Beautiful Creatures

9.14

The Real Boo Radley

Sunday night, I reread The Catcher in the Rye until I felt tired enough to fall asleep. Only I never got tired enough. And I couldn’t read, because reading didn’t feel the same. I couldn’t disappear into the character of Holden Caulfield, because I couldn’t get lost in the story, not the way you need to be, to become somebody else.

I wasn’t alone in my head. It was full of lockets, and fires, and voices. People I didn’t know, and visions I didn’t understand.

And something else. I put the book down and slid my hands behind my head.

Lena? You’re there, aren’t you?

I stared up at the blue ceiling.

It’s no use. I know you’re there. Here. Whatever.

I waited, until I heard it. Her voice, unfolding like a tiny, bright memory in the darkest, furthest corner of my mind.

No. Not exactly.

You are. You have been, all night.

Ethan, I’m sleeping. I mean, I was.

I smiled to myself.

No you weren’t. You were listening.

I was not.

Just admit it, you were.

Guys. You think everything is about you. Maybe I just like that book.

Can you just drop in whenever you want, now?

There was a long pause.

Not usually, but tonight it just sort of happened. I still don’t understand how it works.

Maybe we can ask someone.

Like who?

I don’t know. Guess we’ll have to figure it out on our own. Just like everything else.

Another pause. I tried not to wonder if the “we” spooked her, in case she could hear me. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was the other thing; she didn’t want me to find out anything, if it had to do with her.

Don’t try.

I smiled, and felt my eyes closing. I could barely keep them open.

I’m trying.

I turned out the light.

Good night, Lena.

Good night, Ethan.

I hoped she couldn’t read all my thoughts.

Basketball. I was definitely going to have to spend more time thinking about basketball. And as I thought about the playbook in my mind, I felt my eyes closing, myself sinking, losing control….

Drowning.

I was drowning.

Thrashing in the green water, waves crashing over my head. My feet kicked for the muddy bottom of a river, maybe the Santee, but there was nothing. I could see some kind of light, skimming the river, but I couldn’t get to the surface.

I was going down.

“It’s my birthday, Ethan. It’s happening.”

I reached out. She grabbed at my hand, and I twisted to catch it, but she drifted away, and I couldn’t hold on anymore. I tried to scream as I watched her pale little hand drift down toward the darkness, but my mouth filled with water and I couldn’t make a sound. I could feel myself choking. I was starting to black out.

“I tried to warn you. You have to let me go!”

I sat up in bed. My T-shirt was soaking wet. My pillow was wet. My hair was wet. And my room was sticky and humid. I guessed I’d left the window open again.

“Ethan Wate! Are you listenin’ to me? You better get yourself down here yesterday, or you won’t be havin’ breakfast again this week.”

I was in my seat just as three eggs over-easy slid onto my plate of biscuits and gravy. “Good morning, Amma.”

She turned her back to me without so much as a look. “Now you know there’s nothin’ good about it. Don’t spit down my back and tell me it’s rainin’.” She was still aggravated with me, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I had walked out of class or brought the locket home. Probably both. I couldn’t blame her, though; I didn’t usually get in trouble at school. This was all new territory.

“Amma, I’m sorry about leaving class on Friday. It’s not gonna happen again. Everything’ll be back to normal.”

Her face softened, just a little, and she sat down across from me. “Don’t think so. We all make our choices, and those choices have consequences. I expect you’ll have some hell to pay for yours when you get to school. Maybe you’ll start listenin’ to me now. Stay away from that Lena Duchannes, and that house.”

It wasn’t like Amma to side with everyone else in town, considering that was usually the wrong side of things. I could tell she was worried by the way she kept stirring her coffee, long after the milk had disappeared. Amma always worried about me and I loved her for it, but something felt different since I showed her the locket. I walked around the table and gave her a hug. She smelled like pencil lead and Red Hots, like always.

She shook her head, muttering, “Don’t want to hear about any green eyes and black hair. It’s fixin’ to come up a bad cloud today, so you be careful.”

Amma wasn’t just going dark. Today she was going pitch-black. I could feel it coming up a bad cloud, myself.

Link pulled up in the Beater blasting some terrible tunes, as usual. He turned down the music when I slid into the seat, which was always a bad sign.

“We got trubs.”

“I know.”

“Jackson’s got itself a regular lynch mob this mornin’.”

“What’d you hear?”

“Been goin’ on since Friday night. I heard my mom talkin’, and I tried to call you. Where were you, anyway?”

“I was pretending to bury a hexed locket over at Greenbrier, so Amma would let me back in the house.”

Link laughed. He was used to talk about hexes and charms and the evil eye, where Amma was concerned. “At least she’s not makin’ you wear that stinkin’ bag a onion mess around your neck. That was nasty.”

“It was garlic. For my mom’s funeral.”

“It was nasty.”

