Beautiful Creatures

11.27

Just Your Average American Holiday

After Halloween, it felt like the calm after the storm. We settled into a routine, even though we knew the clock was ticking. I walked to the corner to hide from Amma, Lena picked me up in the hearse, Boo Radley caught up with us in front of the Stop & Steal and followed us to school. With the occasional exception of Winnie Reid, the only member of the Jackson Debate team, which made debating difficult, or Robert Lester Tate, who had won the State Spelling Bee two years in a row, the only person who would even sit with us in the cafeteria was Link. When we weren’t at school eating on the bleachers, or being spied on by Principal Harper, we were holed up in the library rereading the locket papers and hoping Marian might slip up and tell us something. No sign of flirty Siren cousins bearing lollipops and death grips, no unexplained Category 3 storms or ominous black clouds in the sky, not even a weird meal with Macon. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Except for one thing. The most important thing. I was crazy about a girl who actually felt the same way about me. When did that ever happen? The fact that she was a Caster was almost easier to believe than the fact that she existed at all.

I had Lena. She was powerful and she was beautiful. Every day was terrifying, and every day was perfect.

Until out of nowhere, the unthinkable happened. Amma invited Lena to Thanksgiving dinner.

“I don’t know why you want to come over for Thanksgiving anyway. It’s pretty boring.” I was nervous. Amma was obviously up to something.

Lena smiled, and I relaxed. There was nothing better than when she smiled. It blew me away every time. “I don’t think it sounds boring.”

“You’ve never been to Thanksgiving at my house.”

“I’ve never been to Thanksgiving at anyone’s house. Casters don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a Mortal holiday.”

“Are you kidding? No turkey? No pumpkin pie?”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t eat much today, did you?”

“Not really.”

“Then you’ll be okay.”

I had prepped Lena ahead of time so she wouldn’t be surprised when the Sisters wrapped extra biscuits in their dinner napkins and slipped them into their purses. Or when my Aunt Caroline and Marian spent half the night debating the location of the first public library in the U.S. (Charleston) or the proper proportions for “Charleston green” paint (two parts “Yankee” black and one part “Rebel” yellow). Aunt Caroline was a museum curator in Savannah and she knew as much about period architecture and antiques as my mom had known about Civil War ammunition and battle strategy. Because that’s what Lena had to be ready for—Amma, my crazy relatives, Marian, and Harlon James thrown in for good measure.

I left out the one detail she actually needed to know. Given how things had been lately, Thanksgiving probably also meant dinner with my dad in his pajamas. But that was something I just couldn’t explain.

Amma took Thanksgiving really seriously, which meant two things. My dad would finally come out of his study, although technically it was after dark so that wasn’t a big exception, and he would eat at the table with us. No Shredded Wheat. That was the absolute minimum Amma would allow. So in honor of my dad’s pilgrimage into the world the rest of us inhabited every day, Amma cooked up a storm. Turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, butter beans and creamed corn, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, honey ham and biscuits, pumpkin and lemon meringue pie, which, after my evening in the swamp, I was pretty sure she was making more for Uncle Abner than the rest of us.

I stopped for a second on the porch, remembering how I felt standing on the veranda at Ravenwood the first night I showed up there. Now it was Lena’s turn. She had pulled her dark hair away from her face, and I touched the place where it managed to escape, curling around her chin.

You ready?

She pulled her black dress loose from her tights. She was nervous.

I’m not.

You should be.

I grinned and pushed open the door. “Ready or not.” The house smelled like my childhood. Like mashed potatoes and hard work.

“Ethan Wate, is that you?” Amma called from the kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You have that girl with you? Bring her in here so we can get a look at her.”

The kitchen was sizzling. Amma was standing in front of the stove, in her apron, a wooden spoon in each hand. Aunt Prue was puttering around, sticking her fingers in the mixing bowls on the counter. Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace were playing Scrabble at the kitchen table; neither one of them seemed to notice they weren’t actually making any words.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Bring her on in here.”

Every muscle in my body tensed. There was no way to predict what Amma, or the Sisters, were going to say. I still had no idea why Amma had insisted I invite Lena in the first place.

Lena stepped forward. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Amma looked Lena up and down, wiping her hands on her apron. “So you’re the one keepin’ my boy so busy. Postman was right. Pretty as a picture.” I wondered if Carlton Eaton had mentioned that on their ride to Wader’s Creek.

