Beautiful Chaos (24 page)

“No!” Folks were shaking their heads, at rapt attention.

He pointed out into the crowd, moving his finger across the sea of faces as if he was speaking to each person individually. “Then I ask you, was it a great sign from heaven?”

“Amen!”

“It was a sign!” someone else shouted.

Reverend Blackwell clutched the Bible to his chest like a life preserver. “The Beast is at the gates, with his army a deeemons!” I couldn’t help but remember what John Breed had called himself. A Demon Soldier. “And he’s comin’ for us. Will you be ready?”

Mrs. Lincoln thrust her flimsy sign into the air, and the other disturbingly distinguished ladies of the DAR did the same in a show of solidarity.
THE END IS NEAR
knocked into
HONK FOR THE HOLY GHOST
and nearly ripped
I BRAKE FOR REDEMPTION
right off its taped-up yardstick handle.

“I’ll be ready to fight the Devil back to his own door with my bare hands if I have to!” she shouted. I believed her. If we were actually dealing with the Devil, we may have stood a chance with Mrs. Lincoln leading the charge.

The reverend held the Bible over his head. “The Bi-ah-ble promises there will be more signs. Earthquakes. Persecution an’ tortures a the e-lect.” He closed his eyes in rapture, a sign of his own. “ ‘And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, an’ lift up your heads, for your re-demption draweth nigh.’ Luke 21:28.” He dropped his head dramatically, his message delivered.

Mrs. Lincoln couldn’t contain herself any longer. She grabbed the bullhorn in one hand, waving her sign in the other. “The demons are comin’, and we have to be ready! I’ve been sayin’ it for years! Lift your heads up and watch for them. They may be standin’ at your back door! They may be walkin’ among us now!”

It was ironic. For once, Link’s mom was right. The Demons
were coming, but the folks in Gatlin weren’t prepared for this kind of fight.

Even Amma—with her dolls that weren’t dolls and her tarot cards that weren’t tarot cards, her salt-lined windowsills and bottle trees—she wasn’t ready for this fight. Abraham and Sarafine, with an army of Vexes? Hunting and his Blood Pack? John Breed, who was nowhere and everywhere?

Because of him, the end was near, and Demons were walking among us. It was all about him. He was the one to blame.

And if there was one thing I had become so intimately acquainted with that I could feel it crawling around under my skin, the way lubbers were crawling all over that oak, it was blame.

9.28

I
t was getting late when I finally made it home. Lucille was waiting on the front porch, her head tilted to the side as if she was waiting to see what I was going to do. When I opened the door and headed down the hall toward Amma’s room, I finally knew. I wasn’t ready to confront her, but I needed her help. John Breed’s Eighteenth Moon was too big for me to face on my own, and if anyone would know what to do, it was Amma.

Her bedroom door was closed, but I could hear her rummaging around in there. She was muttering, too, but her voice was too soft for me to make out anything she was saying.

I knocked on the door lightly, my head pressed against the cool wood.

Please let her be okay. Just tonight.

She opened the door far enough for her to peek through the crack. She was still wearing her apron, and she held a threaded
needle in one hand. I looked past her into the dim light of her bedroom. Her bed was covered with scrap material, spools of thread, and herbs. She was making her dolls, no doubt. But something was off. It was the smell—that awful combination of gasoline and licorice I remembered from the bokor’s shop.

“Amma, what’s going on?”

“Nothin’ you need to worry about. Why don’t you get on upstairs and do some a your schoolwork?” She didn’t look me in the eye, and she didn’t ask where I’d been.

“What’s that smell?” I searched the room, looking for the source. There was a thick black candle on her dresser. It looked exactly like the one the bokor had been burning. There were tiny hand-sewn bundles piled up around it. “What are you making in there?”

She was flustered for a second, but then she pulled herself together and shut her door behind her. “Charms, same as I always do. Now you get on upstairs and worry about what’s goin’ on in that mess you call a room.”

Amma had never burned what smelled like toxic chemicals in our house before, not when she was making her dolls or any kind of charms. But I couldn’t tell her I knew where that candle had come from. She would skin me alive if she knew I’d been in that bokor’s shop, and I needed to believe there was a reason for all this—one I just didn’t understand. Because Amma was the closest thing I had to a mother, and like my mother, she had always protected me.

Still, I wanted her to know I was paying attention—that I knew something was wrong. “Since when do you burn candles that smell like they belong in a science lab when you make your dolls? Horsehair and—”

My mind was completely blank.

