Silk and Stone (14 page)

Jake thought it was a wonderful time, even when Tim hit him in the jaw with a dung ball that was still ripe enough to make a sticky
splat
. He chunked one of the fresh turds back at his cousin, and it smacked Tim’s chest with a glorious wet
plop
.

Tim froze. As he stared down at the big green smear on his white shirt, his mouth screwed up and his face flushed bright red. When he looked at Jake and Eleanore from under the narrow brim of his black hard hat, tears streamed down his face. “My mom”—he choked up, and his mouth quivered—“my mom is going to be
mad
at me.”

Jake traded a worried look with Eleanore. They liked their cousin despite his stuck-up attitude, and hadn’t meant to get him in trouble. “He’s scared of her,” Eleanore whispered. “He’s really scared. We gotta do something.”

Jake nodded. “We’ll tell her it was all our fault.” They pulled Tim into the barn and scrubbed his chest with water from a spigot there, but succeeded only in making the stain spread like one of their mother’s watercolors. Tim howled.

The three of them walked across a pasture to the big stone house in silence, except for Tim’s ragged sniffling. Highview sat on a hill overlooking town, with Pandora Lake behind it and a handsome lawn around it, and a wrought iron gate at the end of a rock drive. It had belonged to the Vanderveers as long as anyone could remember, and if Uncle William hadn’t married Aunt Alexandra, it would still be a place where everyone felt welcome, Mother said.

Aunt Alexandra’s black housekeeper, Miss Mattie, came out a back door under a grape arbor and made
nervous sounds when she saw Tim’s shirt. She wrinkled her nose at the way they smelled, then hurried them into a kitchen. “Hush up,” she told Tim, who couldn’t stop making noises. “Your mama hear you, she’ll come lookin’.” Miss Mattie jerked his shirt over his head, then ran to a deep metal sink set in marble counters along one wall and turned the faucet on.

Tim dried up. Jake, ashamed for him, tried not to look at his bare pink chest and swollen eyes. Eleanore went over and unfastened his silly hat. “There,” she said, removing the thing and placing it politely on a worktable filled with silver waiting to be polished. Jake scrubbed a friendly hand over his cousin’s short red hair. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, now.”

That was man talk for sympathy.

They jumped to attention at the sound of sharp heels clicking on a marble floor somewhere in the house. Miss Mattie hummed under her breath, but her hands worked faster, rinsing Tim’s shirt.

Aunt Alexandra came into the kitchen through a swinging door. She had long, smooth blond hair, and she always wore a dress, except when she was out riding her Arabians.

She smelled of perfume, and she painted tiny dark lines along the tops of her eyes, so they turned up at the corners. She was fastening an earring to one ear, and she had a wad of jewelry in her hand. Dropping it in a silver dish perched on the corner of the kitchen table, she stared at Tim and put her hands on her hips.

Jake looked at the dish. The ruby gleamed like a frozen drop of blood among all the silver and gold. It wasn’t really hers, he thought grimly. It was Mother’s.

“What have you done?” she asked Tim in a voice as smooth as glass. Mother said she’d learned to talk that way at a place called the school for social climbers.

“Just had a little accident, Mrs. Vanderveer,” Miss Mattie said, nodding and scrubbing at the sink. “Just got a spot on his shirt.”

“Alexandra?” Uncle William’s soft voice came over a speaker on the wall. “You there, dear? I need my briefcase. I’m late for court.”

Aunt Alexandra went to the speaker and pushed a button. “Look for it yourself. I’m getting dressed for lunch at the club.”

She spoke to Uncle William in a sharp, ugly way Jake never heard his own parents use with each other. Uncle William was as friendly as a big, redheaded Santa Claus, but Jake couldn’t remember ever hearing him laugh.

Mother said Uncle William had laughed a lot before he married Aunt Alexandra. Uncle William smelled funny—like mouthwash—all the time, and whenever he hugged him, Jake felt sad and lonely. Ellie said Uncle William made her feel that way too.

Aunt Alexandra glided over to the sink, pulled the shirt out, and made a face. It smelled. Boy, did it smell like horse turds, Jake thought. The whole kitchen did.

