The secret Jilo sensed weighing on me was the truth about my mother. I wanted so desperately to tell someone. To try to get a bead on what had happened. Jilo knew my family’s history better than anyone else. I felt certain she could help me understand the circumstances, but I wouldn’t betray my mother—at least not yet. She had made me promise to tell no one, and that definitely included Jilo. Besides, I could tell that the help Jilo was giving me in my attempts to find Maisie was taxing her. So until I knew the lay of the land, I couldn’t risk bringing her in on something that might just be more than she could handle. I offered up a lesser truth. “The man. When the police found him, he had a picture of Peter and his parents on him. Turns out he was some long-lost great-uncle. Peadar was his name. I guess they named Peter after him. Sort of, anyway. The Tierneys had no idea he was even in town.”
Jilo cackled softly. “Well, my girl, if that true, then you in for a good surprise.” I looked up at her. “That long-lost uncle you done barbequed? That picture not the only thing they found on him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Police ain’t tellin’ nobody yet, but that old man, he had a damn fortune in jewels and coins sewed up in the linin’ of his coat. Unless they prove it stolen, Jilo imagine it end up comin’ to yo’ brand new family, at least what the gov’ment don’ see fit to keep fo’ theyself, that is. The Tierneys, they probably don’t even know ’bout it yet. You know how the police are. They always tryin’ to figure out some motive, never figurin’ that they might be some well-meanin’ girl at the bottom of they troubles.” I tried to glare at her, but she smiled at me warmly. When her eyes looked away from me and up over my shoulder, any kindness faded to concrete.
“Two of my favorite ladies.” A man’s voice came from behind me. I turned quickly to see that Tucker Perry had managed to sneak up on us. Jilo’s hand gave me a gentle but firm push away.
“You best have the rest of my money to go with those sweet words, Perry,” Jilo’s teeth ground together as she spoke. She forced herself up out of her chair and strode toward Tucker, poking him in his chest with her forefinger. She had turned angry in a split second—angry at having been caught in a tender moment, angry at having been seen as anything other than the dark lady of the crossroads.
“You’ve been working spells for him?” I asked in disbelief.
“His money as green as anybody else’s,” she spat over her shoulder at me.
“Oh, Mother and I go a long way back, don’t we?” Tucker asked, stepping around Jilo and coming closer to me. I struggled to stand, and he offered me his hand. I refused, and worked my way up on my own. My center of gravity had changed, and getting around had become a little harder than it normally was. All the same, there was no way I’d let that man taint me with his touch.
Tucker acted as if he hadn’t noticed my refusal. “And now, the two of us have a long and mutually beneficial arrangement to look forward to as well.” I said nothing. I stared at him blankly, determined not to give him any satisfaction. “Thanks to your fiancé,” he continued. “I am sure we will have many opportunities to meet up,” he said and winked at me. “You sure are looking good, Mercy. I like you with a few curves.” I was just about to lay into him but then he turned back to Jilo. He pulled out an envelope stuffed fat with bills and held it out to her.
Jilo snatched it from him. “Pleasure doin’ business with you, Perry. Now get the hell out of here.”
He smiled widely at the two of us. “Yes, a pleasure as always, Mother.” He took his time making an exit, stopping once to examine one of the few remaining headstones.
“They say this cemetery full, but I’d gladly help free up a spot fo’ that one,” Jilo said, her expression as sunny as ever I’d seen it. Something about imagining the death of those who annoyed her brought out her best qualities.
“Why are you doing any kind of business for him anyway?”
“Like I done say, his money good even if he worthless hisself.”
“But what,” I emphasized the word, “are you doing for him?”
“Don’t you pay that no nevermind. Ain’t nothin’ to do with you.”
I kept my eyes glued on Tucker as he meandered out of the cemetery. “I don’t like it. I don’t like that you’re doing spells for him. I don’t like that Peter’s doing business with him. Don’t pretend you didn’t already know that,” I said, pointing at her.
“Jilo ain’t pretending nothing,” she said, “so you better get that there finger out of her face.”
“I’d hoped to have seen the last of him when Ellen cut him out of her life.”
Jilo looked at me, her expression inscrutable. “So you think Ellen has kicked him out of her bed?”
“Yes, she’s done with him,” I replied.
“Well they is done, and then they is done,” Jilo said. “And you can take what you like and don’t like and put it in yo’ hope chest, ’cause Jilo, she don’t care. She do business with who the hell ever she like.” Right on cue, Tucker circled by in his convertible, honking his horn and waving. Ellen sat by his side. She raised a hand too, but her greeting was halfhearted at best. She lowered her head and turned toward Tucker, probably reading him the riot act. She hadn’t wanted me to know she was spending time with him. Jilo let out one more cackle. “Now ain’t you sorry you made Jilo promise not to kill anyone?”
SEVEN
“Ellen is out with Tucker,” I said, suddenly feeling as if I were tattling on her. I stood in the doorway of our library, remembering a moment from childhood when I had complained to Iris about my sister.
“Yes, I know,” Iris said, looking up from the mahogany writing table where my grandfather’s old journals and files were spread out before her. She no longer wore her long blonde hair in a chignon as she had while her husband, Connor, was alive. Now it hung loose, falling just below her shoulders. She wore very little makeup, which she didn’t need, and had on black yoga pants and a pink hoodie—my pink hoodie, I realized. “I had hoped that she would make a clean break with him,” she said, “but there’s not much I can do about it. God knows I don’t have much room to criticize her taste in men.” Iris had been putting her best foot forward, but she still mourned her husband, or at least the Connor she had thought she knew. There hadn’t been enough time for either of us to process the fact that he’d plotted to kill me. I wasn’t sure there was enough time in creation for me to process it. Iris mourned a double death: Connor’s physical demise and the loss of the false image of him she’d held. Still, unlike Ellen, who clung to her married name, “Weber,” Iris had wasted no time dropping “Flynn” and returning to her maiden name.
I went to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
She sighed. “I’m digging through your granddad’s notes, trying to see what he can tell us about the situation at Old Candler.” My first experience with having the power of a true witch, when I had been allowed to borrow Uncle Oliver’s magic, had led me to the old hospital. That was when I had become aware of the spirits that were trapped there by my grandfather’s spell. I guess Granddad counted them as collateral damage in his war to protect the children of Savannah.
