A Beautiful Dark

my history lessons have served me correctly,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, “then yes. I do believe you’re right.”
    “I know that Devin doesn’t have any choice,” he said, “and I see how much that hurts him. And I know you’re stuck between two choices, and you don’t exactly have a conscious say in the matter. Your powers will take over when it really counts.
    “But I have a choice, Skye. I have the power to choose whatever I want. And there is nothing that I’ve ever wanted more.” He gulped. I could feel it beneath me.
    We were quiet for a few minutes. I leaned my head on his chest and listened to the sound of his breathing.
    “You don’t have a heartbeat,” I realized.
    “Does that bother you?” he asked.
    “No.” I thought for a minute. “As long as you can feel things and care about things.”
    “It’s a misconception that you need a heart to love,” Asher whispered into my hair.
    I looked at him, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners even though his mouth stayed so serious. He had a little dimple near the left side of his chin.
    I kissed him, and he wrapped the heavy wool blanket tighter around us as the moon rose brighter in the sky.

Chapter 34

    I usually slept late on Sundays, but something woke me up that morning. I was out of bed and halfway to the bathroom to get ready for school before I realized that what woke me wasn’t my alarm clock at all. It was sirens passing on the road. I got back into bed.
    The sunlight filtered through my curtains and sliced its way across my face, making it hard to fall back asleep. I couldn’t make my eyes stay closed even for a second. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stars I’d stuck up there as a kid looked so different in the light than they did in the dark. Now they just looked like stickers.
    I felt like a different person from the one who’d stuck them up there all those years ago. I’d changed so much, even in just a few weeks.
    Turning over in bed, I wondered if maybe Asher was right, that whatever was in me had always been there in some form. I had obviously awakened it. I now needed to learn to control it, to figure out if it was the powers of the light or the dark. I hoped that was something I could do.
    I got up and wandered down to the kitchen to make coffee, reveling in the little things that I had always loved but taken for granted: the smell of the wooden staircase, the smooth banister as my fingers glided over it, the geometric pattern that the light made as it filtered through the big plate glass windows in the open living room behind me, the feel of tile under my bare feet, the crunch of coffee grinds as I scooped them from the pouch, the earthy smell as the steam plumed from the pot, and water through the filter sounding like soda being sucked through a straw. The quiet as I poured coffee into a mug. The light clink of spoon against ceramic as I stirred in milk.
    I brought my mug back up to my room and sat in the big overstuffed armchair by the bay window, pulling my legs up underneath me.
    The light filtered in the window at a certain slant just at that moment, catching something metallic that glittered at me from my bookshelf. I stood up and walked over to it.
    It was my birthday present from Cassie and Dan—the one I’d never opened. I reached up to the top shelf and took it down. Happy Birthday, Skye! was still scrawled across the top in goopy-looking glitter glue. For some reason, looking at it now made me inexplicably sad. I took a letter opener from the mug of pens on my desk and carefully slid it through the tape that was keeping the tinfoil in place. I smiled, picturing Dan wrapping this thing, not having a clue as to what to do.
    The tinfoil fell away, and I finally saw what was inside. It was an iPod plug for my car. It was such a thoughtful present—I was the only person we knew who still listened to the radio. My heart fluttered in my chest. I knew my life would never be that simple again.
    Restless from the coffee, I went back down to the kitchen to make myself some breakfast and try to clean the house a little bit. How long had it been since Aunt Jo had left? I had completely lost track of time.
    I’d managed to pick up all the empty red cups and mop the kitchen and hallway before taking a break to make myself a bowl of cereal. I was reading the back of the box when the phone rang.
    The drive to River Springs County Hospital wasn’t one I’d ever made