The Raven Boys (46 page)

I
t was a fine, sunny day at the very beginning of June when they buried Noah’s bones. It had taken several weeks for the police department to finish their work with evidence, and so it was the end of the school year before the funeral took place. A lot had taken place in between Whelk’s death and Noah’s funeral. Gansey had recovered his journal from police evidence and quit the rowing team. Ronan successfully scraped through his finals to Aglionby’s satisfaction and unsuccessfully repaired the apartment door lock. Adam, with probable help from Ronan, moved from Monmouth Manufacturing to a room belonging to St. Agnes Church, a subtle distance that affected both boys in different ways. Blue triumphantly welcomed the end of the school year and the beginning of more freedom to explore the ley line. Power failures plagued the town of Henrietta a total of nine times, and the phone system failed almost half as many times. Maura, Persephone, and Calla went through the attic and dismantled Neeve’s things. They’d told Blue that they still weren’t precisely sure what they’d done when they rearranged her mirrors that night.

“We’d meant to disable her,” Persephone acknowledged. “But we seem to have disappeared her instead. It’s possible she will reappear at some point.”

And slowly their lives found an equilibrium, though it didn’t seem they’d ever return to normal. The ley line was awake and Noah was all but gone. Magic was real, Glendower was real, and something was starting.

“Jane, not to be blunt, but this is a funeral,” Gansey said to Blue as she made her way across the field toward them. He and Ronan looked like groomsmen in their impeccable black suits.

Blue, lacking any black wardrobe options, had hastily stitched a few yards of cheap black lace over a green T-shirt she’d converted into a dress a few months earlier. She hissed furiously, “This was all the better I could do!”

“Like Noah cares,” Ronan said.

“Did you bring something else for later?” Gansey asked.

“I’m not an idiot. Where’s Adam?”

Gansey said, “He’s at work. He’s coming later.”

Noah’s bones were being buried in the Czerny family plot in a remote valley graveyard. His newly dug grave lay near the edge of the long, sloping graveyard on the side of a rocky hill. A tarp covered the fresh heap of dirt from grieving eyes. Noah’s family stood right next to the hole. The man and the two girls wept, but the woman stared off into the trees, dry-eyed. Blue didn’t have to be a psychic, though, to see how sad the woman was. Sad and proud.

Noah’s voice, cool and barely there, whispered in her ear. “Please say something to them.”

Blue didn’t reply, but she turned her head in the direction of his voice. She could nearly feel him, standing just behind her shoulder, breath on her neck, hand pressed anxiously to her arm.

“You know I can’t,” she replied in a low voice.

“You
have
to.”

“I would look like a crazy person. What good would it do? What could I possibly say?”

Noah’s voice was faint but desperate. His distress hummed through her.
“Please.”

Blue closed her eyes.

“Tell her I’m sorry I drank her birthday schnapps,” Noah whispered.

God, Noah!

“What are you doing?” Gansey reached out and caught her arm as she started toward the grave.

“Humiliating myself!” She tugged free. As Blue approached Noah’s family, she rehearsed ways to make herself sound less insane, but she didn’t like any of them. She’d been with her mother often enough to suspect how this would go.
Noah, only for you
… She eyed the sad, proud woman. Up close, her makeup was impeccable, her hair carefully rolled at the ends. Everything was knotted and painted and sprayed under control. All of that sadness was shoved so deep inside her that her eyes weren’t even red. Blue wasn’t fooled.

“Mrs. Czerny?”

Both of Noah’s parents’ heads turned to her. Blue self-consciously ran a hand down one of the pieces of lace. “I’m Blue Sargent. I, uh, wanted to say that I’m sorry for your loss. Also, my mother’s a psychic. I have a” — already their expressions were transforming unpleasantly — “message from your son.”

Immediately, Mrs. Czerny’s face darkened. She merely shook her head and said, quite calmly, “No, you don’t.”

“Please don’t do this,” said Mr. Czerny. It was taking all he had to be civil, which was better than she’d expected. Blue felt bad for having interrupted their private moment. “Please just go.”

Tell her
, whispered Noah.

