Amma seemed to know exactly where she was going, stopping in a clearing of tall grass and mud weeds. The branches of the cypress trees tangled with weeping willows, creating a canopy overhead. A chill ran up my back, though it was still seventy degrees out here. Even after everything I’d seen tonight, there was something creepy about this place. There was a mist coming off the water, seeping up from the sides, like steam pushing out of the lid of a boiling pot. I edged my way closer. She was pulling something out of her bag, the white patent leather shining in the moonlight.
Bones. They looked like chicken bones.
She whispered something over the bones, and put them into a small pouch, not much different from the pouch she had given me to subdue the power of the locket. Fishing around in the bag again, she pulled out a fancy hand towel, the kind you’d find in a powder room, and used it to wipe the mud from her skirt. There were faint white lights in the distance, like fireflies blinking in the dark, and music, slow, sultry music and laughter. Somewhere, not that far away, people were drinking and dancing out in the swamp.
She looked up. Something had caught her attention, but I didn’t hear anything.
“May as well show yourself. I know you’re out there.”
I froze, panicked. She had seen me.
But it wasn’t me she was talking to. Out from the sweltering mist stepped Macon Ravenwood, smoking a cigar. He looked relaxed, like he’d just stepped out of a chauffeured car, instead of wading through filthy black water. He was impeccably dressed, as usual, in one of his crisp white shirts.
And he was spotless. Amma and I were covered in mud and swamp grass up to our knees, and Macon Ravenwood was standing there without so much as a speck of dirt on him.
“About time. You know I don’t have all night, Melchizedek. I got to get back. And I don’t take kindly to bein’ summoned out here all the way from town. It’s just rude. Not to mention, inconvenient.” She sniffed. “Incommodious, you might say.”
I. N. C. O. M. M. O. D. I. O. U. S. Twelve down. I spelled it out in my head.
“I’ve had quite an eventful evening myself, Amarie, but this matter requires our immediate attention.” Macon took a few steps forward.
Amma recoiled and pointed a bony finger in his direction. “You stay where you are. I don’t like bein’ out here with your kind on this sorta night. Don’t like it one bit. You keep to yourself, and I’ll keep to mine.”
He stepped back casually, blowing smoke rings into the air. “As I was saying, certain developments require our immediate attention.” He exhaled, a smoky sigh. “‘The moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun.’ To quote our good friends, the Clergy.”
“Don’t talk your high and mighty with me, Melchizedek. What’s so important you need to call me outta bed in the middle a the night?”
“Among other things, Genevieve’s locket.”
Amma nearly howled, holding her scarf over her nose. She clearly couldn’t stand to even hear the word locket. “What about that thing? I told you I Bound it, and I told him to take it back to Greenbrier and bury it. It can’t cause any harm if it’s back in the ground.”
“Wrong on the first count. Wrong on the second. He still has it. He showed it to me in the sanctity of my own home. Aside from which, I’m not sure anything can Bind such a dark talisman.”
“At your house… when was he at your house? I told him to stay clear a Ravenwood.” Now she was noticeably agitated. Great, Amma would find some way to make me pay for this later.
“Well, perhaps you might consider shortening his leash. Clearly, he isn’t very obedient. I warned you that this friendship would be dangerous, that it could develop into something more. A future between the two of them is an impossibility.”
Amma was mumbling under her breath the way she always did when I didn’t listen to her. “He’s always minded me till he met your niece. And don’t you blame me. We wouldn’t be in this fix if you hadn’t brought her down here in the first place. I’ll take care a this. I’ll tell him he can’t see her anymore.”
“Don’t be absurd. They’re teenagers. The more we try to keep them apart, the more they will try to be together. This won’t be an issue once she is Claimed, if we make it that far. Until then, control the boy, Amarie. It’s only a few more months. Things are dangerous enough, without him making an even greater mess of the situation.”
“Don’t talk to me about messes, Melchizedek Ravenwood. My family’s been cleanin’ up your family’s messes for over a hundred years. I’ve kept your secrets, just like you’ve kept mine.”
“I’m not the Seer who failed to foresee them finding the locket. How do you explain that? How did your spirit friends manage to miss that?” He gestured around them, with a sarcastic flick of his cigar.
She spun around, eyes wild. “Don’t you insult the Greats. Not here, not in this place. They have their reasons. There must’ve been a reason they didn’t reveal it.”
She turned away from Macon. “Now don’t you listen to him. I brought you some shrimp ’n’ grits and lemon meringue pie.” She clearly wasn’t talking to Macon anymore. “Your favorite,” she said, taking the food out of little Tupperware containers and arranging it on a plate. She laid the plate on the ground. There was a small headstone next to the plate, and several others scattered nearby.
“This is our Great House, the great house a my family, you hear? My great-aunt Sissy. My great-great-uncle Abner. My great-great-great-great-grandmamma Sulla. Don’t you disrespect the Greats in their House. You want answers, you show some respect.”
“I apologize.”
She waited.
“Truly.”
She sniffed. “And watch your ash. There’s no ashtray in this house. Nasty habit.”
He flicked his cigar into the moss. “Now, let’s get on with it. We don’t have much time. We need to know the whereabouts of Saraf—”
“Shh,” she hissed. “Don’t say Her name—not tonight. We shouldn’t be out here. Half-moon’s for workin’ White magic and full moon’s for workin’ Black. We’re out here on the wrong night.”
“We have no choice. There was a quite an unpleasant episode this evening, I’m afraid. My niece, who Turned on her Claiming Day, showed up for the Gathering tonight.”
“Del’s child? That Dark drink a danger?”
“Ridley. Uninvited, obviously. She crossed my threshold with the boy. I need to know if it was a coincidence.”
“No good. No good. This is no good.” Amma rocked back and forth on her heels, furiously.
“Well?”
“There are no coincidences. You know that.”
“At least we can agree on that.”
I couldn’t get my mind around any of this. Macon Ravenwood never set foot outside of his house, but there he was, in the middle of the swamp, arguing with Amma—who I had no idea he even knew—about me and Lena and the locket.
Amma rummaged around in her pocketbook again. “Did you bring the whiskey? Uncle Abner loves his Wild Turkey.”
Macon held out the bottle.
“Just put it right there,” she said, pointing at the ground, “and step back yonder.”
“I see you’re still afraid to touch me after all these years.”
“I’m not afraid of anything. You just keep to yourself. I don’t ask you about your business, and I don’t want to know anything about it.”