For eighty-seven seconds.
Liz gasped. Bex stood there with her jaw on the ground. And me—I just looked at my mother, who was staring at the two of them as if her world couldn't possibly get any weirder.
When it was over, Aunt Abby finally came up for air (Mr. Solomon, I noticed, didn't do much of anything). My aunt looked at her sister, cocked a hip, and said, "Well, someone had to do it."
And that was when she walked away.
Mom and Mr. Solomon were still pretty dumbfounded, given what had just transpired and all, but Bex, Macey, Liz, and I chased after her, watching the living legend who shares my name walk through the Hall of History, past the sword that had started it all, and then start down the Grand Staircase, away from us.
In that one final second, everyone I loved was warm and safe.
"Don't be a ghost this time." My voice sliced through the empty foyer. "Go do what you have to do, but don't be a ghost, okay?"
Abby turned to me, then pulled a jacket from the bag on her shoulder. "Here. I think someone gave this to you."
I didn't look to see if my aunt's blood still stained Zach's jacket. I didn't let myself think about that night. Instead, I just took it and tried to think about why he had given it to me and nothing else.
"Abby." It was Macey's voice, and by the look on her face, she was as shocked as anyone to hear it. "I never said…I mean, you should know … I guess what I'm trying to say is…"
Abby stopped. Her good hand was on the smooth banister. Her hair fell over one shoulder as she smiled, slipped on her regulation sunglasses, and said, "I told you I'd take a bullet for you."
And then she walked away.
I stood there for a long time, watching her go, because that's all that was left to do.
Bex and Macey went into the Grand Hall for lunch. Liz walked to the library. I stood alone, telling myself that my aunt would come back someday—that the world needed her outside the walls of my school, and for the time being, I was needed inside.
That for the time being, all I could do was wait.
"Seventh grade!" Patricia Buckingham's voice carried through the foyer as the newest Gallagher Girls followed behind her, out of the Grand Hall. "We will proceed in a group to the lab for your examination. Do not enter until I have given you your—" She stopped suddenly and yelled to the girls at the front of the pack, "Emily Sampson! I saw that!"
I wondered if I had ever been that small. I saw the innocence in their eyes, and I knew somehow that I would never feel that way again. I'd seen too much—I knew too little. And for reasons I didn't even know at the time, I raced after them.
"Professor Buckingham," I called, stepping closer to the woman who was both the oldest member of the Gallagher Academy faculty and also the only member whose appearance hadn't changed at all since I was in the seventh grade.
"Yes, Cameron?" Buckingham said, and in that moment she seemed timeless. As if some great twentieth-century spymaster had carved her out of stone.
"I have a question…about history."
"History of Espionage is a course on the spring semester curriculum, Cameron. I expect you to know that." She ushered another seventh grader down the long hall. "Right now, as you can see, I am quite busy helping our newest students acclimate. Sissy!" Buckingham yelled as she pushed them along, farther from me, while the wind howled louder outside.
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "I can see that. It's just that I was wondering … about the Circle of Cavan." When she turned, her blue eyes pierced into mine.
"I need to know …" I called after her, my voice cracking under the weight of the fears that I'd been carrying for weeks. "I need to be ready."
"I'm sorry, Cameron. It's not something…I'm sorry." She took a step. The voices of the seventh graders faded away as they turned the corner—disappeared from sight.
I turned to stare out the windows, watched the first flakes of winter start to fall and blow across the grounds. In a few hours, everything would be covered, as if the earth itself were pulling on its best disguise.
"Perhaps in the spring." Buckingham's voice cut through the drafty corridor, chasing after me like a strong wind. I turned to look at her. "Yes," she said again, and for a split second—nothing more—she looked like an old woman. The hallway felt like time itself, and Patricia Buckingham and I were standing at opposite ends—her looking back on all she'd seen, me wondering what lay ahead.
Then Professor Buckingham nodded once more and said softly, "Perhaps in the spring."
I watched her disappear down that long corridor while outside the sky turned gray and the ground turned white and winter settled in.
Zach's jacket was in my arms, so I put it around my shoulders. It hung there, heavy and warm, and the cold seemed a little farther away. As I put my hands in the pockets, I felt something brush against my fingers. I pulled out a small piece of Evapopaper and studied the handwriting I'd seen twice before:
Have fun in London
-Z
And then, despite everything, I smiled and looked at the note and knew that spring would come—it always does. So I stared out that cold window, watching my breath collect on the glass, trying not to think about my life after the thaw.