Beautiful Creatures - Chapter 28

2.05
The Battle of Honey Hill

The next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache. I did not, as so often happens in stories, think that the whole thing had never happened. I
did not believe that Macon Ravenwood appearing and disappearing in my bedroom the night before had been a dream. Every morning for months
after my mom’s accident, I had woken up believing it had all been a bad dream. I would never make that mistake again.
This time around, I knew if it seemed like everything had changed, it was because it had. If it seemed like things were getting weirder and
weirder, it was because they were. If it seemed like Lena and I were running out of time, it was because we were.
Six days and counting. Things didn’t look good for us. That was all there was to say. So of course, we didn’t say it. At school, we did what we
always did. We held hands in the hallway. We kissed by the back lockers until our lips ached and I felt close to being electrocuted. We stayed in our
bubble, enjoyed what we tried to pretend were our ordinary lives, or what little we had left of them. And we talked, all day long, through every minute
of every class, even the ones we didn’t have together.
Lena told me about Barbados, where the water and the sky met in a thin blue line until you couldn’t tell which was which, while I was supposed to
be making a clay rope bowl in ceramics.
Lena told me about her Gramma, who let her drink 7-Up using red licorice as a straw, while we wrote our in-class Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
essays in English, and Savannah Snow smacked her gum.
Lena told me about Macon, who, despite everything, had been there for every birthday, wherever she’d been, since she could remember.
That night, after staying up for hour after hour with The Book of Moons, we watched the sun rise—even though she was at Ravenwood, and I
was at home.
Ethan?
I’m here.
I’m scared.
I know. You should try to get some sleep, L.
I don’t want to waste time sleeping.
Me neither.
But we both knew that wasn’t it. Neither one of us felt much like dreaming.
“THE NYGHT OF THE CLAYMYNG BEING THE NYGHT OF GREATESTE WEAKNESSE, WHENNE THE DARKENESSE WITHINNE ENJOINS THE DARKENESSE WITHOUTE & THE
PERSONNE OF POWERE OPENNES TO THE GREATE DARKNESSE, SO STRIPPED OF PROTECTIONS, BINDINGS & CASTS OF SHIELDE & IMMUNITIE. DEATH, AT THE HOURE OF
CLAYMING, IS MOST FINALE & ETERNALLE…”
Lena shut the Book. “I can’t read any more of this.”
“No kidding. No wonder your uncle is so worried all the time.”
“It’s not enough that I could turn into some kind of evil demon. I could also suffer eternal death. Add that to the list under impending doom.”
“Got it. Demon. Death. Doom.”
We were in the garden at Greenbrier again. Lena handed me the Book and flopped on her back, staring up at the sky. I hoped she was playing
with the clouds instead of thinking about how little we had figured out during these afternoons with the Book. But I didn’t ask her to help me as I
paged through it, wearing Amma’s old garden gloves that were way too small.
There were thousands of pages in The Book of Moons, and some pages contained more than one Cast. There was no rhyme or reason to the
way it was organized, at least none that I could see. The Table of Contents had turned out to be some kind of hoax that only loosely corresponded to
some of what could actually be found inside. I turned the pages, hoping I would stumble across something. But most of the pages just looked like
gibberish. I stared at the words I couldn’t understand.
I DDARGANFOD YR HYN SYDD AR GOLL
DATODWCH Y CWLWM, TROELLWCH A THROWCH EF
BWRIWCH Y RHWYMYN HWN
FEL Y CAF GANFOD
YR HYN RWY’N DYHEU AMDANO
YR HYN RWY’N EI GEISIO.
Something jumped out at me, a word I recognized from a quote tacked on the wall of my parents’ study: “Pete et invenies.” Seek and you shall find.
“Invenies.” Find.
UT INVENIAS QUOD ABEST
EXPEDI NODUM, TORQUE ET CONVOLVE
ELICE HOC VINCULUM
UT INVENIAM
QUOD DESIDERO
QUOD PETO.
I tore through the pages of my mom’s Latin dictionary, scrawling the words in the back as I translated them. The words of the Cast stared back at
me.
To Find What is Missing
Unravel the tie, twist and wind
Cast this Bind
So I may find
That which I yearn for
That which I seek.
“I found something!”
Lena sat up, peering over my shoulder. “What are you talking about?” She sounded less than convinced.
I held my chicken scratch handwriting up for her to read. “I translated this. It seems like you use it to find something.”
Lena leaned closer, checking my translation. Her eyes widened. “It’s a Locator Cast.”
“That sounds like something we can use to find the answer, so we can figure out how to undo the curse.”
Lena pulled the Book into her lap, staring at the page. She pointed to the other Cast above it. “That’s the same Cast in Welsh, I think.”
“But can it help us?”
“I don’t know. We don’t even really know what we’re looking for.” She frowned, suddenly less enthusiastic. “Besides, Spoken Casting isn’t as
easy as it looks, and I’ve never done it before. Things can go wrong.” Was she kidding?
“Things can go wrong? Things worse than turning into a Dark Caster on your sixteenth birthday?” I grabbed the Book out of her hands, burning
the daisies off the tips of the gloves. “Why did we dig up a grave to find this thing and waste weeks trying to figure out what it says, if we aren’t even
going to try?” I held the Book up until one of the gloves started to smoke.
Lena shook her head. “Give me that.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll try, but I have no idea what will happen. This isn’t usually how I do it.”
“It?”
“You know, the way I use my powers, all the Natural stuff. I mean, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be natural. I don’t even know
what I’m doing, half the time.”
“Okay, so this time you do, and I’ll help. What do I need to do? Draw a circle? Light some candles?”
Lena rolled her eyes. “How about sit over there.” She pointed to a spot a few feet away. “Just in case.”
I was expecting a little bit more preparation, but I was just a Mortal. What did I know? I ignored Lena’s order to put some distance between
myself and her first Spoken Cast, but I did take a few steps back. Lena held the Book in one hand, which was a feat in itself because it was incredibly
heavy, and took a deep breath. Her eyes ran slowly down the page as she read.
“‘Unravel the tie, twist and wind
Cast this Bind
So I may find
That which I yearn for…’”
She looked up and spoke the last line, clear and strong.
“‘That which I seek.’”
For a second, nothing happened. The clouds still lingered overhead, the air was still cold. It didn’t work. Lena shrugged her shoulders. I knew she
was thinking the same thing. Until we both heard it, a sound like a rush of air echoing through a tunnel. The tree behind me caught fire. It actually
ignited, from the bottom up. Flames raced up the trunk, roaring, spreading out to every branch. I had never seen anything catch fire that quickly.
The wood started to smoke immediately. I pulled Lena away from the fire, coughing. “Are you okay?” She was coughing, too. I pushed her black
curls away from her face. “Well, obviously that didn’t work. Unless you were looking to toast some really big marshmallows.”
Lena smiled weakly. “I told you things could go wrong.”
“That’s an understatement.”
We stared up at the burning cypress. That was five days and counting.
Four days and counting, the storm clouds rolled in, and Lena stayed home sick. The Santee flooded and the roads were washed out north of town.
The local news chalked it up to global warming, but I knew better. As I sat in Algebra II, Lena and I argued about the Book, which wasn’t going to
help my grade on the pop quiz.
Forget about the Book, Ethan. I’m sick of it. It’s not helping.
We can’t forget about it. It’s your only chance. You heard your uncle. It’s the most powerful book in the Caster world.
It’s also the Book that cursed my whole family.
Don’t give up. The answer has to be somewhere in the Book.
I was losing her, she wouldn’t listen to me, and I was about to fail my third quiz of the semester. Great.
By the way, can you simplify 7x – 2(4x – 6)?
I knew she could. She was already in Trig.
What does that have to do with anything?
Nothing. But I’m failing this quiz.
She sighed.
A Caster girlfriend had some perks.
Three days and counting, the mudslides started and the upper field slid into the gym. The squad wouldn’t be cheering for a while, and the
Disciplinary Committee was going to have to find a new place to hold their witch trials. Lena was still not back in school, but she was in my head the
whole day. Her voice grew smaller, until I could barely hear it over the chaos of another day at Jackson High.
I sat alone in the lunchroom. I couldn’t eat. For the first time since I met Lena, I looked at everyone around me and felt a pang of, I don’t know,
something. What was it? Jealousy? Their lives were so simple, so easy. Their problems were Mortal-sized, tiny. The way mine used to be. I caught
Emily looking at me. Savannah bounced into Emily’s lap, and with Savannah came the familiar snarl. It wasn’t jealousy. I wouldn’t trade Lena for any
of this.
I couldn’t imagine going back to such a tiny life.
Two days and counting, Lena wouldn’t even speak to me. Half the roof blew off the DAR headquarters when the high winds hit. The Member
Registries Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Asher had spent years compiling, the family trees going back to the May-flower and the Revolution, were
destroyed. The Gatlin County patriots would have to prove their blood was better than the rest of ours, all over again.
I drove to Ravenwood on my way to school and banged on the door as hard as I could. Lena wouldn’t come out of the house. When I finally got
her to open the door, I could see why.
Ravenwood had changed again. Inside, it looked like a maximum-security prison. The windows had bars and the walls were smooth concrete,
except for in the front hallway, where they were orange and padded. Lena was wearing an orange jumpsuit with the numbers 0211, her birthday,
stamped on it, her hands covered in writing. She looked kind of cool, actually, her messy black hair falling around her. She could even make a
prison jumpsuit look good.
“What’s going on, L?”
She followed my gaze over her shoulder. “Oh, this? Nothing. It’s a joke.”
“I didn’t know Macon joked.”
She pulled at a loose string on her sleeve. “He doesn’t. It’s my joke.”
“Since when can you control Ravenwood?”
She shrugged. “I just woke up yesterday and this is what it looked like. It must have been on my mind. The house just listened, I guess.”
“Let’s get out of here. Prison is only making you more depressed.”
“I could be Ridley in two days. It’s pretty depressing.” She shook her head sadly and sat down on the edge of the veranda. I sat down next to her.
She didn’t look at me, but instead stared down at her prison-issue white sneakers. I wondered how she knew what prison sneakers looked like.
“Shoelaces. You got that part wrong.”
“What?”
I pointed. “They take away your shoelaces in real prisons.”
“You have to let go, Ethan. It’s over. I can’t stop my birthday from coming, or the curse. I can’t pretend I’m a regular girl anymore. I’m not like
Savannah Snow or Emily Asher. I’m a Caster.”
I picked up a handful of pebbles from the bottom step of the veranda and chucked one as far as I could.
I won’t say good-bye, L. I can’t.
She took a pebble from my hand and threw it. Her fingers brushed against mine and I felt the tiny pulse of warmth. I tried to memorize it.
You won’t have a chance to. I’ll be gone, and I won’t even remember I cared about you.
I was stubborn. I couldn’t listen to this. This time, the pebble hit a tree. “Nothing will change the way we feel about each other. That’s the one
thing I know for sure.”
“Ethan, I may not even be capable of feeling.”
“I don’t believe that.” I flung the rest of the stones out into the overgrown yard. I don’t know where they landed; they didn’t make a sound. But I
stared out that way, as hard as I could, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Lena reached out toward me, then hesitated. She put her hand down without so much as a touch. “Don’t be mad at me. I didn’t ask for any of
this.” That’s when I snapped. “Maybe not, but what if tomorrow is our last day together? And I could be spending it with you, but instead you’re here,
moping around like you’re already Claimed.”
She got up. “You don’t understand.” I heard the door slam behind me as she went back into the house, her cellblock, whatever.
I hadn’t had a girlfriend before so I wasn’t prepared to deal with all this—I didn’t even know what to call it. Especially not with a Caster girl. Not
having a better idea of what to do, I stood up, gave up, and drove back to school—late, as usual.
Twenty-four hours and counting. A low-pressure system settled over Gatlin. You couldn’t tell if it was going to snow or hail, but the skies didn’t look
