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“What are you planning to do? Write Lena a want ad and publish it in the paper? ‘Wanted, one Caster girlfriend. Preferably named Lena
Duchannes’?”
I shrugged. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it could work.”
“You can’t. You can barely pick up a pencil in this realm. You don’t have physics working on your behalf as a Sheer. Around here, picking up a
feather is harder than dragging a two-by-four down the street with your pinkie.”
“Can you do it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
I looked at her meaningfully. “Mom, I want her to know I’m all right. I want her to know I’m here—like you wanted to let me know when you left the
code in the books in the study. Now I have to find a way to tell her.”
My mom walked around the counter slowly, without saying a word for a long minute. She watched as I moved across the room toward the piles of
newsprint.
“Are you sure about this?” She sounded hesitant.
“Are you going to help me or not?”
She came and stood next to me, which was her way of answering. We began to read the next issue of The Stars and Stripes, laid out all over
every surface. I leaned over the papers on the nearest desk. “Apparently, the Ladies Auxiliary of Gatlin County is starting a book club called the
Read & Giggle.”
“Your Aunt Marian is going to be thrilled to hear that; the last time she tried to start a book club, nobody could agree on a book, and they had to
disband after the first meeting.” My mom had a wicked glint in her eye. “But not until they voted to spike the lemonade with a big box of wine. Just
about everyone agreed on that.”
I kept going. “Well, I hope the Read & Giggle doesn’t end up the same way, but if it does, don’t worry. They’re also starting a table tennis club
called the Hit & Giggle.”
“And look at that.” She pointed over my arm. “Their supper club is called the Dine & Giggle.”
I stifled a laugh, pointing. “You missed the best one. They’re renaming the Gatlin Cotillion to—wait for it—the Wiggle & Giggle.”
We went through the rest of the paper, having about as good a time as two Sheers stuck in a small-town newspaper office could ask for. It was
like a scrapbook of our life together, all glued onto a whole bunch of newsprint. The Kiwanis Club was getting ready for its annual pancake
breakfast, where the pancakes were raw and liquid in the middle, the way my dad liked them best. Gardens of Eden had won Main Street Window
of the Month, which it did pretty much every month, since there weren’t all that many windows on Main anymore.
It only got better as we read on. A wild hen was roosting in the Santa’s sled that Mr. Asher had put up as part of his light-up lawn display, which
was awesome, because the Ashers’ holiday displays were infamous. One year Mrs. Asher even put lipstick on Emily’s Baby Cuddles Jesus
because she didn’t think his mouth showed up well enough in the dark. When my mom tried to ask her about it with a straight face, Mrs. Asher said,
“You can’t just expect to shout hosannas and have everyone get the message, Lila. Lord have mercy, half the folks around here don’t even know
what hosanna means.” When my mom pressed her further, it was obvious Mrs. Asher didn’t either. After that, she never invited us to her house
again.
The rest of it was the news you’d expect around here, the kind that never changed even when it always changed. Animal Control had picked up a
lost cat; Bud Clayton had won the Carolina Duck-Calling Contest. The Summerville Pawnshop was running a special, Big B’s Vinyl Siding and
Windows was shutting down, and the Quik-Chik Leadership Scholarship competition was heating up.
Life goes on, I guess.
Then I saw the page for the crossword puzzle and slid it toward me as quickly as I could. “There.”
“You want to do the crossword puzzle?”
“I don’t want to do it. I want to write one for Amma. If she saw it, she’d tell Lena.”
My mom shook her head. “Even if you could manage to get the letters the way you want them on the page, Amma won’t see it. She doesn’t take
the paper anymore. Not since you—left. She hasn’t touched one of her puzzles in months.”
I winced. How could I have forgotten? Amma had said it herself while I was standing in the kitchen at Wate’s Landing.
“What about a letter, then?”
“I’ve tried it a hundred times, but it’s nearly impossible. You can only use what’s already on the page.” She studied the paper in front of us.
“Actually, it might work because you can drag the letters around on the draft. See, how they’re laying it out on the table?”
She was right. The way the puzzle worked, the letters were cut into a thousand tiles, like a Scrabble board. All I had to do was move the paper
around.
If I was even strong enough to do that.
I looked at my mom, more determined than ever. “Then we’ll use the crossword, and I’ll make Lena see it.”
Moving the letters into place was like digging up a rock from the Sisters’ garden, but my mom helped me. She shook her head as we stared at
the page. “A crossword puzzle. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
I shrugged. “I’m just not very good at writing songs.”
In its current state, the crossword was barely half-finished, but the staff around here probably wouldn’t mind too much if I helped them along. After
all, it looked like the Sunday edition, the biggest day for The Stars and Stripes—at least for the crossword. Between the three of them, they’d
probably be relieved that someone else had taken it on this week. I was surprised they didn’t have Amma in here writing the puzzles for them
already.
The only hard part would be getting Lena to take an interest in this puzzle at all.
Eleven across.
P. O. L. T. E. R. G. E. I. S. T.
As in, apparition or phantasm. A spectral being. A spirit from another world. A ghost. The vaguest shadow of a person, the thing that comes to
you in the night when you think no one is looking.
In other words, the thing you are, Ethan Wate.
Six down.
G. A. T. L. I. N.
As in, parochial. Local. Insular. The place we’re stuck, whether in the Otherworld or the Mortal one.
E. T. E. R. N. A. L.
As in, endless, without stopping, forever. The way you feel about a certain girl, whether you’re dead or alive.
L. O. V. E.