The thing about Link was, we’d been friends since the day he gave me that Twinkie on the bus, and after that he didn’t care much what I said or did. Even back then, you knew who your friends were. That’s what Gatlin was like. Everything had already happened, ten years ago. For our parents, everything had already happened twenty or thirty years ago. And for the town itself, it seemed like nothing had happened for more than a hundred years. Nothing of consequence, that is.

I had a feeling that was all about to change.

My mom would have said it was time. If there was one thing my mom liked, it was change. Unlike Link’s mom. Mrs. Lincoln was a rage-aholic, on a mission, with a network—a dangerous combination. When we were in the eighth grade, Mrs. Lincoln ripped the cable box out of the wall because she found Link watching a Harry Potter movie, a series she had campaigned to ban from the Gatlin County Library because she thought it promoted witchcraft. Luckily, Link managed to sneak over to Earl Petty’s house to watch MTV, or Who Shot Lincoln would never have become Jackson High’s premier—and by premier, I mean only—rock band.

I never understood Mrs. Lincoln. When my mom was alive, she would roll her eyes and say, “Link may be your best friend, but don’t expect me to join the DAR and start wearing a hoop skirt for reenactments.” Then we’d both crack up, imagining my mom, who walked miles of muddy battlefields looking for old shell casings, who cut her own hair with garden scissors, as a member of the DAR, organizing bake sales and telling everyone how to decorate their houses.

Mrs. Lincoln was easy to picture in the DAR. She was the Recording Secretary, and even I knew that. She was on the Board with Savannah Snow’s and Emily Asher’s mothers, while my mom spent most of her time holed up in the library looking at microfiche.

Had spent.

Link was still talking and soon I’d heard enough to start listening. “My mom, Emily’s mom, Savannah’s… they’ve been burnin’ up the phone lines, last couple a nights. Overheard my mom talkin’ about the window breakin’ in English and how she heard Old Man Ravenwood’s niece had blood on her hands.”

He swerved around the corner, without even taking a breath. “And about how your girlfriend just got outta a mental institution in Virginia, and how she’s an orphan, and has bi schizo-manic somethin’.”

“She’s not my girlfriend. We’re just friends,” I said automatically.

“Shut up. You’re so whipped I should buy you a saddle.” Which he would’ve said about any girl I talked to, talked about, or even looked at in the hall.

“She’s not. Nothing’s happened. We just hang out.”

“You’re so full a crap, you could pass for a toilet. You like her, Wate. Admit it.” Link wasn’t big on subtleties, and I don’t think he could imagine hanging out with a girl for any reason other than maybe she played lead guitar, except for the obvious ones.

“I’m not saying I don’t like her. We’re just friends.” Which was the truth, actually, whether or not I wanted it to be. But that was a different question. Either way, I must have smiled a little. Wrong move.

Link pretended to vomit into his lap and swerved, narrowly missing a truck. But he was just messing around. Link didn’t care who I liked, as long as it gave him something to hassle me about. “Well? Is it true? Did she?”

“Did she what?”

“You know. Fall outta the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down?”

“A window broke, that’s all that happened. It’s not a mystery.”

“Mrs. Asher’s sayin’ she punched it out, or threw somethin’ at it.”

“That’s funny, seeing how Mrs. Asher isn’t in my English class, last time I checked.”

“Yeah well, my mom isn’t either, but she told me she was comin’ by school today.”

“Great. Save her a seat at our lunch table.”

“Maybe she’s done this at all her schools, and that’s why she was in some kinda institution.” Link was serious, which meant he’d overheard a whole lot of something since the window incident.

For a second, I remembered what Lena had said about her life. Complicated. Maybe this was one of those complications, or just one of the twenty-six thousand other things she couldn’t talk about. What if all the Emily Ashers of the world were right? What if I had taken the wrong side, after all?

“Be careful, man. Could be she’s got her own place over in Nutsville.”

“If you really believe that, you’re an idiot.”

We pulled into the school parking lot without speaking. I was annoyed, even though I knew Link was just trying to look out for me. But I couldn’t help it. Everything felt different today. I got out and slammed the car door.

Link called after me. “I’m worried about you, dude. You’ve been actin’ crazy.”

“What, are you and me a couple now? Maybe you should spend a little more time worrying about why you can’t even get a girl to talk to you, crazy or not.”

He got out of the car and looked up at the administration building. “Either way, maybe you better tell your ‘friend,’ whatever that means, to be careful today. Look.”

Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Asher were talking to Principal Harper on the front steps. Emily was huddled next to her mother, trying to look pathetic. Mrs. Lincoln was lecturing Principal Harper, who was nodding as if he was memorizing every word. Principal Harper may have been the one running Jackson High, but he knew who ran the town. He was looking at two of them.

When Link’s mom finished, Emily dove into a particularly animated version of the window-shattering incident. Mrs. Lincoln reached out and put her hand on Emily’s shoulder, sympathetic. Principal Harper just shook his head.

It was a bad cloud day, all right.

Lena was sitting in the hearse, writing in her beat-up notebook. The engine was idling. I knocked on the window and she jumped. She looked back toward the administration building. She had seen the mothers, too.