right. Today anything could happen. I looked out the window during history and saw what looked like some kind of funeral procession, only for a
funeral that hadn’t happened yet. It was Macon Ravenwood’s hearse followed by seven black Lincoln town cars. They drove past Jackson High as
they made their way through town and out to Ravenwood. Nobody was listening to Mr. Lee drone on about the upcoming Reenactment of the Battle
of Honey Hill—not the most well-known of Civil War battles, but it was the one the people of Gatlin County were most proud of.
“In 1864, Sherman ordered Union Major General John Hatch and his troops to cut off the Charleston and Savannah Railroad to keep
Confederate soldiers from interferin’ with his ‘March to the Sea.’ But, due to several ‘navigational miscalculations,’ the Union forces were delayed.”
He smiled proudly, writing navigational miscalculations out on the chalkboard. Okay, the Union was stupid. We got it. That was the point of the
Battle of Honey Hill, the point of the War Between the States, as it had been taught to all of us, since kindergarten. Neglecting, of course, the fact
that the Union had actually won the war. In Gatlin, everyone kind of talked about it like a gentlemanly concession on the part of the more gentlemanly
South. The South had taken, historically speaking, the high road, at least according to Mr. Lee.
But today, nobody was looking at the board. Everyone was staring out the windows. The black Lincolns followed the hearse in a convoy down
the street, behind the athletic field. Now that Macon had come out, so to speak, he seemed to enjoy making a spectacle of himself. For a guy who
only came out at night, he managed to command a lot of attention.
I felt a kick in my shin. Link was hunched over the desk, so Mr. Lee couldn’t see his face. “Dude. Who do you think is in all those cars?”
“Mr. Lincoln, would you like to tell us what happened next? Especially since your father will be commandin’ the Cavalry tomorrow?” Mr. Lee was
staring at us with his arms crossed.
Link pretended to cough. Link’s dad, a browbeaten shell of a man, had the honor of commanding the Cavalry in the Reenactment since Big Earl
Eaton died last year, which was the only way a reenactor ever advanced in rank. Someone had to die. It would have been a big deal in Savannah
Snow’s family. Link, he wasn’t too big on the whole Living History scene.
“Let’s see, Mr. Lee. Wait, I got it. We, uh, won the battle and lost the war, or was it the other way around? ’Cause around here, it’s hard to tell
sometimes.”
Mr. Lee ignored Link’s comment. He probably hung the Stars and Bars, the Confederate flag, in front of his house all year round, I mean his
doublewide. “Mr. Lincoln, by the time Hatch and the Fed’rals reached Honey Hill, Colonel Colcock—” the class snickered, while Mr. Lee glared.
“Yes, that was his real name. The Colonel and his brigade of Confederate soldiers and militia formed an impassable battery a seven guns across
the road.” How many times were we going to have to hear about the seven guns? You would have thought it was the miracle of the fish and the
loaves.
Link looked back to me, nodding in the direction of Main. “Well?”
“I think it’s Lena’s family. They were supposed to be coming in for her birthday.”
“Yeah. Ridley said somethin’ about that.”
“You guys still hanging out?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“Yeah, man. Can you keep a secret?”
“Haven’t I always?”
Link pulled up the sleeve of his Ramones T-shirt to reveal a tattoo of what looked like an anime version of Ridley, complete with the Catholic
schoolgirl mini and knee socks. I was hoping Link’s fascination with Ridley had lost some steam, but deep down I knew the truth. Link would only
get over Ridley when she was good and done with him, if she didn’t make him jump headlong off a cliff first. And even then, he might not get over
her.
“I got it over Christmas break. Pretty cool, huh? Ridley drew it for me herself. She’s a killer artist.” The killer part I believed. What could I say?
You tattooed a comic book version of a Dark Caster on your arm, who by the way has you under some kind of love spell and who also happens to
be your girlfriend?
“Your mom is gonna freak when she sees that.”
“She’s not gonna see it. My sleeve covers it, and we have a new privacy rule in my house. She has to knock.”
“Before she barges in and does whatever she wants?”
“Yeah, well, at least she knocks first.”
“I hope so, for your sake.”
“Anyway, Ridley and I have a surprise for Lena. Don’t tell Rid I told you, she’ll kill me, but we’re throwin’ Lena a party tomorrow. In that big field at
Ravenwood.”
“That better be a joke.”
“Surprise.” He actually looked excited, as if this party was ever going to happen, as if Lena would ever go, or Macon would ever let her.
“What were you thinking? Lena would hate that. She and Ridley don’t even speak.”
“That’s on Lena, man. She should get over it, they’re family.” I knew he was under the influence, a Ridley-fied zombie, but he was still pissing me
off.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just stay out of it. Trust me.”
He opened a Slim Jim and took a bite. “Whatever, man. We were just tryin’ to do somethin’ nice for Lena. It’s not like she has that many people
willin’ to throw her a party.”
“All the more reason not to have one. No one would come.”
He grinned and stuffed the rest of the Slim Jim into his mouth. “Everyone will come. Everyone’s already comin’. At least, that’s what Rid says.”
Ridley. Of course. She’d have the whole damn town following her around, like the Pied Piper, at the suck of her first lollipop.
That didn’t seem to be Link’s understanding of the situation. “My band, the Holy Rollers, are gonna play for the very first time ever.”
“The what?”
“My new band. I started it, you know, at church camp.” I didn’t want to know anything else about what had happened over winter break. I was just
happy he had made it back in one piece.
Mr. Lee banged on the blackboard for emphasis, drawing a big number eight in chalk. “In the end, Hatch could not move the Confederates and
withdrew his forces with a count of eighty-nine dead and six hundred and twenty-nine wounded. The Confederates won the battle, only losin’ eight
men. And that”—Mr. Lee pounded proudly on the number eight—“is why you all will be joinin’ me at the Livin’ History Reenactment of the Battle of
Honey Hill tomorrow.”
Living History. That’s what people like Mr. Lee called Civil War reenactments, and they weren’t kidding. Every detail was accurate, from the
uniforms to the ammunition to the position of the soldiers on the battlefield.
Link grinned at me, all Slim Jim. “Don’t tell Lena. We want her to be surprised. It’s, like, her birthday present from the two of us.”
I just stared at him. I thought about Lena in her dark mood and her orange prison jumpsuit. Then, Link’s no doubt terrible band, a Jackson High
party, Emily Asher and Savannah Snow, the Fallen Angels, Ridley, and Ravenwood, not to mention Honey Hill blowing up in the distance. All under
the disapproving eye of Macon, Lena’s other crazy relatives, and the mother who was trying to kill her. And the dog that allowed Macon to see every
move we made.
The bell rang. Surprise wouldn’t even begin to describe how she would feel. And I was the one who’d have to tell her.
“Don’t forget to sign in when you arrive at the Reenactment. You don’t get credit if you don’t sign in! And remember to stay inside the ropes of
the Safe Zone. Gettin’ shot won’t get you an A in this class,” Mr. Lee called as we filed out the door.
Right about now, getting shot didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
Civil War reenactments are a seriously strange phenomenon, and the Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill was no exception. Who would
actually be interested in dressing up in what looked like really sweaty wool Halloween costumes? Who wanted to run around shooting antique
firearms so unstable they had been known to blow people’s limbs off when fired? Which is, by the way, how Big Earl Eaton had died. Who cared
about re-creating battles that happened in a war that took place almost a hundred and fifty years ago and that, in fact, the South didn’t actually win?
Who would do that?
In Gatlin, and most of the South, the answer would be: your doctor, your lawyer, your preacher, the guy who fixes your car and the one who
delivers your mail, most likely your dad, all your uncles and cousins, your history teacher (especially if you happen to have Mr. Lee), and most
definitely, the guy who owns the gun shop over in town. Come the second week of February, rain or shine, Gatlin thought about, talked about, and
fussed about nothing but the Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill.
Honey Hill was Our Battle. I don’t know how they decided that, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the seven guns. People in town
spent weeks preparing for Honey Hill. Now that it was down to the last minute, Confederate uniforms were being steamed and pressed all over the
county, the smell of warm wool wafting through the air. Whitworth rifles were cleaned and swords polished, and half the men in town had spent last
weekend at Buford Radford’s place making homemade ammunition, because his wife didn’t mind the smell. The widows were busy washing
sheets and freezing pies for the hundreds of tourists descending on the town to witness Living History. The members of the DAR had spent weeks
preparing for their version of the Reenactment, the Southern Heritage Tours, and their daughters had spent two Saturdays baking pound cakes to
serve after the tours.
This was particularly amusing because the DAR members, including Mrs. Lincoln, conducted these tours in period dress; they squeezed into
girdles and layers of petticoats that made them look like sausages about to burst from their casings. And they weren’t the only ones; their
daughters, including Savannah and Emily, the future generation of the DAR, had to putter around the historic plantation houses dressed like
characters from Little House on the Prairie. The tour had always started at the DAR headquarters, since it was the second-oldest house in Gatlin. I
wondered if the roof would be fixed in time. I couldn’t help imagining all those women wandering around the Gatlin Historical So-ciety, pointing out
starburst quilt patterns above the hundreds of Caster scrolls and documents awaiting the next bank holiday below.
But the DAR weren’t the only ones to get into the act. The War Between the States was often referred to as the “first modern war,” but if you took
a walk around Gatlin the week before the Reenactment, there was nothing modern looking about it. Every Civil War relic in town was on display,
from horse-drawn wagons to Howitzers, which any preschooler in town could tell you were artillery cannons resting on a set of old wagon wheels.
The Sisters even dragged out their original Confederate flag and tacked it up on their front door, after I refused to hang it on the porch for them.
Even though it was all for show, that’s where I drew the line.
There was a big parade the day before the Reenactment, which gave the reenactors an opportunity to march through town in full regalia in front
of all the tourists, because the next day they’d be so covered in smoke and dirt that no one would notice the shiny brass buttons on their authentic
shell jackets.
After the parade, there was a huge festival, with a pig pick, a kissing booth, and an old-fashioned pie sale. Amma spent days baking. Outside
of the County Fair, this was her biggest pie show, and her biggest opportunity to claim victory over her enemies. Her pies were always bestsellers,
which drove Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Snow crazy—Amma’s primary motivation for all that baking in the first place. There was nothing she liked better
than showing up the women of the DAR and rubbing their noses in their second-rate pies.
So every year when the second week of February rolled around, life as we knew it ceased to exist, and we all found ourselves back at the Battle
of Honey Hill, circa 1864. This year was no exception, with one peculiar addition. This year, as pickups pulled into town towing double-barreled
cannons and horse trailers—any self-respecting cavalry reenactor owned his own horse—different preparations were also under way, for a different
battle.
Only this one didn’t begin at the second-oldest house in Gatlin, but the oldest. There were Howitzers, and then there were Howitzers. This battle
wasn’t concerned with guns and horses, but that didn’t make it any less of a battle. To be honest, it was the only real battle in town.
As for the eight casualties of Honey Hill, I couldn’t really compare. I was only worried about one. Because if I lost her, I would be lost, too.
So forget the Battle of Honey Hill. To me, this felt more like D-Day.

