Beautiful Darkness - Chapter 16

Wayward Soul
The first moment hung in the air, silent and awkward. The second erupted into noisy confusion. Link yelled at Liv, who yelled at me, and I yelled at
Marian, who waited for us to stop.
“What are you doin’ here?”
“Why did you leave me at the fair?”
“What is she doing here, Aunt Marian?”
“Come in.” Marian pulled the paneled door open and stepped back to let us pass. The door banged shut behind me, and I heard her bolt the
lock. I felt a surge of panic, or claustrophobia, which didn't make any sense because the room wasn't small. But it felt close. The air was heavy, and I
had the feeling that I was standing someplace very private, like a bedroom. Like the laughter, it felt familiar, even if it wasn't. Like the face in the
stone.
“Where are we?”
“One question at a time, EW. I'll answer one of yours, and you'll answer one of mine.”
“What's Liv doing here?” I don't know why I was angry, but I was. Could anybody in my life be a normal person? Did everyone have to have a
secret life?
“Sit. Please.” Marian gestured to the circular table in the center of the room.
Liv looked irritated, and got up from her spot on the bed in front of an impossibly lit fireplace, the smoldering fire white and bright instead of
orange and burning.
“Olivia is here because she is my summer research assistant. Now I have a question for you.”
“Wait. That's not a real answer. I already knew that.” I was every bit as stubborn as Marian was. My voice echoed across the chamber, and I
noticed an intricate chandelier hanging from the high, vaulted ceiling. It was made of some kind of smooth, white polished horn, or was it bone? The
ironwork held long tapered candles that lit the room with a delicate flickering light, illuminating some corners while leaving others dark and
unexposed. In the shadows of the far corner, I noticed the spindles of a tall, ebony four-poster bed. I had seen a bed exactly like it somewhere
before. Everything about today was one monster déjà vu, and it was driving me crazy.
Marian sat back in her chair, undeterred. “Ethan, how did you find this place?”
What could I say with Liv standing next to me? I thought I heard Lena, sensed her? But my instincts led me to Liv instead? I didn't understand it
myself.
I looked away. Black wooden bookcases ran from floor to ceiling, crammed with books and objects of curiosity that were obviously the personal
collection of someone who had been around the world and back more times than I had been to the Stop & Steal. A collection of antique bottles and
vials lined one of the shelves, like in an old apothecary. Another was stacked with books. It reminded me of Amma's room, without the stacks of old
newspapers and jars of graveyard dirt. But one book stood out from the others: Darkness and Light: The Origins of Magic.
I recognized it — and the bed, and the library, and the immaculate arrangement of beautiful things. This room could only belong to one person,
who wasn't even a person. “This was Macon's room, wasn't it?”
“Possibly.”
Link dropped a strange ceremonial dagger he had been playing with. It clattered to the floor, and he tried to put it back on the shelf, flustered.
Dead or not, Macon Ravenwood still scared Link plenty.
“I'm guessing a Caster Tunnel connects it directly to his bedroom at Ravenwood.” This room was almost a mirror image of his bedroom in
Ravenwood, with the exception of the heavy drapes that blocked out the sunlight.
“It may.”
“You brought that book down here because you didn't want me to see it after I had the vision in the archive.”
Marian answered carefully. “Let's say you're right, and this is Macon's private study, the place where he collected his thoughts. Even so, how did
you find us tonight?”
I kicked the thick Indian rug under my feet. It was black and white, stitched in a complicated pattern. I didn't want to explain how I found this
place. It was confusing. And if I said it, it might be true. But how could it be? How could my instincts lead me to anyone but Lena?
Then again, if I didn't tell Marian, I'd probably never get out of this room. So I settled for half of the truth. “I was looking for Lena. She's down here
with Ridley, and her friend John, and I think she's in trouble. Lena did something today, at the fair —”
“Let's just say, Ridley was bein’ Ridley. But Lena was bein’ Ridley, too. The lollipops might be workin’ overtime.” Link was unwrapping a Slim
Jim, so he didn't notice me staring him down. I hadn't planned on telling Marian or Liv the details.
“We were in the stacks, and I heard a girl laughing. She sounded — I don't know — happy, I guess. I followed her here. I mean, her voice. I can't
really explain it.” I stole a glance at Liv. I saw the pink flush in her pale skin. She was staring at a particular spot of nothing on the wall.
Marian clapped her hands together, the sign of a great discovery. “I'm guessing the laughter was familiar.”
“Yeah.”
“And you followed it without a thought. More of an instinct.”
“You could say that.” I wasn't sure where this was going, but Marian had that mad scientist look in her eye.
“When you're with Lena, can you sometimes speak to her without words?”
I nodded. “You mean, Kelting?”
Liv looked up at me, shocked. “How could a regular Mortal possibly know about Kelting?”
“That is an excellent question, Olivia.” The way the two of them were looking at each other irritated me. “One that deserves an answer.” Marian
walked to the shelves, rummaging through Macon's library like she was looking for car keys in her purse. Watching her flip through his books
bothered me, even though he wasn't here to see it.
“It just happened. We sort of found each other in our heads.”
“You can read minds, and you didn't tell me?” Link stared at me like he just found out I was the Silver Surfer. He rubbed his head nervously.
“Hey, man, all that stuff about Lena? I was yankin’ your chain.” He looked away. “Are you doin’ it now? You're doin’ it, aren't you? Dude, get out of
my head.” He backed away from me and into the bookshelf.
“I can't read your mind, you idiot. Lena and I can hear each other's thoughts sometimes.” Link look relieved, but he wasn't getting off that easy.
“What were you thinking about Lena?”
“Nothin’. I was messin’ with you.” He pulled a book off the shelf and pretended to look through it.
Marian took the book out of Link's hands. “There it is. Exactly the book I was looking for.” She opened the tattered leather volume, flipping
through the crackling pages so quickly it was obvious she was looking for something specific. It looked like an old textbook or reference manual.
“There.” She held the book out to Liv. “Does any of this sound familiar?” Liv leaned closer, and they started to turn the pages together, nodding.
Marian straightened and took the book from Liv. “Now. How can a regular Mortal Kelt, Olivia?”
“He can't. Unless he's not a regular Mortal, Professor Ashcroft.” They were smiling at me like I was a kid who had taken his first steps, or like
someone was about to tell me I had a terminal illness, and the combined effect made me want to bolt.
“You mind letting me in on the joke?”
“It's no joke. Why don't you see for yourself?” Marian handed me the book.
I looked at the page. I was right about the textbook part. It was some kind of Caster encyclopedia, with drawings and languages I didn't
understand on every page. But some of it was in English. “The Wayward.” I looked up at Marian. “Is that what you think I am?”
“Keep going.”
“The Wayward: the one who knows the way. Synonyms: dux,speculator,gubernator. General. Scout. Navigator. The one who marks the path.” I
looked up, confused.
For once, Link wasn't. “So he's like a human compass? As far as superpowers go, that's pretty lame. You're like the Caster equivalent of
Aquaman.”
“Aquaman?” Marian didn't read a lot of comics.
“He talks to fish.” Link shook his head. “Not exactly X-ray vision.”
“I don't have any superpowers.” Did I?
“Keep reading.” Marian pointed to the page.
“Since before the Crusades, we have served. We have had many names, and none. Like the whisper in the ear of China's first emperor as he
contemplated the Great Wall, or the loyal companion at the side of Scotland's most valiant knight as he toiled for his country's independence,
Mortals with great purpose have always had those who guided them. As the lost vessels of Columbus and Vasco da Gama had those who guided
them to New Worlds, we exist to guide Casters whose paths hold great meaning. We are —” I couldn't make sense of the words.
Then I heard Liv's voice next to me, as if she had committed the words to memory. “The one who finds what is lost. The one who knows the
way.”
“Finish it.” Marian was suddenly serious, as if the words were some kind of prophecy.
“We are given to the great, for great purpose, to great ends. We are given to the grave, for grave purpose, to grave ends.” I closed the book
and handed it back to Marian. I didn't want to know any more.
Marian's expression was difficult to read. She turned the book over and over in her hands and looked at Liv. “Do you think?”
“It's possible. There have been others.”
“Not for a Ravenwood. Or a Duchannes, for that matter.”
“But you said it yourself, Professor Ashcroft. Lena's decision carries consequences. If she chooses to go Light, all the Dark Casters in her
family will die, and if she choose to go Dark …” Liv didn't finish. We all knew the rest. All the Light Casters in her family would die. “Wouldn't you say
her path holds great meaning?”
I didn't like the way this conversation was going, even though I wasn't completely sure where it was headed. “Hello? I'm sitting right here. Want
to clue me in?”
Liv spoke slowly, as if I was a kid at the library for a read aloud. “Ethan, in the Caster world, only those with great purpose have a Wayward.
Waywards don't come along often, maybe once in a century, and never by accident. If you are a Wayward, you're here for a reason — a great or
terrible purpose, all your own. You're a bridge between worlds for Casters and Mortals, and whatever you do, you have to be very careful.”
I sat down on the bed, and Marian sat next to me. “You have a destiny of your own, like Lena. Which means things could become very
complicated.”
“You think these past few months haven't been complicated?”
“You have no idea of the things I've seen. The things your mother saw.” Marian looked away.
“So you think I'm one of those Waywards? I'm a human compass or something, like Link said?”
“It's more than that. Waywards don't just know the way. They are the way. They guide Casters along the path they are destined to take, a path
they might not otherwise find on their own. You might be the Wayward for a Ravenwood or a Duchannes. It's not clear which at the moment.” Liv
seemed to know what she was talking about, which didn't make sense. That's what my mind kept going back to as I stumbled over what they were
saying.
“Aunt Marian, tell her. I can't be one of these Waywards. My parents are regular Mortals.” Nobody said the obvious, that my mom had been a
part of the Caster world, like Marian, only in a way no one would ever talk about, at least not to me.
“Waywards are Mortals, a bridge between the Caster world and ours.” Liv reached for another book. “Of course, your mother was hardly what
you could call a regular Mortal, any more than I am, or Professor Ashcroft.”
“Olivia!” Marian froze.
“You don't mean —”
“His mother didn't want him to know. I promised, if anything were to happen —”
“Stop!” I slammed the book down on the table. “I'm not in the mood for your rules. Not tonight.”
Liv fidgeted with her science experiment of a watch, nervously. “I'm such an idiot.”
“What do you know about my mother?” I turned on Liv. “Tell me right now.”
Marian crumpled into the chair next to me. The pink spots on Liv's cheeks flushed. “I'm so sorry.” She shook her head, looking from Marian to
me, helplessly.
Marian held up her hand. “Olivia knows all about your mother, Ethan.”
I turned to Liv. I knew what she was going to tell me, before she said it. The truth had been pushing its way into my mind. Liv knew too much
about Casters and Waywards, and she was here, in the Tunnels, standing in Macon's study. If I hadn't been so confused about what they thought I
was, I would've realized what Liv was. I don't know why it had taken me this long to see it.
“Ethan.”
“You're one of them, like Aunt Marian and my mom.”
“Them?” Liv asked.
“You're a Keeper.” The words made it real, and I was feeling everything and nothing at the same time — my mom, down here in the Tunnels with
Marian's massive ring of Caster keys. My mom with her secret life, in this secret world my father and I had never been, and could never be, part of.
“I'm not a Keeper.” Liv looked embarrassed. “Not yet. One day, maybe. I'm training.”
“Training to be more than the Gatlin County librarian, which is why you're here, in the middle of nowhere with your fancy scholarship. If there is
one. Or was that a lie, too?”
