The Line (19 page)

“No, it’s okay. You’re right. This does help clarify our relationship,” I said. “I’m not like her that way, you know?” Ellen didn’t make the connection. “My mother that is. I don’t intentionally go after other women’s men.”

“Why sweetheart, I know you don’t!” she said. “Who has been telling you tales about Emily?”

“Iris said that she was worried that I had inherited the gene for man stealing,” I said, trying to make light of my concerns.

“Well pardon me, but Iris doesn’t have any idea what her fool mouth is saying. You are like your mother in many ways, but all of them good.” She put her arms around me and squeezed me tight.

“Tucker Perry said that my mother introduced him to Tillandsia,” I said. Ellen released me, her expression alarmed. “Is Tucker my father?”

“Dear God, no!” Ellen said.

“Then you know who my father is?”

“I’m sorry, darling. I don’t. I really don’t.”

“Were there too many men to guess which?”

“I’m sorry. It’s true that Emily was a part of Tillandsia. And it’s true that she had many men in her life.” She bit her lip, then looked with narrowed eyes. “When were you talking to Tucker anyway?”

“He’s kind of been following me around lately,” I responded, searching Ellen’s eyes to see if Tucker’s stalking ways made her angry or jealous.

“I’m sorry he’s bothered you,” Ellen said. She looked away in shame. “I’ve told him that you and Maisie are strictly off limits unless he wants to end up like Wesley Espy and wear his genitalia for a boutonniere.” Wesley was a judge’s son who’d had an unfortunate taste for gangsters’ girlfriends. The fathers of Savannah’s daughters have been offering up his story as a cautionary tale to prom dates for going on eighty years. “I’ll see him tonight and set the record straight once and for all.”

“I think Peter plans to pay him a visit as well,” I said.

“That’s good, but the bastard needs to hear it from me too.”

“How can you bear to let him touch you?” The words came out of my mouth before my brain could censor them.

Ellen didn’t appear shocked or offended. “Since I’ve stopped drinking, I’ve been asking myself that very same question. And now that I know he’s been soliciting you, I can guarantee that he’ll never touch me again.” She was quiet for a moment, and the animation fell from her face. “After Erik and Paul died, I stopped caring about what was right or wrong. I didn’t give a damn what happened to me. Tucker was so attentive, and he was fun. He distracted me from the pain a little.”

“I am so sorry to have brought this up,” I said.

“No, don’t be. It’s good to get it out. I’ve been thinking about them a lot after what happened to Ginny.” Ellen looked me in the eyes. “Mercy, I know this is a terrible thing to say, but I hope that if they find this Martell Burke guy, they give him a medal. And Jilo too, if she sent him to do the deed.” I was shocked by her words, but the floodgates had opened, and Ellen wasn’t through. “Erik died at the scene of the accident, but my boy was still alive. Barely alive, but there was enough of a spark left in him for me to save him. I could have done it, I know it. But she stopped me.”

“How?” I asked. “Why?”

“You were young, but you probably remember. The week before Erik and Paul died, a young man was hit by a car outside my old flower shop.”

“Yes, I do remember—” I replied, but she wasn’t listening.

“The car went right over him. He was mangled. I didn’t think. I just reacted,” she said. “I went to him and held him in this world.” She looked up at me with wonder in her eyes. “He was so close to death that I saw it, Mercy, I saw that tunnel they talk about and the light. I could hear voices coming from that light, but then he opened his eyes and asked me to please save him.” She shook her head, and closed her eyes, the memory taking her someplace else. “Somehow I did it. I pulled enough juice to heal his worst injuries. By the time the ambulance arrived, all he had left as a couple of broken legs and a cracked rib. Ginny was furious. She said I had damaged the balance of nature by saving that boy.”

“But how could she have stopped you from saving your own son?” I asked.

“She was an anchor, but sometimes she confused being an anchor with being God. She used her control to dampen my powers that day. It was kind of like she put a kink in my hose. Truth is, my ability has been waning ever since.”

“No, I mean how could she have just let Paul die?”

“Honestly, I think she was afraid of him,” Ellen said. “You know the ten main families, the ones who are linked together and maintain the line. But there are three other families that we don’t talk about much.”

“The three who helped create the line but then regretted it.”

“Oh it’s more than regret. They’ve tried to break the line more than once. Bring the whole system down.”

“But why would they do that? Why would they want to turn the world back over to demons?”

Ellen leaned over and picked up a framed picture of her son and husband from the nightstand. She placed it in my hands. “Because when our reality was controlled by the demons, the thirteen families held a special place in the hierarchy of things. The demons were the kings, but the thirteen families were the lords. Revolution led to democratization. When we shifted our reality out from under the demons’ control, we wiped out a social hierarchy that had existed since the first humans. And although the three families were happy to be free from their bosses, they didn’t like losing control of those below them.” She paused. “Erik was from one of those families.”

“Uncle Erik?” I asked, having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I nearly dropped the photograph.

She took the picture from my hands and returned it to her nightstand. “Yes, but he was nothing like his family. He had broken allegiance with them and joined the ten families long before the two of us met.”

“And Ginny was scared of Paul because his father was from one of the three adversarial families?”

“No, Ginny was scared of Paul because of a prophecy that was made when the three families separated from the rest of us. After Paul was born, Ginny learned that it had been predicted that the mingling of our immediate bloodlines would lead to the birth of a witch capable of reuniting the thirteen families. Neither of us had heard of it until Ginny started flipping out.”

“You think Ginny sacrificed Paul because she didn’t want the families to reunite?” I reached out and gently tugged at her hand.

She rejoined me on the bed. “Who knows what she wanted. I’m not even sure she cared about the families. I don’t think she wanted any light to outshine her own, and she knew she’d end up a dim comparison to my son.”

