Beautiful Redemption (10 page)

Broken Bottles

L
ucille scratched at the door to Amma’s room, and it slid open. I slipped through the crack in the door right after the cat.

Amma’s room looked better and worse than it did the last time I saw it, the night I jumped off the water tower. That night, the jars of salt, river stones, and graveyard dirt—the ingredients in so many of Amma’s charms—were missing from their places on the shelves, along with at least two dozen other bottles. Her “recipe” books had been scattered across the floor, without so much as a single charm or doll in sight.

The room had been a reflection of Amma’s state of mind—lost and desperate, in a way that hurt to remember.

Today it looked completely different, but as far as I could
tell, the room was still full of what she was feeling on the inside, the things she didn’t want anyone to see. The doors and windows were laden with charms, but if Amma’s old charms were as good as they come, these were even better—stones intricately arranged around the bed, bundles of hawthorn tied around the windows, strands of beads decorated with tiny silver saints and symbols looped around the bedposts.

She was working hard to keep something out.

The jars were still crowded together the way I remembered them, but the shelves weren’t bare anymore. They were lined with cracked brown, green, and blue glass bottles. I recognized them immediately.

They were from the bottle tree in our front yard.

Amma must have taken them down. Maybe she wasn’t afraid of evil spirits anymore. Or maybe she just didn’t want to catch the wrong one.

The bottles were empty, but each one was stopped up with a cork. I touched a small bluish-green one with a long crack down one side. Slowly, and with about as much ease as if I was pushing the Beater all the way up the hill to Ravenwood on a summer day, I edged the cork out from the rim of the bottle, and the room began to fade….

The sun was hot, swamp mist rising like ghosts over the water. But the little girl with the neat braids knew better. Ghosts were made of more than steam and mist. They were as real as she was, waiting for her ancient grandmamma or her aunties to call them up. And they were just like the living.

Some were friendly, like the girls who played hopscotch and cat’s cradle with her. And others were nasty, like the old man who paced around the graveyard in Wader’s Creek whenever there was thunder. Either way, the spirits could be helpful or ornery, depending on their mood and what you had to offer. It was always a good idea to bring a gift. Her great-great-great-grandmamma had taught her that.

The house was just up the hill from the creek, like a weatherworn blue lighthouse, leading both the dead and the living back home. There was always a candle in the window after dark, wind chimes above the door, and a pecan pie on the rocker in case someone came calling. And someone always came calling.

Folks came from miles and miles to see Sulla the Prophet. That’s what they called her great-great-great-grandmamma, on account of how many of her readings came to pass. Sometimes they even slept on the little patch of grass in front of the house, waiting for the chance to see her.

But to the girl, Sulla was just the woman who told her stories and taught her to tat lace and make a butter piecrust. The woman with a sparrow that would fly in the window and sit right on her shoulder, like it was a branch on an old oak.

When she reached the front door, the girl stopped and smoothed her dress before she went in.

“Grandmamma?”

“I’m in here, Amarie.” Her voice was smooth and thick—“Heaven and honey,” the men in town called it.

The house was only two rooms and a small cooking space. The main room was where Sulla worked, reading tarot cards and tea leaves, making charms and roots for healing. There were glass canning jars all over, full of everything from witch hazel and chamomile to crows’ feathers and graveyard dirt. On the bottom shelf was one jar Amarie was allowed to open. It was full of buttery caramels, wrapped in thick wax-coated paper. The doctor who lived in Moncks Corner brought them whenever he came by for ointments and a reading.

“Amarie, you come on over here now.” Sulla was fanning a deck of cards out on the table. They weren’t the tarot cards the ladies from Gatlin and Summerville liked her to read. These were the cards Grandmamma saved for special readings. “You know what these are?”

Amarie nodded. “Cards a Providence.”

“That’s right.” Sulla smiled, her thin braids falling over her shoulder. Each one was tied with a colored string—a wish someone who visited her was hoping would come true. “Do you know why they’re different from tarot cards?”

Amarie shook her head. She knew the pictures were different—the knife stained with blood. The twin figures facing each other with palms touching.

“Cards a Providence tell the truth—the future even I don’t want to see some days. Dependin’ on whose future I’m readin’.”

The little girl was confused. Didn’t tarot cards show a true future if a powerful reader was interpreting the spread? “I thought all cards show the truth if you know how to make sense a them.”

The sparrow flew in from the open window and perched on the old woman’s shoulder. “There’s the truth you can face and the truth you can’t. You come over here and sit down, and I’ll show you what I mean.” Sulla shuffled the cards, the Angry Queen disappearing into the deck behind the Black Crow.

