Until Link dropped me off after basketball practice and I decided to do something completely insane.
Amma was standing on the front porch—a sure sign of trouble. “Did you see her?” I should’ve expected this.
“She wasn’t in school today.” Technically that was true.
“Maybe that’s for the best. Trouble follows that girl around like Macon Ravenwood’s dog. I don’t want it followin’ you into this house.”
“I’m going to take a shower. Will dinner be ready soon? Link and I have a project to do tonight.” I called from the stairs, trying to sound normal.
“Project? What kinda project?”
“History.”
“Where are you goin’ and when are you fixin’ to get back?”
I let the bathroom door slam before I answered that one. I had a plan, but I needed a story, and it had to be good.
Ten minutes later, sitting at the kitchen table, I had it. It wasn’t airtight, but it was the best I could do without a little time. Now I just had to pull it off. I wasn’t the best liar, and Amma was no fool. “Link is picking me up after dinner and we’re gonna be at the library until it closes. I think it’s sometime around nine or ten.” I glopped Carolina Gold onto my pulled pork. Carolina Gold, a sticky mess of mustard barbeque sauce, was the one thing Gatlin County was famous for that had nothing to do with the Civil War.
“The library?”
Lying to Amma always made me nervous, so I tried not to do it that often. And tonight I was really feeling it, mostly in my stomach. The last thing I wanted to do was eat three plates of pulled pork, but I had no choice. She knew exactly how much I could put away. Two plates, and I would rouse suspicion. One plate, and she would send me to my room with a thermometer and ginger ale. I nodded and set to work clearing my second plate.
“You haven’t set foot in the library since…”
“I know.” Since my mom died.
The library was home away from home to my mom, and my family. We had spent every Sunday afternoon there since I was a little boy, wandering around the stacks, pulling out every book with a picture of a pirate ship, a knight, a soldier, or an astronaut. My mom used to say, “This is my church, Ethan. This is how we keep the Sabbath holy in our family.”
The Gatlin County head librarian, Marian Ashcroft, was my mom’s oldest friend, the second smartest historian in Gatlin next to my mom, and until last year, her research partner. They had been grad students together at Duke, and when Marian finished her PhD in African-American studies, she followed my mom down to Gatlin to finish their first book together. They were halfway through their fifth book before the accident.
I hadn’t set foot in the library since then, and I still wasn’t ready. But I also knew there was no way Amma would stop me from going there. She wouldn’t even call to check up on me. Marian Ashcroft was family. And Amma, who had loved my mom as much as Marian did, respected nothing more than family.
“Well, you mind your manners and don’t raise your voice. You know what your mamma used to say. Any book is a Good Book, and wherever they keep the Good Book safe is also the House a the Lord.” Like I said, my mom would have never made it in the DAR.
Link honked. He was giving me a ride on his way to band practice. I fled the kitchen, feeling so guilty I had to fight the impulse to fling myself into Amma’s arms and confess everything, like I was six years old again and had eaten all the dry Jell-O mix out of the pantry. Maybe Amma was right. Maybe I had picked a hole in the sky and the universe was all about to fall in on me.
As I stepped up to the door of Ravenwood, my hand tightened around the glossy blue folder, my excuse for showing up at Lena’s house uninvited. I was dropping by to give her the English assignment she’d missed today—that’s what I planned to say, anyway. It had sounded convincing, in my head, when I was standing on my own porch. But now that I was on the porch at Ravenwood, I wasn’t so sure.
I wasn’t usually the kind of guy who would do something like this, but it was obvious there was no way Lena was ever going to invite me over on her own. And I had a feeling her uncle could help us, that he might know something.
Or maybe it was the other thing. I wanted to see her. It had been a long, dull day at Jackson without Hurricane Lena, and I was starting to wonder how I ever got through eight periods without all the trouble she caused me. Without all the trouble she made me want to cause myself.
I could see light flooding from the vine-covered windows. I heard the sounds of music in the background, old Savannah songs, from that Georgian songwriter my mom had loved. “In the cool cool cool of the evening…”
I heard barking from the other side of the door before I even knocked, and within seconds the door swung open. Lena was standing there in her bare feet, and she looked different—dressed up, in a black dress with little birds embroidered on it, like she was going out to have dinner at a fancy restaurant. I looked more like I was headed to the Dar-ee Keen in my holey Atari T-shirt and jeans. She stepped out onto the veranda, pulling the door shut behind her. “Ethan, what are you doing here?”
I held up the folder, lamely. “I brought your homework.”
“I can’t believe you just showed up here. I told you my uncle doesn’t like strangers.” She was already pushing me down the stairs. “You have to go. Now.”
“I just thought we could talk to him.”
Behind us, I heard the awkward clearing of a throat. I looked up to see Macon Ravenwood’s dog, and beyond him, Macon Ravenwood himself. I tried not to look surprised, but I’m pretty sure it gave me away when I almost jumped out of my skin.
