Beautiful Creatures

10.31

Hallow E’en

The only days of the year that the Gatlin County Library was closed were bank holidays—like Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Easter. As a result, these were the only days the Gatlin County Caster Library was open, which apparently wasn’t something Marian could control.

“Take it up with the county. Like I said, I don’t make the rules.” I wondered what county she was talking about—the one I had lived in my whole life, or the one that had been hidden from me for just as long.

Still, Lena seemed almost hopeful. For the first time, it was as if she actually believed there might be a way to prevent what she had considered the inevitable. Marian couldn’t give us any answers, but she anchored us in the absence of the two people we relied on most, who hadn’t gone anywhere, but seemed far away just the same. I didn’t say anything to Lena, but without Amma I was lost. And without Macon, I knew Lena couldn’t even find her way to lost.

Marian did give us something, Ethan and Genevieve’s letters, so old and delicate they were almost transparent, and everything she and my mother had collected about the two of them. A whole stack of papers in a dusty brown box, with cardboard printed to look like wood paneling on the sides. Although Lena loved poring over the prose—“the days without you bleed together until time is nothing more than another obstacle we must overcome,”—all it seemed to amount to was a love story with a really bad, and really Black ending. But it was all we had.

Now all we had to do was figure out what we were looking for. The needle in the haystack, or in this case, the cardboard box. So we did the only thing we could do. We started looking.

After two weeks, I’d spent more time with Lena on the locket papers than I would have thought possible. The more we read through the papers, the more it seemed like we were reading about ourselves. At night, we stayed up late trying to solve the mystery of Ethan and Genevieve, a Mortal and a Caster, desperate to find a way to be together, against impossible odds. At school, we faced some steep odds ourselves, just getting through another eight hours at Jackson, and it was only getting harder. Every day, there was another scheme to drive Lena away, or us apart. Especially if that day was Halloween.

Halloween was generally a pretty loaded holiday at Jackson. For a guy, anything involving costumes was an accident waiting to happen. And then, there was always the stress of whether or not you made the guest list to Savannah Snow’s annual blowout. But Halloween took on a whole new level of stress when the girl you were crazy about was a Caster.

I had no idea what to expect when Lena picked me up for school, a couple of blocks from my house, safely around the corner from the eyes in the back of Amma’s head.

“You’re not dressed up,” I said, surprised.

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought you’d be wearing a costume or something.” I knew I sounded like an idiot the second the words came out of my mouth.

“Oh, you think Casters dress up on Halloween and fly around on brooms?” She laughed.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Sorry to disappoint you. We just dress for dinner like we do on any other holiday.”

“So it’s a holiday for you guys, too.”

“It’s the most sacred night of the year, and the most dangerous—the most important of the four High Holidays. It’s our version of New Year’s Eve, the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.”

“What do you mean by dangerous?”

“My gramma says it’s the night when the veil between this world and the Otherworld, the world of spirits, is the thinnest. It’s a night of power and a night of remembrance.”

“The Otherworld? Is that like the afterlife?”

“Sort of. It’s the realm of spirits.”

“So Halloween really is all about spirits and ghosts.” She rolled her eyes.

“We remember the Casters who were persecuted for their differences. Men and women who were burned for using their gifts.”

“Are you talking about the Salem Witch Trials?’

“I guess that’s what you call them. There were Witch Trials all along the eastern seaboard, not just in Salem. All over the world, even. The Salem Witch Trials are just the ones your textbooks mention.” She said “your” like it was a dirty word, and today of all days, maybe it was.

We drove past the Stop & Steal. Boo was sitting by the stop sign at the corner. Waiting. He saw the hearse and loped slowly after the car. “We should just give that dog a ride already. He must be tired, following you around day and night.”

Lena glanced in her rearview mirror. “He’d never get in.”

I knew she was right. But as I turned back to look at him, I could have sworn he nodded.