“I'm a terrible liar. I do have a scholarship, but it's paid by a society of scholars that far predates Duke University.”
“Or the Harrow School.”
She nodded. “Or Harrow.”
“What about the Ovaltine? Was that even true?”
Liv smiled ruefully. “I'm from Kings Langley, and I do love Ovaltine, but if I'm to be perfectly honest, I've come to prefer Quik since arriving in
Gatlin.”
Link sat down on the bed, speechless. “I don't understand a word she's sayin’.”
Liv turned the pages of the book until a timeline of Keepers appeared. My mom's name stared back at me. “Professor Ashcroft is right. I
studied Lila Evers Wate. Your mother was a brilliant Keeper, a tremendous writer. It's part of my coursework to read the notes left by the Keepers
who have come before me.”
Notes? My mom had notes Liv had seen, and I hadn't? I resisted the urge to punch a hole through the wall. “Why? So you don't make the
mistakes they made? So you don't end up dead in an accident nobody saw and no one can explain? So you don't leave your family behind,
wondering about your secret life and why you never told them about it?”
The two pink spots appeared on Liv's cheeks again. I was getting used to them. “So I can continue their work and keep their voices alive. So
one day, when I become a Keeper, I'll know how to safeguard the Caster archive — the Lunae Libri, the scrolls, the records of the Casters
themselves. That isn't possible without the voices of the Keepers who came before me.”
“Why not?”
“Because they're my teachers. I learn from their experiences, the knowledge they gathered while they were Keepers. Everything is connected,
and without their records, I can't make sense of the things I discover myself.”
I shook my head. “I don't understand.”
“You don't understand? What the hell are we even talkin’ about?” Link spoke up from the bed.
Marian put her hand on my shoulder. “The voice you heard, the laughter from the hall, I imagine it was your mother. Lila led you here, most likely
because she wanted us to have this conversation. So you would understand your purpose, and Lena's or Macon's. Because you're Bound to one of
their Houses and one of their destinies. I just don't know whose yet.”
I thought about the face in the column, the laughter, and the feeling of déjà vu in Macon's room. Was it my mom? I'd been waiting months for a
sign from her, since the afternoon in the study when Lena and I found the message in the books.
Was she finally trying to contact me now?
What if she wasn't?
I realized something else. “If I am one of these Waywards — and I'm not saying I'm buying any of this — then I can find Lena, right? I'm
supposed to take care of her because I'm her compass, or whatever.”
“We don't know that for sure. You're Bound to someone, but we don't know who.”
I pushed back the chair and walked over to the bookcase. Macon's book sat on the edge of the shelf. “I bet I know someone who does.” I
reached for it.
“Ethan, stop!” Marian shouted. My fingers had barely scraped the cover when I felt the floor give way into the nothingness of another world.
At the last second, a hand grabbed mine. “Take me with you, Ethan.”
“Liv, no —”
A girl with long brown hair clung desperately to a tall boy, her face buried in his chest. The branches of a huge oak reached down around
them, creating the impression they were alone instead of a few yards away from clusters of Duke University's ivy-covered buildings.
He cradled her tear-stained face gently in his hands. “Do you think this is easy for me? I love you, Jane, and I know I'll never feel this way
about anyone again. But we don't have a choice. You knew there would come a time when we would have to say good-bye.”
Jane lifted her chin, resolute. “There are always choices, Macon.”
“Not in this situation. Not a choice that wouldn't put you in danger.”
“But your mother said there might be a way. What about the prophecy?”
Macon slammed his palm against the tree, frustrated. “Damn it, Jane. That's an old wives’ tale. There's no way it doesn't end with you
dead.”
“So we can't be together physically — I don't care about that. We can still be together. That's all that matters.”
Macon pulled away, his face twisted in pain. “Once I change, I'll be dangerous, a Blood Incubus. They thirst for blood, and my father says
I will be one of them like he is, and his father before him. Like all the men in my family, as far back as my great-great-great-grandfather
Abraham.”
“Grandfather Abraham, the one who believed the greatest sin imaginable was for a Supernatural to fall in love with a Mortal — to taint the
supernatural bloodlines? And you can't trust your father. He feels the same way. He wants to keep us apart so you'll return to Gatlin, that
god-awful town, and creep around underground like your brother. Like a monster.”
“It's too late. I can already feel the Transformation. I stay up all night listening to the thoughts of Mortals, hungering. Soon I'll be
hungering for more than their thoughts. Already, it feels like my body can't hold what's inside me, as if the beast might literally burst free.”
Jane turned away, her eyes welling up with tears again. But Macon wasn't going to let her ignore him this time. He loved her. And
because he loved her, he had to make her understand why they couldn't be together. “Even standing here, the light is beginning to burn
through my skin. I can feel the heat of the sun with such intensity, all the time now. I'm changing already, and it will only get worse.”
Jane buried her face in her hands, sobbing. “You're saying this to scare me, because you don't want to find a way.”
Macon grabbed Jane's shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “You're right. I am trying to scare you. Do you know what my brother did to
his Mortal girlfriend after the Transformation?” Macon paused. “He ripped her apart.”
Without warning, Macon's head jerked back, his golden-yellow eyes shining around strange black pupils, like the eclipse of twin suns.
He turned his head away from Jane. “Don't ever forget, Ethan. Things are never as they seem.”
I opened my eyes, but I couldn't see anything until the fog lifted. The vaulted ceiling of the study came into focus.
“That was creepy, man. Like The Exorcist creepy.” Link was shaking his head. I held out my arm, and he pulled me up. My heart was still
pounding, and I tried not to look at Liv. I had never shared a vision with anyone except Lena and Marian, and I wasn't too comfortable doing it now.
Every time I looked at her, all I could think about was the moment I walked into this room. The moment I thought she was Lena.
Liv sat up, groggy. “You told me about the visions, Professor Ashcroft. But I had no idea they were so physical.”
“You shouldn't have done that.” It felt like I was betraying Macon by bringing Liv into his private life.
“Why not?” She rubbed her eyes, trying to readjust.
“Maybe you weren't supposed to see it.”
“What I see in a vision is totally different from what you see. You're not a Keeper. No offense, but you have no training.”
“Why do you say ‘no offense’ when you're planning to offend me?”
“Enough.” Marian looked at us expectantly. “What happened?”
But Liv was right. I didn't understand what the vision meant, except that Incubuses couldn't be with Mortals any more than Casters could. “Macon
was there with a girl, and he was talking about becoming a Blood Incubus.”
Liv looked smug. “Macon was going through the Transformation. He appeared to be in a very vulnerable state. I don't know why the vision
showed us that particular moment, but it must be significant.”
“Are you sure you weren't seeing Hunting, not Macon?” Marian asked.
“No,” we said, our voices overlapping. I looked at Liv. “Macon wasn't like Hunting.”
Liv thought for a moment, then reached for the notebook on the bed. She scribbled something and snapped it shut.
Great. Another girl with a notebook.
“You know what? You're the experts. I'm going to let you two figure this one out. I'm going to find Lena before Ridley and her friend convince her
to do something she'll regret.”
“Are you suggesting Lena is under Ridley's influence? That's not possible, Ethan. Lena's a Natural. A Siren can't control her.” Marian dismissed
the idea.
But she didn't know about John Breed. “What if Ridley had help?”
“What sort of help?”
“An Incubus who can walk around in the daylight, or a Caster with Macon's strength and the ability to Travel. I'm not sure which.” It wasn't the best
explanation, but I didn't know what John Breed really was.
“Ethan, you must be mistaken. There's no record of an Incubus or a Caster with those abilities.” Marian was already pulling a book from the
shelves.
“There is now. His name is John Breed.” If Marian didn't know what John was, we weren't going to find the answer in one of those books.
“If what you're describing is accurate, and I find it hard to believe that it could be, I'm not sure what he might be capable of.”
I looked at Link. He was twisting the chain on his wallet. We were thinking the same thing. “I have to find Lena.” I didn't wait for a response.
Link unlocked the door.
Marian stood up. “You can't go after her. It's too dangerous. There are Casters and creatures of unfathomable power in those Tunnels. You've
only been down here once before, and the sections you've seen are passageways compared to the larger Tunnels. They're like another world.”
I didn't need permission. My mom may have led me here, but she was still gone. “You can't stop me because you can't get involved, right? All
you can do is sit there and watch me screw things up and write about it so someone like Liv can study it later.”
“You don't know what you'll find, and when you find it, I won't be able to help you.”
It didn't matter. I was at the door by the time Marian finished. Liv was following me. “I'm going, Professor Ashcroft. I'll make sure nothing
happens to them.”
Marian moved to the doorway. “Olivia. This isn't your place.”
“I know. But they'll need me.”
“You cannot change what is to be. You have to stay out of it. No matter how much it pains you. A Keeper's role is only to record and bear
witness, not to change what unfolds.”
“You're like a hall cop.” Link grinned. “Like Fatty.”
Liv's eyes narrowed. They must have truant officers in England, too. “You don't need to explain the Order of Things to me, Professor Ashcroft.
I've studied it since my K levels. But how can I witness what I'm never allowed to see?”
“You can read about it in the Caster Scrolls, like the rest of us.”
“I can? The Sixteenth Moon? The Claiming that could've broken the Duchannes curse? Could you have read about any of that in a scroll?” Liv
glanced at her moon watch. “There's something happening. This Supernatural with unprecedented power, Ethan's visions — and there are
scientific anomalies. Subtle changes I've picked up on my selenometer.”
Subtle, as in nonexistent. I recognized a scam when I saw one. Olivia Durand was as trapped as the rest of us, and we were her ticket out. She
wasn't worried about Link and me in the Tunnels. She wanted to have a life. Like another girl I knew, not too long ago.
“Remember —”
The door closed before Marian could finish, and we were gone.

Categories: Beautiful Darkness

Beautiful Darkness - Chapter 15

Unmistakable
The Beater skidded to a stop in front of the Historical Society, the front tires halfway up the curb, the engine dying out on the empty street.
“Can you take it down a notch? Someone's gonna hear us.” Not that Link ever drove any differently. Still, we were parked only a few feet from
the building that served as the DAR headquarters. I noticed the roof had finally been rebuilt — it had blown off in Hurricane Lena, a few days before
her birthday. Though Jackson High had been hit by the same storm, I guess those repairs could wait. We had our priorities around here.
Almost everyone in South Carolina was related to a Confederate, so joining the Daughters of the Confederacy was easy. But to join the DAR,
you needed a bloodline going back to someone who fought in the war for American independence. The problem was the proof. Unless you were an
actual signer of the Declaration of Independence, you had to establish a paper trail a mile long. Even then you had to be invited, which required
sucking up to Link's mom and signing whatever petition she happened to be passing around. Maybe it was a bigger deal down here than up North,
like we needed to prove we had all fought for the same side in a war once. The Mortal part of our town was just as confusing as the Caster one.
Tonight the building looked empty.
“It's not like there's anyone around to hear us. Until the Demolition Derby ends, everyone we know is at the fairgrounds.” Link was right. Gatlin
may as well have been a ghost town. Most folks were still at the fair, or at home on the phone reporting the details of a certain Southern Crusty
bake-off that would go down in history for decades to come. I was pretty sure Mrs. Lincoln wouldn't have let any of the DAR members miss watching
her try to beat Amma out of first place in Pies. Although, right about now, I bet Link's mom was wishing she had stuck to pickled okra this year.
“Not everyone.” I was out of ideas and explanations, but I knew where we could get some of both.
