Beautiful Creatures

10.10

Red Sweater

I had barely made it into my bed before the sun rose, and I was tired—bone tired, as Amma would say. Now I was waiting for Link on the corner. Even though it was a sunny day, I was caught under my own personal shadow. And I was starving. I hadn’t been able to face Amma in the kitchen this morning. One look at my face would have given away everything I’d seen last night, and everything I felt, and I couldn’t risk that.

I didn’t know what to think. Amma, who I trusted more than anyone, as much as my parents, maybe more—she was holding out on me. She knew Macon, and the two of them wanted to keep Lena and me apart. It all had something to do with the locket, and Lena’s birthday. And danger.

I couldn’t piece it together, not on my own. I had to talk to Lena. It was all I could think about. So when the hearse rolled around the corner instead of the Beater, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“I guess you heard.” I slid into the seat, dumping my backpack on the floor in front of me.

“Heard what?” She smiled, almost shyly, pushing a bag across the seat. “Heard you liked doughnuts? I could hear your stomach growling all the way from Ravenwood.”

We looked at each other awkwardly. Lena looked down, embarrassed, picking a piece of lint off a soft, red, embroidered sweater that looked like something the Sisters would have in the attic somewhere. Knowing Lena, it wasn’t from the mall in Summerville.

Red? Since when did she wear red?

She wasn’t under a bad cloud; she had just come out from under one. She hadn’t heard me thinking. She didn’t know about Amma and Macon. She just wanted to see me. I guess some of what I had said last night had sunk in. Maybe she wanted to give us a chance. I smiled, opening the white paper bag.

“Hope you’re hungry. I had to fight the fat cop for them.” She pulled the hearse away from the curb.

“So you just felt like picking me up for school?” That was something new.

“Nope.” She rolled down the window, the morning breeze blowing her hair into curls. Today, it was just the wind.

“You got something better in mind?”

Her whole face lit up. “Now how could there be anything better than spending a day like this at Stonewall Jackson High?” She was happy. As she turned the wheel, I noticed her hand. No ink. No number. No birthday. She wasn’t worried about anything, not today.

120. I knew it, as if it was written in invisible ink on my own hand. One hundred and twenty days until it, whatever Macon and Amma were so afraid of, happened.

I looked out the window as we turned onto Route 9, wishing she could stay like this for just a little bit longer. I closed my eyes, running through the playbook in my mind. Pick ’n’ Roll. Picket Fences. Down the Lane. Full Court Press.

By the time we made it to Summerville, I knew where we were headed. There was only one place kids like us went in Summerville, if it wasn’t the last three rows of the Cineplex.

The hearse rolled through the dust behind the water tower at the edge of the field. “Parking? We’re parking? At the water tower? Now?” Link would never believe this.

The engine died. Our windows were down, everything was quiet, and the breeze blew into her window and out mine.

Isn’t this what people do around here?

Yeah, no. Not people like us. Not in the middle of a school day.

For once, can’t we be them? Do we always have to be us?

I like being us.

She unclicked her seatbelt and I unclicked mine, pulling her onto my lap. I could feel her, warm and happy, spreading through me.

So this is what parking is like?

She giggled, reaching over to push my hair out of my eyes.

“What’s that?” I grabbed her right arm. It was dangling from her wrist, the bracelet Amma had given Macon, last night in the swamp. My stomach clenched, and I knew Lena’s mood was about to change. I had to tell her.

“My uncle gave it to me.”

“Take it off.” I turned the string around her wrist, looking for the knot.

“What?” Her smile faded. “What are you talking about?”

“Take it off.”

“Why?” She pulled her arm away from me.

“Something happened last night.”

“What happened?”

“After I got home, I followed Amma out to Wader’s Creek, where she lives. She snuck out of our house in the middle of the night to meet someone in the swamp.”

“Who?”

“Your uncle.”

“What were they doing out there?” Her face had turned a chalky white, and I could tell the parking part of the day was over.

“They were talking about you, about us. And the locket.”

Now she was paying attention. “What about the locket?”

“It’s some kind of Dark talisman, whatever that means, and your uncle told Amma that I never buried it. They were really freaked out about it.”

“How would they know it’s a talisman?”

I was starting to get annoyed. She didn’t seem to be focusing on the right thing. “How about, how do they even know each other? Did you have any idea your uncle knew Amma?”

“No, but I don’t know everyone he knows.”

“Lena, they were talking about us. About keeping the locket away from us, and keeping us away from each other. I got the feeling they think I’m some kind of threat. Like I’m getting in the way of something. Your uncle thinks—”

“What?”