Categories: Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures - Chapter 27

2.04
The Sandman or Something Like Him

Lena’s birthday was in a week.
Seven days.
One hundred and sixty-eight hours.
Ten thousand and eight seconds.
Claim yourself.
Lena and I were exhausted, but we ditched school anyway to spend the day with The Book of Moons. I had become an expert at Amma’s
signature, and Miss Hester wouldn’t dare to ask Lena for a note from Macon Ravenwood. It was a cold, clear day, and we curled together in the
freezing garden at Greenbrier, huddled under the old sleeping bag from the Beater, trying to figure out for the thousandth time if anything in the
Book could help.
I could tell Lena was starting to give up. Her ceiling was completely covered in Sharpie, wallpapered with the words she couldn’t say and
thoughts she was too scared to express.
darkfire, lightdark / dark matter, what matters? the great darkness swallows the great light, as they swallow my life / caster/girl super/natural
before/first sight seven days seven days seven days 777777777777777.
I couldn’t blame her. It did seem pretty hopeless, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I never would be. Lena slumped against the old stone wall,
crumbling like what little chance we had left. “This is impossible. There are too many Casts. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
There were Casts for every conceivable purpose: Blinding the Unfaithful, Bringing Forth Water from the Sea, Binding the Runes.
But nothing that said Cast to Uncurse Your Family from a Dark Binding, or Cast to Undo the Act of Trying to Bring Great-Great-Great-Great-
Grandmother Genevieve’s War Hero Back to Life, or Cast to Avoid Going Dark at Your Claiming. Or the one I was really looking for—Cast to
Save Your Girlfriend (Now That You Finally Have One) Before It’s Too Late.
I turned back to the Table of Contents: OBSECRATIONES, INCANTAMINA, NECTENTES, MALEDICENTES, MALEFICIA.
“Don’t worry, L. We’ll figure it out.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t so sure.
The longer the Book stayed on the top shelf of my closet, the more I felt like my room was becoming haunted. It was happening to both of us, every
night; the dreams, which felt more like nightmares, were getting worse. I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours in days. Every time I closed my
eyes, every time I fell asleep, they were there. Waiting. But even worse, it was the same nightmare replayed again and again in a constant loop.
Every night, I lost Lena over and over again, and it was killing me.
My only strategy was to stay awake. Jacked up on sugar and caffeine from drinking Coke and Red Bull, playing video games. Reading
everything from Heart of Darkness to my favorite issue of Silver Surfer, the one where Galactus swallows the universe, over and over. But as
anyone who hasn’t slept in days knows, by the third or fourth night you’re so tired you could fall asleep standing up.
Even Galactus didn’t stand a chance.
Burning.
There was fire everywhere.
And smoke. I choked on the smoke and ash. It was pitch-black, impossible to see. And the heat was like sandpaper scraping against my skin.
I couldn’t hear anything except the roar of the fire.
I couldn’t even hear Lena screaming, except in my head.
Let go! You have to get out!
I could feel the bones in my wrist snapping, like tiny guitar strings breaking one by one. She let go of my wrist like she was preparing for me to
release her, but I’d never let go.
Don’t do that, L! Don’t you let go!
Let me go! Please… save yourself!
I’d never let go.
But I could feel her sliding through my fingers. I tried to hold on tighter, but she was slipping….
I bolted upright in bed, coughing. It was so real, I could taste the smoke. But my room wasn’t hot; it was cold. My window was open again. The
moonlight allowed my eyes to adjust more quickly than usual to the darkness.
I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Something was moving, in the shadows.
There was someone in my room.
“Holy crap!”
He tried to get out before I noticed him, but he wasn’t fast enough. He knew I’d seen him. So he did the only thing he could do. He turned to face
me.
“Although I myself don’t consider it particularly holy, who am I to correct you after such an ungraceful exit?” Macon smiled his Cary Grant smile
and approached the end of my bed. He was wearing a long black coat and dark slacks. He looked like he was dressed for some kind of turn-of-thecentury
night on the town, instead of a modern-day breaking and entering. “Hello, Ethan.”
“What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?”
He seemed at a loss, for Macon, which just meant he didn’t have an immediate and charming explanation on the tip of his tongue. “It’s
complicated.”
“Well, uncomplicate it. Because you climbed in my window in the middle of the night, so either you’re some kind of vampire or some kind of
perv, or both. Which is it?”
“Mortals, everything is so black and white to you. I’m not a Hunter, nor a Harmer. You would be confusing me with my brother, Hunting. Blood
doesn’t interest me.” He shud-dered at the thought. “Neither blood nor flesh.” He lit a cigar, rolling it between his fingers. Amma was going to have a
fit when she smelled that tomorrow. “In fact, it all makes me a bit squeamish.”
I was losing my patience. I hadn’t slept in days and I was tired of everyone dodging my questions all the time. I wanted answers, and I wanted
them now. “I’ve had enough of your riddles. Answer the question. What are you doing in my room?”
He walked over to the cheap swivel chair next to my desk and sat down in one sweeping movement. “Let’s just say I was eavesdropping.”
I picked up the old Jackson High basketball T-shirt balled up on the floor and pulled it over my head. “Eavesdropping on what, exactly? There’s
no one here. I was sleeping.”
“No, actually you were dreaming.”
“How do you know that? Is that one of your Caster powers?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m not a Caster, not technically.”
My breath caught in my throat. Macon Ravenwood never left his house during the day; he could make himself appear out of nowhere, watch
people through the eyes of his wolf that masqueraded as a dog, and nearly squeeze the life out of a Dark Caster without flinching. If he wasn’t a
Caster, then there was only one explanation.
“So you are a vampire.”
“I most certainly am not.” He looked annoyed. “That’s such a common phrase, such a cliché, and so unflattering. There are no such things as
vampires. I suppose you believe in werewolves and aliens, too. I blame television.” He inhaled deeply from his cigar. “I hate to disappoint you. I’m
an Incubus. I’m sure it was just a matter of time before Amarie told you herself, since she seems so intent on revealing all my secrets.”
An Incubus? I didn’t even know if I should be scared. I must have looked confused, because Macon felt compelled to elaborate. “By nature,
gentlemen like myself do have certain powers, but those powers are only relative to our strength, which we must replenish regularly.” There was
something disturbing about the way he said replenish.
“What do you mean by replenish?”
“We feed, for lack of a better word, on Mortals to replenish our strength.”
The room started to sway. Or maybe Macon was swaying.
“Ethan, sit down. You look absolutely pallid.” Macon strode over and guided me to the edge of the bed. “As I said, I use the word ‘feed’ for lack
of a better term. Only a Blood Incubus feeds on Mortal blood, and I am not a Blood Incubus. Although we are both Lilum—those who dwell in the
Absolute Darkness—I am something entirely more evolved. I take something you Mortals have in abundance, something you don’t even need.”
“What?”
“Dreams. Fragmented bits and pieces. Ideas, desires, fears, memories—nothing you miss.” The words came rolling out of his mouth as if he
was speaking a charm. I found myself struggling to process them, trying to understand what he was saying. My mind felt like it was wrapped in thick
wool.
But then, I understood. I could feel the pieces clicking together like a puzzle in my mind. “The dreams—you’ve been taking part of them?
Sucking them out of my head? That’s the reason I can’t remember the whole dream?”
He smiled and stubbed his cigar out on an empty Coke can on my desk. “Guilty as charged. Except for the ‘sucking.’ Not the most polite
phraseology.”
“If you’re the one sucking—stealing my dreams, then you know the rest. You know what happens, in the end. You can tell us, so we can stop it.”
“I’m afraid not. I selected the bits and pieces I took rather intentionally.”
“Why don’t you want us to know what happens? If we know the rest of the dream, maybe we can stop it from happening.”
“It seems you know too much already, not that I understand it completely myself.”
“Stop talking in riddles for once. You keep saying I can protect Lena, that I have power. Why don’t you tell me what the hell is really going on, Mr.
Ravenwood, because I’m tired, and I’m sick of being jerked around.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, son. You’re a bit of a mystery.”
“I’m not your son.”
“Melchizedek Ravenwood!” Amma’s voice rang out like a bell.
Macon started losing his composure.
“How dare you come into this house without my permission!” She was standing in her bathrobe holding a long rope of beads. If I didn’t know
better I’d have thought it was a necklace. Amma shook the beaded charm angrily in her fist. “We have an agreement. This house is off-limits. You
find somewhere else to do your dirty business.”
“It’s not that simple, Amarie. The boy is seeing things in his dreams, things that are dangerous for both of them.”
Amma’s eyes were wild. “Are you feedin’ offa my boy? Is that what you’re sayin’? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Calm down. Don’t be so literal. I am merely doing what is necessary to protect them both.”
“I know what you do and what you are, Melchizedek, and you will deal with the Devil in due time. Don’t you bring that evil into my house.”
“I made a choice long ago, Amarie. I’ve fought what I was destined to be. I fight it every night of my life. But I am not Dark, not as long as I have
the child to concern me.”
“Doesn’t change what you are. That’s not a choice you get to make.”
Macon’s eyes narrowed. It was clear that the bargain between the two of them was a delicate one, and he had jeopardized it by coming here.
How many times? I didn’t even know.
“Why don’t you just tell me what happens at the end of the dream? I have a right to know. It’s my dream.”
“It’s a powerful dream, a disturbing dream, and Lena doesn’t need to see it. She’s not ready to see it, and you two are so inexplicably
connected. She sees what you see. So you can understand why I had to take it.”
The rage welled up inside me. I was so angry, angrier than when Mrs. Lincoln stood up and lied about Lena at the Disciplinary Committee
meeting, angrier then when I found the pages and pages of scribble in my father’s study.
“No. I don’t understand. If you know something that can help her, why won’t you tell us? Or just stop using your Jedi mind tricks on me and my
dreams and let me see it for myself?”
“I am only trying to protect her. I love Lena, and I would never—”
“—I know, I’ve heard it. You’d never do anything to hurt her. What you forgot to say is that you won’t do anything to help her, either.”
His jaw tightened. Now he was the one who was angry; I knew how to recognize it now. But he didn’t break character, not even for a minute. “I
am trying to protect her, Ethan, and you as well. I know you care for Lena, and you do offer her some sort of protection, but there are things you don’t
see right now, things that are beyond any of our control. One day you will understand. You and Lena are just too different.”
A Species Apart. Just like the other Ethan wrote to Genevieve. I understood all right. Nothing had changed in over a hundred years.
His eyes softened. I thought maybe he pitied me, but it was something else. “Ultimately, it will be your burden to bear. It’s always the Mortal who
bears it. Trust me, I know.”
“I don’t trust you and you’re wrong. We aren’t too different.”
“Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such
beautiful creatures.” He was talking to me, but it didn’t feel like he was talking about me anymore. “I apologize for the intrusion. I’ll leave you to your
sleep.”
“Just stay out of my room, Mr. Ravenwood. And out of my head.”
He turned toward the door, which surprised me. I expected him to leave the way he had arrived.
“One more thing. Does Lena know what you are?”
He smiled. “Of course. We have no secrets between us.”
I didn’t smile back. There were more than a few secrets between them, even if this wasn’t one of them, and both Macon and I knew it.
He turned away from me with a swirl of his overcoat, and was gone.
Just like that.

Categories: Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures - Chapter 26

1.12
Promise

There was something in the air. Usually, when you heard that, there wasn’t really something in the air. But the closer it got to Lena’s birthday, the
more I had to wonder. When we came back from winter break, the halls had been tagged with spray paint, covering the lockers and walls. Only it
wasn’t the usual graffiti; the words didn’t even look like English. You wouldn’t have thought they were words at all, unless you had seen The Book of
Moons.
A week later, every window in our English classroom was busted out. Again, it could have been the wind, except there wasn’t even a breeze.
How could the wind target a single classroom, anyway?
Now that I wasn’t playing basketball, I had to take P.E. for the rest of the year, by far the worst class at Jackson. After an hour of timed sprints
and rope burn from climbing a knotted rope to the gym ceiling, I got back to my locker to find the door open and my papers scattered all over the
hall. My backpack was gone. Though Link found it a few hours later, dumped in a trashcan outside the gym, I had learned my lesson. Jackson High
was no place for The Book of Moons.
From then on, we kept the Book in my closet. I waited for Amma to discover it, to say something, to cover my room with salt, but she never did. I
had pored over the old leather book, with and without Lena, using my mom’s battered Latin dictionary, for the past six weeks. Amma’s oven mitts
helped me keep the burns to a minimum. There were hundreds of Casts, and only a few of them were in English. The rest were written in languages
I couldn’t read, and the Caster language we couldn’t hope to decipher. As we grew more familiar with the pages, Lena grew more restless.
“Claim yourself. That doesn’t even mean anything.”
“Of course it does.”
“None of the chapters say anything about it. It’s not in any description of the Claiming in the Book.”
“We just have to keep looking. It’s not like we’re going to read it in the Cliff Notes.” The Book of Moons had to have the answer, if we could just
find it. We couldn’t think about anything else, except the fact that a month from now we could lose it all.
At night, we stayed up late talking, from our respective beds, because even now, every night seemed closer to the night that could be our last.
What are you thinking, L?
Do you really want to know?
I always want to know.
Did I? I stared at the creased map on my wall, the thin green line connecting all the places I had read about. There they were, all the cities of my
imaginary future, held together with tape and marker and pins. In six months, a lot had changed. There was no thin green line that could lead me to
my future anymore. Just a girl.
But now, her voice was small, and I had to strain to hear her.
There’s a part of me that wishes we’d never met.
You’re kidding, right?
She didn’t answer. Not right away.
It just makes everything so much harder. I thought I had a lot to lose before, but now I have you.
I know what you mean.
I knocked the shade off the lamp next to my bed and stared straight into the bulb. If I stared right at it, the brightness would sting my eyes and
keep me from crying.
And I could lose you.
That’s not gonna happen, L.
She was quiet. My eyes were temporarily blinded by swirls and streaks of light. I couldn’t even see the blue of my bedroom ceiling, though I was
staring right at it.
Promise?
I promise.
It was a promise she knew I might not be able to keep. But I made it anyway because I was going to find a way to make it true.
I burned my hand as I tried to turn out the light.