Lena blushed. “Thank you.”

“Heard you’ve shaken things up at that school.” Aunt Grace smiled. “A good thing, too. I don’t know what they’re teachin’ you kids over there.”

Aunt Mercy put down her tiles, one at a time. I-T-C-H-I-N.

Aunt Grace leaned closer to the board, squinting. “Mercy Lynne, you’re cheatin’ again! What kinda word is that? Use it in a sentence.”

“I’m itchin’ ta have some a that white cake.”

“That’s not how you spell it.” At least one of them could spell. Aunt Grace pulled one of the tiles off the board. “There’s no T in itchin’.” Or not.

You weren’t exaggerating.

I told you.

“Is that Ethan I hear?” Aunt Caroline walked into the kitchen just in time, her arms open wide. “Come on over here and give your aunt a hug.” It always caught me off guard for a second, just how much she looked like my mother. The same long brown hair, always pulled back, the same dark brown eyes. But my mom had always preferred bare feet and jeans, while Aunt Caroline was more of a Southern Belle in sundresses and little sweaters. I think my aunt liked to see the expression on people’s faces when they found out she was curator of the Savannah History Museum and not some aging debutante.

“How’re things up North?” Aunt Caroline always referred to Gatlin as “up North” since it was north of Savannah.

“All right. Did you bring me some pralines?”

“Don’t I always?”

I took Lena’s hand, pulling her toward us. “Lena, this is my Aunt Caroline and my great-aunts, Prudence, Mercy, and Grace.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Lena reached out her hand, but my Aunt Caroline pulled her in for a hug instead.

The front door slammed.

“Happy Thanksgiving.” Marian came in carrying a casserole dish and a pie plate stacked on top of one another. “What did I miss?”

“Squirrels.” Aunt Prue shuffled over and looped her arm through Marian’s. “What do you know about ’em?”

“All right, every one a you, clear on outta my kitchen. I need some space to work my magic, and Mercy Statham, I see you eatin’ my Red Hots.” Aunt Mercy stopped crunching for a second. Lena looked over at me, trying not to smile.

I could call Kitchen.

Trust me, Amma doesn’t need any help when it comes to cooking. She’s got some magic of her own.

Everyone crowded into the living room. Aunt Caroline and Aunt Prue were discussing how to grow persimmons on a sun porch and Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy were still fighting over how to spell “itchin’,” while Marian refereed. It was enough to make anyone crazy, but when I saw Lena wedged between the Sisters, she looked happy, even content.

This is nice.

Are you kidding?

Was this her idea of a family holiday? Casseroles and Scrabble and old ladies bickering? I wasn’t sure, but I knew this was about as far from the Gathering as you could get.

At least no one is trying to kill anyone.

Give them about fifteen minutes, L.

I caught Amma’s eye through the kitchen doorway, but it wasn’t me she was looking at. It was Lena.

She was definitely up to something.

Thanksgiving dinner unfolded as it had every year. Except nothing was the same. My father was in pajamas, my mom’s chair was empty, and I was holding hands with a Caster girl under the table. For a second, it was overwhelming—feeling happy and sad at the same time—as if they were tied together somehow. But I only had a second to think about it; we had barely said “amen” before the Sisters started swiping biscuits, Amma was spooning heaping mounds of mashed potatoes and gravy on our plates, and Aunt Caroline started with the small talk.

I knew what was going on. If there was enough work, enough talk, enough pie, maybe nobody would notice the empty chair. There wasn’t enough pie in the world for that, not even in Amma’s kitchen.

Either way, Aunt Caroline was determined to keep me talking. “Ethan, do you need to borrow anything for the reenactment? I’ve got some remarkably authentic-looking shell jackets in the attic.”

“Don’t remind me.” I’d almost forgotten I had to dress up as a Confederate soldier for the Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill if I wanted to pass history this year. Every February, there was a Civil War reenactment in Gatlin; it was the only reason tourists ever showed up here.

Lena reached for a biscuit. “I don’t really understand why the reenactment is such a big deal. It seems like a lot of work to re-create a battle that happened over a hundred years ago, considering we can just read about it in our history books.”

Uh-oh.

