I stared down at my hand, covered in that inexplicably fertile soil. I was still holding the junk I’d unearthed in the backyard.

“Aunt Prue, does this belong to one of you?” I rinsed the ring off in the sink and held it up.

“Why, that’s the ring my second husband Wallace Pritchard gave me for our first, and only, weddin’ anniversary.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He was a cheap, cheap man. Where in the world did you find it?”

“Buried in the backyard. I also found a spoon and a thimble.”

“Mercy, look what Ethan found, your Tennessee Collector’s spoon. I told you I didn’t take it!” Aunt Prue hollered.

“Let me see that.” Mercy put her glasses on to inspect the spoon. “Well, I’ll be. I finally have all eleven states.”

“There are more than eleven states, Aunt Mercy.”

“I only collect the states a the Confed’racy.” Aunt Grace and Aunt Prue nodded in agreement.

“Speakin’ a buryin’ things, can you believe that Eunice Honey-cutt made ’em bury her with her recipe book? She didn’t want anyone in church ta get her hands on her cobbler recipe.” Aunt Mercy shook her head.

“She was a spiteful thing, just like her sister.” Aunt Grace was prying open a Whitman’s Sampler with the Tennessee Collector’s spoon.

“And that recipe wasn’t any good, anyhow,” said Aunt Mercy.

Aunt Grace turned the lid over on the Whitman’s Sampler so she could read the names of the candies inside. “Mercy, which one is the butter cream?”

“When I die, I want ta be buried with my fur stole and my Bible,” Aunt Prue said.

“You aren’t goin’ ta get extra points with the Good Lord for that, Prudence Jane.”

“I’m not tryin’ ta get points, I just want ta have somethin’ ta read durin’ the wait. But if there were points bein’ handed out, Grace Ann, I’d have more than you.”

Buried with her recipe book…

What if The Book of Moons was buried somewhere? What if someone didn’t want anyone to find it, so they hid it? Maybe the person who understood its power better than anyone else. Genevieve.

Lena, I think I know where the Book is.

For a second, there was only silence, and then Lena’s thoughts found her way to mine.

What are you talking about?

The Book of Moons. I think it’s with Genevieve.

Genevieve is dead.

I know.

What are you saying, Ethan?

I think you know what I’m saying.

Harlon James limped up to the table, looking pitiful. His leg was still wrapped in bandages. Aunt Mercy started feeding him the dark chocolates out of the box.

“Mercy, don’t feed that dog chocolate! You’ll kill him. I saw it on the Oprah show. Chocolate, or was it onion dip?”

“Ethan, you want me ta save you the toffees?” Aunt Mercy asked. “Ethan?”

I wasn’t listening anymore. I was thinking about how to dig up a grave.

12.07

Grave Digging

It was Lena’s idea. Today was Aunt Del’s birthday, and at the last minute, Lena decided to throw a family party at Ravenwood. It was also Lena who invited Amma, knowing full well nothing short of divine intervention could get Amma to set foot through the door of Ravenwood Manor. Whatever it was about Macon, Amma reacted only slightly better to his presence than she did to the locket. And she preferred to keep Macon just as far away.

Boo Radley had shown up in the afternoon with a scroll in his mouth, lettered in careful calligraphy. Amma wouldn’t touch the thing, even if it was an invitation, and almost didn’t let me go. Good thing she didn’t see me get into the hearse with my mom’s old garden shovel. That would have raised a flag or two.

I was glad to get out of my house, for any reason, even if the reason involved grave robbing. After Thanksgiving, my father had shut himself in the study, and since Macon and Amma caught us at the Lunae Libri, all I was getting from Amma was stinkeye.

Lena and I weren’t allowed to go back to the Lunae Libri, either, at least, not for the next sixty-eight days. Macon and Amma didn’t seem to want us digging up any more information they hadn’t planned on telling us in the first place.

“After the eleventh a February, you can do what you like,” Amma had harrumphed. “Until then, you can do what every-one else your age does. Listen to music. Watch the television. Just keep your nose away from those books.”

My mom would have laughed, the idea that I wasn’t allowed to read a book. Things had obviously gotten pretty bad around here.

It’s worse here, Ethan. Boo even sleeps at the foot of my bed now.

That doesn’t sound so bad to me.

He waits for me outside the bathroom door.

That’s just Macon being Macon.

It’s like house arrest.

It was, and we both knew it.

We had to find The Book of Moons, and it had to be with Genevieve. It was more than possible Genevieve had been buried at Greenbrier. There were some weathered headstones in the clearing just outside the garden. You could see them from the stone where we usually sat, which had turned out to be a hearthstone. Our spot, that’s how I thought of it, even if I had never said it out loud. Genevieve had to be buried out there, unless she’d moved away after the War, but nobody ever left Gatlin.

I always thought I’d be the first.

But now that I had gotten out of the house, how was I going to find 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?