Categories: Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures - Chapter 25

12.19
White Christmas

After the Disciplinary Committee meeting, I don’t think anyone believed Lena would show up at school the next day. But she did, just like I knew
she would. No one else knew she had given up the right to go to school once. She wasn’t going to let anyone take it away from her again. To
everyone else, school was prison. To Lena, it was freedom. Only it didn’t matter, because that was the day Lena became a ghost at Jackson—
nobody looked at her, spoke to her, sat near her at any table, bleacher, or desk. By Thursday, half the kids at school were wearing the Jackson
Angels T-shirt, with those white wings on their backs. The way they looked at her, it seemed half the teachers wished they could wear them, too. On
Friday, I turned in my basketball jersey. It just didn’t feel like we were all on the same team anymore.
Coach was furious. After all the hollering died down, he just shook his head. “You’re crazy, Wate. Look at the season you’re havin’, and you’re
throwin’ it away on some girl.” I could hear it in his voice. Some girl. Old Man Ravenwood’s niece.
Still, nobody said an unkind word to either one of us, at least not to our faces. If Mrs. Lincoln had put the fear of God into them, Macon
Ravenwood had given people in Gatlin a reason to fear something even worse. The truth.
As I watched the numbers on Lena’s wall and hand get smaller and smaller, the possibility became more real. What if we couldn’t stop it? What
if Lena had been right all along, and after her birthday the girl I knew disappeared? Like she had never been here at all.
All we had was The Book of Moons. And more and more, there was one thought I was trying to keep out of Lena’s head and mine.
I wasn’t sure the Book was enough.
“AMONGST PERSONNES OF POWERE, THERE BEING TWINNE FORCES FROM WHYCHE SPRING ALL MAGICK, THE DARKNESSE & THE LIGHT.”
“I think we’ve got the whole Darkness and Light thing worked out. You think we could get to the good part? The part called, Loopholes for Your
Claiming Day? How to Vanquish a Rogue Cataclyst? How to Reverse the Passage of Time?” I was frustrated, and Lena wasn’t talking.
From where we sat on the cold bleachers, the school looked deserted. We were supposed to be at the science fair, watching Alice Milkhouse
soak an egg in vinegar, listening to Jackson Freeman argue there was no such thing as global warming, and Annie Honeycutt counter with how to
make Jackson a green school. Maybe the Angels were going to have to start recycling their flyers.
I stared at the Algebra II book hanging out of my backpack. It didn’t seem like there was anything worth learning at this place anymore. I’d
learned enough in the last few months. Lena was a million miles away, still buried in the Book. I had started carrying it around in my backpack, out
of fear Amma would find it if I left it in my room.
“Here’s more about Cataclysts.
“THE GREATEST OF THE DARKNESSE BEING THE POWERE CLOSEST TO THE WOLD & THE UNDYRWOLD, THE CATA-CLYSTE. THE GREATEST OF THE LIGHT BEING THE
POWERE CLOSEST TO THE WOLD & THE UNDYRWOLD, THE NAT-URAL. WHERE THERE IS NOT ONNE THERE CANNOT BE THE OTHERE, AS WITHOUTE DARKNESSE THERE
CAN BE NO LIGHT.”
“See? You’re not going Dark. You’re Light because you’re the Natural.”
Lena shook her head and pointed at the next paragraph. “Not necessarily. That’s what my uncle thinks. But listen to this—
“AT THE TYME OF CLAIMING, THE TRUTHE WILL BE MADE MANIFESTE. WHAT APPEARS DARKNESSE MAYE BE THE GREATEST LIGHT, WHAT APPEARS LIGHT MAYE BE THE
GREATEST DARKNESSE.”
She was right, there was no way to be sure.
“Then it gets really complicated. I’m not even sure I understand the words.
“FOR THE DARKE MATTERE MAYDE THE DARKE FYRE, & THE DARKE FYRE MAYDE THE POWERES OF ALL LILUM IN THE DAEMON WOLD & CASTERS OF DARKNESSE &
LIGHT. WITHOUT ALL POWERE THERE CAN BE NO POWERE. THE DARKE FYRE MAYDE THE GREAT DARKNESSE & THE GREAT LIGHT. ALL POWERE IS DARKE POWERE, AS
DARKE POWERE IS EVEN THE LIGHT.”
“Dark Matter? Dark Fire? What is this, the Big Bang for Casters?”
“What about Lilum? I’ve never heard of any of this, but then again, nobody tells me anything. I didn’t even know my own mother was alive.” She
tried to sound sarcastic, but I could hear the pain in her voice.
“Maybe Lilum is an old word for Casters, or something.”
“The more I find out, the less I understand.”
And the less time we have.
Don’t say that.
The bell rang and I stood up. “You coming?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to stay out here a while longer.” Alone, in the cold. More and more, it was like that; she hadn’t even looked me in
the eye since the Disciplinary Committee meeting, almost as if I were one of them. I couldn’t really blame her, considering the whole school and half
the town had basically decided she was the institutionalized, bipolar child of a murderer.
“You better show up in class sooner or later. Don’t give Principal Harper any more ammunition.”
She looked back toward the building. “I don’t see how it matters now.”
For the rest of the afternoon, she was nowhere to be found. At least, if she was, she wasn’t listening. In chemistry, she wasn’t there for our quiz on
the periodic table.
You’re not Dark, L. I would know.
In history, she wasn’t there while we reenacted the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and Mr. Lee tried to make me argue the Pro-Slavery side, most
likely as punishment for some future “liberally minded” paper I was bound to write.
Don’t let them get to you like this. They don’t matter.
In ASL, she wasn’t there while I had to stand up in front of the class and sign “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” while the rest of the basketball team
just sat there, smirking.
I’m not going anywhere, L. You can’t shut me out.
That’s when I realized she could.
By lunch, I couldn’t take it anymore. I waited for her to come out of Trig and I pulled her over to the side of the hall, dropping my backpack to the
floor. I took her face in my hands, and drew her in to me.
Ethan, what are you doing?
This.
I pulled her face into mine with both hands. When our lips touched, I could feel the warmth from my body seep into the coldness of hers. I could
feel her body melting into mine, the inexplicable pull that had bound us together from the beginning, bringing us together again. Lena dropped her
books and wrapped her arms around my neck, responding to my touch. I was becoming light-headed.
The bell rang. She pushed away from me, gasping. I bent down to pick up her copy of Bukowski’s Pleasures of the Damned and her battered
spiral notebook. The notebook was practically falling apart, but then again, she’d had a lot to write about lately.
You shouldn’t have done that.
Why not? You’re my girlfriend, and I miss you.
Fifty-four days, Ethan. That’s all I have. It’s time to stop pretending we can change things. It’ll be easier if we both accept it.
There was something about the way she said it, like she was talking about more than just her birthday. She was talking about other things we
couldn’t change.
She turned away, but I caught her arm before she could turn her back on me. If she was saying what I thought she was saying, I wanted her to
look at me when she said it.
“What do you mean, L?” I almost couldn’t ask.
She looked away. “Ethan, I know you think this can have a happy ending, and for a while maybe I did, too. But we don’t live in the same world,
and in mine, wanting something badly enough won’t make it happen.” She wouldn’t look at me. “We’re just too different.”
“Now we’re too different? After everything we’ve been through?” My voice was getting louder. A couple of people turned and stared at me. They
didn’t even look at Lena.
We are different. You’re a Mortal and I’m a Caster, and those worlds might intersect, but they’ll never be the same. We aren’t meant to live in
both. What she was saying was she wasn’t meant to live in both. Emily and Savannah, the basketball team, Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Harper, the Jackson
Angels, they were all finally getting what they wanted.
This is about the disciplinary meeting, isn’t it? Don’t let them—
It isn’t just about the meeting. It’s everything. I don’t belong here, Ethan. And you do.
So now I’m one of them. Is that what you’re saying?
She closed her eyes and I could almost see her thoughts, tangled up in her mind.
I’m not saying you’re like them, but you are one of them. This is where you’ve lived your whole life. And after this is all over, after I’m Claimed,
you’re still going to be here. You’re going to have to walk down these halls and those streets again, and I probably won’t be there. But you will, for
who knows how long, and you said it yourself—people in Gatlin never forget anything.
Two years.
What?
That’s how long I’ll be here.
Two years is a long time to be invisible. Trust me, I know.
For a minute, neither of us said anything. She just stood there, pulling shreds of paper from the wire spine of her notebook. “I’m tired of fighting
it. I’m tired of trying to pretend I’m normal.”
“You can’t give up. Not now, not after everything. You can’t let them win.”
“They already have. They won the day I broke the window in English.”
There was something about her voice that told me she was giving up on more than just Jackson. “Are you breaking up with me?” I was holding
my breath.
“Please don’t make this harder. It’s not what I want, either.”
Then don’t do it.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. It was like time had stopped again, the way it had at Thanksgiving dinner. Only this time, it wasn’t magic. It was
the opposite of magic.
“I just think things will be easier this way. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” She looked up at me, her big green eyes sparkling with
tears. Then she turned and fled down a hallway that was so quiet you could’ve heard a pencil drop.
Merry Christmas, Lena.
But there was nothing to hear. She was gone, and that wasn’t something I would have been ready for, not in fifty-three days, not in fifty-three
years, not in fifty-three centuries.
Fifty-three minutes later, I sat alone, staring out the window, which was a statement right there, considering how crowded the lunchroom was. Gatlin
was gray; the clouds had drifted in. I wouldn’t call it a storm, exactly; it hadn’t snowed in years. If we were lucky, we got a flurry or two, maybe once a
year. But it hadn’t snowed a single day since I was twelve.
I wished it would snow. I wished I could hit rewind and be back in the hallway with Lena. I wished I could tell her I didn’t care if everyone in this
town hated me, because it didn’t matter. I was lost before I found her in my dreams, and she found me that day in the rain. I knew it seemed like I
was always the one trying to save Lena, but the truth was she had saved me, and I wasn’t ready for her to stop now.
“Hey, man.” Link slid onto the bench across from me at the empty table. “Where’s Lena? I wanted to thank her.”
“For what?”
Link pulled a piece of folded notebook paper out of his pocket. “She wrote me a song. Pretty cool, huh?” I couldn’t even look at it. She was
talking to Link, just not to me.
Link grabbed a slice of my untouched pizza. “Listen, I got a favor to ask you.”
“Sure. What do you need?”
“Ridley and I are goin’ up to New York over break. If anyone asks, I’m at church camp in Savannah, far as you know.”
“There’s no church camp in Savannah.”
“Yeah, but my mom doesn’t know that. I told her I signed up because they have some kind of Baptist rock band.”
“And she believed that?”
“She’s been actin’ a little weird lately, but what do I care. She said I could go.”
“It doesn’t matter what your mom said, you can’t go. There are things you don’t know about Ridley. She’s… dangerous. Stuff could happen to
you.” His eyes lit up. I had never seen Link like this. Then again, I hadn’t seen him too much lately. I’d been spending all my time with Lena, or thinking
about Lena, the Book, her birthday. The stuff my world revolved around now, or did, until an hour ago.
“That’s what I’m hopin’. Besides, I got it bad for that girl. She really does somethin’ to me, ya know?” He took the last slice of pizza off my tray.
For a second I considered telling Link everything, just like the old days—about Lena and her family, Ridley, Genevieve, and Ethan Carter Wate.
Link had known everything in the beginning, but I didn’t know if he would believe the rest, or if he could. Some things were just asking too much,
even from your best friend. Right now I couldn’t risk losing Link, too, but I had to do something. I couldn’t let him go to New York, or anywhere else,
with Ridley. “Listen man, you’ve gotta trust me. Don’t get mixed up with her. She’s just using you. You’re gonna get hurt.”
He crushed a Coke can in his hand. “Oh, I get it. If the hottest girl in town is hangin’ out with me, she must be usin’ me? I guess you think you’re
the only one who can pull a hot chick. When did you get so full of yourself?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
Link got up. “I think we both know what you’re sayin’. Forget I asked.”
It was too late. Ridley had already gotten to him. Nothing I said was going to change his mind. And I couldn’t lose my girlfriend and my best
friend in the same day. “Listen, I didn’t mean it like that. I won’t say anything, not like your mom is speaking to me anyway.”
“It’s cool. It’s gotta be hard to have a best friend who’s good lookin’ and as talented as me.” Link took the cookie off my tray and broke it in half.