Aunt Prue gasped; that was blasphemy as far as she was concerned. “They should burn that school a yours ta the ground! They’re not teachin’ any kind a his’try over there. You can’t learn ’bout the War for Southern Independence in any textbook. You have ta see it for yourself, and every one a you kids should, because the same country that fought together in the American Revolution for independence, turned clear against itself in the War.”

Ethan, say something. Change the subject.

Too late. She’s going to break into the “Star Spangled Banner” any second now.

Marian split a biscuit and filled it with ham. “Miss Statham is right. The Civil War turned this country against itself, oftentimes brother against brother. It was a tragic chapter in American history. Over half a million men died, although more of them died from sickness than battle.”

“A tragic chapter, that’s what it was.” Aunt Prue nodded.

“Now don’t get all worked up, Prudence Jane.” Aunt Grace patted her sister’s arm.

Aunt Prue swatted her hand away. “Don’t tell me when I’m worked up. I’m just tryin’ ta make sure they know the pig’s head from its tail. I’m the only one doin’ any teachin’. That school should be payin’ me.”

I should have warned you not to get them started.

Now you tell me.

Lena shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I’ve just never known anyone who was so knowledgeable about the War.”

Nice one. If by knowledgeable you mean obsessed.

“Now don’t you feel bad, sweetheart. Prudence Jane just gets her britches in a twist every now and again.” Aunt Grace elbowed Aunt Prue.

That’s why we put whiskey in her tea.

“It’s all that peanut brittle Carlton brought by.” Aunt Prue looked at Lena apologetically. “I have a hard time with too much sugar.”

A hard time staying away from it.

My dad coughed and absentmindedly pushed his mashed potatoes around his plate. Lena saw an opportunity to change the subject. “So Ethan says you’re a writer, Mr. Wate. What kind of books do you write?”

My dad looked up at her, but didn’t say anything. He probably didn’t even realize Lena was talking to him.

“Mitchell’s workin’ on a new book. It’s a big one. Maybe the most important one he’s ever written. And Mitchell’s written a mess a books. How many is it now, Mitchell?” Amma asked, like she was talking to a child. She knew how many books my dad had published.

“Thirteen,” he mumbled.

Lena wasn’t discouraged by my dad’s frightening social skills, even though I was. I looked at him, hair uncombed, black circles under his eyes. When had it gotten this bad?

Lena pressed on. “What’s your book about?”

My dad came back to life, animated for the first time this evening. “It’s a love story. It’s really been a journey, this book. The great American novel. Some might say The Sound and the Fury of my career, but I can’t really talk about the plot. Not really. Not at this point. Not when I’m so close… to…” He was rambling. Then he just stopped talking, like someone had flipped a switch in his back. He stared at my mom’s empty chair as he drifted away.

Amma looked anxious. Aunt Caroline tried to distract everyone from what was quickly becoming the most embarrassing night of my life. “Lena, where did you say you moved here from?”

But I couldn’t hear her answer. I couldn’t hear anything. Instead, all I could see was everything moving in slow motion. Blurring, expanding and contracting, like the way heat waves look as they move through the air.

Then—

The room was frozen, except it wasn’t. I was frozen. My father was frozen. His eyes were narrow, his lips rounded to form sounds that hadn’t had a chance to escape his lips. Still staring at the plateful of mashed potatoes, untouched. The Sisters, Aunt Caroline, and Marian were like statues. Even the air was perfectly still. The pendulum of the grandfather clock had stopped in mid-swing.

Ethan? Are you all right?

I tried to answer her, but I couldn’t. When Ridley had me in her death grip, I had been sure I was going to freeze to death. Now I was frozen, except I wasn’t cold and I wasn’t dead.

“Did I do this?” Lena asked aloud.

Only Amma could answer. “Cast a Time Bind? You? About as likely as this turkey hatchin’ a gator.” She snorted. “No, you didn’t do this, child. This is bigger than you. The Greats figured it was time we had ourselves a talk, woman to woman. Nobody can hear us now.”

Except me. I can hear you.

But the words didn’t come out. I could hear them talking, but I couldn’t make a sound.

Amma looked up at the ceiling, “Thank you, Aunt Delilah. ’Preciate the help.” She walked over to the buffet and cut a piece of pumpkin pie. She put it on a fancy china plate and laid the plate in the center of the table. “Now I’m gonna leave this piece for you and the Greats, and you be sure to remember I did.”

