Beautiful Darkness

Southern Crusty

Don't you lay a finger on a single one a my pies until I ask you to, Ethan Wate."

I backed away from Amma, hands in the air. "Just trying to help."

She glared at me while she wrapped a sweet potato pie, a two-time winner, in a clean dish towel. The sour cream and raisin pie sat on the kitchen table next to the buttermilk pie, ready for the icebox. The fruit pies were still cooling on the racks, and a dusting of white flour coated every surface in the kitchen.

"Only two days into summer and you're already under my feet? You'll wish you were over at the high school takin' summer classes if you drop one a my prizewinnin' pies. You want to help? Stop mopin' and go pull the car around."

Tempers were running about as high as temperatures, and we didn't say much as we bumped our way out toward the highway in the Volvo. I wasn't talking, but I can't say anybody noticed. Today was the single biggest day of Amma's year. She had won first place in Baked and Fried Fruit Pies and second place in Cream Pies every year at the Gatlin County Fair for as long as I could remember. The only year she didn't get a ribbon was last year, when we didn't go because it was only two months after my mom's accident. Gatlin couldn't boast the biggest or the oldest fair in the state. The Hampton County Watermelon Festival had us beat by maybe two miles and twenty years, and the prestige of winning the Gatlin Peach Prince and Princess Promenade could hardly compare to the honor of placing in Hampton's Melon Miss and Master Pageant.

But as we pulled into the dusty parking lot, Amma's poker face didn't fool my dad or me. Today was all about pageants and pies, and if you weren't balancing a pie wrapped as snugly as someone's firstborn, you were pushing a kid in curlers holding a baton toward the pavilion. Savannah's mom was Gatlin's Peach Pageant organizer, and Savannah was the defending Peach Princess. Mrs. Snow would be overseeing pageants all day. There was no such thing as too young for a crown in our county. The fair's Best Babies event, where rosy cheeks and diaper dispositions were compared like competing cobblers, drew more spectators than the Demolition Derby did. Last year, the Skipetts' baby was disqualified for cheating when her rosy cheeks came off on the judges' hands. The county fair had strict guidelines -- no formal wear until two years old, no makeup until six years old, and then only "age-appropriate makeup" until twelve.

Back when my mom was around, she was always ready to take on Mrs. Snow, and the Peach Pageants were one of her favorite targets. I could still hear her saying, "Age-appropriate makeup? Who are you people? What makeup is age-appropriate for a seven-year-old?" But even my family never missed a county fair, except last year. Now here we were again, carrying pies through the crowds and into the fairgrounds, same as ever.

"Don't jostle me, Mitchell. Ethan Wate, keep up. I'm not gonna let Martha Lincoln or any a those women beat me out a that ribbon on account a you two boys." In Amma's shorthand, those women were always the same women -- Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Asher, Mrs. Snow, and the rest of the DAR.

By the time my hand was stamped, it looked like three or four counties had already beaten us there. Nobody missed the opening day at the fair, which meant a trip to the fairgrounds halfway between Gatlin and Peaksville. And a trip to the fairgrounds meant a disastrous amount of funnel cake, a day so hot and sticky you could pass out just from standing, and if you were lucky, some making out behind the Future Farmers of America poultry barns. My shot at anything but heat and funnel cake wasn't looking too good this year.

My dad and I dutifully followed Amma to the judging tables under an enormous Southern Crusty banner. Pies had a different sponsor every year, and when it couldn't be Pillsbury or Sara Lee, you ended up with Southern Crusty. Pageants were crowd-pleasers, but Pies was the granddaddy of them all. The same families had been making the same recipes for generations, and every ribbon won was the pride of one great Southern house and the shame of another. Word had it that a few women from town had their sights set on keeping Amma from winning first place this year. Judging by the muttering I'd heard in the kitchen all week long, that would happen when hell froze over and those women were skating on it.

By the time we had unloaded her precious cargo, Amma was already harassing the judges about table placement. "You can't put a vinegar after a cherry, and you can't put a rhubarb between my creams. It'll take the taste right out a them, unless that's what you boys are lookin' to do."

"Here it comes," said my dad, under his breath. As the words came out of his mouth, Amma gave the judges the Look, and they squirmed in their folding chairs.

My dad glanced over at the exit, and we slunk outside before Amma had a chance to put us to work terrorizing innocent volunteers and intimidating judges. The moment we hit the crowds, we instinctively turned in opposite directions.

"You going to walk around the fair with that cat?" My dad looked down at Lucille sitting in the dirt next to me.

"Guess so."

He laughed. I still wasn't used to hearing it again. "Well, don't get into trouble."

