Beautiful Creatures by Kami García, Margaret Stohl

left,
     too.”
    Aunt Prue interrupted, “Grace Ann, you don’t know how ta tell a story. Silas Ravenwood was an E-centric, and as mean as the
     day is long. And there were strange things goin’ on at that house. The lights were on all night long, and every now and again
     a man in a tall black hat was seen wanderin’ ’round up there.”
    “And the wolf. Tell him about the wolf.” I didn’t need them to tell me about that dog, or whatever it was. I’d seen it myself.
     But it couldn’t be the same animal. Dogs, even wolves, didn’t live that long.
    “There was a wolf up at the house. Silas kept it like it was a pet!” Aunt Mercy shook her head.
    “But those boys, they moved back and forth between Silas and their mamma, and when they were with him, Silas treated them
     somethin’ awful. Beat on ’em all the time and barely let ’em outta his sight. He wouldn’t even let ’em go ta school.”
    “Maybe that’s why Macon Ravenwood never leaves his house,” I said.
    Aunt Mercy waved her hand in the air, as if that was the silliest thing she’d ever heard. “He leaves his house. I’ve seen
     him a mess a times over at the DAR buildin’, right after supper time.” Sure she had.
    That was the thing about the Sisters; half the time they had a firm grasp on reality, but that was only half the time. I had
     never heard of anyone seeing Macon Ravenwood, so I doubted he was hanging around the DAR looking at paint chips and chatting
     up Mrs. Lincoln.
    Aunt Grace scrutinized the locket more carefully, holding it up to the light. “I can tell you one thing. This here handkerchief
     belonged ta Sulla Treadeau, Sulla the Prophet they called her, on account a folks said she could see the future in the cards.”
    “Tarot cards?” I asked.
    “What other kind a cards are there?”
    “Well, there are playin’ cards, and greetin’ cards, and place cards for parties…” Aunt Mercy rambled.
    “How do you know the handkerchief belonged to her?”
    “Her initials are embroidered right here on the edge, and you see that there?” she asked, pointing to a tiny bird embroidered
     under the initials. “That there was her mark.”
    “Her mark?”
    “Most readers had a mark back then. They’d mark their decks ta make sure nobody switched their cards. A reader is only as
     good as her deck. I know that much,” Thelma said, spitting into a small urn in the corner of the room with the precision of
     a marksman.
    Treadeau. That was Amma’s last name.
    “Was she related to Amma?”
    “Of course she was. She was Amma’s great-great-grandmamma.”
    “What about the initials on the locket? ECW and GKD? Do you know anything about them?” It was a long shot. I couldn’t remember
     the last time the Sisters had ever had a moment of clarity that lasted this long.
    “Are you teasin’ an old woman, Ethan Wate?”
    “No ma’am.”
    “ECW. Ethan Carter Wate. He was your great-great-great-uncle, or was it your great-great-great-great-uncle?”
    “You’ve never been any good with arithmetic,” Aunt Prudence interrupted.
    “Anyhow, he was your great-great-great-great-granddaddy Ellis’ brother.”
    “Ellis Wate’s brother was named Lawson, not Ethan. That’s how I got my middle name.”
    “Ellis Wate had two brothers, Ethan and Lawson. You were named for both of ’em. Ethan Lawson Wate.” I tried to picture my
     family tree. I had seen it enough times. And if there’s one thing a Southerner knows, it’s their family tree. There was no
     Ethan Carter Wate on the framed copy hanging in our dining room. I had obviously overestimated Aunt Grace’s lucidity.
    I must have looked unconvinced because a second later, Aunt Prue was up and out of her chair. “I have the Wate Family Tree
     in my genealogy book. I keep track a the whole lineage for the Sisters a the Confed’racy.”
    The Sisters of the Confederacy, the lesser cousin of the DAR, but equally horrifying, was some kind of sewing circle holdover
     from the