“You sure this is a good idea? What if Marian's not here?” Link was jumpy. The sight of Ridley hanging out with some kind of mutant Incubus
wasn't bringing out the best in him. Not that he had anything to worry about. It was pretty clear who John Breed was after, and it wasn't Ridley.
I checked my cell. It was almost eleven. “It's a bank holiday in Gatlin. You know what that means. Marian should be in the Lunae Libri by now.”
That's how it worked around here. Marian was the Gatlin County Head Librarian from nine in the morning until six at night every weekday. But on
bank holidays, she was the Head Caster Librarian from nine at night until six in the morning. The Gatlin Library was closed, which meant the Caster
Library was open. And the Lunae Libri had a door leading into the Tunnels.
I slammed the door of the Beater as Link pulled a Maglite out of his glove box. “I know, I know. The Gatlin Library's closed and the Caster
Library's open all night long, on account a most a Marian's clients don't come around durin’ the day.” Link waved the flashlight across the building in
front of us. A brass placard read DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. “Still, if my mom or Mrs. Asher or Mrs. Snow found out what was in the
basement a their buildin’ …” He was holding the heavy metal flashlight like he was brandishing a weapon.
“You planning to take someone out with that thing?”
Link shrugged. “Never know what we're gonna find down there.”
I knew what he was thinking. Neither one of us had been back to the Lunae Libri since Lena's birthday. Our last visit had been more about
danger than dictionaries.
Danger and death. We did something wrong that night, and some of it had happened right here. If I had gotten to Ravenwood earlier, if I had
found The Book of Moons, if I could have helped Lena fight Sarafine — if we had done one thing differently, would Macon be alive right now?
We made our way around to the back of the old red brick building, in the moonlight. Link shined his flashlight on the grating near the ground,
and I crouched down next to it. “Ready, man?”
The light was shaking in his hand. “Whenever you are.”
I reached through the familiar grating built into the back of the building. My hand disappeared, as always, into the illusionary entrance of the
Lunae Libri. Nothing much in Gatlin was what it first appeared to be — at least not where Casters were concerned.
“I'm surprised that spell still works.” Link watched as I pulled my hand back out of the grate, as good as new.
“Lena told me it's not a hard one. Some kind of hiding spell Larkin Cast.”
“Ever wonder if it could be a trap?” The flashlight was shaking so badly, the light was barely shining on the grating.
“Only one way to find out.” I shut my eyes and stepped through. One minute I was standing in the overgrown bushes behind the DAR, and the
next I was inside the stone stairwell leading down into the heart of the Lunae Libri. I shivered when I crossed the Charmed threshold into the library,
but not because I felt anything supernatural. The shiver, the wrongness, came from not feeling anything different at all. Air was air on either side of
the grate, even if it was pitch-black. I didn't feel magical right now, not anywhere in Gatlin or beneath it. I felt bruised and angry but hopeful. I had
been convinced Lena had feelings for John. But if there was a possibility I was wrong — that John and Ridley were influencing her — it was worth
being on the wrong side of the grate again.
Link stumbled through the doorway after me and dropped his flashlight. It clattered down the stairwell in front of us, and we stood in the dark,
until the torches lining the steep passageway lit themselves one by one. “Sorry. That thing always throws me off.”
“Link, if you don't want to do this —” I couldn't see his face in the shadows.
It took a second before I heard his voice in the dark. “Of course I don't wanna do this, but I gotta do it. I mean, I'm not sayin’ Rid's the love a my
life. She's not. That would be crazy. But what if Lena was tellin’ the truth, and Rid wants to change? What if Vampire Boy is doin’ somethin’ to her,
too?” I doubted Ridley was under anyone's influence except her own. But I didn't say anything.
This wasn't just about Lena and me. Ridley was still under Link's skin, in a bad way. You don't want to fall in love with a Siren. Falling for a
Caster was rough enough.
I followed him down into the flickering, torch-lit darkness of the world beneath our town. We left Gatlin for the Caster world, a place where
anything could happen. I tried not to think back to a time when that was all I wanted.
Whenever I stepped through the stone archway bearing the carved words DOMUS LUNAE LIBRI, I was entering another world, a parallel universe. By
now, some parts of the world were familiar — the smell of the mossy stone, the musky scent of parchment dating back to the Civil War and beyond,
the smoke drifting up from the torches hovering near the carved ceilings. I could smell the damp walls, hear the occasional drip of underground
water making its way down to the patterns in the stone floor. But there were other parts that would never be familiar. The darkness at the edges of
the stacks, the sections of the library no Mortal had ever seen. I wondered how much my mother had seen.
We reached the base of the stairs.
“What now?” Link found his flashlight and aimed it at the column next to him. A menacing stone griffin's head snarled back. He pulled the
flashlight away, and it flickered on a fanged gargoyle. “If this is a library, I'd hate to see a Caster prison.”
I heard the sound of the flames erupting into light. “Wait for it.”
One by one, the torches surrounding the rotunda burst into flame, and we could see the carved colonnade, with rows of fierce mythological
creatures, some Caster, some Mortal, snaking around every pedestal.
Link cringed. “This place is messed up. Just sayin’.”
I touched a woman's face twisted into carved agony in stone flames. Link ran his hand over another face, revealing massive rows of canines.
“Check out the dog. It looks like Boo.” He looked again and realized the fangs were growing out of a man's head. He yanked his hand away.
There was a swirl of carved rock that appeared to be made of both stone and smoke. A face emerged from the twists and folds of the column,
and it looked familiar. It was hard to tell because there was so much rock around it. The face seemed to be fighting the stone, trying to push its way
out toward me. For a second, I thought I saw the lips on the face move, as if it was trying to speak.
I backed away. “What the hell is that?”
“What's what?” Link stood next to me, staring at the column, which was just a column swirled with curving waves and spirals again. The face had
been swallowed back into the pattern, like a head disappearing under the sea's waves. “The ocean, maybe? Smoke from a fire? Why do you
care?”
“Forget it.” I couldn't, even if I didn't understand it. I knew that face in the stone. I had seen it somewhere before. This room was eerie, warning
that the Caster world was a Dark place, no matter whose side you were on.
Another torch ignited, and the stacks of old books, manuscripts, and Caster Scrolls revealed themselves. They radiated out from the rotunda in
all directions, like spokes on a wheel, and disappeared into the darkness beyond. The last torch burst into flame, and I could see the curving
mahogany desk where Marian should have been sitting.
It was empty. Though Marian always said the Lunae Libri was a place of old magic, neither Dark nor Light, without her the whole library felt
pretty Dark.
“No one's here.” Link sounded defeated.
I grabbed a torch off the wall and handed it to him, taking another for myself. “They're down here.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
I plowed ahead into the stacks as if I knew where I was going. The air was thick with the smell of the bent and crumbling spines of old books
and ancient scrolls, the dusty oak shelves straining under the weight of hundreds of years and centuries of words. I held my torch up to the nearest
shelf. “Toes: to Caste Hair on Your Maiden's. Tongues for Binding and Casting. Toffee: Casts Hidden Inside. We must be in the T's.”
“Destruction of Mortal Life, Total. That should be in the D's.” Link reached for the book.
“Don't touch that. It'll burn your hand.” I had learned the hard way, from The Book of Moons.
“Shouldn't we at least hide it or something? Behind the Toffee one?” Link had a point.
We hadn't gone ten feet when I heard a laugh. A girl's laugh, unmistakable, echoing off the carved ceilings. “You hear that?”
“What?” Link waved his torch, almost setting the nearest pile of scrolls on fire.
“Watch it. There's no fire escape down here.”
We reached a crossroads in the stacks. I heard it again, the almost musical laughter. It was beautiful and familiar, and the sound of it made me
feel safe, the world I was standing in a little less foreign. “I think it's a girl laughing.”
“Maybe it's Marian. She's a girl.” I looked at him like he was insane, and he shrugged. “Sort of.”
“It's not Marian.” I motioned for him to listen, but the sound was gone. We walked in the direction of the laughter, and the passageway turned
until we reached another rotunda, similar to the first.
“You think it's Lena and Ridley?”
“I don't know. This way.” I could barely follow the sound, but I knew who it was. Part of me always suspected I could find Lena no matter where
she was. I couldn't explain it, I just knew.
It made sense. If our connection was so strong we could dream the same dreams and speak without speaking, why wouldn't I be able to sense
where she was? It's like when you drive home from school, or some place you go every day, and you remember leaving the parking lot, then the next
thing you know you're pulling into your driveway and you don't remember how you got there.
She was my destination. I was always on the way to Lena, even when I wasn't. Even when she wasn't on her way to me.
“A little farther.”
The next twist in the passage revealed a corridor covered with ivy. I held up my torch, and a brass lantern lit itself in the middle of the leaves.
“Look.” The light from the lantern illuminated the outline of a doorway hidden beneath the vines. I felt along the wall until I found the cold, round iron of
the latch. It was in the shape of a crescent. A Caster moon.
I heard it again, laughter. It had to be Lena. There are some things a guy just knows. I knew L. And I knew my heart wouldn't lead me astray.
My chest was pounding. I pushed open the door, heavy and groaning. It opened into a magnificent study. Along the far wall of the study, a girl
was lying on an enormous four-poster bed, scribbling in a tiny red notebook.
“L!”
She looked up, surprised.
Only it wasn't Lena.
It was Liv.

Categories: Beautiful Darkness

Beautiful Darkness - Chapter 14

Tunnel of Love
If it gets any hotter in here, people are goin’ to start droppin’ like flies. Flies are gonna start droppin’ like flies.” Link wiped his sweaty forehead with
his sweaty hand, which sprayed liquid Link on those of us lucky to be standing next to him.
“Thanks for that.” Liv wiped her face with one hand and pulled her damp shirt away from her body with the other. She looked miserable. The
Southern Crusty tent was packed, and the finalists were already standing on the makeshift wooden stage. I tried to see over the row of enormous
women in front of us, but it was like standing in the Jackson cafeteria line on cookie day.
“I can barely see the stage.” Liv stood on her toes. “Is something supposed to be happening? Did we miss it?”
“Hold on.” Link tried to edge between the smaller of the two enormous women in front of us. “Yeah, we can't get any closer. I give up.”
“There's Amma.” I pointed. “She's won first place almost every year.”
“Amma Treadeau,” Liv said.
“That's right. How did you know?”
“Professor Ashcroft must have mentioned her.”
Carlton Eaton's voice blared over the loudspeaker as he fussed with the portable mic. He always announced the winners because the only thing
he loved more than opening everyone's mail was the spotlight. “If y'all will bear with me, folks, we got some technical difficulties … hold on now …
can someone call Red? How am I supposed to know how to fix a darn microphone? Shoot, it's hotter than Hades in here.” He mopped his forehead
with his handkerchief. Carlton Eaton never managed to remember when the microphone was on.
Amma stood proudly to his right, in her best dress, with the tiny violets all over it, holding her prizewinning sweet potato pie. Mrs. Snow and Mrs.
Asher were next to her, holding their own creations. They were already dressed for the Mother-Daughter Peach Pageant that started right after
Pies. They were equally frightening in their respective aqua and pink pageant mother gowns, which made them look like aging prom dates from the
eighties. Thankfully, Mrs. Lincoln was not in the pageant, so she stood next to Mrs. Asher in one of her standard church dresses, holding her famous
chess pie. It was still hard to look at Link's mom without remembering the insanity of Lena's last birthday. You don't see your girlfriend's mother
stepping out of your best friend's mom's body too many nights of the year. When I saw Mrs. Lincoln now, that's what I thought of — the moment
Sarafine emerged like a snake shedding its skin. I shuddered.
