Beautiful Chaos

Good-Eye Side

Apparently Lena believed the answer to my problems was waiting at the Gatlin County Library, because five minutes later we were there. A chain-link fence surrounded the building, which looked more like a construction site than a library now. The missing half of the roof was covered with enormous blue plastic tarps. The doorway was flanked by the carpet that had been ripped up from the concrete floor, destroyed as much by the water as the fire. We stepped over the charred boards and walked inside.

The opposite side of the library was sealed off with heavy plastic. It was the one that had burned. I didn’t want to know what it looked like over there. The side where we were standing was just as depressing. The stacks were gone, replaced by boxes of books that looked like they’d been sorted into piles.

The destroyed. The partly destroyed. The salvageable.

Only the card catalog sat there, untouched. We would never get rid of that thing.

“Aunt Marian! You here?” I wandered past the boxes, expecting to see Marian in her stocking feet, walking around with an open book.

Instead, I saw my dad, sitting on a box behind the card catalog, talking enthusiastically to a woman.

There was no way.

Lena stepped in front of me so they wouldn’t notice me looking like I was going to puke. “Mrs. English! What are you doing here? And Mr. Wate! I didn’t know that you knew our teacher.” She even managed a smile, as if running into them here was a pleasant coincidence.

I couldn’t stop staring.

What the hell is he doing here with her?

If my dad was flustered, it didn’t show. He looked excited—happy, even, which was worse. “Did you know Lilian knows almost as much about the history of this county as your mom did?”

Lilian? My mom?

Mrs. English looked up from the books scattered on the floor around her, and our eyes locked. For a second, her pupils looked slit-shaped, like a cat’s. Even the glass eye that wasn’t real.

L, did you see that?

See what?

But now there was nothing to see—only our English teacher blinking over her glass eye as she watched my father with her good one. Her hair was a graying mess that matched the lumpy gray sweater she was wearing over her shapeless dress. She was the toughest teacher at Jackson, if you ignored the loophole most people chose to exploit—the Bad-Eye Side. I never imagined that she existed outside the classroom. But here she was, existing all over my dad. I felt sick.

My dad was still talking. “She’s helping me with my research for The Eighteenth Moon. My book, remember?” He turned back to Mrs. English, grinning. “They don’t hear a word we say anymore. Half my students are listening to their iPods or talking on their cell phones. They might as well be deaf.”

Mrs. English looked at him strangely and laughed. I realized I’d never heard her laugh before. The laugh itself wasn’t disturbing. Mrs. English laughing at my father’s jokes was. Disturbing and gross.

“That’s not entirely true, Mitchell.”

Mitchell?

It’s his name, Ethan. Don’t panic.

“According to Lilian, the Eighteenth Moon could be viewed as a powerful historical motif. The phases of the moon could coordinate with—”

“Nice to see you, ma’am.” I couldn’t stand to hear my dad’s theories on the Eighteenth Moon, or listen to him share them with my English teacher. I walked past them, toward the archive. “Be home by dinner, Dad. Amma’s making pot roast.” I had no idea what Amma was cooking, but pot roast was his favorite. And I wanted him home for dinner.

I wanted him to exist away from my English teacher.

She must have understood what my dad didn’t, that I really didn’t want to see her as anything but my teacher, because as soon as I tried to go, Lilian English disappeared and Mrs. English took her place. “Ethan, don’t forget I need the outline for your essay on The Crucible. On my desk by the end of class tomorrow, please. You, too, Miss Duchannes.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I expect you have a thesis already?”

I nodded, but I had completely forgotten an essay was due, let alone an outline. English wasn’t high on my list of priorities lately.

“And?” Mrs. English looked at me expectantly.

You gonna help me out here, L?

Don’t look at me. I haven’t thought about it.

Thanks.

I’ll be hiding in the mess in the reference section until they leave.

Traitor.

“Ethan?” She was waiting for an answer.

I stared at her, and my father stared at me. Everyone was watching me. I felt like a goldfish trapped in a bowl.

What was the life span of a goldfish? It was one of the Sisters’ Jeopardy! questions a few nights ago. I tried to think.

“Goldfish.” I didn’t know why I said it. But lately I was blurting out things without even thinking.

“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. English looked confused. My dad scratched his head, trying not to act embarrassed.

“I mean, what it’s like living in a goldfish bowl—with other goldfish. It’s complicated.”

Mrs. English wasn’t impressed. “Enlighten me, Mr. Wate.”