I spotted Link in the parking lot. He was wearing a blond wig and a blue sweater with a Wildcats patch sewn on it. He was even carrying pom-poms. He looked scary and sort of like his mom, actually. The basketball team had decided to dress up like Jackson cheerleaders this year. With everything else that had been going on, it had slipped my mind—at least that’s what I told myself. I was going to get a lot of crap for this, and Earl was just waiting for a reason to jump all over me. Since I had started hanging out with Lena, I had developed a hot hand on the court. Now I was starting center instead of Earl, who was not too happy about it.

Lena swore there was nothing magic about it, at least not Caster magic. She came to one game and I made every shot. The drawback was, she was in my head throughout the game, asking me a thousand questions about foul shots and assists and the three-second rule. Turns out, she had never been to a game. It was worse than taking the Sisters to the County Fair. After that, she skipped the games. I could tell she was listening, though, when I played. I could feel her there.

On the other hand, maybe she was the reason the cheer squad was having a tougher year than usual. Emily was having a hard time staying on top of the Wildcats pyramid, but I didn’t ask Lena about that.

Today it was hard to pick out my teammates, until you got close enough to see the hairy legs and facial hair. Link caught up to us. He looked worse up close. He had tried to put on makeup, smeared pink lipstick and all. He hitched up his skirt, tugging on the straining pantyhose underneath.

“You suck,” he said, pointing at me across a row of cars. “Where’s your costume?”

“I’m sorry, man. I forgot.”

“Bull. You just didn’t want to put all this crap on. I know you, Wate. You wussed out.”

“I swear, I just forgot.”

Lena smiled at Link. “I think you look great.”

“I don’t know how you girls wear all this junk all over your face. It itches like hell.”

Lena made a face. She almost never wore makeup; she didn’t have to. “You know, it’s not like we all sign a contract with Maybelline when we turn thirteen.”

Link patted his wig and stuffed another sock down his sweater. “Tell that to Savannah.”

We walked up the front steps, and Boo was sitting on the lawn, next to the flagpole. I almost asked how that dog could have possibly beaten us to school, but by now I knew not to bother.

The halls were packed. It looked like half the school had skipped first period. The rest of the basketball team was hanging out in front of Link’s locker, also in drag, which was a big hit. Just not with me.

“Where’re your pom-poms, Wate?” Emory shook one in my face. “What’s the matter? Those chicken legs a yours didn’t look good in the skirt?”

Shawn pulled on his sweater. “I bet none a the girls on the squad would lend him a skirt.” A few of the guys laughed.

Emory put his arm around me, leaning in toward me. “Was that it, Wate? Or is it Halloween every day, when you’re hookin’ up with a girl who lives in the Haunted Mansion?”

I grabbed him by the back of his sweater. One of the socks in his bra fell down to the floor. “You want to do this now, Em?”

He shrugged. “Your call. Bound to happen sooner or later.”

Link stepped in between us. “Ladies, ladies. We’re here to cheer. And you don’t want to mess up that pretty face, Em.”

Earl shook his head, pushing Emory down the hall in front of him. As usual, he didn’t say a word, but I knew the look.

Once you go down that road, Wate, there’s no goin’ back.

It seemed like the basketball team was the talk of the school, until I saw the real cheer squad. Turns out, my teammates weren’t the only ones who had come up with a group costume. Lena and I were on our way to English when we saw them.

“Holy crap.” Link hit my arm with the back of his hand.

“What?”

They were marching down the hall single file. Emily, Savannah, Eden, and Charlotte, followed by every member of the Jackson Wildcats’ cheerleading squad. They were dressed exactly alike in ridiculously short black dresses, of course, pointy black boots, and tall, bent witches’ hats. But that wasn’t the worst part. Their long black wigs were curled into wild ringlets. And in black makeup, just below their right eyes were painstakingly drawn exaggerated crescent moons. Lena’s unmistakable birthmark. To complete the effect, they were carrying brooms, pretending to frantically sweep around people’s feet as they walked down the hall, in procession.

Witches? On Halloween? How creative.