Link elbowed me. “Dude, look at Savannah. She's got the crown on and everything. She sure knows how to milk it.”
Savannah, Emily, and Eden were sitting in the front row with the rest of the Peach Pageant contestants, sweating away in their tackiest pageant
evening wear. Savannah was in yards of glittery Gatlin peach, with her rhinestone Peach Princess crown balanced perfectly on her head, even
though the train of her dress kept snagging on the bottom of her cheap metal folding chair. Little Miss, the local dress shop, probably had to
special-order it for her all the way from Orlando.
Liv edged her way closer to me, eyeing the cultural phenomenon that was Savannah Snow. “Is she the queen of Southern Crusty, then?” Liv's
eyes twinkled, and I tried to imagine how strange this all must look to an outsider.
I almost smiled. “Just about.”
“I didn't realize baking was so important to Americans. Anthropologically speaking.”
“I don't know about other places, but in the South, women take their baking seriously. And this is the biggest pie-baking contest in Gatlin
County.”
“Ethan, over here!” Aunt Mercy was waving her handkerchief in one hand and carrying her infamous coconut pie in the other. Thelma was
walking behind her, shoving people aside with Aunt Mercy's wheelchair. Every year Aunt Mercy entered the contest, and every year she got an
honorable mention for her coconut pie, even though she'd forgotten how to make it about twenty years ago, and none of the judges were brave
enough to taste it.
Aunt Grace and Aunt Prue were arm in arm, dragging Aunt Prue's Yorkshire terrier, Harlon James, behind them.
“Well, fancy seein’ you here, Ethan. Did you come ta see Mercy win her ribbon?”
“Of course he did, Grace. What else would he be doin’ in a tent fulla old ladies?”
I wanted to introduce Liv, but the Sisters didn't give me a chance. They kept talking over one another. I should've known Aunt Prue would take
care of that for me. “Who's this, Ethan? Your new girlfriend?”
Aunt Mercy adjusted her spectacles. “What happened ta the other one? The Duchannes girl, with the dark hair?”
Aunt Prue looked at her suspiciously. “Well, Mercy, that's jus’ none a our concern. You shouldn't be askin’ anything about it. She mighta up and
left him.”
“Why would she do that? Ethan, you didn't ask that girl ta get nekkid, did ya?”
Aunt Prue gasped. “Mercy Lynne! If the Good Lord doesn't strike us all down on account a that talk …”
Liv looked dizzy. She obviously wasn't used to following the banter of three hundred-year-old women with thick Upcountry accents and fractured
grammar.
“Nobody tried — nobody left anyone. Everything is fine between Lena and me,” I lied. Even though they'd find out the truth the next time they
went to church, if their hearing aids were turned up high enough to hear the gossip. “This is Liv, Marian's summer research assistant. We work
together at the library. Liv, this is Aunt Grace, Aunt Mercy, and Aunt Prudence, my great-great-aunts.”
“Don't you be addin’ any extra greats in there.” Aunt Prue pulled herself up a little straighter.
“That's her name. Lena! It was on the tip a my tongue.” Aunt Mercy smiled at Liv.
Liv smiled back. “Of course. It's a pleasure to meet you all.”
Carlton Eaton tapped on the mic just in time. “All right, y'all, I think we can get started.”
“Girls, we need ta get up ta the front. They'll be callin’ my name in no time.” Aunt Mercy was already working her way through the aisles, rolling
forward like an army tank. “We'll see you in two shakes of a rabbit's tail, Sweet Meat.”
People filed into the tent from all three entrances, and Lacy Beecham and Elsie Wilks, the winners of Casseroles and Barbeque, took their
places next to the stage, holding their blue ribbons. Barbeque was a big category, even bigger than Chili, so Mrs. Wilks was about as puffed up as
I'd ever seen her.
I watched Amma's face, so proud, not glancing at one of those women even once. Then I watched it darken, and she looked off toward one side
of the tent.
Link ribbed me again. “Hey, lookit. I mean, you know, the Look.” We followed Amma's stinkeye to the far corner of the tent. When I saw who she
was looking at, I tensed.
Lena was slouching against one of the tent poles, eyes on the stage. I knew she couldn't have cared less about a pie-baking contest, unless
she was here to root for Amma. And from the looks of it, Amma didn't think that's why Lena was here.
Amma shook her head at Lena, ever so slightly.
Lena looked away.
Maybe she was looking for me, though I was probably the last person she wanted to see right now. So what was she doing here?
Link grabbed my arm. “It's — she's —”
Lena glanced across to the pole opposite her. Ridley leaned against the pole in a pink miniskirt, unwrapping a lollipop. Her eyes were fixed on
the stage, like she actually cared about who was going to win. I knew she didn't, because the only thing she cared about was causing trouble. Since
there were about two hundred people too many in the tent, this seemed about as good a place for trouble as any.
Carlton Eaton's voice echoed over the crowd. “Testin’, testin’. Can y'all hear me? All right, then, on to Cream Pies. We have ourselves a close
one this year, folks. Had myself the pleasure a tastin’ a few a these pies, and I'm here to tell you every single one a ’em's a winner in my O-pinion.
But I reckon we can only have one first-place winner here tonight, so let's see who it's gonna be.” Carlton fumbled with the first envelope, ripping the
paper loudly. “Here it is, folks, our third-place winner is … Tricia Asher's Creamsicle Pie.” Mrs. Asher scowled for a millisecond, then flashed her
phony smile.
I kept my eyes locked on Ridley. She had to be up to something. Ridley didn't give a crap about pie, or anything that happened in Gatlin. Ridley
turned and nodded toward the back of the tent. I looked behind me.
Caster Boy was watching with a smile. He was standing by the rear entrance, his eyes on the finalists. Ridley turned her attention back to the
stage and slowly, deliberately, began sucking on her lollipop. Never a good sign.
Lena!
Lena didn't even blink. Her hair began to twist in the stagnant air, blowing in what I knew was the Casting Breeze. I don't know if it was the heat
or the close quarters or the grim look on Amma's face, but I was starting to worry. What were Ridley and John up to, and why was Lena Casting
here? Whatever they were trying to do, Lena must be trying to counteract it.
Then I figured it out. Amma wasn't the only one dealing out the Look like a bad spread of cards. Ridley and John were staring down Amma, too.
Was Ridley stupid enough to mess with Amma? Was anyone?
Ridley held up the lollipop as if to answer.
“Uh-oh.” Link stared. “We should probably get outta here.”
“Why don't you take Liv to the Ferris Wheel?” I said, trying to catch Link's eye. “I think things are going to be pretty boring for a while.”
“Now we've reached the most excitin’ part a the judgin’,” said Carlton Eaton, as if on cue. “All right, y'all, this is it. Let's see which one a these
here ladies is gonna be takin’ home a second-place ribbon and five hundred dollars’ worth a brand new bakeware, or a first-place ribbon and
seven hundred fifty dollars, compliments a Southern Crusty. ’Cause if it ain't Southern Crusty, it ain't the South, and it ain't Crusty —” Carlton
Eaton never finished, because before he could say the words, something else came out —
Of the pies.
The pie tins began to move, and it took people a few seconds to realize what was happening, before they started screaming. Grubs and
maggots and palmetto bugs, Carolina cockroaches, started crawling out of the pies. It was as if all the hate and lies and hypocrisy of the whole town
— of Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Asher and Mrs. Snow, the principal of Jackson High, and the DAR and the PTA and every church auxiliary, all rolled into
one — had been baked into those pies, and now it was coming to life. Bugs were pouring out of every pie onstage, more bugs than the pie tins
could possibly hold.
Every pie except Amma's. She shook her head, her eyes narrowing into slits like some kind of challenge. Hordes of cream-covered grubs and
roaches hit the floor around the contestants’ feet. But the trail of scurrying insects diverged in a neatly forking path around Amma.
Mrs. Snow reacted first. She hurled her pie, sticky fruit-covered bugs rocketing into the air and landing all over the front row. Mrs. Lincoln and
Mrs. Asher followed suit, maggots raining down on the Peach Pageant contestants’ satin dresses. Savannah started screaming, not fake
screaming but real, bloodcurdling screams. Everywhere you looked, there were pie-covered worms and people trying not to puke at the sight of
them. Some were more successful than others. I saw Principal Harper doubled over a trash can by the exit, getting rid of a whole day's worth of
funnel cake. If Ridley was looking to stir up trouble, she had succeeded.
Liv looked ill. Link tried to push forward into the crowd, most likely to rescue his mom. He had been doing that a lot lately, and considering how
unrescuable his mother was, I had to give him credit.
Liv grabbed my arm as the crowd surged forward toward the exits.
“Liv, get out of here. Go out that way. Everyone's heading for the sides.” I pointed to the back exit of the tent. John Breed was still standing
there, smiling at his handiwork, his green eyes fixed on the stage. Green eyes or not, he wasn't one of the good guys.
Link was on the stage brushing worms and bugs off his mother, who was completely hysterical. I worked my way closer to the front.
“Somebody help me!” Mrs. Snow looked like someone in a horror movie, terrified and screaming, her dress alive with squirming bugs. Even I
didn't hate her enough to wish this on her.
I caught a glimpse of Ridley, sucking away on her lollipop, bringing bugs to life with every lick. I didn't know she could pull off something this big
by herself, but then again she had Caster Boy to help her.
Lena, what's happening?
Amma was still standing on the stage, looking like she could bring down the whole tent with a single look. Bugs and worms were crawling over
each other at her feet, but not one was brave enough to touch Amma. Even the bugs knew better. She was staring down at Lena, her eyes narrow
and her jaw tight, as she had been from the moment the first grub crawled its way out of Mrs. Lincoln's chess pie. “You fixin’ to make me do this
now?”
Lena stood at the edge of the tent, her hair still twisting in the Casting Breeze, the corners of her mouth upturned into the smallest shadow of a
smile. I recognized it for what it was. Satisfaction.
Now everyone knows what's really in their pies.
Lena hadn't been trying to stop them. She was part of it.
Lena! Stop!
But there was no stopping now. This was payback for the Guardian Angels and the Disciplinary Committee meeting, for every token casserole
left at the gates of Ravenwood and every pitying look, for every insincere sentiment offered by the folks of Gatlin. Lena was handing it right back as
if she'd saved every bit, storing it all up until it exploded in their faces. I guess this was her way of saying good-bye.
Amma spoke to Lena as if they were the only people in the tent. “Enough, child. You can't get what you want from these folks. Sorry from a sorry
town is nothin’ but a whole lot more a the same. A pie tin fulla nothin’.”
Aunt Prue's voice pierced the din. “Good Lord, help! Grace is havin’ a heart attack!” Aunt Grace was lying on the ground, unconscious. Grayson
Petty was kneeling over her, taking her pulse while Aunt Prue and Aunt Mercy batted palmetto bugs away from their sister.
“I said enough!” Amma roared from the stage, and as I ran for Aunt Grace, I could've sworn the tent was going to come down on top of us.
As I bent down to help, I saw Amma pull something out of her pocketbook and hold it high above her head. The One-Eyed Menace, our old
wooden spoon, in its full glory. Amma brought it down on the table in front of her with a crack.
“Oww!” Across the room, Ridley winced and the lollipop dropped right out of her hand, rolling across the dirt as if Amma had smashed it with
the Menace itself.
In that second, everything stopped.
