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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 Ravenwood 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?