I squeezed her hand. Her expression didn’t change, but I could feel her hand shaking.

I’m sorry, Lena.

If they only knew.

I waited for the building to start shaking, the windows to blow out, something. But nothing happened. Lena just stood there, seething.

The future generation of the DAR headed toward us. I decided to meet them halfway. “Where’s your costume, Emily? Did you forget it was Halloween?”

Emily looked confused. Then she smiled at me, the sticky sweet smile of someone a little too proud of herself. “What are you talkin’ about, Ethan? Isn’t this what you’re into now?”

“We were just tryin’ to make your girlfriend feel at home,” Savannah said, smacking her gum.

Lena shot me a look.

Ethan, stop. You’ll just make it worse for yourself.

I don’t care.

I can handle this.

What happens to you happens to me.

Link walked up beside me, yanking up his stockings. “Hey girls, I thought we were comin’ as bitches. Oh wait, that’s every day.”

Lena smiled at Link in spite of herself.

“You shut your mouth, Wesley Lincoln. I’m gonna tell your mamma that you’re hangin’ out with that freak, and she won’t let you outta your house till Christmas.”

“You know what that thing on her face is, don’t you?” Emily smirked, pointing from Lena’s birthmark to the crescent she’d drawn on her cheek. “It’s called a witch’s mark.”

“Did you look that up online last night? You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.” I laughed.

“You’re the idiot. You’re goin’ out with her.” I was turning red, which was the last thing I wanted to do. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have in front of the whole school, not to mention the fact that I had no idea if Lena and I were even going out. We had kissed once. And we were always together, in one way or another. But she wasn’t my girlfriend, at least I didn’t think she was, even though I thought I’d heard her say that at the Gathering. And what could I do, ask? Maybe it was one of those things that if you had to ask, the answer was probably no. There was some part of her that still seemed to be holding back from me, a part of her I just couldn’t reach.

Emily jabbed me with the end of her broom. I could tell the whole “stake in the heart” concept would be attractive to her, just about now.

“Emily, why don’t you all go jump out a window. See if you can fly. Or not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I hope you enjoy yourselves sittin’ around the house together tonight, while the rest a the school is at Savannah’s party. This will be the last holiday she spends at Jackson.” Emily spun around and marched back down the hall toward her locker, Savannah and their minions trailing behind her.

Link was joking around with Lena, trying to cheer her up, which wasn’t hard, considering how ridiculous he looked. Like I said, I could always count on Link.

“They really hate me. It’s never going to get old, is it?” Lena sighed.

Link broke into a cheer, jumping around and waving his pom-poms. “They really hate you, yes they do. They hate everyone, how ’bout you?”

“I’d be more worried if they liked you.” I leaned over and put my arm around her awkwardly, or tried to. She turned away, my hand barely brushing her shoulder. Great.

Not here.

Why not?

You’re just making it worse for yourself.

I’m a glutton for punishment.

“Enough of the PDA.” Link elbowed me in the ribs. “You’re gonna make me start feelin’ bad for myself, now that I’ve doomed myself to another year without a date. We’re gonna be late for English, and I gotta take these pantyhose off on the way. I’m gettin’ a serious wedgie.”

“I just have to stop at my locker and get my book,” Lena said. Her hair began to curl around her shoulders. I was suspicious, but I didn’t say anything.

Emily, Savannah, Charlotte, and Eden were standing in front of their lockers, primping in front of the mirrors hanging inside the doors. Lena’s locker was only a little farther down the hall.

“Just ignore them,” I said.

Emily was rubbing her cheek with a Kleenex. The black moon-shaped mark was only smearing bigger and blacker, not coming off at all. “Charlotte, do you have any makeup remover?”

“Sure.”

Emily wiped her cheek a few more times. “This isn’t comin’ off. Savannah, I thought you said this stuff came off with soap and water.”

“It does.”

“Then why isn’t it comin’ off?” Emily slammed her locker door, annoyed.

