Marian looked at Macon. “Macon—”
“Marian. Stay out of this. You’ve interfered more than enough already, and the sun will rise just minutes from now.” Marian knew. She knew where to find The Book of Moons, and Macon wanted to make sure she kept her mouth shut.
“Aunt Marian, where’s the Book?” I looked her in the eye. “You have to help us. My mom would’ve helped us, and you’re not supposed to take sides, right?” I wasn’t playing fair, but it was true.
Amma raised her hands, then dropped them into her lap. A rare sign of surrender. “What’s done is done. They’ve already started pullin’ the thread, Melchizedek. That old sweater’s bound to unravel, anyhow.”
“Macon, there are protocols. If they ask, I’m Bound to tell them,” Marian said. Then she looked up at me. “The Book of Moons isn’t in the Lunae Libri.”
“How do you know?”
Macon stood to leave, turning to both of us. His jaw was clenched, his eyes dark and angry. When he finally spoke, his voice echoed over the chamber, over all of us. “Because that’s the book for which this archive was named. It is the most powerful book from here to the Otherworld. It is also the book that cursed our family, for eternity. And it’s been missing for over a hundred years.”
12.01
It Rhymes with Witch
On Monday morning, Link and I drove down Route 9, stopping at the fork in the road to pick up Lena. Link liked Lena, but there was no way he was driving up to Ravenwood Manor. It was still the Haunted Mansion to him.
If he only knew. Thanksgiving break had only been a long weekend, but it felt a lot longer, considering that Twilight Zone of a Thanksgiving dinner, the vases flying between Macon and Lena, and our journey to the center of the earth, all without leaving the Gatlin city limits. Unlike Link, who had spent the weekend watching football, beating up his cousins, and trying to determine whether or not the cheese ball had onions in it this year.
But according to Link, there was trouble of another kind brewing, and this morning it sounded equally dangerous. Link’s mom had been burning up the lines for the last twenty-four hours, whispering on the phone with the long cord and the kitchen door closed. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Asher had shown up after dinner, and the three of them had disappeared into the kitchen—the War Room. When Link went in, pretending to grab a Mountain Dew, he didn’t catch much. But it was enough to figure out his mom’s end game. “We’ll get her outta our school, one way or another.” And her little dog, too.
It wasn’t much, but if I knew Mrs. Lincoln, I knew enough to be worried. You could never underestimate the lengths women like Mrs. Lincoln would go to protect their children and their town from the one thing they hated most—anyone different from them. I should know. My mom had told me the stories about the first few years she’d lived here. The way she told it, she was such a criminal even the most God-fearing church ladies got bored of reporting on her; she did the marketing on Sunday, dropped by any church she liked or none at all, was a feminist (which Mrs. Asher sometimes confused with communist), a Democrat (which Mrs. Lincoln pointed out practically had “demon” in the word itself), and worst of all, a vegetarian (which ruled out any dinner invitations from Mrs. Snow). Beyond that, beyond not being a member of the right church or the DAR or the National Rifle Association, was the fact that my mom was an outsider.
But my dad had grown up here and was considered one of Gatlin’s sons. So when my mom died, all the same women who had been so judgmental of her when she was alive dropped off cream-of-something casseroles and crock pot roasts and chili-ghetti with a vengeance. Like they were finally getting the last word. My mom would have hated it, and they knew it. That was the first time my dad went into his study and locked the door for days. Amma and I had let the casseroles pile up on the porch until they took them away and went back to judging us, like they always had.
They always got the last word. Link and I both knew it, even if Lena didn’t.
Lena was sandwiched between Link and me in the front seat of the Beater, writing on her hand. I could just make out the words shattered like everything else. She wrote all the time, the way some people chewed gum or twirled their hair; I don’t even think she realized it. I wondered if she would ever let me read one of her poems, if any of them were about me.
Link glanced down. “When are you gonna write me a song?”
“Right after I finish the one I’m writing for Bob Dylan.”
