Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘There are a million good reasons why he ghosted you,' Lydia declared, six days, seven hours and forty-three minutes after Wyn left Savannah. She was stretched out on a sun lounger in the back garden of Bell House, lemonade in one hand, a chocolate chip cookie in the other, having invited herself over when I failed to respond to her last three texts.

‘Not that he has definitely for sure ghosted you,' she added when she saw my scowl. ‘Maybe he broke his arm and can't hold his phone, or maybe he's in a cute little coma and he's going to wake up any second, yelling your name.'

‘A cute little coma?' I replied, unimpressed. ‘Lydia, no.'

Ever since Wyn disappeared, time had dragged. The first day was a black hole. Catherine left me alone, under the assumption I was coming to terms with everything I'd learned at supper. She wasn't wrong, none of that helped, but the biggest knife in my heart was Wyn's absence. He said he would call but he didn't. For the first couple of days I let myself believe he was busy with family stuff, maybe something really awful had happened to his brother and he would get in touch with me when he could. By the fourth day, my patience ran out and I sent him a text. He didn't answer. The next day I called but he didn't pick up. I even had Lydia DM him on every possible platform but there was no reply, no read receipt, and no updates on his page.

As far as anyone could tell, Wyn Evans had vanished off the face of the earth.

‘All I'm saying is, there has to be a reason,' Lydia stated. ‘He is super into you, Em, he didn't have to come say goodbye. If he really wanted to ghost, he'd have left without saying anything. You said he had family stuff to deal with, right? Family stuff, as you and I both know, can be tough.'

She didn't even know how right she was.

‘I think I made it perfectly clear that if he hurt you, I would end his life, and running off to North Carolina can't stop me from making good on that threat,' she added. ‘All I need to hunt a man down is half a name and his hair colour. This fool gave you his number, his email address, his mailing address, and his username. It's almost too easy, there's no sport in it.'

‘Maybe we should go to Asheville,' I mused for the thousandth time that day. ‘We wouldn't have to go in his house or anything, I just want to know he's OK.'

‘Like I said fifteen minutes ago, fantastic idea. Your grandmother wouldn't completely flip out and we wouldn't both get grounded until the end of time. Did you want to steal a car, book a flight or take a ten-hour-round-trip Uber?'

‘Uber?' I replied feebly. ‘Point taken.'

Lydia dusted off her hands as though she'd finished the dirty work and smiled. ‘I know you're heartbroken now but there's no point sitting here sulking. Wasting the summer isn't going to bring him back any faster and your birthday is right around the corner. We have party planning to do.'

My birthday. I would be seventeen in two weeks but a party was the last thing on my mind. When I wasn't worrying about Wyn, I was busy learning everything I could about my magic and preparing for Catherine's prophecy. Mornings were almost always spent in the garden, exploring the properties of different herbs and how they could be combined to heal and protect. In the afternoons, I studied the history of the city alongside the long lineage of the Bell family, and after supper, Catherine and I explored my rapidly expanding array of abilities. I was able to harness the elements now, not as well as my grandmother, but I could light a candle on command and put it out without it exploding in my face (like it did the first five times), and I could sense the people around me. I knew Lydia was on her way over to visit before she even left her house; her energy was as bright and bold as she was, telegraphing her intentions across several blocks without even trying. Jackson was easy to see too but I did my best to block him out. Sensing him felt a little too close to spying.

On the downside, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't force a vision and I hadn't seen another ghost since my visit to Tybee Island. If only I knew where Wyn was, why he hadn't been in touch, I was certain I'd be able to concentrate better, find more control. But, on the upside, I hadn't conjured any earthquakes or flash floods like the one I'd inadvertently brought about when he left. No one was hurt. Only me.

My other hobby was one Catherine did not care for. Scouring our library for information on Weres. It turned out she was right. According to the few books that covered the topic, if the Were we'd faced in Bonaventure was a male, it would have killed us given half the chance. But knowing that didn't stop me from waking up in the middle of the night, every night, hollowed out by the fact I'd taken a life. He was only a wolf one day out of the month. Who was he the rest of the time? Did he have a family? People who loved him? Not anymore. Now he was at the bottom of a river and they would never even know what happened to him, while I sat at home with my best friend, planning a party.

‘Love that the b-day falls on a weekend,' Lydia said, chugging the lavender lemonade I'd made myself that morning. I didn't need Ashley drugging my only real friend for the fun of it. ‘My birthday falls on a Wednesday. How lame is that? No one wants to party on a Wednesday, but a Friday, yes please. What's the plan?'

