Beautiful Darkness (40 page)

Between Savannah and Charleston, you could find a historic tour for just about anything. Plantation tours, Southern cooking tours, Daughters of the Confederacy tours, ghost tours (my personal favorite), and the classic — historic-home tours. Aunt Caroline's house had been part of that one for as long as I could remember. Her attention to detail was legendary, not only in our family but in all of Savannah. She was the
curator of the Savannah History Museum, and she knew as much about the history of every building, landmark, and scandal in the City of Oaks as my mom had known about the Civil War. It was no small feat, considering scandals were as common as tours around here.

“Are you sure you know where you're goin’, man? I think we should take a break and get somethin’ to eat. I'd kill for a burger.” Link had more faith in the Arclight's ability to navigate than mine. Lucille, who had reappeared, sat down at his feet and cocked her head to the side. She wasn't so sure either.

“Keep heading up toward the river. We'll hit East Liberty sooner or later. Look.” I pointed to the steeple of the cathedral a few blocks away. “That's St. John's Cathedral. We're almost there.”

Twenty minutes later, we were still wandering in circles near the cathedral. Link and Liv were losing their patience, and I didn't blame them. I looked down East Liberty for something familiar. “It's a yellow house.”

“Yellow must be a popular color. Every other house on this street is yellow.” Even Liv was annoyed with me. I'd taken us around the same block three times now.

“I thought it was off Lafayette Square.”

“I think we should find a phone book and look up her number.” Liv wiped the sweat from her forehead.

I squinted at a figure in the distance. “We don't need a phone book. That's the house at the end of the block.”

Liv rolled her eyes. “How do you know?”

“Because Aunt Del is standing out front.”

There was nothing weirder than ending up in Savannah after walking only a few hours in the Caster Tunnels, in some sort of
altered time. Except getting to Aunt Caroline's and finding Lena's Aunt Del standing by the curb, waving. She was expecting us.

“Ethan! I'm so glad I finally found you. I've been everywhere — Athens, Dublin, Cairo.”

“You were looking for us in Egypt and Ireland?” Liv looked as confused as I felt, but this was something I could clear up for her.

“Georgia. Athens, Dublin, and Cairo are cities in Georgia.” Liv blushed. Sometimes I forgot she was as far away from Gatlin as Lena, only in a different way.

Aunt Del took my hand and patted it affectionately. “Arelia tried to Divine your location, but Georgia was all she could come up with. Unfortunately, Divination is more of an art than a science. Thank the stars I've found you.”

“What are you doing here, Aunt Del?”

“Lena's missing. We were hoping she was with you.” She sighed, realizing she was wrong.

“She's not, but I think I can find her.”

Aunt Del smoothed her rumpled skirt. “Then I can help you.”

Link scratched his head. He had met Aunt Del, but he'd never seen a demonstration of her gifts as a Palimpsest. It was clear he couldn't see how a scattered old woman was going to help us. After spending a dark night with her at Genevieve Duchannes’ grave, I knew better.

I struck the heavy iron knocker against the door. Aunt Caroline opened the door, wiping her hands on her G.R.I.T.S. apron. Girls Raised in the South. She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Ethan, whateva are you doin’ here? I didn't know you were goin’ to be in Savannah.”

I hadn't thought far enough ahead to come up with a good lie, so I had to settle for a bad one. “I'm in town visiting … a friend.”

“Where's Lena?”

“She couldn't make it.” I stepped away from the door so I could distract her with introductions. “You know Link, and this is Liv and Lena's Aunt Delphine.” I was sure the first thing Aunt Caroline would do after I left was call my dad to say how nice it had been to see me. So much for keeping my whereabouts a secret from Amma and living to see my seventeenth birthday.

“Nice to see you again, ma'am.” I could always count on Link to be a good old boy when I needed him to be. I tried to think of someone in Savannah my aunt wouldn't know, as if that was possible. Savannah was bigger than Gatlin, but all Southern towns are the same. Everyone knows each other.

Aunt Caroline ushered us all inside. In a matter of seconds, she disappeared and reappeared with sweet tea and a plate of Benne Babies, maple cookies that were even sweeter than the tea. “Today has been the strangest day.”

“What do you mean?” I reached for a cookie.

“This mornin’ when I was at the museum, someone broke into the house, but that's not even the oddest part. They didn't take a thing. Ransacked the entire attic and didn't even touch the rest of the house.”

I glanced at Liv. There were no coincidences. Aunt Del might have been thinking the same thing, too, but it was hard to tell. She was looking a little woozy, like she was having trouble sorting through all the different things that had happened in this room since the house was built in 1820. She was probably
flashing through two hundred years all at once while we sat here eating cookies. I remembered what she said about her gift the night in the graveyard with Genevieve. Palimpsestry was a great honor and an even greater burden.

I wondered what Aunt Caroline could possibly have that was worth stealing. “What's in the attic?”

“Nothing, really. Christmas ornaments, some architectural plans for the house, some of your mother's old papers.” Liv nudged my foot underneath the table. I was thinking the same thing. Why weren't they in the archive?

“What sort of papers?”