“What’s going on? What did you do to them?”

“Didn’t do anything to them. Just bought us some time, I reckon.”

“Are you a Caster?”

“No, I’m just a Seer. I see what needs to be seen, what no one else can see, or wants to.”

“Did you stop time?” Casters could do that, stop time. Lena had told me. But only incredibly powerful ones.

“I didn’t do a thing. I only asked the Greats for some assistance and Aunt Delilah obliged.”

Lena looked confused, or frightened. “Who are the Greats?”

“The Greats are my family from the Otherworld. They give me some help every now and again, and they’re not alone. They’ve got others with them.” Amma leaned across the table, looking Lena in the eye. “Why aren’t you wearin’ the bracelet?”

“What?”

“Didn’t Melchizedek give it to you? I told him you needed to wear it.”

“He gave it to me, but I took it off.”

“Now why would you go and do a thing like that?”

“We figured out it was blocking the visions.”

“It was blockin’ somethin’ all right. Until you stopped wearin’ it.”

“What was it blocking?”

Amma reached out and took Lena’s hand in her own, turning it over to reveal her palm. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, child. But Melchizedek, your family, they aren’t gonna tell you, not one a them. And you need to be told. You need to be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?”

Amma looked at the ceiling, mumbling under her breath. “She’s comin’, child. She’s comin’ for you, and she’s a force to be reckoned with. As Dark as night.”

“Who? Who’s coming for me?”

“I wish they’d told you themselves. I didn’t want to be the one. But the Greats, they say somebody has to tell you before it’s too late.”

“Tell me what? Who’s coming, Amma?”

Amma pulled a small pouch that was dangling from a leather cord around her neck out of her shirt and clutched it, lowering her voice like she was afraid someone might hear her. “Sarafine. The Dark One.”

“Who’s Sarafine?”

Amma hesitated, clutching the pouch even tighter.

“Your mamma.”

“I don’t understand. My parents died when I was a child, and my mother’s name was Sara. I’ve seen it on my family tree.”

“Your daddy died, that’s the truth, but your mamma’s alive as sure as I’m standin’ here. And you know the thing about family trees down South, they’re never quite as right as they claim to be.”

The color drained from Lena’s face. I strained to reach out and take her hand, but only my finger trembled. I was powerless. I couldn’t do anything but watch as she tumbled into a dark place, alone. Just like in the dreams. “And she’s Dark?”

“She’s the Darkest Caster livin’ today.”

“Why didn’t my uncle tell me? Or my gramma? They said she was dead. Why would they lie to me?”

“There’s the truth and then there’s the truth. They aren’t likely the same thing. I reckon they were tryin’ to protect you. They still think they can. But the Greats, they’re not so sure. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but Melchizedek’s a stubborn one.”

“Why are you trying to help me? I thought—I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Doesn’t have anything to do with likin’ or not likin’. She’s comin’ for you, and you don’t need any distractions.” Amma raised an eyebrow. “And I don’t want anything to happen to my boy. This is bigger than you, bigger than the both a you.”

“What’s bigger than both of us?”

“All of it. You and Ethan just aren’t meant to be.”

Lena looked confused. Amma was talking in riddles again. “What do you mean?”

Amma jerked around as if someone behind her had tapped her on the shoulder. “What’d you say, Aunt Delilah?” Amma turned to Lena. “We don’t have much time left.”

The pendulum on the clock began to move almost imperceptibly. The room began to come back to life. My dad’s eyes started to blink slowly, so that it took seconds for his lashes to brush his cheeks.

“You put that bracelet back on. You need all the help you can get.”

Time snapped back into place—

I blinked a few times, glancing around the room. My father was still staring at his potatoes. Aunt Mercy was still wrapping a biscuit in her napkin. I lifted my hands in front of my face, wiggling my fingers. “What the hell was that?”

“Ethan Wate!” Aunt Grace gasped.

Amma was splitting her biscuits and filling them with ham. She looked up at me, caught off guard. It was obvious she hadn’t intended for me to hear their little girl talk. She gave me the Look. Meaning, you keep your mouth shut, Ethan Wate.

“Don’t you use that kinda language at my table. You’re not too old for me to wash your mouth out with a bar a soap. What do you think it is? Ham and biscuits. Turkey and stuffing. Now I been cookin’ all day, I expect you to eat.”

