Beautiful Redemption
Page 70

“Mmmm-nnnnnnn. No Dark Casters are comin’ into this house while I’m here on this sweet earth. Or after I leave it. No, sir. No, ma’am. No how.”
She agreed to meet us at Greenbrier instead.
Uncle Macon hung back. “It’s better this way. Amarie and I haven’t seen each other since the night… it happened,” he explained. “I’m not sure this is the right moment.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re scared of her, too?” Ridley eyed him with new interest. “Imagine that.”
“I’ll be at Ravenwood if you need me,” he said, giving Ridley a withering stare.
“Imagine that.” I smiled.
The rest of us waited inside the crumbling wall of the old graveyard. I resisted the urge to wander over to Ethan’s plot, though I felt the familiar pull, the longing to be with him there. I believed, with all my heart, that there was a way to get Ethan back, and I wasn’t going to stop trying until I found it.
Amma was hopeful, too, but I had seen the fear and doubt in her eyes. She had already lost him twice. Every time I took her another crossword puzzle, she was desperate to get him back.
I think Amma wasn’t about to let herself believe in anything she could stand to lose again.
With the Book, though, we were one step closer.
Ridley was leaning against a tree, a safe distance from the hole in the stone wall. I knew she was just as afraid of Amma as Uncle Macon was, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
“Don’t say anything to her when she gets here,” Link warned Ridley. “You know how she gets about that book.”
Ridley rolled her eyes. “I thought Abraham was a pain. Amma’s even worse.”
I saw a black orthopedic lace-up step through the opening.
“Worse than what?” Amma demanded. “Worse than your manners?” She looked Ridley up and down. “Or your taste in clothes?”
She was wearing a yellow dress, all sunlight and sweetness, which didn’t match her expression. Her grayish-black hair was twisted into a neat bun, and she was carrying a patterned quilting bag. I’d been around long enough to know there weren’t any quilting supplies inside.
“Or a stitch worse than the girl who gets pulled outta Hell only to walk back into the fire on her own?” Amma watched Ridley carefully.
Ridley didn’t take off her sunglasses, but I could see the shame anyway. I knew her too well. There was something about Amma that made you feel completely awful if you disappointed her—even if you were a Siren with no ties to her.
“That’s not what happened,” Ridley said quietly.
Amma dropped her bag on the ground. “Isn’t it, then? I have it on good authority that you had a chance to be on the right side a wrong for once, and you gave it up. Did I miss somethin’ in the fine print?”
Ridley shifted nervously. “It’s not that simple.”
Amma sniffed. “You go on tellin’ yourself that if it helps you sleep at night, but don’t try to sell it to me, because I’m not buyin’ it.” Amma pointed to the lollipop in Ridley’s hand. “And all that sugar will rot those teeth right outta your head, Caster or no Caster.”
Link laughed nervously.
Amma focused her eagle eye on him. “What’re you laughin’ about, Wesley Lincoln? You’re knee deep in more trouble than the day I caught you in my basement when you were nine years old.”
Link’s face reddened. “It sorta finds me, ma’am.”
“You know you go lookin’ for it, sure as the sun shines the same on the saints as it does on the sinners.” She glanced at each of us. “So what is it this time? And it better not have anythin’ to do with destroyin’ the balance a the universe.”
“All saints, ma’am. No sinners.” Link backed away an inch or two, looking at me for help.
“Spit it out. I’ve got Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace at the house, and I can’t leave them alone with Thelma for too long, or the three a them will order everything that comes on the shoppin’ channel.” Amma rarely called Ethan’s great-aunts “the Sisters” anymore, now that one of them was gone.
But now it was Marian who walked over and took Amma’s arm reassuringly. “It’s about The Book of Moons.”
“We have it,” I blurted out.
Liv stepped aside, revealing The Book of Moons lying on the ground behind her. Amma’s eyes widened. “Do I wanna know how you got it?”
Link jumped in. “Nope. I mean no, ma’am, you sure don’t.”
“The fact remains we have it now,” Marian said.
“But we can’t get it to Ethan—” I heard the desperation in my voice.
Amma shook her head and approached the Book, circling it like she didn’t want to get too close. “ ’Course you can’t. This book is too powerful for one world. If you want to send it from the world a the livin’ to the world a the dead, we’ll need the power a both worlds to send it.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I only cared about one thing. “Will you help us?”
“Not my help you need. You need help on the receivin’ end.”
Liv inched closer to Amma. “We left the Book for Ethan, but he didn’t take it.”
She sniffed. “Hmm. Ethan’s not strong enough to carry that kinda weight across. He probably doesn’t even know how.”