Alexander Death(6)

Seth sat in the front pew, staring at his polished black shoes. He knew he bore some of the responsibility for his brother's death, because if he'd only gotten to Carter faster, he could have healed him. His fists clenched and unclenched all the way through “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Amazing Grace.”

As they left the church, a strikingly pretty blond girl in a prim black dress rushed up to Seth. It took him a moment to recognize the preacher's daughter, Ashleigh, since Seth's family rarely attended church. Her eyes were huge and gray and wet with tears.

“Oh, Seth, I feel so bad for you,” Ashleigh said. Though they'd rarely spoken, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “I can't imagine what it must be like,” she whispered in his ear.

Seth felt a weird, warm glow fill him, as if the girl's touch had filled him with a deep sense of love. He broke down and began to cry, and he hugged her back.

“Ashleigh, don't pester that boy,” said Mrs. Goodling, the preacher's wife, who had caught up with her daughter. She took Ashleigh's hand and reeled her back from Seth.

Seth and Ashleigh continued looking at each other while Ashleigh's mother pulled her back into the church, and Seth's dad hurried him out to the car. Seth's heart was thumping. He would think of that moment, the painful mix of misery and love, the compassionate look in Ashleigh Goodling's eyes, many times over the following few years.

At the family graveyard, where rows of monuments were enclosed by a high brick wall, Seth watched them bury Carter under the monument with his name inscribed on it. Seth's own grave marker stood beside it, a dark obelisk, with Seth's name and birth year already carved in place, waiting for his turn to die.

At their house, people ate and drank and spoke in low voices. Seth was introduced to more distant relatives, including his great uncle on his mother's side, Senator Junius Mayfield of Tennessee, a man with a balding scalp and a face like a basset hound.

As Seth walked away, he heard Junius whisper to his pretty young assistant: “I told Iris it was bad juju to get mixed up with Barrett family. You'd listen if I told you that, wouldn't you?”

“Of course, sir,” the assistant answered, and she gave him a dazzling smile. “I always take your advice.”

Seth made his way to the back yard, away from everyone. Beyond the peach orchard, on the far hilltop, he could see the brick walls and wrought-iron gates of the family's private graveyard. Carter was there now, and Seth's parents would follow him there, and Seth himself. And that would be the end of the story.





CHAPTER THREE





Years later, on the night of the Charleston riot, Seth searched for Jenny until the National Guard cleared the streets.

The riot had erupted during the Southeastern Funk Fest, an outdoor music event by the water. Seth didn't know why the riot had started, but it had been huge, sudden, and violent.

He'd completely lost Jenny in the chaos. It didn't help that she'd been running away from him, understandably angry at what she'd seen—Seth, with a strange naked blond girl on top of him. Seth didn't know what had come over him to make him hook up with that girl. It almost reminded him of Ashleigh's enchantment, the power to make people feel love, or at least intense attraction. But Ashleigh was dead, so she couldn't have been behind it.

He narrowly avoided getting swept up into a paddy wagon with a group of teenage rioters, and finally made his way back to The Mandrake House hotel. Jenny would know to find him there, if she wanted to see him—although, considering what Jenny had last seen him doing, he doubted that she would be looking for him anyway.

That girl was gone, thankfully, by the time Seth returned to the hotel. In his suite, he checked the sitting room, the bathroom, and both bedrooms. Nobody was there.

He walked out onto the balcony to think. Below him, pulsing blue light filled the streets—local and state police, Homeland Security. An armored transport cruised very slowly down Battery, with National Guardsmen perched on the sides, looking for signs of trouble. The authorities had arrived and dispersed the rioters in an incredibly short amount of time, almost as if they'd been expecting something big and chaotic to happen.

Seth wanted to call Jenny, but of course she didn't own a cell phone. He needed to call Darcy and find out why she hadn't made it back to their hotel room, but he couldn't find his Blackberry. He wondered where he'd left it. He'd been fairly drunk earlier, before the sight of Jenny's angry face sobered him up.

He tried to retrace the steps that had led to him bringing the other girl—what was her name? Allegra?—back to his hotel room. He certainly hadn't intended to cheat on Jenny, despite the encouragement of Wooly and friends. His memories around the girl were fuzzy, as if suffused with a weird golden light, the way it had felt whenever Ashleigh touched him.