Beautiful Darkness (17 page)

Macon's book was lying on the floor, open next to me. Marian looked at me with her uncanny ESP — or not so uncanny, if you stopped to consider that she had followed me into visions herself only months ago. Within seconds, she had a cold pack in her hand and was holding it against my throbbing head. “You're having visions again, aren't you?”

I nodded. My mind was swimming with images, but I couldn't focus on any one of them. “It's the second time. I had one the other night when I was holding Macon's journal.”

“What did you see?”

“It was the night of the fires, like in the locket visions. Ethan Carter Wate was already dead. Ivy had
The Book of Moons
, and she gave it to Abraham Ravenwood. He was in both of the visions.” His name sounded thick and fuzzy on my tongue. Abraham Ravenwood was the original boogeyman of Gatlin County.

I gripped the edge of the table, steadying myself. Who wanted me to see the visions? More important, why?

Marian paused, still holding the book. “Oh?” She looked at me carefully.

“And someone else. His name began with a J. Judas? Joseph? Jonah. That was it. I think they were brothers. They were Incubuses.”

“Not just Incubuses.” Marian snapped the book shut. “Abraham Ravenwood was a powerful Blood Incubus, the father of the Ravenwood Blood Incubus line.”

“What do you mean?” So, the story folks had been telling for years was true? I had cleared another layer of fog from the supernatural map of Gatlin.

“Although all Incubuses are Dark by nature, not all of them choose to feed on blood. But once one does, the instinct appears to be inherited.”

I leaned against the table as the vision sharpened in my mind. “Abraham — he's the reason Ravenwood Manor never burned, right? He didn't make a deal with the Devil. He made it with
The Book of Moons
.”

“Abraham was dangerous, maybe more dangerous than any Caster. I can't imagine why you're seeing him now. Fortunately, he died young, before Macon was born.”

I tried to do the math. “That's young? How long do Incubuses usually live?”

“A hundred and fifty to two hundred years.” She replaced the book on her worktable. “I don't know what any of this has to do with you or Macon's journal, but I never should have given it to you. I interfered. We should leave this book locked up here.”

“Aunt Marian —”

“Ethan! Don't pursue this, and don't tell anyone else about it, not even Amma. I can't imagine how she would react if you said the name Abraham Ravenwood in her presence.” She put her arm around me and gave me a halfhearted squeeze. “Now, let's go finish up in the stacks before Olivia calls the police.” She turned to the door and stuck her key in the lock.

There was one more thing. I had to say it. “He could see me, Aunt Marian. Abraham looked right at me and said my name. That's never happened in the visions before.”

Marian stopped, staring at the door as if she could see right through it. It was more than a few seconds before she turned the key in the lock and swung the door open. “Olivia? Do you think Melvil Dewey could spare you for a cup of tea?”

Our conversation was over. Marian was a Keeper and the Head Librarian of the Caster Library, the
Lunae Libri
. She could only tell me so much without violating her obligations. She couldn't take sides or change the course of events once they were set in motion. She couldn't be Macon for me, and she wasn't my mom. I was on my own.

6.14

A
ll of those?” There were three stacks of brown paper packages on the checkout desk. Marian marked the last one with the familiar
GATLIN COUNTY LIBRARY
stamp, always twice and always tied with the same white string.

“No, take that pile, too.” She pointed to a second pile, on the nearest trolley.

“I thought nobody in this town reads.”

“Oh, they read. They just don't own up to what they read, which is why we make not only library-to-library deliveries but library-to-home ones as well. Circulating books only. Allowing two to three days for the processing of requests, of course.”

Great.
I was afraid to ask what was in these brown paper packages, and I was pretty sure I didn't want to know. I picked up a stack of books and groaned. “What are these, encyclopedias?”

Liv pulled the receipt from the top bundle. “Yes.
The Encyclopedia of Ammunition
, actually.”

Marian waved us out the door. “Go with Ethan, Liv. You haven't had an opportunity to see our beautiful little town yet.”

“I can handle it.”

Liv sighed and pushed the trolley toward the door. “Come on, Hercules. I'll help you load up. Can't keep the ladies of Gatlin waiting on their …” She consulted another receipt. “…
Carolin-er Cake Doctor Cookbook
, now can we?”