It might as well have been the dirty Twinkie off the floor of the bus. It was over. It would take a lot more than a girl, even a Siren, to come between us.
Emily was eyeing him. “You’d better go before Emily rats you out to your mom. Then you won’t be going to any church camp, real or imaginary.”
“I’m not worried about her.” But he was. He didn’t want to be stuck in the house with his mom the whole winter break. And he didn’t want to be
frozen out by the team, by everyone at Jackson, even if he was too stupid or too loyal to realize it.
On Monday, I helped Amma bring the boxes of holiday decorations down from the attic. The dust made my eyes water; at least, that’s what I told
myself. I found a whole little town, lit by little white lights, that my Mom used to lay out every year under the Christmas tree, on a piece of cotton we
pretended was snow. The houses were her grandmother’s, and she had loved them so much that I had loved them, even though they were made of
flimsy cardboard, glue, and glitter, and half the time they fell over when I tried to stand them up. “Old things are better than new things, because
they’ve got stories in them, Ethan.” She would hold up an old tin car and say, “Imagine my great-grandmother playing with this same car, arranging
this same town under her tree, just like we are now.”
I hadn’t seen the town since, when? Since I’d seen my mom, at least. It looked smaller than before, the cardboard more warped and tattered. I
couldn’t find the people in any of the boxes, or even the animals. The town looked lonely, and it made me sad. Somehow the magic was gone,
without her. I found myself reaching for Lena, in spite of everything.
Everything’s missing. The boxes are there, but it’s all wrong. She’s not here. It’s not even a town anymore. And she’s never going to meet
you.B ut there was no response. Lena had vanished, or banished me. I didn’t know which was worse. I really was alone, and the only thing worse than
being alone was having everyone else see how lonely you were. So I went to the only place in town where I knew I wouldn’t run into anyone. The
Gatlin County Library.
“Aunt Marian?”
The library was freezing, and completely empty, as usual. After the way the Disciplinary Committee meeting had gone, I was guessing Marian
hadn’t had any visitors.
“I’m back here.” She was sitting on the floor in her overcoat, waist high amidst a pile of open books, as if they had just fallen off the shelves
around her. She was holding a book, reading aloud, in one of her familiar book-trances.
“‘We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His Sun-shine, and His showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.
The Darling of the world is come…’”
She closed the book. “Robert Herrick. It’s a Christmas carol, sung for the king at Whitehall Palace.” She sounded as far away as Lena had been
lately, and I felt now.
“Sorry, don’t know the guy.” It was so cold I could see her breath when she spoke.
“Who does it remind you of? Turning the ground to flowers, the darling of the world.”
“You mean Lena? I bet Mrs. Lincoln would have something to say about that.” I sat down next to Marian, scattering books in the aisle.
“Mrs. Lincoln. What a sad creature.” She shook her head, and pulled out another book. “Dickens thinks Christmas is a time for people ‘to open
their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of
creatures.’”
“Is the heater broken? Do you want me to call Gatlin Electric?”
“I never turned it on. I guess I got distracted.” She tossed the book back onto the pile surrounding her. “Pity Dickens never came to Gatlin. We’ve
got more than our share of shut-up hearts around here.”
I picked up a book. Richard Wilbur. I opened it, burying my face in the smell of the pages. I glanced at the words. “‘What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.’” Weird, that was exactly how I was feeling. I snapped the book shut and looked at Marian.
“Thanks for coming to the meeting, Aunt Marian. I hope it didn’t make trouble for you. I feel like it was all my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Feels like it was.” I tossed the book down.
“What, now you’re the author of all ignorance? You taught Mrs. Lincoln to hate, and Mr. Hollingsworth to fear?”
We both just sat there, surrounded by a mountain of books. She reached over and squeezed my hand. “This battle didn’t start with you, Ethan. It
won’t end with you either, I’m afraid, or me, for that matter.” Her face grew serious. “When I walked in this morning, these books were in a pile on the
floor. I don’t know how they got there, or why. I locked the doors when I left last night, and they were still locked this morning. All I know is, I sat down
to look through them, and every single book, every one of them, had some kind of message for me about this moment, in this town, right now. About
Lena, you, even me.”
I shook my head. “It’s a coincidence. Books are like that.”
She plucked a random book out of the pile and handed it to me. “You try. Open it.”
I took the book from her hand. “What is it?”
“Shakespeare. Julius Caesar.”
I opened it, and began to read.
“‘Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’
“What does that have to do with me?”
Marian peered at me, over her glasses. “I’m just the librarian. I can only give you the books. I can’t give you the answers.” But she smiled, all the
same. “The thing about fate is, are you the master of your fate, or are the stars?”
“Are you talking about Lena, or Julius Caesar? Because I hate to break it to you, but I never read the play.”
“You tell me.”
We spent the rest of the hour going through the pile, taking turns reading to each other. Finally, I knew why I had come. “Aunt Marian, I think I need to
go back into the archive.”
“Today? Don’t you have things you need to be doing? Holiday shopping at least?”
“I don’t shop.”
“Spoken wisely. As for myself, ‘I do like Christmas on the whole…. In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier
every year.’”
“More Dickens?”
“E. M. Forster.”
I sighed. “I can’t explain it. I think I need to be with my mom.”
“I know. I miss her, too.” I hadn’t really thought about what I would say to Marian about how I was feeling. About the town, and how everything was
wrong. Now the words seemed stuck in my throat, like another person was stumbling through them. “I just thought, if I could be around her books,
maybe I could feel how it was before. Maybe I could talk to her. I tried to go to the graveyard once, but it didn’t make me feel like she was there, in
the ground.” I stared at a random speck on the carpet.
“I know.”
“I still can’t think about her being there. It doesn’t make sense. Why would you stick someone you love down in a lonely old hole in the dirt?
Where it’s cold, and dirty, and full of bugs? That can’t be how it ends, after everything, after everything she was.” I tried not to think about it, her body
turning into bone and mud and dust down there. I hated the idea that she had to go through it alone, like I was going through everything alone now.
“How do you want it to end?” Marian laid her hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t know. I should, somebody should build her a monument or something.”
“Like the General? Your mom would have had a good laugh about that.” Marian pulled her arm around me. “I know what you mean. She’s not
there, she’s here.”
She held out her hand, and I pulled her up. We held hands all the way back to the archive, as if I was still a kid she was babysitting while my
mom was at work in the back. She pulled out a thick ring of keys and opened the door. She didn’t follow me inside.
Back in the archive, I sank into the chair in front of my mom’s desk. My mom’s chair. It was wooden, and bore the insignia of Duke University. I
think they had given it to her for graduating with honors, or something like that. It wasn’t comfortable, but comforting, and familiar. I smelled the old
varnish, the same varnish I’d probably chewed on as a baby, and right away I felt better than I had in months. I could breathe in the smell of the
stacks of books wrapped in crackling plastic, the old crumbling parchment, the dust and the cheap file cabinets. I could breathe in the particular air
of the particular atmosphere of my mother’s very particular planet. To me, it was the same as if I was seven years old, sitting in her lap, burying my
face in her shoulder.
I wanted to go home. Without Lena, I had nowhere else to go.
I picked up a small, framed photograph on my mom’s desk, almost hidden among the books. It was her, and my father, in the study at our house.
Someone had taken it in black and white, a long time ago. Probably for the back of a book jacket, on one of their early projects, when my dad was
still a historian, and they had worked together. Back when they had funny hair, and ugly pants, and you could see the happiness on their faces. It
was hard to look at, but harder to put down. When I went to return it to my mom’s desk, next to the dusty stacks of books, one book caught my eye. I
pulled it out from under an encyclopedia of Civil War weapons and a catalog of native plants of South Carolina. I didn’t know what the book was. I
only knew it was bookmarked with a long sprig of rosemary. I smiled. At least it wasn’t a sock, or a dirty pudding spoon.
The Gatlin County Junior League cookbook, Fried Chicken and Sass. It opened, by itself, to a single page. “Betty Burton’s Buttermilk Pan Fried
Tomatoes,” my mom’s favorite. The scent of rosemary rose up from the pages. I looked at the rosemary more closely. It was fresh, as if it had been
plucked from a garden yesterday. My mom couldn’t have put it there, but no one else would use rosemary as a bookmark. My mom’s favorite recipe
was bookmarked with Lena’s familiar scent. Maybe the books really were trying to tell me something.
“Aunt Marian? Were you looking to fry up some tomatoes?”
She stuck her head in the doorway. “Do you think I would touch a tomato, let alone cook one?”
I stared at the rosemary in my hand. “That’s what I thought.”
“I think that was the one thing your mother and I disagreed on.”
“Can I borrow this book? Just for a few days?”
“Ethan, you don’t have to ask. Those are your mother’s things; there isn’t anything in this room she wouldn’t have wanted you to have.”
I wanted to ask Marian about the rosemary in the cookbook, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to show it to anyone else, or to part with it. Even though
I had never and probably would never fry a tomato in my entire life. I stuck the book under my arm as Marian walked me to the door.
“If you need me, I’m here for you. You and Lena. You know that. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” She pushed the hair out of my eyes and
gave me a smile. It wasn’t my mother’s smile, but it was one of my mother’s favorite smiles.
Marian hugged me, and wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell rosemary?”
I shrugged and slipped out the door, into the gray day. Maybe Julius Caesar was right. Maybe it was time to confront my fate, and Lena’s fate.
Whether it was up to us or the stars, I couldn’t just sit around and wait to find out.
When I walked outside, it was snowing. I couldn’t believe it. I looked up into the sky and let snow fall on my freezing face. The thick, white powdery
flakes were drifting down with no particular purpose. It wasn’t a storm, not at all. It was a gift, maybe even a miracle: a white Christmas, just like the
song. When I walked up to my front porch, there she was, sitting bareheaded on my front steps with her hood down. The moment I saw her, I
recognized the snow for what it really was. A peace offering.
Lena smiled at me. In that second, the pieces of my life that had been falling apart fell back in place. Everything that was wrong just righted itself;
maybe not everything, but enough.
I sat down next to her on the step. “Thanks, L.”
She leaned against me. “I just wanted to make you feel better. I’m so confused, Ethan. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t know what I’d do if
anything happened to you.”
I ran my hand through her damp hair. “Don’t push me away, please. I can’t stand to lose anyone else I care about.” I unzipped her parka, slipping
my arm around her waist, inside her jacket, and pulled her toward me. I kissed her as she pressed into me, until I felt like we would melt the whole
front yard if we didn’t stop.
“What was that?” she asked, catching her breath. I kissed her again, until I couldn’t take it any longer, and pulled back.
“I think that’s called fate. I’ve been waiting to do that since the winter formal, and I’m not going to wait any longer.”
“You’re not?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait a little longer. I’m still grounded. Uncle M thinks I’m at the library.”
“I don’t care if you’re grounded. I’m not. I’ll move into your house if I have to, and sleep with Boo in his dog bed.”
“He has a bedroom. He sleeps in a four-poster bed.”
“Even better.”
She smiled and held onto my hand. The snowflakes melted as they landed on our warm skin.
“I’ve missed you, Ethan Wate.” She kissed me back. The snow fell harder, dripping off us. We were practically radioactive. “Maybe you were
right. We should spend as much time together as we can before—” she stopped, but I knew what she was thinking.
“We’re gonna figure something out, L. I promise.”
