Beautiful Creatures

12.07

Grave Digging

It was Lena’s idea. Today was Aunt Del’s birthday, and at the last minute, Lena decided to throw a family party at Ravenwood. It was also Lena who invited Amma, knowing full well nothing short of divine intervention could get Amma to set foot through the door of Ravenwood Manor. Whatever it was about Macon, Amma reacted only slightly better to his presence than she did to the locket. And she preferred to keep Macon just as far away.

Boo Radley had shown up in the afternoon with a scroll in his mouth, lettered in careful calligraphy. Amma wouldn’t touch the thing, even if it was an invitation, and almost didn’t let me go. Good thing she didn’t see me get into the hearse with my mom’s old garden shovel. That would have raised a flag or two.

I was glad to get out of my house, for any reason, even if the reason involved grave robbing. After Thanksgiving, my father had shut himself in the study, and since Macon and Amma caught us at the Lunae Libri, all I was getting from Amma was stinkeye.

Lena and I weren’t allowed to go back to the Lunae Libri, either, at least, not for the next sixty-eight days. Macon and Amma didn’t seem to want us digging up any more information they hadn’t planned on telling us in the first place.

“After the eleventh a February, you can do what you like,” Amma had harrumphed. “Until then, you can do what every-one else your age does. Listen to music. Watch the television. Just keep your nose away from those books.”

My mom would have laughed, the idea that I wasn’t allowed to read a book. Things had obviously gotten pretty bad around here.

It’s worse here, Ethan. Boo even sleeps at the foot of my bed now.

That doesn’t sound so bad to me.

He waits for me outside the bathroom door.

That’s just Macon being Macon.

It’s like house arrest.

It was, and we both knew it.

We had to find The Book of Moons, and it had to be with Genevieve. It was more than possible Genevieve had been buried at Greenbrier. There were some weathered headstones in the clearing just outside the garden. You could see them from the stone where we usually sat, which had turned out to be a hearthstone. Our spot, that’s how I thought of it, even if I had never said it out loud. Genevieve had to be buried out there, unless she’d moved away after the War, but nobody ever left Gatlin.

I always thought I’d be the first.

But now that I had gotten out of the house, how was I going to find a lost Casting book that may or may not save Lena’s life, that may or may not be buried in the grave of a cursed ancestral Caster, that may or may not be next door to Macon Ravenwood’s house? Without her uncle seeing me, stopping me, or killing me first?

The rest was up to Lena.

“What sort of history project requires visiting a graveyard at night?” Aunt Del asked, tripping over a bramble of vines. “Oh my!”

“Mamma, be careful.” Reece looped her arm through her mother’s, helping her negotiate the overgrowth. Aunt Del had a hard enough time walking around without bumping into anything in the daylight, but in the dark it was asking too much.

“We have to make a rubbing from one of our ancestors’ tombstones. We’re studying genealogy.” Well, that was sort of true.

“Why Genevieve?” Reece asked, looking suspicious.

Reece looked at Lena, but Lena immediately turned away. Lena had warned me not to let Reece see my face. Apparently, one look was all it took for a Sybil to know if you were lying. Lying to a Sybil was even trickier than lying to Amma.

“She’s the one in the painting, in the hall. I just thought it would be cool to use her. It’s not like we have a big family cemetery to choose from, like most people around here.”

The hypnotic Caster music from the party was starting to fade in the distance, replaced by the sound of dry leaves crackling under our feet. We had crossed over into Greenbrier. We were getting close. It was dark, but the full moon was so bright we didn’t even need our flashlights. I remembered what Amma had said to Macon at the graveyard. Half moon’s for workin’ White magic, full moon’s for workin’ Black. We weren’t going to be working any magic, I hoped, but it didn’t make it seem any less spooky.

“I’m not sure Macon would want us wandering out here in the dark. Did you tell him where we were going?” Aunt Del was apprehensive. She pulled on the collar of her high-necked lace blouse.

“I told him we were going for a walk. He just told me to stay with you.”

“I don’t know that I’m in good enough shape for this. I have to admit, I’m a bit winded.” Aunt Del was out of breath, and the hair around her face had escaped from her always slightly off-center bun.

Then I smelled that familiar scent. “We’re here.”

“Thank goodness.”

We walked toward the crumbling stone wall of the garden, where I’d found Lena crying the day after the window shattered. I ducked under the archway of vines, into the garden. It looked different at night, less like a spot for cloud gazing and more like the place a cursed Caster would be buried.

