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Aunt Prue pushed me across the threshold, and I went stumbling, only inches from the snakes. “Go on in. You aren’t afraid of a few itty-bitty little
garden snakes, are you?”
Was she kidding? They looked like pit vipers.
I turned awkwardly toward Obidias. “I’m sorry, sir. It—they just caught me off guard.”
“Don’t give it another thought.” He waved off the apology with a twist of the wrist on his good hand. “It’s not something you see every day.”
Aunt Prue sniffed. “I’ve seen a stranger thing or two.” I stared at my aunt, who looked as smug as if she shook a new snake hand every day of her
life.
Obidias closed the door behind us, but not before checking the horizon in every direction. “You came alone? You weren’t followed?”
Aunt Prue shook her head. “Me? Nobody can follow me.” She wasn’t kidding.
I looked back to Obidias. “Can I ask you something, sir?” I had to know for sure if he’d met Link, if he was the same guy.
“Of course.”
I cleared my throat. “I think you met a friend of mine. When you were alive, I mean. He told me about someone who looked like you.”
Obidias held out his hand. “You mean a man with five snakes for a hand? There probably aren’t many of us.”
I wasn’t sure how to say the next part. “If it was my friend, he was there when you—you know. Died. I’m not sure it matters, but if it does, I’d like to
know.”
Aunt Prue looked at me, confused. She didn’t know any of this. Link had never told anyone but me, as far as I knew.
Obidias was watching me, too. “Did this friend of yours happen to know Macon Ravenwood?”
I nodded. “He did, sir.”
“Then I remember him well.” He smiled. “I saw him deliver my message to Macon after I passed. You can see a great deal from this side.”
“I guess so.” He was right. Because we were dead, we could see everything. And because we were dead, it didn’t matter what we could see. So
the whole seeing-things-from-the-grave concept? Majorly overrated. All you ended up seeing was more than you wanted to in the first place.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the first guy who would’ve traded seeing a little less for living a little more. I didn’t say that to Edward Snakehands, though. I
didn’t want to think about how much I had in common with a guy whose fingers had fangs.
“Why don’t we make ourselves more comfortable? We have a lot to talk about.” Obidias ushered us further into the living room—really the only
room I could see, except for a small kitchen and a lone door at the end of the hall, which must have led to the bedroom.
It was basically one gigantic library. Shelves extended from the floor to the ceiling, a battered brass library ladder attached to the highest shelf. A
polished wooden stand held a huge leather volume, like the dictionary we had in the Gatlin County Library. Marian would’ve loved this place.
There was nothing else in the room aside from four threadbare armchairs. Obidias waited for Aunt Prue and me to sit down before he chose a
chair opposite ours. He removed the dark glasses he was wearing, and his eyes locked on mine.
I should have known.
Yellow eyes.
He was a Dark Caster. Of course.
That made sense, if he really was the guy from Link’s story. But still, now that I thought about it, what was Aunt Prue doing, taking me to see a
Dark Caster?
Obidias must have realized what I was thinking. “You didn’t think there were Dark Casters here, did you?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. I guess I didn’t.”
“Surprise.” Obidias smiled grimly.
Aunt Prue swooped in to save me. “The Otherworld’s a place for unfinished business. For folks like me and you and Obidias here, who aren’t
ready ta move on just yet.”
“And my mom?”
She nodded. “Lila Jane more than anyone. She’s been kickin’ around here longer than the whole lot a us.”
“Some can cross freely between this world and others,” Obidias explained. “We all eventually get to our destination. But those of us whose lives
were cut short before we could right the wrongs haunting us, we remain here until we find that moment of peace.”
He didn’t have to tell me. I already knew it for myself—crossing was complicated business. And I hadn’t felt anything remotely peaceful. Not yet.
I turned to Aunt Prue. “So you’re stuck here, too? I mean, when you aren’t crossing back to visit the Sisters? Because of me?”
“I can leave if I set my mind ta it.” She patted my hand, as if to remind me I was silly to think there was ever anyone or anything that could keep my
aunt from a place she wanted to go. “But I’m not goin’ anywhere till you’re back home, where you belong. You’re a part a my unfinished business
now, Ethan, and I ’cept that. I mean ta make things right.” She patted my cheek. “Besides, what else am I gonna do? I got myself Mercy and Grace
ta wait for, don’t I?”
“Back home? You mean to Gatlin?”
“Ta Miss Amma, and Lena, and all our kin,” she answered.
“Aunt Prue, I could barely cross to visit Gatlin, and even then nobody could see me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, boy.” Obidias spoke up, and one of his angry-looking snakes sank its fangs into his wrist. He winced, pulling a piece
of black material shaped like a mitten out of his pocket. He dropped the hood over the hissing snakes, using two pieces of cord at the bottom to
tighten it. The snakes shifted and thrashed beneath the fabric. “Now, where was I?”
“Are you okay?” I was a little distracted. It’s not every day that a guy, or even a Sheer, gets bitten by his own hand. At least I hoped it wasn’t.
But Obidias didn’t want to talk about himself. “When I heard about the circumstances that brought you to this side of the veil, I sent word to your
aunt immediately. Your aunt and your mother.”
My Aunt Prue clicked her tongue impatiently.
That explained my aunt wanting to bring me here—and my mother not wanting her to. Just because you told any two people in my family the same
piece of news, that didn’t mean they’d agree about what they’d heard. My mom used to say the people in the Evers family were about the most hogminded,
mule-stuck bloodline you could find—and the Wates were worse. A pack of wasps fighting over the nest—that’s what my dad called the
Wate family reunions.
“How did you hear about what happened?” I tried not to stare at the snakes twisting beneath the black hood.
“News travels fast in the Otherworld,” he said, hesitating. “More importantly, I knew it was a mistake.”
“I told you, Ethan Wate.” Aunt Prue looked mighty satisfied.
If it was a mistake—if I wasn’t supposed to be here—maybe there was a way to fix it. Maybe I really could go home.
I wanted so badly for it to be true, the same way I had wanted this to be a dream I could wake up from. But I knew better.
Nothing was ever how you wanted it to be. Not anymore. Not for me.