"Never do."

My dad nodded at me, like he was the dad and I was the son. I nodded back, trying not to think about the last year, when I was the grown-up and he was out of his mind. He walked his way, I walked mine, and we both disappeared into the hot and sweaty masses.

The fair was packed, and it took me a while to track down Link. But true to form, he was hanging out by the games, trying to flirt with any girl who would look at him, today being a prime opportunity to meet a few who weren't from Gatlin. He was standing in front of one of those scales you hit with a giant rubber mallet to prove how strong you are, the mallet resting on his shoulder. He was in full drummer mode, in his faded Social Distortion T-shirt, with his drumsticks stuck in the back pocket of his jeans, and his wallet chain hanging below the sticks.

"Lemme show ya how it's done, ladies. Stand back. You don't wanna get hurt."

The girls giggled as Link gave it his best shot. The little meter climbed up, measuring Link's strength and his chances of hooking up at the same time. It passed a REAL WUSS and WIMPY and headed toward the bell at the top, a real stud. But it didn't quite make it, stopping about halfway, at CHICKEN LITTLE. The girls rolled their eyes and headed for the Ring Toss.

"This thing's rigged. Everyone knows that," Link shouted after them, dropping the mallet in the dirt. He was probably right, but it didn't matter. Everything in Gatlin was rigged. Why would the carnival games be any different?

"Hey, you got any money?" Link pretended to dig around in his pockets, like he might actually have more than a dime.

I handed him a five, shaking my head. "You need a job, man."

"I've got a job. I'm a drummer."

"That's not a job. It's not called a job unless you get paid."

Link scanned the crowd, looking for girls or funnel cake. It was hard to tell which, since he responded equally to both. "We're tryin' to line up a gig."

"Are the Holy Rollers playing at the fair?"

"This lame scene? Nah." He kicked the ground.

"They wouldn't book you?"

"They said we sucked. But people thought Led Zeppelin sucked, too."

As we walked through the fair, it was hard not to notice that the rides seemed to get a little smaller and the games a little shabbier every year. A pathetic-looking clown dragged a cluster of balloons past us.

Link stopped, hitting me on the arm. "Check it out. Six o'clock. Third Degree Burns." As far as Link was concerned, a girl couldn't get hotter than that.

He was pointing at a blond who was headed in our direction, smiling. It was Liv.

"Link --" I tried to tell him, but he was on a mission.

"As my mom would say, the Good Lord has good taste, hallelujah amen."

"Ethan!" She waved at us.

Link looked at me. "Are you kiddin' me? You've already got Lena. That's just wrong."

"I don't have Liv, and these days I don't even know if I have Lena. Be cool." I smiled at Liv, until I noticed she was wearing a faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt.

Link saw it at the same time I did. "The perfect girl."

"Hey, Liv. This is Link." I elbowed him, hoping he'd close his mouth. "Liv is Marian's summer research assistant. She works with me at the library." Liv held out her hand.

Link stood there gawking. "Wow." The thing about Link was, he never embarrassed himself, just me.

"She's an exchange student from England."

"Holy wow."

I looked at Liv and shrugged. "I told you."

Link broke out his biggest smile for Liv. "Ethan didn't tell me he was workin' with a hot babe a cosmic proportions."

Liv looked at me, pretending to be surprised. "You didn't? I find that rather tragic." She laughed and linked her arms through ours. "Come on, boys. Explain to me exactly how it is you make this strange cotton into candy."

"I can't give away national secrets, ma'am."

"I can." Link squeezed her arm with his.

"Tell me everything."

"Tunnel of Love or the Kissing Booth?" Link grinned even wider.

Liv tilted her head. "Hmm. That's a tough one. I'm going to go with ... the Ferris Wheel."

That's when I caught sight of the familiar black hair and the scent of lemons and rosemary in the breeze.

Nothing else was familiar. Lena was a few yards away, standing behind the ticket booth in what had to be Ridley's clothes. Her black tank rode up on her stomach, and her black skirt was about five inches too short. There was a long streak of blue in her hair, twisting down from where it parted around her face, and down her back. But that wasn't what shocked me most. Lena, the girl who never put anything on her face but sunscreen, was covered in makeup. Some guys liked girls with crap all over their faces, but I wasn't one of them. Lena's black-rimmed eyes were especially disturbing.

Surrounded by cutoff denim and dust and straw and sweat and red and white plastic checkered tablecloths, she looked even more out of place. Her old boots were the only thing I recognized. And her charm necklace, dangling like a lifeline back to the real Lena. She wasn't the kind of girl who wore stuff like that. At least, she didn't used to be.

