Life goes on, I guess.
Then I saw the page for the crossword puzzle and slid it toward me as quickly as I could. “There.”
“You want to do the crossword puzzle?”
“I don’t want to do it. I want to write one for Amma. If she saw it, she’d tell Lena.”
My mom shook her head. “Even if you could manage to get the letters the way you want them on the page, Amma won’t see it. She doesn’t take the paper anymore. Not since you—left. She hasn’t touched one of her puzzles in months.”
I winced. How could I have forgotten? Amma had said it herself while I was standing in the kitchen at Wate’s Landing.
“What about a letter, then?”
“I’ve tried it a hundred times, but it’s nearly impossible. You can only use what’s already on the page.” She studied the paper in front of us. “Actually, it might work because you can drag the letters around on the draft. See, how they’re laying it out on the table?”
She was right. The way the puzzle worked, the letters were cut into a thousand tiles, like a Scrabble board. All I had to do was move the paper around.
If I was even strong enough to do that.
I looked at my mom, more determined than ever. “Then we’ll use the crossword, and I’ll make Lena see it.”
Moving the letters into place was like digging up a rock from the Sisters’ garden, but my mom helped me. She shook her head as we stared at the page. “A crossword puzzle. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
I shrugged. “I’m just not very good at writing songs.”
In its current state, the crossword was barely half-finished, but the staff around here probably wouldn’t mind too much if I helped them along. After all, it looked like the Sunday edition, the biggest day for The Stars and Stripes—at least for the crossword. Between the three of them, they’d probably be relieved that someone else had taken it on this week. I was surprised they didn’t have Amma in here writing the puzzles for them already.
The only hard part would be getting Lena to take an interest in this puzzle at all.
Eleven across.
P. O. L. T. E. R. G. E. I. S. T.
As in, apparition or phantasm. A spectral being. A spirit from another world. A ghost. The vaguest shadow of a person, the thing that comes to you in the night when you think no one is looking.
In other words, the thing you are, Ethan Wate.
Six down.
G. A. T. L. I. N.
As in, parochial. Local. Insular. The place we’re stuck, whether in the Otherworld or the Mortal one.
E. T. E. R. N. A. L.
As in, endless, without stopping, forever. The way you feel about a certain girl, whether you’re dead or alive.
L. O. V. E.
As in, how I feel about you, Lena Duchannes.
T. R. Y.
As in, as hard as I can, every minute of every day.
As in, I got your message, L.
Then I felt overwhelmed by the thought of how much I’d lost, of everything that stupid fall off the water tower had cost me, and I lost control and loosened my grip on Gatlin. First my eyes filled, and then the letters blurred away, drifting into nothing as the world vanished beneath my feet and I was gone.
I was crossing back. I tried to remember the words from the scroll—the ones that had brought me here—but my mind couldn’t focus on anything at all.
It was too late.
Darkness surrounded me, and I felt something like wind whipping across my face, howling in my ears. Then I heard my mother’s voice—steady as the grip of her cool hand on mine.
“Ethan, hold on. I’ve got you.”
CHAPTER 10
Snake Eyes
I felt my feet touch something solid, like I had just stepped off a train and onto the platform at the station. I saw the floorboards of our front porch, then my Chucks standing on them. We’d crossed back, leaving the living world behind us. We were back where we belonged, with the dead.
I didn’t want to think about it like that.
“Well, it’s ’bout time, seein’ as I finished watchin’ all your mamma’s paint dry more than an hour ago.”
Aunt Prue was waiting for us in the Otherworld, on the front porch of Wate’s Landing—the one in the middle of the cemetery.
I still wasn’t used to the sight of my house here instead of the mausoleums and weeping angel statues that dominated Perpetual Peace. But standing by the railing, with all three Harlon Jameses sitting at attention around her feet, Aunt Prue looked pretty dominant, too.
More like mad as a hornet.
“Ma’am,” I said, scratching my neck uncomfortably.
“Ethan Wate, I’ve been waitin’ on you. Thought you’d only be gone a minute.” The three dogs looked just as irritated. Aunt Prue nodded at my mother. “Lila.”
“Aunt Prudence.” They regarded each other warily, which seemed strange to me. They had always gotten along when I was growing up.
I smiled at my aunt, changing the subject. “I did it, Aunt Prue. I crossed. I was… you know, on the other side.”
“You might a let a person know, so they didn’t wait on your porch for the best part a the day.” My aunt waved her handkerchief in my general direction.
“I went to Ravenwood and Greenbrier and Wate’s Landing and The Stars and Stripes.” Aunt Prue raised an eyebrow at me, as if she didn’t believe it.
“Really?”
“Well, not by myself. I mean, with my mom. She might have helped some. Ma’am.”
My mom looked amused. Aunt Prue did not.
