“What about this locket?” I pointed at the photo, almost afraid to ask.
“Supposedly, Ethan gave it to Genevieve, as a troth of secret engagement. We’ll never know what happened to it. Nobody ever saw it again, after the night Ethan died. Genevieve’s father forced her to marry someone else, but legend has it, she kept the locket and it was buried with her. It was said to be a powerful talisman, the broken bond of a broken heart.”
I shivered. The powerful talisman wasn’t buried with Genevieve; it was in my pocket, and a Dark talisman according to Macon and Amma. I could feel it throbbing, as if it had been baking in hot coals.
Ethan, don’t.
We have to. She can help us. My mom would have helped us.
I shoved one hand in my pocket, pushing past the handkerchief to touch the battered cameo, and took Marian’s hand, hoping this was one of those times the locket would work. Her cup of tea crashed to the floor. The room started to swirl.
“Ethan!” Marian shouted.
Lena took Marian’s hand. The light in the room was dissolving into night. “Don’t worry. We’ll be with you the whole time.” Lena’s voice sounded far away, and I heard the sound of distant gunfire.
In moments, the library filled with rain—
The rain battered down upon them. The winds kicked up, beginning to quell the flames, even though it was too late.
Genevieve stared at what was left of the great house. She had lost everything today. Mamma. Evangeline. She couldn’t lose Ethan, too.
Ivy ran through the mud toward her, using her skirt to carry the things Genevieve had asked for.
“I’m too late, Lord in Heaven, I’m too late,” Ivy cried. She looked around nervously. “Come, Miss Genevieve, there’s nothin’ more we can do here.”
But Ivy was wrong. There was one thing.
“It’s not too late. It’s not too late.” Genevieve kept repeating the words.
“You’re talkin’ crazy, child.”
She looked at Ivy, desperate. “I need the book.”
Ivy backed away, shaking her head. “No. You can’t mess with that book. You don’t know what you doin’.”
Genevieve grabbed the old woman by the shoulders. “Ivy, it’s the only way. You have to give it to me.”
“You don’t know what you askin’. You don’t know nothin’ about that book—”
“Give it to me or I’ll find it myself.”
Black smoke was billowing up behind them, the fire still spitting as it swallowed up what was left of the house.
Ivy relented, picking up her tattered skirts and leading Genevieve out past what used to be her mother’s lemon grove. Genevieve had never been past that point. There was nothing out there but cotton fields, or at least that’s what she had always been told. And she had never had a reason to be in those fields, except on the rare occasions when she and Evangeline played a game of hide-and-seek.
But Ivy’s path was purposeful. She knew exactly where she was going. In the distance, Genevieve could still hear the sound of gunshots and the piercing cries of her neighbors, as they watched their own homes burn.
Ivy stopped near a bramble of wild vines, rosemary, and jasmine, snaking their way up the side of an old stone wall. There was a small archway, hidden beneath the overgrowth. Ivy ducked down and walked under the arch. Genevieve followed. The arch must have been attached to a wall because the area was enclosed. A perfect circle—its walls obscured by years of wild vines.
“What is this place?”
“A place your mamma didn’t want you to know nothin’ about, or you’d know what it was.”
In the distance, Genevieve could see tiny stones jutting from the tall grass. Of course. The family cemetery. Genevieve remembered being out there, once, when she was very young, when her great-grandmother had died. She remembered the funeral was at night, and her mother had stood in the tall grass, in the moonlight, whispering words in a language Genevieve and her sister hadn’t recognized. “What are we doin’ out here?”
“You said you wanted that book. Didn’t ya?”
“It’s out here?”