Aunt Caroline put out some more cookies. Link was eating them faster than she could serve them. “I'm not really sure. A month or so before she died, your mother asked me if she could store a few boxes here. You know your mother with her files.”

“Do you mind if I take a look? I'm working at the library this summer with Aunt Marian, and she may be interested in some of them.” I tried to sound casual.

“Be my guest, but it's a mess up there.” She picked up the empty plate. “I have a few calls to make, and I still have to finish filin’ the police report. But I'll be down here if you need me.”

Aunt Caroline was right; the attic was a mess. Clothes and papers were strewn everywhere. Someone must have dumped the contents of every box up there into one gigantic pile. Liv picked up a few stray papers.

“How the —” Link looked at Aunt Del, embarrassed. “I mean, how the heck are we gonna find anything in here? What are we even lookin’ for?” He kicked an empty box across the floor.

“Anything that could've been my mom's. Someone was
looking for something up here.” Everyone dove into a different part of the pile.

Aunt Del found a hatbox full of Civil War shell casings and round balls. “There used to be a lovely hat in here.”

I picked up my mom's old high school yearbook and a field guide to the battlefield at Gettysburg. I noticed how worn the field guide was, compared to her yearbook. That was my mom.

Liv knelt over a stack of papers. “I think I found something. I mean, it seems these belonged to your mother, but they're nothing, really — old sketches of Ravenwood Manor and some notes on Gatlin's history.”

Anything that had to do with Ravenwood was something. She handed me the notes and I flipped through the pages. Gatlin Civil War registries, yellowed sketches of Ravenwood Manor and the older buildings in town — the Historical Society, the old firehouse, even our house, Wate's Landing. But none of it seemed to amount to anything.

“Here, kitty kitty. Hey, I found a friend for …” Link lifted up a cat preserved by the Southern art of taxidermy, then dropped it when he realized it was a stuffed dead cat with mangy black fur. “Lucille.”

“There has to be something else. Whoever was here wasn't looking for Civil War registries.”

“Maybe they found what they came for.” Liv shrugged.

I looked at Aunt Del. “There's only one way to find out.”

A few minutes later, we were all sitting cross-legged on the floor, like we were in a campfire circle. Or a séance. “I'm really not sure this is a good idea.”

“It's the only way to find out who broke in here, and why.”

Aunt Del nodded, barely convinced. “All right. Remember, if you feel sick, put your head between your knees. Now join hands.”

Link looked at me. “What's she talkin’ about? Why would we feel sick?”

I grabbed Liv's hand, completing the circle. It was soft and warm in mine. But before I could think about the fact that we were holding hands, images started to flash before my eyes —

One after the next, opening and closing like doors. Each image cued the next, like dominoes, or one of those flip-books I read as a kid.

Lena, Ridley, and John dumping out boxes in the attic
…

“It has to be here. Keep looking.” John tosses old books onto the floor.

“How can you be so sure?” Lena reaches inside another box, her hand covered in black designs.

“She knew how to find it, without the star.”

Another door opened. Aunt Caroline, dragging boxes across the attic floor. She kneels in front of a box, holding an old photo of my mother, and runs her hand over the picture, sobbing.

And another. My mother, her hair hanging over her shoulder, held back by her red reading glasses. I could see her as clearly as if she was standing right in front of me. She scribbles madly in a weathered leather journal, then rips out the page, folds it, and slides it into an envelope. She scrawls something across the front of the envelope and slips it into the back of the journal. Then
she pushes an old trunk away from the wall. Behind the trunk, she pulls a loose board free from the wainscoting. She looks around, as if she senses someone might be watching, and slides the journal into the narrow opening.

Aunt Del let go of my hand.

“Holy crap!” Link was way beyond remembering his manners in front of a lady. He was green, and stuck his head between his knees immediately, like he was coming in for a crash landing. I hadn't seen him like that since the day after Savannah Snow dared him to drink an old bottle of peppermint schnapps.

“I'm so sorry. I know it's difficult to acclimate after a trip.” Aunt Del patted Link's back. “You're doing fine for your first time.”

I didn't have time to think about everything I'd seen. So I focused on one thing:
She knew how to find it, without the star.
John was talking about the Great Barrier. He thought my mom knew something about it, something she may have written in her journal. Liv and I must have been thinking the same thing, because we touched the old trunk at the same time.

“It's heavy. Be careful.” I started to pull it away from the wall. It felt like someone had filled it with bricks.

Liv reached for the wall, working the board free. But she didn't reach into the opening. I put my hand inside and immediately touched the battered leather. I pulled out the journal, feeling the weight of it in my hand. It was a piece of my mother. I flipped to the back. My mother's delicate handwriting stared back at me from the front of the envelope.

Macon

I ripped it open, unfolding the single sheet.

My eyes dragged across the bottom of the page.
LJ
. Lila Jane. I noticed something else — the date. I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. March 21st. A month before my mother's accident. Before she was murdered.

Liv stepped away, sensing she was witnessing something private and painful. I flipped through the pages of the journal, looking for answers. There was another copy of the Ravenwood Family Tree. I'd seen it before in the archive, but this one looked different. Some of the names were crossed out.