“Yes, ma’am.”
Sugared up on drugstore candy, she laid the truth on me. “The Casters put a Charm on your daddy. He doesn’t know you’re a bit dead either. Every time it looks like he might be sniffin’ ’round ta the truth, the Casters double up that Charm till he doesn’t know up from down. It ain’t natural, if ya ask me, but not much ’round Gatlin is. Whole place’s gone downright cattywampus.” She held out the half-eaten box of candy. “Now have yourself somethin’ sweet. Chocolate makes everything better. Molasses Chew?”
I was buried at Greenbrier so Lena and Amma and my friends could keep it a secret from everyone, including my father—who was under the influence of a Cast so powerful that he didn’t know his own son was gone, just like my mom said.
There wasn’t enough chocolate in the world to make this better.
CHAPTER 4
Catfish Crossin’
Getting Aunt Prue to say the one thing you wanted her to say, right when you wanted her to say it, was like thinking you could ask the sun to shine. At some point, and probably sooner than later, you had to admit you were at her mercy. I had to, anyway.
Because I was.
I couldn’t stomach one more waxy chocolate, washed down with one more glass of sweet tea, while one more little dog stared at me, to get at the one thing I needed to know. All I could do was start begging.
“I have to go to Ravenwood, Aunt Prue. You have to help me. I have to see Lena.” My aunt sniffed and tossed the box of chocolates back down on the counter. “Oh, I see, now I have ta have ta have ta? Someone died and made you the Gen’ral? Next you’ll be thinkin’ you need a statue and a green all your own.” She sniffed again.
“Aunt Prue—” I gave up. “I’m sorry.”
“I reckon you are.”
“I just need to know how to get to Ravenwood.” I knew I sounded desperate, but it didn’t matter, because I was. I hadn’t been able to walk there or imagine myself there. There had to be another way.
“You know you get more bees with honey, sugar. Crossin’ over from one side ta the next hasn’t done much ta improve your manners, Ethan Wate. Bossin’ an old woman like that.”
I was losing patience with my aunt. “I said I’m sorry. I’m kind of new at this, remember? Can you please help me?
Do you know anything about how to get from here to Ravenwood?”
“Do you know I’m bone tired a this conversation?”
“Aunt Prue!”
She clamped her teeth shut and stuck out her chin, the way Harlon James did when he got a lock on a bone.
“There has to be a way I can see her. My mom came to visit me twice. Once in a fire Amma and Twyla made in a graveyard, and once in my own room.”
“Pretty powerful stuff, crossin’ like that. Then again, your mamma’s always been stronger than most folks. Why don’tcha ask her?” She looked irritated.
“Crossing?”
“Crossin’ over. Not for the faint a heart. For most a us, you just can’t get there from here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you can’t make preserves till you learn how ta boil water, Ethan Wate. Gotta put in the time. Get used ta the water ’fore you jump in.” Not that Aunt Prue could ever bottle anything that wouldn’t burn a hole in your bread, according to Amma.
I crossed my arms, annoyed. “Why would I jump into boiling water?”
She glared at me, fanning herself with a folded piece of paper the way she had on the thousand Sundays when I drove her to church.
The rocker stopped. Bad sign.
“I mean, ma’am.” I held my breath until the rocker started to squeak again. This time I lowered my voice. “If you know something, please help me. You said you went to see Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy. And I know I saw you when I was at your funeral.”
Aunt Prue twisted her mouth like her dentures were hurting. Or like she was trying to keep her thoughts to herself.
“You had your whole mess a split-up souls back then. You could see all sorts a things a Mortal ain’t supposed ta see. I ain’t seen Twyla since that day either, and she’s the one who crossed me over in the first place.”
“I can’t figure this out on my own.”
“ ’Course you can. You can’t just show up ’round here and ’spect ta do whatcha like, easy as bad pie in a box.
That’s all part a crossin’. It’s like fishin’. Why would I just hand you the catfish when I should be teachin’ you how ta fish?”
I put my head in my hands. At that particular moment, I would have been plenty fine with bad pie in a box. “And where can a guy learn to catch a catfish around here?”
There was no answer.
I looked up to see Aunt Prue dozing in her rocking chair, the folded paper she’d been fanning herself with resting in her lap. There was no waking Aunt Prue from one of her naps. Not before, and probably not now.
I sighed, gently taking the makeshift fan out of her hand. It unfolded partway, revealing the edge of a drawing. It looked like one of her maps, only half-drawn, more of a doodle than anything else. Aunt Prue couldn’t sit still long without starting to sketch out her whereabouts, even in the Otherworld.
Then I realized it wasn’t a map of His Garden of Perpetual Peace—or if it was, the graveyard world was bigger than I thought.
This wasn’t just any map.
It was a map of the Lunae Libri.
“How can there be a Lunae Libri in the Otherworld? It’s not a grave, right? Nobody died there?” My mom didn’t look up from her copy of Dante. She hadn’t looked up when I swung open the front door either. She couldn’t hear a word anyone said when she was lost in those pages. Reading was her own version of Traveling.
I stuck my hand between her face and the yellowed pages, wiggling my fingers. “Mom.”
“What?” My mom looked as startled as a person could look when you hadn’t actually snuck up on them.
“Let me save you some time. I saw the movie. The office building catches fire.” I closed the book and held out Aunt Prue’s folded paper. My mom took it, smoothing it out in her hands.
“I knew Dante was ahead of his time.” She smiled, turning over the paper.
“Why was Aunt Prue drawing this?” I asked, but she didn’t answer. She just kept staring at the paper.
“If you’re going to start asking yourself why your aunt does anything, you’ll be busy for the rest of eternity.”
“Why did she need a map?” I asked.
“What your aunt needs is to find someone else to talk to besides you.” That was all she said. Then she gave up, standing and slipping her arm around my shoulders. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
I followed my mom right down the street that wasn’t a street, until we came to a plot that wasn’t just a plot, and a familiar grave that wasn’t even a grave. I stopped walking as soon as I saw where we were.
My mom laid her hand on Macon’s gravestone, a wistful smile creeping across her face. She pushed on the stone, and it swung open. Ravenwood’s front hall stood there, ghostly and deserted, as if nothing had changed except that Lena’s family had gone to Barbados or something.
“So?” I couldn’t bring myself to step inside. What use was Ravenwood without Lena or her family? It almost made me feel worse to be here in her home and still so far away.
My mom sighed. “So. You’re the one who wanted to go to the Lunae Libri.”
“You mean the secret stairway into the Tunnels? Will it lead into the Lunae Libri?”
“Well, I don’t mean the Gatlin County Library.” My mom smiled.
I pushed past her into the hallway and took off running. By the time she caught up to me, I had made it all the way to Macon’s old room. I flipped up the carpet and yanked open the trapdoor.