“What sort of accident did you have?” she asked Tim. Tim hugged himself and shook his head.

Jake squared his shoulders. “I threw a horse tur—a piece of manure at him.”

“Me too,” Eleanore added. Jake looked at her. She was no sissy. They could count on each other.

Aunt Alexandra made another face. “Oh? And how did you two come to be covered in horse droppings?”

Jake said solemnly, “Bad aim.”

“Someone in this group’s telling fibs—or not telling the whole story. Miss Mattie, call my sister-in-law and tell her to come get her children. This visit’s over.” Aunt Alexandra and Mother didn’t speak. They hadn’t for years.

She put a hand on Tim’s shoulder. His shoulders drew up like he had a string down his backbone. “Son?” she said in her soft, smooth tone, “What have I said, over and over, about taking care of your belongings? Hmmm. What?”

“God helps those who help themselves,” Tim said hopefully.

“Besides that.
Think.
”

“We get as good as we give.”

“That’s right. Do you deserve to be punished?”

“No,” Jake interjected.

“No, ma’am,” Eleanore added.

Aunt Alexandra stared at them. She wadded the stained part of Tim’s wet shirt and cupped his jaw in one hand, as though he were a horse who was getting his mouth pried open to take a bit. Tim’s eyes filled with tears, and he made a little gagging sound.

Slow horror crawled through Jake’s stomach. She stuffed that shit-dirty shirt in Tim’s mouth. Jake could taste manure as if it were on his own tongue. Eleanore coughed and put a hand over her mouth.

“Go to your room,” their aunt told Tim. “Mattie, go with him and get him cleaned up.”

Tim stumbled out behind the housekeeper, bumping into the kitchen table, his hands clutching the shirt and tears sliding down his cheeks again.

Fury rose up in Jake like a dark cloud. He couldn’t let their aunt get away with this awful thing. The ruby drew him; without understanding why he wanted to touch it, he couldn’t help himself.

Jake sidled over to the table, dug his hand into the silver bowl, and closed his fingers around the stone. His hand jerked, but he couldn’t let go. Once he’d touched a frayed spot on the cord of Mother’s iron. The
zap
of electricity was like this; it had nearly knocked him down.

He swayed, his eyes half shut. A scene flashed in his mind, clear as a picture, then gone. “What are you doing?” Aunt Alexandra said loudly. Dropping the ruby, his head cleared. She was staring down at him. He couldn’t breathe.
Never let pride get the best of you
, Granny had told them.
Keep what you learn to yourself. Don’t let the spirits know what you know
. “Nothing,” he answered.

“Nothing? I think you were about to take my necklace.”

He was horrified. “I wouldn’t steal anything!”

“Jake doesn’t even sneak grapes out of the bin at the grocery store!” Ellie added, her voice cracking. She looked flabbergasted. “And everybody does
that.
”

Aunt Alexandra kept her hard eyes pinned on him. “Then why did you pick up something that doesn’t belong to you?”

“I was only looking at it.”

“You keep your itchy fingers off the things in this house, you understand? I’ve gone out of my way to put up with you and your sister because you’re Tim’s cousins, but I’m fed up. You’re lucky I let you come here at all, after the ugly thing you did to my niece when she was just a baby.”

His breath pulled short. “Samantha? What’d I do to her?”

“You scared her. You told her I was a witch. She has nightmares because of you.”

“That’s not true.” He knew he wasn’t supposed to argue with grown-ups, but he couldn’t help himself. “You wanted to keep her. You would have kept hold of her and Mrs. Ryder, and now you’d be doing terrible things to her, just like you do to Tim.” He was unhinged; his mouth was working without his permission. “But you can’t hurt her, because she’s
mine
, and I’ll take care of her.”

Aunt Alexandra stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “My God,” she said under her breath. “Sarah’s behind this nonsense.” She cleared her throat. “Well, let me tell you something, little man, and you be sure to tell your mother. I am a witch, and if any of you meddle with my family again, I’ll turn you into lizards.”