The drama got Link’s attention. “What are those four doin’ over there?”

“Look’s like they’re having some kind of problem,” Lena said, leaning against her locker.

Savannah tried to wipe the black moon off her own cheek. “Mine isn’t comin’ off, either.” The moon was now smeared across half her face. Savannah started digging around in her purse. “I have the pencil right here.”

Emily pulled her purse out of her locker, searching through it. “Forget it. I have mine in my bag.”

“What the—” Savannah pulled something out of her bag.

“You used Sharpie?” Emily laughed.

Savannah held the marker up in front of her. “Of course not. I have no idea how this got in here.”

“You’re so lame. That will never come off before the party tonight.”

“I can’t have this thing on my face all night. I’m goin’ dressed as a Greek Goddess, Aphrodite. This will completely ruin my costume.”

“You should’ve been more careful.” Emily dug around in her little silver purse some more. She dumped her purse on the ground under her locker, lip gloss and nail polish bottles rolling around on the floor. “It has to be here.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Charlotte asked.

“The makeup I used this mornin’, it’s not here.” By now, Emily was attracting an audience; people were stopping to see what was going on. A Sharpie rolled out of Emily’s purse into the middle of the hall.

“You used Sharpie, too?”

“Of course I didn’t!” Emily shrieked, rubbing her face frantically. But the black moon only grew bigger and blacker like the others. “What the hell is goin’ on?”

“I know I have mine,” Charlotte said, turning the lock on her locker door. She opened the door and stood there for a few seconds, staring inside.

“What is it?” Savannah demanded. Charlotte pulled her hand back out of her locker. She was holding a Sharpie.

Link shook his pom-pom. “Cheerleaders rock!”

I looked at Lena.

Sharpie?

A mischievous smile spread across her face.

I thought you said you couldn’t control your powers.

Beginner’s luck.

By the end of the day, everyone at Jackson was talking about the cheer squad. Apparently, every one of the cheerleaders who dressed up as Lena had somehow used a Sharpie to draw the innocuous crescent moon on her face, instead of eyeliner. Cheerleaders. The jokes were endless.

All of them would be walking around school and the rest of town, singing in the church youth choirs, and cheering at the games, with Sharpie on their cheeks for the next few days, until it faded away. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Snow were going to have a fit.

I just wished I could be there to see it.

After school, I walked Lena back to her car, which was really just an excuse to try to hold her hand a little longer. The intense physical feelings I had when I touched her weren’t the deterrent you might have expected. No matter what it felt like, whether I was burning or blowing out light bulbs or getting struck by lightning, I had to be close to her. It was like eating, or breathing. I didn’t have a choice. And that was scarier than a month of Halloweens, and it was killing me.

“What are you doing tonight?” As she spoke, she pulled her hand absentmindedly through her hair. She was sitting on the hood of the hearse and I was standing in front of her.

“I thought maybe you’d come over, and we’d stay home and answer the door for trick-or-treaters. You can help me watch the lawn to make sure no one burns a cross on it.” I tried not to think too clearly about the rest of my plan, which involved Lena and our couch and old movies and Amma being gone for the night.

“I can’t. It’s a High Holiday. I have relatives coming in from all over. Uncle M won’t let me out of the house for five minutes, not to mention the danger. I’d never open my door to strangers on a night of such Dark power.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Until now.

By the time I got home, Amma was getting ready to leave. She was boiling a chicken on the stove and mixing biscuit batter with her hands, “the only way any self-respectin’ woman makes her biscuits.” I looked at the pot suspiciously, wondering if this meal was going to make it to our dinner table or the Greats’.

I pinched some dough, and she caught my hand.

“P. U. R. L. O. I. N. E. R.” I smiled.

“As in, keep your thievin’ hands off a my biscuits, Ethan Wate. I’ve got hungry people to feed.” Guess I wouldn’t be eating chicken and biscuits tonight.