This is it, Ethan. She’s here. I can feel it.

Me, too.

Where do you think her grave is?

As we crossed over the hearthstone where I’d found the locket, I could see another stone in the clearing a few yards just beyond it. A headstone, with a hazy looking figure sitting on it.

I heard Lena gasp, just barely loud enough for me to hear.

Ethan, can you see her?

Yeah.

Genevieve. She was only partially materialized, a mix of cloudy haze and light, fading in and out as the air moved through her ghostly form, but there was no mistaking it. It was Genevieve, the woman in the painting. She had the same golden eyes and long, wavy red hair. Her hair blew gently in the wind, as if she was just a woman sitting on a bench at the bus stop, instead of an apparition sitting on a headstone in a graveyard. She was beautiful, even in her present state, and terrifying at the same time. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

Maybe this was a mistake.

Aunt Del stopped dead in her tracks. She saw Genevieve, too, but it was clear she didn’t think anyone else could see her. She probably thought the apparition was just the result of seeing too many times at once, the muddled images of this place in twenty different decades.

“I think we should go back to the house. I’m not feeling very well.” Aunt Del clearly didn’t want to mess with a hundred-and-fifty-year-old ghost in a Caster graveyard.

Lena tripped over a loose vine and stumbled. I grabbed her arm to catch her, but I wasn’t fast enough. “Are you okay?”

She caught herself and looked up at me for a split second, but a split second was all Reece needed. She zeroed in on Lena’s eyes, looking into her face, her expression, her thoughts.

“Mamma, they’re lyin’! They aren’t doin’ a history project at all. They’re lookin’ for somethin’.” Reece put her hand to her temple as if she was adjusting a piece of equipment. “A book!”

Aunt Del looked confused, even more confused than she usually looked. “What sort of book would you be looking for in a graveyard?”

Lena broke away from Reece’s gaze and her hold. “It’s a book that belonged to Genevieve.”

I unzipped the duffel bag I’d been carrying and pulled out a shovel. I walked toward the grave slowly, trying to ignore the fact that Genevieve’s ghost was watching me the whole time. Maybe I was going to get struck by lightning or something; it wouldn’t have surprised me. But we’d come this far. I pushed the shovel into the ground, scooping out a pile of earth.

“Oh, Great Mother! Ethan, what are you doing?” Apparently, grave digging brought Aunt Del back to the present.

“I’m looking for the book.”

“In there?” Aunt Del looked faint. “What sort of book would be in there?”

“It’s a Casting book, a really old one. We don’t even know if it’s in there. It’s just a hunch,” Lena said, glancing at Genevieve, who was still perched on the tombstone only a foot away.

I tried not to look at Genevieve. It was disturbing the way her body faded in and out, and she stared at us with those creepy golden cat eyes, vacant and lifeless like they were made of glass.

The ground wasn’t that hard, especially considering it was December. Within a few minutes, I had already dug a foot deep. Aunt Del was pacing back and forth, looking worried. Every once in a while, she’d look around to be sure none of us were watching, then she’d glance over at Genevieve. At least I wasn’t the only one freaked out about her.

“We should go back. This is disgustin’,” Reece said, trying to make eye contact with me.

“Don’t be such a Girl Scout,” Lena said, kneeling over the hole.

Does Reece see her?

I don’t think so. Just don’t make eye contact with her.

What if Reece reads Aunt Del’s face?

She can’t. No one can. Aunt Del sees too much at once. No one but a Palimpsest can process all that information and make any sense of it.

“Mamma, are you really going to let them dig up a grave?”

“For star’s sake, this is ridiculous. Let’s stop this foolishness right now and go back to the party.”

“We can’t. We have to know if the book is down there.” Lena turned to Aunt Del. “You could show us.”

What are you talking about?

She can show us what’s down there. She can project what she sees.

“I don’t know. Macon wouldn’t like it.” Aunt Del was biting her lip uneasily.

“Do you think he’d prefer we dig up a grave?” Lena countered.

“All right, all right. Get out of that hole, Ethan.”

I stepped out of the hole, wiping the dirt on my pants. I looked over at Genevieve. She had a peculiar look on her face, almost as if she was interested to see what was about to happen, or maybe she was just about to vaporize us.

“Everyone, have a seat. This might make you dizzy. If you feel queasy, put your head between your knees,” Aunt Del instructed, like some kind of supernatural flight attendant. “The first time is always the hardest.” Aunt Del reached out so we could take her hands.

“I can’t believe you are participatin’ in this, Mamma.”