Blue took a breath. “Mrs. Czerny, he’s sorry for drinking your birthday schnapps.”

For a moment there was silence. Mr. Czerny and Noah’s sisters looked from Blue to Noah’s mother. Noah’s father opened his mouth, and then Mrs. Czerny started to cry.

None of them noticed when Blue walked away from the grave.

Later, they dug him up. At the mouth of the access road, Ronan lounged beside his BMW with its hood ajar, acting as both roadblock and look out. Adam operated the backhoe Gansey had rented for the occasion. And Gansey transferred Noah’s bones to a duffel bag while Blue shone the flashlight over them to be certain they were all there. Adam reburied the empty casket, leaving a fresh grave identical to the one they’d begun with.

When they ran back to the BMW, giddy and breathless with their crime, Ronan told Gansey, “This will all come out and bite you in the ass, you know, when you’re running for Congress.”

“Shut up and drive, Lynch.”

They reburied his bones at the old ruined church, which was Blue’s idea.

“No one will bother them here,” she said, “And we know it’s on the ley line. And it’s holy ground.”

“Well,” said Ronan, “I hope he likes it. I’ve pulled a muscle.”

Gansey scoffed, “Doing
what
? You were standing watch.”

“Opening my hood.”

After they’d finished covering the last of the bones, they stood quietly inside the ruined walls. Blue stared at Gansey, in particular, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted down toward where they had just interred Noah. It felt like no time and all the time in the world since she’d seen his spirit walk this very path.

Gansey. That’s all there is.

She wouldn’t, she vowed, be the one to kill him.

“Can we go home? This place is so creepy.”

Euphoric, they all spun. Noah, rumpled and familiar, was framed in the arched doorway of the church, more solid than Blue remembered ever seeing him. Solid in form, anyway. He peered around the crumbled walls with a timorous expression.

“Noah!” Gansey cried gladly.

Blue hurled her arms around his neck. He looked alarmed, and then pleased, and then he pet the tufts of her hair.

“Czerny,” Ronan said, trying out the word.

“No,” Noah protested, around Blue’s arm. “I’m serious. This place creeps me the hell out. Can we go?”

Gansey’s face broke into a relieved, easy grin. “Yes, we can go home.”

“I’m still not eating pizza,” Noah said, backing out of the church with Blue.

Ronan, still in the ruins, looked over his shoulder at them. In the dim light of the flashlights, the tattooed hook that edged out above his collar looked like either a claw or a finger or part of a fleur-de-lis. It was nearly as sharp as his smile.

“I guess now would be a good time to tell you,” he said. “I took Chainsaw out of my dreams.”

At this point, I feel like I’m always thanking the usual suspects, but they must be thanked nonetheless. Everyone at Scholastic, and particularly: my editor, David Levithan, for his patience during this novel’s prolonged gestation. Dick and Ellie for their continued belief in me. Rachel C., Tracy, and Stacy for their boundless enthusiasm, no matter how bizarre an idea I toss their direction. Becky, for booze I didn’t drink but Gansey did. Cacao.

A special shout-out to my Scholastic UK people, Alyx, Alex, Hannah, and Catherine, for working very hard to get me on ley lines.

Thanks to my agent, Laura Rennert, who lets me run with scissors, and to my tireless critique partners, Tessa “Dead in a Ditch” Gratton and Brenna “This is Interesting” Yovanoff.

I’m also grateful to everyone else who read for me: Jackson Pearce, who is so very shiny; Carrie, who really does make good guacamole; Kate, first and last reader; Dad, for dangerous handguns; and Mom, for cycloliths. Thanks to Natalie, as well, who did not read but did give me really awful music that helped an incredible amount.

And, as always, I am grateful to my husband, Ed, who always makes the magic seem obvious.

MAGGIE STIEFVATER
is the #1
New York Times
bestselling author of the novels
Shiver
,
Linger
, and
Forever
. Her novel
The Scorpio Races
was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association. She is also the author of
Lament
and
Ballad
. She lives in Virginia with her husband and their two children. You can visit her online at
www.maggiestiefvater.com
.