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Authors: Kami García, Margaret Stohl
Tags: JUV026000
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on the grounds
of Ravenwood, I would’ve said they were crazy. In a town like Gatlin, where you can see everything coming, I wouldn’t have
seen this. Last time, I had only made it as far as the gates. The closer I got, the easier it was to see that everything was
falling apart. The great house, Ravenwood Manor, looked just like the stereotypical Southern plantation that people from up
North would expect to see after all those years of watching movies like
Gone with the Wind
.
Ravenwood Manor was still that impressive, at least in scale. Flanked by palmetto and cypress trees, it looked like it could
have been the kind of place where people sat on the porch drinking mint juleps and playing cards all day, if it wasn’t falling
apart. If it wasn’t Ravenwood.
It was a Greek Revival, which was unusual for Gatlin. Our town was full of Federal-style plantation houses, which made Ravenwood
stand out even more like the sore thumb it was. Huge white Doric pillars, paint peeling from years of neglect, supported a
roof that sloped too sharply to one side, giving the impression that the house was leaning over like an arthritic old woman.
The covered porch was splintered and falling away from the house, threatening to collapse if you dared set so much as a foot
on it. Thick ivy grew so densely over the exterior walls that in some places it was impossible to see the windows underneath.
As if the grounds had swallowed up the house itself, trying to take it back down into the very dirt it had been built upon.
There was an overlapping lintel, the part of the beam that lies over the door of some really old buildings. I could see some
sort of carving in the lintel. Symbols. They looked like circles and crescents, maybe the phases of the moon. I took a tentative
step onto a groaning stair so I could get a closer look. I knew something about lintels. My mom had been a Civil War historian,
and she had pointed them out to me on our countless pilgrimages to every historical site within a day’s drive of Gatlin. She
said they were really common in old houses and castles, in places like England and Scotland. Which is where some of the people
from around here were from, well, before they were from around here.
I had never seen one with symbols carved into it before, only words. These were more like hieroglyphs, surrounding what looked
like a single word, in a language I didn’t recognize. It had probably meant something to the generations of Ravenwoods who
lived here before this place was falling apart.
I took a breath and vaulted up the rest of the porch steps, two at a time. Figured I increased my odds of not falling through
them by fifty percent if I only landed on half of them. I reached for the brass ring suspended from a lion’s mouth that served
as a knocker, and I knocked. I knocked again, and again. She wasn’t home. I had been wrong, after all.
But then I heard it, the familiar melody.
Sixteen Moons
. She was here somewhere.
I pushed down on the calcified iron of the door handle. It groaned, and I heard a bolt responding on the other side of the
door. I prepared myself for the sight of Macon Ravenwood, who nobody had seen in town, not in my lifetime anyway. But the
door didn’t open.
I looked up at the lintel, and something told me to try. I mean, what was the worst that could happen—the door wouldn’t open?
Instinctively, I reached up and touched the central carving above my head. The crescent moon. When I pressed on it, I could
feel the wood giving way under my finger. It was some kind of trigger.
The door swung open without so much as a sound. I stepped past the threshold. There was no going back now.
Light flooded through the windows, which seemed impossible considering the windows on the outside of the house were completely
covered with vines and debris. Yet, inside it was light, bright, and brand new. There was no antique period furniture or oil
paintings of the
of Ravenwood, I would’ve said they were crazy. In a town like Gatlin, where you can see everything coming, I wouldn’t have
seen this. Last time, I had only made it as far as the gates. The closer I got, the easier it was to see that everything was
falling apart. The great house, Ravenwood Manor, looked just like the stereotypical Southern plantation that people from up
North would expect to see after all those years of watching movies like
Gone with the Wind
.
Ravenwood Manor was still that impressive, at least in scale. Flanked by palmetto and cypress trees, it looked like it could
have been the kind of place where people sat on the porch drinking mint juleps and playing cards all day, if it wasn’t falling
apart. If it wasn’t Ravenwood.
It was a Greek Revival, which was unusual for Gatlin. Our town was full of Federal-style plantation houses, which made Ravenwood
stand out even more like the sore thumb it was. Huge white Doric pillars, paint peeling from years of neglect, supported a
roof that sloped too sharply to one side, giving the impression that the house was leaning over like an arthritic old woman.
The covered porch was splintered and falling away from the house, threatening to collapse if you dared set so much as a foot
on it. Thick ivy grew so densely over the exterior walls that in some places it was impossible to see the windows underneath.
As if the grounds had swallowed up the house itself, trying to take it back down into the very dirt it had been built upon.
There was an overlapping lintel, the part of the beam that lies over the door of some really old buildings. I could see some
sort of carving in the lintel. Symbols. They looked like circles and crescents, maybe the phases of the moon. I took a tentative
step onto a groaning stair so I could get a closer look. I knew something about lintels. My mom had been a Civil War historian,
and she had pointed them out to me on our countless pilgrimages to every historical site within a day’s drive of Gatlin. She
said they were really common in old houses and castles, in places like England and Scotland. Which is where some of the people
from around here were from, well, before they were from around here.
I had never seen one with symbols carved into it before, only words. These were more like hieroglyphs, surrounding what looked
like a single word, in a language I didn’t recognize. It had probably meant something to the generations of Ravenwoods who
lived here before this place was falling apart.
I took a breath and vaulted up the rest of the porch steps, two at a time. Figured I increased my odds of not falling through
them by fifty percent if I only landed on half of them. I reached for the brass ring suspended from a lion’s mouth that served
as a knocker, and I knocked. I knocked again, and again. She wasn’t home. I had been wrong, after all.
But then I heard it, the familiar melody.
Sixteen Moons
. She was here somewhere.
I pushed down on the calcified iron of the door handle. It groaned, and I heard a bolt responding on the other side of the
door. I prepared myself for the sight of Macon Ravenwood, who nobody had seen in town, not in my lifetime anyway. But the
door didn’t open.
I looked up at the lintel, and something told me to try. I mean, what was the worst that could happen—the door wouldn’t open?
Instinctively, I reached up and touched the central carving above my head. The crescent moon. When I pressed on it, I could
feel the wood giving way under my finger. It was some kind of trigger.
The door swung open without so much as a sound. I stepped past the threshold. There was no going back now.
Light flooded through the windows, which seemed impossible considering the windows on the outside of the house were completely
covered with vines and debris. Yet, inside it was light, bright, and brand new. There was no antique period furniture or oil
paintings of the
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