“What I read from Jessamine—” Iris shook her head. An anger like I’d only seen once before, the night she learned Connor had left me to burn in Ginny’s house, descended on her like a cloud of flame. What bit of hidden history had she accidently uncovered? Her chin jutted forward. “I have to learn if what she believes to be true is indeed the truth. I have to learn if Daddy really did what she believes he did.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And if he did, I will make him answer for it.” I knew Iris had adored Granddad. She cherished his memory, and worked to keep it alive for the rest of us. I could see what she learned from Jessamine’s touch bore witness that her adored father’s feet were made of clay, and Iris was not taking this revelation well. She stood as stiff as a soldier at attention. The fists she held out before us were clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Angry tears streamed down her face.
“How do you intend to do that?” Ellen crossed to put a sheltering arm around my shoulders. It was only then I realized I’d been trembling.
“I aim to ask the randy old goat himself. We are going to summon Daddy.”
“No. It is too dangerous,” Ellen said. “What if his spirit gets trapped here?”
We all knew Savannah acted as a kind of geological spirit trap. Something about this place could reach out and hold on to a spirit, keep it from moving on to wherever it was intended to go. I knew a man who swore the only way to make sure you wouldn’t be caught in the trap was to be at least seventy miles out of Savannah when you passed. I wasn’t sure about that, but I did know summoning Grandpa could be risky. Grandpa had passed through the trap cleanly the first time. If we called him down to our plane, his return trip to the great beyond might not turn out so well.
“Go upstairs and get Abigail,” Ellen commanded me. “Tell her we need her.”
I hurried from the library and found the foot of the steps in the quickest waddle I could manage. “Abigail,” I called. I started up the steps. “Abby, we need you.”
I heard a door creak open, and then Abby shushed me. “Maisie’s sleeping. Last night took a lot out of her.” Abigail’s words reached me like a stage whisper. “What is it?”
“I don’t really know, but, well, please come to the library.”
I caught a glimpse of Abby over the bend of the railing. She wore a quilted robe, and had her hair bound up in pink curlers. She nodded. “I’ll come right down.”
I turned and headed back down the stairs I had climbed, taking them slowly. I’d hoped the storm would have passed, that Ellen would have managed to calm Iris before I found myself back in the library, but no such luck. “Yes, I’m sure,” Iris snapped at Aunt Ellen as I came through the door. “I felt it in her.”
Ellen turned to face me. “Where is Abigail?” I knew she was hoping Abby could help use her magic to calm Iris.
“She’s coming,” I said to Ellen. Then softly to Iris, “It’s okay.” I reached out toward her to put my arm around Iris, but she stepped away. She nearly vibrated with rage.
Abby entered the library, her hands still busy tying the belt of her robe. “Iris, what is wrong? Why are you so angry?”
Ellen’s head tilted to the side and she spoke softly. “When Iris touched Jessamine, she sensed a connection between us.”
“Connection?” Iris glared at Ellen. “Connection?” Her voice rose an octave over its normal pitch. “That young woman is our niece.” She turned and stared at me with wide-open eyes. “Yes, your cousin. Jilo’s great-niece is your cousin.”
“Even if it’s true,” Abby said, “would it be that terrible? I mean, I know you girls think your daddy hung the moon, but he was only a man. Your daddy, well, he always had his bit on the side.” Coming from anyone else, the statement might have pushed Iris completely over the edge, but I sensed Abby was sending out waves of comfort to Iris, trying to calm her and make her think rationally rather than act out of anger. It didn’t appear to be working all that well. “We all knew it. Even your mama did.” My eyes shot up again to my grandmother’s portrait. “I’m sorry . . .”
Iris took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and took another. “It isn’t only that our father was a philanderer.”
Abby folded her hands as if she were in prayer. “Whatever you’ve seen, it’s in the past. Let it lie between him and his maker.”
“No.” She shook her head. “God may prove too forgiving. That bastard is going to answer to me for his sins.” Static electricity began to build around us, dancing on our skins. Abby patted her curlers, and as I felt my own unfettered hair begin to rise I understood why. Our house’s power failed with a loud and final-sounding pop. A whitish-blue ball of lightning shot from Iris’s fingertips into the center of our circle. It began a slow spin, dimming and taking on the color and sheen of mercury.
“Edwin Wallace Taylor, I call to you. Rise, return,” Iris shouted. The orb at our center pulsed as convex images formed on its surface. Some dark, twisted, undoubtedly demonic. Others, anguished or fearful.
“Is that—” I began.
“Yes, it’s Gehenna.” Iris answered me before I could complete my thought. “The plane of existence reserved for those of us who have committed the gravest sins.”
“Then it is real,” Ellen said. “The place of eternal suffering.” She leaned in to look more closely at the window that had formed between us and hell.
“It’s as real as anything else,” Abigail said shaking her head. “But like everything bad, I believe it is of our own making. God would never create such a place.”
“How could you have known Granddad was there?” I asked, watching the individual faces that rose to the surface of the sphere, pressing against its skin, trying to break free from their place of bondage.
“I didn’t know he would be there,” Iris said, sounding defeated by the realization. “But it may be exactly where he belongs.”
“You don’t mean that,” Abigail started, but the gravity emanating from this bulging window into hell grew strong, harder to resist. We each took a step inward.
This is not a good idea, I thought to myself.
“This is not a good idea.” Ellen echoed my thoughts aloud. “It’s some kind of trick. Daddy would never be . . . there.”