The Sisters
The kitchen table was still set when I got home, lucky for me, because Amma would have killed me if I’d missed dinner. What I hadn’t considered was the phone tree that had been activated the minute I walked out of English class. No less than half the town must have called Amma by the time I got home.
“Ethan Wate? Is that you? Because if it is, you are in for a world a trouble.”
I heard a familiar banging sound. Things were worse than I thought. I ducked under the doorway and into the kitchen. Amma was standing at the counter in her industrial denim tool apron, which had fourteen pockets for nails and could hold up to four power tools. She was holding her Chinese cleaver, the counter piled high with carrots, cabbage, and other vegetables I couldn’t identify. Spring rolls required more chopping than any other recipe in Amma’s blue plastic box. If she was making spring rolls, it only meant one thing, and it wasn’t just that she liked Chinese food.
I tried to come up with an acceptable explanation, but I had nothing.
“Coach called this afternoon, and Mrs. English, and Principal Harper, and Link’s mamma, and half the ladies from the DAR. And you know how I hate talkin’ to those women. Evil as sin, every one a them.”
Gatlin was full of ladies’ auxiliaries, but the DAR was the mother of them all. True to its name, the Daughters of the American Revolution, you had to prove you were related to an actual patriot from the American Revolution to be eligible for membership. Being a member apparently entitled you to tell your River Street neighbors what colors to paint their houses and generally boss, pester, and judge everyone in town. Unless you were Amma. That I’d like to see.
“They all said the same thing. That you ran out a school, in the middle a class, chasin’ after that Duchannes girl.” Another carrot rolled across the cutting board.
“I know, Amma, but—”
The cabbage split in half. “So I said, ‘No, my boy wouldn’t leave school without permission and skip practice. There must be some mistake. Must be some other boy disrepectin’ his teacher and sullyin’ his family name. Can’t be a boy I raised, livin’ in this house.’” Green onions flew across the counter.
I’d committed the worst of crimes, embarrassing her. Worst of all, in the eyes of Mrs. Lincoln and the women of the DAR, her sworn enemies.
“What do you have to say for yourself? What would make you run out a school like your tail was on fire? And I don’t wanna hear it was some girl.”
I took a deep breath. What could I say? I had been dreaming about some mystery girl for months, who showed up in town and just happened to be Macon Ravenwood’s niece? That, in addition to terrifying dreams about this girl, I had a vision of some other woman, who I definitely didn’t know, who lived during the Civil War?
Yeah, that would get me out of trouble, around the same time the sun exploded and the solar system died.
“It’s not what you think. The kids in our class were giving Lena a hard time, teasing her about her uncle, saying he hauls dead bodies around in his hearse, and she got really upset and ran out of class.”
“I’m waitin’ for the part that explains what any a this has to do with you.”
“Aren’t you the one always telling me to ‘walk in the steps of our Lord?’ Don’t you think He’d want me to stick up for someone who was being picked on?” Now I’d done it. I could see it in her eyes.
“Don’t you dare use the Word a the Lord to justify breakin’ the rules at school, or I swear I will go outside and get a switch and burn some sense into your backside. I don’t care how old you are. You hear me?” Amma had never hit me with anything in my life, although she had chased me with a switch a few times to make a point. But this wasn’t the moment to bring that up.
The situation was quickly going from bad to worse; I needed a distraction. The locket was still burning a hole in my back pocket. Amma loved mysteries. She had taught me to read when I was four using crime novels and the crossword over her shoulder. I was the only kid in kindergarten who could read examination on the blackboard because it looked so much like medical examiner. As for mysteries, the locket was a good one. I’d just leave out the part about touching it and seeing a Civil War vision.
“You’re right, Amma. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left school. I was just trying to make sure Lena was okay. A window broke in the classroom right behind her, and she was bleeding. I just went to her house to see if she was all right.”
“You were up at that house?”
“Yeah, but she was outside. Her uncle is really shy, I guess.”
“You don’t need to tell me about Macon Ravenwood, like you know anything I don’t already know.” The Look.
“H. E. B. E. T. U. D. I. N. O. U. S.”
“What?”
“As in, you don’t have a lick a sense, Ethan Wate.”
I fished the locket out of my pocket and walked over to where she was still standing by the stove. “We were out back, behind the house, and we found something,” I said, opening my hand so she could take a look. “It has an inscription inside.”
The expression on Amma’s face stopped me cold. She looked like something had knocked the wind right out of her.
“Amma, are you okay?” I reached for her elbow, to steady her in case she was about to faint. But she pulled her arm away before I could touch her, like she’d burned her hand on the handle of a pot.
“Where did you get that?” Her voice was a whisper.
“We found it in the dirt, at Ravenwood.”
“You didn’t find that at Ravenwood Plantation.”
“What are you talking about? Do you know who it belonged to?”
“Stand right here. Don’t you move,” she instructed, rushing out of the kitchen.
But I ignored her, following her to her room. It had always looked more like an apothecary than a bedroom, with a low white single bed tucked beneath rows of shelves. On the shelves were neatly stacked newspapers—Amma never threw away a finished crossword—and Mason jars full of her stock ingredients for making charms. Some were her old standards: salt, colored stones, herbs. Then there were more unusual collections, like a jar of roots and another of abandoned bird nests. The top shelf was just bottles of dirt. She was acting weird, even for Amma. I was only a couple of steps behind her, but she was already tearing through her drawers by the time I got there.
“Amma, what are you—”
“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the kitchen? Don’t you bring that thing in here!” she shrieked, when I took a step forward.
“What are you so upset about?” She stuffed a few things I couldn’t get a look at into her tool apron, and rushed back out of the room. I caught up with her back in the kitchen. “Amma, what’s the matter?”
“Take this.” She handed me a threadbare handkerchief, careful not to let her hand touch mine. “Now you wrap that thing up in here. Right now, right this second.”
This was beyond going dark. She was totally losing it.
“Amma—”
“Do as I say, Ethan.” She never called me by my first name without my last.
Once the locket was safely wrapped in the handkerchief, she calmed down a little bit. She rifled through the lower pockets of her apron, removing a small leather bag and a vial of powder. I knew enough to recognize the makings of one of her charms when I saw them. Her hand shook slightly as she poured some of the dark powder into the leather pouch. “Did you wrap it up tight?”