Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore 1)

I'd have been a fool to let it go at that. "What's the matter?" I asked.

"Your grandmother's dead. Last night. A stroke, they're thinking. "

Lulu and her mother hadn't spoken since Lulu had moved out of the house almost twelve years before. I couldn't recall having ever met the woman, though I guessed she must still live in town. That's why it was so confounding to be presented with the sight of my beloved aunt in shambles, sprawled across her bed, pushed to this point by the death of a woman we'd not seen in so long.

"You know what the kicker is?" Lulu slurred. "You know what really makes me . . . "

She stalled. I sensed she was hunting for a word, but when she realized what the right word was, she decided not to use it. She began the thought again. "You know what really makes me mad?"

"What?"

"She's dead now, and that means me and Shelly's all that's left," she said, meaning her younger sister who now lived in Nashville. It had probably been Michelle who had called with the news.

I had an idea. I had a question.

It leaped out of my mouth with a little more glee than it should have.

"Just you two and old Tatie, eh?"

Lulu sat up fast, eyes blazing as though she were looking for something to hurl my way. I stepped back and braced myself against the doorframe with both hands, ready to run if I had to. Lulu settled on a bottle of cough syrup on the nightstand and chucked it drunkenly towards my head. It stumbled against the wall by my elbow, then clattered harmlessly to the floor at my feet. I held my ground.

"I didn't mean anything by it—just to say that I guess there's another whole branch of the family there someplace. It's not just us, not really. " Of course I meant something by it. I meant I wanted to know more, but I wasn't dumb enough to anger her over it if I could help myself.

She laughed without a trace of mirth and let her body fall back onto the bed. "That's true, I guess. Lord, but wouldn't we be better off if it wasn't so. "

"It doesn't matter now anyway," I broached, still clinging to the doorframe. " 'Cause they sent Malachi away to Pine Breeze. "

Lulu snorted, and something told me I'd screwed up. "Who told you that?" she asked.

"But they did, didn't they? They sent him off to Pine Breeze for the next twenty years and he's gotta stay fifty yards away from me for the rest of forever. "

"Yeah, well. You're part right. But he's at the state facilities. You heard the judge say that part about the Bend, or did you forget? He's not over there at Pine Breeze. "

Pine Breeze. It was all I could do to contain my excitement. For all of her promises to fill me in one day, she'd never done so. And if she wasn't willing to volunteer any information, now might be the best time to quiz her. I sighed my next question, desperate to make it come out casually. "How come?"

"It's been shut down for fifteen, sixteen years. Since you were born, anyway. You do the math. " One long arm reached over the side of the bed, feeling for the rum and fumbling around.

On the other side of the house, the front door opened and Dave dropped his keys onto the end table by the couch, like he always did. I ran the tip of my tongue over my upper lip and took another deep, measured breath. Lulu found the rum and took another swallow.

This was as close to vulnerable as I might ever expect to see Lulu. Now or never. I was too curious to pay any attention to the twinge of guilt that warned I was taking advantage of her. I asked my next question anyway.

"Where is Pine Breeze, anyway?"

Lulu's eyes squinted low and close together. Uh-oh. "What do you want to know for?"

"I just do. " I slid one foot back and forth and shifted my weight. She didn't answer me for a few long seconds, so I spoke again to fill the pause. "Just wondering. "

"I told you, it's been shut down. "

Dave appeared beside me. "She all right?" he asked quietly, but Lulu heard him.

"Would she have called you back from Atlanta if she was all right?" she spat, not budging from her prone position except to stuff a pillow up under her head. "And now this little thing thinks she can, she thinks, she wants to know about Pine Breeze, if you can believe that. . . . "

My uncle pulled me outside the doorway and leaned close. He peeked around the corner back at Lulu, and he lowered his voice. "You got plans with friends or anything? I mean, are you going off someplace tonight?"

"Not sure. Maybe I will, and maybe I won't. "

He ignored my attitude and moved to his next query. "How bad do you want to know about Pine Breeze?"