9.07

Mortal Girls

As we drove down Dove Street, it was hard to believe our town had ever been anything but brown. The grass looked like burnt toast before you scraped off the black parts. The Beater was about the only thing that hadn’t changed. Link was actually driving the speed limit for once, even if it was only because he wanted to check out what was left of our neighbors’ front yards.

“Man, look at Mrs. Asher’s azaleas. Sun’s so hot, they turned black.” Link was right about the heat. According to the Farmers’ Almanac, and the Sisters, who were Gatlin’s walking almanac, it hadn’t been this hot in Gatlin County since 1942. But the sun wasn’t what had killed Mrs. Asher’s azaleas.

“They aren’t burnt. They’re covered in lubbers.”

Link hung out the window to get a better look. “No way.”

The grasshoppers had shown up in droves three weeks after Lena Claimed herself, and two weeks after the worst heat wave in seventy years hit. Lubber grasshoppers weren’t your run-of-the-mill green grasshoppers, like the ones Amma found in the kitchen every now and then. Lubbers were black, with an angry slash of yellow running down their backs, and they traveled in swarms. They were like locusts, devouring every inch of green in town, including the General’s Green. General Jubal A. Early’s statue was standing on a brown circle of dead grass, his sword drawn and covered with a black army of its own.

Link sped up a little. “That’s nasty. My mom thinks they’re one a the plagues a the apocalypse. She’s waitin’ for the frogs to show up and the water to run red.”

For once I couldn’t blame Mrs. Lincoln. In a town built on equal parts religion and superstition, it was hard to ignore an unprecedented infestation of grasshoppers that had descended on Gatlin like a black cloud. Every day seemed like an End of Days kind of a day. And I wasn’t about to knock on Mrs. Lincoln’s door and tell her it was most likely the result of my Caster girlfriend splitting the moon and disrupting the Order of Things. We were having a hard enough time convincing Link’s mom that his new physique wasn’t the result of steroids. He had already been to Doc Asher’s office twice this month.

When we pulled into the parking lot, Lena was already there, and something else had changed. She wasn’t driving her cousin Larkin’s Fastback anymore. She was standing next to Macon’s hearse, in a vintage U2 T-shirt with the word WAR written across the top, a gray skirt, and her old black Chucks. There was fresh Sharpie inked across the toes. It was crazy how a hearse and a pair of sneakers could cheer a guy up.

A million thoughts ran through my head. That when she looked at me, it was like there was no one else in the world. That when I looked at her, I noticed every detail about her while everything else faded away. That I was only myself when we were together.

It was impossible to put into words, and even if I could I wasn’t sure the words would be right. But I didn’t have to try, because Lena and I never had to say the things we felt. We could think them, and Kelting took care of the rest.

Hi.

What took you so long?

I climbed out of the passenger seat, the back of my shirt already soaked with sweat. Link seemed immune to the heat, another perk of being part Incubus. I slipped into Lena’s arms and breathed her in.

Lemons and rosemary. The scent I had followed through the halls of Jackson before I saw her for the first time. The one that had never faded, even when she walked into the darkness and away from me.

I leaned down carefully to kiss her without brushing against any other part of her body. These days, the more we touched, the less I could breathe. The physical effects of touching her had intensified, and even though I tried to hide it, she knew.

I felt the jolt as soon as our lips met. The sweetness of her kiss was so perfect and the shock of her skin so powerful that my head was always left spinning. But now there was something else—the feeling she was inhaling my breath every time our lips met, pulling an invisible string I couldn’t control. Lena arched her neck and pulled away before I could move.

Later.

I sighed, and she blew me a kiss.

But, L, it’s been…

A whole nine hours?

Yeah.

I smiled at her, and she shook her head.

I don’t want you to spend the first day of school in the nurse’s office.

Lena was more worried about me than I was. If something happened to me—which was a pretty big possibility, since it was becoming harder to kiss her, and even harder to stay away—I didn’t care. I couldn’t stand to think about not touching her. Things were changing. That feeling—the pain that wasn’t pain—was still there even when we were apart. There should be a name for it, the perfect ache I felt in the empty places she usually filled.

Is there a word to describe that? Heartache, maybe? Is that how they came up with the word? Except I felt it in my gut, my head, my entire body. I saw Lena when I was looking out windows and staring at walls.

I tried to focus on something that didn’t hurt. “I like your new wheels.”

“You mean my old ones? Ridley threw a fit about riding in a hearse.”

“Where’s Rid?” Link was already scanning the parking lot.

Lena gestured at the hearse behind her. “She’s in there changing her clothes.”

“She can’t change at home like a normal person?” I asked.

“I heard that, Short Straw,” Ridley called out from inside the car. “I am not”—a ball of crumpled fabric flew through the driver’s side window, landing in a heap on the steaming asphalt—“a normal person.” She said it like normal was an affliction. “And I am not wearing this mass-produced piece of mall crap.” Ridley was squirming around, the leather seat squeaking as flashes of blond and pink hair whipped in and out of view. A pair of silver shoes flew out the window. “I look like I belong on the Disney Channel.”