Chapter Ten

Scrying Skillet

At the house, a lone porch light waits for me to come home. But I've got to check on something first. I need to be sure my mind isn't misremembering.

Underneath the back porch steps, I reach for a tin tobacco box my papaw gave me before he died. About the only place I could hide something Grandmama wouldn't think to look. A little bigger than a pack of smokes and rusted around the edges, but I'm able to open the lid. I pull out the browned wad of cotton to get what's underneath.

The few things I hold dear. A Scottish coin my great-great-grandmother did her witchery with. A seashell I've held on to for as long as I can remember, a promise from my mother. Something I treasured but couldn't recall why until now, just a foggy memory that slipped loose and didn't return until the sheriff showed me that picture.

It's the bone-tooth key that hung from my mother's hand.

A tattered ribbon, a piece of thin flowered cloth tied in a bow, attaches the key to the brass chain. The jagged teeth cut into my palm as I squeeze it. Trying to extract those precious drops of memory from that last Tuesday night I spent with Adaire, four days before she died. I was too stupid to listen to her then. I squeeze my eyes shut, that key tight in my grip, and I try to recall.

Like many nights before, I tumbled through Adaire's bedroom window with a terrible crash. "When the hell did you put that bookshelf there?" I asked her, incredulous.

"Are you drunk?" Adaire snapped at me—unconcerned I almost broke my neck. She sat on the floor at the end of her twin bed with a fantasy novel in one hand and a Dr Pepper in the other. She grumbled something about people abusing family privileges and how breaking into a house through a bedroom window was considered a felony.

"Maybe. But Aunt V is shotgunning beers in the driveway with Joe Lucky Sr., and I didn't feel like being chatty." I inspected the wounds on my legs. Angry red scrapes marred my shins, threatening to bleed, but they didn't.

"Aren't you too old to be climbing in through the window?"

"Aren't you too old to be reading fairy tales?"

"Fantasy, not fairy."

"Does it have a fairy in it?"

She glared at me. My point had been made. "I need a favor." I lowered myself to sit next to her.

"I ain't in the business of doing favors," she said without taking her eyes off the page.

"Scoot over." I shoved my way next to her when she refused to budge. She swore under her breath, knowing I wouldn't leave her be until she agreed.

"What?" She stowed a luna moth conjuring card between the pages of her book to hold her place.

"I need you to scry for me."

She stared at me for a long moment. I knew this was something she wasn't fond of doing, but I wouldn't have asked her if I weren't desperate. Aunt Violet was no good at it anymore, and Wyatt could only see in a fire, not glassy surfaces.

"Get out." She reopened her book, back to reading.

Oh, okay. It was going to be like that, was it?

"Seriously, Adaire, I need your help. I was thinking—"

"That's never a good idea."

I made a smirking sound. "You don't even know what I need you to scry for, if you'd just—"

"Not. Doing. It." She turned the page—I swatted the book out of her hand. She fumbled to catch it, spilling her soda. "What the hell?" She used a random T-shirt from the floor to absorb the mess.

"You've gotta help me, Adaire. I'm in trouble!"

"Are you dying?"

"Wait—what?"

"Going to prison?"

"No!"

"Then you aren't in trouble." She stuck her nose back in the book.

I swear to Jesus she was the most stubborn, useless, unconcerned friend I'd ever had the displeasure of knowing.

"If you were in trouble, I'd help you." I huffed and crossed my arms. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this pickle if Adaire didn't help.

She scowled at me long and hard. Long enough I felt squirmy. Interpreting her scowls was a talent that came with years of practice. That particular one wasn't hate or anger or annoyance. Heck, it wasn't even her pretend face she used when she acted like we weren't best friends. No, this was concern. "Define trouble."

I perked up, surprised she might change her mind. "Okay, here's the deal. Dickie Meldrum is paying me two-hundred dollars to be at the drag race on Saturday night, in case he wrecks and needs me...again."

"But you've already talked the death out of him once before."

"I know."

"You can't talk the death out of somebody twice!"

"I know! That's why I'm in trouble. I just need you to peek into this Saturday and see if he wrecks—or how bad." Because Dickie didn't have the best track record when it came to racing.

"Just don't go. It's not like you have to be there, you can say no."

"See, I kind of already took the money."

A slew of curses flew free, followed by a lecture on how death-talking wasn't a business—says her, but it earns me some favors and makes me some money here and there.

Then she reminded me how our papaw died younger than he should have from a lifetime of death-talking. That hit home. Every gift has a price.

"I'm just insurance really," I tried to explain to her. "A confidence booster. He thinks if he has me as a backup, then he won't worry about the risk and go all in. It's a head game for him. Truly."

"Give him the money back and tell him no. I'm not scrying for you."