I motioned for her to open the door, but she shook her head. I walked around to the passenger side. The doors were locked, but she wasn’t going to get rid of me that easily. I sat down on the hood of her car and dropped my backpack on the gravel next to me. I wasn’t going anywhere.

What are you doing?

Waiting.

It’s gonna be a long wait.

I’ve got time.

She stared at me through the windshield. I heard the doors unlock. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re crazy?” She walked around to where I was sitting on the hood, her arms folded, like Amma ready to scold.

“Not as crazy as you, I hear.”

She had her hair tied back with a silky black scarf that had conspicuously bright pink cherry blossoms scattered across it. I could imagine her staring at herself in the mirror, feeling like she was going to her own funeral, and tying it on to cheer herself up. A long black, I don’t know, a cross between a T-shirt and a dress, hung over her jeans and black Converse. She frowned and looked over at the administration building. The mothers were probably sitting in Principal Harper’s office right now.

“Can you hear them?”

She shook her head. “It’s not like I can read people’s minds, Ethan.”

“You can read mine.”

“Not really.”

“What about last night?”

“I told you, I don’t know why it happens. We just seem to—connect.” Even the word seemed hard for her to say this morning. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. “It’s never been like this with anyone before.”

I wanted to tell her I knew how she felt. I wanted to tell her when we were together like that in our minds, even if our bodies were a million miles away, I felt closer to her than I’d ever felt to anyone.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think it. I thought about the basketball playbook, the cafeteria menu, the green pea-soup-colored hallway I was about to walk down. Anything else. Instead, I cocked my head to the side. “Yeah. Girls say that to me all the time.” Idiot. The more nervous I got, the worse my jokes were.

She smiled, a wobbly, crooked smile. “Don’t try to cheer me up. It’s not going to work.” But it was.

I looked back at the front steps. “If you want to know what they’re saying, I can tell you.”

She looked at me, skeptically.

“How?”

“This is Gatlin. There’s nothing even close to a secret here.”

“How bad is it?” She looked away. “Do they think I’m crazy?”

“Pretty much.”

“A danger to the school?”

“Probably. We don’t take kindly to strangers around here. And it doesn’t get much stranger than Macon Ravenwood, no offense.” I smiled at her.

The first bell rang. She grabbed my sleeve, anxious. “Last night. I had a dream. Did you—”

I nodded. She didn’t have to say it. I knew she had been there in the dream with me. “Even had wet hair.”

“Me, too.” She held out her arm. There was a mark on her wrist, where I had tried to hold on. Before she had sunk down into the darkness. I hoped she hadn’t seen that part. Judging from her face, I was pretty sure she had. “I’m sorry, Lena.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I wish I knew why the dreams are so real.”

“I tried to warn you. You should stay away from me.”

“Whatever. I’ll consider myself warned.” Somehow I knew I couldn’t do that—stay away from her. Even though I was about to walk into school and face a huge load of crap, I didn’t care. It felt good to have someone I could talk to, without editing everything I said. And I could talk to Lena; at Greenbrier it felt like I could’ve sat there in the weeds and talked to her for days. Longer. As long as she was there to talk to.

“What is it about your birthday? Why did you say you might not be here after that?”

She quickly changed the subject. “What about the locket? Did you see what I saw? The burning? The other vision?”

“Yeah. I was sitting in the middle of church and almost fell out of the pew. But I found out some things from the Sisters. The initials ECW, they stand for Ethan Carter Wate. He was my great-great-great-great-uncle, and my three crazy aunts say I was named after him.”

“Then why didn’t you recognize the initials on the locket?”

“That’s the strange part. I’d never heard of him, and he’s conveniently missing from the family tree at my house.”

“What about GKD? It’s Genevieve, right?”

“They didn’t seem to know, but it has to be. She’s the one in the visions, and the D must stand for Duchannes. I was gonna ask Amma, but when I showed her the locket her eyes almost fell out of her head. Like it was triple hexed, soaked in a bucket of voodoo, and wrapped in a curse for good measure. And my dad’s study is off-limits, where he keeps all my mom’s old books about Gatlin and the War.” I was rambling. “You could talk to your uncle.”

“My uncle won’t know anything. Where’s the locket now?”

“In my pocket, wrapped in a pouch full of powder Amma dumped all over it when she saw it. She thinks I took it back to Greenbrier and buried it.”

“She must hate me.”

“No more than any of my girl, you know, friends. I mean, friends who are girls.” I couldn’t believe how stupid I sounded. “I think we’d better get to class before we get in even more trouble.”

“Actually, I was thinking about going home. I know I’m going to have to deal with them eventually, but I’d like to live in denial for one more day.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?”

She laughed. “With my uncle, the infamous Macon Ravenwood, who thinks school is a waste of time and the good citizens of Gatlin are to be avoided at all costs? He’ll be thrilled.”

“Then why do you even go?” I was pretty sure Link would never show up at school again if his mom wasn’t chasing him out the door every morning.

