“She’s a Dark one. Never know which way the wind will blow with that one. It’s like tryin’ to see where a twister’ll hit.”
“Even so. I need to know if she’s going to try to make contact with Lena.”
“Not if. When.” Amma closed her eyes again, touching the charm on the necklace she never took off. It was a disc, engraved with what looked like a heart with some kind of cross coming out from the top. The image was worn from the thousands of times Amma must have rubbed it, as she was doing now. She was whispering some sort of chant in a language I didn’t understand, but I’d heard somewhere before.
Macon paced impatiently. I shifted in the weeds, trying not to make a sound.
“I can’t get a read tonight. It’s murky. I think Uncle Abner is in a mood. I’m sure it was somethin’ you said.”
This must have been his breaking point, because Macon’s face changed, his pale skin glowing in the shadows. When he stepped forward, the sharp angles of his face became frightening in the moonlight. “Enough of these games. A Dark Caster entered my house tonight; that in itself is impossible. She arrived with your boy, Ethan, which can mean only one thing. He has power, and you have been hiding it from me.”
“Nonsense. That boy doesn’t have power any more than I have a tail.”
“You’re wrong, Amarie. Ask the Greats. Consult the bones. There is no other explanation. It had to be Ethan. Ravenwood is protected. A Dark Caster could never circumvent that sort of protection, not without some powerful form of help.”
“You’ve lost your mind. He doesn’t have any kind a power. I raised that child. Don’t you think I’d know it?”
“You’re wrong this time. You’re too close to him; it’s clouding your vision. And there is too much at stake now for errors. We both have our talents. I’m warning you, there is more to the boy than either of us realized.”
“I’ll ask the Greats. If there’s somethin’ to know they’ll be sure I know it. Don’t you forget, Melchizedek, we have to contend with both the dead and the livin’ and that’s no easy task.” She rummaged around in her pocketbook, and pulled out a dirty-looking string with a row of tiny beads on it.
“Graveyard Bone. Take it. The Greats want you to have it. Protects spirit from spirit, and dead from dead. It’s no use for us Mortal folk. Give it to your niece, Macon. It won’t hurt her, but it might keep a Dark Caster away.”
Macon took the string, holding it gingerly between two fingers, then dropping it into his handkerchief, as if he was pocketing a particularly nasty worm. “I’m obliged.”
Amma coughed.
“Please. Tell them, I’m obliged. Much.” He looked up at the moon as if he were checking his watch. And then he turned and disappeared. Dissolved into the swamp mist as if he had blown away in the breeze.
10.10
Red Sweater
I had barely made it into my bed before the sun rose, and I was tired—bone tired, as Amma would say. Now I was waiting for Link on the corner. Even though it was a sunny day, I was caught under my own personal shadow. And I was starving. I hadn’t been able to face Amma in the kitchen this morning. One look at my face would have given away everything I’d seen last night, and everything I felt, and I couldn’t risk that.
I didn’t know what to think. Amma, who I trusted more than anyone, as much as my parents, maybe more—she was holding out on me. She knew Macon, and the two of them wanted to keep Lena and me apart. It all had something to do with the locket, and Lena’s birthday. And danger.
I couldn’t piece it together, not on my own. I had to talk to Lena. It was all I could think about. So when the hearse rolled around the corner instead of the Beater, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“I guess you heard.” I slid into the seat, dumping my backpack on the floor in front of me.
“Heard what?” She smiled, almost shyly, pushing a bag across the seat. “Heard you liked doughnuts? I could hear your stomach growling all the way from Ravenwood.”
We looked at each other awkwardly. Lena looked down, embarrassed, picking a piece of lint off a soft, red, embroidered sweater that looked like something the Sisters would have in the attic somewhere. Knowing Lena, it wasn’t from the mall in Summerville.
Red? Since when did she wear red?
She wasn’t under a bad cloud; she had just come out from under one. She hadn’t heard me thinking. She didn’t know about Amma and Macon. She just wanted to see me. I guess some of what I had said last night had sunk in. Maybe she wanted to give us a chance. I smiled, opening the white paper bag.
“Hope you’re hungry. I had to fight the fat cop for them.” She pulled the hearse away from the curb.
“So you just felt like picking me up for school?” That was something new.
“Nope.” She rolled down the window, the morning breeze blowing her hair into curls. Today, it was just the wind.
“You got something better in mind?”
Her whole face lit up. “Now how could there be anything better than spending a day like this at Stonewall Jackson High?” She was happy. As she turned the wheel, I noticed her hand. No ink. No number. No birthday. She wasn’t worried about anything, not today.