Aunt Del took the clip out of her bun, letting her hair spill down around her shoulders. “Don’t be such a Girl Scout, Reece.”

Reece rolled her eyes and took my hand. I glanced up at Genevieve. She looked right at me, right into me, and held a finger to her lips as if to say, “Shh.”

The air began to dissolve around us. Then we were spinning like one of those rides where they strap you against the wall and the whole thing spins so fast you think you’re going to puke.

Then flashes—

One after the next, opening and closing like doors. One after another, second after second.

Two girls in white petticoats running in the grass, holding hands, laughing. Yellow ribbons tied in their hair.

Another door opened.

A young woman with caramel-colored skin, hanging clothes on a wash line, humming quietly, the breeze lifting the sheets into the wind. The woman turns toward a grand white Federal-style house and calls out, “Genevieve! Evangeline!”

And another.

A young girl moving across the clearing at dusk. She looks back to see if anyone is following her, red hair swinging behind her. Genevieve. She runs into the arms of a tall, lanky boy—a boy who could’ve been me. He leans down and kisses her. “I love you, Genevieve. And one day I’m goin’ to marry you. I don’t care what your family says. It can’t be impossible.” She touches his lips, gently.

“Shh. We don’t have much time.”

The door closes and another opens.

Rain, smoke, and the crackling sound of fire, eating, breathing. Genevieve stands in the darkness; black smoke and tears streak her face. There’s a black leather-bound book in her hand. It has no title, just a crescent moon embossed on the cover. She looks at the woman, the same woman who was hanging laundry on the clothesline. Ivy. “Why doesn’t it have a name?” The old woman’s eyes are filled with fear. “Just ’cause a book don’t have a title, don’t mean it don’t have a name. That right there is The Book a Moons.”

The door slams shut.

Ivy, older and sadder, standing over a freshly dug grave, a pine box resting deep in the hole. “Though I walk through the valley a the shadow a death, I fear no evil.” There is something in her hand. The Book, black leather with the crescent moon on the cover. “Take this with ya, Miss Genevieve. So it can’t cause nobody else any harm.” She tosses the Book into the hole with the casket.

Another door.

The four of us sitting around the half-dug hole, and below the dirt, farther down where we can’t see without Del’s help, the pine box. The Book rests against it. Then farther down, into the casket, Genevieve’s body, lying there in the darkness. Her eyes closed, her skin pale porcelain, as if she was still breathing, perfectly preserved in a way no corpse could ever be. Her long, fiery hair cascading onto her shoulders.

The view spirals back up, out of the ground. Back up to the four of us, sitting around the half-dug hole, holding hands. Up to the headstone and Genevieve’s faded figure, staring down at us.

Reece screamed. The last door slammed shut.

♦ ♦ ♦

I tried to open my eyes, but I was dizzy. Del had been right, I felt like I was going to be sick. I tried to get my bearings, but my eyes wouldn’t focus. I felt Reece drop my hand, backing away from me, trying to get far away from Genevieve and her terrifying golden gaze.

Are you okay?

I think so.

Lena’s head was between her knees.

“Is everyone all right?” Aunt Del asked, her voice even and unshaken. Aunt Del didn’t seem so confused or clumsy anymore. If I had to see all that every time I looked at something, I’d pass out, or go crazy.

“I can’t believe that’s what you see,” I said, looking at Del, my eyes finally beginning to refocus.

“The gift of Palimpsestry is a great honor, and a greater burden.”

“The Book, it’s down there,” I said.

“That it is, but it appears it belongs to this woman,” Del said, gesturing toward Genevieve’s apparition, “who the two of you don’t seem particularly surprised to see.”

“We saw her before,” Lena admitted.

“Well, then, she chose to reveal herself to you. Seeing the dead is not one of the gifts of a Caster, even a Natural, and certainly not within the realm of Mortal talents. One can only see the dead if the dead so will it.”

I was scared. Not standing on the steps of Ravenwood scared, or having Ridley freeze the life out of me scared. This was something else. It was closer to the fear I felt when I awoke from the dreams, and the thought of losing Lena. It was a paralyzing fear. The kind you feel when you realize the powerful ghost of a cursed Dark Caster is staring down at you, in the middle of the night, watching you dig up her grave to steal a book from on top of her coffin. What was I thinking? What were we doing coming out here, digging up a grave under a full moon?

You were trying to right a wrong. There was a voice in my head, but it wasn’t Lena’s.