She twisted one of the charms on her necklace, a seven-pointed star. “I guess I thought it would be different here. Maybe I could make some friends, join the newspaper or something. I don’t know.”

“Our newspaper? The Jackson Stonewaller?”

“I tried to join the newspaper at my old school, but they said all the staff positions were filled, even though they never had enough writers to get the paper out on time.” She looked away, embarrassed. “I should get going.”

I opened the door for her. “I think you should talk to your uncle about the locket. He might know more than you think.”

“Trust me, he doesn’t.” I slammed the door. As much as I wanted her to stay, a part of me was relieved she was going home. I was going to have enough to deal with today.

“Do you want me to turn that in for you?” I pointed at the notebook lying on the passenger seat.

“No, it’s not homework.” She flipped open the glove compartment and shoved the notebook inside. “It’s nothing.” Nothing she was going to tell me about, anyway.

“You’d better go before Fatty starts scouting the lot.” She started the car before I could say anything else, and waved as she pulled away from the curb.

I heard a bark. I turned to see the enormous black dog from Ravenwood, only a few feet away, and who it was barking at.

Mrs. Lincoln smiled at me. The dog growled, the hair along its back standing on end. Mrs. Lincoln looked down at it with such revulsion, you would’ve thought she was looking at Macon Ravenwood himself. In a fight, I wasn’t sure which one of them would come out on top.

“Wild dogs carry rabies. Someone should notify the county.” Yeah, someone.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Who was that I just saw drivin’ off in that strange black car? You seemed to be havin’ quite a conversation.” She already knew the answer. It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation.

“Ma’am.”

“Speakin’ a strange, Principal Harper was just tellin’ me he’s plannin’ on offerin’ that Ravenwood girl an occupational transfer. She can take her pick, any school in three counties. As long as it’s not Jackson.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even look at her.

“It’s our responsibility, Ethan. Principal Harper’s, mine—every parent in Gatlin’s. We have to be sure to keep the young people in this town outta harm’s way. And away from the wrong sorta people.” Which meant anyone who wasn’t like her.

She reached out her hand and touched me on the shoulder, just as she had done to Emily, not ten minutes ago. “I’m sure you understand my meanin’. After all, you’re one of us. Your daddy was born here and your mamma was buried here. You belong here. Not everyone does.”

I stared back at her. She was in her van before I could say another word.

This time, Mrs. Lincoln was after more than burning a few books.

Once I got to class, the day became abnormally normal, weirdly normal. I didn’t see any more parents, though I suspected they were there loitering around the office. At lunch, I ate three bowls of chocolate pudding with the guys, as usual, though it was clear what and who we weren’t talking about. Even the sight of Emily madly texting all through English and chemistry seemed like some kind of reassuring universal truth. Except for the feeling that I knew what, or rather who, she was texting about. Like I said, abnormally normal.

Until Link dropped me off after basketball practice and I decided to do something completely insane.

Amma was standing on the front porch—a sure sign of trouble. “Did you see her?” I should’ve expected this.

“She wasn’t in school today.” Technically that was true.

“Maybe that’s for the best. Trouble follows that girl around like Macon Ravenwood’s dog. I don’t want it followin’ you into this house.”

“I’m going to take a shower. Will dinner be ready soon? Link and I have a project to do tonight.” I called from the stairs, trying to sound normal.

“Project? What kinda project?”

“History.”

“Where are you goin’ and when are you fixin’ to get back?”

I let the bathroom door slam before I answered that one. I had a plan, but I needed a story, and it had to be good.

Ten minutes later, sitting at the kitchen table, I had it. It wasn’t airtight, but it was the best I could do without a little time. Now I just had to pull it off. I wasn’t the best liar, and Amma was no fool. “Link is picking me up after dinner and we’re gonna be at the library until it closes. I think it’s sometime around nine or ten.” I glopped Carolina Gold onto my pulled pork. Carolina Gold, a sticky mess of mustard barbeque sauce, was the one thing Gatlin County was famous for that had nothing to do with the Civil War.

“The library?”

Lying to Amma always made me nervous, so I tried not to do it that often. And tonight I was really feeling it, mostly in my stomach. The last thing I wanted to do was eat three plates of pulled pork, but I had no choice. She knew exactly how much I could put away. Two plates, and I would rouse suspicion. One plate, and she would send me to my room with a thermometer and ginger ale. I nodded and set to work clearing my second plate.

“You haven’t set foot in the library since…”

“I know.” Since my mom died.

The library was home away from home to my mom, and my family. We had spent every Sunday afternoon there since I was a little boy, wandering around the stacks, pulling out every book with a picture of a pirate ship, a knight, a soldier, or an astronaut. My mom used to say, “This is my church, Ethan. This is how we keep the Sabbath holy in our family.”

The Gatlin County head librarian, Marian Ashcroft, was my mom’s oldest friend, the second smartest historian in Gatlin next to my mom, and until last year, her research partner. They had been grad students together at Duke, and when Marian finished her PhD in African-American studies, she followed my mom down to Gatlin to finish their first book together. They were halfway through their fifth book before the accident.

