Beautiful Creatures(55)

I was about to head back through the swamp, wishing I’d dropped breadcrumbs on my way out here, when the door opened again. Amma stood in the light of the doorway, putting things I couldn’t see into her good white patent leather pocketbook. She was wearing her best lavender church dress, white gloves, and a fancy matching hat with flowers all around it.

She was on the move again, heading back toward the swamp. Was she going into the swamp wearing that? As much as I didn’t enjoy the trek to Amma’s house, slogging through the swamp in my jeans was worse. The mud was so thick it felt like I was pulling my feet out of cement every time I took a step. I didn’t know how Amma was able to get through it, in her dress, at her age.

Amma seemed to know exactly where she was going, stopping in a clearing of tall grass and mud weeds. The branches of the cypress trees tangled with weeping willows, creating a canopy overhead. A chill ran up my back, though it was still seventy degrees out here. Even after everything I’d seen tonight, there was something creepy about this place. There was a mist coming off the water, seeping up from the sides, like steam pushing out of the lid of a boiling pot. I edged my way closer. She was pulling something out of her bag, the white patent leather shining in the moonlight.

Bones. They looked like chicken bones.

She whispered something over the bones, and put them into a small pouch, not much different from the pouch she had given me to subdue the power of the locket. Fishing around in the bag again, she pulled out a fancy hand towel, the kind you’d find in a powder room, and used it to wipe the mud from her skirt. There were faint white lights in the distance, like fireflies blinking in the dark, and music, slow, sultry music and laughter. Somewhere, not that far away, people were drinking and dancing out in the swamp.

She looked up. Something had caught her attention, but I didn’t hear anything.

“May as well show yourself. I know you’re out there.”

I froze, panicked. She had seen me.

But it wasn’t me she was talking to. Out from the sweltering mist stepped Macon Ravenwood, smoking a cigar. He looked relaxed, like he’d just stepped out of a chauffeured car, instead of wading through filthy black water. He was impeccably dressed, as usual, in one of his crisp white shirts.

And he was spotless. Amma and I were covered in mud and swamp grass up to our knees, and Macon Ravenwood was standing there without so much as a speck of dirt on him.

“About time. You know I don’t have all night, Melchizedek. I got to get back. And I don’t take kindly to bein’ summoned out here all the way from town. It’s just rude. Not to mention, inconvenient.” She sniffed. “Incommodious, you might say.”

I. N. C. O. M. M. O. D. I. O. U. S. Twelve down. I spelled it out in my head.

“I’ve had quite an eventful evening myself, Amarie, but this matter requires our immediate attention.”

Macon took a few steps forward.

Amma recoiled and pointed a bony finger in his direction. “You stay where you are. I don’t like bein’

out here with your kind on this sorta night. Don’t like it one bit. You keep to yourself, and I’ll keep to mine.”

He stepped back casually, blowing smoke rings into the air. “As I was saying, certain developments require our immediate attention.” He exhaled, a smoky sigh. “‘The moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun.’ To quote our good friends, the Clergy.”

“Don’t talk your high and mighty with me, Melchizedek. What’s so important you need to call me outta bed in the middle a the night?”

“Among other things, Genevieve’s locket.”

Amma nearly howled, holding her scarf over her nose. She clearly couldn’t stand to even hear the word locket. “What about that thing? I told you I Bound it, and I told him to take it back to Greenbrier and bury it. It can’t cause any harm if it’s back in the ground.”

“Wrong on the first count. Wrong on the second. He still has it. He showed it to me in the sanctity of my own home. Aside from which, I’m not sure anything can Bind such a dark talisman.”

“At your house… when was he at your house? I told him to stay clear a Ravenwood.” Now she was noticeably agitated. Great, Amma would find some way to make me pay for this later.

“Well, perhaps you might consider shortening his leash. Clearly, he isn’t very obedient. I warned you that this friendship would be dangerous, that it could develop into something more. A future between the two of them is an impossibility.”

Amma was mumbling under her breath the way she always did when I didn’t listen to her. “He’s always minded me till he met your niece. And don’t you blame me. We wouldn’t be in this fix if you hadn’t brought her down here in the first place. I’ll take care a this. I’ll tell him he can’t see her anymore.”

“Don’t be absurd. They’re teenagers. The more we try to keep them apart, the more they will try to be together. This won’t be an issue once she is Claimed, if we make it that far. Until then, control the boy, Amarie. It’s only a few more months. Things are dangerous enough, without him making an even greater mess of the situation.”

“Don’t talk to me about messes, Melchizedek Ravenwood. My family’s been cleanin’ up your family’s messes for over a hundred years. I’ve kept your secrets, just like you’ve kept mine.”