“Do you think Ginny might have done something to cause the accident?” I asked, surprised that I’d even let myself have such a thought.

“No,” Ellen said. “If I did, I would have killed her myself years ago.” Ellen spoke with such cool clarity that I didn’t doubt her. “Ginny tried to pass herself off as a saint, as some great martyr, but she was a miserable, controlling bitch. And I am glad she’s dead, so three cheers for Mother Jilo or whoever did her in.”

“So you do think Jilo might have done it?” I asked. I knew for a fact that Jilo hated Ginny enough—she hated all the Taylors enough. Ellen just nodded her head in response. “But why would Jilo hate Ginny enough to kill her?”

Ellen crossed her arms as if she had felt a chill. “Oh, darlin’, people like Jilo always walk around with a laundry list of perceived offenses. I am sure that in all the years she and Ginny bumped heads, Jilo found reason enough.”

“I heard Oliver was close to her family at one time. That he was friends with her granddaughter, the one who drowned herself,” I said, fishing for answers. I hoped that Ellen could tell me what had happened so that I wouldn’t have to ask Oliver himself.

“You’re talking about Grace,” Ellen said after a few moments. “Where did you dig up that ancient history?”

“People talk,” I responded vaguely.

“Well, yes, he and Grace used to hang with the same group of friends, but that was way back when he was a teenager,” she said, visibly calculating the years that had passed since. “That was back when he and Adam Cook were buddies. Rumor was that the girl had an abortion and then regretted it. It was a very sad situation, but it had nothing to do with us. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you that your uncle had nothing to do with her getting pregnant,” she said, smirking at me.

“No, ma’am, I am very sure Uncle Oliver had nothing to do with that,” I said and returned her smile. I wanted to believe that Oliver wouldn’t harm a fly, that he’d done nothing to this Grace. With all that had gone on over the last several hours, I was willing to take comfort where I could find it.

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, though,” Ellen said. “And if Jilo
was
responsible for Ginny’s death, revenge might not have had a thing to do with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that Jilo works a lot of dark magic, blood magic. Ginny was a powerful witch. Jilo could get a lot of mojo out of Ginny’s blood. Maybe we’ve been looking at it all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t a murder. Maybe it was a sacrifice.”

“But what kind of spell would require a human sacrifice?”

“Oh, sweetheart, conjurers like Jilo know how to store up energy from a bloodletting. She could expend it all attempting something big like a resurrection, or she might parse it out over years, using it little by little for money spells, revenge spells, love spells—”

“But I thought you don’t use blood in love spells.” I thought I would be ill. I had been so willing to accept Maisie’s assurances that Ginny’s death could not possibly have been related to the spell I’d asked Jilo to do.

“Well, of course I wouldn’t. You’d have to be pretty crazy or desperate to mess around with love spells anyway. But even the real witches who do them would never use blood. For someone who only borrows power, though, like Jilo, sometimes blood is the only way. Oh, I am sorry. I’ve upset you.” Ellen forced a smile. “Enough of this. Look at the two of us! The past is the past. We shouldn’t be wasting all this feminine beauty and grace on a walk down bad memory lane. Let’s go get that tea.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m suddenly not feeling well. Maybe another time?”

Ellen regarded me with concern. She placed her palm on my forehead. I knew I couldn’t fake a physical illness with her. “Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have kept my theories to myself.”

“No. I’m glad you shared your thoughts with me. I just need a little time to process them.”

She traced my jawline with her finger. “We’ll try this again soon.”

NINETEEN

I headed back to my room, the tomboy in me desperate to ditch the dress and pearls. I wanted to put on some shorts. Find my bike. Ride as hard as I could until the sick feeling I was carrying fell away. Maisie had lied to me, and I had lapped it up. I realized now that I had to find Jilo. Go to her and demand the truth. I’d never be able to live with myself wondering if I had Ginny’s blood on my hands. I’d start with Colonial Park Cemetery. If she wasn’t there, I’d return to her crossroads. I no longer felt safe going there alone, but I couldn’t let another night fall without my knowing the truth.

As I passed the door to the linen closet, I heard it creak open behind me. I turned back to look. Through the narrow opening of the door, I could see the aura of haint blue telling me that another world awaited me on the other side. Jilo’s world. Somehow she knew I’d be ready for her. Ripe for the plucking. The thought that she had such intimate knowledge about me terrified me. I hesitated in the rippling strip of aquamarine light. Jilo had made it clear that her sole interest in me was to use me to bring pain to my family. She might still be doing her best to make me like her, or maybe she’d moved past that idea and on to plan B. If Jilo was behind Ginny’s death, I might be walking right into my own execution.

But I
had
to know what had happened to Ginny. The door swung all the way open, the blue scintillating like a swimming pool in full sun, and without letting myself think another thought, I stepped across the threshold. The door closed behind me of its own accord, and for a moment I was blinded by the bright sun as it reflected off the river. I recognized the spot, of course—it was the bend where the river met Bonaventure Cemetery.

“Savannah,” Jilo began without looking at me. “Whole damned place a graveyard. Funny thing is we got a whole mess of bodies with no markers, and then we got markers that ain’t got no bodies.” She laughed at her own joke, finally turning to me.

I was desperate to ask her whether or not she had killed Ginny to set the spell in motion, but before I could get the words out, she asked me a question of her own.

“You ask your sweet uncle about my Grace yet?” She bent over, picked up a stone, and began rolling it smoothly through her fingers.

“No,” I responded. “The timing hasn’t seemed right.” And then the words “Did he do it? Did Martell kill Ginny?” burst out of me.

“No.” She paused and held the stone still in her palm. “My Martell did not kill your Ginny, and that all Jilo has to say on the matter for now.”