120. I knew it, as if it was written in invisible ink on my own hand. One hundred and twenty days until it, whatever Macon and Amma were so afraid of, happened.
I looked out the window as we turned onto Route 9, wishing she could stay like this for just a little bit longer. I closed my eyes, running through the playbook in my mind. Pick ’n’ Roll. Picket Fences. Down the Lane. Full Court Press.
By the time we made it to Summerville, I knew where we were headed. There was only one place kids like us went in Summerville, if it wasn’t the last three rows of the Cineplex.
The hearse rolled through the dust behind the water tower at the edge of the field. “Parking? We’re parking? At the water tower? Now?” Link would never believe this.
The engine died. Our windows were down, everything was quiet, and the breeze blew into her window and out mine.
Isn’t this what people do around here?
Yeah, no. Not people like us. Not in the middle of a school day.
For once, can’t we be them? Do we always have to be us?
I like being us.
She unclicked her seatbelt and I unclicked mine, pulling her onto my lap. I could feel her, warm and happy, spreading through me.
So this is what parking is like?
She giggled, reaching over to push my hair out of my eyes.
“What’s that?” I grabbed her right arm. It was dangling from her wrist, the bracelet Amma had given Macon, last night in the swamp. My stomach clenched, and I knew Lena’s mood was about to change. I had to tell her.
“My uncle gave it to me.”
“Take it off.” I turned the string around her wrist, looking for the knot.
“What?” Her smile faded. “What are you talking about?”
“Take it off.”
“Why?” She pulled her arm away from me.
“Something happened last night.”
“What happened?”
“After I got home, I followed Amma out to Wader’s Creek, where she lives. She snuck out of our house in the middle of the night to meet someone in the swamp.”
“Who?”
“Your uncle.”
“What were they doing out there?” Her face had turned a chalky white, and I could tell the parking part of the day was over.
“They were talking about you, about us. And the locket.”
Now she was paying attention. “What about the locket?”
“It’s some kind of Dark talisman, whatever that means, and your uncle told Amma that I never buried it. They were really freaked out about it.”
“How would they know it’s a talisman?”
I was starting to get annoyed. She didn’t seem to be focusing on the right thing. “How about, how do they even know each other? Did you have any idea your uncle knew Amma?”
“No, but I don’t know everyone he knows.”
“Lena, they were talking about us. About keeping the locket away from us, and keeping us away from each other. I got the feeling they think I’m some kind of threat. Like I’m getting in the way of something. Your uncle thinks—”
“What?”
“He thinks I have some kind of power.”
She laughed out loud, which annoyed me even more. “Why would he think that?”
“Because I brought Ridley into Ravenwood. He said I’d have to have power to do that.”
She frowned. “He’s right.” That wasn’t the answer I was expecting.
“You’re kidding, right? If I had powers, don’t you think I’d know it?”
“I don’t know.”
Maybe she didn’t know, but I did. My dad was a writer and my mom had spent her days reading the journals of dead Civil War generals. I was about as far from being a Caster as you could get, unless aggravating Amma counted as a power. There was obviously some kind of loophole that had allowed Ridley to get inside. One of the wires in the Caster security system had blown a fuse.
Lena must have been thinking the same thing. “Relax. I’m sure there’s an explanation. So Macon and Amma know each other. Now we know.”
“You don’t seem very upset about this.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve been lying to us. Both of them. Meeting secretly, trying to keep us apart. Trying to get us to get rid of the locket.”
“We never asked them if they knew each other.” Why was she acting like this? Why wasn’t she upset, or angry, something?
“Why would we? Don’t you think it’s weird that your uncle is out in the swamp in the middle of the night with Amma, talking to spirits and reading chicken bones?”
“It’s weird, but I’m sure they’re just trying to protect us.”
“From what? The truth? They were talking about something else, too. They were trying to find someone, Sara something. And about how you can damn us all if you Turn.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask your uncle? See if he’ll tell you the truth for once.”
I had gone too far. “My uncle is risking his life to protect me. He’s always been there for me. He took me in when he knew I might turn into a monster in a few months.”
“What is he really protecting you from? Do you even know?”
“Myself!” she snapped. That was it. She pushed the door open and climbed off my lap, out into the field. The shade of the massive white water tower shielded us from Summerville, but the day didn’t seem so sunny anymore. Where there had been a cloudless blue sky just a few minutes ago, there were streaks of gray.
The storm was moving in. She didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t care. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why is he meeting Amma in the middle of the night to tell her we still have the locket? Why don’t they want us to have it? And more important, why don’t they want us to be together?”