"I already spent the money." I winced. A second round of swears were flung at me. Even after Adaire gave me an earful, she still didn't seem like she was going to budge, so I added, "I thought we were going to the ocean." It was a mumble, really, but I was doing my best to ply some feeling out of that cold dead heart of hers.

By summer's end, I was supposed to have enough money saved up to fix my car's clutch and replace the starter...and get a new battery. Adaire asked me to road-trip with her from ocean to ocean, before she left for that fancy art institute in Charleston she'd got into, where she'd be able to design all the clothes her heart desired. I said it sounded like a plan.

Her plan, not mine.

There were responsibilities that came with death-talking. A town full of people we'd grown up with that depended on me—when they weren't fearing and hating me. How could I leave knowing someone back home needed me? Enough deaths slipped through my grasp as it was. I couldn't live with myself knowing I could have saved one more.

"So you're just gonna stay here until Grandmama dies?" Adaire had asked when I didn't commit to leaving. "Just keep kowtowing to the church folk. Trying to keep in their good graces. For what? A one-way ticket to Heaven?" The echo of her words still made me wince.

Adaire leaving at the end of summer felt a little bit like that, too. But she and Davis had plans, and I wasn't interested in being a third wheel.

Adaire screwed a side-glance my way. "So you used Dickie's money to repair your car? Davis didn't tell me you paid him."

"It was a...surprise?" I lied. Instead, I mailed a check to that fancy art institute to help out with her tuition and student loans. It was a forgive-me-for-not-going-with-you goodbye gift.

Adaire stood abruptly, then stared down at me like I needed to be throttled and she was volunteering to do so. "The shit I do for you," she said.

I popped up on my feet and followed her out the door. "Does this mean you'll help me?"

She growled in response. Like her facial expressions, I had perfected interpretation there as well. She would help me, but she wouldn't like it.

"I'm going to need to borrow your car Saturday night, too," I hollered behind her. She grumbled something rude, but it wasn't a no. "The race is all the way in Mercer. You can ride your bike to work one time." Though it was the third time that month; my car was busy growing a grass beard until I could afford to repair it. But she worked the late shift at Clementine's; it wasn't like she needed the car Saturday night, and I'd be back in time to take her home.

Downstairs, the kitchen was sadder than Adaire's room, if that was possible. The cabinets splintery thin pine veneer seemed thirsty they looked so dry. The flimsy faded curtains hadn't seen a good washing in years. Twangy old country music from the radio drifted in through the window—Aunt Violet and Joe had moved the party to the porch, it seemed.

Adaire dug out a cast-iron skillet from under the harvest-gold stove that had somehow always been missing its bottom drawer. The faucet sputtered awake as she filled the pan. The familiar smell of boiled eggs that always accompanied well water permeated the air.

Some folks used mirrors or water in a bowl for gazing. Any shiny surface would do for most. One time, Adaire said she saw a doorway to another world in the reflection of a crystal candy dish. She wouldn't even so much as look at a candy dish after that, said she might cross over and never come back. That was why she was fickle about scrying.

Carefully, she sat the pan on the table, the surface a black mirror. Her scrying skillet. A single bare bulb hung over their mismatched kitchen table and chairs, reflecting in the dark water—the cheap glass shade broke years ago when Wyatt had thrown a football across the kitchen.

Adaire held out her hand, expectant. When I didn't clue in, she said, "You want me to scry or what?" Now she was really annoyed. "You know how this works, I need something of Dickie's."

"I don't have anything. Can't you just do it by thinking about him or his car or the race?" Having something tangible to hold on to when you were scrying helped. But a memory would serve in a pinch.

Her face soured at this minor setback. "It isn't much to go on."

Adaire sat in the chair and released a long exhale, readying herself. Then she stared into the black glassy water. Her eyes softened as she started to zone out. Unfocusing, that blurry vision where one minute you're staring at something clear as day, but as you relax, your eyes lose focus. Then your mind opens up to seeing what you want to know. I tried it once before, but gazing isn't in my blood.

I watched her as she slipped into that other place. Looking over is what she called it. Even though she was physically here, her mind was looking over into the elsewhere for the right answer—though it's not always clear what they mean.

Out on the front porch I heard a crack, then a burst of laughter from Aunt Violet and Joe. Adaire didn't flinch. I leaned back and snuck a peek out the window. The porch swing hung cockeyed to one side, its chain broken.

After a few long quiet minutes, Adaire gasped, as if jarred awake, but her eyes were open the whole time.

"It went black" was the first thing out of her mouth. A troubled look shuffled across her face.

"Black? You mean like lights out for Dickie?" This was not good.

Adaire dumped the water out into the sink, her thoughts chugging over what she saw—or didn't see. "No, not that. When I try to look at Saturday, it's just black." She dried the skillet with a dish towel in slow circles.

"What does that mean?" It sounded like a load of crap. "Are you messing with me? You were thinking about Dickie and the race when you were scrying, right?"