“Holy crap.” Link slammed on the brakes at the front entrance of the parking lot. I couldn’t blame him. The sight of his mother in the parking lot before eight in the morning was terrifying. And there she was.
The parking lot was crowded with people, way more than usual. And parents; other than after the window incident, there hadn’t been a parent in the parking lot since Jocelyn Walker’s mom came to yank her out of school during the film about the reproductive cycle in Human Development.
Something was definitely going on.
Link’s mom handed a box to Emily, who had the whole cheerleading squad—Varsity and JV—papering every car in the parking lot with some kind of neon flyer. Some were flapping in the wind, but I could make out a few from the relative safety of the Beater. It was like they were running some kind of campaign, only without a candidate.
SAY NO TO VIOLENCE AT JACKSON!
ZERO TOLERANCE!
Link turned bright red. “Sorry. You guys gotta get out.” He crouched down in the driver’s seat, so low it looked like nobody was driving the car. “I don’t want my mom to beat the crap outta me in front a the whole cheerleadin’ squad.”
I slunk down, reaching across the seat to open the door for Lena. “We’ll see you inside, man.”
I grabbed Lena’s hand and squeezed it.
Ready?
As ready as I’m going to be.
We ducked down between the cars around the side of the lot. We couldn’t see Emily, but we could hear her voice from behind Emory’s pickup.
“Know the signs!” Emily was approaching Carrie Jensen’s window. “We’re formin’ a new club at school, the Jackson High Guardian Angels. We’re goin’ to help keep our school safe by reportin’ acts a violence or any unusual behavior we see around school. Personally, I think it’s the responsibility a every student at Jackson to keep our school safe. If you want to join, we’re havin’ a meetin’ in the cafeteria after eighth period.” As Emily’s voice faded in the distance, Lena’s hand tightened around mine.
What does that even mean?
I have no idea. But they’ve totally lost it. Come on.
I tried to pull her up, but she pulled me back down. She shrunk back next to the tire. “I just need a minute.”
“Are you okay?”
“Look at them. They think I’m a monster. They formed a club.”
“They just can’t stand outsiders, and you’re the new girl. A window broke. They need someone to blame. This is just a—”
“Witch hunt.”
I wasn’t going to say that.
But you were thinking it.
I squeezed her hand and my hair stood on end.
You don’t have to do this.
Yes I do. I let people like them run me out of my last school. I’m not going to let it happen again.
As we stepped out from the last row of cars, there they were. Mrs. Asher and Emily were packing the extra boxes of flyers into the back of their minivan. Eden and Savannah were handing out flyers to the cheerleaders and any guy who wanted to see a little of Savannah’s legs or her cleavage. Mrs. Lincoln was a few feet away talking to the other mothers, most likely promising to add their houses to the Southern Heritage Tour if they made a couple of phone calls to Principal Harper. She handed Earl Petty’s mom a clipboard with a pen attached to it. It took me a minute to realize what it was—there was no way.
It looked like a petition.
Mrs. Lincoln noticed us standing there and zeroed in on us. The other mothers followed her gaze. For a second, they didn’t say any
thing. I thought maybe they felt bad for me and they were going to put down their flyers, pack up their minivans and station wagons, and go home. Mrs. Lincoln, whose house I’d slept at almost as many times as my own. Mrs. Snow, who was technically my third cousin to some degree removed. Mrs. Asher, who bandaged my hand after I sliced it open on a fishing hook when I was ten. Miss Ellery, who gave me my first real haircut. These women knew me. They’d known me since I was a kid. There was no way they were going to do this, not to me. They were going to back down.
If I said it enough times maybe it would be true.
It’s going to be okay.
By the time I realized I was wrong, it was too late. They recovered from the momentary shock of seeing Lena and me.
When Mrs. Lincoln saw us, her eyes narrowed. “Principal Harper—” She looked from Lena to me, and shook her head. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be invited to Link’s for dinner again anytime soon. She raised her voice. “Principal Harper has promised his full support. We won’t tolerate the violence at Jackson that has plagued the city schools in this country. You young people are doin’ the right thing, protectin’ your school, and as concerned parents”—she looked at us—“we’ll do anything we can to support you.”
