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“The oldest people? You mean the Sisters? Do you think they remember Abraham?” My stomach tensed. It wasn’t exactly scary, but it was hard to understand half the things they said—when they weren’t talking crazy.
“If they can’t, they’re likely to invent something equally plausible. They are the closest thing my exponentially-great-grandfather has to contemporaries. Even if they’re hardly what one would call contemporary.”
Liv nodded. “It’s worth a try.”
I stood up.
“Just a conversation, Lena,” Uncle Macon cautioned. “Don’t get any ideas. You’re not to set out on any kind of reconnaissance mission of your own. Am I perfectly clear?”
“Crystal,” I said, because there was no talking to him about anything that seemed dangerous. He’d been like this since Ethan—
Since Ethan.
“I’ll go with you for backup,” Link said, pulling himself up from the floor of the study. Link, who couldn’t add two-digit numbers, always sensed when my uncle and I were about to start fighting.
He grinned. “I can translate.”
By now, I felt like I knew the Sisters as well as my own family. Though they were eccentric, to put it mildly, they were also the finest example of living history Gatlin had to offer.
That’s what the people around here called it.
When Link and I walked up the steps of Wate’s Landing, you could hear Gatlin’s living history fighting with each other all the way through the screen door, true to form.
“You don’t throw away perfectly good cut-ler-ee. That’s a cryin’ shame.”
“Mercy Lynne. They’re plastic spoons. Means you’re supposed ta throw ’em away.” Thelma was consoling her, patient as always. She should be sainted. Amma was the first one to say it every time Thelma broke up one of the Sisters’ arguments.
“Just because some people think they’re the queen a England doesn’t give ’em a crown,” Aunt Mercy responded.
Link stood next to me on the porch and tried not to laugh. I knocked on the door, but nobody seemed to notice.
“Now, what on earth is that supposed ta mean?” Aunt Grace interrupted. “Who’s some people? Angelina Witherspoon an’ all them partly nekkid stars—”
“Grace Ann! You don’t speak like that, not in this house.”
It didn’t even slow Aunt Grace down. “—from those smutty magazines you’re always askin’ Thelma ta get from the market?”
“Now, girls…” Thelma started.
I knocked again, more loudly this time, but it was impossible to hear over the chaos.
Aunt Mercy was shouting. “It means you wash the good spoons same as you wash the bad spoons. Then you put ’em all back in the spoon drawer. Everyone knows that. Even the queen a England.”
“Don’t listen ta her, Thelma. She washes the garbage when you and Amma aren’t lookin’.”
Aunt Mercy sniffed. “What if I do? You don’t want the neighbors talkin’. We’re respectable, churchgoin’ people. We don’t smell like sinners, and there’s no reason for the cans out front ta smell any different.”
“Exceptin’ they’re full a garbage.” Aunt Grace snorted.
I knocked on the screen door one more time. Link took over, banging once—and the door practically gave out, one hinge swinging down toward the porch.
“Whoops. Sorry about that.” He shrugged awkwardly.
Amma appeared at the door, looking grateful for the distraction. “You ladies have some visitors.” She pushed the screen open wide. The Sisters glanced up from their respective afghans, looking friendly and polite, like they hadn’t been screaming bloody murder a second earlier.
I sat on the edge of a hard wooden chair, not making myself too comfortable. Link stood even less comfortably next to me.
“I reckon we do. Afternoon, Wesley. And who’s there with y’all?” Aunt Mercy squinted, and Aunt Grace elbowed her.