Amma always went home on Halloween. She said it was a special night at church, but my mom used to say it was just a good night for business. What better night to have your cards read than Halloween? You weren’t going to get quite the same crowd on Easter or Valentine’s Day.

But in light of recent events, I wondered if there wasn’t another reason. Maybe it was a good night for reading chicken bones in the graveyard, too. I couldn’t ask, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I missed Amma, missed talking to her, missed trusting her. If she felt the difference, she didn’t let on. Maybe she just thought I was growing up, or maybe I was.

“You goin’ to that party over at the Snows’?”

“No, I’m just gonna stay home this year.”

She raised an eyebrow, but she wasn’t going to ask. She already knew why I wasn’t going. “You make your bed, you better be ready to lie in it.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew better. She wasn’t expecting a response.

“I’m fixin’ to go in a few minutes. You answer the door for those young’uns when they come around. Your daddy’s busy workin’.” Like my dad was going to come out of his self-imposed exile to answer the door for trick-or-treaters.

“Sure.”

The bags of candy were in the hall. I ripped them open and turned them over into a big glass bowl. I couldn’t get Lena’s words out of my head. A night of such Dark power. I remembered Ridley standing in front of her car, outside the Stop & Steal, all sticky sweet smiles and legs. Obviously, identifying Dark forces wasn’t one of my talents, or deciding who you should and shouldn’t open your front door for. Like I said, when the girl you couldn’t stop thinking about was a Caster, Halloween took on a whole new meaning. I looked at the bowl of candy in my hands. Then I opened the front door, put the bowl out on the porch, and went back inside.

As I settled in to watch The Shining, I found myself missing Lena. I let my mind wander, because it usually found a way of wandering over to wherever she was, but she wasn’t there. I fell asleep on the couch waiting for her to dream me, or something.

A knock at the door startled me. I looked at my watch. It was nearly ten, too late for trick-or-treaters.

“Amma?”

No answer. I heard knocking again.

“Is that you?”

The den was dark, and only the light of the TV was flickering. It was the moment in The Shining when the dad chops down the hotel room door with his bloody axe to bludgeon his family. Not a great moment for answering any door, especially on Halloween. Another knock.

“Link?” I clicked off the TV and looked around for something to pick up, but there was nothing. I picked up an old game console, lying on the floor in a pile of video games. It wasn’t a baseball bat, but some decently solid old-school Japanese technology. It had to weigh at least five pounds. I raised it over my head and took a step closer to the wall separating the den from the front hall. Another step, and I moved the lace curtain covering the glass-paned door, just a millimeter.

In the darkness of the unlit porch, I couldn’t see her face. But I would recognize that old beige van, still running in the street in front of my house, anywhere. “Desert Sand,” she used to say. It was Link’s mom, holding a plate of brownies. I was still carrying the console. If Link saw me, he’d never let me live this down.

“Just a minute, Mrs. Lincoln.” I flipped on the porch light, and unbolted the front door. But when I tried to pull it open, the door jammed. I checked the lock again, and it was still bolted, even though I had just unbolted it.

“Ethan?”

I unbolted the lock again. It bolted shut with a snap, before I could take my hand away from it. “Mrs. Lincoln, I’m sorry, my door seems to be stuck.” I rattled the door with all my weight, juggling the console. Something fell to the floor in front of me. I stopped to pick it up. Garlic, wrapped in one of Amma’s handkerchiefs. If I had to guess, there was one over every door and every windowsill. Amma’s little Halloween tradition.

Still, something was keeping the door from opening, just like something had tried to open the study door for me just days ago. How many bolts in this house were going to just keep locking and unlocking themselves? What was going on?

I unbolted the lock one more time and gave the door a final pull. It flung open, banging against the wall in the front hall. Mrs. Lincoln was lit from behind, a dark figure in a pool of pale lamplight. The silhouette was unsettling.