I looked over at Lena. The smile was gone. She was staring at her plate.

Lena Beana. Come back to me. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’ll be okay.

But she was too far away.

Lena didn’t say a word the whole way home. When we got to Ravenwood, she yanked open the car door, slammed it behind her, and took off toward the house without a word.

I almost didn’t follow her in. My head was reeling. I couldn’t imagine what Lena was feeling. It was bad enough to lose your mother, but even I couldn’t guess what it would feel like to find out your mother wanted you dead.

My mother was lost to me, but I wasn’t lost. She had anchored me, to Amma, my father, Link, Gatlin, before she left. I felt her in the streets, my house, the library, even the pantry. Lena had never had that. She was cut loose and coming unmoored, Amma would say, like the poor man’s ferries on the swamp.

I wanted to be her anchor. But right now, I didn’t think anyone could.

Lena stalked past Boo, who was sitting on the front veranda not even panting, even though he had dutifully run behind our car the whole way home. He had also sat in my front yard all through dinner. He seemed to like the sweet potatoes and little marshmallows, which I had chucked out the front door when Amma went into the kitchen for more gravy.

I could hear her shouting from inside the house. I sighed, got out of the car, and sat down on the porch steps next to the dog. My head was already pounding, a sugar low. “Uncle Macon! Uncle Macon! Wake up! The sun’s down, I know you’re not asleep in there!”

I could hear Lena yelling from inside my head, too.

The sun’s down, I know you’re not asleep!

I was waiting for the day Lena was going to spring it on me and tell me the truth about Macon, like she’d told me the truth about herself. Whatever he was, he didn’t seem like an ordinary Caster, if there even was such a thing. The way he slept all day and just appeared and disappeared wherever he felt like it, you didn’t need to be a genius to see where that was going. Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there today.

Boo stared at me. I reached out my hand to pet him, and he twisted his head away, as if to say, we’re good. Please don’t touch me, boy. When we heard things start to break inside, Boo and I got up and followed the noise. Lena was banging on one of the doors upstairs.

The house had reverted to what I suspected was Macon’s preferred state, dilapidated antebellum finery. I was secretly relieved not to be standing in a castle. I wished I could stop time and go back three hours. To be honest, I would have been perfectly happy if Lena’s house had transformed into a doublewide trailer, and we were all sitting in front of a bowl of leftover stuffing, like the rest of Gatlin.

“My mother? My own mother?”

The door flung open. Macon stood there in the doorway, a disheveled mess. He was in rumpled linen pajamas, only what it really was, I hate to say, was more of a nightdress. His eyes were redder than usual and his skin whiter, his hair tousled. He looked like he had been run over by a Mack truck.

In his own way, he wasn’t all that different from my dad, a fine mess. Maybe a finer mess. Except the nightdress; my dad wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress.

“My mother is Sarafine? That thing that tried to kill me on Halloween? How could you keep this from me?”

Macon shook his head and rubbed his hand over his hair, annoyed. “Amarie.” I would’ve paid anything to see Macon and Amma square off in a fight. My money would be on Amma, all the way.

Macon stepped across his doorway, pulling the door shut behind him. I caught a glimpse of his bedroom. It looked like something out of Phantom of the Opera, with wrought iron candelabras standing taller than I was and a black four-poster bed draped with gray and black velvet. The windows were draped with the same material, hanging sullenly over the black plantation shutters. Even the walls were upholstered in fraying black and gray fabric that was probably a hundred years old. The room was pitch dark, dark as night. The effect was chilling.

Darkness, real darkness, was something more than just a lack of light.

As Macon stepped through the doorway, he emerged into the hall perfectly dressed, not a hair out of place on his head, not a wrinkle in his slacks or crisp white shirt. Even the smooth buckskin shoes were without a scuff. He looked nothing like he had a moment before, and all he’d done was step through his own bedroom door.

I looked at Lena. She hadn’t even noticed, and I felt cold, remembering for a moment how different her life must have always been than mine. “My mother’s alive?”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“You mean, the part about how my own mother wants to kill me? When were you going to tell me, Uncle Macon? When I was already Claimed?”

“Please don’t start this again. You’re not going Dark.” Macon sighed.

“I can’t imagine how you can think otherwise. Since I am the daughter of, and I quote, ‘the Darkest Caster living today’.”

