Please. You and Amma are all I have, and she’s gone darker than she ever has. And I can’t talk to my mom. So it has to be you.

I knew the answer before she said a word. If there was one thing I loved about Marian, it was how she always heard what was being said, even if no one was saying it. “Give me a few minutes.”

I snapped my phone shut and tossed it onto the step next to me. Time for another call, no phone required. I stared up at the sky. The stars were starting to come out, the moon already waiting.

L? Are you there?

There was a long pause, and I could feel Lena slowly begin to relax her mind into mine until we were connected again.

I’m here, Ethan.

We need to figure this out. After what happened at County Care, we can’t waste any more time. Find your uncle. I already called Marian, and I’ll pick up Link on my way over.

What about Amma?

I wanted to tell her what happened tonight, but it hurt too much.

She’s in a bad place right now. Can you ask your gramma?

She’s not here. But Aunt Del is. And it will be hard to leave Ridley out.

That wasn’t going to help the situation, but if Link was coming, it was going to be impossible to keep her away.

You never know, we might get lucky. Maybe Rid will be too busy sticking pins in little cheerleader voodoo dolls.

Lena laughed, but I didn’t. I couldn’t imagine dolls that didn’t smell like the poison burning in Amma’s room. I felt a kiss on my cheek, even though I was alone on the porch.

On my way.

I didn’t bring up the name of the other person who would be there. Then again, neither did Lena.

Back inside, Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy were watching Jeopardy!, which I hoped would be a good distraction, since Amma knew all the answers and pretended she didn’t. And the Sisters knew none and insisted they did.

“It sleeps for three years? Well, conchashima, Grace. I sure as sin know that one, and I ain’t tellin’ ya the answer.” Conchashima was Aunt Mercy’s made-up curse word, which she saved for occasions when she really wanted to irritate one of her sisters, since she refused to tell them what it meant. I was pretty sure she didn’t know either.

Aunt Grace sniffed. “Conchashima yourself, Mercy. What did all a Mercy’s husbands do when they were supposed ta be makin’ a livin’? That’s the answer they’re lookin’ for.”

“Now, Grace Ann, I think they’re really askin’ how long you slept through the sermon last Easter Sunday. Droolin’ under my good cabbage rose hat.”

“It said three years, not three hours. And if the good rev’rend didn’t like ta hear his own voice so much, maybe it’d be easier for the rest a us ta hear it. You know I can’t see anythin’ but feathers an’ flowers sittin’ behind Dot Jessup in that big old Easter bonnet, anyhow.”

“Snails.” They looked at Amma blankly. She untied her apron. “How long can a snail sleep? Three years. And how long are you girls going to make me wait to have my supper? And where on God’s green earth do you think you’re goin’, Ethan Wate?”

I froze at the door. There was no distracting Amma, ever.

True to form, Amma had no intention of letting me go out alone at night—not after Abraham and the fire at the library and Aunt Prue. She hauled me into the kitchen so fast you would’ve thought I’d sassed her.

“Don’t you think I don’t know when you’re full a blue mud.” She looked around the kitchen for the One-Eyed Menace, but I had beaten her to it and stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans. She didn’t have a pencil either, so she was unarmed.

I made my move. “Amma, it’s nothing. I told Lena I’d have dinner with her family.” I wished I could tell her the truth, but I couldn’t. Not until I figured out what she was doing with that bokor in New Orleans.

She cocked a hip and let me have it. “On pulled pork night? My own three-time blue-ribbon-winnin’ Carolina Gold, and you’re expectin’ me to believe that claptrap?” She sniffed and shook her head. “You’d settle for a peacock patty on a gold plate over my pulled pork?” Amma didn’t think much of Kitchen’s cooking, and she had a point.

“No. I just forgot.” It was the truth, even though she had mentioned dinner this morning.

“Hmm.” She didn’t believe me. Which was understandable, considering that on a normal night this would be my idea of heaven.

“D. I. S. S. E. M. B. L. I. N. G. Eleven across. As in, you’re up to somethin’, Ethan Wate, and it’s not dinner.”

She was up to something, too. But I didn’t have a crossword for that.

I leaned down and put my arms around her. “I love you, Amma. You know that?” It was true.

“Oh, I know plenty. I know you’re about as far from the truth as Wesley’s mamma is from a bottle a whiskey, Ethan Wate.” She pushed me off, but I’d gotten to her. Amma, standing in this sweltering kitchen, scolding me whether I deserved it or not and whether she meant it or not.

“You don’t have to worry about me. You know I’ll always come home.”

She softened for a moment, putting her hand on my face, shaking her head. “That peach you’re peddlin’ sure smells sweet, but I’m still not buyin’ it.”

“Be back by eleven.” I grabbed the car keys off the counter and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Not a hair past ten or you’ll be givin’ Harlon James a bath tomorrow—and I mean all a them!” I backed out of the kitchen before she could stop me. And before she noticed I had taken the One-Eyed Menace with me.