I couldn’t remember what else she stuffed inside those dolls—what was inside the jars that lined her shelves. Horsehair, I could picture that jar. But what were in the other ones?

Amma was watching me. I didn’t want her to realize that I couldn’t remember. “Forget it. If you don’t want to tell me what you’re really doing in there, fine.”

I stormed down the hall and out the front door. I leaned against one of the porch beams, listening to the sound of the lubbers eating away at our town—the way something was eating away at my mind.

Out on my front porch, the growing dark was equal parts warm and sad. Through the open window, I could hear pans clattering, floorboards complaining as Amma beat the kitchen into submission. She must have given up on the charms for tonight. The familiar rhythm of her sounds didn’t cheer me up like it usually did, though. It made me feel guiltier, which made my heart pound harder, which made me pace faster, until the floorboards on the porch were groaning almost as loud as the ones in the kitchen.

On either side of the wall, we were both full of secrets and lies.

I wondered if the worn wooden floor in Wate’s Landing was the only place in Gatlin that knew all the skeletons in my family’s closet. I’d ask Aunt Del to take a look, if her powers ever started working again.

It was dark now, and I needed to talk to someone. Amma wasn’t an option anymore. I pressed number three on my speed dial. I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t remember the number I’d called a hundred times.

I was forgetting things all the time now, and I didn’t know why. But I knew it wasn’t good.

I heard someone pick up. “Aunt Marian?”

“Ethan? Are you all right?” She sounded surprised to hear my voice on the other end of the line.

I’m not all right. I’m scared and confused. And I’m pretty sure none of us are going to be all right.

I forced the words out of my head, lowering my voice. “Yeah. I’m fine. How are you holding up?”

She sounded tired. “You know, Ethan, your mom would be proud of this town. I’ve had more people come in and volunteer to help rebuild the library than ever came in the whole time it was standing.”

“Yeah, well. I guess that’s the thing about burning books. It all depends on who burns them.”

Her voice lowered. “Any luck with the answer to that? Who burned them?” The way she said it, I could tell it was all she’d thought about—and this time, she knew Mrs. Lincoln wasn’t the culprit.

“That’s why I’m calling. Can you do me a favor?”

Can you make everything the way it used to be, when my biggest problem was getting stuck reading car magazines at the Stop & Steal with the guys?

“Anything.”

Anything that doesn’t get me involved in a way I can’t be.
That’s what she meant.

“Can you meet me at Ravenwood? I need to talk to you and Macon—and everyone, I guess.”

Silence. The sound of Marian thinking. “About this?”

“Sort of.”

More silence. “Things aren’t good for me right now, EW. If the Council of the Far Keep thought I was violating the rules again—”

“You’re going to visit a friend at his house. That can’t be against the rules.” Could it? “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. It’s about more than the library, the heat—what’s happening in town. It’s about the Eighteenth Moon.”

Please. You and Amma are all I have, and she’s gone darker than she ever has. And I can’t talk to my mom. So it has to be you.

I knew the answer before she said a word. If there was one thing I loved about Marian, it was how she always heard what was being said, even if no one was saying it. “Give me a few minutes.”

I snapped my phone shut and tossed it onto the step next to me. Time for another call, no phone required. I stared up at the sky. The stars were starting to come out, the moon already waiting.

L? Are you there?

There was a long pause, and I could feel Lena slowly begin to relax her mind into mine until we were connected again.

I’m here, Ethan.

We need to figure this out. After what happened at County Care, we can’t waste any more time. Find your uncle. I already called Marian, and I’ll pick up Link on my way over.

What about Amma?

I wanted to tell her what happened tonight, but it hurt too much.

She’s in a bad place right now. Can you ask your gramma?

She’s not here. But Aunt Del is. And it will be hard to leave Ridley out.

That wasn’t going to help the situation, but if Link was coming, it was going to be impossible to keep her away.

You never know, we might get lucky. Maybe Rid will be too busy sticking pins in little cheerleader voodoo dolls.

Lena laughed, but I didn’t. I couldn’t imagine dolls that didn’t smell like the poison burning in Amma’s room. I felt a kiss on my cheek, even though I was alone on the porch.

On my way.

I didn’t bring up the name of the other person who would be there. Then again, neither did Lena.

Back inside, Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy were watching
Jeopardy!
, which I hoped would be a good distraction, since Amma knew all the answers and pretended she didn’t. And the Sisters knew none and insisted they did.