She nodded half-heartedly, and snuggled inside my arms. I could feel the calm beginning to spread between us. “I don’t want to think about that
today.” She pushed me away, playfully, back among the living.
“Yeah? What do you want to think about, then?”
“Snow angels. I’ve never made one.”
“Really? You guys don’t do angels?”
“It’s not the angels. We only moved to Virginia for a few months, so I’ve never lived anywhere it snows.”
An hour later, we were soggy and wet and sitting around the kitchen table. Amma had gone to the Stop & Steal, and we were drinking the sorry hot
chocolate I had attempted to make myself.
“I’m not sure this is the way you make hot chocolate,” Lena teased me as I scraped a microwaved bowl of chocolate chips into hot milk. The
result was brown and white and lumpy. It looked great to me.
“Yeah? How would you know? ‘Kitchen, hot chocolate, please.’” I mimicked her high voice with my low one and the result was a strange cracking
falsetto. She smiled. I had missed that smile, even though it had only been days; I missed it even when it had only been minutes.
“Speaking of Kitchen, I have to go. I told my uncle I was at the library, and it’s closed by now.”
I pulled her onto my lap, sitting at the kitchen table. I was having trouble not touching her every second, now that I could again. I found myself
making excuses to tickle her, anything to touch her hair, her hands, her knees. The pull between us was like a magnet. She leaned against my chest
and we just sat there until I heard feet padding across the floor upstairs. She bolted out of my lap like a frightened cat.
“Don’t worry, that’s my dad. He’s just taking a shower. It’s the only time he comes out of his study anymore.”
“He’s getting worse, isn’t he?” She took my hand. We both knew it wasn’t really a question.
“My dad wasn’t like this until my mom died. He just flipped out after that.” I didn’t have to say the rest; she’d heard me think it enough times.
About how my mom died, and we stopped cooking fried tomatoes, and we lost the little pieces of the Christmas town, and she wasn’t there to stand
up to Mrs. Lincoln, and nothing was ever the same again.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“Is that why you went to the library today? To look for your mom?”
I looked at Lena, pushing her hair out of her face. I nodded, pulling the rosemary out of my pocket and placing it carefully on the counter. “Come
on. I want to show you something.” I pulled her out of the chair and took her hand. We slid across the old wood flooring in our damp socks and
stopped at the door to the study. I looked up the stairs to my dad’s bedroom. I didn’t even hear the shower yet; we still had plenty of time. I tried the
door handle.
“It’s locked.” Lena frowned. “Do you have the key?”
“Wait, watch what happens.” We stood there, staring at the door. I felt stupid standing there, and Lena must have too because she started to
giggle. Just when I was about to laugh, the door began to unbolt itself. She stopped laughing.
That’s not a Cast. I would be able to feel it.
I think I’m supposed to go in, or we are.
I stepped back and the door bolted itself again. Lena held up her hand, as if she was going to use her powers to open the door for me. I touched
her back, gently. “L. I think I need to do it.”
I touched the handle again. The door unbolted and swung open, and I stepped into the study for the first time in years. It was still a dark,
frightening place. The painting, covered with a sheet, was still hanging over the faded sofa. Under the window, my dad’s carved mahogany desk
was papered with his latest novel, stacked on his computer, stacked on his chair, stacked meticulously across the Persian rug on the floor.
“Don’t touch anything. He’ll know.”
Lena squatted down and stared at the nearest pile. Then, she picked up a piece of paper and turned on the brass desk lamp. “Ethan.”
“Don’t turn on the light. I don’t want him to come down here and freak out on us. He’d kill me if he knew we were in here. All he cares about is his
book.”
She handed me the paper, without a word. I took it. It was covered with scribbles. Not scribbled words, just scribbles. I grabbed a handful of the
papers closest to me. They were covered with squiggly lines and shapes, and more scribbles. I picked up a piece of paper from the floor, nothing
but tiny rows of circles. I tore through the stacks of white paper littering his desk and the floor. More scribbles and shapes, pages and pages of
them. Not a single word.
Then I understood. There was no book.
My father wasn’t a writer. He wasn’t even a vampire.
He was a madman.
I bent down, my hands on my knees. I was going to be sick. I should have seen this coming. Lena rubbed my back.
It’s okay. He’s just going through a hard time. He’ll come back to you.
He won’t. He’s gone. She’s gone, and now I’m losing him, too.
What had my father been doing all this time, avoiding me? What was the point of sleeping all day and working all night, if you weren’t working on
the great American novel? If you were scribbling rows and rows of circles? Escaping from your only child? Did Amma know? Was everyone in on
the joke but me?
It’s not your fault. Don’t do this to yourself.
This time I was the one out of control. The anger welled up inside me, and I pushed his laptop off his desk, sending his papers flying. I knocked
over the brass lamp, and without even thinking, yanked the sheet off the painting over the couch. The painting went tumbling to the ground, knocking
over a low bookshelf. A pile of books went flying to the floor, sprawling open on the rug.
“Look at the painting.” She righted it, amidst the books on the floor.
It was a painting of me.
Me, as a Confederate soldier, in 1865. But it was me, nonetheless.
Neither one of us needed to read the penciled label on the back of the frame to know who it was. He even had the lanky brown hair hanging
down in his face.
“About time we met you, Ethan Carter Wate,” I said, just as I heard my father lumbering down the stairs.
“Ethan Wate!”
Lena looked at the door, panicking. “Door!” It slammed shut and bolted. I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t think I was ever going to get used to that.
There was pounding on the door. “Ethan, are you okay? What’s goin’ on in there?” I ignored him. I couldn’t figure out what else to do, and I
couldn’t stand to look at him right now. Then I noticed the books.
“Look.” I knelt on the floor in front of the nearest one. It was open to page 3. I flipped the page to 4 and it flipped back to 3. Just like the bolt on
the study door. “Did you just do that?”
“What are you talking about? We can’t stay in here all night.”
“Marian and I spent the day in the library. And as crazy as it sounds, she thought the books were telling us things.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know. Stuff about fate, and Mrs. Lincoln, and you.”
“Me?”
“Ethan! Open this door!” My dad was pounding now, but he had kept me out long enough. It was my turn.
“In the archive, I found a picture of my mom in this study and then a cookbook, opened to her favorite recipe, with a bookmark made of
rosemary. Fresh rosemary. Don’t you get it? It has to do with you, somehow, and my mom. And now we’re here, like something wanted me to come
here. Or, I don’t know—someone.”
“Or maybe you just thought of it because you saw her picture.”
“Maybe, but look at this.” I flipped the page of the Constitutional History book in front of me, turning it from page 3 to page 4. Once again, no
sooner had I turned it than the page flipped back by itself.
“That’s weird.” She turned to the next book. South Carolina: Cradle to Grave. It was open to page 12. She flipped it back to 11. It flipped to 12.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “But this page doesn’t say anything, it’s a chart. Marian’s books were open to certain pages because they were
trying to tell us something, like messages. My mom’s books don’t seem to be telling us anything.”
“Maybe it’s some kind of code.”
“My mom was terrible at math. She was a writer,” I said, as if that was explanation enough. But I wasn’t, and my mom knew that better than
anyone.
Lena considered the next book. “Page 1. This is just the title page. It can’t be the content.”
“Why would she leave me a code?” I was thinking out loud, but Lena still had the answer.
“Because you always know the end of the movie. Because you grew up with Amma and the mystery novels and the crosswords. Maybe your
mom thought you would figure out something that no one else would get.”
My father half-heartedly banged away at the door. I looked at the next book. Page 9, and then 13. None of the numbers went higher than 26. And
yet, lots of the books had way more pages than that….
“There are 26 letters in the alphabet, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it. When I was little, and couldn’t sit still in church with the Sisters, my mom would make up games for me to play on the back of the
church program. Hangman, scrambled words, and this, the alphabet code.”
“Wait, let me get a pen.” She grabbed a pen from the desk. “If A is 1 and B is 2—let me write it out.”
“Careful. Sometimes I used to do it backward, where Z was 1.”
Lena and I sat in the middle of the circle of the books, moving from book to book, while my father banged on the door outside. I ignored him, just
like he had been ignoring me. I wasn’t going to answer to him, or give him an explanation. Let him see how it felt for a change.
“3, 12, 1, 9, 13…”
“Ethan! What are you doin’ in there? What was all that racket?”
“25, 15, 21, 18, 19, 5, 12, 6.”
I looked at Lena, and held out the paper. I was already a step ahead. “I think—it’s meant for you.”
It was as clear as if my mom was standing in the study, telling us in her own words, with her own voice.
CLAIMYOURSELF
It was a message for Lena.
My mom was there, in some form, in some sense, in some universe. My mom was still my mom, even if she only lived in books and door locks
and the smell of fried tomatoes and old paper.
She lived.
When I finally opened the door, my dad was standing there in his bathrobe. He stared past me, into the study, where the pages of his imaginary
novel were scattered all over the floor and the painting of Ethan Carter Wate was resting against the sofa, uncovered.
“Ethan, I—”
“What? Were going to tell me that you’ve been locked in your study for months doing this?” I held up one of the crumpled pages in my hand.
He looked down at the floor. My dad may have been crazy, but he was still sane enough to know that I had figured out the truth. Lena sat down
on the sofa, looking uncomfortable.
“Why? That’s all I want to know. Was there ever a book or were you just trying to avoid me?”
My dad raised his head slowly, his eyes tired and bloodshot. He looked old, like life had worn him down one disappointment at a time. “I just
wanted to be close to her. When I’m in there, with her books and her things, it feels like she isn’t really gone. I can still smell her. Fried tomatoes…”
His voice trailed off, as if he was lost in his own mind again and the rare moment of clarity was gone.
He walked past me, back into the study, and bent down to pick up one of the pages covered with circles. His hand was shaking. “I was tryin’ to
write.” He looked over at my mom’s chair. “I just don’t know what to write anymore.”
It wasn’t about me. It had never been about me. It was about my mom. A few hours ago I had felt the same way in the library, sitting among her
things, trying to feel her there with me. But now I knew she wasn’t gone, and everything was different. My dad didn’t know. She wasn’t unlocking
doors for him and leaving him messages. He didn’t even have that.
The next week, on Christmas Eve, the weathered and warped cardboard town didn’t seem so small. The lopsided steeple stayed on the church,
and the farmhouse even stood up by itself, if you set it just right. The white glitter glue sparkled and the same old piece of cotton snow secured the
town, constant as time.
I lay on my stomach on the floor, with my head tucked under the lowest branches of the fat white pine, just as I always had. The blue-green
needles scratched my neck as I carefully pushed a string of tiny white lights, one by one, into the circular holes in the back of the broken village. I sat
back to take a look, the soft white light turning colors through the painted paper windows of the town. We never found the people, and the tin cars
and animals were still gone. The town was empty, but for the first time it didn’t seem deserted, and I didn’t feel alone.
As I sat there, listening to Amma’s pencil scratching, and my dad’s scratchy old holiday record, something caught my eye. It was small and dark,
and snagged in a fold, between layers of the cotton snow. It was a star, about the size of a penny, painted silver and gold, and surrounded by a
twisted halo made of what looked like a paper clip. It was from the town’s pipe-cleaner Christmas tree, which we hadn’t been able to find in years.
My mom had made it in school, as a little girl in Savannah.
I put it in my pocket. I’d give it to Lena next time I saw her, for her charm necklace, for safekeeping. So it didn’t get lost again. So I didn’t get lost
again.
My mom would have liked that. Would like that. Just like she would have liked Lena—or maybe even, did.
Claim yourself.
The answer had been in front of us, all along. It was just locked away with all the books in my father’s study, stuck between the pages of my
mother’s cookbook.
Snagged a little in the dusty snow.