I hadn’t set foot in the library since then, and I still wasn’t ready. But I also knew there was no way Amma would stop me from going there. She wouldn’t even call to check up on me. Marian Ashcroft was family. And Amma, who had loved my mom as much as Marian did, respected nothing more than family.

“Well, you mind your manners and don’t raise your voice. You know what your mamma used to say. Any book is a Good Book, and wherever they keep the Good Book safe is also the House a the Lord.” Like I said, my mom would have never made it in the DAR.

Link honked. He was giving me a ride on his way to band practice. I fled the kitchen, feeling so guilty I had to fight the impulse to fling myself into Amma’s arms and confess everything, like I was six years old again and had eaten all the dry Jell-O mix out of the pantry. Maybe Amma was right. Maybe I had picked a hole in the sky and the universe was all about to fall in on me.

As I stepped up to the door of Ravenwood, my hand tightened around the glossy blue folder, my excuse for showing up at Lena’s house uninvited. I was dropping by to give her the English assignment she’d missed today—that’s what I planned to say, anyway. It had sounded convincing, in my head, when I was standing on my own porch. But now that I was on the porch at Ravenwood, I wasn’t so sure.

I wasn’t usually the kind of guy who would do something like this, but it was obvious there was no way Lena was ever going to invite me over on her own. And I had a feeling her uncle could help us, that he might know something.

Or maybe it was the other thing. I wanted to see her. It had been a long, dull day at Jackson without Hurricane Lena, and I was starting to wonder how I ever got through eight periods without all the trouble she caused me. Without all the trouble she made me want to cause myself.

I could see light flooding from the vine-covered windows. I heard the sounds of music in the background, old Savannah songs, from that Georgian songwriter my mom had loved. “In the cool cool cool of the evening…”

I heard barking from the other side of the door before I even knocked, and within seconds the door swung open. Lena was standing there in her bare feet, and she looked different—dressed up, in a black dress with little birds embroidered on it, like she was going out to have dinner at a fancy restaurant. I looked more like I was headed to the Dar-ee Keen in my holey Atari T-shirt and jeans. She stepped out onto the veranda, pulling the door shut behind her. “Ethan, what are you doing here?”

I held up the folder, lamely. “I brought your homework.”

“I can’t believe you just showed up here. I told you my uncle doesn’t like strangers.” She was already pushing me down the stairs. “You have to go. Now.”

“I just thought we could talk to him.”

Behind us, I heard the awkward clearing of a throat. I looked up to see Macon Ravenwood’s dog, and beyond him, Macon Ravenwood himself. I tried not to look surprised, but I’m pretty sure it gave me away when I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Well, that’s one I don’t hear often. And I do hate to disappoint, as I am nothing if not a Southern gentleman.” He spoke in a measured Southern drawl, but with perfect enunciation. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Wate.”

I couldn’t believe I was standing in front of him. The mysterious Macon Ravenwood. Only, I really had been expecting Boo Radley—some guy trudging around the house in overalls, mumbling in some kind of monosyllabic language like a Neanderthal, maybe even drooling a bit around the edges of his mouth.

This was no Boo Radley. This was more of an Atticus Finch.

Macon Ravenwood was dressed impeccably, as if it was, I don’t know, 1942. His crisp white dress shirt was fastened with old-fashioned silver studs, instead of buttons. His black dinner jacket was spotless, perfectly creased. His eyes were dark and gleaming; they looked almost black. They were clouded over, tinted, like the glass of the hearse windows Lena drove around town. There was no seeing into those eyes, no reflection. They stood out from his pale face, which was as white as snow, white as marble, white as, well, you’d expect from the town shut-in. His hair was salt and pepper, gray near his face, as black as Lena’s on the top.

He could have been some kind of American movie star, from before they invented Technicolor, or maybe royalty, from some small country nobody had ever heard of around here. But Macon Ravenwood, he was from these parts. That was the confusing thing. Old Man Ravenwood was the boogeyman of Gatlin, a story I’d heard since kindergarten. Only now he seemed like he belonged here less than I did.

He snapped shut the book he was holding, never taking his eyes off me. He was looking at me, but it was almost like he was looking through me, searching for something. Maybe the guy had x-ray vision. Given the past week, anything was possible.

My heart was beating so loudly I was sure he could hear it. Macon Ravenwood had me rattled and he knew it. Neither one of us smiled. His dog stood tense and rigid at his side, as if waiting for the command to attack.

“Where are my manners? Do come in, Mr. Wate. We were just about to sit down to dinner. You simply must join us. Dinner is always quite the affair, here at Ravenwood.”

I looked at Lena, hoping for some direction.

Tell him you don’t want to stay.

Trust me, I don’t.

“No, that’s okay, sir. I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to drop off Lena’s homework.” I held the shiny blue folder up for the second time.