“He thinks I have some kind of power.”

She laughed out loud, which annoyed me even more. “Why would he think that?”

“Because I brought Ridley into Ravenwood. He said I’d have to have power to do that.”

She frowned. “He’s right.” That wasn’t the answer I was expecting.

“You’re kidding, right? If I had powers, don’t you think I’d know it?”

“I don’t know.”

Maybe she didn’t know, but I did. My dad was a writer and my mom had spent her days reading the journals of dead Civil War generals. I was about as far from being a Caster as you could get, unless aggravating Amma counted as a power. There was obviously some kind of loophole that had allowed Ridley to get inside. One of the wires in the Caster security system had blown a fuse.

Lena must have been thinking the same thing. “Relax. I’m sure there’s an explanation. So Macon and Amma know each other. Now we know.”

“You don’t seem very upset about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve been lying to us. Both of them. Meeting secretly, trying to keep us apart. Trying to get us to get rid of the locket.”

“We never asked them if they knew each other.” Why was she acting like this? Why wasn’t she upset, or angry, something?

“Why would we? Don’t you think it’s weird that your uncle is out in the swamp in the middle of the night with Amma, talking to spirits and reading chicken bones?”

“It’s weird, but I’m sure they’re just trying to protect us.”

“From what? The truth? They were talking about something else, too. They were trying to find someone, Sara something. And about how you can damn us all if you Turn.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask your uncle? See if he’ll tell you the truth for once.”

I had gone too far. “My uncle is risking his life to protect me. He’s always been there for me. He took me in when he knew I might turn into a monster in a few months.”

“What is he really protecting you from? Do you even know?”

“Myself!” she snapped. That was it. She pushed the door open and climbed off my lap, out into the field. The shade of the massive white water tower shielded us from Summerville, but the day didn’t seem so sunny anymore. Where there had been a cloudless blue sky just a few minutes ago, there were streaks of gray.

The storm was moving in. She didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t care. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why is he meeting Amma in the middle of the night to tell her we still have the locket? Why don’t they want us to have it? And more important, why don’t they want us to be together?”

It was just the two of us, shouting in a field. The breeze was churning into a strong wind. Lena’s hair started to whip around her face. She shot back, “I don’t know. Parents are always trying to keep teenagers apart, it’s what they do. If you want to know why, maybe you should ask Amma. She’s the one who hates me. I can’t even pick you up at your house because you’re afraid she’ll see us together.”

The knot that was building in the pit of my stomach tightened. I was angry at Amma, angrier than I’d ever been at her in my whole life, but I still loved her. She was the one who had left letters from the Tooth Fairy under my pillow, bandaged every scraped knee, thrown me thousands of pitches when I wanted to try out for Little League. And since my mom died and my dad checked out, Amma was the only one who looked out for me, who cared or even noticed if I skipped school or lost a game. I wanted to believe she had an explanation for all of this.

“You just don’t understand her. She thinks she’s… ”

“What? Protecting you? Like my uncle is trying to protect me? Did you ever consider that maybe they’re both trying to protect us from the same thing… me?”

“Why do you always go there?”

She walked away from me, like she would take off if she could. “Where else is there to go? That’s what this is about. They’re afraid I’ll hurt you or someone else.”

“You’re wrong. This is about the locket. There’s something they don’t want us to know.” I dug around in my pocket, searching for the familiar shape underneath the handkerchief. After last night, there was no way I was letting it out of my sight. I was sure Amma was going to look for it today, and if she found it we’d never see it again. I laid it on the hood of the car. “We need to find out what happens next.”

“Now?”

“Why not?”

“You don’t even know if it’ll work.”

I started to unwrap it. “There’s only one way to find out.”

I grabbed her hand, even as she tried to yank it away. I touched the smooth metal—

The morning light turned brighter and brighter until it was all I could see. I felt the familiar rush that had taken me back a hundred and fifty years. Then a jolt. I opened my eyes. But instead of the muddy field and flames in the distance, all I saw was the shadow of the water tower and the hearse. The locket hadn’t shown us anything.

“Did you feel that? It started, and then it cut off.”

She nodded, pushing me away. “I think I’m carsick, or whatever kind of sick you’d call it.”

“Are you blocking it?”

“What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.”

“Swear? You aren’t using your Caster powers, or something?”

“No, I’m too busy trying to deflect your Power of Stupidity. But I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

It didn’t make sense, just pulling us in and then kicking us out of the vision like that. What was different? Lena reached over, folding the handkerchief over the locket. The dirty leather bracelet Amma had given Macon caught my eye.