Categories: Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures - Chapter 24

12.16
When the Saints Go Marching In

Lena was sitting on the porch when I pulled up. I insisted on driving because Link wanted to ride with us, and he couldn’t risk being seen in the
hearse. And I didn’t want Lena to have to walk in alone. I didn’t even want her to go, but there was no talking her out of it. She looked like she was
ready for battle. She was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, black jeans, and a black vest with a fur-trimmed hood. She was about to face the
firing squad, and she knew it.
It had only been three days since the dance, and the DAR hadn’t wasted any time. The Jackson Disciplinary Committee meeting this afternoon
wasn’t going to be much different than a witch trial, and you didn’t have to be a Caster to know that. Emily was limping around in a cast, the winter
formal disaster had become the talk of the town, and Mrs. Lincoln finally had all the support she needed. Witnesses had come forward. And if you
twisted everything everyone claimed they saw, heard, or remembered far enough, you could squint, slant your head just right, and try to see the
logic: that Lena Duchannes was responsible.
Everything was fine until she came to town.
Link jumped out and opened the door for Lena. He was so riddled with guilt, he looked like he was going to puke. “Hey, Lena. How ya doin’?”
“I’m okay.”
Liar.
I don’t want him to feel bad. It’s not his fault.
Link cleared his throat. “I’m real sorry about this. I’ve been fightin’ with my mom all weekend. She’s always been crazy, but this time it’s
different.”
“It’s not your fault, but I appreciate you trying to talk to her.”
“It might have made a difference if all those hags from the DAR weren’t talkin’ her other ear off. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Asher must’ve called my
house a hundred times in the last two days.”
We drove past the Stop & Steal. Even Fatty wasn’t there. The roads were deserted, like we were driving through a ghost town. The Disciplinary
Committee meeting was scheduled for five o’clock sharp, and we were going to be right on time. The meeting was in the gym because it was the
only place at Jackson big enough to accommodate the number of people that were likely to show up. That was another thing about Gatlin,
everything that went on involved everyone. There were no closed proceedings around here. From the look of the streets, the whole town had all but
shut down, which meant just about everyone was going to be at the meeting.
“I just don’t get how your mom pulled this off so quickly. This is fast even for her.”
“From what I overheard, Doc Asher got involved. He hunts with Principal Harper and some bigwig on the School Board.” Doc Asher was Emily’s
dad and the only real doctor in town.
“Great.”
“You guys know I’m probably going to get kicked out, right? I’ll bet it’s already been decided. This meeting is just for show.”
Link looked confused. “They can’t kick you out without hearin’ your side a the story. You didn’t even do anything.”
“None of that matters. These things are decided behind closed doors. Nothing I say is going to matter.”
She was right, and we both knew it. So I didn’t say anything. Instead, I pulled her hand up to my mouth and kissed it, wishing for the hundredth
time that it was me going up against the whole School Board, instead of Lena.
But the thing was, it would never have been me. No matter what I did, no matter what I said, I would always be one of them. Lena never would.
And I think that was the thing that made me the angriest, and the most embarrassed. I hated them even more because deep down, they still claimed
me as one of their own, even when I dated Old Man Ravenwood’s niece and took on Mrs. Lincoln and wasn’t invited to Savannah Snow’s parties. I
was one of them. I belonged to them, and there was nothing I could do to change that. And if the opposite were true, and in some way they
belonged to me, then what Lena was up against wasn’t just them. It was me.
The truth was killing me. Maybe Lena was going to be Claimed on her sixteenth birthday, but I had been claimed since birth. I had no more
control over my fate than she did. Maybe none of us did.
I pulled the car into the parking lot. It was full. There was a crowd of people lined up at the main entrance, waiting to get in. I hadn’t seen this many
people in one place since the opening of Gods and Generals, the longest and most boring Civil War movie ever made and one that half my
relatives starred in as extras, because they owned their own uniforms.
Link ducked down in the backseat. “I’m gonna slide out here. I’ll see y’all in there.” He pushed open the door and crawled out between the cars.
“Good luck.”
Lena’s hands were in her lap, shaking. It killed me to see her this nervous. “You don’t have to go in there. We can turn around and I can drive you
right back to your house.”
“No. I’m going in.”
“Why do you want to subject yourself to this? You said it yourself, this is probably just for show.”
“I’m not going to let them think I’m scared to face them. I left my last school, but I’m not going to run away this time.” She took a deep breath.
“It’s not running away.”
“It is to me.”
“Is your uncle coming at least?”
“He can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” She was all alone in this, even though I was standing right next to her.
“It’s too early. I didn’t even tell him.”
“Too early? What is that about, anyway? Is he locked up in his crypt or something?”
“More like, or something.”
It wasn’t worth trying to talk about now. She was going to have enough to deal with in a few minutes.
We walked toward the building. It started to rain. I looked at her.
Believe me, I’m trying. If I let go, it would be a tornado.
People were staring, even pointing, not that I was surprised. So much for common decency. I looked around, half expecting to see Boo Radley
sitting by the door, but tonight, he was nowhere in sight.
We entered the gym from the side, coincidentally—the Visitor’s entrance, Link’s idea, which turned out to be a good one. Because once we got
inside, I realized people weren’t standing out front waiting to get in, they were just hoping to hear the meeting. Inside, it was standing room only.
It looked like a pathetic version of a grand jury hearing from an episode of one of those courtroom dramas on TV. There was a big plastic
folding table in the front of the room, and a few teachers—Mr. Lee of course, sporting a red bow tie and his own backwoods brand of pre-judice;
Principal Harper; and a couple of people who must have been members of the School Board—sitting in a row at the tables. They all looked old and
annoyed, like they wished they could be at home watching QVC or religious programming.
The bleachers were filled with Gatlin’s finest. Mrs. Lincoln and her DAR lynch mob were taking up the first three rows, with the members of the
Sisters of the Confederacy, the First Methodist Choir, and the Historical Society taking up the next few. Right behind them were the Jackson Angels
—also known as, the girls who wanted to be Emily and Savannah, and the guys who wanted to get into Emily’s and Savannah’s pants—sporting
their freshly screened Guardian tees. The front of the shirts had a picture of an angel that looked suspiciously like Emily Asher, with her huge white
angel wings spread wide open, wearing what else—a Jackson High Wildcats T-shirt. On the back, there was simply a pair of white wings designed
to look like they were sprouting right out of the person’s back, and the Angels’ battle cry, “We’ll Be Watching You.”
Emily was sitting next to Mrs. Asher, her leg and its huge cast propped up on one of the orange cafeteria chairs. Mrs. Lincoln narrowed her eyes
when she saw us, and Mrs. Asher put her arm around Emily protectively, as if one of us might run over there and beat her with a club like a
defenseless baby seal pup. I saw Emily slip her phone out of her tiny silver bag, text-ready. Soon, her fingers would be flying. Our school gym was
probably the epicenter of local gossip for four counties tonight.
Amma was sitting a few rows back, fiddling with the charm around her neck. Hopefully, it would make Mrs. Lincoln grow the horns she’d been so
artfully hiding all these years. Of course, my dad wasn’t there, but the Sisters were sitting next to Thelma, across the aisle from Amma. Things must
have been worse than I thought. The Sisters hadn’t been out of the house this late since 1980, when Aunt Grace ate too much spicy Hoppin’ John
and thought she was having a heart attack. Aunt Mercy caught my eye and waved her handkerchief.
I walked Lena to the seat in the front of the room obviously reserved for her. It was right in front of the firing squad, dead center.
It’s going to be okay.
Promise?
I could hear the rain pounding on the roof outside.
I promise this doesn’t matter. I promise these people are idiots. I promise nothing they say will ever change the way I feel about you.
I’ll take that as a no.
The rain beat down harder on the roof, not a good sign. I took her hand and pressed something into it. The little silver button from Lena’s vest,
that I’d found in the Beater’s cracked upholstery, the night we met in the rain. It looked like a piece of junk, but I had carried it in my jeans pocket
ever since.
Here. It’s sort of a good luck charm. At least it brought something good to me.
I could see how hard she was trying not to crack. Without a word, Lena took off her chain and added it to her own collection of valuable junk.
Thanks. If she could have smiled, she would have.
I made my way back toward the row where the Sisters and Amma were sitting. Aunt Grace stood up, resting on her cane. “Ethan, over here. We
saved you a seat, darlin’.”
“Why don’t you sit down, Grace Statham,” an old blue-haired woman sitting behind the Sisters hissed.
Aunt Prue turned around. “Why don’t you mind your own business, Sadie Honeycutt, or I will mind it for you.”
Aunt Grace turned to Mrs. Honeycutt and smiled. “Now you come right on over here, Ethan.”
I squeezed in between Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace. “How you holdin’ up, Sweet Meat?” Thelma smiled and pinched my arm.
Thunder crashed outside, and the lights flickered. A few old women gasped.
An uptight-looking guy sitting in the middle of the big folding table cleared his throat. “Just a little hiccup in the power is all. Why doesn’t
everyone kindly take their seats so we can get started. My name is Bertrand Hollingsworth, and I’m Head a the School Board. This meeting’s been
called to respond to the petition requestin’ the expulsion of a Jackson student, a Miss Lena Duchannes, is that right?”
Principal Harper addressed Mr. Hollingsworth from his seat at the table, the Prosecution, or more accurately, Mrs. Lincoln’s hangman. “Yes, sir.
The petition was brought to my attention by several concerned parents, and it was signed by over two hundred a Gatlin’s most respected parents
and citizens, and a number of Jackson students.” Of course it was.
“What are the grounds for expulsion?”
Mr. Harper flipped some pages on his yellow legal pad like he was reading a rap sheet. “Assault. Destruction a school property. And Miss
Duchannes was already on probation.”
Assault? I didn’t assault anyone.
It’s just an accusation. They can’t prove anything.
I was on my feet before he even finished. “None of that’s true!”
Another jumpy-looking guy at the other end of the table raised his voice to be heard over the rain, and the twenty or thirty old women whispering
about my bad manners. “Young man, have a seat. This is not a free-for-all.”
Mr. Hollingsworth pressed on over the din. “Do we have any witnesses to substantiate these accusations?” Now there were more than a few
people whispering to each other to see if anyone knew what “substantiate” meant.
Principal Harper cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes. And recently, I received information that indicates Miss Duchannes had similar problems at
the school she previously attended.”
What is he talking about? How do they know anything about my old school?
I don’t know. What happened at your old school?
Nothing.
A woman from the School Board flipped through some papers in front of her. “I think we’d like to hear from Jackson’s Parent Partnership
President, Mrs. Lincoln, first.”
Link’s mom stood up dramatically and walked down the aisle toward the Gatlin Grand Jury. She had seen a few courtroom dramas on TV,
herself. “Good evenin’, ladies and gentle-men.”
“Mrs. Lincoln, can you tell us what you know about this situation, since you are one of the original petitioners?”
“Of course. Miss Ravenwood, I mean, Miss Duchannes, moved here several months ago, and since then there have been all sorts a problems
at Jackson. First, she broke a window in the English class—”
“That came close to cuttin’ my baby to shreds,” Mrs. Snow called out.
“It came close to seriously injurin’ several children, and many a them suffered cuts from the broken glass.”
“No one except Lena was injured and that was an accident!” Link yelled from where he was standing in the back of the room.
“Wesley Jefferson Lincoln, you better go home right now if you know what’s good for you!” Mrs. Lincoln hissed.
She regained her composure, smoothing her skirt, and turned to face the Disciplinary Committee. “Miss Duchannes’ charms seem to work
quite well on the weaker sex,” Mrs. Lincoln said with a smile. “As I was sayin’, she broke a window in the English classroom, which frightened the
students so much that a number of civically minded young ladies took it upon themselves to form the Jackson Guardian Angels—a group whose
sole purpose is to protect the students at Jackson. Like a Neighborhood Watch.”
The Fallen Angels nodded in unison from their seats on the bleachers like someone was pulling invisible strings attached to their heads, which,
in a way, someone was.
Mr. Hollingsworth was scribbling on a yellow legal pad. “Was this the only incident involvin’ Miss Duchannes?”
Mrs. Lincoln tried to look shocked. “Heavens, no! At the winter formal, she pulled the fire alarm, ruinin’ the dance and destroyin’ four thousand
dollars worth a audio equipment. As if that weren’t enough, she pushed Miss Asher off a the stage, causin’ her to break her leg, which I’ve been
told, on good authority, will take months to heal.”
Lena stared straight ahead, refusing to look at anyone.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lincoln.” Link’s mom turned and smiled at Lena. Not a genuine smile or even a sarcastic smile, but an I’m-going-to-ruin-yourlife-
and-enjoy-doing-it smile.
Mrs. Lincoln walked back to her seat. Then she stopped and looked right at Lena. “I almost forgot. There is one last thing.” She pulled some
loose papers from her purse. “I have records from Miss Duchannes’ previous school in Virginia. Although it might be more accurate to call it an
institution.”
I wasn’t in an institution. It was a private school.
“As Principal Harper mentioned, this is not the first time Miss Duchannes has had violent episodes.”
Lena’s voice in my head was bordering on hysterical. I tried to reassure her.
