He set the bottle on the ground a few feet from Amma. She picked it up, poured the whiskey into a shot glass, and drank it. I had never seen Amma drink anything stronger than sweet tea in my whole life. Then she poured some of the liquor in the grass, covering the grave. “Uncle Abner, we are in need a your intercession. I call your spirit to this place.”
Macon coughed.
“You’re testin’ my patience, Melchizedek.” Amma closed her eyes and opened her arms to the sky, her head thrown back as if she was talking to the moon itself. She bent down and shook the small pouch she had taken from her pocketbook. The contents spilled out onto the grave. Tiny chicken bones. I hoped they weren’t the bones from the basket of fried chicken I’d put away this afternoon, but I had a feeling they might have been.
“What do they say?” Macon asked.
She ran her fingers over the bones, fanning them out over the grass. “I’m not gettin’ an answer.”
His perfect composure began to crack. “We don’t have time for this! What good is a Seer if you can’t see anything? We have less than five months before she turns sixteen. If she Turns, she will damn us all, Mortals and Casters alike. We have a responsibility, a responsibility we both took on willingly, a long time ago. You to your Mortals, and me to my Casters.”
“I don’t need you remindin’ me about my responsibilities. And you keep your voice down, you hear me? I don’t need any a my clients comin’ out here and seein’ us together. How would that look? A fine upstanding member a the community like myself? Don’t mess with my business, Melchizedek.”
“If we don’t find out where Saraf—where She is—and what she’s planning, we’ll have bigger problems on our hands than your failing business ventures, Amarie.”
“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.
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.