Beautiful Darkness

Caster Boy

Link and I didn't talk much on the way back from the lake. We had to take Lena's car, but I was in no shape to drive. My feet were cut up, and I had messed up my ankle trying to climb over that last tree.

Link didn't mind. He was enjoying his turn behind the wheel of the Fastback. "Man, this thing can haul. Pony power, Baby." Link's usual worship of the Fastback was annoying today. My head was spinning and I didn't want to hear about Lena's car for the hundredth time.

"Then speed it up, man. We have to find her. She's hitchhiking on the back of some guy's motorcycle." I couldn't tell him the odds were she knew the guy. When had she taken that picture of the Harley in the graveyard? I punched the door in frustration.

Link didn't state the obvious. Lena ran away from me. It was pretty clear she didn't want to be found. He just drove, and I stared out the window of the passenger's seat as the hot wind stung the hundreds of tiny cuts on my face.

Something had been wrong for a while now. I just didn't want to face it. I wasn't sure if it was something that had been done to us, I had done to her, or she had done to me. Maybe it was something she was doing to herself. Her birthday was when it all started, her birthday and Macon's death. I wondered if it was Sarafine.

All this time, I'd been thinking this was about those stupid stages of grief. I thought about the gold in her eyes and the laugh from the dream. What if this was about different kinds of stages, stages of something else? Something supernatural? Something Dark?

What if this was what we'd been afraid of all along?

I hit the door again.

"I'm sure Lena's okay. She probably needs some space. Girls are always talkin' about needin' space." Link turned on the radio, then turned it off again. "Killer stereo."

"Whatever."

"Hey, we should go by the Dar-ee Keen and see if Charlotte's workin'. Maybe she can hook us up. Especially if we show up in this sweet ride." Link was trying to distract me, but it wasn't going to happen.

"Like there's a person in town who doesn't know whose car this is? We should drop it off, anyway. Aunt Del will be worried." It would also give me an excuse to see if the Harley was at Lena's house.

Link persisted. "You're goin' to show up with Lena's car without Lena? Like that won't worry Aunt Del? Let's stop and get a freeze and figure this out. Who knows, maybe Lena's at the Dar-ee Keen. It's right off the highway."

He was right, but it didn't make me feel any better. It made me feel worse. "If you like the Dar-ee Keen so much, you should have gotten a job there. Oh wait, you couldn't, because you'll be in summer school dissecting frogs with the other Lifers who failed bio." Lifers were the super seniors, the ones who always seemed to be at school and yet somehow never graduated. The guys who wore their letterman jackets years later, when they were working at the Stop & Steal.

"You should talk. Could you have a lamer summer job? The library?"

"I could hook you up with a book, but you'd have to learn to read."

Link was baffled by my summer plans to work at the library with Marian, but I didn't mind. I was still full of questions about Lena, her family, and Light and Dark Casters. Why didn't Lena have to Claim herself on her sixteenth birthday? It didn't seem like the kind of thing you could get out of. Could she really choose to be Light or Dark? Was it that easy? Since The Book of Moons was destroyed in the fire, the Lunae Libri was the only place that might have the answers.

Then there were the other questions. I tried not to think about my mother. I tried not to think about strangers on motorcycles and nightmares and bloody lips and golden eyes. Instead, I stared out the window and watched the trees pass by in a blur.

The Dar-ee Keen was packed. Not a big surprise, since it was one of the only places within walking distance of Jackson High. In the summer, you could pretty much follow the trail of flies and you would eventually find your way here. Formerly the Dairy King, the place had gotten a new name after the Gentrys bought it but didn't want to fork up the money to pay to put all new letters on the sign. Today everyone looked even sweatier and more pissed off than usual. Walking a mile in the South Carolina heat and missing the first day of hooking up and drinking warm beer at the lake wasn't anyone's idea of a good time. It was like canceling a national holiday.

Emily, Savannah, and Eden were hanging out at the good table in the corner with the basketball team. They were barefoot, in their bikini tops and supershort jean skirts -- the kind with one button left open, offering up a powerful flash of bikini bottoms without ever completely falling off. Nobody was in a very good mood. There wasn't a tire left in Gatlin, so half the cars were still sitting in the school parking lot. All the same, there was plenty of loud giggling and hair flipping. Emily was spilling out of her string bikini top, and Emory, her latest victim, was loving it.

Link shook his head. "Man, those two wanna be the bride at the weddin' and the corpse at the funeral."

"Just so long as I'm not invited to either."

"Dude. You need some sugar. I'm gonna get in line. You want somethin'?"

"No, thanks. You need some money?" Link never had any money.