‘There isn't one,' I said before she could get carried away.

At least there wasn't a plan I could share with Lydia. June twenty-first crept ever closer but Catherine still hadn't told me exactly what would happen during the Becoming ceremony. Every time I asked about it, she dismissed my questions, withholding the information like it was some kind of fun surprise, but I already knew from her taste in incredibly boring movies we had very different ideas when it came to fun.

‘I think my grandmother wants to do a family thing,' I added. ‘Some sort of traditional celebration.'

Not a complete lie.

‘If you can't hang Friday night, you have to let me throw you a party on Saturday,' Lydia insisted, cutting off my protests before they began. ‘Virginia is going out of town to visit my mom that weekend so we'll have the whole house to ourselves. Nothing crazy, just me, you, Jackson, maybe a handful of carefully curated guests to add to the ambience. Very chill, very low-key, lots of gifts. It will be a dream party.'

A single butterfly fluttered across the garden to land on a rose bush, its wings flickering softly. No obligations, nowhere to go and no one to be. It must be nice.

‘Not that I'm not grateful but I don't think I'm going to be in the mood for a big celebration,' I said when the butterfly lifted up into the sky and flew away. ‘Whatever I do, it's going to be a strange birthday.'

‘Because Wyn left or because your dad died or because you had to move to Savannah and live with Miss Catherine and your weird aunt?'

I shot her a look.

‘Gotcha, all of the above,' she replied, firing back at me with her trademark finger guns. ‘Speaking of your dad, have you hacked that computer yet?'

‘No,' I admitted, running my mom's locket up and down on its chain. ‘It's driving me crazy. I have my dad's laptop and my mom's locket and I can't open either.'

Without asking, Lydia reached across my chest and grabbed the golden orb from out of my hand. ‘What do you mean, you can't open it?'

‘It's broken.' I unfastened the clasp and handed the whole thing over before she strangled me with it. ‘Dad said it was a locket when he gave it to me but there's no visible hinge or anything. Maybe he was wrong, maybe it's just a pendant.'

‘Nuh-uh, it's definitely a locket.' She shook her head, rolling it between her fingers. ‘My mom has one just like this only hers is silver. It is tricky though, it doesn't open outwards like a book, the two sides kinda slide apart.'

She pressed the top and bottom at the same time and pushed each side in opposite directions.

‘I swear I'm not going to break it but like, if I do?'

‘I thought it already was broken,' I replied, folding my legs underneath me, jittery with excitement. ‘Go for it.'

With a scrunched-up face, Lydia pinched the gold bauble and pressed harder. I held my breath, then I heard the quietest possible click and the two sides of the locket slid away from each other with ease.

‘Ta-da!' She handed it back to me with look of victory. ‘One open locket.'

‘I don't believe it,' I uttered. ‘Thank you, Lyds.'

I held it to the light to see better. Inside were two tiny photographs, one of them was of my mom but the other was of someone I'd never seen before.

‘Em,' Lydia said my name as she snatched the locket back out of my hand, ‘why would your mom have a photo of my mom inside her locket?'

‘That's your mother?' I squinted at the minuscule photo of a happy brunette, laughing at the camera.

‘Yes, ma'am. I knew they knew each other but I had no idea they were friendship-necklace besties.'

‘Does your mom have a picture of my mom inside her locket?' I asked.

She shrugged, still bubbling over with the happy surprise. ‘I can't say for sure, I haven't looked at it in years. I'll check when I get home.'

I clutched the locket in my hand, careful not to close it completely again, just in case it got stuck. My mom had a locket with photos of herself and Alex Powell inside. Interesting.

‘That's one mystery solved,' Lydia said, sliding her sunglasses down as she lay back on her lounger. ‘For my next trick, I predict you will figure out your dad's password, get a text from a non-comatose Wyn Evans and have the most incredible seventeenth birthday ever because I'm throwing you a party whether you like it or not.'

‘I figured as much,' I said, happily defeated. No one other than my dad had ever thrown me a birthday party before. More importantly, no one had ever wanted to. ‘But just a small party.'

‘The smallest,' she agreed, pinching her thumb and forefinger together until they were almost touching. ‘So tiny, you'll barely notice it.'

I looked over at my friend, a walking, talking ray of light.

‘OK,' I said as she whooped with joy. ‘And I hope you're right about the rest of it.'

‘Bestie, I'm never wrong,' Lydia replied, already madly tapping away at her phone. ‘Trust me.'

I lay back down on my sunbed, sliding the locket open and closed, open and closed. What other choice did I have?