I looked over to Lena, but she was gone. The spell, or whatever it was, was broken. The palmetto bugs scampered out of the tent, leaving only
the grubs and worms behind.
And me, leaning over Aunt Grace to make sure she was breathing.
Lena, what have you done?
Link followed me out of the tent, confused as usual. “I don't get it. Why would Lena help Ridley and Caster Boy pull a stunt like that? Someone
coulda really gotten hurt.”
I scanned the rides closest to us to see if there was any sign of Lena or Ridley. But I didn't see them, just the 4-H volunteers fanning old women
and handing out plastic cups of water to the victims of the pie-baking contest from hell.
“You mean, like my Aunt Grace?”
Link yanked on his shorts to make sure they were grub-free. “I thought she was a goner. Lucky she just fainted. Probably the heat.”
“Yeah. Lucky.” But I didn't feel lucky. I was too angry. I had to find Lena, even if she didn't want to be found. She was going to have to tell me why
she would terrorize everyone in that tent to get even with — who? A few aging beauty queens? Link's mom, who was just aging? It was something
Ridley would do, not Lena.
It was getting dark, and Link scanned the crowd through the flashing lights and hysterical church ladies. “Where'd Liv go? Wasn't she with you?”
“I don't know. I told her to go out the back when the bugfest started.”
Link cringed at the word bug. “Should we look for her?”
There was a group of people in line at the Fun House, so I headed that way. “I get the impression Liv knows how to take care of herself. I think
this is something we have to do on our own.”
“Right on.”
We turned the corner a few yards from the entrance to the Tunnel of Love. Ridley, Lena, and John were standing in front of the dingy plastic cars
painted to look like gondolas. Lena was standing in the middle, a leather jacket slung over her shoulders. Only she didn't have a leather jacket. John
did.
I called her name, without even thinking. “Lena!”
Leave me alone, Ethan.
No. What were you thinking?
I wasn't thinking. I was finally doing something.
Yeah. Something stupid.
Don't tell me you're on their side now.
I was walking fast. Link struggled to keep up with me. “You're gonna start a fight, aren't you? Man, I hope Caster Boy doesn't set us on fire or
turn us into statues or somethin’.” Link was usually up for a fight. Even though he was skinny, he was almost as tall as me, and twice as crazy. But
the prospect of fighting a Supernatural didn't have the same appeal. We'd been burned on that one before.
I wanted to let him off the hook. “I've got this. Go find Liv.”
“No way, dude. I've got your back.”
When we got to the gondolas, John stepped forward protectively, in front of the girls, as if we were the ones they needed to be protected from.
Ethan, get out of here.
I could hear the fear in her voice, but this time I was the one who didn't answer.
“Hey, Boyfriend, how's it goin’?” Ridley smiled and unwrapped a blue lollipop.
“Screw you, Ridley.”
She noticed Link behind me, and her smile changed. “Hiya, Hot Rod. You wanna take a ride through the Tunnel of Love?” Ridley tried to sound
playful, but she sounded nervous instead.
Link grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward him, almost like he really was her boyfriend. “What did you think you were doin’ back there?
You coulda gotten someone killed. Ethan's four-hundred-year-old aunt almost had a heart attack.”
Ridley snatched her arm back. “It was only a few bugs. Don't be so melodramatic. I think I liked you better when you were a little more
compliant.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
Lena stepped out from behind John. “What happened? Is your aunt okay?” She seemed like my Lena again, kind and concerned, but I didn't
trust her anymore. A few minutes ago, she was taking down the women she hated and everyone else in the tent with them, and now she was the girl
I kissed behind the ticket booth. It didn't add up.
“What were you doing back there? How could you help them?” I didn't realize how mad I was until I heard myself yelling. But John did.
He slammed his palm against my chest, and I stumbled back.
“Ethan!” Lena was scared, I could tell that much.
Stop! You don't know what you're doing.
Like you said. At least I'm finally doing something.
Do something else. Get out of here!
“You can't talk to her like that. Why don't you leave before you get hurt.” What had I missed? Lena had walked away from me barely an hour ago,
and now John Breed was defending her like she was already his girlfriend?
“Yeah? You should be careful who you push around, Caster Boy.”
“Caster Boy?” He took a step closer to me, curling his hands into fists. Big fists. “Don't call me that.”
“What should I call you? Dirtbag?” I wanted him to hit me.
He lunged at me, but I threw the first punch. I'm stupid that way. I released all the frustration and anger I'd been holding inside the second my soft
human fist made contact with his steel supernatural jaw. It was like hitting cement.
John blinked, his green eyes turning as black as coal. He hadn't felt a thing. “I'm not a Caster.”
I had been in my share of fights, but none of them could have prepared me for what it felt like to be hit by John Breed. I remembered watching
Macon and his brother Hunting fighting, their incredible strength and speed. John barely moved, and my back hit the ground. I thought I was going to
pass out.
“Ethan! John, stop!” Lena was screaming, black makeup running down her face.
I heard John slam Link into the dirt. To his credit, Link got up faster than I did. Only he was back down again faster, too. I picked myself up off
the ground. I wasn't that banged up, but I was going to have a hard time hiding the bruises from Amma.
“That's enough, John.” Ridley tried to sound cool, but her voice had an edge and she looked scared — as scared as Ridley could look. She
grabbed John's arm. “Let's go. We've got somewhere to be.”
Link looked her right in the eye, which took some effort, considering he was lying in the dirt. “Don't do me any favors, Rid. I can take care of
myself.”
“I can see that. You're a real Golden Glove.” Link winced at the dig, or maybe it was the pain.
Either way, he wasn't used to being the one on the ground in a fight. He pushed himself to his feet and held up his fists, ready to go again.
“They're the fists a fury, Baby, and they're just gettin’ started.”
Ridley stepped between John and Link. “No. They're finished.”
Link dropped his hands, kicking the dust. “Yeah, well, I could take him if he wasn't a — what the hell are you, man?”
I didn't give John a chance to answer, because I was pretty sure I already knew. “He's some kind of Incubus.” I looked at Lena. She was still
crying, her arms hugging her waist, but I didn't try to talk to her. I wasn't even sure who she was anymore.
“You think I'm an Incubus? A Demon Soldier?” John laughed.
Ridley rolled her eyes. “Don't be such a show-off. No one calls Incubuses Demon Soldiers anymore.”
John cracked his knuckles. “I'm old school.”
Link looked confused. “I thought all you vampire dudes had to stay inside durin’ the day.”
“And I thought all you hillbillies drove Trans Ams with Confederate flags painted on the hoods.” John laughed, but it wasn't funny. Ridley stayed
between them.
“What does it matter to you, Shrinky Dink? John's not really a rules kinda guy. He's sort of … unique. I like to think of him as the best of both
worlds.” I had no idea what Ridley was talking about. But whatever John Breed was, she wasn't saying.
“Yeah? I like to think about him as crawlin’ back to his own world and stayin’ outta ours.” Link talked tough, but when John looked at him, all the
color drained out of Link's face.
Ridley turned to John. “Let's go.” They turned back to the Tunnel of Love, the cars still making the loop under the old wooden arch painted to
look like some bridge in Venice. Lena hesitated.
“Lena, don't go with them.”
She stood there for a second, like she was thinking about running back into my arms. But something was stopping her. John whispered to her,
and she climbed into the plastic gondola. I looked at the only girl I'd ever loved. Black hair and golden eyes, instead of green.
I couldn't pretend the gold didn't mean anything, not anymore.
I watched the car disappear, leaving Link and me behind. As banged up and bruised as the day we had taken on Emory and his brother on the
playground in fifth grade.
“Come on. Let's get outta here.” Link was already walking away. It was dark now, and the lights from the Ferris Wheel flashed as it turned.
“Why'd you think he was an Incubus?” Link was taking comfort in the fact he had gotten his ass kicked by a Demon, not some regular guy.
“His eyes went black, and it felt like I was hit by a two-by-four.”
“Yeah, but he was walkin’ around durin’ the day. And he's got those green eyes, like Lena's …” He stopped, but I knew what he was about to
say.
“Used to be? I know. It doesn't make sense.” Nothing about tonight did. I couldn't shake the way Lena had looked at me. For a second, I was
sure she wasn't going to follow them. I was thinking about Lena, but Link was still talking about John.
“And what was all that crap about the best a both worlds? What worlds? Creep and creepier?”
“I don't know. I was sure he was an Incubus.”
Link rotated his shoulder, assessing the damage. “Whatever he is, that dude's got some serious superpowers. I wonder what else he can do.”
We turned the corner, near the exit of the Tunnel of Love. I stopped walking. The best of both worlds. What if John could do a lot more than rip
like an Incubus and beat the two of us to a pulp? He had green eyes. What if he was some kind of Caster, with his own version of Ridley's Power of
Persuasion? I didn't think Ridley could influence Lena by herself, but what if John was helping her?
It would explain why Lena was acting so crazy — why she'd looked like she wanted to come with me, until John whispered in her ear. How long
had he been whispering to her?
Link hit my arm with the back of his hand. “Hey. You know what's weird?”
“What?”
“They haven't come out.”
“What do you mean?”
He pointed to the exit of the Tunnel of Love. “They didn't get off the ride.” Link was right. There was no way they could have come out before we
turned the corner. We watched as the gondolas kept coming out empty.
“Then where are they?”
Link shook his head, all tapped out of insight for now. “I don't know. Maybe the three of them are doin’ somethin’ kinky in there.” We both
winced. “Let's check it out. There's no one around.” Link was already halfway to the exit.
He was right. The cars kept coming out empty. Link hopped over the gate around the ride and ducked into the tunnel. Inside, there was a little
space on either side of the track, but it was tricky to walk by the moving cars without getting hit.
One of the cars caught Link in the shin. “There's no one in here. Where could they have gone?”
“They couldn't have disappeared.” I remembered the way John Breed ripped out of Macon's funeral. Maybe he could, but Ridley and Lena
couldn't Travel.
Link ran his hands along the walls. “You think there's some kinda secret Caster door in here, or somethin’?”
The only Caster doors I knew about led to the Tunnels, the underground labyrinth of passageways that slept quietly under Gatlin and the rest of
the Mortal world. It was a world within a world, so different from ours that it altered both time and distance. But, as far as I knew, all the entrances to
the Tunnels were inside buildings — Ravenwood, the Lunae Libri, the crypt at Greenbrier. A few sheets of painted plywood didn't qualify as a
building, and there was nothing under the Tunnel of Love except dirt. “A door leading where? This thing is sitting in the middle of the fair. They just
set it up a couple of days ago.”
Link inched his way back out of the tunnel. “Where else could they have gone?”
If John and Ridley were using their powers to control Lena, I had to find out. It wouldn't explain away the last few months or her golden eyes, but
maybe it would explain what she was doing with John. “I've gotta get down there.”
Link had already pulled the keys out of his back pocket. “How'd I know you were gonna say that?”
He followed me to the Beater, the gravel crunching under his sneakers as he jogged to keep up. He yanked the rusty door open and slid behind
the wheel. “Where are we goin’? Or am I better off —” He was still talking when I heard it, the tiny words tugging at the bottom of my heart.
Good-bye, Ethan.
They were gone, the voice and the girl. Like a soap bubble, or cotton candy, or the last silvery sliver of a dream.

Categories: Beautiful Darkness

Beautiful Darkness - Chapter 12

Beneath the Paper
All of those?” There were three stacks of brown paper packages on the checkout desk. Marian marked the last one with the familiar GATLIN COUNTY
LIBRARY stamp, always twice and always tied with the same white string.