“Nonsense, you must stay. We’ll enjoy a few Cubans in the conservatory after dinner, or are you more of a Cigarillo man? Unless, of course, you’re uncomfortable coming in, in which case, I completely understand.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

Lena slipped her arm around his waist, and I could see his face change instantly. Like the sun breaking through the clouds on a gray day. “Uncle M, don’t tease Ethan. He’s the only friend I have here, and if you scare him away I’ll have to go live with Aunt Del, and then you’ll have no one left to torture.”

“I’ll still have Boo.” The dog looked up at Macon, quizzically.

“I’ll take him with me. It’s me he follows around town, not you.”

I had to ask. “Boo? Is the dog’s name Boo Radley?”

Macon cracked the smallest of smiles. “Better him than me.” He threw back his head and laughed, which startled me, since there was no way I could have imagined his features composing themselves into even so much as a smile. He flung open the door behind him. “Really, Mr. Wate, please join us. I so love company, and it’s been ages since Ravenwood has had the pleasure of hosting a guest from our own delicious little Gatlin County.”

Lena smiled awkwardly, “Don’t be a snob, Uncle M. It’s not their fault you never speak to any of them.”

“And it’s not my fault that I have a penchant for good breeding, reasonable intelligence, and passable personal hygiene, not necessarily in that order.”

“Ignore him. He’s in a mood.” Lena looked apologetic.

“Let me guess. Does it have something to do with Principal Harper?”

Lena nodded. “The school called. While the incident is being investigated, I’m on probation.” She rolled her eyes. “One more ‘infraction’ and they’ll suspend me.”

Macon laughed dismissively, as if we were talking about something completely inconsequential. “Probation? How amusing. Probation would imply a source of authority.” He pushed us both into the hall in front of him. “An overweight high school principal who barely finished college, and a pack of angry housewives with pedigrees that couldn’t rival Boo Radley’s, hardly qualify.”

I stepped over the threshold and stopped dead in my tracks. The entry hall was soaring and grand, not the suburban model home I had stepped into just days ago. A monstrously huge oil painting, a portrait of a terrifyingly beautiful woman with glowing gold eyes, hung over the stairs, which weren’t contemporary anymore, but a classic flying staircase seemingly supported only by the air itself. Scarlett O’Hara could have swept down them in a hoop skirt and she wouldn’t have looked a bit out of place. Tiered crystal chandeliers were dripping from the ceiling. The hall was thick with clusters of antique Victorian furniture, small groupings of intricately embroidered chairs, marble tabletops, and graceful ferns. A candle glowed from every surface. Tall, shuttered doors were thrown open; the breeze carried the scent of gardenias, which were arranged in tall silver vases, artfully placed on the tabletops.

For a second, I almost thought I was back in one of the visions, except the locket was safely wrapped in the handkerchief in my pocket. I knew, because I checked. And that creepy dog was watching me from the stairs.

But it didn’t make sense. Ravenwood had transformed into something entirely different since the last time I was there. It looked impossible, like I had stepped back in history. Even if it wasn’t real, I wished my mom could have seen it. She would have loved this place. Only now it felt real, and I knew this was the way the great house looked, most of the time. It felt like Lena, like the walled garden, like Greenbrier.

Why didn’t it look like this before?

What are you talking about?

I think you know.

Macon walked in front of us. We turned a corner, into what was the cozy sitting room, last week. Now it was a grand ballroom, with a long claw-footed table set for three, as if he was expecting me.

The piano continued to play itself in the corner. I guessed it was one of those mechanical ones. The scene was eerie, as if the room should have been full of the tinkling of glasses, and laughter. Ravenwood was throwing the party of the year, but I was the only guest.

Macon was still talking. Everything he said echoed off of the giant frescoed walls and vaulted, carved ceilings. “I suppose I am a snob. I loathe towns. I loathe townspeople. They have small minds and giant backsides. Which is to say, what they lack in interiors they make up in posteriors. They’re junk food. Fatty, but ultimately, terribly unsatisfying.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile.

“So why don’t you just move?” I felt a surge of annoyance that brought me back to reality, whatever reality I was currently in. It was one thing for me to make fun of Gatlin. It was different coming from Macon Ravenwood. It came from a different place.

“Don’t be absurd. Ravenwood is my home, not Gatlin.” He spat out the word like it was toxic. “When I pass on from the binds of this life, I will have to find someone to care for Ravenwood in my place, since I have no children. It’s always been my great and terrible purpose, to keep Ravenwood alive. I like to think of myself as the curator of a living museum.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Uncle M.”

“Don’t be so diplomatic, Lena. Why you want to interact with those unenlightened townsfolk, I’ll never understand.”

The guy has a point.

Are you saying you don’t want me to come to school?

No—I just meant—

Macon looked at me. “Present company excluded, of course.”

The more he spoke, the more curious I was. Who knew that Old Man Ravenwood would be the third-smartest person in town, after my mom and Marian Ashcroft? Or maybe the fourth, depending on if my father ever showed his face again.