Amarie walked around to the other side of the table and sat down on the crooked stool where so many folks waited to see their fate.

Sulla flicked her wrist, fanning the cards out in one swift motion. Her necklaces tangled together at her throat—silver charms etched with images Amarie didn’t recognize, hand-painted wooden beads strung between bits of rock, colored crystals that caught the light when Sulla moved. And Amarie’s favorite—a smooth black stone threaded through a piece of cord that rested on the hollow of Sulla’s neck.

Grandmamma Sulla called it “the eye.”

“Now pay attention, Little One,” Sulla instructed. “One day you’ll be doin’ this on your own, and I’ll be whisperin’ to you from the wind.”

Amarie liked the sound of that.

She smiled and pulled the first card.

The edges of the vision blurred, and the row of colored bottles came back into view. I was still touching the cracked bluish-green one and the cork that had unleashed the memory—one of Amma’s, trapped like a dangerous secret she didn’t want to escape into the world. But it wasn’t dangerous at all, except maybe to her.

I could still see Sulla showing her the Cards of Providence, the cards that would one day form the spread that showed her my death.

I pictured the faces of the cards, especially the twins, face to face. The Fractured Soul. My card.

I thought about Sulla’s smile and how small she looked compared to the giant she seemed to be as a spirit. But she wore the same intricate braids and heavy strands of beads snaking around her neck in both life and death. Except the cord with the black stone—I didn’t remember that one.

I looked down at the empty bottle, pushing back the cork and leaving it on the shelf with the others. Did all these bottles
hold Amma’s memories? The ghosts that were haunting her in ways the spirits never would?

I wondered if the night of my death was in one of those bottles, shoved down deep where it couldn’t escape.

I hoped so, for Amma’s sake.

Then I heard the stairs creak.

“Amma, you in the kitchen?” It was my dad.

“I’m in here, Mitchell. Right where I always am before supper,” Amma answered. She didn’t sound normal, but I didn’t know if my dad could tell.

I followed the sound of their voices back through the hall. Lucille was sitting at the other end waiting for me, her head tilted to the side. She sat straight like that until I was inches away from her, and then she stood up and sauntered off.

Thanks, Lucille.

She’d done her job, and she was through with me. Probably had a saucer of cream and a fluffy pillow waiting for her in front of the television.

I guessed I wasn’t going to be able to spook her again.

As I rounded the corner, my dad was pouring himself a glass of sweet tea. “Did Ethan call?”

Amma stiffened, her cleaver poised over an onion, but my dad didn’t seem to notice. She started chopping. “Caroline has him busy waitin’ on her. You know how she is, classy and sassy, just like her mamma was.”

My dad laughed, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “That’s true, and she’s a terrible patient. She must be driving Ethan crazy.”

My mom and Aunt Prue weren’t kidding. My dad was under the influence of a serious Cast. He had no idea what had happened. I wondered how many of Lena’s family members it took to pull this off.

Amma reached for a carrot, lopping the end off before she even got it on the cutting board. “A broken hip’s a lot worse than the flu, Mitchell.”

“I know—”

“What’s all that racket?” Aunt Mercy called from the living room. “We’re tryin’ ta watch
Jeopardy!
”

“Mitchell, get on in here. Mercy’s no good at the music questions.” It was Aunt Grace.

“You’re the one who thinks Elvis Presley is still alive,” Aunt Mercy shot back.

“I most certainly do. He can dance himself a mean jive,” Aunt Grace shouted, catching every third word at best. “Mitchell, hurry on up. I need a witness. And bring some cake with you.”

My dad reached for the Tunnel of Fudge cake on the counter, still warm from the oven. When he disappeared down the hall, Amma stopped chopping and rubbed the worn gold charm of her necklace. She looked sad and broken, cracked like the bottles lined up on the shelves in her bedroom.

“Be sure and let me know if Ethan calls tomorrow,” my dad shouted from the living room.

Amma stared out the window for a long time before she spoke, barely loud enough for me to hear. “He won’t.”

CHAPTER 9

The Stars and Stripes

L
eaving Amma behind was like stepping away from a fire on the coldest night of winter. She felt like home, safe and familiar. Like every scolding and every supper I’d ever had, everything that had been me. The closer I was to her, the warmer I felt—but in the end, it made the cold feel that much colder when I walked away.

Was it worth it? Feeling better for a minute or two, knowing that the cold would still be out there waiting?

I wasn’t sure, but for me it wasn’t a choice. I couldn’t stay away from Amma or Lena—and deep down, I didn’t think either one of them wanted me to.