The rest of it was the news you’d expect around here, the kind that never changed even when it always changed.
Animal Control had picked up a lost cat; Bud Clayton had won the Carolina Duck-Calling Contest. The Summerville Pawnshop was running a special, Big B’s Vinyl Siding and Windows was shutting down, and the Quik-Chik Leadership Scholarship competition was heating up.
Life goes on, I guess.
Then I saw the page for the crossword puzzle and slid it toward me as quickly as I could. “There.”
“You want to do the crossword puzzle?”
“I don’t want to do it. I want to write one for Amma. If she saw it, she’d tell Lena.” My mom shook her head. “Even if you could manage to get the letters the way you want them on the page, Amma won’t see it. She doesn’t take the paper anymore. Not since you—left. She hasn’t touched one of her puzzles in months.
”
I winced. How could I have forgotten? Amma had said it herself while I was standing in the kitchen at Wate’s Landing.
“What about a letter, then?”
“I’ve tried it a hundred times, but it’s nearly impossible. You can only use what’s already on the page.” She studied the paper in front of us. “Actually, it might work because you can drag the letters around on the draft. See, how they’re laying it out on the table?”
She was right. The way the puzzle worked, the letters were cut into a thousand tiles, like a Scrabble board. All I had to do was move the paper around.
If I was even strong enough to do that.
I looked at my mom, more determined than ever. “Then we’ll use the crossword, and I’ll make Lena see it.” Moving the letters into place was like digging up a rock from the Sisters’ garden, but my mom helped me. She shook her head as we stared at the page. “A crossword puzzle. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.” I shrugged. “I’m just not very good at writing songs.”
In its current state, the crossword was barely half-finished, but the staff around here probably wouldn’t mind too much if I helped them along. After all, it looked like the Sunday edition, the biggest day for The Stars and Stripes —at least for the crossword. Between the three of them, they’d probably be relieved that someone else had taken it on this week. I was surprised they didn’t have Amma in here writing the puzzles for them already.
The only hard part would be getting Lena to take an interest in this puzzle at all.
Eleven across.
P. O. ll. T. E. R. G. E. I. S. T.
As in, apparition or phantasm. A spectral being. A spirit from another world. A ghost. The vaguest shadow of a person, the thing that comes to you in the night when you think no one is looking.
In other words, the thing you are, Ethan Wate.
Six down.
G. A. T. ll. I. N.
As in, parochial. Local. Insular. The place we’re stuck, whether in the Otherworld or the Mortal one.
E. T. E. R. N. A. ll.
As in, endless, without stopping, forever. The way you feel about a certain girl, whether you’re dead or alive.
ll. O. V. E.
As in, how I feel about you, Lena Duchannes.
T. R. Y.
As in, as hard as I can, every minute of every day.
As in, I got your message, ll.
Then I felt overwhelmed by the thought of how much I’d lost, of everything that stupid fall off the water tower had cost me, and I lost control and loosened my grip on Gatlin. First my eyes filled, and then the letters blurred away, drifting into nothing as the world vanished beneath my feet and I was gone.
I was crossing back. I tried to remember the words from the scroll—the ones that had brought me here—but my mind couldn’t focus on anything at all.
It was too late.
Darkness surrounded me, and I felt something like wind whipping across my face, howling in my ears. Then I heard my mother’s voice—steady as the grip of her cool hand on mine.
“Ethan, hold on. I’ve got you.”
CHAPTER 10
Snake Eyes
I felt my feet touch something solid, like I had just stepped off a train and onto the platform at the station. I saw the floorboards of our front porch, then my Chucks standing on them. We’d crossed back, leaving the living world behind us.
We were back where we belonged, with the dead.
I didn’t want to think about it like that.
“Well, it’s ’bout time, seein’ as I finished watchin’ all your mamma’s paint dry more than an hour ago.” Aunt Prue was waiting for us in the Otherworld, on the front porch of Wate’s Landing—the one in the middle of the cemetery.
I still wasn’t used to the sight of my house here instead of the mausoleums and weeping angel statues that dominated Perpetual Peace. But standing by the railing, with all three Harlon Jameses sitting at attention around her feet, Aunt Prue looked pretty dominant, too.
More like mad as a hornet.
“Ma’am,” I said, scratching my neck uncomfortably.
“Ethan Wate, I’ve been waitin’ on you. Thought you’d only be gone a minute.” The three dogs looked just as irritated.
Aunt Prue nodded at my mother. “Lila.”
“Aunt Prudence.” They regarded each other warily, which seemed strange to me. They had always gotten along when I was growing up.
I smiled at my aunt, changing the subject. “I did it, Aunt Prue. I crossed. I was… you know, on the other side.”
“You might a let a person know, so they didn’t wait on your porch for the best part a the day.” My aunt waved her handkerchief in my general direction.
“I went to Ravenwood and Greenbrier and Wate’s Landing and The Stars and Stripes .” Aunt Prue raised an eyebrow at me, as if she didn’t believe it.
“Really?”
“Well, not by myself. I mean, with my mom. She might have helped some. Ma’am.” My mom looked amused. Aunt Prue did not.
“Well, if you want a preacher’s chance in Heaven ta get yourself back there, we need ta talk.”
“Prudence,” my mom said in a strange tone. It sounded like a warning.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept talking. “You mean about crossing? Because I think I’m starting to get the hang—”
“Stop yappin’ and start listenin’, Ethan Wate. I’m not talkin’ ’bout practicin’ any crossin’. I’m talkin’ ’bout crossin’
back. For good, ta the old world.”
For a second, I thought she was teasing me. But her expression didn’t change. She was serious—at least as serious as my crazy great-aunt ever was. “What are you talking about, Aunt Prue?”
“Prudence.” My mom said it again. “Don’t do this.”
Don’t do what? Give me a chance to get back there?
Aunt Prue glared at my mother, easing herself down the stairs one orthopedic shoe at a time. I reached out to help her, but she waved me off, stubborn as ever. When she finally made it to the carpet of grass at the base of the stairs, Aunt Prue stepped in front of me. “There’s been a mistake, Ethan. A mighty big one. This wasn’t supposed ta happen.” A tremor of hope washed over me. “What?”
The color drained out of my mom’s face. “Stop.” I thought she was going to pass out. I could barely breathe.
“I won’t,” said Aunt Prue, narrowing her eyes behind her spectacles.
“I thought we decided not to tell him, Prudence.”
“You decided, Lila Jane. I’m too old not ta do as I please.”
“I’m his mother.” My mom wasn’t giving up.
“What’s going on?” I tried to wedge myself between them, but neither one of them would look my way.
Aunt Prue raised her chin. “The boy’s old enough ta decide somethin’ that big on his own, don’tcha think?”
“It’s not safe.” My mom folded her arms. “I don’t mean to be firm with you, but I’m going to have to ask you to go.” I’d never heard my mother talk to any of the Sisters like that. She might as well have declared World War III for the