "What did you say? No, what did she say?"

"She said, 'Just getting back, Ms. Moretti?' but I swear she sounded like she was joking."

For real uh oh. "Seriously? When is she ever joking? What did you say?"

"I said, 'Of course not!' and I laughed, because...I thought..." The extent of her error was starting to become apparent.

"You lied to her?! Amy! You know better!"

She spun on the bed to look at me. "What the h.e.l.l was I supposed to say? It was just being funny. Except then she didn't laugh back." I groaned. "You can't lie to her."

"I wasn't lying!"

"Yeah, you were."

"I didn't mean to! I was, like, joking." Amy got up and started pacing again, face a little pink from her frustration. "How does she even know? I bet she kills at poker. Who can bluff her?"

She had no idea. I held my tongue from saying that and asked, "So now what?" Amy shook her head. "Just a warning maybe? I mean, it was the Winter Ball." Infractions were practically expected. Plus Amy was good, never in any trouble. She was the freaking Valedictorian, or would be soon enough. When she didn't answer right away, just shrugged and looked down, I knew something more was wrong.

"Ame?"

"Maybe I already had my warning," she said to her feet.

I sat up straighter in my desk chair and set down my nearly empty coffee. "Sorry, what?"

She cleared her throat and looked at me, meeting my eyes for about a millisecond before glancing away. "I already had a warning."

"You already had a warning." That was news to me.

"Two warnings," she basically whispered before she dropped back onto my bed and buried her face in my pillow.

Two warnings. Two strikes and I didn't know about either of them. I stared at her in silence until she lifted her head to look at me. "You've gotten two warnings, which you didn't tell me about." Now I was p.i.s.sed. Maybe it was a little irrational, because I kept a lot of secrets, but whatever. She had two warnings and had just lied to Dr. Stewart. This was Honor Board territory. "Are you f.u.c.king kidding me?"

"You don't have to curse," she said and I cursed again. I swore all the time, just never at her, and she flinched.

"Sorry, but this is cursing serious. Of which you are perfectly aware." She made a face but I persisted. Like so many times, I was the mom between the two of us. Usually it was something we laughed at, but like her run-in with the headmaster, this was no joke. "What were the first two?"

She sighed and sat up, letting her feet dangle over the side. My already messy bed was even more of a mess from her. "I cut final hour too many times and then someone saw me on the way back from Caleb's a week or two ago."

The only thing I could do was curse again.

"I know, okay, I know."

"Do you? Really?" She was upset, yeah, but also...defiant. Maybe that meant she was really upset, but at the same time, she'd broken curfew for the Ball knowing she had two warnings. And she hadn't just broken curfew; she'd meandered back onto campus after freaking noon. I was pus.h.i.+ng her, but she needed it. Or I wanted to do it. Either way, it forced the eruption.

"Yeah, Lane, I do!" She launched herself off the bed and kicked one of the lounge pillows in the middle of the rug. "But it's my senior year and everything's f.u.c.ked up. You almost died, but you're always with your boyfriend or, like, wrapped up in yourself or some other world, and I'm trying not to lose my boyfriend, so I'm just whatever. Having fun or trying to keep all my s.h.i.+t together, with basically no help from you. Thanks St. Elaine, for taking a few seconds from s.h.i.+ning your halo to give me your super helpful commentary."

I gaped at her back as she angrily dumped the rest of her things out of her bag and put them away with unnecessary force. She made sure not to look at me as she moved around her half of the room. In a way, she was right. I wasn't being helpful. I was hurt. Maybe I wasn't a perfect friend, but neither was she. If I was the angel she was implying, I would have done something helpful. I probably should have, apologized or I didn't know what.

But I wasn't an angel, no matter what she said, so I didn't do any of those things. "See you at the Honor Board hearing," is what I said, right before I slammed the door to the bathroom behind me.

AS USUAL WHENEVER I didn't know what to do, I ran to Carter. Amy was gone when I came out of the shower. It felt strange and terrible not to have a text or a note on our board telling me where to come find her. Not that I would have.