She stared at the game console in my hand. “Video games will rot your brain, Ethan.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I brought you some brownies. A peace offerin’.” She held them out expectantly. I should’ve asked her to come in. There was a formula for everything. I guess you could call it manners, Southern hospitality. But I had tried that with Ridley, and it hadn’t gone so well. I hesitated. “What are you doing out tonight, ma’am? Link’s not here.”

“Of course he’s not. He’s at the Snows’, which is where every upstandin’ member a the Jackson High student body should be lucky enough to be. It took quite a number a phone calls on my part to get him an invitation, in light a his recent behavior.”

I still didn’t get it. I’d known Mrs. Lincoln my whole life. She had always been an odd duck. Busy getting books taken off the library shelves, teachers fired from the schools, reputations ruined in a single afternoon. Lately, she was different. The crusade against Lena was different. Mrs. Lincoln had always had conviction, but this was personal.

“Ma’am?”

She looked agitated. “I made you brownies. I thought I could come in, and we could talk. My fight’s not with you, Ethan. It’s not your fault that girl is usin’ her deviltry on you. You should be at the party, with your friends. With the kids who belong here.” She held out the brownies, the gooey double chocolate chip fudge brownies that were always the first thing to go at the Baptist Church Bake Sale. I had grown up on those brownies. “Ethan?”

“Ma’am.”

“Can I come in?”

I didn’t move a muscle. My grip tightened around the console. I stared at the brownies, and suddenly I didn’t feel hungry at all. Not even the plate, not a crumb of that woman was welcome in my house. My house, like Ravenwood, was starting to have a mind of its own, and there was no part of me or my house that was going to let her in.

“No, ma’am.”

“What was that, Ethan?”

“No. Ma’am.”

Her eyes narrowed. She pushed the plate toward me, as if she was going to come in anyway, but it jerked like it had hit an invisible wall between her and me. I saw the plate tumble, falling slowly to the ground until it shattered into a million bits of ceramic and chocolate, all over our Happy Halloween doormat. Amma would pitch a fit in the morning.

Mrs. Lincoln backed down the porch steps warily, and disappeared into the darkness of the old Desert Sand.

Ethan!

Her voice ripped me right out of my sleep. I must have drifted off. The horror marathon was over and the television had broken down into a loud, gray fuzz.

Uncle Macon! Ethan! Help!

Lena was screaming. Somewhere. I could hear the terror in her voice, and my head was pounding with such pain for a second I forgot where I was.

Someone please help me!

My front door was wide open, swinging and banging in the wind. The sound ricocheted off the walls, like gunfire.

I thought you said I was safe here!

Ravenwood.

I grabbed the car keys to the old Volvo, and ran.

I can’t remember how I got to Ravenwood, but I know I nearly drove off the road a few times. My eyes could barely focus. Lena was in such intense pain, our connection so close, that I nearly blacked out just from feeling it through her.

And the screaming.

There was always the screaming, from the moment I’d woken up, until the moment I pressed the crescent and let myself into Ravenwood Manor.

As the front door swung open, I could see Ravenwood had transformed itself once again. Tonight, it was almost like some kind of ancient castle. Candelabras cast strange shadows down on the throngs of black-robed, black-gowned, black-jacketed guests, far outnumbering the guests at the Gathering.

Ethan! Hurry! I can’t hold on…

“Lena!” I yelled. “Macon! Where is she?”

No one so much as looked my way. I didn’t see anyone I recognized, though the front hall was crowded with guests, flowing from room to room like ghosts at a haunted dinner party. They were not from around here, at least not for hundreds of years. I saw men in dark kilts and rough Gaelic robes, women in corseted gowns. Everything was black, wrapped in shadow.

I pushed through the crowd and into what looked like a grand ballroom. I couldn’t see any of them—no Aunt Del, no Reece, not even little Ryan. Candles sputtered into flame in the corners of the room, and what seemed to be a translucent orchestra of strange musical instruments shifted in and out of focus, playing themselves, while shadowy couples went spinning and gliding across the now stone floor. The dancers didn’t even seem to be aware of me.

