Liv looked like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. “You weren’t even there when I helped Ethan release Macon from the Arclight.”

“I was there when you took off into the Tunnels with Ethan and Link. I could’ve stopped you then.” Marian took a shaky breath. “But I had a friend once, too. And if I could turn back the clock—if there was anything I could’ve done to save her—I would have done it. Now she’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do to get her back.”

I squeezed Marian’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” Liv said. “And I’m sorry I got you into so much trouble. I wish I could persuade them to leave you alone.”

“You can’t. No one can. Sometimes everyone does the right thing and there’s still a mess left to clean up. Someone has to take responsibility for it.”

Liv stared at a water-stained box on the floor. “It should be me.”

“I disagree. This is my chance to help another friend, one I love very much.” Marian smiled and reached for Liv’s hand. “And there has to be at least one librarian in this town—Keeper or not.”

Liv threw her arms around Marian and hugged her like she was never going to let go. Marian gave Liv one last squeeze and looked over at me. “EW, I’d appreciate it if you would see Liv back to Ravenwood. If I gave her my car, I’m afraid it would end up on the wrong side of the road.”

I hugged Marian, whispering to her as I did. “Be careful.”

“I always am.”

We had to make a lot of detours to get anywhere in Gatlin now. So five minutes later, I was driving past my own house, with Liv in the passenger seat—like we were on our way to deliver library books or stop at the Dar-ee Keen. Like it was last summer.

But the overwhelming brown of everything and the buzzing of ten thousand lubbers reminded me it wasn’t.

“I can almost smell the pie from here,” Liv said, looking toward my house longingly.

I glanced at the open window. “Amma hasn’t made a pie in a while, but you can probably smell her pecan fried chicken.”

Liv groaned. “You’ve no idea what it’s like living in the Tunnels, especially when Kitchen is out of sorts. I’ve been living on my stash of HobNobs for weeks now. If I don’t get another package soon, I’m doomed.”

“You know, there is a little thing called the Stop & Steal around here,” I said.

“I know. There’s also a little thing called Amma’s homemade fried chicken.”

I knew where this conversation was heading all along and was halfway to the curb by the time she said it. “Come on. I bet you ten bucks she made biscuits, too.”

“You had me at ‘fried.’ ”

Amma gave Liv all the thighs, so I knew she was still feeling sorry for Liv after last summer. Luckily, the Sisters were asleep. I didn’t feel like answering questions about why there was a girl at my house who wasn’t Lena.

Liv stuffed her face faster than Link in his prime. By the time I was on my third piece, she was on her second plateful.

“This is the second-best piece of fried chicken I’ve ever tasted in my life.” Liv was actually licking her fingers.

“Second best?” I was the one who said it, but I saw Amma’s face when I did. Because by Gatlin standards, those two words alone were blasphemy. “What’s better?”

“The piece I’m about to have. And possibly the piece after that.” She slid her empty plate across the table.

I could see Amma smiling to herself as she added more Wesson oil to her five-gallon pot. “Wait till you taste a batch right outta the fryer. Can’t say you’ve tried that, have you, Olivia?”

“No, ma’am. But I also haven’t had any homemade food since the Seventeenth Moon.” There it was again. The familiar cloud settled back over the kitchen, and I pushed my plate away. The extra-crispy crust was choking me.

Amma dried the One-Eyed Menace with a dishrag. “Ethan Lawson Wate. You go get our friend some a my best preserves. Back a the panty. Top shelf.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Amma called after me before I made it to the hall. “And none a that pickled watermelon rind. I’m savin’ that for Wesley’s mamma. It turned out sour this year.”

The basement door was across from Amma’s room. The wooden stairs were scarred with black marks, like a burnt marshmallow, from the time me and Link put a hot pot on the stairs when we were trying to make Rice Krispies Treats on our own. We almost burned a hole in one step, and Amma gave me stinkeye for days. I made sure to step on the mark every time I went down those stairs.

Going down into a basement in Gatlin wasn’t all that different from going through a Caster Doorwell. Our basement wasn’t the Tunnels, but I’d always thought of it as some kind of mysterious underworld. Under beds and in basements—that’s where all the best secrets were kept in our town. The treasure might be stacks of old magazines in the furnace room, or a week’s worth of icebox cookies from Amma’s industrial freezer. Either way, you were going back up with an armload or a stomach full of something.

At the bottom of the stairs was a doorway framed in two-by-fours. No door, just a string hanging on the other side of the doorframe. I yanked the string as I had a thousand times before, and there was Amma’s prized collection. Every house around here had a pantry, and this was one of the finest pantries in three counties. Amma’s mason jars held everything from pickled watermelon rinds and the skinniest green beans to the roundest onions and the most perfectly green tomatoes. Not to mention the pie fillings and preserves—peach, plum, rhubarb, apple, cherry. The rows stretched back so far your teeth started to ache just from looking at them.