“No, take that pile, too.” She pointed to a second pile, on the nearest trolley.
“I thought nobody in this town reads.”
“Oh, they read. They just don't own up to what they read, which is why we make not only library-to-library deliveries but library-to-home ones as
well. Circulating books only. Allowing two to three days for the processing of requests, of course.”
Great. I was afraid to ask what was in these brown paper packages, and I was pretty sure I didn't want to know. I picked up a stack of books
and groaned. “What are these, encyclopedias?”
Liv pulled the receipt from the top bundle. “Yes. The Encyclopedia of Ammunition, actually.”
Marian waved us out the door. “Go with Ethan, Liv. You haven't had an opportunity to see our beautiful little town yet.”
“I can handle it.”
Liv sighed and pushed the trolley toward the door. “Come on, Hercules. I'll help you load up. Can't keep the ladies of Gatlin waiting on their …”
She consulted another receipt. “… Carolin-er Cake Doctor Cookbook, now can we?”
“Carolina,” I said, automatically.
“That's what I said. Carolin-er.”
Two hours later, we had delivered most of the books and driven by both Jackson High and the Stop & Steal. As we circled the General's Green, I
realized why Marian had been so eager to hire me at a library that was always empty and didn't need summer employees. She had planned for me
to be Liv's teenage tour guide all along. It was my job to show her the lake and the Dar-ee Keen and fill in the gaps between what folks around here
said and what they meant. My job was to be her friend.
I wondered how Lena was going to feel about that. If she noticed.
“I still don't understand why there's a statue of a general from a war the South didn't win, and one which was generally embarrassing for your
country, in the middle of town.” Of course she didn't.
“Folks honor the fallen around here. There's a whole museum dedicated to them.” I didn't mention the Fallen Soldiers was also the scene of my
dad's Ridley-induced suicide attempt a few months ago.
I looked over at Liv from behind the wheel of the Volvo. I couldn't remember the last time there had been any girl except Lena in the passenger's
seat.
“You're a terrible tour guide.”
“This is Gatlin. There isn't all that much to see.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. “Or just not that much I want you to see.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“A good tour guide knows what to show and what to hide.”
“I stand corrected. You're a terribly misguided tour guide.” She pulled a rubber band out of her pocket.
“So I'm more of a mis-guide?” It was a stupid joke, my trademark.
“And I take issue with both your punning and your tour-guiding philosophy, generally speaking.” She was working her blond hair into two braids,
her cheeks pink from the heat. She wasn't used to the South Carolina humidity.
“What do you want to see? You want me to take you to shoot cans behind the old cotton mill off Route 9? Flatten pennies on the train tracks?
Follow the trail of flies into the eat-at-your-own-risk grease pit we call the Dar-ee Keen?”
“Yes. All of the above, particularly the last bit. I'm starving.”
Liv dropped the last library receipt into one of two piles. “… seven, eight, nine. Which means I win, you lose, and get your hands off those chips.
They belong to me now.” She pulled my chili fries over to her side of the red plastic table.
“You mean fries.”
“I mean business.” Her side of the table was already covered with onion rings, a cheeseburger, ketchup, mayonnaise, and my sweet tea. I knew
whose side was whose because she had made a line between us, laying french fries end to end, like the Great Wall of China.
“‘Good fences make good neighbors.’ ”
I remembered the poem from English class. “Walt Whitman.”
She shook her head. “Robert Frost. Now keep your hands off my onion rings.”
I should've known that one. How many times had Lena quoted Frost's poems or twisted them into one of her own?
We had stopped for lunch at the Dar-ee Keen, which was down the road from the last two deliveries we'd made — Mrs. Ipswich (Guide to
Colon Cleanliness) and Mr. Harlow (Classic Pinups of World War II), which we had given to his wife because he wasn't home. For the first time, I
understood the reason for the brown paper.
“I can't believe it.” I wadded up my napkin. “Who would have figured Gatlin was so romantic?” I had bet on church books. Liv had bet on
romance novels. I lost, eight to nine.
“Not only romantic, but romantic and righteous. It's a wonderful combination, so —”
“Hypocritical?”
“Not at all. I was going to say American. Did you notice we delivered It Takes a Bible and Divinely Delicious Delilah to the very same house?”
“I thought that was a cookbook.”
“Not unless Delilah's cooking up something quite a bit hotter than these chili chips.” She waved a fry in the air.
“Fries.”
“Exactly.”
I turned bright red, thinking about how flustered Mrs. Lincoln had looked when we dropped those books off at her door. I didn't point out to Liv
that Delilah's devotee was the mother of my best friend, and the most ruthlessly righteous woman in town.
“So, you like the Dar-ee Keen?” I changed the subject.
“I'm mad about it.” Liv took a bite of her cheeseburger, big enough to put Link to shame. I'd already seen her wolf down more than the average
varsity basketball player at lunch. She didn't seem to care what I thought about her one way or another, which was a relief. Especially since
everything I did around Lena lately was wrong.
“So what would we find in your brown paper package? Church books, romance novels, or both?”
“I don't know.” I had more secrets than I knew what to do with, but I wasn't about to share any of them.
“Come on. Everyone has secrets.”
“Not everyone,” I lied.
“There's nothing at all beneath your paper?”
“Nope. Just more paper, I guess.” In a way, I wished it was true.
“So you're rather like an onion?”
“More like a regular old potato.”
She picked up a fry and examined it. “Ethan Wate is no regular old potato. You, sir, are a french fry.” She popped it into her mouth, smiling.
I laughed and conceded. “Fine. I'm a french fry. But no brown paper, nothing to tell.”
Liv stirred her sweet tea with her straw. “That confirms it. You are definitely on the waiting list for Divinely Delicious Delilah.”
“You caught me.”
“I can't promise anything, but I will tell you that I know the librarian. Rather well, it turns out.”
“So you'll hook me up?”
“I will hook you up, dude.” Liv started laughing, and I did, too. She was easy to be around, like I'd known her forever. I was having fun, which, by
the time we stopped laughing, turned into feeling guilty. Explain that to me.
She returned to her fries. “I find all the secrecy sort of romantic, don't you?” I didn't know how to answer that, considering how deep the secrets
went around here.
“In my town, the pub is on the same street as the church, and the congregation moves directly from one to the other. Sometimes we even eat
Sunday dinner there.”
I smiled. “Is it divinely delicious?”
“Nearly. Maybe not quite so hot. But the drinks are not quite so cold.” She pointed at her sweet tea with a fry. “Ice, my friend, is something you
find on the ground more often than in your glass.”
“You have a problem with Gatlin County's famous sweet tea?”
“Tea is meant to be hot, sir. From a kettle.”
I stole a fry and pointed it back at her sweet tea. “Well, ma'am, to a strict Southern Baptist, that is the Devil's drink.”
“You mean because it's cold?”
“I mean because it's tea. No caffeine allowed.”
Liv looked shocked. “No tea? I'll never understand this country.”
I stole another fry. “You want to talk about blasphemy? You weren't there when Millie's Breakfast ’n’ Biscuits over on Main started serving
premade freezer biscuits. My great-aunts, the Sisters, pitched a fit that nearly took down the place. I mean, chairs were flying.”
“Are they nuns?” Liv stuck an onion ring inside her cheeseburger.
“Who?”
“The Sisters.” Another onion ring.
“No. They're actual sisters.”
“I see.” She slapped the bun back down.
“You don't, not really.”
She picked up the burger and took a bite. “Not at all.” We both started laughing again. I didn't hear Mr. Gentry walk up behind us.
“Y'all get enough to eat?” he asked, wiping his hands with a rag.
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“How's that girlfriend a yours?” He asked as if he was hoping I had come to my senses and dumped Lena by now.
“Um, fine, sir.”
He nodded, disappointed, and walked back toward the counter. “Say hello to Miss Amma for me.”
“I take it he doesn't like your girlfriend?” She said it like a question, but I didn't know what to say. Was a girl still technically your girlfriend if she
drove off with another guy? “I think Professor Ashcroft may have mentioned her.”
“Lena. My — her name is Lena.” I hoped I didn't look as uncomfortable as I felt. Liv didn't seem to notice.
She took another sip of her tea. “I'll probably meet her at the library.”
“I don't know if she'll be coming by the library. Things have been weird lately.” I don't know why I said it. I barely knew Liv. But it felt good to say it
out loud, and my insides untwisted a little.
“I'm sure you'll work it out. Back home, I fought with my boyfriend all the time.” Her voice was light. She was trying to make me feel better.
“How long have you guys been together?”
Liv waved her hand in the air, the weird watch sliding down her wrist. “Oh, we broke up. He was a bit of a prat. I don't think he liked having a
girlfriend who was smarter than he was.”
I wanted to get off the subject of girlfriends, and ex-girlfriends. “So what's that thing, anyway?” I nodded at the watch, or whatever it was.
“This?” She held her wrist over the table so I could see the clunky black watch. It had three dials and a little silver needle that rested on a
rectangle with zigzags all over it, sort of like one of those machines that track the strength of earthquakes. “It's a selenometer.”
I looked at her blankly.
“Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon. Metron, or ‘measure’ in Greek.” She smiled. “A little rusty on your Greek etymology?”
“A little.”
“It measures the moon's gravitational pull.” She turned one of the dials, thoughtfully. Numbers appeared under the pointer.
“Why do you care about the moon's gravitational pull?”
“I'm an amateur astronomer. I'm interested in the moon, mostly. It has a tremendous impact on the Earth. You know, the tides and everything.
That's why I made this.”
I almost spit out my Coke. “You made it? Seriously?”
“Don't be so impressed. It wasn't that difficult.” Liv's cheeks flushed again. I was embarrassing her. She reached for another fry. “These chips
really are brilliant.”
I tried to imagine Liv sitting in the English version of the Dar-ee Keen, measuring the gravitational pull of the moon over a mountain of fries. It
was better than picturing Lena on the back of John Breed's Harley. “So let's hear about your Gatlin. The one where they call fries by the wrong
name.” I had never been any farther than Savannah. I couldn't imagine what life would be like in another country.
“My Gatlin?” The pink spots on her cheeks faded.
“Where you're from.”
“I'm from a town north of London, called Kings Langley.”
“What?”
“In Hertfordshire.”
“Doesn't ring a bell.”
She took another bite of her burger. “Maybe this will help. It's where they invented Ovaltine. You know, the drink?” She sighed. “You stir it in milk,
and it makes the milk into a chocolate malted?”
My eyes widened. “You mean chocolate milk? Kind of like Nesquik?”
“Exactly. It's amazing stuff, really. You should try it sometime.”
I laughed into my Coke, which spilled on my faded Atari T-shirt. Ovaltine girl meets Quik boy. I wanted to tell Link, but he would get the wrong
idea.Even though it had only been a few hours, I had the feeling she was a friend.
“What do you do when you're not drinking Ovaltine and making scientific devices, Olivia Durand of Kings Langley?”
She crumpled the paper from her cheeseburger. “Let's see. Mostly I read books and go to school. I study at a place called Harrow. Not the
boys’ school.”
“Is it?”
“What?” She scrunched up her nose.
“Harrowing?” H. A. R. R. O. W. I. N. G. Nine across, as in, gettin’ on in years and can't take much more a these harrowin’ times, Ethan Wate.
“You can't resist a terrible pun, can you?” Liv smiled.
“And you didn't answer the question.”
“No. Not especially harrowing. Not for me.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, I'm a genius.” She was matter-of-fact, as if she'd just said she was blond, or British.