“Take that thing off.” I looped my finger under the string, lifting the bracelet and her arm to eye level.

“Ethan, it’s for protection. You said Amma makes these kinds of things all the time.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, maybe that thing is the reason the locket doesn’t work.”

“It doesn’t work all the time, you know that.”

“But it was starting to, and something stopped it.”

She shook her head, wild curls brushing her shoulder. “Do you honestly believe that?”

“Prove me wrong. Take it off.”

She looked at me like I was crazy, but she was thinking about it. I could tell.

“If I’m wrong, you can put it back on.”

She hesitated for a second, then gave me her arm so I could untie it. I loosened the knot and put the charm in my pocket. I reached for the locket, and she put her hand on mine.

I closed my hand around it, and we spun out into nothing—

The rain began almost immediately. Hard rain, a downpour. Like the sky just opened up. Ivy had always said the rain was God’s tears. Today Genevieve believed it. It was only a few feet, but Genevieve couldn’t get there fast enough. She knelt down next to Ethan and cradled his head in her hands. His breathing was ragged. He was alive.

“No, no, not that boy, too. You take too much away. Too much. Not this boy, too.” Ivy’s voice reached a fever pitch and she started to pray.

“Ivy, get help. I need water and whiskey and somethin’ to remove the bullet.”

Genevieve pressed the wadded material from her skirt into the hole Ethan’s chest had filled just a few moments before.

“I love you. And I would’ve married you, no matter what your family thought,” he whispered.

“Don’t say that, Ethan Carter Wate. Don’t you say that like you’re going to die. You’re gonna be just fine. Just fine,” she repeated, trying to convince herself as much as him.

Genevieve closed her eyes and concentrated. Flowers blooming. Newborn babies crying. The sun rising.

Birth, not death.

She pictured the images in her mind, willing it to be so. The images ran in a loop over and over in her mind.

Birth, not death.

Ethan choked. She opened her eyes, and their eyes met. For an instant, time seemed to stop. Then, Ethan’s eyes closed, and his head rolled to one side.

Genevieve closed her eyes again, visualizing the images. It had to be a mistake. He couldn’t be dead. She had summoned her power. She had done it a million times before, moving objects in her mother’s kitchen to play tricks on Ivy, healing baby birds that had fallen from their nests.

Why not now? When it mattered?

“Ethan, wake up. Please wake up.”

I opened my eyes. We were standing in the middle of the field, in exactly the same place we’d been before. I looked over at Lena. Her eyes were shining, about to spill over. “Oh, God.”

I bent down and touched the weeds where we had been standing. A reddish stain marked the plants and the ground around us. “It’s blood.”

“His blood?”

“I think so.”

“You were right. The bracelet was keeping us from seeing the vision. But why would Uncle Macon tell me it was for protection?”

“Maybe it is. That’s just not the only thing it’s for.”

“You don’t have to try to make me feel better.”

“There’s obviously something they don’t want us to find out, and it involves the locket and, I’m willing to bet, Genevieve. We’ve got to find out as much as we can about them both, and we have to do it before your birthday.”

“Why my birthday?”

“Last night, Amma and your uncle were talking. Whatever they don’t want us to know, it has something to do with your birthday.”

Lena took a deep breath, like she was trying to hold it together. “They know I’m going to go Dark. That’s what this is about.”

“What does that have to do with the locket?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. In four months, I’m not going to be me anymore. You saw Ridley. That’s what I’m going to turn into, or worse. If my uncle is right and I am a Natural, then I’ll make Ridley look like a volunteer for the Red Cross.”

I pulled her toward me, wrapping my arms around her like I could protect her from something we both knew I couldn’t. “You can’t think like that. There has to be a way to stop it, if that’s really the truth.”

“You don’t get it. There’s no way to stop it. It just happens.” Her voice was rising. The wind was starting to pick up.

“Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe it just happens. But we’re going to find a way to make it not happen to you.”

Her eyes were clouding over like the sky. “Can’t we just enjoy the time we have left?” I felt the words for the first time.

The time we have left.

I couldn’t lose her. I wouldn’t. Just the thought of never being able to touch her again made me crazy. Crazier than losing all my friends. Crazier than being the least popular guy in school. Crazier than having Amma perpetually angry at me. Losing her was the worst thing I could imagine. Like I was falling, but this time I would definitely hit the ground.

I thought about Ethan Carter Wate hitting the ground, the red blood in the field. The wind began to howl. It was time to go. “Don’t talk like that. We’re going to find a way.”

But even as I was saying it, I didn’t know if I believed it.