‘Because,’ she replied, ‘you are a bad influence.’
I stared at the door when it slammed shut, the genteel Savannahian equivalent of a slap in the face. Too shocked to move and half expecting Lyds to throw open the door and declare the whole thing a hilarious Powell family inside joke, I stayed right where I was. No one was coming. No one was laughing. In no uncertain terms, the Powell matriarch had told me to get lost.
Above me, a flurry of clouds covered the sun as my mood darkened. There was only one rational explanation I could come up with. Virginia Powell wasn’t nearly so taken with the idea of me and Jackson going to a party, getting drunk and staying out all night as he and Ashley had led me to believe.
‘You’re not going to say I told you so,’ I muttered to myself, retreating from the front door before Virginia came out andthrew a bucket of cold water over me. ‘You are not going to say I told you so.’
I was absolutely going to say I told you so.
My bad mood cooled the streets by a few comfortable degrees and I watched as people scurried out of their cars into their jobs with one eye on the sky, in fear of a sudden shower, but my righteous indignation kept one hand on the wheel of the weather. I should be sitting in the Powells’ dining room, eating biscuits and gravy, listening to stories about my parents right now. Instead, I was prowling the streets with tangled hair and, I realized when I looked down at myself, a back-to-front T-shirt, hearing nothing but the frustrated voices in my head. I took a long route back to Bell House, marching down Bull Street, overtired, overstressed and with no idea what to do with myself. My arms and legs ached with a frustrating energy, like an elastic band pulled too tight, ready to fly but unable to work themselves loose. Without my phone, I couldn’t text Lydia to ask what was going on and, while I wasn’t exactly a tech expert, I didn’t like the look of the blank grey screen when I’d retrieved it from its bag of rice and plugged it in before leaving the house.
Monterey Square was always busy, day and night. The tour buses hadn’t arrived yet, but there was no shortage of sightseers, all with their cameras out in front of the Mercer Williams House. Some just snapped a quick pic and moved on, but other posed out in front, smiling and throwing up peace signs, and sending a chill down my spine. It was a house that demanded attention, not nearly as beautiful as Bell House, at least not in my opinion. The square red brick mansion couldn’t compare with our Victorian elegance but there was something beyond bricks and mortar that drew the eye. Too many people had died in this house in unpleasant ways and too many people wanted to know all about it.
I leaned against an oak tree, absently running a hand over the bark and smiling at a friendly bundle of moss when it landed on my shoulder. In the beginning, the plants would tell me what they were, what they could do. Now I realized with no small measure of delight, they had so much more to share. The Spanish moss was full of news, idle gossip mostly, which flowers were blooming out of season, which trees couldn’t keep hold of their leaves, but then another whisper slipped into my ear. A wolf. There was a wolf in Savannah, it had set foot in this very square. My smile faded away at once. Was it Wyn? Was it the wolf who attacked me at the party? The moss didn’t know. Only that this wolf was shrouded in magic.
I felt a sudden prickle, not so magical, more like the feeling I was being watched. Sure enough, when I casually glanced over my shoulder, I spotted someone sitting on a low bench across the square, not so subtly spying on me from behind a newspaper. Turning to get a better look, the newspaper shot upwards to obscure the person’s face but I already knew who it was.
‘Ms Stovell?’ I said, as pleasant an expression as I could muster on my face as I approached her. ‘It’s Emily, Emily Bell. We met at the DeSoto.’
‘Oh, is that you, Miss Emily? I didn’t see you there.’
Cheeks flooding with colour, she attempted to fold her newspaper in half but it was not in the mood to cooperate, fighting her every step of the way.
‘I hope you’re feeling better after the other night,’ I said as she karate-chopped the Style section and shoved the bundle into her bag. When she looked back up at me, her embarrassment shifted into something more bitter, the fine lines around her mouth puckering into a sour pout.
‘I’m feeling just fine today, and was feeling just fine at the party until you and the Powell boy almost had me run downin the street. As I recall, you’re the one who had to be carried home.’
‘All the excitement was a little much for me,’ I replied, and she smirked, thrilled to have the upper hand.
‘Has there been any word from your grandmother? While I completely understand her desire to live beyond the beck and call of a cell phone, it feels a little foolhardy to travel without one. What if there was an emergency?’
‘There’s no emergency,’ I reassured her. ‘And I really wouldn’t worry about it; Catherine is fine.’
‘Yes,’ she said with a pointed stare. ‘Catherine always is.’
I tugged at the hem of my T-shirt and pouted. Something about this woman put me so on edge, not least her laser-like focus that burned through me.
‘Is your shirt on back to front?’
‘Yes,’ I replied as she touched one hand to her perfectly coiffed hair. ‘It’s how people are wearing them now—’
‘Oh, honey.’
With her eyes closed, she turned away as if she could not bear to watch. ‘First the party and now this? As your grandmother’s closest confidante, I feel it is my duty to step in and offer my help.’
‘Help for what?’ I asked. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Acknowledging the problem is the first step to a solution.’ Ileen held up a serious hand, as if to swear an oath. ‘I would never forgive myself if something terrible happened to you while Catherine is away.’
Above us, the clouds darkened by a noticeable fraction.
‘You really don’t need to worry,’ I said. ‘Nothing terrible is going to happen. Not to me.’
She stood, her ladylike leather handbag hanging from the crook of her arm, an unreadable expression in her pale eyes.
‘You are so like her,’ she said softly. ‘And you sound so sure.’
An unexpected jolt of magic shot through me. A warning. My fingers flexed instinctively but I kept control. Just. With a Cheshire Cat smile, Ileen Stovell clucked her tongue loudly and slapped the side of her purse.