Don’t worry.
But I was worried. Mrs. Lincoln wouldn’t be saying this here if she couldn’t prove it somehow.
“Miss Duchannes is a very disturbed girl. She suffers from a mental illness. Let me see…” Mrs. Lincoln ran her finger down the page as if she
was looking for something. I waited to hear the diagnosis for the mental illness Mrs. Lincoln thought Lena suffered from—the state of being different.
“Ah, yes, here it is. It appears Miss Duchannes suffers from bipolar disorder, which Doctor Asher can tell you is a very serious mental condition.
These people who suffer from this affliction are prone to violence and unpredictable behavior. These things run in families; her mother was afflicted
as well.”
This can’t be happening.
The rain hammered down on the roof. The wind picked up, lashing the door of the gym.
“In fact, her mother murdered her father fourteen years ago.” The entire room gasped.
Game. Set. Match.
Everyone started talking at once.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please.” Principal Harper tried to calm everyone down, but it was like taking a match to dry brush. Once the fire got
started, there was no stopping it.
It took ten minutes for the gym to settle back down again, but Lena never did. I could feel her heart racing like it was my own, and the knot in her
throat from choking back her tears. Although judging by the downpour outside, she was having a tough time with that. I was surprised she hadn’t run
out of the gym already, but she was either too brave or too stunned to move.
I knew Mrs. Lincoln was lying. I didn’t believe Lena had been in an institution any more than I believed the Angels wanted to protect the students
at Jackson. What I didn’t know was if Mrs. Lincoln was lying about the rest, the part about Lena’s mother murdering her father.
But I knew I wanted to kill Mrs. Lincoln. I’d known Link’s mom my whole life, but lately I hadn’t even been able to think of her like that anymore.
She didn’t seem like the woman who ripped the cable box out of the wall or lectured us for hours on the virtues of abstinence. This didn’t seem like
one of her annoying, yet ultimately innocent causes. This seemed more vindictive and more personal. I just couldn’t figure out why she hated Lena
so much.
Mr. Hollingsworth tried to regain control. “All right, everyone, let’s settle down. Mrs. Lincoln, thank you for takin’ the time to be here tonight. I’d like
to review those documents, if you don’t mind.”
I stood up again. “This whole thing is ridiculous. Why don’t you just set her on fire and see if she burns?”
Mr. Hollingsworth tried to gain control of the meeting, which was bordering on becoming an episode of Jerry Springer. “Mr. Wate, have a seat
or you will be asked to leave. There will be no more outbursts during this meetin’. I have reviewed the witnesses’ written accounts a what happened,
and it seems this matter is quite straightforward and there is only one sensible thing to do.”
There was a crash, and the huge metal doors in the back of the room flew open. A gust of wind blew in, along with sheets of rain.
And something else.
Macon Ravenwood strode casually into the gym, dressed in a black cashmere overcoat and sharp-looking gray pinstripe suit, with Marian
Ashcroft on his arm. Marian was carrying a small, checkered umbrella just large enough to shield her from the downpour. Macon didn’t have an
umbrella, but he was still bone-dry. Boo lumbered in behind them, his black hair wet and standing on end, making it obvious he was more wolf than
dog.Lena turned around in her orange plastic chair, and for a second she looked as vulnerable as she felt. I could see the relief in her eyes, and I
could see how hard she was trying to stay in her seat, to keep from throwing herself, sobbing, into his arms.
Macon’s eyes flickered in her direction, and she settled back in her chair. He walked down the aisle toward the members of the School Board.
“I’m so sorry we are late. The weather is just treacherous out there tonight. Don’t let me interrupt. You were just about to do something sensible if I
heard correctly.”
Mr. Hollingsworth looked confused. Actually, most of the people in the gym looked confused. None of them had ever seen Macon Ravenwood in
the flesh. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t know who you think you are, but we are in the middle of proceedin’s. And you can’t bring that… that dog in here.
Only service animals are permitted on school grounds.”
“I understand completely. It just so happens that Boo Radley is my Seeing-Eye dog.” I couldn’t help but smile. I guess technically, that was true.
Boo shook his huge body, water from his soaking wet fur showering everyone sitting close to the aisle.
“Well, Mister…?”
“Ravenwood. Macon Ravenwood.”
There was another audible gasp from the bleachers, followed by the buzz of whispering moving down the rows. The whole town had been
waiting for this day since before I was born. You could feel the energy in the room pick up, from the sheer spectacle of it all. There was nothing,
nothing, Gatlin loved better than a spectacle.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Gatlin. How nice to finally meet you all. I trust you know my dear friend, the beautiful Dr. Ashcroft. She has been kind
enough to escort me this evening, as I don’t quite know my way around our fair town.”
Marian waved.
“Let me apologize once again for being late; please do continue. I’m sure you were just about to explain that the accusations against my niece
are completely unfounded and encourage these children to go home and get a good night’s sleep for school tomorrow.”
For a minute, Mr. Hollingsworth looked like he might be convinced to do just that, and I wondered if maybe Uncle Macon had the same Power of
Persuasion Ridley possessed. A woman with a beehive whispered something to Mr. Hollingsworth and he seemed to remember his original train
of thought. “No, sir, that’s not what I was about to do, not at all. In fact, the accusations against your niece are quite serious. It seems there are
several witnesses to the events that transpired. Based on the written accounts and the information presented at this meetin’, I’m afraid we are faced
with no choice but to expel her.”
Macon waved his hand toward Emily, Savannah, Charlotte, and Eden. “Are these your witnesses? An imaginative band of little girls suffering
from a bad case of sour grapes.”
Mrs. Snow leapt to her feet. “Are you insinuatin’ that my daughter is lyin’?”
Macon smiled his movie star smile. “Not at all, my dear. I’m saying that your daughter is lying. I’m sure you can appreciate the difference.”
“How dare you!” Link’s mother pounced like a wildcat. “You have no right to be here, railroadin’ these proceedin’s.”
Marian smiled and stepped forward. “As the great man said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere.’ And I see no justice in this
room, Mrs. Lincoln.”
“Don’t you talk your Harvard talk around here.”
Marian snapped her umbrella shut. “I don’t believe Martin Luther King Jr. went to Harvard.”
Mr. Hollingsworth spoke up authoritatively. “The fact remains that accordin’ to witnesses, Miss Duchannes pulled the fire alarm, resultin’ in
thousands a dollars in damages to Jackson High School property, and pushed Miss Asher off the stage, resultin’ in injuries to Miss Asher. Based
on these events alone, we have grounds to expel her.”
Marian sighed loudly, snapping her umbrella shut. “‘It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.’” She looked pointedly at Mrs. Lincoln.
“Voltaire, another man who did not go to Harvard.”
Macon remained calm, which seemed to aggravate everyone even more. “Mister?”
“Hollingsworth.”
“Mr. Hollingsworth, it would be a shame for you to continue on this course of action. You see, it’s illegal to prevent a minor from attending school
in the Great State of South Carolina. Education is compulsory, that means required. You cannot dismiss an innocent girl from school without
grounds. Those days are over, even in the South.”
“As I have explained, Mr. Ravenwood, we do have grounds, and we are well within our power to expel your niece.”
Mrs. Lincoln jumped to her feet. “You can’t just show up here out a the blue, interferin’ with town business. You haven’t left your house in years!
What gives you the right to have a say in what happens in this town, or with our children?”
“Are you referring to your little collection of marionettes, dressed like, what is it—unicorns? You’ll have to forgive my poor eyesight.” Macon
gestured toward the Angels.
“They are angels, Mr. Ravenwood, not unicorns. Not that I expect you to recognize Our Lord’s messengers, since I don’t ever recall seein’ you in
church.”
“‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ Mrs. Lincoln.” Macon paused for a second, as if he thought Mrs. Lincoln might need a moment or
two to get her mind around that.
“As for your original point, you’re absolutely right, Mrs. Lincoln. I spend a great deal of time in my house, which I don’t mind. It’s an enchanting
place, really. But perhaps I should spend more time in town, spend some more time with all of you. Shake things up a bit, for lack of a better
expression.”
Mrs. Lincoln looked horrified, and the DAR members were turning around in their seats, looking at one another nervously at the thought of it.
“In fact, if Lena will not be returning to Jackson, she will have to be home schooled. Perhaps I should invite a few of her cousins to stay with me,
as well. I wouldn’t want her to miss out on the social aspect of her education. Some of her cousins are quite captivating. In fact, I believe you met
one of them at your little Midwinter’s Eve Masquerade Ball.”
“It wasn’t a masquerade ball—”
“My apologies. I only assumed those dresses were costumes, based on the garish nature of the plumage.”
Mrs. Lincoln reddened. She was no longer just a woman trying to ban books. This was not a woman to be messed with. I was worried for
Macon. I was worried for all of us.
“Let’s be honest, Mr. Ravenwood. You have no place in this town. You are not part of it and clearly, neither is your niece. I don’t think you are in
any position to make demands.”
Macon’s expression changed slightly. He turned his ring around on his finger. “Mrs. Lincoln, I appreciate your candor, and I will try to be as frank
with you as you have been with me. It would be a grave error for you, for anyone in this town, really, to pursue this matter. You see, I have a great
deal of means. I’m a bit of a spendthrift, if you will. If you try to prevent my niece from returning to Stonewall Jackson High School, I will be forced to
spend some of that money. Who knows, perhaps I’ll bring in a Wal-Mart.” There was another gasp from the bleachers.
“Is that a threat?”
“Not at all. Quite coincidentally, I also own the land upon which the Southern Comfort Hotel resides. Its closure would be most inconvenient for
you, Mrs. Snow, as your husband would have to drive a great deal farther to meet his lady friends, which I’m sure would make him late for supper on
a regular basis. Now we couldn’t have that, could we?”
Mr. Snow turned beet red and scrunched down behind a couple of guys on the football team, but Macon was just getting started. “And Mr.
Hollingsworth, you look very familiar, sir. As does that striking Confederate flower to your left.” Macon gestured to the lady from the School Board
sitting next to him. “Haven’t I seen you two somewhere before? I could swear—”
Mr. Hollingsworth swayed a little. “Absolutely not, Mr. Ravenwood. I am a married man!”
Macon turned his attention to the balding man sitting on the other side of Mr. Hollingsworth. “And Mr. Ebitt, if I decide to stop leasing the land to
the Wayward Dog, where will you spend the evenings drinking, when your wife thinks you’re studying at the Good Book Bible Group?”
“Wilson, how could you! To use Our Lord Almighty as an alibi. You will burn in the fires of Hell, sure as I’m standin’ here!” Mrs. Ebitt collected her
purse and started to push her way toward the aisle.
“It’s not true, Rosalie!”
“Isn’t it, though?” Macon smiled. “I can’t even imagine what Boo here would tell me if he could talk. You know, he’s been in and out of every yard
and parking lot in your fair town, and I’ll bet he’s seen a thing or two.” I stifled a laugh.
Boo’s ears perked up at the sound of his name, and more than a few people started to squirm in their seats, as if Boo might open his mouth
and start talking. After Halloween night, it wouldn’t have surprised me, and considering Macon Ravenwood’s reputation, nobody in Gatlin would
have been too shocked, either.
“As you can see, there are more than a few people in this town who are less than honest. So you can imagine my concern when I learned that
four teenage girls are the only witnesses to these scathing accusations made against my own family. Wouldn’t it be in all of our interests to drop this
matter? Wouldn’t it be the gentlemanly thing to do, sir?”
Mr. Hollingsworth looked like he was going to be sick, and the woman next to him looked like she was hoping she’d get sucked down into the
ground. Mr. Ebitt, whose name I realized was never mentioned before Macon said it, had already left, chasing after his wife. The remaining
members of the tribunal looked scared to death, as if any minute now, Macon Ravenwood, or his dog, might start telling the whole town their dirty
little secrets.
“I think you may be right, Mr. Ravenwood. Perhaps we need to investigate these accusations further before pursuin’ this matter. There may, in
fact, be inconsistencies.”
“A wise choice, Mr. Hollingsworth. A very wise choice.” Macon walked toward the tiny table where Lena was sitting and offered his arm. “Come
now, Lena. It’s late. You have school tomorrow.” Lena stood up, standing even straighter than usual. The rain faded to a gentle patter. Marian tied a
scarf around her hair and the three of them walked back up the aisle, Boo trailing behind them. They didn’t look at anyone else in the room.
Mrs. Lincoln was on her feet. “Her mother is a murderer!” she screamed, pointing at Lena.
Macon spun around and their eyes met. There was something about his expression—it was the same expression he’d had when I showed him
Genevieve’s locket. Boo growled menacingly.
“Be careful, Martha. You never know when we’ll run into each other again.”
“Oh, but I do, Macon.” She smiled, but it was nothing like a smile. I don’t know what passed between them, but it didn’t look like Macon was just
battling Mrs. Lincoln anymore.
Marian opened her umbrella again, even though they weren’t outside yet. She smiled diplomatically at the crowd. “Now, I hope to see all of you
at the library. Don’t forget, we’re open till six o’clock on the weekdays.”
She nodded to the room. “‘Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.’ Just ask Ray Bradbury. Or go to Charlotte, and read
it for yourself on the wall of the public library.” Macon took Marian’s arm, but she wasn’t finished. “And he didn’t go to Harvard, either, Mrs. Lincoln.
He didn’t even go to college.”
With that, they were gone.

Categories: Beautiful Creatures