“Carolina,” I said, automatically.

“That's what I said. Carolin-er.”

Two hours later, we had delivered most of the books and driven by both Jackson High and the Stop & Steal. As we circled the General's Green, I realized why Marian had been so eager to hire me at a library that was always empty and didn't need summer employees. She had planned for me to be Liv's teenage tour guide all along. It was my job to show her the lake and the Dar-ee Keen and fill in the gaps between what folks around here said and what they meant. My job was to be her friend.

I wondered how Lena was going to feel about that. If she noticed.

“I still don't understand why there's a statue of a general from a war the South didn't win, and one which was generally embarrassing for your country, in the middle of town.” Of course she didn't.

“Folks honor the fallen around here. There's a whole museum dedicated to them.” I didn't mention the Fallen Soldiers
was also the scene of my dad's Ridley-induced suicide attempt a few months ago.

I looked over at Liv from behind the wheel of the Volvo. I couldn't remember the last time there had been any girl except Lena in the passenger's seat.

“You're a terrible tour guide.”

“This is Gatlin. There isn't all that much to see.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. “Or just not that much I want you to see.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“A good tour guide knows what to show and what to hide.”

“I stand corrected. You're a terribly misguided tour guide.” She pulled a rubber band out of her pocket.

“So I'm more of a mis-guide?” It was a stupid joke, my trademark.

“And I take issue with both your punning and your tour-guiding philosophy, generally speaking.” She was working her blond hair into two braids, her cheeks pink from the heat. She wasn't used to the South Carolina humidity.

“What do you want to see? You want me to take you to shoot cans behind the old cotton mill off Route 9? Flatten pennies on the train tracks? Follow the trail of flies into the eat-at-your-own-risk grease pit we call the Dar-ee Keen?”

“Yes. All of the above, particularly the last bit. I'm starving.”

Liv dropped the last library receipt into one of two piles. “… seven, eight, nine. Which means I win, you lose, and get your hands off those chips. They belong to me now.” She pulled my chili fries over to her side of the red plastic table.

“You mean fries.”

“I mean business.” Her side of the table was already covered with onion rings, a cheeseburger, ketchup, mayonnaise, and my sweet tea. I knew whose side was whose because she had made a line between us, laying french fries end to end, like the Great Wall of China.

“‘Good fences make good neighbors.’ ”

I remembered the poem from English class. “Walt Whitman.”

She shook her head. “Robert Frost. Now keep your hands off my onion rings.”

I should've known that one. How many times had Lena quoted Frost's poems or twisted them into one of her own?

We had stopped for lunch at the Dar-ee Keen, which was down the road from the last two deliveries we'd made — Mrs. Ipswich (
Guide to Colon Cleanliness
) and Mr. Harlow (
Classic Pinups of World War II
), which we had given to his wife because he wasn't home. For the first time, I understood the reason for the brown paper.

“I can't believe it.” I wadded up my napkin. “Who would have figured Gatlin was so romantic?” I had bet on church books. Liv had bet on romance novels. I lost, eight to nine.

“Not only romantic, but romantic
and
righteous. It's a wonderful combination, so —”

“Hypocritical?”

“Not at all. I was going to say American. Did you notice we delivered
It Takes a Bible
and
Divinely Delicious Delilah
to the very same house?”

“I thought that was a cookbook.”

“Not unless Delilah's cooking up something quite a bit hotter than these chili chips.” She waved a fry in the air.

“Fries.”

“Exactly.”

I turned bright red, thinking about how flustered Mrs. Lincoln had looked when we dropped those books off at her door. I didn't point out to Liv that Delilah's devotee was the mother of my best friend, and the most ruthlessly righteous woman in town.

“So, you like the Dar-ee Keen?” I changed the subject.

“I'm mad about it.” Liv took a bite of her cheeseburger, big enough to put Link to shame. I'd already seen her wolf down more than the average varsity basketball player at lunch. She didn't seem to care what I thought about her one way or another, which was a relief. Especially since everything I did around Lena lately was wrong.