A sad story, Grandfather had said. Not to be dredged up. A dredge was a shovel for the ocean floor. It scooped up the ruined and rotted and hidden things that lay in the dark on the bottom. The ruined and rotted were still there, or Grandfather would not want Macey silenced.

“The trouble is, I ask and nobody answers. Because you know what, Aus? My true colors, our family colors,” she said softly, “are that we don’t think about anything that matters. That’s our rule.”

The family colors.

The family rule.

Pain stabbed Austin’s chest so severely, he wondered if a sixteen-year-old in terrific condition could have a heart attack. He could actually feel his heart go into spasm and then relax, while his chest locked and his lungs failed. He folded over himself for a moment, splinting the pain. Closing his eyes had the odd effect of making Macey’s words louder and brighter.

The words of June and Mike, actually, which Macey had just quoted.

Why, the banker that lived down there wouldn’t let the black guy open an account. ’Course, that had to be stopped right way, wasn’t legal, didn’t want people to think we were Southerners or something. So people spoke harsh to him, and he let the black guy have a bank account after all. But they were really fussed about it, that couple. They said it would ruin property values and wasn’t good for the children.

Property values, thought Austin.

This is the property.

Children, thought Austin.

That would be my mother.

Banker, thought Austin.

That would be Grandfather.

Austin had cold hands, and cold dread, and cold knowledge. For now he knew the connection between Venita and Mr. Sibley. It was not fire.

Both times, it was one gang teaching a lesson in territory to a trespasser.

Venita believed the street was her territory; she was a lioness stalking out to protect her cubs. But the territory belonged to people with guns, and they were stronger, and they proved it.

Mr. Sibley believed he could stake out territory in a foreign land, a land that had never accepted one of his kind. But he had been wrong.

Mace had gotten halfway to the answer: It was all about dividing the cake. Who got the most icing and the biggest slice?

The beauty of Shell Beach was entirely cold now: frozen like crystal. “Let’s go inside,” he said, knowing that he had just joined the team of her parents and grandparents; he was not going to give her answers, either.

At the Fent house, lights were blurry behind pulled curtains.