"Naw, I'm gonna get Charlotte to hook me up."

Link could talk his way into and out of almost anything. I pushed my way through the crowd, as far away from Emily and Savannah as I could get. I slumped down at the bad corner table, beneath the shelves of soda cans and bottles from around the country. Some of the sodas had been there since my dad was little, and you could see the different levels of brown and orange and red syrup, disappearing to the bottom of the bottles from years of evaporation. It was pretty disgusting, I guess, that and the fifties soda bottle wallpaper and the flies. After a while, you didn't even notice it anymore.

I sat down and looked at the disappearing dark syrup, my mood in a bottle. What happened to Lena back at the lake? One minute we were kissing, the next she was running away from me. All that gold in her eyes. I wasn't stupid. I knew what it meant. Light Casters had green eyes. Dark Casters had gold. Lena's weren't completely gold, but what I'd seen at the lake was enough to make me wonder.

A fly landed on the shiny red table, and I stared at it. I recognized the familiar churning in my stomach. Dread and panic, all turning into a dull anger. I was so mad at Lena, I wanted to kick out the glass window next to our booth. But at the same time, I wanted to know what was going on and who that guy on the Harley was. Then I'd have to kick his ass.

Link slid into the booth across from me with the biggest freeze I'd ever seen. The ice cream rose about four inches above where the plastic cup ended. "Charlotte has some real potential." Link licked the straw.

Even the sugary smell of the freeze was making me sick. I felt like the sweat and the grease and the flies and the Emorys and Emilys were closing in on me.

"Lena's not here. We should go." I couldn't sit around like everything was normal. Link, on the other hand, could. Rain or shine.

"Chillax. I'll suck it down in five."

Eden walked by on her way to refill her Diet Coke. She smiled down at us, as fake as ever. "What a cute couple. See, Ethan, you didn't need to be wastin' time with that lil' tire slasher window basher. You and Link, y'all lovebirds were meant for each other."

"She didn't slash your tires, Eden." I knew how this was going to look for Lena. I had to shut them down before their mothers got involved.

"Yeah. I did," Link said, his mouth full of ice cream. "Lena's just bummed she didn't think of it first." He could never resist the chance to harass the cheer squad. To them, Lena was an old joke that wasn't funny anymore but nobody could drop. That was the thing about small towns. No one ever changed their opinion of you, even if you changed. As far as they were concerned, even when Lena was a great-grandmother, she would still be the crazy girl who busted out the window in English class. Considering most of our English class would still be living in Gatlin.

Not me. Not if things were going to stay like this. It was the first time I had really thought about leaving since Lena came to Gatlin. The box of college brochures under my bed had stayed under my bed until now. As long as I had Lena, I wasn't counting the days until I could get out of Gatlin.

"Hell-o. Who is that?" Eden's voice was a little too loud.

I heard the bell on the door of the Dar-ee Keen chime as it closed. It was like some kind of Clint Eastwood movie, where the hero steps into the saloon after he's just shot up the whole town. The neck of every girl sitting near us snapped toward the door, greasy blond ponytails flying.

"I don't know, but I'd sure like to find out," Emily purred, coming up behind Eden.

"I've never seen him before. Have you?" I could see Savannah filing through the yearbook in her mind.

"No way. I'd remember him." Poor guy. Emily had him in her crosshairs, target locked and loaded. He didn't stand a chance, whoever he was. I turned around to get a look at the guy Earl and Emory would be kicking the crap out of when they realized their girlfriends were drooling over him.

He was standing in the doorway in a faded black T-shirt, jeans, and scuffed black army boots. I couldn't see the scuffs from where I was sitting, but I knew they were there. Because he was wearing exactly the same thing the last time I saw him, when he ripped out of Macon's funeral.

It was the stranger, the Incubus who wasn't an Incubus. The sunlight Incubus. I remembered the silver sparrow in Lena's hand when she was sleeping in my bed.

What was he doing here?

A black tattoo wound around his arm, sort of tribal-looking, like something I'd seen before. I felt a knife in my gut, and touched my scar. It was throbbing.

Savannah and Emily walked up to the counter, trying to act like they were going to order something, as if they touched anything here other than Diet Coke.

"Who is that?" Link wasn't one for competition, not that he was in the running these days.

"I don't know, but he showed up at Macon's funeral."

Link was staring at him. "Is he one of Lena's weird relatives?"

"I don't know what he is, but he isn't related to Lena." Then again, he did come to the funeral to pay his respects to Macon. Still, there was something wrong about him. I'd sensed it since the first time I saw him.

I heard the bell chime again as the door closed.

"Hey, Angel Face, wait up."