“So why did you come to Gatlin? We're not exactly a genius magnet.”
“Well, I'm part of the AGE, Academically Gifted Exchange, between Duke University and my school. Will you pass the mayo-nnaise?”
“Mann-aise.” I tried to say it slowly.
“That's what I said.”
“Why would Duke bother to send you to Gatlin? So you could take classes at Summerville Community College?”
“No, silly. So I could study with my thesis adviser, the renowned Dr. Marian Ashcroft, truly the only one of her kind.”
“What is your thesis about?”
“Folklore and mythology, as it relates to community building after the American Civil War.”
“Around here most people still call it the War Between the States,” I said.
She laughed, delighted. I was glad someone thought it was funny. To me, it was just embarrassing. “Is it true people in the South sometimes
dress up in old Civil War costumes and fight all the battles over again, for fun?”
I stood up. It was one thing for me to say it, but I didn't want to hear it from Liv, too. “I think it's time to get going. We've got more books to
deliver.”
Liv nodded, grabbing her fries. “We can't leave these. We should save them for Lucille.”
I didn't mention that Lucille was used to Amma feeding her fried chicken and plates of leftover casserole on her own china plate, as the Sisters
had instructed. I couldn't see Lucille eating greasy fries. Lucille was partic-u-lar, as the Sisters would say. She liked Lena, though.
As we headed for the door, a car caught my eye through the grease-coated windows. The Fastback was making a three-point turn at the end of
the gravel parking lot. Lena made a point of not driving past us.
Great.
I stood and watched the car skid onto Dove Street.
That night, I lay in my bed and stared up at the blue ceiling, my hands folded behind my head. A few months ago, this would've been when Lena and
I went to bed in our separate rooms together — reading, laughing, talking through our days. I had nearly forgotten how to fall asleep without her.
I rolled over and checked my old, cracked cell. It hadn't really been working since Lena's birthday, but still, it would ring when someone called
me. If someone had.
Not like she'd use the phone.
Right then, I was back to being the same seven-year-old who had dumped every puzzle in my room into one giant, miserable mess. When I was
a kid, my mom sat on the floor and helped me turn the mess into a picture. But I wasn't a kid anymore, and my mom was gone. I turned the pieces
over and over in my mind, but I couldn't seem to get them sorted out. The girl I was madly in love with was still the girl I was madly in love with. That
hadn't changed. Only now the girl I was madly in love with was keeping secrets from me and barely speaking to me.
Then there were the visions.
Abraham Ravenwood, a Blood Incubus who had killed his own brother, knew my name and could see me. I had to figure out how the pieces fit
together until I could see something — some kind of pattern. I couldn't get the puzzle back into the box. It was too late for that. I wished someone
could tell me where to put even one piece. Without thinking, I got up and pushed open my bedroom window.
I leaned out and breathed in the darkness, when I heard Lucille's distinctive meow. Amma must have forgotten to let her back inside. I was
about to call out to tell her I was coming, when I noticed them. Under my window, at the edge of the porch, Lucille Ball and Boo Radley sat side by
side in the moonlight.
Boo thumped his tail, and Lucille meowed in response. They sat like that at the top of the porch steps, thumping and meowing, as if they were
carrying on as civilized a conversation as any two townsfolk on a summer night. I don't know what they were gossiping about, but it must have been
big news. As I lay in bed listening to the quiet conversation of Macon's dog and the Sisters’ cat, I drifted off before they did.

Categories: Beautiful Darkness

Beautiful Darkness - Chapter 13

Southern Crusty
Don't you lay a finger on a single one a my pies until I ask you to, Ethan Wate.”
I backed away from Amma, hands in the air. “Just trying to help.”
She glared at me while she wrapped a sweet potato pie, a two-time winner, in a clean dish towel. The sour cream and raisin pie sat on the
kitchen table next to the buttermilk pie, ready for the icebox. The fruit pies were still cooling on the racks, and a dusting of white flour coated every
surface in the kitchen.
“Only two days into summer and you're already under my feet? You'll wish you were over at the high school takin’ summer classes if you drop
one a my prizewinnin’ pies. You want to help? Stop mopin’ and go pull the car around.”
Tempers were running about as high as temperatures, and we didn't say much as we bumped our way out toward the highway in the Volvo. I wasn't
talking, but I can't say anybody noticed. Today was the single biggest day of Amma's year. She had won first place in Baked and Fried Fruit Pies
and second place in Cream Pies every year at the Gatlin County Fair for as long as I could remember. The only year she didn't get a ribbon was
last year, when we didn't go because it was only two months after my mom's accident. Gatlin couldn't boast the biggest or the oldest fair in the state.
The Hampton County Watermelon Festival had us beat by maybe two miles and twenty years, and the prestige of winning the Gatlin Peach Prince
and Princess Promenade could hardly compare to the honor of placing in Hampton's Melon Miss and Master Pageant.
But as we pulled into the dusty parking lot, Amma's poker face didn't fool my dad or me. Today was all about pageants and pies, and if you
weren't balancing a pie wrapped as snugly as someone's firstborn, you were pushing a kid in curlers holding a baton toward the pavilion.
Savannah's mom was Gatlin's Peach Pageant organizer, and Savannah was the defending Peach Princess. Mrs. Snow would be overseeing
pageants all day. There was no such thing as too young for a crown in our county. The fair's Best Babies event, where rosy cheeks and diaper
dispositions were compared like competing cobblers, drew more spectators than the Demolition Derby did. Last year, the Skipetts’ baby was
disqualified for cheating when her rosy cheeks came off on the judges’ hands. The county fair had strict guidelines — no formal wear until two years
old, no makeup until six years old, and then only “age-appropriate makeup” until twelve.
Back when my mom was around, she was always ready to take on Mrs. Snow, and the Peach Pageants were one of her favorite targets. I could
still hear her saying, “Age-appropriate makeup? Who are you people? What makeup is age-appropriate for a seven-year-old?” But even my family
never missed a county fair, except last year. Now here we were again, carrying pies through the crowds and into the fairgrounds, same as ever.
“Don't jostle me, Mitchell. Ethan Wate, keep up. I'm not gonna let Martha Lincoln or any a those women beat me out a that ribbon on account a
you two boys.” In Amma's shorthand, those women were always the same women — Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Asher, Mrs. Snow, and the rest of the DAR.
By the time my hand was stamped, it looked like three or four counties had already beaten us there. Nobody missed the opening day at the fair,
which meant a trip to the fairgrounds halfway between Gatlin and Peaksville. And a trip to the fairgrounds meant a disastrous amount of funnel
cake, a day so hot and sticky you could pass out just from standing, and if you were lucky, some making out behind the Future Farmers of America
poultry barns. My shot at anything but heat and funnel cake wasn't looking too good this year.
My dad and I dutifully followed Amma to the judging tables under an enormous Southern Crusty banner. Pies had a different sponsor every year,
and when it couldn't be Pillsbury or Sara Lee, you ended up with Southern Crusty. Pageants were crowd-pleasers, but Pies was the granddaddy of
them all. The same families had been making the same recipes for generations, and every ribbon won was the pride of one great Southern house
and the shame of another. Word had it that a few women from town had their sights set on keeping Amma from winning first place this year.
Judging by the muttering I'd heard in the kitchen all week long, that would happen when hell froze over and those women were skating on it.
By the time we had unloaded her precious cargo, Amma was already harassing the judges about table placement. “You can't put a vinegar after
a cherry, and you can't put a rhubarb between my creams. It'll take the taste right out a them, unless that's what you boys are lookin’ to do.”
“Here it comes,” said my dad, under his breath. As the words came out of his mouth, Amma gave the judges the Look, and they squirmed in
their folding chairs.
My dad glanced over at the exit, and we slunk outside before Amma had a chance to put us to work terrorizing innocent volunteers and
intimidating judges. The moment we hit the crowds, we instinctively turned in opposite directions.
“You going to walk around the fair with that cat?” My dad looked down at Lucille sitting in the dirt next to me.
“Guess so.”
He laughed. I still wasn't used to hearing it again. “Well, don't get into trouble.”
“Never do.”
My dad nodded at me, like he was the dad and I was the son. I nodded back, trying not to think about the last year, when I was the grown-up and
he was out of his mind. He walked his way, I walked mine, and we both disappeared into the hot and sweaty masses.
The fair was packed, and it took me a while to track down Link. But true to form, he was hanging out by the games, trying to flirt with any girl who
would look at him, today being a prime opportunity to meet a few who weren't from Gatlin. He was standing in front of one of those scales you hit
with a giant rubber mallet to prove how strong you are, the mallet resting on his shoulder. He was in full drummer mode, in his faded Social
Distortion T-shirt, with his drumsticks stuck in the back pocket of his jeans, and his wallet chain hanging below the sticks.
“Lemme show ya how it's done, ladies. Stand back. You don't wanna get hurt.”
The girls giggled as Link gave it his best shot. The little meter climbed up, measuring Link's strength and his chances of hooking up at the same
time. It passed a REAL WUSS and WIMPY and headed toward the bell at the top, a real stud. But it didn't quite make it, stopping about halfway, at CHICKEN
LITTLE. The girls rolled their eyes and headed for the Ring Toss.
“This thing's rigged. Everyone knows that,” Link shouted after them, dropping the mallet in the dirt. He was probably right, but it didn't matter.
Everything in Gatlin was rigged. Why would the carnival games be any different?
“Hey, you got any money?” Link pretended to dig around in his pockets, like he might actually have more than a dime.
I handed him a five, shaking my head. “You need a job, man.”
“I've got a job. I'm a drummer.”
“That's not a job. It's not called a job unless you get paid.”
Link scanned the crowd, looking for girls or funnel cake. It was hard to tell which, since he responded equally to both. “We're tryin’ to line up a
gig.”
“Are the Holy Rollers playing at the fair?”
“This lame scene? Nah.” He kicked the ground.
“They wouldn't book you?”
“They said we sucked. But people thought Led Zeppelin sucked, too.”
As we walked through the fair, it was hard not to notice that the rides seemed to get a little smaller and the games a little shabbier every year. A
pathetic-looking clown dragged a cluster of balloons past us.
Link stopped, hitting me on the arm. “Check it out. Six o'clock. Third Degree Burns.” As far as Link was concerned, a girl couldn't get hotter than
that.
He was pointing at a blond who was headed in our direction, smiling. It was Liv.
“Link —” I tried to tell him, but he was on a mission.
“As my mom would say, the Good Lord has good taste, hallelujah amen.”
“Ethan!” She waved at us.
Link looked at me. “Are you kiddin’ me? You've already got Lena. That's just wrong.”
“I don't have Liv, and these days I don't even know if I have Lena. Be cool.” I smiled at Liv, until I noticed she was wearing a faded Led Zeppelin
T-shirt.
Link saw it at the same time I did. “The perfect girl.”
“Hey, Liv. This is Link.” I elbowed him, hoping he'd close his mouth. “Liv is Marian's summer research assistant. She works with me at the
library.” Liv held out her hand.
Link stood there gawking. “Wow.” The thing about Link was, he never embarrassed himself, just me.
“She's an exchange student from England.”
“Holy wow.”
I looked at Liv and shrugged. “I told you.”
Link broke out his biggest smile for Liv. “Ethan didn't tell me he was workin’ with a hot babe a cosmic proportions.”
Liv looked at me, pretending to be surprised. “You didn't? I find that rather tragic.” She laughed and linked her arms through ours. “Come on,
boys. Explain to me exactly how it is you make this strange cotton into candy.”
“I can't give away national secrets, ma'am.”