Still holding hands, Lena and I walked past them. Emily stepped in front of us, shoving a flyer at me and ignoring Lena. “Ethan, come to the meetin’ today. The Guardian Angels could really use you.”
It was the first time she had spoken to me in weeks. I got the message. You’re one of us, last chance.
I pushed her hand away. “That’s just what Jackson needs, a little more of your angelic behavior. Why don’t you go torture some children. Rip the wings off a butterfly. Knock a baby bird out of its nest.” I pulled Lena past her.
“What would your poor mamma say, Ethan Wate? What would she think about the company you’re keepin’?” I turned around. Mrs. Lincoln was standing right behind me. She was dressed the way she always was, like some kind of punishing librarian out of a movie, with cheap drugstore glasses and angry-looking hair that couldn’t decide if it was brown or gray. You had to wonder, where did Link come from? “I’ll tell you what your mamma would say. She would cry. She would be turnin’ over in her grave.”
She had crossed the line.
Mrs. Lincoln didn’t know anything about my mother. She didn’t know my mom was the one who had sent the School Superintendent a copy of every ruling against book banning in the U.S. She didn’t know my mom cringed every time Mrs. Lincoln invited her to a Women’s Auxiliary or DAR meeting. Not because my mom hated the Women’s Auxiliary or the DAR, but because she hated what Mrs. Lincoln stood for. That small-minded brand of superiority women in Gatlin, like Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Asher, were so famous for.
My mom had always said, “The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.” And now, at this very second, I knew the right thing to do, even if it wasn’t going to be easy. Or at least, the fallout wasn’t going to be.
I turned to Mrs. Lincoln and looked her in the eye. “‘Good for you, Ethan.’ That’s what my poor mamma would’ve said. Ma’am.”
I turned back toward the door of the administration building and kept walking, pulling Lena along beside me. We were only a few feet away. Lena was shaking, even though she didn’t look scared. I kept squeezing her hand, trying to reassure her. Her long black hair was curling and uncurling, as if she was about to explode, or maybe I was. I never thought I’d be so happy to set foot in the halls of Jackson, until I saw Principal Harper standing in the doorway. He was glaring at us like he wished he wasn’t the principal so he could pass out a flyer of his own.
Lena’s hair blew around her shoulders as we walked past him. Only he didn’t even look at us. He was too busy looking past us. “What the—”
I turned and looked over my shoulder just in time to see hundreds of neon green flyers, curling away from windshields and out of stacks and boxes and vans and hands. Flying away in a sudden gust of wind, as if they were a flock of birds soaring into the clouds. Escaping and beautiful and free. Kind of like that Hitchcock movie The Birds, only in reverse.
We could hear the shrieking until the heavy metal doors closed behind us.
Lena smoothed her hair. “Crazy weather you have down here.”
12.06
Lost and Found
I was almost relieved it was Saturday. There was something comforting about spending the day with women whose only magical powers were forgetting their own names. When I arrived at the Sisters’, Aunt Mercy’s Siamese cat, Lucille Ball—the Sisters loved I Love Lucy—was “exercising” in the front yard. The Sisters had a clothesline that ran the length of the yard, and every morning Aunt Mercy put Lucille Ball on a leash and hooked it onto the clothesline so the cat could exercise. I had tried to explain that you could let cats outside and they would come back whenever they felt like it, but Aunt Mercy had looked at me like I’d suggested she shack up with a married man. “I can’t just let Lucille Ball wander the streets alone. I’m sure someone would snatch her.” There hadn’t been a lot of catnappings in town, but it was an argument I’d never win.
I opened the door, expecting the usual commotion, but today the house was noticeably quiet. A bad sign. “Aunt Prue?”
I heard her familiar drawl coming from the back of the house. “We’re on the sun porch, Ethan.”
I ducked under the doorway of the screened-in porch to see the Sisters scuttling around the room, carrying what looked like little hairless rats.
