But even as I was saying it, I didn’t know if I believed it.

10.13

Marian the Librarian

It had been three days, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ethan Carter Wate had been shot, and he was probably dead. I had seen it with my own eyes. Well, technically, everyone from back then was dead by now. But, from one Ethan Wate to another, I was having trouble getting over the death of this particular Confederate soldier. More like, Confederate deserter. My great-great-great-great-uncle.

I thought about it during Algebra II, while Savannah choked on her equation in front of the class, but Mr. Bates was too busy reading the latest issue of Guns and Ammo to notice. I thought about it during the Future Farmers of America assembly, when I couldn’t find Lena and ended up sitting with the band. Link was sitting with the guys a few rows behind me, but I didn’t notice until Shawn and Emory started making animal noises. After a while, I couldn’t hear them anymore. My mind kept going back to Ethan Carter Wate.

It wasn’t that he was a Confederate. Everyone in Gatlin County was related to the wrong side in the War Between the States. We were used to that by now. It was like being born in Germany after World War II, being from Japan after Pearl Harbor, or America after Hiroshima. History was a bitch sometimes. You couldn’t change where you were from. But still, you didn’t have to stay there. You didn’t have to stay stuck in the past, like the ladies in the DAR, or the Gatlin Historical Society, or the Sisters. And you didn’t have to accept that things had to be the way they were, like Lena. Ethan Carter Wate hadn’t, and I couldn’t, either.

All I knew was, now that we knew about the other Ethan Wate, we had to find out more about Genevieve. Maybe there was a reason we had stumbled across that locket in the first place. Maybe there was a reason we had stumbled across each other in a dream, even if it was more of a nightmare.

Normally, I would’ve asked my mom what to do, back when things were normal and she was still alive. But she was gone, my dad was too out of it to be any help, and Amma wasn’t about to help us with anything that had to do with the locket. Lena was still being moody about Macon; the rain outside was a dead giveaway. I was supposed to be doing my homework, which meant I needed about a half gallon of chocolate milk and as many cookies as I could carry in my other hand.

I walked down the hallway from the kitchen and paused in front of the study. My dad was upstairs taking a shower, which was about the only time he left the study anymore, so the door was probably locked. It always was, ever since the manuscript incident.

I stared at the door handle, looking down the hall in either direction. Balancing my cookies precariously on top of my milk carton, I reached toward it. Before I could so much as touch the handle, I heard the click of the lock moving. The door unlocked, all by itself, as if someone inside was opening the door for me. The cookies hit the floor.

A month ago, I wouldn’t have believed it, but now I knew better. This was Gatlin. Not the Gatlin I thought I knew, but some other Gatlin that had apparently been hiding in plain sight all along. A town where the girl I liked was from a long line of Casters, my housekeeper was a Seer who read chicken bones in the swamp and summoned the spirits of her dead ancestors, and even my dad acted like a vampire.

There seemed to be nothing too unbelievable for this Gatlin. It’s funny how you can live somewhere your whole life, but not really see it.

I pushed on the door, slowly, tentatively. I could see just a glimpse of the study, a corner of the built-in shelves, stuffed with my mom’s books, and the Civil War debris she seemed to collect wherever she went. I took a deep breath and inhaled the air from the study. No wonder my dad never left the room.

I could almost see her, curled up in her old reading chair by the window. She would’ve been typing, just on the other side of the door. If I opened the door a little more, for all I knew, she might be there now. Only I couldn’t hear any typing, and I knew she wasn’t there, and she never would be again.

The books I needed were on those shelves. If anyone knew more about the history of Gatlin County than the Sisters, it was my mom. I took a step forward, pushing the door open just a few inches farther.

“Sweet Host a Heaven and Earth, Ethan Wate, if you’re fixin’ to set one foot in that room, your daddy will knock you clean into next week.”

I nearly dropped the milk. Amma. “I’m not doing anything. The door just opened.”

“Shame on you. No ghost in Gatlin would dare set foot in your mamma and daddy’s study, except your mamma herself.” She looked up at me defiantly. There was something in her eyes that made me wonder if she was trying to tell me something, maybe even the truth. Maybe it was my mom, opening the door.

Because one thing was clear. Someone, something, wanted me to get into that study, as much as somebody else wanted to keep me out.

Amma slammed the door and drew a key out of her pocket, locking it. I heard the click and knew my window of opportunity had slammed shut, as quickly as it had opened. She crossed her arms. “It’s a school night. Don’t you have some studyin’ to do?”

I looked at her, annoyed.

“Goin’ back to the library? You and Link finished with that report?”

And then it came to me. “Yeah, the library. As a matter a fact, that’s where I’m headed right now.” I kissed her cheek and ran past her.

“Say hi to Marian for me, and don’t you be late for dinner.”

Good old Amma. She always had all the answers, whether she knew it or not, and whether or not she would willingly give them up.