The music was clearly Caster music, conjuring a spell of its own. It was the strings, mostly. I could hear the violin, the viola, the cello. I could almost see the web that spun from dancer to dancer, the way they pulled each other in and out, as if there was a deliberate pattern, and they were all a part of the design. And I wasn’t.

Ethan—

I had to find her.

A sudden surge of pain. Her voice was growing quieter now. I stumbled, grabbing onto the shoulder of the robed guest next to me. All I did was touch him and the pain, Lena’s pain, flowed through me and into him. He staggered, bumping into the couple dancing next to him.

“Macon!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

I saw Boo Radley at the head of the stairs, like he was waiting for me. His round, human eyes looked terrified.

“Boo! Where is she?” Boo looked at me, and I saw the clouded, steely gray eyes of Macon Ravenwood; at least, I could’ve have sworn I did. Then Boo turned and ran. I chased him, or I thought I was chasing him, running up the spiraling stone stairs of what was now Ravenwood Castle. At the landing, he waited for me to catch up, then ran toward a dark room at the end of the hall. From Boo, that was practically an invitation.

He barked, and two massive oaken doors groaned open by themselves. They were so far away from the party, I couldn’t hear the music or the chatter of the guests. It was as if we had entered a different place and time. Even the castle was changing under my feet, the rock crumbling, the walls growing mossy and cold. The lights had become torches, hung on the walls.

I knew about old. Gatlin was old. I had grown up with old. This was something altogether different. Like Lena had said, a New Year. A night out of time.

When I entered the main chamber, I was struck by the sky. The room opened wide to the heavens, like a conservatory. The sky above it was black, the blackest sky I’d ever seen. Like we were in the middle of a terrible storm, yet the room was silent.

Lena lay on a heavy stone table, curled in a fetal position. She was soaking wet, drenched in her own sweat and writhing in pain. They were all standing around her—Macon, Aunt Del, Barclay, Reece, Larkin, even Ryan, and a woman I didn’t recognize, holding hands, forming a circle.

Their eyes were open, but they weren’t seeing. They didn’t even notice I was in the room. I could see their mouths moving, mumbling something. As I stepped closer to Macon, I realized that they weren’t speaking in English. I couldn’t be sure, but I’d spent enough time with Marian to think it was Latin.

“Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.

Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.

Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.

Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est.”

All I could hear was the quiet mumbling, the chanting. I couldn’t hear Lena anymore. My head was empty. She was gone.

Lena! Answer me!

Nothing. She just lay there, moaning softly, twisting slowly like she was trying to shed her own skin. Still sweating, sweat mixed with tears.

Del broke the silence, hysterical. “Macon, do something! It’s not working.”

“I’m trying, Delphine.” There was something in his voice I’d never heard before. Fear.

“I don’t understand. We Bound this place together. This house is the one place she was supposed to be safe.” Aunt Del looked at Macon for answers.

“We were wrong. There’s no safe haven for her here.” A beautiful woman about my grandmother’s age with spirals of black hair spoke. She wore strands of beads around her neck, piled one on top of the other, and ornate silver rings on her thumbs. She had the same exotic quality Marian possessed, as if she was from somewhere far from here.

“You don’t know that, Aunt Arelia,” Del snapped, turning to Reece. “Reece, what’s happening? Can you see anything?”

Reece’s eyes were closed, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t see anything, Mamma.”

Lena’s body seized and she screamed—at least she opened her mouth and looked as if she was screaming, but she didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t take it.

“Do something! Help her!” I shouted.

“What are you doin’ here? Get out of here. It’s not safe,” Larkin warned. The family had noticed me for the first time.

“Concentrate!” Macon sounded desperate. His voice rose over the others’, louder and louder, until he was shouting—

“Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!

Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!

Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!

Blood of my blood, protection is thine!”

The members of the circle tensed their arms as if to give the circle more strength, but it didn’t work. Lena was still screaming, silent screams of terror. This was worse than the dreams. This was real. And if they weren’t going to stop it, I would. I ran toward her, ducking under Reece and Larkin’s arms.