“What the heck are those?” I said without even thinking.
“Ethan Wate, you watch your mouth, or I’ll have ta wash it out with soap. You know better than ta use pro-fanity,” Aunt Grace said. Which, as far as she was concerned, included words like panties, naked, and bladder.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. But what is that you’ve got in your hand?”
Aunt Mercy rushed forward and thrust her hand out, with two little rodents sleeping in it. “They’re baby squirrels. Ruby Wilcox found them in her attic last Tuesday.”
“Wild squirrels?”
“There are six of ’em. Aren’t they just the cutest things you ever saw?”
All I could see was an accident waiting to happen. The idea of my ancient aunts handling wild animals, babies or otherwise, was a frightening thought. “Where did you get them?”
“Well, Ruby couldn’t take care of ’em—” Aunt Mercy started.
“On account a that awful husban’ a hers. He won’t even let her go ta the Stop & Shop without tellin’ him.”
“So Ruby gave them ta us, on account a the fact that we already had a cage.”
The Sisters had rescued an injured raccoon after a hurricane and nursed it back to health. Afterward, the raccoon ate Aunt Prudence’s lovebirds, Sonny and Cher, and Thelma put the raccoon out of the house, never to be spoken of again. But they still had the cage.
“You know squirrels can carry rabies. You can’t handle these things. What if one of them bites you?”
Aunt Prue frowned. “Ethan, these are our babies and they are just the sweetest things. They wouldn’t bite us. We’re their mammas.”
“They are just as tame as they can be, aren’t y’all?” Aunt Grace said, nuzzling one of them.
All I could imagine was one of those little vermin latching onto one of the Sisters’ necks and me having to drive them to the emergency room to get the twenty shots in the stomach you have to get if you’re bitten by a rabid animal. Shots that I’m sure at their age might kill any one of them.
I tried to reason with them, a complete waste of time. “You never know. They’re wild animals.”
“Ethan Wate, clearly you are not an animal lover. These babies would never hurt us.” Aunt Grace scowled at me disapprovingly. “And what would you have us do with ’em? Their mamma is gone. They’ll die if we don’t take care of ’em.”
“I can take them over to the ASPCA.”
Aunt Mercy clutched them against her chest protectively. “The
ASPCA! Those murderers. They’ll kill ’em for sure!”
“That’s enough talk about the ASPCA. Ethan, hand me that eye dropper over there.”
“What for?”
“We have ta feed them every four hours with this little dropper,” Aunt Grace explained. Aunt Prue was holding one of the squirrels in her hand, while it sucked ferociously on the end of the dropper. “And once a day, we have ta clean their little private parts with a Q-tip, so they’ll learn ta clean themselves.” That was a visual I didn’t need.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“We looked it up on the E-nternet.” Aunt Mercy smiled proudly.
I couldn’t imagine how my aunts knew anything about the Internet. The Sisters didn’t even own a toaster oven. “How did you get on the Internet?”
“Thelma took us ta the library and Miss Marian helped us. They have computers over there. Did you know that?”
“And you can look up just about anything, even dirty pictures. Every now and again, the dirtiest pictures you ever saw would pop up on the screen. Imagine!” By “dirty,” Aunt Grace probably meant naked, which I would’ve thought would keep them off the Internet forever.
“I just want to go on record as saying I think this is a bad idea. You can’t keep them forever. They’re going to get bigger and more aggressive.”
“Well, of course we aren’t plannin’ on lookin’ after ’em forever.” Aunt Prue was shaking her head, as if it was a ridiculous thought. “We’re going ta let ’em go in the backyard just as soon as they can look after themselves.”
“But they won’t know how to find food. That’s why it’s a bad idea to take in wild animals. Once you let them go, they’ll starve.” This seemed like an argument that would appeal to the Sisters and keep me out of the emergency room.
“That’s where you’re wrong. It tells all about that on the E-nternet,” Aunt Grace said. Where was this Web site about raising wild squirrels and cleaning their private parts with Q-tips?