Beautiful Darkness

“She couldn't make it.” I stepped away from the door so I could distract her with introductions. “You know Link, and this is Liv and Lena's Aunt Delphine.” I was sure the first thing Aunt Caroline would do after I left was call my dad to say how nice it had been to see me. So much for keeping my whereabouts a secret from Amma and living to see my seventeenth birthday.

 

“Nice to see you again, ma'am.” I could always count on Link to be a good old boy when I needed him to be. I tried to think of someone in Savannah my aunt wouldn't know, as if that was possible. Savannah was bigger than Gatlin, but all Southern towns are the same. Everyone knows each other.

 

Aunt Caroline ushered us all inside. In a matter of seconds, she disappeared and reappeared with sweet tea and a plate of Benne Babies, maple cookies that were even sweeter than the tea. “Today has been the strangest day.”

 

“What do you mean?” I reached for a cookie.

 

“This mornin’ when I was at the museum, someone broke into the house, but that's not even the oddest part. They didn't take a thing. Ransacked the entire attic and didn't even touch the rest of the house.”

 

I glanced at Liv. There were no coincidences. Aunt Del might have been thinking the same thing, too, but it was hard to tell. She was looking a little woozy, like she was having trouble sorting through all the different things that had happened in this room since the house was built in 1820. She was probably flashing through two hundred years all at once while we sat here eating cookies. I remembered what she said about her gift the night in the graveyard with Genevieve. Palimpsestry was a great honor and an even greater burden.

 

I wondered what Aunt Caroline could possibly have that was worth stealing. “What's in the attic?”

 

“Nothing, really. Christmas ornaments, some architectural plans for the house, some of your mother's old papers.” Liv nudged my foot underneath the table. I was thinking the same thing. Why weren't they in the archive?

 

“What sort of papers?”

 

Aunt Caroline put out some more cookies. Link was eating them faster than she could serve them. “I'm not really sure. A month or so before she died, your mother asked me if she could store a few boxes here. You know your mother with her files.”

 

“Do you mind if I take a look? I'm working at the library this summer with Aunt Marian, and she may be interested in some of them.” I tried to sound casual.

 

“Be my guest, but it's a mess up there.” She picked up the empty plate. “I have a few calls to make, and I still have to finish filin’ the police report. But I'll be down here if you need me.”

 

Aunt Caroline was right; the attic was a mess. Clothes and papers were strewn everywhere. Someone must have dumped the contents of every box up there into one gigantic pile. Liv picked up a few stray papers.

 

“How the —” Link looked at Aunt Del, embarrassed. “I mean, how the heck are we gonna find anything in here? What are we even lookin’ for?” He kicked an empty box across the floor.

 

“Anything that could've been my mom's. Someone was looking for something up here.” Everyone dove into a different part of the pile.

 

Aunt Del found a hatbox full of Civil War shell casings and round balls. “There used to be a lovely hat in here.”

 

I picked up my mom's old high school yearbook and a field guide to the battlefield at Gettysburg. I noticed how worn the field guide was, compared to her yearbook. That was my mom.

 

Liv knelt over a stack of papers. “I think I found something. I mean, it seems these belonged to your mother, but they're nothing, really — old sketches of Ravenwood Manor and some notes on Gatlin's history.”

 

Anything that had to do with Ravenwood was something. She handed me the notes and I flipped through the pages. Gatlin Civil War registries, yellowed sketches of Ravenwood Manor and the older buildings in town — the Historical Society, the old firehouse, even our house, Wate's Landing. But none of it seemed to amount to anything.

 

“Here, kitty kitty. Hey, I found a friend for …” Link lifted up a cat preserved by the Southern art of taxidermy, then dropped it when he realized it was a stuffed dead cat with mangy black fur. “Lucille.”

 

“There has to be something else. Whoever was here wasn't looking for Civil War registries.”

 

“Maybe they found what they came for.” Liv shrugged.

 

I looked at Aunt Del. “There's only one way to find out.”

 

A few minutes later, we were all sitting cross-legged on the floor, like we were in a campfire circle. Or a séance. “I'm really not sure this is a good idea.”

 

“It's the only way to find out who broke in here, and why.”

 

Aunt Del nodded, barely convinced. “All right. Remember, if you feel sick, put your head between your knees. Now join hands.”

 

Link looked at me. “What's she talkin’ about? Why would we feel sick?”

 

I grabbed Liv's hand, completing the circle. It was soft and warm in mine. But before I could think about the fact that we were holding hands, images started to flash before my eyes —

 

One after the next, opening and closing like doors. Each image cued the next, like dominoes, or one of those flip-books I read as a kid.

 

Lena, Ridley, and John dumping out boxes in the attic …

 

 

 

“It has to be here. Keep looking.” John tosses old books onto the floor.