I froze. I would have known that voice anywhere. Link was staring at the door, too. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, or worse....

Ridley.

Lena's Dark Caster of a cousin was as dangerous and hot and barely dressed as always, except now it was summer, so she had on even less than usual. She was wearing a skin-tight, lacy black tank and a black skirt so small it was probably made for a ten-year-old. Ridley's legs looked longer than ever, balancing on some kind of high, spiky sandals that could stake a vampire. Now the girls weren't the only ones with their mouths hanging open. Most of the school had been at the winter formal, when Ridley brought down the house and still managed to look hotter than any girl there except one.

Ridley leaned back and stretched her arms over her head, as if we'd woken her from a long nap. She laced her fingers together, stretching even higher, revealing even more skin and the black tattoo encircling her navel. Her tattoo looked a lot like the one on her friend's arm. Ridley whispered something in his ear.

"Holy crap, she's here." Link was slowly absorbing it. He hadn't seen Ridley since the night of Lena's birthday, when he had talked Ridley out of killing my dad. But he didn't need to see her to think about her. It was pretty clear he'd been thinking about her a lot, based on every song he'd written since she left. "She's with that guy? Do you think he's, you know, like her?" A Dark Caster. He couldn't say it.

"Doubt it. His eyes aren't yellow." But he was something. I just didn't know what.

"They're comin' over here." Link looked down at his freeze, and Ridley was on us.

"Well, if it isn't two of my favorite people. Fancy meeting you here. John and I were dying for a drink." Ridley tossed her blond and pink strands over her shoulder. She slid into the booth across from us and motioned for the guy to sit down. He didn't.

"John Breed." He said it like it was one name, looking right at me. His eyes were as green as Lena's used to be. What would a Light Caster be doing with Ridley?

Ridley smiled at him. "This is Lena's, you know, the one I was telling you about." She dismissed me with a wave of her purple-polished fingers.

"I'm Lena's boyfriend, Ethan."

John looked confused, but only for a second. He was the kind of guy who looked relaxed, as if he knew everything would go his way eventually. "Lena never told me she had a boyfriend."

Every muscle in my body tightened. He knew Lena, but I didn't know him. He had seen her since the funeral, at least talked to her. When had that happened, and why hadn't she told me?

"How exactly do you know my girlfriend?" My voice was too loud, and I could feel the eyes on us.

"Relax, Short Straw. We were in the neighborhood." Ridley looked across at Link. "How ya been, Hot Rod?"

Link cleared his throat awkwardly. "Good." His voice came out kind of squeaky. "I've been real good. Thought you left town." Ridley didn't answer.

I was still looking at John, and he was staring right back, sizing me up. Probably figuring out a thousand ways to get rid of me. Because he was after something -- or someone -- and I was in his way. Ridley wouldn't just show up here with this guy now, not after four months.

I kept my eyes on him. "Ridley, you shouldn't be here."

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Boyfriend. We're just passin' through, on our way back from Ravenwood." She said it casually, like it wasn't a big deal.

I laughed. "Ravenwood? They wouldn't let you in the door. Lena would burn the house down first." Ridley and Lena had grown up together, like sisters, until Ridley went Dark. Ridley had helped Sarafine find Lena on her birthday, which almost got us all, including my father, killed. There was no way Lena would hang out with her.

She smiled. "Times have changed, Short Straw. I'm not on the best terms with the rest of my family, but Lena and I have worked things out. Why don't you ask her?"

"You're lying."

Ridley unwrapped a cherry lollipop, which looked innocent enough but was the ultimate weapon in her hands. "You clearly have trust issues. I'd love to help you with that, but we've gotta get going. Have to fill up John's bike before that hick gas station of yours runs out of gas." I was holding the side of the table, and my knuckles went white.

His bike.

It was sitting out front right now, and I bet it was a Harley. The same bike I had seen in the photograph on the wall of Lena's room. John Breed had picked up Lena from Lake Moultrie. And before he said another word, I knew John Breed wasn't about to disappear. He'd be waiting on the corner the next time Lena needed a ride.

I stood up. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but Link was. He slid out of the booth and shoved me toward the door. "Let's get outta here, man."

Ridley called after us. "I really did miss you, Shrinky Dink." She tried to make it sound sarcastic, like one of her jokes. But the sarcasm stuck in her throat, and it came out sounding more like the truth. I slammed my palm against the door, sending it flying open.

But before it swung shut, I heard John's voice. "Nice to meet you, Ethan. Say hi to Lena for me." My hands were shaking, and I heard Ridley laugh. She didn't have to lie to hurt me today. She had the truth.