“Judgment and free will. I think I’m going to write about judgment. Who has the power to decide what’s good and what’s evil, you know? Sin and all that. I mean, does it come from some kind of higher order, or does it come from the people you live with? Or your town?”

It was my dream talking, or my mom.

“And? Who has that power, Mr. Wate? Who is the ultimate judge?”

“I guess I don’t know. Haven’t written the paper yet, ma’am. But I’m not sure us goldfish have the right to judge each other. Look where it got those girls in The Crucible.”

“Would someone outside the community have done a better job?”

A cold feeling crept over me, as if there actually was a right or wrong answer to the question. In English class, there were no right or wrong answers as long as you could find evidence to back up your opinion. But it didn’t feel like we were talking about an English assignment anymore.

“Guess I’ll be answering that in my paper.” I looked away, feeling stupid. In class, it would’ve been a good answer, but standing in front of her now, it was something else.

“Am I interrupting?” It was Marian to the rescue. “I’m sorry, Mitchell, but I have to lock the library up early today. What’s left of it. I’m afraid I’ve got some—official library business to attend to.”

She looked at Mrs. English with a smile. “Please do come back. With any luck, we’ll be back on our feet and open by the summer. We love having educators use our resources.”

Mrs. English started collecting her papers. “Of course.”

Marian had them out the door before my dad could ask why I wasn’t leaving with him. She flipped the sign and twisted the lock—not that there was anything left to steal.

“Thanks for the save, Aunt Marian.”

Lena stuck her head out from behind a stack of boxes. “Are they gone?” She was holding a book, wrapped in one of her scarves. I could see the title, only partially covered by the sparkly gray fabric. Great Expectations.

Sarafine’s book.

As if the afternoon hadn’t been bad enough.

Marian pulled out a handkerchief and rubbed her glasses. “It wasn’t a save entirely. I am expecting some official visitors, and I’m fairly certain it would be best if you two weren’t here when they arrive.”

“I just need a minute. I have to grab my bag.” Lena disappeared back into the boxes, but I was right behind her.

“What are you doing with that?” I grabbed the book, and the second I touched it, the broken shelves faded into darkness—

It was late, the first time she met him. Sarafine knew she shouldn’t be walking alone this late at night. Mortals were no threat to her, but she knew there were other things out there. But the voices had started whispering to her, and she had to get out of the house.

When she saw the figure at the corner, her heart started to pound. But as the man moved closer, Sarafine realized he was no threat. His long beard was white, the same color as his hair. He was wearing a dark suit and a string tie, leaning against a polished black cane.

He was smiling, as if they knew each other. “Good evening, child. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Excuse me? I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.” She smiled. He was probably senile.

The old man laughed. “There’s no mistaking you. I know a Cataclyst when I see one.”

Sarafine felt the icy blood pumping through her veins.

He knew.

The fire flared up along the sidewalk, only a few feet from the old man’s cane. Sarafine closed her eyes, trying to control it, but she couldn’t.

“Let it burn. It is on the cold side tonight.” He smiled, unaffected by the flames.

Sarafine was shaking. “What do you want?”

“Came to help you. You see, we’re family. Maybe I should introduce myself.” He held out his hand. “I’m Abraham Ravenwood.”

She knew the name. She’d seen it on her half brothers’ family tree. “Hunting and Macon said you were dead.”

“Do I look dead?” He smiled. “Couldn’t die just yet. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Me? Why?” Sarafine’s own family wouldn’t speak to her. It was hard to believe someone had been waiting for her.

“You don’t understand what you are yet, do you? Are you hearing the call? The voices?” He looked into the flames. “I can see you’ve already found your gift.”

“It’s not a gift. It’s a curse.”

His head snapped back in her direction, and she could see his black eyes. “Now, who’s been telling you that? Casters, I imagine.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t surprise me. Casters are liars, only one step removed from Mortals. But not you. A Cataclyst is the most powerful Caster in our world, and born from the Dark Fire. Too powerful to be considered a Caster at all, the way I see it.”

Was it possible? Could she possess the most powerful gift in the Caster world? Part of her yearned for it to be true—to be special, rather than cast aside. A part of her that wanted to give in to the urges.

To burn everything in her path.

To make all the people who had hurt her pay.

No!

She forced the thoughts from her mind. John. She focused on John and his beautiful green eyes.

Sarafine was shaking. “I don’t want to be Dark.”

