Beautiful Secrets (Cranksepticeye Fanfiction)

~9.12~ The Sisters

The kitchen table was still set when I got home, lucky for me, because Anna would have killed me if I'd missed dinner. What I hadn't considered was the phone tree that had been activated the minute I walked out of English class. No less then half the town must have called Anna by the time I got home.
"Ethan Nestor? Is that you? Because if it is, you are in for a world a trouble."
I heard a familiar banging sound. Things were worse than I thought. I ducked into the kitchen. Anna was standing at the counter in her industrial denim tool apron, which had fourteen pockets for nails and could hold up to four power tools. She was holding her Chinese cleaver, the counter piled with carrots, cabbage, and other vegetables I couldn't identify. Spring rolls required more chopping than any other recipe in Anna's blue plastic box. If she was making spring rolls, it only meant one thing, and it wasn't just that she liked Chinese food.
I tried to come up with an acceptable explanation, but I had nothing.
"Coach called this afternoon, Mrs. English, and Principal Harper, and Mark's mother, and half the ladies from the DAR. And you know how I hate talkin' to those women. Evil as sin, every one a them."
Anston was full of ladies' auxiliaries, but the DAR was the mother of them all. True to its name, the Daughters of the American Revolution, you had to prove you were related to an actual patriot from the American Revolution to be eligible for membership. Being a member apparently entitled you to tell your River Street neighbors what colors to paint their houses and generally boss, pester, and judge everyone in town. Unless you were Anna. That I'd like to see.
"They all said the same thing. That you ran out of school, in the middle of class, chasing after that McLaughlin boy." Another carrot rolled across the cutting board.
"I know Anna, but-"
The cabbage split in half. "So I said, 'No, my boy wouldn't leave school without permission and skip practice. There must be some mistake. Must be some other boy disrespecting his teacher and sullying his family's name. Can't be a boy I raised, living in this house.' " Green onions flew across the counter.
I'd committed the worst of crimes, emmbarasing her. Worst of all, in th eyes of Mrs. Lincoln and the women of the DAR, her sworn enemies.
"What do you have to say for yourself? What would make you run outta school like your tail was on fire? And I don't wanna hear it was some boy."
I took a deep breath. What could I say? I had been dreaming about some mystery boy for months, who showed up in town and just happened to be Macon Ravenwood's niece? That, in addition to terrifying dreams about this boy, I had a vision of some woman, who I definitely didn't know, who loved during the Civil War?
Yeah, that would get me out of trouble, around the same time the sun exploded and the solar system died.
"It's not what you think. The kids in our class were giving Jack a hard time, teasing him about his uncle, saying he hauls dead bodies around his hearse, and he got really upset and ran out of class."
"I'm waiting for the part that explains what any a this has to do with you."
"Aren't you the one always telling me to 'walk the steps of our Lord? Don't you think He'd want me to stick up for someone who's being picked on?" Now I'd done it. I could see it in her eyes.
"Don't you dare use the Word of the Lord to justify breakin' the rules at school, or I swear I will go outside and get a switch and burn some sense into your backside. I don't care how old in my life, although she had chased me with a switch a few times to make a point. But this wasn't the moment to bring that up.
The situation was quickly going from bad to worse; I needed a distraction. The locket was still burning a hole in my back pocket. Anna loved mysteries. She had taught me to read when I was four using crime novels and the crossword over her shoulder. I was the only kid in kindergarten who could read examination on the black board because it looked so much like medical examiner. As for mysteries, the locket was a good one. I'd just leave out the part about touching it and seeing a Civil War vision.
"You're right, Anna. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left school. I was just trying to make sure Jack was okay. A window broke in the classroom right behind him, and he was bleeding. I just went to his house to see if he was all right."
"You were up at that house?"
"Yeah, but he was outside. His uncle is really shy, I guess."
"You don't need to tell me about Macon Ravenwood, like you know anything I don't already know." The Look.
"H. E. B. E. T. U. D. I. N. O. U. S."
"What?"
"As in, you don't have a lick of sense, Ethan Nestor."
I fished the locket out of my pocket and walked over to where she was still standing by the stove. "We were out back, behind the house, and we found something," I said, opening my hand so she could take a look. "It has an inscription inside."
The expression on Anna's face stopped me cold. She looked like something had knocked the wind right out of her.
"Anna, are you okay?" I reached for her elbow, to steady her in case she was about to faint. But she pulled her arm away before I could touch her, like she'd burned her hand on the handle of a pot.
"Where did you get that?" Her voice was a whisper.
"We found it in the dirt, at Ravenwood."
"You didn't find that at Ravenwood Plantation."
"What are you talking about? Do you know who it belonged to?"
"Stand right here. Don't you move," she instructed, rushing out of the kitchen.
But I ignored her, following her to her room. It had always looked more like an apothecary than a bedroom, with a low white single bed tucked beneath a row of shelves. On the shelves were neatly stacked newspapers - Anna never threw away a finished crossword - and Mason jars full of her stock ingredients for making charms. Some were her old standards: salt, colored stones, herbs. Then there were more unusual collections, like a jar of roots and another of abandoned bird nests. The top shelf was just bottles of dirt. She was acting weird, even for Anna. I was only a couple of steps behind her, but she was already tearing through her drawers by the time I got there.
"Anna, what are you-"
"Didn't I tell you to stay in the kitchen? Don't bring that thing in here!" she shrieked, when I took a step forward.
"What are you so upset about?" She stuffed a few things I couldn't get a look at into her tool apron, and rushed back out of the room. I caught up with her back in the kitchen. "Anna, what's the matter?"
"Take this." She handed me a threadbare handkerchief, careful not to let her hand touch mine. "Now you wrap that thing up in here. Right now, this second."
This was beyond going dark. She was totally losing it.
"Anna-"
"Do as I say Ethan."
Once the locket was safely wrapped in the handkerchief, she calmed down a little bit. She rifled through the lower pockets of her apron, removing a small leather bag and a vial of powder. I knew enough to recognize the makings of one of her charms when I saw them. Her hand shook slightly as she poured some of the dark powder into the leather pouch. "Did you wrap it up tight?"
"Yeah," I said, expecting her to correct me for answering so informally.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Now put in here." The leather pouch was warm and smooth in my hand. "Go on now."
I dropped the offending locket into the pouch.
"Tie this around it," she instructed, handing me a piece of what looked like ordinary twine, although I knew nothing Anna used for her charms was ever ordinary, or what it seemed. "Now you take it back there, where you found it, and you bury it. Take it straightaway."
"Anna, what's going on?" She took a few steps forward and grabbed my chin, pushing the hair out of my eyes. For the first time since I pulled the locket out of my pocket, she looked me in the eye. We stayed that way for what felt like the longest minute of my life. Her expression was an unfamiliar one, uncertain.
"You're not ready," she whispered , releasing her hand.
"Not ready for what?"
"Do as I say. Take that bag back to where you found it and bury it. Then you come right home. I don't want you messin' with that boy anymore, you hear me?"
She had said all she planned to say, maybe more. But I'd never know because if there was one thing Anna was better at than reading cards or solving a crossword, it was keeping secrets.