I tried to see the name of the book Macon was holding. “What is that, Shakespeare?”

“Betty Crocker, a fascinating woman. I was trying to recall what it was that the local town constituents considered an evening meal. I was in the mood for a regional recipe this evening. I decided on pulled pork.” More pulled pork. I felt sick just thinking about it.

Macon pulled out Lena’s chair with a flourish. “Speaking of hospitality, Lena, your cousins are coming out for the Gathering Days. Let’s remember to tell House and Kitchen we will be five more.”

Lena looked irritated. “I will tell the kitchen staff and the house keepers, if that’s what you mean, Uncle M.”

“What are the Gathering Days?”

“My family is so weird. The Gathering is just an old harvest festival, like an early Thanksgiving. Just forget about it.” I never knew anyone visited Ravenwood, family or otherwise. I’d never seen a single car take that turn at the fork in the road.

Macon seemed amused. “As you wish. Speaking of Kitchen, I am absolutely ravenous. I’ll go see what she has whipped up for us.” Even as he spoke, I could hear the pots and pans banging in some faraway room off the ballroom.

“Don’t go overboard, Uncle M. Please.”

I watched Macon Ravenwood disappear through a salon, and then he was gone. I could still hear the clip of his dress shoes on the polished floors. This house was ridiculous. It made the White House look like a backwoods shack.

“Lena, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did he know to set a place for me?”

“He must have done it when he saw us on the porch.”

“What about this place? I was in your house, the day we found the locket. It didn’t look anything like this.”

Tell me. You can trust me.

She played with the hem of her dress. Stubborn. “My uncle is into antiques. The house changes all the time. Does it really matter?”

Whatever was going on, she wasn’t going to tell me about it right now. “Okay, then. Do you mind if I look around?” She frowned, but didn’t say anything. I got up from the table, and walked over to the next salon. It was set up like a small study, with settees, a fireplace, and a few small writing tables. Boo Radley was lying in front of the fire. He started to growl the moment I set foot in the room.

“Nice doggy.” He growled louder. I backed up out of the room. He stopped growling and put his head down on the hearth.

Lying on the nearest writing table was a package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. I picked it up. Boo Radley began to growl again. It was stamped Gatlin County Library. I knew the stamp. My mom had gotten hundreds of packages like this one. Only Marian Ashcroft would bother to wrap a book like that.

“You have an interest in libraries, Mr. Wate? Do you know Marian Ashcroft?” Macon appeared next to me, taking the parcel out of my hand and eyeing it with delight.

“Yes, sir. Marian, Dr. Ashcroft, she was my mom’s best friend. They worked together.”

Macon’s eyes flickered, a momentary brightness, then nothing. It passed. “Of course. How incredibly dull-witted of me. Ethan Wate. I knew your mother.”

I froze. How could Macon Ravenwood have known my mother?

A strange expression passed over his face, like he was recalling something he’d forgotten. “Only through her work, of course. I’ve read everything she’s ever written. In fact, if you look closely at the footnotes for Plantations & Plantings: A Garden Divided, you will see that several of the primary sources for their study came from my personal collection. Your mother was brilliant, a great loss.”

I managed a smile. “Thanks.”

“I’d be honored to show you my library, naturally. It would be a great pleasure to share my collection with the only son of Lila Evers.”

I looked at him, struck by the sound of my mother’s name coming out of Macon Ravenwood’s mouth. “Wate. Lila Evers Wate.”

He smiled more broadly. “Of course. But first things first. I believe, from Kitchen’s general lack of din, that dinner has been served.” He patted my shoulder, and we walked back into the grand ballroom.

Lena was waiting for us at the table, lighting a candle that had blown out in the evening breeze. The table was covered with an elaborate feast, though I couldn’t imagine how it had gotten there. I hadn’t seen a single person in the house, aside from the three of us. Now there was a new house, a wolf-dog, and all this. And I had expected Macon Ravenwood to be the weirdest part of the evening.

There was enough food to feed the DAR, every church in town, and the basketball team, combined. Only it wasn’t the kind of food that had ever been served in Gatlin. There was something that looked like a whole roast pig, with an apple stuck in its mouth. A standing rib roast, with little paper puffs on the top of each rib, sat next to a mangled-looking goose covered with chestnuts. There were bowls of gravies and sauces and creams, rolls and breads, collards and beets and spreads that I couldn’t name. And of course, pulled pork sandwiches, which looked particularly out of place among the other dishes. I looked at Lena, feeling sick at the thought of how much I’d have to eat to be polite.

“Uncle M. This is too much.” Boo, curled around the legs of Lena’s chair, thumped his tail in anticipation.

“Nonsense. This is a celebration. You’ve made a friend. Kitchen will be offended.”

Lena looked at me anxiously, like she was afraid I was going to get up to use the bathroom and bolt. I shrugged, and began to load my plate. Maybe Amma would let me skip breakfast tomorrow.

