about magic and spells in the Goodnight household. Not after La Llorona had almost made us victims of our own idiocy.
I didn’t ever want to see that look of fear and loss on Mom’s face again. Trying to get anyone else to change was pointless, especially Phin. I could only change myself. So that night in Goliad was the last time I’d ever spoken of ghosts or magic to anyone outside the family. Until today.
I didn’t know what that meant, except that La Llorona was, in a weird sort of way, on my mind even before Phin brought her up. I had broken my rule when I’d talked ghosts with Ben McCulloch, right when I most needed to put up a good front.
A sound dropped me back into the present. I froze, one hand on the breaker box, and listened intently to the cricket-filled night. Had it come from the McCulloch place? The noise was otherworldly, the pitch so low I’d almost felt it rather than heard it. It was a visceral sort of whump, like the subwoofer on a stereo, overscored by a high, thin thread—
No, that was the bats. The dark shapes that had been swooping in a bug-hunting ballet now wheeled in unnatural and panicked chaos, as if someone had put a magnet on their internal compass. As I watched, two of them collided and plummeted to the ground. They hit with muted thumps and the leathery flop of wings, and then silence.
My throat clenched around my held breath. Just feet from me, their small black bodies lay unmoving in the circle of my flashlight. Had they knocked themselves out?
I edged closer, and when neither moved, I touched one with the toe of my boot.
Not stunned. Dead.
The practical part of me said I would need to get a shovel and bury them deep so the dogs wouldn’t dig them up. Or maybe I needed to call Animal Control so they could be tested for rabies. Wasn’t erratic behavior a sign of that?
The other side, the Goodnight side, knew that rabies didn’t make two bats’ radar go so haywire they’d collide hard enough to kill each other. But what would?
Leave it alone, Amy.
As omens went, it was pretty clear. Curiosity and ghosts didn’t mix. I knew that, even if the memories were slippery as river silt and cold bony hands.
The ringing of the phone worked its way into my dream and became a burglar alarm, which was enough to scare me awake, given that my dreams—once I’d finally managed to drift off—involved skeletons riding goats chasing me in my underwear as Ben McCulloch and his horse herded me away from the safety of the house, all while Phin sat on the porch drinking a Vanilla Coke.
Well, it scared me half awake, anyway. I was so clumsy with sleep that I answered my cell phone, my iPod, and my paperback book before I finally found the house phone. Three large dogs sacked out on my bed didn’t help. They made maneuvering difficult even when I was completely conscious.
“Unff,” I said, brilliantly.
“Amaryllis, darling,” said someone who sounded very like my aunt Hyacinth. “I have to tell you something.”
“But you’re in China.” Maybe that was why she sounded like she was speaking through a cave. The phone was carrying her voice through the center of the earth.
“Yes, I am. But your email reminded me.”
Oh yeah. My note threatening to chop down the goats’ tree and her neighbor’s son. I didn’t expect to hear back from her for days. I certainly didn’t expect a Jules Verne phone call.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I need for you to take care of the goats.”
“What?” I struggled up to a thinner layer of sleep. “I am taking care of them. Phin got plants, I got animals.”
“Dear, that doesn’t make sense. Just promise me you’ll take care of it.”
“I will, Aunt Hyacinth. I can’t believe you called just because of that.”
“It’s very important to me. I’m sorry to put the responsibility on you, but I know you’re the one to handle this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, wondering if, just possibly, my aunt’s eccentricities extended to a completely non-magical area. “I’ve got it covered.”
“You promise?”
“I do, no problem.” Jeez, how many times was she going to ask me?
“I have to be sure, or I’ll worry about it for the rest of my trip.”
“I promise, Aunt Hyac—”
Just as I finished the third assurance, there was a pop in my ears and a strong tug in my belly, as