“I can.” Link squeezed her arm with his.
“Tell me everything.”
“Tunnel of Love or the Kissing Booth?” Link grinned even wider.
Liv tilted her head. “Hmm. That's a tough one. I'm going to go with … the Ferris Wheel.”
That's when I caught sight of the familiar black hair and the scent of lemons and rosemary in the breeze.
Nothing else was familiar. Lena was a few yards away, standing behind the ticket booth in what had to be Ridley's clothes. Her black tank rode
up on her stomach, and her black skirt was about five inches too short. There was a long streak of blue in her hair, twisting down from where it
parted around her face, and down her back. But that wasn't what shocked me most. Lena, the girl who never put anything on her face but sunscreen,
was covered in makeup. Some guys liked girls with crap all over their faces, but I wasn't one of them. Lena's black-rimmed eyes were especially
disturbing.
Surrounded by cutoff denim and dust and straw and sweat and red and white plastic checkered tablecloths, she looked even more out of place.
Her old boots were the only thing I recognized. And her charm necklace, dangling like a lifeline back to the real Lena. She wasn't the kind of girl who
wore stuff like that. At least, she didn't used to be.
The lowlifes were checking her out, three guys deep. I had to resist the urge to punch all of them in the face.
I dropped Liv's arm. “I'll meet you guys over there.”
Link couldn't believe his luck. “No problem, man.”
“We can wait,” Liv offered.
“Don't worry about it. I'll catch up with you.” I hadn't expected to see Lena here, and I didn't know what to say without sounding even more
whipped than Link already thought I was. As if there's something you can say to sound cool after your girlfriend takes off with another guy.
“Ethan, I've been looking for you.” Lena walked toward me, and she sounded like herself, her old self — the Lena I remembered from a few
months ago. The one I was desperately in love with, the one who loved me back. Even if she looked like Ridley. She stood on her tiptoes to push
my hair out of my face, her fingers dragging slowly down my jawline.
“That's funny, because the last time I saw you, you were ditching me.” I tried to sound casual, but I just sounded angry.
“I wasn't ditching you, exactly.” She was defensive.
“No, you were throwing trees at me and jumping on the back of a bike with some other guy.”
“I wasn't throwing trees.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
She shrugged. “More like branches.”
But I could tell I had gotten to her. She twisted the tiny paper-clip star I had given her, until I thought it was going to snap off of her necklace. “I'm
sorry, Ethan. I don't know what's going on with me.” Her voice was soft, honest. “Sometimes I feel like everything is closing in, and I can't take it. I
wasn't ditching you at the lake. I was ditching me.”
“You sure about that?”
She looked back up at me, a tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away, her fingers balled in frustration. She opened her fist and put her
hand on my chest, resting it over my heart.
It's not you. I love you.
“I love you.” She said it out loud this time and the words hung in the air between us, so much more public than when we Kelted. My chest
tightened when she said it, and my breath caught in my throat. I tried to think of something sarcastic to say, but I couldn't think about anything except
how beautiful she was and how much I loved her, too.
But I wasn't letting her off that easy this time. I broke the truce. “What's going on, L? If you love me so much, what's the deal with John Breed?”
She looked away without saying a word.
Answer me.
“It's not like that, Ethan. John's just a friend of Ridley's. There's nothing going on between us.”
“How long has nothing been going on? Since you took that picture of him in the graveyard?”
“It wasn't a picture of him. It was his bike. I was meeting Ridley, and he happened to be there.” I noticed she ignored the question.
“Since when have you been hanging out with Ridley? Did you forget the part where she separated us so your mother could get you alone and try
to convince you to go over to the Dark side? Or when Ridley almost killed my father?”
Lena pulled her arm away from me, and I could feel her withdrawing again, moving back into that place I couldn't reach. “Ridley warned me you
wouldn't understand. You're a Mortal. You don't know anything about me, not the real me. That's why I didn't tell you.” I felt a sudden breeze as the
storm clouds rolled in like a warning.
“How do you know whether I would understand or not? You haven't told me anything. Maybe if you gave me the chance instead of sneaking
around behind my back —”
“What do you want me to tell you? That I have no idea what's going on with me? That something's changing, something I don't understand? That
I feel like a freak, and Ridley's the only one who can help me figure it out?”
I could hear everything she was saying, but she was right. I didn't understand. “Are you listening to yourself? You think Ridley's trying to help you,
that you can trust her? She's a Dark Caster, L. Look at yourself! You think this is you? The things you're feeling, she's probably causing them.”
I waited for the downpour, but instead the clouds parted. Lena moved closer and put her hands on my chest again, staring up at me, pleading.
“Ethan, she's changed. She doesn't want to be Dark. It ruined her life when she Turned. She lost everyone, including herself. Ridley says going Dark
changes the way you feel about people. You can sense the feelings you had, the things you loved, but Rid says the feelings are distant. Almost like
they belong to someone else.”
“But you said it wasn't something she could control.”
“I was wrong. Look at Uncle Macon. He knew how to control it, and Ridley's learning, too.”
“Ridley is not Macon.”
Heat lightning flashed across the sky. “You don't know anything.”
“That's right. I'm a stupid Mortal. I don't know anything about your supersecret Caster world and skanky Caster cousin, or Caster Boy and his
Harley.”
Lena snapped. “Ridley and I were like sisters, and I can't turn my back on her. I told you, I need her right now. And she needs me.”
I didn't say anything. Lena was so frustrated, I was surprised the Ferris Wheel hadn't come loose and rolled away. I could see the lights from the
Tilt-A-Whirl, spinning in the corner of my eye, churning and dizzying. It was the way I felt when I let myself get lost in Lena's eyes. Sometimes love
feels that way, and you find your way to a truce when you don't really want to.
Sometimes the truce finds you.
She reached up and laced her fingers behind my neck, pulling me into her. I found her lips, and we were all over each other as if we were afraid
we might never have the chance to touch again. This time, when her mouth tugged at my bottom lip, biting gently into my skin, there was no blood.
Just urgency. I turned, pushing her against the rough wooden wall behind the ticket booth. Her breath was ragged, echoing in my ear even louder
than my own. I raked my hands through her curls, guiding her mouth to mine. The pressure in my chest started to build, the shortness of breath, the
sound of the air as I tried to fill my lungs. The fire.
Lena felt it, too. She pushed away from me, and I bent over trying to catch my breath.
“Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath and stood up again. “Yeah, I'm all right. For a Mortal.”
She smiled a real smile and reached for my hand. I noticed she had drawn crazy-looking designs on her palm in Sharpie. The black curls and
spirals swirled from her palm around her wrist and up the base of her arm. The pattern looked like the henna the fortune-teller wore, in the tent that
smelled like bad incense at the other edge of the fairgrounds.
“What is that?” I held her wrist, but she pulled it away. Remembering Ridley and her tattoo, I hoped it was Sharpie.
It is.
“Maybe we should get you something to drink.” She led me around the side of the booth, and I let her. I couldn't stay mad, not if there was a
possibility the wall between us was finally coming down. When we kissed a minute ago, that's what I felt. It was the opposite of the kiss on the lake,
a kiss that had taken my breath away for different reasons. I might never know what that kiss was. But I knew this kiss, and I knew it was all I had —
a chance.
Which lasted two seconds.
Because then I saw Liv, carrying two cotton candies in one hand and waving at me with the other, and I knew the wall was about to go back up,
maybe for good. “Ethan, come on. I have your cotton candy. We're going to miss the Ferris Wheel!”
Lena dropped my hand. I knew how it must have looked — a tall blond, with long legs and two cotton candies and an expectant smile. I was
doomed before Liv even got to the word we.
That's Liv, Marian's research assistant. She works with me at the library.
Do you work at the Dar-ee Keen together, too? And the fair?
Another flash of heat lightning tore across the sky.
It isn't like that, L.
Liv handed me the cotton candy and smiled at Lena, holding out her hand.
A blond? Lena looked at me. Seriously?
“Lena, right? I'm Liv.”
Ah, the accent. That explains everything.
“Hi, Liv.” Lena pronounced her name like it was an inside joke between us. She didn't touch Liv's hand.
If Liv noticed the slight, she ignored it, letting her hand drop. “Finally! I've been trying to get Ethan to introduce us properly, since it seems he and
I are chained together for the summer.”
Clearly.
Lena wouldn't look at me, and Liv wouldn't stop looking at her.
“Liv, this really isn't a good —” I couldn't stop it. They were two trains colliding in painfully slow motion.
“Don't be silly,” Lena interrupted, looking at Liv carefully, as if she was the Sybil in her family and she could read Liv's face. “So nice to meet
you.” He's all yours. Take the whole town while you're at it.
It took Liv about two seconds to realize she'd walked into something, but she tried to fill the silence all the same. “Ethan and I talk about you all
the time. He says you play the viola.”
Lena stiffened.
Ethan and I. There was nothing mean about the way Liv said it, but the words themselves were enough. I knew what they meant to Lena. Ethan
and the Mortal girl, the girl who was everything Lena couldn't be.
“I've gotta go.” Lena turned around before I could catch her arm.
Lena —
Ridley was right. It was only a matter of time before another new girl came to town.
I wondered what else Ridley had been telling her.
What are you talking about? We're just friends, L.
We were just friends once, too.
Lena took off, pushing her way through the sweaty crowd, causing a chain reaction of chaos as she went. Her ripple effect seemed endless. I
couldn't see it perfectly, but somewhere between us a clown fumbled as the balloon character in his hands popped, a child cried as a snow cone
dropped, and a woman screamed as a popcorn machine began to smoke and catch fire. Even in the slippery blur of heat and arms and noise,
Lena affected everything in her wake, a pull as powerful as the moon to the tides, or the planets to the sun. I was caught in her orbit, even as she
pulled away from mine.
I took a step, and Liv put her hand on my arm. Her eyes narrowed as if she was analyzing the situation, or registering it for the first time. “I'm
sorry, Ethan. I didn't mean to interrupt. I mean, if I was interrupting, you know. Something.” I knew she wanted me to tell her what happened without
having to ask. I didn't say anything, which I guess was my answer.
The thing is, I didn't take another step. I let Lena go.
Link walked toward us, fighting his way through the crowd, carrying three Cokes and his own cotton candy. “Man, the line at the drink booth is
brutal.” Link handed Liv a Coke. “What'd I miss? Was that Lena?”
“She left,” Liv said quickly, as if things were that simple.
I wished they were.
“Whatever. Forget the Ferris Wheel. We'd better get over to the main tent. They're gonna announce the winners a the pie-bakin’ contest any
minute, and Amma will tan your hide if you aren't there to watch her moment a glory.”
“Apple pie?” Liv brightened.
“Yep. And you eat it wearin’ Levi's, with a napkin tucked into your shirt up here. Drinkin’ a Coke and drivin’ a Chevy, while singing ‘American
Pie.’ ” I listened to Link ramble and Liv's easy laugh as they walked ahead of me. They didn't have nightmares. They weren't haunted. They weren't
even worried.
Link was right. We couldn't miss Amma's moment of glory. I sure wasn't winning any ribbons today. The truth was, I didn't need to bring the
mallet down on the old, rigged carnival scale to know what it would say. Link might be CHICKEN LITTLE, but I felt lower than A REAL WUSS. I could pound
away all I wanted, but the answer would always be the same. No matter what I did lately, I was caught somewhere between LOSER and ZERO, and it
was starting to feel like Lena was holding the hammer. I finally understood why Link wrote all those songs about getting dumped.

Categories: Beautiful Darkness