“Ethan? Ethan Wate?”
I stopped in my tracks. Half the basketball team collided into me.
“No way.” Shawn was as surprised as I was when my name came out of her mouth. He was the kind of guy who had game.
“Hot.” Link just stared, with his mouth open. “TDB hot.” Third Degree Burns. The highest compliment Link could pay a girl,
even higher than Savannah Snow hot.
“Looks like trouble.”
“Hot girls
are
trouble. That’s the whole point.”
She walked right up to me, sucking on her lollipop. “Which one of you lucky boys is Ethan Wate?” Link shoved me forward.
“Ethan!” She flung her arms around my neck. Her hands felt surprisingly cold, like she’d been holding a bag of ice. I shivered
and backed away.
“Do I know you?”
“Not a bit. I’m Ridley, Lena’s cousin. But don’t I wish you’d met me first—”
At the mention of Lena, the guys shot me some weird looks, and reluctantly drifted off toward their cars. In the wake of my
talk with Earl, we had come to a mutual understanding about Lena, the only kind guys ever come to. Meaning, I hadn’t brought
it up, and they hadn’t brought it up, and between us, we somehow all agreed to go on like this indefinitely. Don’t ask, don’t
tell. Which wasn’t going to be much longer, especially if Lena’s odd relatives started showing up in town.
“Cousin?”
Had Lena mentioned a Ridley?
“For the holidays? Aunt Del? Rhymes with hell? Ring a bell?” She was right; Macon had brought it up at dinner.
I grinned, relieved, except my stomach was still wrenched into a massive knot, so I must not have been that relieved. “Right.
Sorry, I forgot. The cousins.”
“Honey, you’re lookin’ at
the
Cousin. The rest are just children my mother happened to have after me.” Ridley hopped back in the Mini Cooper. And when
I say that, I mean, she literally hopped over the side of the car and landed in the driver seat of the Mini. I wasn’t joking
about the cheerleader thing. The girl had some powerful legs.
I could see Link still staring as he stood next to the Beater.
Ridley patted the seat next to her. “Hop in, Boyfriend, we’re gonna be late.”
“I’m not… I mean, we’re not—”
“You really are cute. Now get in. You don’t want us to be late, do you?”
“Late for what?”
“Family dinner. The High Holidays. The Gathering. Why do you think they sent me all the way out here into Gat-dung to find
you?”
“I don’t know. Lena never invited me.”
“Well, let’s just say there’s no keeping Aunt Del from checking out the first guy Lena’s ever brought home. So you’ve been
summoned, and since Lena’s busy with dinner and Macon’s still, you know, ‘sleeping,’ I drew the short straw.”
“She didn’t bring me home. I just went by one night to drop off her homework.”
Ridley opened the car door from the inside. “Get in, Short Straw.”
“Lena would’ve called me if she wanted me to come.” Somehow I knew I was going to get in even as I was saying it. I hesitated.
“Are you always like this? Or are you flirting with me? Because if you’re playing hard to get, just tell me now and we’ll
go park at the swamp and get it on already.”
I got in the car. “Fine. Let’s go.”
She reached over and pushed the hair out of my eyes with her cold hand. “You’ve got nice eyes, Boyfriend. You shouldn’t keep
them all covered up.”
♦ ♦ ♦
By the time we got to Ravenwood, I didn’t know what had happened. She kept playing music I’d never heard, and I started to
talk, and I just kept talking, until I had told her things I had never told anyone, except Lena. I can’t really explain it.
It was like I had lost control of my mouth.
I told her about my mom, about how she died, even though I almost never talked about it with anyone. I told her about Amma,
about how she read cards, and about how she was like my mom now that I didn’t have one, except for the charms and dolls and
her generally disagreeable nature. I told her about Link, and his mom, and how she had changed lately and spent all her time
trying to convince everyone that Lena was just as crazy as Macon Ravenwood, and a danger to every student at Jackson.
I told her about my dad, about how he was holed up in his study, with his books and some secret painting I was never allowed
to see, and how I felt like I needed to protect him, even though it was from something that had already happened.
I told her about Lena, about how we’d met in the rain, how we had seemed to know each other before we’d even met, and about
the messed-up scene with the window.