At the sound of Aunt Violet's and Joe's voices shuffling closer, Adaire glanced in their direction.

"I know how to scry, Weatherly," she said in a sharp whisper.

"I didn't say you didn't, I just mean—did you see Dickie? Does he wreck his car and die?" I followed her over to the couch.

"No, I didn't see Dickie die. But I couldn't see anything on Saturday. Like, at all. But there's a key."

"A key? Like a car key? If Dickie loses his car keys, he's going to want his money back."

"It's not that. Help me with this." She shouldered up against the brown-striped couch, wanting to move it.

For the love of God, that sucker was heavier than a Mack truck. But we managed to scoot it over enough for Adaire to find what she was looking for.

"Mama used to hide her liquor here when Daddy was alive." She pried up a loose floorboard. Aunt Violet wasn't a closet drinker. She just didn't want Uncle Doug to steal her booze for himself.

"The race is only a few days away, so I thought I would try forward-looking," Adaire says. "It's where you comb through today, tomorrow, the next day until you get to the day you want. It works sometimes, if it's happening soon." She felt around in the hole. "Except every time I tried to push past Saturday, the visions got murky, like they were shrouded in this fog. Didn't make no sense. Then it would flip me back to my house. To a vision of this."

Adaire pulled out a little drawstring bag, something made from scrap quilting squares. She dumped the contents into my hand.

A bone-tooth key.

Magic from the key tickled with energy in my palm. Its chain a dingy brass. A crinkled ribbon of cloth secured it in place. Someone powerful created that key. I hurriedly handed it back to her.

"Bone Layer brought it over to my mother, for safekeeping."

I looked at her, surprised to hear this. "Bone? Why?" He had Grandmama to manage things.

She shrugged. "He told her ‘the truth will set you free.'"

"Set her free?" I hand her the key back.

Adaire shook her head. "Not her. You." She glanced past my shoulder at the sound of voices moving closer.

"Free from what?"

We both looked over as a voice hit the door and heaved the couch back into place.

"Hell if I know—maybe he was talking about jail?" We stood. Aunt Violet tumbled into the house, drunk as a skunk, laughing as Joe Lucky Sr. pawed at her playfully. They both straightened and mocked sober at the sight of us.

Aunt Violet eyed the couch, then Adaire's hand as she tucked it behind her back, shoving the key in her shorts pocket.

"I was just leaving," I said, frazzled by what Adaire had told me.

"You ain't gotta leave, baby girl. Joe was just going home. Wasn't you, Joe?"

This was news to him. She shoved him out the door before he could protest.

Aunt Violet turned back around. Her short dark auburn hair flamed on top of her head, fierce as her brown eyes. Red and glassy from too much booze, but they were sharp enough to see something was awry.

"Don't forget this," Adaire called to me before I got out the door. She was bent over the table, scribbling something on a piece of paper real quick-like. "It's the list of herbs Mr. Webb needs to heal up the gout in his foot." She walked over and shoved the paper in my hand, then nodded once solemnly.

I gave her a look as I opened the paper. Find the scales of justice. She holds the truth.

Adaire died that Saturday. That was why the visions were no longer clear. And it had worried her what the fogginess meant. She'd never experienced that before; she said neither had Aunt Violet or Wyatt. She kept bringing it up, going over and over what she'd seen—or couldn't see. I blew off her concern, telling her to stop pouting because her gift delivered a dud. I should have listened. Paid more attention to her fear. Maybe if I had, I could have helped her figure it out. Maybe I could have saved her.

Of course, she wouldn't have been riding her bike if I hadn't borrowed her car.

I unfold the tiny piece of paper with my cousin's hurried handwriting on it. I didn't have a clue what she was telling me back then, but I think I do now.

Find the scales of justice. She holds the truth.

The truth about Adaire or me, I'm not sure.

The kitchen light pops on.

Oh, shit!

I drop to the ground and roll under the porch. A random tuft of weeds pokes me in the face. Something skitters across my thigh. I stifle a squeal.

Seconds later, there's a creak from the porch door as Grandmama opens it and calls out for Bone Layer. But it's late, and I know there's no task or chores that need to be done at this hour.

Through the wood slats of the porch, I watch Grandmama scan the yard suspiciously, scowling at the night. Not that her milky eyes can see, but she senses things. I hope not my breathing just below her feet.

There's a rustling noise from the one-room smokehouse as Bone Layer emerges. He comes out the door, and his eyes land straight on me. Panic forks my heart.

He stalks across the yard with purpose, lantern shining from his hand. I shrink deeper into the darkness, praying it will conceal me. His thunderous footsteps rattle the porch. Dust sprinkles down. I shield my eyes.

"God has given us a purpose, and a cleansing must be had," Grandmama says quietly to him. Bone Layer hums a deep noise that sounds like he understands what she's talking about and the gravity of what it means. "It's time. Fetch the bones."