“Well, that’s one I don’t hear often. And I do hate to disappoint, as I am nothing if not a Southern gentleman.” He spoke in a measured Southern drawl, but with perfect enunciation. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Wate.”
I couldn’t believe I was standing in front of him. The mysterious Macon Ravenwood. Only, I really had been expecting Boo Radley—some guy trudging around the house in overalls, mumbling in some kind of monosyllabic language like a Neanderthal, maybe even drooling a bit around the edges of his mouth.
This was no Boo Radley. This was more of an Atticus Finch.
Macon Ravenwood was dressed impeccably, as if it was, I don’t know, 1942. His crisp white dress shirt was fastened with old-fashioned silver studs, instead of buttons. His black dinner jacket was spotless, perfectly creased. His eyes were dark and gleaming; they looked almost black. They were clouded over, tinted, like the glass of the hearse windows Lena drove around town. There was no seeing into those eyes, no reflection. They stood out from his pale face, which was as white as snow, white as marble, white as, well, you’d expect from the town shut-in. His hair was salt and pepper, gray near his face, as black as Lena’s on the top.
He could have been some kind of American movie star, from before they invented Technicolor, or maybe royalty, from some small country nobody had ever heard of around here. But Macon Ravenwood, he was from these parts. That was the confusing thing. Old Man Ravenwood was the boogeyman of Gatlin, a story I’d heard since kindergarten. Only now he seemed like he belonged here less than I did.
He snapped shut the book he was holding, never taking his eyes off me. He was looking at me, but it was almost like he was looking through me, searching for something. Maybe the guy had x-ray vision. Given the past week, anything was possible.
My heart was beating so loudly I was sure he could hear it. Macon Ravenwood had me rattled and he knew it. Neither one of us smiled. His dog stood tense and rigid at his side, as if waiting for the command to attack.
“Where are my manners? Do come in, Mr. Wate. We were just about to sit down to dinner. You simply must join us. Dinner is always quite the affair, here at Ravenwood.”
I looked at Lena, hoping for some direction.
Tell him you don’t want to stay.
Trust me, I don’t.
“No, that’s okay, sir. I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to drop off Lena’s homework.” I held the shiny blue folder up for the second time.
“Nonsense, you must stay. We’ll enjoy a few Cubans in the conservatory after dinner, or are you more of a Cigarillo man? Unless, of course, you’re uncomfortable coming in, in which case, I completely understand.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
Lena slipped her arm around his waist, and I could see his face change instantly. Like the sun breaking through the clouds on a gray day. “Uncle M, don’t tease Ethan. He’s the only friend I have here, and if you scare him away I’ll have to go live with Aunt Del, and then you’ll have no one left to torture.”
“I’ll still have Boo.” The dog looked up at Macon, quizzically.
“I’ll take him with me. It’s me he follows around town, not you.”
I had to ask. “Boo? Is the dog’s name Boo Radley?”
Macon cracked the smallest of smiles. “Better him than me.” He threw back his head and laughed, which startled me, since there was no way I could have imagined his features composing themselves into even so much as a smile. He flung open the door behind him. “Really, Mr. Wate, please join us. I so love company, and it’s been ages since Ravenwood has had the pleasure of hosting a guest from our own delicious little Gatlin County.”
Lena smiled awkwardly, “Don’t be a snob, Uncle M. It’s not their fault you never speak to any of them.”
“And it’s not my fault that I have a penchant for good breeding, reasonable intelligence, and passable personal hygiene, not necessarily in that order.”
“Ignore him. He’s in a mood.” Lena looked apologetic.
“Let me guess. Does it have something to do with Principal Harper?”
Lena nodded. “The school called. While the incident is being investigated, I’m on probation.” She rolled her eyes. “One more ‘infraction’ and they’ll suspend me.”
Macon laughed dismissively, as if we were talking about something completely inconsequential. “Probation? How amusing. Probation would imply a source of authority.” He pushed us both into the hall in front of him. “An overweight high school principal who barely finished college, and a pack of angry housewives with pedigrees that couldn’t rival Boo Radley’s, hardly qualify.”
I stepped over the threshold and stopped dead in my tracks. The entry hall was soaring and grand, not the suburban model home I had stepped into just days ago. A monstrously huge oil painting, a portrait of a terrifyingly beautiful woman with glowing gold eyes, hung over the stairs, which weren’t contemporary anymore, but a classic flying staircase seemingly supported only by the air itself. Scarlett O’Hara could have swept down them in a hoop skirt and she wouldn’t have looked a bit out of place. Tiered crystal chandeliers were dripping from the ceiling. The hall was thick with clusters of antique Victorian furniture, small groupings of intricately embroidered chairs, marble tabletops, and graceful ferns. A candle glowed from every surface. Tall, shuttered doors were thrown open; the breeze carried the scent of gardenias, which were arranged in tall silver vases, artfully placed on the tabletops.