That was too much. His mind whirled with what he’d glimpsed when he touched the ruby; he had power; he’d show her. Jake blurted out, “You kissed that lawyer from Asheville. You were in a room with books on the wall, and you kissed Mr. Lomax, and he put his hand up your dress.
And you let him.
”

Her face turned so white, her eye makeup stood out like a raccoon’s mask. She clutched the corner of the table and leaned down slowly, and for one terrible second he imagined her opening her mouth, and that it would be
filled with fanged teeth. “If you ever”—she bit each word off between those fangs—“
ever
tell a lie like that, again, I’ll—”

Tear your heart out and eat it
.

She didn’t say that, she said something about paddling him until he couldn’t sit down, but his mind insisted that
Tear your heart out and eat it
was what she really meant.

“I don’t see Jake as a liar,” Uncle William said. Jake spun around. Aunt Alexandra’s hands went to her throat. Ellie’s arm jerked and knocked a silver cup on the floor.

Uncle William stood in the doorway. His face made Jake think of a skinned rabbit—the hide peeled down to bare white meat with red splashes like bloodstains on his cheeks. Uncle William’s eyes were awful dead spots in that skinned face. “Tell me exactly what you saw, Jake,” Uncle William said. “And where you were when you saw it.”

Aunt Alexandra leaned on the table. She gasped for air. “William, he’s just a
child
. He’s mad at me, and he made up that lurid story.”

“Tell me, Jake. Don’t be afraid. Just tell me the truth.”

Jake was paralyzed, only his thoughts working at super speed.
What have I done? I did what Granny told us to never, ever do. I let pride get hold of me. I let our secret out
. His knees were weak. He’d hurt Uncle William. He couldn’t tell how he knew about Aunt Alexandra and Mr. Lomax. Ellie had a grip on his arm, he realized finally. Her fear poured into him. She knew what a crazy, stupid thing he’d done.

“I lied,” he said, choking. “I did make it up. I’m sorry.”

“You see?” Aunt Alexandra said. Her voice shook.

But Uncle William walked to him slowly, almost shuffling, as if his feet couldn’t quite find the floor. He bent down and took Jake by the shoulders. “I don’t think a boy your age knows enough about the ugly things adults do to make up a story like that.”

Ellie tried to rescue him. “Moe Pettycorn left a magazine in Fathers waiting room,” she said. “It had pictures of naked women in it. I think that’s where Jake got the idea.”

“That’s right,” Jake added quickly. “That’s it.”

Uncle William still had those dead-looking eyes fixed on Jake’s. “No, that’s not it.” His jaw worked. “Did you hear your mother and father talking about Aunt Alexandra? Did they say she’s been doing something bad?”

“No!” Jake shook his head numbly. “I swear on a stack of Bibles. I made it up.”

Uncle William sighed so hard that the air rattled in his throat like a moan. His fingers were digging into Jake’s arms, sending sensations like wasp stings into his muscles. Pain. A clamp squeezing down until not even a butterfly’s wing would fit inside. Jake was feeling his uncle’s pain, and his head reeled with it.
He knows I saw something. He’s sure
.

“You and Ellie better go on home,” Uncle William said. “Go on now.” His hands fell by his sides.

Jake turned, grabbed Eleanore’s hand, and pulled her out the back door. They ran down the driveway and through the gate, and didn’t slow until they were on the sidewalk into town, walking toward Father’s office. Then Jake looked at his sister sickly. “I’ll never do it again. Granny was right. We can’t tell
anyone
. Not even Mother and Father.”

Ellie bobbed her head like a jerky puppy. “Maybe Uncle William will forget about it. Sure. Sure he will.” She tucked her chin and studied him worriedly. “Was it really awful when you touched that ruby?”

“
Worse than anything.
” Jake’s mouth was bone dry. He wanted to gag. “Don’t ever touch it. It’s not like a game. It’s full of
her
. She really is evil.”

Evil
. They’d heard that word in stories Granny told them. There were
evil
things in the world, and, most terrifying of all,
ravenmockers
who ate people’s hearts.

“I bet nothing will happen,” Ellie said loudly, as if saying that would make it so.

Jake wanted to believe that. Despite all Granny’s warnings, he had let a ravenmocker know that he recognized it.

Now he understood how Moe Pettycorn must have felt, always worrying about bombs no one else could see.