“I understand you’re upset. This is a lot to take in, and I should have told you myself. But you have to believe I was trying to protect you.”

Lena was more than just angry now. “Protect me! You let me believe that Halloween was just some random attack, but it was my mother! My mother is alive, and she was trying to kill me, and you didn’t think I should know about it?”

“We don’t know that she’s trying to kill you.”

Picture frames started to bang against the walls. The bulbs in the fixtures lining the hallway shorted out one by one, down the length of the hallway. The sound of rain pelted the shutters.

“Haven’t we had enough bad weather in the last few weeks?”

“What else have you been lying about? What am I going to find out next? That my father is alive, too?”

“I’m afraid not.” He said it like it was a tragedy, something too sad to talk about. It was the same tone people used when they talked about my mother’s death.

“You have to help me.” Her voice was cracking.

“I will do everything in my power to help you, Lena. I always have.”

“That’s not true,” she spat back at him. “You haven’t told me about my powers. You haven’t taught me how to protect myself.”

“I don’t know the scope of your powers. You’re a Natural. When you need to do something, you’ll do it. In your own way, in your own time.”

“My own mother wants to kill me. I don’t have any time.”

“As I said before, we don’t know that she’s trying to kill you.”

“Then how do you explain Halloween?”

“There are other possibilities. Del and I are trying to work that out.” Macon turned away from her, as if he was going to go back into his room. “You need to calm down. We can talk about this later.”

Lena turned toward a vase, sitting on the credenza at the end of the hall. As if pulled by a string, the vase followed her eyes to the wall next to Macon’s bedroom door, flying across the room and smashing against the plaster. It was far enough from Macon to be sure it wouldn’t have hit him, but close enough to make a point. It wasn’t an accident.

It wasn’t one of those times Lena had lost control and things just happened. She had done this on purpose. She was in control.

Macon spun around so fast I didn’t even see him move, but he was standing in front of Lena. He was as shocked as I was, and he had come to the same realization; it was no accident. And the look on her face told me she was just as surprised. He looked hurt, as hurt as Macon Ravenwood was capable of looking. “As I said, when you need to do something, you’ll do it.”

Macon turned to me. “It will be even more dangerous, I’m afraid, in the coming weeks. Things have changed. Don’t leave her alone. When she is here, I can protect her, but my mother was right. It seems you can also protect her, perhaps better than I can.”

“Hello? I can hear you!” Lena had recovered from her display of power and the look on Macon’s face. I knew she’d torture herself over it later, but right now she was too angry to see that. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room.”

A lightbulb exploded behind him, and he didn’t even flinch.

“Are you listening to yourself? I need to know! I’m the one being hunted. I’m the one she wants, and I don’t even know why.”

They stared at each other, a Ravenwood and a Duchannes, two branches of the same twisted Caster tree. I wondered if this would be a good time for me to go.

Macon looked at me. His face said yes.

Lena looked at me. Hers said no.

She grabbed me by the hand, and I could feel the heat, burning. She was on fire, as angry as I’d ever seen her. I couldn’t believe every window in the house hadn’t blown out.

“You know why she’s hunting me, don’t you?”

“It’s—”

“Let me guess, complicated?” The two of them stared at each other. Lena’s hair was curling. Macon was twisting his silver ring.

Boo was backing away on his belly. Smart dog. I wished I could crawl out of the room, too. The last of the bulbs blew, and we were standing in the dark.

“You have to tell me everything you know about my powers.” Those were her terms.

Macon sighed, and the darkness began to dissipate. “Lena. It’s not as if I don’t want to tell you. After your little demonstration, it’s clear that I don’t even know what you’re capable of. No one does. I suspect, not even you.” She wasn’t completely convinced, but she was listening. “That’s what it means to be a Natural. It’s part of the gift.”

She began to relax. The battle was over, and she had won it, for now. “Then what am I going to do?”

Macon looked distressingly like my father when he came into my room when I was in fifth grade to explain the birds and the bees. “Coming into your powers can be a very confusing time. Perhaps there is a book on the subject. If you like, we can go see Marian.”

Yeah, right. Choices and Changes. A Modern Girl’s Guide to Casting. My Mom Wants to Kill Me: A Self-Help Book for Teens.

It was going to be a long few weeks.