“Where?” I asked Lily, my palms on the table. “Where was it?”
“In your backyard.” She met my eyes. “In your fire pit, surrounded by ashes.”
“I tried to set the sword on fire,” I said.
“The costume, too?” Lily asked.
“Yes. The costume was the only thing that burned. I needed to do it.” I didn’t know how to explain further without talking about Poe slitting Em’s throat, and I didn’t know how much Lily knew. “It was… cathartic. But how did you find it?”
“I felt an instinct, and I knew I needed to put my hand on the map.” Lily’s voice was stronger now, and the color started to return to her cheeks. “There was a pull, the same kind of pull I felt earlier when Kaleb and I were practicing.”
“Has anything like that ever happened to you before?” Michael asked, concerned.
“No.” She held her hands over the map, a half inch away. Then she pulled them back and folded them in her lap. “But I’ve never actively searched for things before, either.”
“I have an idea,” Dune said. “A way to test this out. Emerson, think of something of yours Lily has seen before but hasn’t seen lately. Preferably not somewhere Lily could guess easily, but you need to know exactly where it is.”
Em thought for a few seconds. “Okay. I know what and where it is.”
Dune leaned down, and he and Em had a hurried, whispered conversation. After they came to some sort of agreement, he straightened.
“Map?” Dune asked.
Lily gave it to him, this time with no teasing.
Dune opened it to the side-by-side pages that featured a full map of the United States. “Okay, Em. Tell her what object you’re thinking of.”
“It’s a movie, My Fair Lady. We used to watch it over and over again in middle school,” she explained. “We both wanted to be Audrey Hepburn.”
Lily laughed softly. “We were so sad that neither one of us looked a thing like her. A curvy Cubanita and a tiny, little white girl.”
“We tried, though.” Em laughed, too, and the bond between them felt warm and solid. “Remember the hats?”
“And the cigarettes, with the long holders? I thought your mom was going to kill us.”
“She never forgave me for the hole we burned in the couch.” Em faltered, and tears formed in her eyes. Michael took her hand in his, and she leaned into his shoulder, quiet for a moment. “Anyway, the movie disc. I know exactly where it is.”
Dune put the atlas down on the table and flattened the crease. “Ready?”
Lily nodded and lifted her hands. They hovered a half inch over the shape of the United States before landing somewhere in the vicinity of Kansas. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. When she moved her hands, I thought of the motion people make when they play with a Ouija board. Back and forth, in repetitive figure eights.
“Anything?” Dune asked, dividing his focus between Lily’s face and the map.
She stopped and her eyes flew open.
“Thompson’s Hill?” Lily asked, referring to the next town over. “Behind the courthouse?”
Em bit her bottom lip and then nodded. “Yes. In storage, with the rest of my parents’ stuff.”
The memory cost Em. Her energy level dropped, and lines formed on either side of her mouth. Michael kissed her on the temple, and her low leveled out as he helped her carry the weight.
“That’s a good memory,” Lily said, wiping tears from her eyes. “And I’m glad you still have all their stuff.”
“Me, too. I had the breakdown before we could go through it. Since I came back here, I haven’t been ready. Neither has my brother. I don’t think Thomas or I will ever be ready.” Em stood up and took a glass down from the kitchen cupboard, filling it with water at the sink.
“Are you ready to try the watch?” I asked Lily, sensing the need to draw attention away from Em.
She bit her lip. “I think so.”
“Maybe everyone should clear out,” I suggested. “Lily and I are supposed to be working on this together, anyway.”
Michael met my eyes, and I saw the unspoken “thank you.” Dune… not as much.
When Lily and I were alone, I placed the map in front of her on the table. “Ready?”
“Wait.” She put her hand on my arm. “It was really decent of you to get Em out of here before we did this. We shouldn’t have brought up those memories.”
“I disagree.” I sat down beside her. “Sometimes, it’s good to remember, and you were the perfect person for her to do it with. If she didn’t totally trust you, she wouldn’t have felt safe enough to open up. She’s lucky to have you.”
She looked at me for a long minute.
“Okay. Let’s try this.” There was a moment of complete silence, and then she pulled back as if the map were smoldering firewood. “I see it. The pocket watch, but on the night of the masquerade. I could see the details of the stitching on Jack’s vest.”
“Okay.” That gave me an idea. “Try again, but concentrate on today, right now this very second. But this time, I want you to close your eyes.” I fanned through the pages of the atlas, all the way to Alaska. I placed it flat on the table in front of Lily.
Her concentration hung heavy in the air, like wet sheets dripping on a clothesline. “No.”
“Try to relax.” I turned to Hawaii, but marked Tennessee with my finger. “And try again.”
“Nothing.”
With as much stealth as possible, I turned the pages. “One more time.”
Lily touched the map of Tennessee, and then her fingers slid quickly from right to left. Kingsport, through Knoxville, all the way over to Memphis. “Here. Right here, right now. He’s wearing a different suit, but the same vest. The pocket watch is tucked inside it.”
Her eyes flew open. Her finger was on Memphis, right over the marking for Bennett University.
Chapter 19
In the end, Michael went to bat for all of us. He hit a home run. Of course.
I packed while Dad argued.
“I might not be able to stop Emerson and Michael, but you’re my son. I could stop Lily, since she’s about to skip school-”
“But you won’t. Lily’s calling this a college visit, which is not a lie, and Em can’t go unless she has a chaperone.” I threw my shaving kit in my bag with my already folded clothes, figuring I’d go with the scruffy look in the morning. Maybe it would make me look older.
Nate and Dune agreed that Em, Michael, Lily, and I should be the ones to go to Memphis. They’d stay behind and keep an eye on things. Including Ava.
I dropped my travel toothbrush into my open suitcase and faced him. “I’m going to be eighteen soon. What are you going to do then?”
“Drink.”
Family trait.
I raised my hands. “I’m only packing in case we don’t find what we need in time to drive back. I’ll probably be home tomorrow night.”
“You’ll be home all day because you aren’t going.”
I turned around to get a hold on myself and to make sure my flask was covered. I zipped up my suitcase for good measure. “Dune found Jack’s information from high school. And since the university is still in the process of computerizing old student records, we have to physically go there to see what we can find.” I kept the part about tracking Jack’s pocket watch to myself. “This is the next logical step. You know you can’t go without drawing attention.”
“Then let Michael handle it.”
I ignored the drop my stomach did, but only because I really wanted to get my way instead of getting in a fight. “Michael might be Superman, but even Superman had Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane.”
Dad tapped his chin with two fingers, a sure sign he was about to cave.