It almost felt like she was sucking it all out of me, like she sucked on that sticky red lollipop, the one she kept licking
as she drove. It took all the strength I had to not tell her about the locket, and the dreams. Maybe the fact that she was
Lena’s cousin just made everything a little easier between us. Maybe it was something else.
Just as I was starting to wonder, we pulled up at Raven-wood Manor, and she flipped off the radio. The sun had set, the lollipop
was gone, and I had finally shut up. When had that happened?
Ridley leaned in toward me, close. I could see my face reflected in her sunglasses. I breathed her in. She smelled sweet and
sort of damp, nothing like Lena, but still familiar somehow. “You don’t need to be worried, Short Straw.”
“Yeah, why not?”
“You’re the real deal.” She smiled at me, and her eyes flashed. Behind the glasses, I could see a gold glint, like gold-fish
swimming in a dark pond. They were hypnotic, even through her shades. Maybe that’s why she wore them. Then the glasses went
dark, and she messed up my hair. “Too bad she’ll probably never see you again once you meet the rest of us. Our family is
just a little wack.” She got out of the car, and I followed her.
“More wack than you?”
“Infinitely.”
Great.
She put her cold hand on my arm, once again, when we got to the bottom step of the house. “And, Boyfriend. When Lena blows
you off, which she will in about five months, give me a call. You’ll know how to find me.” She looped her arm through mine,
suddenly strangely formal. “May I?”
I gestured with my free hand. “Sure. After you.” As we walked up the stairs, they groaned under our combined weight. I pulled
Ridley up to the front door, still not quite sure if the stairs were going to support us or not.
I knocked, but there was no response. I reached up and felt for the moon. The door swung open, slowly—
Ridley seemed tentative. And as we crossed the threshold, I could almost feel the house settle, as if the climate inside had
changed, almost imperceptibly.
“Hello, Mother.”
A round woman, bustling to lay gourds and golden leaves along the mantel, startled and dropped a small white pumpkin. It exploded
onto the ground. She grabbed onto the mantel to steady herself. She looked odd, like she was wearing a dress from a hundred
years ago. “Julia! I mean Ridley. What are you doing here? I must be confused. I thought, I thought…”
I knew something was wrong. This didn’t seem like your average mother-daughter hello.
“Jules? Is that you?” A younger version of Ridley, maybe ten, came walking into the front hall with Boo Radley, who was now
wearing a sparkly blue cape over his back. Dressing up the family wolf, as if nothing unusual was going on. Everything about
the girl was like light; she had blond hair and radiant blue eyes, as if they had little flecks of the sky on a sunny afternoon
in them. The girl smiled, and then frowned. “They said you’d gone away.”
Boo started to growl.
Ridley opened her arms, waiting for the little girl to rush into them, but the girl didn’t move. So Ridley held her hands
out and uncurled each one. A red lollipop appeared in the first and, not to be outdone, a little gray mouse wearing a sparkly
blue cape that matched Boo’s sniffed the air in her other hand—like a cheap carnival trick.
The little girl stepped forward, tentatively, as if her sister had the power to pull her across the room, without so much
as a touch, like the moon and the tides. I had felt it myself.
When Ridley spoke, her voice was thick and husky like honey. “Come now, Ryan. Mamma was just pulling your tail to see if it
squeaked. I haven’t gone anywhere. Not really. Would your favorite big sister ever leave you?”
Ryan grinned and ran toward Ridley, jumping up, as if she was about to leap into her open arms. Boo barked. For a moment,
Ryan hung suspended in mid-air, like one of those cartoon characters that accidentally jumps of a cliff and just hangs there
for a few seconds, before they fall. Then, she fell, hitting the floor abruptly, as if she had smacked into an invisible wall.
The lights inside the house grew brighter, all at once, as if the house was a stage, and the lighting was changing to signal
the end of an act. In the light, Ridley’s features cast harsh shadows.
The light changed things. Ridley held a hand up to her eyes, calling out to the house. “Oh please, Uncle Macon. Is that really
necessary?”
Boo leaped forward, positioning himself between Ryan and Ridley. Growling, the dog pressed closer and closer, the hair on
his back standing on end, making him look even more like a wolf. Apparently Ridley’s charms were lost on Boo.
