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“You’re not?”<br />
“Nope.”<br />
“Well, you’ll have to wait a little longer. I’m still grounded. Uncle M thinks I’m at the library.”<br />
“I don’t care if you’re grounded. I’m not. I’ll move into your house if I have to, and sleep with Boo in his dog bed.”<br />
“He has a bedroom. He sleeps in a four-poster bed.”<br />
“Even better.”<br />
She smiled and held onto my hand. The snowflakes melted as they landed on our warm skin.<br />
“I’ve missed you, Ethan Wate.” She kissed me back. The snow fell harder, dripping off us. We were practically radioactive. “Maybe you were<br />
right. We should spend as much time together as we can before—” she stopped, but I knew what she was thinking.<br />
“We’re gonna figure something out, L. I promise.”<br />
She nodded half-heartedly, and snuggled inside my arms. I could feel the calm beginning to spread between us. “I don’t want to think about that<br />
today.” She pushed me away, playfully, back among the living.<br />
“Yeah? What do you want to think about, then?”<br />
“Snow angels. I’ve never made one.”<br />
“Really? You guys don’t do angels?”<br />
“It’s not the angels. We only moved to Virginia for a few months, so I’ve never lived anywhere it snows.”<br />
An hour later, we were soggy and wet and sitting around the kitchen table. Amma had gone to the Stop & Steal, and we were drinking the sorry hot<br />
chocolate I had attempted to make myself.<br />
“I’m not sure this is the way you make hot chocolate,” Lena teased me as I scraped a microwaved bowl of chocolate chips into hot milk. The<br />
result was brown and white and lumpy. It looked great to me.<br />
“Yeah? How would you know? ‘Kitchen, hot chocolate, please.’” I mimicked her high voice with my low one and the result was a strange cracking<br />
falsetto. She smiled. I had missed that smile, even though it had only been days; I missed it even when it had only been minutes.<br />
“Speaking of Kitchen, I have to go. I told my uncle I was at the library, and it’s closed by now.”<br />
I pulled her onto my lap, sitting at the kitchen table. I was having trouble not touching her every second, now that I could again. I found myself<br />
making excuses to tickle her, anything to touch her hair, her hands, her knees. The pull between us was like a magnet. She leaned against my chest<br />
and we just sat there until I heard feet padding across the floor upstairs. She bolted out of my lap like a frightened cat.<br />
“Don’t worry, that’s my dad. He’s just taking a shower. It’s the only time he comes out of his study anymore.”<br />
“He’s getting worse, isn’t he?” She took my hand. We both knew it wasn’t really a question.<br />
“My dad wasn’t like this until my mom died. He just flipped out after that.” I didn’t have to say the rest; she’d heard me think it enough times. About<br />
how my mom died, and we stopped cooking fried tomatoes, and we lost the little pieces of the Christmas town, and she wasn’t there to stand up to<br />
Mrs. Lincoln, and nothing was ever the same again.<br />
“I’m sorry.”<br />
“I know.”<br />
“Is that why you went to the library today? To look for your mom?”<br />
I looked at Lena, pushing her hair out of her face. I nodded, pulling the rosemary out of my pocket and placing it carefully on the counter. “Come<br />
on. I want to show you something.” I pulled her out of the chair and took her hand. We slid across the old wood flooring in our damp socks and<br />
stopped at the door to the study. I looked up the stairs to my dad’s bedroom. I didn’t even hear the shower yet; we still had plenty of time. I tried the<br />
door handle.<br />
“It’s locked.” Lena frowned. “Do you have the key?”<br />
“Wait, watch what happens.” We stood there, staring at the door. I felt stupid standing there, and Lena must have too because she started to<br />
giggle. Just when I was about to laugh, the door began to unbolt itself. She stopped laughing.<br />
That’s not a Cast. I would be able to feel it.<br />
I think I’m supposed to go in, or we are.<br />
I stepped back and the door bolted itself again. Lena held up her hand, as if she was going to use her powers to open the door for me. I touched