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?”
Ivy stopped and looked at Genevieve, confused. “Where else would it be?”
Farther back, there was another structure being strangled by wild vines. A crypt. Ivy stopped at the door. “You sure ya want to— ”
“We don’t have time for this!” Genevieve reached for the handle, but there wasn’t one. “How does it open?”
The old woman stood on her toes, reaching high above the door. There, illuminated by the distant light of the fires, Genevieve could see a small piece of smooth stone above the door, with a crescent moon carved into it. Ivy put her hand over the small moon and pushed. The stone door began to move, opening with the sound of stone scraping stone. Ivy reached for something on the other side of the doorway. A candle.
The candlelight illuminated the small room. It couldn’t have been bigger than a few feet wide all around. But there were old wooden shelves on every side, piled high with tiny vials and bottles, filled with plant blossoms, powders, and murky liquids. In the center of the room, there was a weathered stone table, with an old wooden box lying on it. The box was modest by any standard, the only adornment a tiny crescent moon carved on its lid. The same carving from the stone above the door.
“I’m not touchin’ it,” Ivy said quietly, as if she thought the box itself could hear her.
“Ivy, it’s just a book.”
“No such thing as just a book, ’specially in your family.”
Genevieve lifted the lid gently. The book’s jacket was cracked black leather, now more gray than black.
There was no title, just the same crescent moon embossed on the front. Genevieve lifted the book tentatively from the box. She knew Ivy was superstitious. Although she had mocked the old woman, she also knew that Ivy was wise. She read cards and tea leaves, and Genevieve’s mother consulted Ivy and her tea leaves for almost everything, the best day to plant her vegetables to avoid a freeze, the right herbs to cure a cold.
The book was warm. As if it were alive, breathing.
“Why doesn’t it have a name?” Genevieve asked.
“Just ’cause a book don’t have a title, don’t mean it don’t have a name. That right there is The Book a Moons.”
There was no more time to lose. She followed the flames through the darkness. Back to what was left of Greenbrier, and Ethan.
She flipped through the pages. There were hundreds of Casts. How would she find the right one? Then she saw it. It was in Latin, a language she knew well; her mother had brought a special tutor in from up North to make sure she and Evangeline learned it. The most important language as far as her family was concerned.
The Binding Spell. To Bind Death To Life.