“Well, if you want a preacher’s chance in Heaven ta get yourself back there, we need ta talk.”
“Prudence,” my mom said in a strange tone. It sounded like a warning.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept talking. “You mean about crossing? Because I think I’m starting to get the hang—”
“Stop yappin’ and start listenin’, Ethan Wate. I’m not talkin’ ’bout practicin’ any crossin’. I’m talkin’ ’bout crossin’ back. For good, ta the old world.”
For a second, I thought she was teasing me. But her expression didn’t change. She was serious—at least as serious as my crazy great-aunt ever was. “What are you talking about, Aunt Prue?”
“Prudence.” My mom said it again. “Don’t do this.”
Don’t do what? Give me a chance to get back there?
Aunt Prue glared at my mother, easing herself down the stairs one orthopedic shoe at a time. I reached out to help her, but she waved me off, stubborn as ever. When she finally made it to the carpet of grass at the base of the stairs, Aunt Prue stepped in front of me. “There’s been a mistake, Ethan. A mighty big one. This wasn’t supposed ta happen.”
A tremor of hope washed over me. “What?”
The color drained out of my mom’s face. “Stop.” I thought she was going to pass out. I could barely breathe.
“I won’t,” said Aunt Prue, narrowing her eyes behind her spectacles.
“I thought we decided not to tell him, Prudence.”
“You decided, Lila Jane. I’m too old not ta do as I please.”
“I’m his mother.” My mom wasn’t giving up.
“What’s going on?” I tried to wedge myself between them, but neither one of them would look my way.
Aunt Prue raised her chin. “The boy’s old enough ta decide somethin’ that big on his own, don’tcha think?”
“It’s not safe.” My mom folded her arms. “I don’t mean to be firm with you, but I’m going to have to ask you to go.”
I’d never heard my mother talk to any of the Sisters like that. She might as well have declared World War III for the Wate family. It didn’t seem to stop Aunt Prue, though.
She just laughed. “Can’t put the molasses back in the jar, Lila Jane. You know it’s the truth, and you know you got no right keepin’ it from your boy.” Aunt Prue looked me right in the eye. “I need you ta come on with me. There’s someone you need ta meet.”
My mom just looked at her. “Prudence…”
Aunt Prue gave her the kind of look that could wilt and wither a whole flower bed. “Don’t you Prudence me. You can’t stop this thing. And where we’re goin’ you can’t come, Lila Jane. You know well as I do that we both got nothin’ but the boy’s best interest at heart.”
It was a classic Sisters’ face-off, the kind where before you blinked, you were already past the point where nobody came out ahead.
A second later, my mom backed off. I would never know what happened in that silent exchange between them, and it was probably better that way.
“I’ll wait for you here, Ethan.” My mom looked at me. “But you be careful.”
Aunt Prue smiled, victorious.
One of the Harlon Jameses began to growl. Then we took off down the sidewalk so fast I could barely keep up.
I followed Aunt Prue and the yipping dogs to the outer limits of Perpetual Peace—past the Snows’ perfectly restored Federal-style manor house, which was situated in exactly the same spot their massive mausoleum occupied in the cemetery of the living.
“Who died?” I asked, looking at my aunt. Seeing as there wasn’t anything on earth powerful enough to take down Savannah Snow.
“Great-great-grandpappy Snow, ’fore you were even halfway inta diapers. Been here a long time now. Oldest plot in the row.” She picked her way down the stone path that led around back, and I followed.
We headed toward an old shed behind the house, the rotted planks barely holding up the crooked roof. I could see tiny flecks of faded paint clinging to the wood where someone had scraped it clean. There was no amount of scraping that could disguise the shade that trimmed my own house in Gatlin—haint blue. The one shade of blue meant to keep the spirits away.
I guess Amma was right about the haints not caring much for the color. As I looked around, I could already see the difference. There wasn’t a graveyard neighbor in sight.
“Aunt Prue, where are we going? I’ve had enough of the Snows to last more than one lifetime.”
She glowered at me. “I told you. We’re goin’ ta call on someone who knows more than me ’bout this mess.” She reached for the splintered handle of the shed. “You just be thankful I’m a Statham, and Stathams get on with all kinds a folks, or we wouldn’t have a soul ta help us sort things out.” I couldn’t look at my aunt. I was too scared I would start laughing, considering she got along with just about no kinds of folks, at least not in the Gatlin I was from.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She stepped inside the shed, which didn’t look like anything more than an ordinary shed. But if I’d learned anything from Lena and my experiences in her world, it was that things aren’t always what they seem.
I followed Aunt Prue—and the Harlon Jameses—inside and closed the door behind us. The cracks in the wood let in just enough light for me to see her turn around in the shed. She reached for something in the dim light, and I realized it was another handle.