a lost Casting book that may or may not save Lena’s life, that may or may not be buried in the grave of a cursed ancestral Caster, that may or may not be next door to Macon Ravenwood’s house? Without her uncle seeing me, stopping me, or killing me first?
The rest was up to Lena.
“What sort of history project requires visiting a graveyard at night?” Aunt Del asked, tripping over a bramble of vines. “Oh my!”
“Mamma, be careful.” Reece looped her arm through her mother’s, helping her negotiate the overgrowth. Aunt Del had a hard enough time walking around without bumping into anything in the daylight, but in the dark it was asking too much.
“We have to make a rubbing from one of our ancestors’ tombstones. We’re studying genealogy.” Well, that was sort of true.
“Why Genevieve?” Reece asked, looking suspicious.
Reece looked at Lena, but Lena immediately turned away. Lena had warned me not to let Reece see my face. Apparently, one look was all it took for a Sybil to know if you were lying. Lying to a Sybil was even trickier than lying to Amma.
“She’s the one in the painting, in the hall. I just thought it would be cool to use her. It’s not like we have a big family cemetery to choose from, like most people around here.”
The hypnotic Caster music from the party was starting to fade in the distance, replaced by the sound of dry leaves crackling under our feet. We had crossed over into Greenbrier. We were getting close. It was dark, but the full moon was so bright we didn’t even need our flashlights. I remembered what Amma had said to Macon at the graveyard. Half moon’s for workin’ White magic, full moon’s for workin’ Black. We weren’t going to be working any magic, I hoped, but it didn’t make it seem any less spooky.
“I’m not sure Macon would want us wandering out here in the dark. Did you tell him where we were going?” Aunt Del was apprehensive. She pulled on the collar of her high-necked lace blouse.
“I told him we were going for a walk. He just told me to stay with you.”
“I don’t know that I’m in good enough shape for this. I have to admit, I’m a bit winded.” Aunt Del was out of breath, and the hair around her face had escaped from her always slightly off-center bun.
Then I smelled that familiar scent. “We’re here.”
“Thank goodness.”
We walked toward the crumbling stone wall of the garden, where I’d found Lena crying the day after the window shattered. I ducked under the archway of vines, into the garden. It looked different at night, less like a spot for cloud gazing and more like the place a cursed Caster would be buried.
This is it, Ethan. She’s here. I can feel it.
Me, too.
Where do you think her grave is?
As we crossed over the hearthstone where I’d found the locket, I could see another stone in the clearing a few yards just beyond it. A headstone, with a hazy looking figure sitting on it.
I heard Lena gasp, just barely loud enough for me to hear.
Ethan, can you see her?
Yeah.
Genevieve. She was only partially materialized, a mix of cloudy haze and light, fading in and out as the air moved through her ghostly form, but there was no mistaking it. It was Genevieve, the woman in the painting. She had the same golden eyes and long, wavy red hair. Her hair blew gently in the wind, as if she was just a woman sitting on a bench at the bus stop, instead of an apparition sitting on a headstone in a graveyard. She was beautiful, even in her present state, and terrifying at the same time. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Maybe this was a mistake.
Aunt Del stopped dead in her tracks. She saw Genevieve, too, but it was clear she didn’t think anyone else could see her. She probably thought the apparition was just the result of seeing too many times at once, the muddled images of this place in twenty different decades.
“I think we should go back to the house. I’m not feeling very well.” Aunt Del clearly didn’t want to mess with a hundred-and-fifty-year-old ghost in a Caster graveyard.
Lena tripped over a loose vine and stumbled. I grabbed her arm to catch her, but I wasn’t fast enough. “Are you okay?”
She caught herself and looked up at me for a split second, but a split second was all Reece needed. She zeroed in on Lena’s eyes, looking into her face, her expression, her thoughts.
“Mamma, they’re lyin’! They aren’t doin’ a history project at all. They’re lookin’ for somethin’.” Reece put her hand to her temple as if she was adjusting a piece of equipment. “A book!”
Aunt Del looked confused, even more confused than she usually looked. “What sort of book would you be looking for in a graveyard?”