375754734737

“H. E. B. E. T. U. D. I. N. O. U. S.”
“What?”
“As in, you don’t have a lick a sense, Ethan Wate.”
I fished the locket out of my pocket and walked over to where she was still standing by the stove. “We were out back, behind the house, and we
found something,” I said, opening my hand so she could take a look. “It has an inscription inside.”
The expression on Amma’s face stopped me cold. She looked like something had knocked the wind right out of her.
“Amma, are you okay?” I reached for her elbow, to steady her in case she was about to faint. But she pulled her arm away before I could touch
her, like she’d burned her hand on the handle of a pot.
“Where did you get that?” Her voice was a whisper.
“We found it in the dirt, at Ravenwood.”
“You didn’t find that at Ravenwood Plantation.”
“What are you talking about? Do you know who it belonged to?”
“Stand right here. Don’t you move,” she instructed, rushing out of the kitchen.
But I ignored her, following her to her room. It had always looked more like an apothecary than a bedroom, with a low white single bed tucked
beneath rows of shelves. On the shelves were neatly stacked newspapers—Amma never threw away a finished crossword—and Mason jars full of
her stock ingredients for making charms. Some were her old standards: salt, colored stones, herbs. Then there were more unusual collections, like
a jar of roots and another of abandoned bird nests. The top shelf was just bottles of dirt. She was acting weird, even for Amma. I was only a couple
of steps behind her, but she was already tearing through her drawers by the time I got there.
“Amma, what are you—”
“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the kitchen? Don’t you bring that thing in here!” she shrieked, when I took a step forward.
“What are you so upset about?” She stuffed a few things I couldn’t get a look at into her tool apron, and rushed back out of the room. I caught up
with her back in the kitchen. “Amma, what’s the matter?”
“Take this.” She handed me a threadbare handkerchief, careful not to let her hand touch mine. “Now you wrap that thing up in here. Right now,
right this second.”
This was beyond going dark. She was totally losing it.
“Amma—”
“Do as I say, Ethan.” She never called me by my first name without my last.
Once the locket was safely wrapped in the handkerchief, she calmed down a little bit. She rifled through the lower pockets of her apron, removing
a small leather bag and a vial of powder. I knew enough to recognize the makings of one of her charms when I saw them. Her hand shook slightly as
she poured some of the dark powder into the leather pouch. “Did you wrap it up tight?”
“Yeah,” I said, expecting her to correct me for answering her so informally.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Now you put it in here.” The leather pouch was warm and smooth in my hand. “Go on now.”
I dropped the offending locket into the pouch.
“Tie this around it,” she instructed, handing me a piece of what looked like ordinary twine, although I knew nothing Amma used for her charms
was ever ordinary, or what it seemed. “Now you take it back there, where you found it, and you bury it. Take it there straightaway.”
“Amma, what’s going on?” She took a few steps forward and grabbed my chin, pushing the hair out of my eyes. For the first time since I pulled
the locket out of my pocket, she looked me in the eye. We stayed that way for what seemed like the longest minute of my life. Her expression was
an unfamiliar one, uncertain.
“You’re not ready,” she whispered, releasing her hand.
“Not ready for what?”
“Do as I say. Take that bag back to where you found it and bury it. Then you come right home. I don’t want you messin’ with that girl anymore, you
hear me?”