Maggie Stiefvater - Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Persephone stood on the bare mountaintop, her ruffled ivory dress whipping around her legs, her masses of white-blond curls streaming behind her. She was gauzy, immaterial, something blown between these boulders and caught upon one of them. The wind was fierce up here with no trees to block it. The world below was gloriously autumnal.

Adam Parrish stood beside her with his hands shoved into the pockets of his grease-stained cargo pants. He looked tired, but his eyes were clear, better than when shed seen him last. Because Persephone was only interested in important things, she hadnt considered her own age in a long time, but it struck her as she looked at him that he was quite new. That raw expression, that youthful hunch of his shoulders, the frantic sprawl of the energy inside him.

What a good day it is for this , she thought. It was cool and overcast, with no interference from the suns force or the lunar schedule or nearby road construction.

This is the corpse road, she said, aligning her body with the invisible path. As she did, she could feel something inside her begin to hum agreeably, a sensation very much like the satisfaction that came from aligning book spines on a shelf. The ley line, Adam clarified.
She nodded serenely. Find it for yourself.
He stepped onto the line immediately, his face turning to

gaze along its length as naturally as a flower looking into the sun. It had taken Persephone rather longer to master this skill, but then, unlike her youthful pupil, she had not made any bargains with supernatural forests. She was not much for bargains. Group projects, in general, were not her thing.

His eyes fluttered, his dusty lashes resting on his cheeks. Because she was Persephone, and because it was a good day for this, she could see what he was seeing. It was not anything related to the ley line. It was a confusion of shattered figurines on the floor of a lovely mansion. An official letter printed on county stationery. A friend convulsing at his feet.

Outside of you, Persephone reminded him mildly. She herself saw so many events and possibilities along the corpse road that no single one stood out. She was a far better psychic when she had her two friends Calla and Maura with her: Calla to sort through her impressions and Maura to put them in context.

Adam seemed to have potential in this department, though he was too new to replace Maura no, that was a ridiculous way to put it, Persephone told herself, you dont replace friends. She struggled to think of the proper word. Not replace.

Rescue. Yes, of course, that was what you did with your friends. Did Maura need rescuing?
If Maura had been there on the mountain, Persephone might have been able to say. But if Maura had been there on the mountain, Persephone wouldnt need to say.
She sighed deeply.
She sighed a lot.
I see things. Adams eyebrows formed either concentration or uncertainty. More than one thing. Its like like the animals at the Barns. I see things... sleeping.
Dreaming, Persephone agreed.
As soon as hed called her attention to the sleepers, they came to the forefront of her consciousness.
Three, she added.
Three what?
Three in particular, she murmured. To be woken. Oh, no. No. Two. One should not be woken.
Persephone had never been very handy with the concept of right and wrong. But in this case, the third sleeper was definitely wrong .
For a few minutes, she and the boy Adam , she reminded herself; it was so difficult to find birth-given names important both stood there, feeling the ley line course beneath their feet. Persephone gently and unsuccessfully attempted to find the bright strand of Mauras existence in the tangled threads of energy.
Beside her, Adam was once again retreating inside himself, most interested, as always, in the thing that remained unknowable to him: his own mind.
Outside, Persephone reminded him.
Adam didnt open his eyes. His words were so soft that the wind nearly destroyed them. I dont mean to be rude, maam, but I dont know why this is worth learning.
Persephone wasnt sure how he thought such a reasonable question could be impolite. When you were a baby, what made learning to talk worth it?
Who am I learning to communicate with?
She was pleased that he immediately grasped the concept. She replied, Everything.

Blue didnt answer. She sorted through papers by the window, head tilted in consideration. From this angle, she looked exactly like her mother, compact and athletic and hard to tip over. She was weirdly lovely, even though she had unevenly clipped her dark hair all over her head and wore a shirt shed attacked with a rototiller. Or perhaps because of these things. When had she gotten so pretty and so grown-up? Without getting any taller? This was probably what happened to girls when they lived on only yogurt.

Blue asked, Have you seen these? Theyre really good. Calla wasnt sure what Blue was looking at, but she believed her. Blue wasnt the sort of girl to hand out false compliments, even to her mother. Although she was kind, she wasnt nice . Good thing, too, because nice people made Calla irritable .
Your mother is a woman of many talents, she growled. The mess was taking years from her life. Calla liked things you could rely on: filing systems, months with thirty-one days, purple lipstick. Maura liked chaos. Such as aggravating me.
Calla picked up Mauras pillow. Sensations assaulted her. She felt all at once where the pillow had been procured, how Maura balled it up under her neck, the number of tears applied to the pillowcase, and the contents of five years of dreams. The psychic hotline rang in the room next door. Callas concentration fluttered away.
Damn it, she said.
She was psychometric just her touch could often reveal both an objects origin and the owners feelings. But this pillow had been handled so often that it contained too many memories to sort through. If Maura had been there, Calla would have been able to easily isolate the useful ones.
But if Maura had been there, she wouldnt have needed to.
Blue, get over here.
Blue theatrically clapped a hand on Callas shoulder. Immediately, her natural amplifying talent sharpened Callas ability. She saw Mauras hopefulness keeping her awake. Felt the impression of Mr. Grays shadowed jaw on the pillowcase. Saw the contents of Mauras final dream: a mirrored lake and a distantly familiar man.
Calla sneered.
Artemus. Mauras long-gone ex-lover.
Anything? Blue asked.
Nothing useful .
Blue snatched away her hand then, aware that Calla was able to pick up as many feelings from girls as from pillows. But Calla didnt need psychic powers to guess that Blues sensible, pleasant expression was at odds with the fire that burned furiously inside. School was imminent, love was the in the air, and Blues mother had vanished on some mysterious personal quest more than a month before, leaving behind her newly acquired assassin beau. Blue was a hurricane lurking just offshore.
Ah, Maura! Callas stomach twisted. I told you not to go.

Touch that. Blue pointed to a large black scrying bowl. It sat askew on the rug, untouched since Maura had used it.
Calla didnt think much of scrying, or mirror-magic, or anything that had to do with plumbing the mysterious ether of space and time in order to actually muck about on the other side of it. Technically, scrying was not dangerous; it was just meditating into a mirrored surface. But practically, it often involved freeing the soul from the body. And the soul was a fragile traveler.