I turned to Lena. She was pale. Reece and Aunt Del were both staring at what was left of Genevieve. They could hear her, too. I looked up at the glowing golden eyes as she continued to fade in and out. She seemed to sense what we were here for.

Take it.

I looked at Genevieve, unsure. She closed her eyes and nodded ever so slightly.

“She wants us to take the Book,” Lena said. I guessed I wasn’t losing my mind.

“How do we know we can trust her?” She was a Dark Caster after all. With the same golden eyes as Ridley.

Lena looked back at me, with a glint of excitement. “We don’t.”

There was only one thing to do.

Dig.

The Book looked exactly as it had in the vision, cracked black leather, embossed with a tiny crescent moon. It smelled like desperation and it felt heavy, not just physically, but psychically. This was a Dark book; I knew it just from the seconds I managed to hold it, before it singed the skin off my fingertips. It felt like the Book was stealing a little bit of my breath each time I inhaled.

I reached my arm out of the hole, holding it above my head. Lena took it from my hand and I climbed back out. I wanted to get out of there, as quickly as possible. It wasn’t lost on me that I was standing on Genevieve’s casket.

Aunt Del gasped. “Great Mother, I never thought I would see it. The Book of Moons. Be careful. That book is as old as time, maybe older. Macon will never believe we—”

“He’s never going to know.” Lena brushed the dirt from the cover gently.

“Okay now, you’ve seriously lost it. If you think for one minute we’re not goin’ to tell Uncle Macon—” Reece crossed her arms like an irritated babysitter.

Lena held the Book up higher, right in front of Reece’s face. “About what?” Lena was staring at Reece the same way Reece had stared into Ridley’s eyes at the Gathering, intently, with purpose. Reece’s expression changed—she looked confused, almost disoriented. She stared at the Book, but it was like she couldn’t see it.

“What is there to tell, Reece?”

Reece squeezed her eyes shut, as if she was trying to shake off a bad dream. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it abruptly. A hint of a smile twitched across Lena’s face, as she turned slowly toward her aunt. “Aunt Del?”

Aunt Del looked as confused as Reece, which was how she looked most of the time, anyway, but something was different. And she didn’t answer Lena, either.

Lena turned slightly and dropped the Book on top of my bag. As she did, I saw green sparks in her eyes, and the curling motion of her hair as it caught the moonlight, the Casting breeze. It was almost as if I could see the magic churning around her in the darkness. I didn’t understand what was happening, but the three of them seemed to be locked in a dark, wordless conversation I couldn’t hear or understand.

Then it was over, and the moonlight became moonlight again, and the night faded back into night. I looked behind Reece, at Genevieve’s headstone. Genevieve was gone, as if she had never been there at all.

Reece shifted her weight, and her usual sanctimonious expression returned. “If you think for a minute I’m not goin’ to tell Uncle Macon you dragged us out to a graveyard for no good reason, because of some stupid school project you didn’t even end up doin’—” What the hell was she talking about? But Reece was dead serious. She didn’t remember what had just happened, any more than I understood it.

What did you just do?

Uncle Macon and I have been practicing.

Lena zipped up my duffel bag, with the Book inside. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just this place is really creepy at night. Let’s get out of here.”

Reece turned back toward Ravenwood, dragging Aunt Del behind her. “You’re such a baby.”

Lena winked at me.

Practicing what? Mind control?

Little things. Teletossing Pebbles. Interior Illusions. Time Binds, but those are hard.

That was easy?

I Shifted the Book out of their minds. I guess you could say I erased it. They won’t remember it, because in their reality, it never happened.

I knew we needed the Book. I knew why Lena did it. But somehow it felt like a line had been crossed, and now I didn’t know where we stood, or if she could ever cross back over to where I was. Where she used to be.

Reece and Aunt Del were already back in the garden. I didn’t need to be a Sybil to tell Reece wanted to get the hell out of there. Lena started to follow them, but something stopped me.

L, wait.

I walked back over to the hole and reached into my pocket. I opened the handkerchief with the familiar initials, and lifted the locket up by its chain. Nothing. No visions, and something told me there weren’t going to be any more. The locket had led us here, showed us what we needed to see.

I held the locket over the grave. It seemed only right, a fair trade. I was about to drop it when I heard Genevieve’s voice again, softer this time.

No. It doesn’t belong with me.

I looked back at the headstone. Genevieve was there again, what was left of her breaking into nothingness each time the wind blew through her. She didn’t look as terrifying.

She looked broken. The way you would look if you lost the only person you ever loved.

I understood.