I froze. “I promised I’d walk you out there?”
She nodded. “Sure did. You’re the one who told me ’bout the Last Door. How else would I know ’bout it?”
“I don’t know anything about a Last Door, Aunt Prue. I’ve never been past this door.”
“Sure ya have. You’re standin’ past it this very minute.”
I looked out, and there I was—the other me. Hazy and gray, flickering like a shadow.
It was the me from the lens of the old video camera.
The me from the dream.
My Fractured Soul.
He started walking toward the vault door. Aunt Prue waved in his direction. “You goin’ ta walk me up ta the lighthouse?”
The moment she said it, I could see the pathway of neat stone steps leading up a grassy slope to a white stone lighthouse. Square and old, one simple stone box on top of another, then a white tower that reached high into the unbroken blue of the sky. The water beyond was even bluer. The grass that moved with the wind was green and alive, and it made me long for something I had never seen.
But I guess I had seen it, because there I was coming down the stone pathway.
A sick feeling turned in my stomach, and suddenly someone twisted my arm behind me, like Link was practicing wrestling moves on me.
A voice—the loudest voice in the universe, from the strongest person I knew, thundered in my ear. “You go on ahead, Prudence. You don’t need Ethan’s help. You’ve got Twyla now, and you’ll be fine once you get up there to the lighthouse.”
Amma nodded with a smile, and suddenly Twyla was standing next to Aunt Prue—not a made-of-light-Twyla but the real one, looking the same as she did the night she died.
Aunt Prue caught my eye and blew me a kiss, taking Twyla’s arm and turning back toward the lighthouse.
I tried to see if the other half of my soul was still out there, but the vault door slammed so hard it echoed through the club behind me.
Leah spun the wheel with both hands, as hard as she could. I tried to help, but she pushed me away. Arelia was there, too, muttering something I couldn’t understand.
Amma still had me in a hold so tight that she could’ve won the state championship if we really were at a wrestling match.
Arelia opened her eyes. “Now. It has to be now.”
Everything went black.
I opened my eyes, and we were standing around Aunt Prue’s lifeless body. She was gone, but we already knew that. Before I could say or do anything, Amma had me out of the room and halfway down the hall.
“You.” She could barely speak, a bony finger pointing at me. Five minutes later, we were in my car, and she only let go of my arm so I could drive us home. It took forever to figure out a way to get back to the house. Half of the roads in town had been closed off because of the earthquake that wasn’t an earthquake.
I stared at the steering wheel and thought about the wheel on the vault door. “What was that? The Last Door?”
Amma turned and slapped me in the face. She’d never laid a hand on me, not in her entire life or mine.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”
12.19
Cream of Grief
The cream-colored paper was thick and folded eight times, with a purple satin ribbon tied around it. I found it in the bottom drawer of the dresser, just like Aunt Prue said I would. I read it to the Sisters, who argued about it with Thelma until Amma stepped in.
“If Prudence Jane wanted the good china, we’re usin’ the good china. No sense arguin’ with the dead.” Amma folded her arms. Aunt Prue had only been gone two days. It seemed wrong to be calling her dead so soon.
“Next you’ll be tellin’ me she didn’t want fun’ral potatoes.” Aunt Mercy wadded up another handkerchief.
I checked the paper. “She does. But she doesn’t want you to let Jeanine Mayberry make them. She doesn’t want stale potato chips crumbled on the top.”
Aunt Mercy nodded as if I was reading from the Declaration of Independence. “It’s the truth. Jeanine Mayberry says they bake up better that way, but Prudence Jane always said it was on account a her bein’ so cheap.” Her chin quivered.
Aunt Mercy was a mess. She hadn’t done much of anything but wad up handkerchiefs ever since she heard that Aunt Prue had passed. Aunt Grace, on the other hand, had busied herself with writing condolence cards, letting everyone know how sorry she was that Aunt Prue was gone, even though Thelma explained that it was the other folks who were supposed to send them to her. Aunt Grace had looked at Thelma like she was crazy. “Why would they send them ta me? They’re my cards. An’ it’s my news.”
Thelma shook her head, but she didn’t say anything after that.