“Prudence Jane, bring me my spectacles!”
There was some banging around in the hall, and Aunt Prue appeared in the doorway in an equally large and disturbing hat. This one was black, with a wraparound veil that made Aunt Prue look like the mother of a mob boss at his funeral. “If you wore them ’round your neck, like I told ya …”
Either Aunt Mercy had her hearing aid turned down or she was ignoring Aunt Prue. “Look what Ethan found.” The book was still open to the same page. The Ravenwood of the past stared back at us.
“Lord ’ave mercy, look at that. The Devil's workshop if I ever saw it.” The Sisters, and most of the old folks in Gatlin, were convinced Abraham Ravenwood made some kind of deal with the Devil to save Ravenwood Plantation from General Sherman's burning campaign of 1865, which had left every other plantation along the river in ashes. If the Sisters only knew how close it was to the truth.
“Ain't the only evil Abraham Ravenwood done.” Aunt Prue backed away from the book.
“What do you mean?” Ninety percent of what the Sisters said was nonsense, but the other ten percent was worth hearing. The Sisters were the ones who had told me about my mysterious ancestor, Ethan Carter Wate, who died during the Civil War. Maybe they knew something about Abraham Ravenwood.
Aunt Prue shook her head. “No good can come from talkin’ ’bout him.”
But Aunt Mercy could never resist an opportunity to defy her older sister. “Our granddaddy used ta say Abraham Ravenwood played on the wrong side a right and wrong — tempted fate. He was in league with the Devil all right, practicin’ witchcraft, communin’ with evil spirits.”
“Mercy! You stop all that talk!”
“Stop what? Speakin’ the truth?”
“Don't you drag the truth inta this house!” Aunt Prue was flustered.
Aunt Mercy looked me straight in the eye. “But the Devil turned on him after Abraham had done his biddin’, and when the Devil was done with him, Abraham wasn't even a man anymore. He was somethin’ else.”
As far as the Sisters were concerned, every evil deed, deception, or criminal act was the work of the Devil, and I wasn't going to try to convince them otherwise. Because after what I'd seen Abraham Ravenwood do, I knew he was more than evil. I also knew it had nothing to do with the Devil.
“Now you're tellin’ tales, Mercy Lynne, and you best quit before the Good Lord strikes you down here in this house, on All Souls, a all days. And I don't want ta get hit by a stray bolt.” Aunt Prue whacked Aunt Mercy's chair with her cane.
“You don't think this boy knows ’bout the strange goin's on in Gatlin?” Aunt Grace appeared in the doorway in her own nightmarishly lavender hat. Before I was born, someone made the mistake of telling Aunt Grace lavender was her color, and nearly everything she wore had been disproving it ever since. “No use in tryin’ ta put the milk back in the jug after it's spilt.”
Aunt Prue banged her cane on the floor. They were speaking in riddles, like Amma, which meant they knew something. Maybe they didn't know there were Casters wandering around in the Tunnels below their house, but they knew something.
“Some messes can be cleaned up easier than others. I don't want any part a this one.” Aunt Prue pushed past Aunt Grace as she left the room. “This ain't a day ta be speakin’ ill a the dead.”
Aunt Grace shuffled over toward us. I took her elbow and guided her to the couch. Aunt Mercy waited for the tapping of Aunt Prue's cane to echo down the hall. “Is she gone? I don't have my hearin’ aid turned up.”
Aunt Grace nodded. “I think so.”
The two of them leaned in as if they were about to give me launch codes for nuclear missiles. “If I tell ya somethin’, you promise not ta tell your daddy? ’Cause if you do, we're bound ta end up in the Home for sure.” She was referring to the Summerville Assisted Seniors House — the seventh circle of hell, as far as the Sisters were concerned.
Aunt Grace nodded in agreement.
“What is it? I won't say anything to my dad. I promise.”
“Prudence Jane's wrong.” Aunt Mercy dropped her voice to a whisper. “Abraham Ravenwood's still around, sure as I'm sittin’ here today.”
I wanted to say they were crazy. Two ancient, senile old ladies claiming to see a man, or what most people thought was a man, no one had seen for a hundred years. “What do you mean, still around?”
“I saw him with my own eyes, last year. Behind the church, a all places!” Aunt Mercy fanned herself with her handkerchief, as if she might faint from the thought of it. “After church on Tuesdays, we wait for Thelma out in front, on account a she has ta teach Bible study down the way at First Methodist. Anyhow, I let Harlon James out from inside my pocketbook so he could stretch his little legs — you know Prudence Jane makes me carry him. But soon as I set him down, he ran ’round the back a the church.”