The Stars of Whistling Ridge by Cindy Baldwin

Author:Cindy Baldwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Published: 2021-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

24.

Ravi kept trying to draw me into conversation on the drive back to Aunt Agatha’s, talking about how cool the homestead was, how he’d paint the kudzu, what the porch must’ve looked like before it caved inward. I gave one-word answers, hardly even hearing what he said.

“You okay, Ivy?” he asked, his eyebrows drawn together. Somehow, I didn’t think I could stand an entire ride with Miss Christie’s eagle eyes fixed on me, seeing everything; even now, I caught her glancing sharply at me in the rearview mirror more than once.

“Fine.”

“Okay,” said Ravi, but the wrinkle in his forehead didn’t go away.

I couldn’t stop seeing the ruin of Lydia’s cottage. Couldn’t stop feeling the way the place pulled at me, like a living thing. Like a dark, devouring beast. I clutched my writing notebook to my chest; I could almost feel the pages from Lydia’s journal tucked inside it, whispering secrets. Secrets that maybe nobody else in Whistling Ridge had ever found. The real story of what had happened to Lydia. The key, maybe, to whatever horrible force had swallowed her and then destroyed her cottage . . . and now, was working its way to all of Whistling Ridge.

I should tell Mama and her sisters as soon as I got back. I knew that. This—the homestead—it had to hold the key to the mystery they’d been working on ever since we landed in Whistling Ridge with a broken transmission and a case of pneumonia.

I should tell them. But sitting in Miss Christie’s cherry-red car, I couldn’t figure out how I’d form the words. They were all already so stressed out. Daddy had been writing article after article to send to his editor; his pace would probably have to get even faster, now that Mama was having trouble catching many firefly wishes. And I thought of Mama and Aunt Agatha in the garden the week we’d arrived, pouring their magic into the earth only to have it burn out and leave them aged and shaking.

This morning at the creek, Aunt Agatha had said, None of us has any idea where we should even start.

Would telling them about Lydia’s cottage give them a place to start—or just add to all the things they couldn’t do anything about?

And deep inside the darkest, most selfish part of my heart, another honest question lurked:

Did I really want them to know, if telling them might mean we’d leave Whistling Ridge sooner?

Ravi leaned over and gave me a hug before I got out of the car at Aunt Agatha’s house.

“You seem like you could use it,” he said. He smelled like warm, musky clove, mixed with the sharp scent of paint. The whole thing made the back of my throat feel scratchy. We’d only been here for two weeks, but Simon and Ravi already felt like friends, like they were just as much a part of me as my family and the aunts and the way stargazing on a clear night made me feel.

We couldn’t leave Whistling Ridge.

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