I followed the sound of their voices back through the hall. Lucille was sitting at the other end waiting for me, her head tilted to the side. She sat straight like that until I was inches away from her, and then she stood up and sauntered off.

Thanks, Lucille.

She’d done her job, and she was through with me. Probably had a saucer of cream and a fluffy pillow waiting for her in front of the television.

I guessed I wasn’t going to be able to spook her again.

As I rounded the corner, my dad was pouring himself a glass of sweet tea. “Did Ethan call?”

Amma stiffened, her cleaver poised over an onion, but my dad didn’t seem to notice. She started chopping. “Caroline has him busy waitin’ on her. You know how she is, classy and sassy, just like her mamma was.”

My dad laughed, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “That’s true, and she’s a terrible patient. She must be driving Ethan crazy.”

My mom and Aunt Prue weren’t kidding. My dad was under the influence of a serious Cast. He had no idea what had happened. I wondered how many of Lena’s family members it took to pull this off.

Amma reached for a carrot, lopping the end off before she even got it on the cutting board. “A broken hip’s a lot worse than the flu, Mitchell.”

“I know—”

“What’s all that racket?” Aunt Mercy called from the living room. “We’re tryin’ ta watch Jeopardy!”

“Mitchell, get on in here. Mercy’s no good at the music questions.” It was Aunt Grace.

“You’re the one who thinks Elvis Presley is still alive,” Aunt Mercy shot back.

“I most certainly do. He can dance himself a mean jive,” Aunt Grace shouted, catching every third word at best. “Mitchell, hurry on up. I need a witness. And bring some cake with you.”

My dad reached for the Tunnel of Fudge cake on the counter, still warm from the oven. When he disappeared down the hall, Amma stopped chopping and rubbed the worn gold charm of her necklace. She looked sad and broken, cracked like the bottles lined up on the shelves in her bedroom.

“Be sure and let me know if Ethan calls tomorrow,” my dad shouted from the living room.

Amma stared out the window for a long time before she spoke, barely loud enough for me to hear. “He won’t.”

CHAPTER 9

The Stars and Stripes

Leaving Amma behind was like stepping away from a fire on the coldest night of winter. She felt like home, safe and familiar. Like every scolding and every supper I’d ever had, everything that had been me. The closer I was to her, the warmer I felt—but in the end, it made the cold feel that much colder when I walked away.

Was it worth it? Feeling better for a minute or two, knowing that the cold would still be out there waiting?

I wasn’t sure, but for me it wasn’t a choice. I couldn’t stay away from Amma or Lena—and deep down, I didn’t think either one of them wanted me to.

Still, there was a silver lining, even if it was a little tarnished. If Lucille could see me, that was something. I guess it was true what people said about cats seeing spirits. I just never figured I would be the one to prove it.

And then there was Amma. She hadn’t exactly seen me, but she’d known I was there. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I had been able to show her, just like I’d been able to show Lena I was at my grave.

It was exhausting, taking a chunk out of a cake or moving a button a few inches. But it had gotten the message across.

In a way, I was still here in Gatlin, where I belonged. Everything had changed, and I didn’t have the answers for how to fix that. But I hadn’t gone anywhere, not really.

I was here.

I existed.

If only I could find a way to say what I really wanted to say. There was just so much I could do with a Tunnel of Fudge cake and an old cat and a random charm on Lena’s necklace.

To tell you the truth, I was feeling downright woebegone. As in, stuck in the doldrums without a map, Ethan Wate.

W. O. E. B. E. G. O. N. E.

Nine across.

That’s when it came to me. Not so much an idea as a memory—of Amma sitting at our kitchen table, all hunched over her crossword puzzles with a bowl of Red Hots and a pile of extra-sharp #2 pencils. Those puzzles were how she kept things right, figured things out.

In that moment it all came together. The way I saw an opening on the basketball court or figured out the plot at the beginning of a movie.

I knew what I had to do, and I knew where I had to go. It was going to require a little more than scooping out a cake or pushing around a button, but not much more.

More like a few strokes of a pencil.

It was time I paid a visit to the office of The Stars and Stripes, the best and only newspaper in Gatlin County.

I had a crossword puzzle to write.

There wasn’t a single grain of salt lining any window at The Stars and Stripes office, any more than there was a single grain of truth in the paper itself. There were, however, swamp coolers in every window. More swamp coolers than I had ever seen in one building. They were all that remained of a summer so hot that the whole town had almost dried up and blown away, like dead leaves on a magnolia tree.

Still, no charms, no salt, no Bindings or Casts or even a cat. I slipped in as easy as the heat had. A guy could get used to this kind of access.

Inside the office, there wasn’t much more than a few plastic plants, a reenactment calendar that hung crookedly on the wall, and a high linoleum counter. That’s where you stood with your ten dollars when you wanted to put an ad in the paper to hawk your piano lessons or new puppies or the old plaid couch that had been sitting in your basement since 1972.