Beautiful Darkness(96)

Lucille meowed and sat down on the path in front of us.

Link scratched his head behind her. “Dude, am I seein’ things? ’Cause that looks a lot like your crazy aunt and that fleabag dog a hers.” At first, I didn't answer him. I was too busy figuring the odds of this being some kind of Caster mind trick. We'd get close enough, then Sarafine would step right out of my aunt's skin and kill all three of us.

“Maybe it's Sarafine.” I was thinking out loud, trying to find the logic in something completely illogical.

Liv shook her head. “I don't think so. Cataclysts can project themselves into the bodies of others, but they can't inhabit two people at once. Three, if you count the dog.”

“Who would count that dog?” Link made a face.

Part of me, the biggest part of me, wanted to take off and figure it out later. But they saw us. Aunt Prue, or the creature impersonating Aunt Prue, waved her hankie in the air. “Ethan!”

Link looked back at me. “Should we make a run for it?”

“Findin’ you was harder than herdin’ cats!” Aunt Prue called, shuffling across the grass as fast as she could. Lucille meowed, tossing her head. “Now, Thelma, keep up.” Even at a distance, it was impossible to mistake the off-kilter walk and the bossy tone.

“No, that's her.” Too late to run.

“How did they get down here?” Link was as stumped as I was. It was one thing to find out Carlton Eaton delivered the mail to the Lunae Libri, but seeing my hundred-year-old great-aunt wandering around in the Tunnels in her church dress was something else.

Aunt Prue dug her cane into the grass, working her way up the path. “Wesley Lincoln! Are you gonna stand there and watch an old woman work herself inta a state, or are you gonna get on over here and help me up this hill?”

“Yes, ma'am. I mean, no, ma'am.” Link almost tripped as he ran to hook his arm through hers. I caught the other.

The shock of seeing her was starting to wear off a little. “Aunt Prue, how did you get down here?”

“Same way as you, I expect. Came down through one a them doors. There's one right behind Missionary Baptist. I used it ta sneak outta Bible school when I was younger than you.”

“But how did you know about the Tunnels?” I couldn't figure it. Had she followed us?

“I've been down in these Tunnels more times than a sinner's swore offa the bottle. You think you're the only one who knows ’bout what goes on in this town?” She knew. She was one of them, like my mom and Marian and Carlton Eaton — Mortals who had somehow become part of the Caster world.

“Do Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy know?”

“ ’Course not. Those two can't keep a secret ta save their lives. That's why my daddy only told me. And I never told a soul, ’cept Thelma.”

Thelma squeezed Aunt Prue's arm affectionately. “She only told me because she couldn't climb down the stairs on her own anymore.”

Aunt Prue swatted at Thelma with her handkerchief. “Now, Thelma, you know that's not true. Don't tell stories.”

“Did Professor Ashcroft send you after us?” Liv looked up nervously from her notebook.

Aunt Prue sniffed. “No one sends me anywhere, not hardly. I'm too old ta be sent. Came on my own.” She pointed at me. “But you best hope Amma isn't down here lookin’ for you. She's been boilin’ bones since you left.”

If she only knew.

“Then what are you doing down here, Aunt Prue?” Even if she was in the know, the Tunnels didn't seem like the safest place for an old lady.

“Came ta bring you these.” Aunt Prue opened her pocketbook and held it out so we could see inside. Under the sewing scissors and coupons and King James pocket Bible was a thick stack of yellowed papers, folded neatly into a bundle. “Go on, now. Take ’em.” She might as well have told me to stab myself with the sewing scissors. There was no way I was going to reach into my aunt's purse. It was the ultimate violation of Southern etiquette.

Liv seemed to understand the problem. “May I?” Maybe British men didn't go through women's purses either.

“That's what I brought ’em for.”

Liv lifted the papers gently out of Aunt Prue's purse. “These are really old.” She opened them carefully on the soft grass. “They can't be what I think they are.”

I bent down and studied them. The papers looked like schematics or architectural plans. They were marked in all different colors and written by many different hands. They were painstakingly drawn across a grid, each line perfectly measured and straight. Liv smoothed the paper flat, and I could see the long rows of lines intersecting one another.

“Depends on what ya think they are, I reckon.”

Liv's hands were shaking. “They're maps of the Tunnels.” She looked up at Aunt Prue. “Do you mind if I ask where you got these, ma'am? I've never seen anything like them, not even in the Lunae Libri.”

Aunt Prue unwrapped a red and white striped peppermint from her purse. “My daddy gave ’em ta me, like my granddaddy gave ’em ta him. They're older than dirt.”

I was speechless. No matter how normal Lena thought my life would be without her, she was wrong. Curse or no curse, my family tree was all tangled up with Casters.