“Ethan, NO!”

As I entered the circle, I could hear it. A howl. Sinister, haunting, like the voice of the wind itself. Or was it a voice? I couldn’t be sure. Even though it was only a few feet to the table where she was lying, it felt like it was a million miles away. Something was trying to push me back, something more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before. Even more powerful than when Ridley was freezing the life out of me. I pushed against it with everything I had in me.

I’m coming, Lena! Hold on!

I threw my body forward, reaching, like I reached in the dreams. The black abyss in the sky began to spin.

I closed my eyes and lunged forward. Our fingers touched, barely.

I heard her voice.

Ethan. I…

The air inside the circle whipped around us violently, like a vortex. Swirling up toward the sky, if you could still call it a sky. Into the blackness. There was a surge, like an explosion, slamming Uncle Macon, Aunt Del, everyone onto their backs, into the walls behind them. In the same moment, the spinning air within the broken circle was sucked up into the blackness above.

Then it was over. The castle dissolved into a regular attic, with a regular window, swinging open under the eaves. Lena lay on the floor, in a tangle of hair and limbs and unconsciousness, but she was breathing.

Macon pulled himself up from the floor, staring at me, stunned. Then he walked over to the window and slammed it shut.

Aunt Del looked at me, tears still streaming down her face. “If I hadn’t seen it myself…”

I knelt at Lena’s side. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. But she was alive. I could feel her, a tiny throb pulsing in her hand. I lay my head down next to her. It was all I could do not to collapse.

Lena’s family slowly contracted around us, a dark circle talking over my head.

“I told you. The boy has power.”

“It’s not possible. He’s a Mortal. He’s not one of us.”

“How could a Mortal break a Sanguinis Circle? How could a Mortal ward off a Mentem Interficere so powerful that Ravenwood itself came all but Unbound?”

“I don’t know, but there has to be an explanation.” Del raised her hand above her head. “Evinco, contineo, colligo, includo.” She opened her eyes. “The house is still Bound, Macon. I can feel it. But she got to Lena anyway.”

“Of course she did. We can’t stop her from coming for the child.”

“Sarafine’s powers are growing by the day. Reece can see her now, when she looks in Lena’s eyes.” Del’s voice was shaky.

“Striking us here, on this night. She was just making a point.”

“And what point would that be, Macon?”

“That she can.”

I could feel a hand at my temple. It caressed me, moving across my forehead. I tried to listen, but the hand made me sleepy. I wanted to crawl home to my bed.

“Or that she can’t.” I looked up. Arelia was rubbing my temples, as if I were a little broken sparrow. Only I could tell she was feeling for me, for what was inside me. She was searching for something, rummaging around in my mind as if she was looking for a lost button or an old sock. “She was foolish. She made a critical error. We’ve learned the only thing we really needed to know,” Arelia said.

“So you agree with Macon? The boy has power?” Del sounded even more frantic now.

“You were right before, Delphine. There must be some other explanation. He’s a Mortal, and we all know Mortals can’t possess power on their own,” Macon snapped, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone.

But I had begun to wonder if it wasn’t true. He had said the same thing to Amma in the swamp, that I had some kind of power. It just didn’t make sense, even to me. I wasn’t one of them, that much I knew. I wasn’t a Caster.

Arelia looked up at Macon. “You can Bind the house all you want, Macon. But I’m your mother and I’m tellin’ you that you can bring in every Duchannes, every Ravenwood, make the Circle as wide as this godforsaken county if you want. Cast all the Vincula you can. It’s not the house that protects her. It’s the boy. I’ve never seen anything like it. No Caster can come between them.”

“So it would seem.” Macon sounded angry, but he didn’t challenge his mother. I was too tired to care. I didn’t even lift my head.

I could hear Arelia whispering something in my ear. It seemed like she was speaking Latin again, but the words sounded different.

“Cruor pectoris mei, tutela tua est!

Blood of my heart, protection is thine!”