“Too late for that. You can’t fight what you are.” Abraham laughed, a sinister sound. “Now let’s see those pretty yellow eyes of yours.”

Abraham had been right. Sarafine couldn’t fight what she was, but she could hide it. She had no other choice. She was two souls, battling for the same body. Right and wrong. Good and evil. Light and Dark.

John was the only thing that tethered her to the Light. She loved him, although sometimes that love was starting to feel more like a memory. Something far away she could see but never reach.

Still, she reached.

The memory was easiest to see when they were lying in bed, tangled up in each other.

“Do you know how much I love you?” John whispered, his lips barely grazing her ear.

Sarafine moved closer, as if his warmth could somehow soak into her cold skin and change her from the outside in. “How much?”

“More than anything or anyone. More than myself.”

“I feel the same way.” Liar. She could hear the voice even now.

John leaned down until their foreheads were touching. “I’m never going to feel this way about anyone else. It will always be you.” His voice was low and raspy. “You’re eighteen now. Marry me.”

Sarafine could hear another voice in the back of her mind, a voice that came into her thoughts and dreams late at night. Abraham. You think you love him, but you don’t. You can’t love someone who doesn’t know who you are. You’re not really a Caster; you’re one of us.

“Izabel?” John was staring back at her, searching in her eyes for the girl he’d fallen in love with. A girl who was being consumed little by little.

How much of her was left?

“Yes.” Sarafine wrapped her arms around John’s neck, tethering herself once more. “I’ll marry you.”

Lena opened her eyes. She was lying on the dirty concrete floor next to me, the toes of our sneakers almost touching. “Oh my God, Ethan. It started when she met Abraham.”

“Your mom was already going Dark.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe she could have fought it, like Uncle Macon.”

I knew how badly Lena wanted to believe there was some good in her mother. That she wasn’t destined to be the murderous monster we both knew.

Maybe.

We stood up as Marian turned the corner. “It’s getting late. As much as I’ve missed having you lounge around on the floor, I really need you to leave. This isn’t pleasant business, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Council is paying me a visit.”

“The Council?” I wasn’t sure which one she was talking about.

“The Council of the Far Keep.”

Lena nodded, and smiled sympathetically. “Uncle Macon told me. Is there anything we can do? Write letters or sign a petition? Hand out flyers?”

Marian smiled, looking tired. “No. They’re just doing their job.”

“Which is?”

“Making sure the rest of us follow the rules. I think this falls into the category of taking one’s lumps. I am prepared to take responsibility for anything I’ve done. But nothing more. ‘The price of greatness is responsibility.’ ” She looked at me expectantly.

“Um, Plato?” I guessed hopefully.

“Winston Churchill.” She sighed. “That’s all they can ask of me, and all I can ask of myself. Now it’s time for you to go.”

Now that Mrs. English and my dad were gone, I noticed that Marian was dressed in clothes that were very un-Marian. Instead of a brightly colored dress, she was wearing a black robe over a black dress. As if she was going to a funeral. Which was just about the last place I was going to let Marian go without me.

“We’re not going anywhere.”

She shook her head. “Except home.”

“No.”

“Ethan, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“When Lena and I were the ones in front of the firing squad, you walked right into the line of fire—you and Macon. There’s no way I’m going anywhere.”

Lena dropped down into one of the few remaining chairs and made herself comfortable. “Me neither.”

“You’re very kind, both of you. But I intend to keep you all out of this. I think it’s better for everyone.”

“Haven’t you noticed whenever someone says that, it’s never better for anyone, especially not the person saying it?” I looked at Lena.

Go get Macon. I’ll stay here with Marian. I don’t want her to go through this alone.

Lena was at the door, the lock unbolting itself, before Marian could say a word.

I’m on it.

I put my arm around Marian’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Isn’t this one of those times when we should pull out a book that magically tells us everything is going to be okay?”

She laughed, and for a second she sounded like the old Marian, the Marian who wasn’t on trial for things she didn’t do, who wasn’t worrying about things she couldn’t help. “I don’t recall the books we’ve found lately saying anything of the sort.”

“Yeah. Let’s stay away from the Ps. No Edgar Allan Poe for you today.”

She smiled. “The Ps aren’t all bad. There is always, for example, Plato.” She patted my arm. ‘Courage is a kind of salvation,’ Ethan.” She rummaged in a box and pulled out a blackened book. “And you’ll be happy to know, Plato survived the Gatlin County Library’s own Great Burning.”

Things might be bad, but for the first time in weeks, I actually felt better.