We didn't talk on the way to Ravenwood. Neither one of us knew what to say. Girls can do that to you, especially Caster girls. When we reached the top of the long drive leading to Ravenwood Manor, the gates were closed, something I'd never seen before. The ivy had grown over the twisting metal, as if it had always been there. I got out of the car and shook the gate to see if it would swing open, knowing it wouldn't. I looked up at the house behind it. The windows were dark, and the sky over the house looked even darker.

What had happened? I could've handled Lena's freak-out at the lake and feeling like she had to take off. But why him? Why the Caster boy with the Harley? How long had she been hanging out with him without telling me? And what did Ridley have to do with it?

I had never been this mad at her before. It was one thing to be attacked by someone you hated, but this was something else. This was the kind of hurt that could only be inflicted by someone you loved, who you thought loved you. It was sort of like being stabbed from the inside out.

"You okay, man?" Link slammed the driver's side door.

"No." I looked down the long driveway ahead of us.

"Me neither." Link tossed the key through the Fastback's open window, and we headed down the hill.

We hitched back to town, Link turning every few minutes to check the stretch of road behind us for a Harley. But I didn't think we'd see it. That particular Harley wouldn't be headed into town. For all I knew, it could be inside those gates already.

I didn't come down for dinner, which was my first mistake. My second was opening the black Converse shoe box. I shook it open, the contents spilling across my bed. A note Lena had written me on the back of a wrinkled Snickers wrapper, a ticket stub from the movie we saw on our first date, a faded receipt from the Dar-ee Keen, and a highlighted page ripped out of a book that had reminded me of her. It was the box where I stashed all our memories -- my version of Lena's necklace. It didn't seem like the kind of thing a guy should do, so I didn't let on that I did it, not even to her.

I picked up the crumpled photo from the winter formal, taken the second before we were doused with liquid snow by my so-called friends. The picture was blurry, but we were captured in a kiss, so happy it was hard to look at now. Remembering that night, even though I knew the next moment was going to be awful, it felt like part of me was still back there kissing her.

"Ethan Wate, is that you?"

I tried to shove everything back into the box when I heard my door opening, and the box fell, scattering everything onto the floor.

"You feelin' all right?" Amma came into my room and sat at the foot of my bed. She hadn't done that since I'd had stomach flu in sixth grade. Not that she didn't love me. We just had things worked out in a way that didn't include sitting on beds.

"I'm tired, that's all."

She looked at the mess on the floor. "You look lower than a catfish at the bottom a the river. And a perfectly good pork chop's lookin' as sorry as you are, down in my kitchen. That's two kinds a sorry." She leaned forward and brushed my brown hair out of my eyes. She was always after me to cut my hair.

"I know, I know. The eyes are the window to the soul, and I need a haircut."

"You need a good sight more than a haircut." She looked sad and grabbed my chin as if she could lift me up by it. Given the right circumstances, I bet she could. "You're not right."

"I'm not?"

"You're not, and you're my boy, and it's my fault."

"What do you mean?" I didn't understand and she didn't elaborate, which was generally how our conversations went.

"She's not right either, you know." Amma spoke softly, looking out my window. "Not bein' right isn't always somebody's fault. Sometimes it's just a fact, like the cards you pull." With Amma, everything came down to fate, the cards in her tarot deck, the bones in the graveyard, the universe she could read.

"Yes, ma'am."

She looked into my eyes, and I could see hers shining. "Sometimes things aren't what they seem, and even a Seer can't tell what's comin'." She took my hand and dropped something into it. A red string with tiny beads knotted into it, one of her charms. "Tie it 'round your wrist."

"Amma, guys don't wear bracelets."

"Since when do I make jewelry? That's for women with too much time and not enough sense." She yanked on her apron, straightening it. "A red string's a tie to the Otherworld, offers the kinda protection I can't. Go on, put it on."

I knew better than to argue when Amma had that look on her face. It was a mixture of fear and sadness, and she wore it like a burden too heavy for her to carry. I held out my arm and let her tie the string around my wrist. Before I could say anything else, she was at my window, pouring a handful of salt from her apron pocket all along the sill.

"Everything's gonna be okay, Amma. Don't worry."

Amma stopped in the doorway and looked back at me, rubbing the shine out of her eyes. "Been choppin' onions all afternoon."

Something wasn't right, like Amma said. But I had a feeling it wasn't me. "You know anything about a guy named John Breed?"

She stiffened. "Ethan Wate, don't you make me give that pork chop to Lucille."

"No, ma'am."

Amma knew something, and it wasn't good, and she wasn't talking. I knew it as sure as I knew her pork chop recipe, which didn't have a single onion in it.