Beautiful Darkness(66)

Aunt Mercy handed me a sheet of stickers with red dots on them. “Now Ethan, go ’round the livin’ room and put one a these stickers underneath a the things you want. Go on now.” She stared at me expectantly, as if she would be offended if I didn't slap one of them on her forehead.

“What are you talking about, Aunt Mercy?”

Aunt Grace pulled a framed photo of an old guy in a Confederate uniform off the wall. “This here's Gen'ral Robert Charles Tyler, last Rebel gen'ral killed in the War Between the States. Give me one a them stickers. This here'll be worth somethin’.”

I had no idea what they were into and was afraid to ask. “We have to get going. Did you forget it was All Souls?”

Aunt Prue frowned. “ ’Course we didn't forget. That's why we're gettin’ our affairs in order.”

“That's what the stickers are for. Everyone's got a color. Thelma's yella, you're red, your daddy's blue.” Aunt Mercy paused, as if she had lost her train of thought.

Aunt Prue silenced her with a look. She didn't like being interrupted. “You put those little stickers on the bottom a the things you want. That way when we die, Thelma'll know exactly who gets what.”

“It was on account a All Souls that we got ta thinkin’ about it.” Aunt Grace smiled proudly.

“I don't want anything, and none of you are dying.” I dropped the sheet of stickers on the table.

“Ethan, Wade'll be here next month, and he's jus’ as greedy as a fox in a henhouse. You need ta do your choosin’ first.” Wade was my Uncle Landis’ illegitimate son, another person in my family who would never make it onto the Wate Family Tree.

There was really no point in arguing with the Sisters when they got like this. So I spent the next half hour putting little red stickers underneath unmatched dining room chairs and Civil War memorabilia, but I still had time to kill while I waited for the Sisters to pick out their hats for All Souls. Choosing the right hat was serious business, and most of the ladies in town had already been down to Charleston to do their shopping weeks ago. To see them walking up the hill, wearing everything from peacock feathers to freshly cut roses on their heads, you would think the ladies of Gatlin were going to a garden party instead of a graveyard.

The place was a mess. Aunt Prue must have made Thelma drag down every box from the attic, full of old clothes, quilts, and photo albums. I flipped through the pages of the album on top. Old pictures were taped onto the brown pages: Aunt Prue and her husbands, Aunt Mercy standing in front of her old house on Dove Street, my house, Wate's Landing, back when my granddad was a kid. I turned the last page, and another house stared back at me.

Ravenwood Manor.

But not the Ravenwood I knew. This was a Ravenwood fit for the Historical Society Registry. Cypress trees lined the walk leading up to the crisp white veranda. Every pillar, every shutter was freshly painted. There were no traces of the strangling overgrowth, the crooked stairs of Macon's Ravenwood. Underneath the photo, there was an inscription, carefully added in delicate handwriting.

Ravenwood Manor, 1865



I was staring at Abraham's Ravenwood.

“Whatcha got there?” Aunt Mercy shuffled in wearing the biggest, pinkest flamingo of a hat I'd ever seen. There was some kind of weird netting on the front, like a veil, topped with a very unrealistic bird perched in a pink nest. When she moved the slightest bit, the whole thing kind of flapped, as if it could fly right off her head. No, this wouldn't give Savannah and the cheer squad any ammo.

I tried not to look at the flapping bird. “It's an old photo album. It was sitting on the top of this box.” I handed the album to her.

“Prudence Jane, bring me my spectacles!”

There was some banging around in the hall, and Aunt Prue appeared in the doorway in an equally large and disturbing hat. This one was black, with a wraparound veil that made Aunt Prue look like the mother of a mob boss at his funeral. “If you wore them ’round your neck, like I told ya …”

Either Aunt Mercy had her hearing aid turned down or she was ignoring Aunt Prue. “Look what Ethan found.” The book was still open to the same page. The Ravenwood of the past stared back at us.

“Lord ’ave mercy, look at that. The Devil's workshop if I ever saw it.” The Sisters, and most of the old folks in Gatlin, were convinced Abraham Ravenwood made some kind of deal with the Devil to save Ravenwood Plantation from General Sherman's burning campaign of 1865, which had left every other plantation along the river in ashes. If the Sisters only knew how close it was to the truth.

“Ain't the only evil Abraham Ravenwood done.” Aunt Prue backed away from the book.

“What do you mean?” Ninety percent of what the Sisters said was nonsense, but the other ten percent was worth hearing. The Sisters were the ones who had told me about my mysterious ancestor, Ethan Carter Wate, who died during the Civil War. Maybe they knew something about Abraham Ravenwood.

Aunt Prue shook her head. “No good can come from talkin’ ’bout him.”

But Aunt Mercy could never resist an opportunity to defy her older sister. “Our granddaddy used ta say Abraham Ravenwood played on the wrong side a right and wrong — tempted fate. He was in league with the Devil all right, practicin’ witchcraft, communin’ with evil spirits.”