Ridley looped her arm back through mine tightly, and laugh-growled, or something like that. It wasn’t a friendly sound. I
tried to keep it together, but my throat felt like it was stuffed with wet socks.
Keeping one hand on my arm, she raised her other hand over her head and threw it up toward the ceiling. “Well, if you’re going
to be rude.” Every light in the house went dark. The whole house seemed to short out.
Macon’s voice calmly floated down from the top of the dim shadows. “Ridley, my dear, what a surprise. We weren’t expecting
you.”
Not expecting her? What was he talking about?
“I wouldn’t miss the Gathering for anything in the world, and look, I brought a guest. Or, I guess you could say, I’m his
guest.”
Macon walked down the staircase, without taking his eyes off Ridley. I was watching two lions circle each other, and I was
standing in the middle. Ridley had played me, and I had gone along with it, like a sucker, like the red sucker she was sucking
on right now.
“I don’t think that’s the best idea. I’m sure you’re expected elsewhere.”
She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth with a pop. “Like I said, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Besides, you wouldn’t
want me to drive Ethan
all
the way home. What ever would we talk about?”
I wanted to suggest we leave, but I couldn’t get the words out. Everyone just stood there in the main hall, staring at each
other. Ridley leaned against one of the pillars.
Macon broke the silence. “Why don’t you show Ethan to the dining room? I’m sure you remember where it is.”
“But Macon—” The woman I guessed was Aunt Del looked panicked, and again, confused, like she didn’t quite know what was going
on.
“It’s all right, Delphine.” I could see in Macon’s face he was working things out, jumping from step to step, ahead of the
step we were all on. Without knowing what I had stumbled into, it was actually comforting to know he was there.
The last place I wanted to go was the dining room. I wanted to bolt out of there, but I couldn’t make it happen. Ridley wouldn’t
let go of my arm, and as long as she was touching me, I felt like I was on autopilot. She led me into the formal dining room
where I had offended Macon the first time. I looked at Ridley, clinging to my arm. This offense was far worse.
The room was lit by hundreds of tiny black votive candles, and strands of black glass beads hung from the chandelier. There
was an enormous wreath, made entirely of black feathers, on the door leading into the kitchen. The table was set with silver
and pearl-white plates, which were actually made of pearl, for all I knew.
The kitchen door swung open. Lena backed through the door, carrying a huge silver tray, piled high with exotic-looking fruits
that definitely were not from South Carolina. She wore a fitted black floor-length jacket, cinched at her waist. It looked
strangely timeless, like nothing I had ever seen in this county, or even this century, but when I looked down, I noticed she
was wearing her Converse. She looked even more beautiful than when I had come over for dinner… when? A few weeks ago?
My mind felt cloudy, like I was half asleep. I took a deep breath, but all I could smell was Ridley, a musky smell mixed with
something way too sweet, like syrup bubbling on the stove. It was strong and suffocating.
“We’re almost ready. Just a few more—” Lena froze, the door still in mid-swing. She looked like she had seen a ghost, or something
much worse. I wasn’t sure if it was just the sight of Ridley, or the two of us standing there arm and arm.
“Well, hello, Cuz. Long time no see.” Ridley advanced a few steps, dragging me along next to her. “Aren’t you going to give
me a kiss?”
The tray Lena was carrying crashed to the floor. “What are you doing here?” Lena’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Why, I came to see my favorite cousin of course, and I brought a date.”
“I’m not your date,” I said lamely, barely choking the words out, still glued to her arm. She pulled a cigarette from the
pack tucked in her boot and lit it, all with her free hand.
“Ridley, please do not smoke in the house,” Macon said, and the cigarette instantly went out. Ridley laughed and flicked it
into a bowl of something that looked like mashed potatoes, but probably wasn’t.
“Uncle Macon. You always were such a stickler for the house
rules
.”
“The rules were set long ago, Ridley. There’s nothing you or I can do to change them now.”
They stared at each other. Macon gestured, and a chair pulled itself away from the table. “Why don’t we all have a seat? Lena,
can you let Kitchen know we will be two more for dinner?”
Lena just stood there, seething. “She can’t stay.”
“It’s all right. Nothing can harm you here,” Macon assured her. But Lena didn’t look scared. She looked furious.