Now, don’t you tell me you’re thinkin’ a settin’ foot on my front walkway, you hear?” Amma
refused to let Ridley anywhere near Wate’s Landing. She said so in about fifteen different ways in
the first conversation we unsuccessfully tried to have with her.
“Mmmm-nnnnnnn. No Dark Casters are comin’ into this house while I’m here on this sweet
earth. Or after I leave it. No, sir. No, ma’am. No how.”
She agreed to meet us at Greenbrier instead.
Uncle Macon hung back. “It’s better this way. Amarie and I haven’t seen each other since the
night… it happened,” he explained. “I’m not sure this is the right moment.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re scared of her, too?” Ridley eyed him with new interest.
“Imagine that.”
“I’ll be at Ravenwood if you need me,” he said, giving Ridley a withering stare.
“Imagine that.” I smiled.
The rest of us waited inside the crumbling wall of the old graveyard. I resisted the urge to
wander over to Ethan’s plot, though I felt the familiar pull, the longing to be with him there. I
believed, with all my heart, that there was a way to get Ethan back, and I wasn’t going to stop
trying until I found it.
Amma was hopeful, too, but I had seen the fear and doubt in her eyes. She had already lost him
twice. Every time I took her another crossword puzzle, she was desperate to get him back.
I think Amma wasn’t about to let herself believe in anything she could stand to lose again.
With the Book, though, we were one step closer.
Ridley was leaning against a tree, a safe distance from the hole in the stone wall. I knew she
was just as afraid of Amma as Uncle Macon was, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
“Don’t say anything to her when she gets here,” Link warned Ridley. “You know how she gets
about that book.”
Ridley rolled her eyes. “I thought Abraham was a pain. Amma’s even worse.”
I saw a black orthopedic lace-up step through the opening.
“Worse than what?” Amma demanded. “Worse than your manners?” She looked Ridley up and
down. “Or your taste in clothes?”
She was wearing a yellow dress, all sunlight and sweetness, which didn’t match her
expression. Her grayish-black hair was twisted into a neat bun, and she was carrying a patterned
quilting bag. I’d been around long enough to know there weren’t any quilting supplies inside.
“Or a stitch worse than the girl who gets pulled outta Hell only to walk back into the fire on her
own?” Amma watched Ridley carefully.
Ridley didn’t take off her sunglasses, but I could see the shame anyway. I knew her too well.
There was something about Amma that made you feel completely awful if you disappointed her—
even if you were a Siren with no ties to her.
“That’s not what happened,” Ridley said quietly.
Amma dropped her bag on the ground. “Isn’t it, then? I have it on good authority that you had
a chance to be on the right side a wrong for once, and you gave it up. Did I miss somethin’ in the
fine print?”
Ridley shifted nervously. “It’s not that simple.”
Amma sniffed. “You go on tellin’ yourself that if it helps you sleep at night, but don’t try to sell
it to me, because I’m not buyin’ it.” Amma pointed to the lollipop in Ridley’s hand. “And all that
sugar will rot those teeth right outta your head, Caster or no Caster.”
Link laughed nervously.
Amma focused her eagle eye on him. “What’re you laughin’ about, Wesley Lincoln? You’re
knee deep in more trouble than the day I caught you in my basement when you were nine years
old.”
Link’s face reddened. “It sorta finds me, ma’am.”
“You know you go lookin’ for it, sure as the sun shines the same on the saints as it does on the
sinners.” She glanced at each of us. “So what is it this time? And it better not have anythin’ to do
with destroyin’ the balance a the universe.”
“All saints, ma’am. No sinners.” Link backed away an inch or two, looking at me for help.
“Spit it out. I’ve got Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace at the house, and I can’t leave them alone
with Thelma for too long, or the three a them will order everything that comes on the shoppin’
channel.” Amma rarely called Ethan’s great-aunts “the Sisters” anymore, now that one of them was
gone. But now it was Marian who walked over and took Amma’s arm reassuringly. “It’s about The
Book of Moons.”
“We have it,” I blurted out.
Liv stepped aside, revealing The Book of Moons lying on the ground behind her. Amma’s eyes
widened. “Do I wanna know how you got it?”
Link jumped in. “Nope. I mean no, ma’am, you sure don’t.”
“The fact remains we have it now,” Marian said.
“But we can’t get it to Ethan—” I heard the desperation in my voice.
Amma shook her head and approached the Book, circling it like she didn’t want to get too
close. “ ’Course you can’t. This book is too powerful for one world. If you want to send it from
the world a the livin’ to the world a the dead, we’ll need the power a both worlds to send it.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I only cared about one thing. “Will you help us?”
“Not my help you need. You need help on the receivin’ end.”
Liv inched closer to Amma. “We left the Book for Ethan, but he didn’t take it.”
She sniffed. “Hmm. Ethan’s not strong enough to carry that kinda weight across. He probably
doesn’t even know how.”
“But there is someone strong enough,” Marian coaxed. “Perhaps more than one someone.” She
was talking about the Greats.
The question was, would Amma call them?
I bit my lip.
Please say yes.
“Figured if you were callin’, you were lookin’ to test out just how far crazy will go.” Amma
opened the quilting bag and took out a shot glass and a bottle of Wild Turkey. “So I came
prepared.” She poured a shot and pointed to me. “You’re gonna have to help, though. We need the
power a both worlds, don’t forget.”
I nodded. “I’ll do whatever I need to.”
Amma nodded in the direction of Ravenwood. “You can start by gatherin’ up the rest a your
kin. You don’t have the kinda power we need on your own.”
“Rid is here, and John can help, too. He’s half Caster.”
Amma shook her head. “If you want that book to cross, you’re gonna have to go get the rest a
them.”
“They’re in Barbados.”
“Actually, they returned a few hours ago,” Marian said. “Reece stopped by the library earlier
tonight. She said your grandmother wasn’t fond of the humidity.”
I tried not to smile. What my grandmother wasn’t fond of was missing all the action, and
Reece wasn’t much better. With every Caster power in my extended family, I was certain they
knew something was going on.
“I could ask them. But they might be tired from all the travel.” I was worried enough that Uncle
M was going to change his mind about all this. Adding the rest of my family into the mix fell
somewhere between risky and idiotic.
Amma crossed her arms, as determined as I’d ever seen her. “What I know is that this book
isn’t going anywhere without them.”
There was no use arguing with her. I had watched Ethan try to talk her down when her mind
was made up, and he rarely succeeded. And Amma loved him more than anyone in the world. I
didn’t stand a chance.
Ridley nodded at me. “I’ll go with you for backup.”
“Your mom will freak if you just show up. I’m going to have to tell her you’re back. And I
should probably tell them that you’ve—” I hesitated. It wasn’t going to be easy for anyone in my
family to deal with the fact that Ridley ran back to Sarafine for her Dark Caster powers. “Changed.”
Link looked away.
That wasn’t the worst of it. “It’s going to be hard enough to explain to Gramma why I have
the Book.”
Rid slung her arm over my shoulder. “Don’t you know that the best way to distract someone
from bad news is to give them some worse news?” She smiled, leading me toward Ravenwood.
“News doesn’t get much worse than me.”
Link shook his head. “No kidding.”
Ridley spun around and pushed her sunglasses up. “Zip it, Shrinky Dink. Or I’ll make you want
to rip into your mother’s room and tell her you’re becoming a Methodist.”
“Your powers don’t work on me anymore, Babe.”
Ridley blew him a sticky pink kiss. “Try me.”
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