The Girl Who Would Be King(131)

I smile at her broadly, loving that someone else in the world doesn’t care that I don’t make sense. I never thought in my life I would get to have a friend like Liesel.

The next morning, I’m still in research mode with the book. Liesel had made a compelling argument that I didn’t have any time to waste in figuring out what I am and how to defeat Lola, and that I’d already come here and so if Lola was going to find them anyway, wasn’t it safer if I was there to help protect them? I couldn’t argue with that, although now I was nervous about my idea of leaving Clark alone, and Jasper. Who could have guessed one day I would have so many people important to me that there wasn’t enough of me to go around? Liesel has been bringing me tea and keeping my spirits up and I’ve been reading all morning with little result. I reach to turn on the bedside lamp and in my frustration smash it to bits.

“Oh crap,” I say, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. There’s a giggle from across the room.

“So, you don’t so much like that lamp?” Liesel says with a smile. I turn to see her tiny frame in the doorway.

“Liesel, I’m so sorry. It wasn’t like, an important antique or anything, was it?” I ask lamely.

“Just Crate & Barrel – no loss.” She steps forward and hands me a fresh mug of tea.

“Thanks,” I say. “Watch your feet.” I take the mug from her and gesture to the glass strewn across the floor. Liesel crawls up onto the foot of the bed. “You want to bring me a broom so I can clean it up?” I ask.

“In a minute,” she says and gestures to my book. “What’s wrong – is the book not helpful?”

“No, I mean, yes,” I sigh. “It’s amazing – I’m learning all this incredible stuff about my mother and grandmother – all of them, going back nearly 200 years. But it’s just about their lives, so while it’s fascinating and personal and priceless, it’s like reading chapter twelve of a history book, and what I really need is chapter one, you know?” I massage the bridge of my nose.

“Hmmm. Makes sense, I guess,” Liesel says. “Have you learned anything you can use?”

I look up. “I’ve learned that we don’t live very long.”

Liesel looks down. “Oh.”

“Yeah, I think the oldest of the ancestors I’ve found so far was in her early 40s when she died.”

“Early 40s!?! My god,” Liesel breathes, looking up at me.

“Yeah. Not exactly inspiring.”



“What kills them?” she asks, touching one of the pages.

“Different things, but they all seem to know when they’re going to die.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, look,” I flip to the end of the book, to my mother’s chapter and hold the book toward her and then remember that it’s all in Celtic. “Oh yeah,” I say, and pull it back on my lap. “Here, I’ll read it, it’s the very last passage…

“It hangs over me like pregnant clouds, my fate all bound up in them, about to break loose. I always knew it would be this way, my mother warned me that I would sense it when my time was up, but I never imagined it like this. I don’t know what I thought – I guess that I would only feel it right before it was supposed to happen, that it would feel normal and “right”, but it’s been nearly a day now of it pressing on me. Feeling so closed in and all I can think about is how much I want to stay. I woke up in the night sure of it and it hasn’t lessened for a moment since. It’s torture. Not just the not knowing how it will come for me, but the worry that it will take some of my family with me. I’ve been pushing James and Jasper away ever since I felt it, hoping to keep them safe from whatever takes me. Of course Bonnie will be safe no matter what, there’s some small comfort in that at least.”



I stop and Liesel inhales sharply.

“Jeez. That’s intense.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of intense in here,” I say, closing the book, “But not a lot of facts. I mean I still don’t know who or what we really are…or where we come from, although the Celtic obviously points to a more specific area and maybe time period. But there’s no information about the stone.”

“What?” Liesel prompts.

“I do know that my great-grandmother, Audra, fought in World War II.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I know. It’s pretty cool. There’s lots of that stuff – these women – my ancestors – they were all so different and amazing and yet they were all so alike too. Just like me. Sometimes reading their thoughts feels like reading my own. But I’m still not learning how to beat Lola. In fact, the little I have learned about ‘the Others’ is that they’re not killable – the same way that I’m not.”