By the time Macon was pouring his third glass of scotch, it seemed like a good time to bring up the locket. Come to think of it, I had seen him load up his plate with food, but I hadn’t seen him eat a thing. It seemed to disappear off his plate, with only the smallest bite or two. Maybe Boo Radley was the luckiest dog in town.

I folded up my napkin. “Do you mind, sir, if I ask you something? Since you seem to know so much about history, and, well, I can’t really ask my mom.”

What are you doing?

I’m just asking a question.

He doesn’t know anything.

Lena, we have to try.

“Of course.” Macon took a sip from his glass.

I reached into my pocket and pulled the locket out of the pouch Amma had given me, careful to keep it wrapped in the handkerchief. All the candles went out. The lights dimmed and then spluttered out. Even the music of the piano died.

Ethan, what are you doing?

I didn’t do anything.

I heard Macon’s voice in the darkness. “What is that in your hand, son?”

“It’s a locket, sir.”

“Do you mind very much if you put it back in your pocket?” His voice was calm, but I knew that he wasn’t. I could tell he was taking great efforts to compose himself. His glib manner was gone. His voice had an edge, a sense of urgency he was trying very hard to disguise.

I crammed the locket back into the pouch and stuffed it in my pocket. At the other end of the table, Macon touched his fingers to the candelabra. One by one, the candles on the table came back to light. The entire feast had disappeared.

In the candlelight, Macon looked sinister. He was also quiet for the first time since I’d met him, as if he was weighing his options on an invisible scale that somehow held our fate in the balance. It was time to go. Lena was right, this was a bad idea. Maybe there was a reason Macon Ravenwood never left his house.

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know that would happen. My housekeeper, Amma, acted like the—like it, was really powerful when I showed it to her. But when Lena and I found it, nothing bad happened.”

Don’t tell him anything else. Don’t mention the visions.

I won’t. I just wanted to find out if I was right about Genevieve.

She didn’t have to worry; I didn’t want to tell Macon Ravenwood anything. I just wanted to get out of there. I started to get up. “I think I should be getting home, sir. It’s getting late.”

“Would you mind describing the locket to me?” It was more of order than a request. I didn’t say a word.

It was Lena who finally spoke. “It’s old and battered, with a cameo on the front. We found it at Greenbrier.”

Macon twisted his silver ring, agitated. “You should have told me you went to Greenbrier. That’s not part of Ravenwood. I can’t keep you safe there.”

“I was safe there. I could feel it.” Safe from what? This was more than a little overprotective.

“You weren’t. It’s beyond the boundaries. It can’t be controlled, not by anyone. There is a lot you don’t know. And he—” Macon gestured to me at the other end of the table. “He knows nothing. He can’t protect you. You shouldn’t have brought him into this.”

I spoke up. I had to. He was talking about me like I wasn’t even there. “This is about me, too, sir. There were initials on the back of the locket. ECW. ECW was Ethan Carter Wate, my great-great-great-great-uncle. And the other initials are GKD, and we’re pretty sure the D stands for Duchannes.”

Ethan, stop.

But I couldn’t. “There’s no reason to keep anything from us because whatever it is that’s happening, it’s happening to both of us. And like it or not, it seems to be happening right now.” A vase of gardenias went flying across the room and crashed into the wall. This was the Macon Ravenwood we’d all been telling stories about since we were kids.

“You have no idea what you are talking about, young man.” He stared me right in the eye, with a dark intensity that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. He was having trouble keeping it together now. I had pushed him too far. Boo Radley rose and paced behind Macon like he was stalking prey, his eyes hauntingly round and familiar.

Don’t say anything else.

His eyes narrowed. The movie star glamour was gone, replaced with something much darker. I wanted to run, but I was rooted to the ground. Paralyzed.

I was wrong about Ravenwood Manor, and Macon Ravenwood. I was afraid of both of them.

When he finally spoke, it was as if he was speaking to himself. “Five months. Do you know what lengths I will go to, to keep her safe for five months? What it will cost me? How it will drain me, perhaps, destroy me?” Without a word, Lena moved next to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. And then, the storm in his eyes passed as quickly as it had come, and he regained his composure.

“Amma sounds like a wise woman. I would consider taking her advice. I would return that item to the place where you found it. Please do not bring it into my home again.” Macon stood up and threw his napkin on the table. “I think our little library visit will have to wait, don’t you? Lena, can you see to it that your friend finds his way home? It was, of course, an extraordinary evening. Most illuminating. Please do come again, Mr. Wate.”

And then the room was dark, and he was gone.

I couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. I wanted to get away from Lena’s creepy uncle and his freak show of a house. What the hell had just happened? Lena rushed me to the door, like she was afraid of what might happen if she didn’t get me out of there. But as we passed through the main hall, I noticed something I hadn’t before.

The locket. The woman with the haunting gold eyes in the oil painting was wearing the locket. I grabbed Lena’s arm. She saw it and froze.

It wasn’t there before.

What do you mean?

That painting has been hanging there since I was a child. I’ve walked by it a thousand times. She was never wearing a locket.