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.
A Fork in the Road
We barely spoke as we drove back to my house. I didn’t know what to say, and Lena just looked grateful I wasn’t saying it. She let me drive, which was good because I needed something to distract me until my pulse slowed back down. We passed my street, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t ready to go home. I didn’t know what was going on with Lena, or her house, or her uncle, but she was going to tell me.
“You passed your street.” It was the first thing she’d said since we left Ravenwood.
“I know.”
“You think my uncle is crazy, like everyone else. Just say it. Old Man Ravenwood.” Her voice was bitter. “I need to get home.”
I didn’t say a word as we circled the General’s Green, the round patch of faded grass that encircled just about the only thing in Gatlin that ever made it into the guidebooks—the General, a statue of Civil War General Jubal A. Early. The General stood his ground, just as he always had, which now struck me as sort of wrong. Everything had changed; everything kept changing. I was different, seeing things and feeling things and doing things that even a week ago would have seemed impossible. It felt like the General should have changed, too.
I turned down Dove Street and pulled the hearse over alongside the curb, right under the sign that said welcome to gatlin, home of the south’s most unique historic plantation homes and the world’s best buttermilk pie. I wasn’t sure about the pie, but the rest was true.
“What are you doing?”
I turned the car off. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t park with guys.” It was a joke, but I could hear it in her voice. She was petrified.