The lowlifes were checking her out, three guys deep. I had to resist the urge to punch all of them in the face.

I dropped Liv's arm. "I'll meet you guys over there."

Link couldn't believe his luck. "No problem, man."

"We can wait," Liv offered.

"Don't worry about it. I'll catch up with you." I hadn't expected to see Lena here, and I didn't know what to say without sounding even more whipped than Link already thought I was. As if there's something you can say to sound cool after your girlfriend takes off with another guy.

"Ethan, I've been looking for you." Lena walked toward me, and she sounded like herself, her old self -- the Lena I remembered from a few months ago. The one I was desperately in love with, the one who loved me back. Even if she looked like Ridley. She stood on her tiptoes to push my hair out of my face, her fingers dragging slowly down my jawline.

"That's funny, because the last time I saw you, you were ditching me." I tried to sound casual, but I just sounded angry.

"I wasn't ditching you, exactly." She was defensive.

"No, you were throwing trees at me and jumping on the back of a bike with some other guy."

"I wasn't throwing trees."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

She shrugged. "More like branches."

But I could tell I had gotten to her. She twisted the tiny paper-clip star I had given her, until I thought it was going to snap off of her necklace. "I'm sorry, Ethan. I don't know what's going on with me." Her voice was soft, honest. "Sometimes I feel like everything is closing in, and I can't take it. I wasn't ditching you at the lake. I was ditching me."

"You sure about that?"

She looked back up at me, a tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away, her fingers balled in frustration. She opened her fist and put her hand on my chest, resting it over my heart.

It's not you. I love you.

"I love you." She said it out loud this time and the words hung in the air between us, so much more public than when we Kelted. My chest tightened when she said it, and my breath caught in my throat. I tried to think of something sarcastic to say, but I couldn't think about anything except how beautiful she was and how much I loved her, too.

But I wasn't letting her off that easy this time. I broke the truce. "What's going on, L? If you love me so much, what's the deal with John Breed?"

She looked away without saying a word.

Answer me.

"It's not like that, Ethan. John's just a friend of Ridley's. There's nothing going on between us."

"How long has nothing been going on? Since you took that picture of him in the graveyard?"

"It wasn't a picture of him. It was his bike. I was meeting Ridley, and he happened to be there." I noticed she ignored the question.

"Since when have you been hanging out with Ridley? Did you forget the part where she separated us so your mother could get you alone and try to convince you to go over to the Dark side? Or when Ridley almost killed my father?"

Lena pulled her arm away from me, and I could feel her withdrawing again, moving back into that place I couldn't reach. "Ridley warned me you wouldn't understand. You're a Mortal. You don't know anything about me, not the real me. That's why I didn't tell you." I felt a sudden breeze as the storm clouds rolled in like a warning.

"How do you know whether I would understand or not? You haven't told me anything. Maybe if you gave me the chance instead of sneaking around behind my back --"

"What do you want me to tell you? That I have no idea what's going on with me? That something's changing, something I don't understand? That I feel like a freak, and Ridley's the only one who can help me figure it out?"

I could hear everything she was saying, but she was right. I didn't understand. "Are you listening to yourself? You think Ridley's trying to help you, that you can trust her? She's a Dark Caster, L. Look at yourself! You think this is you? The things you're feeling, she's probably causing them."

I waited for the downpour, but instead the clouds parted. Lena moved closer and put her hands on my chest again, staring up at me, pleading. "Ethan, she's changed. She doesn't want to be Dark. It ruined her life when she Turned. She lost everyone, including herself. Ridley says going Dark changes the way you feel about people. You can sense the feelings you had, the things you loved, but Rid says the feelings are distant. Almost like they belong to someone else."

"But you said it wasn't something she could control."

"I was wrong. Look at Uncle Macon. He knew how to control it, and Ridley's learning, too."

"Ridley is not Macon."

Heat lightning flashed across the sky. "You don't know anything."

"That's right. I'm a stupid Mortal. I don't know anything about your supersecret Caster world and skanky Caster cousin, or Caster Boy and his Harley."

Lena snapped. "Ridley and I were like sisters, and I can't turn my back on her. I told you, I need her right now. And she needs me."

I didn't say anything. Lena was so frustrated, I was surprised the Ferris Wheel hadn't come loose and rolled away. I could see the lights from the Tilt-A-Whirl, spinning in the corner of my eye, churning and dizzying. It was the way I felt when I let myself get lost in Lena's eyes. Sometimes love feels that way, and you find your way to a truce when you don't really want to.

Sometimes the truce finds you.

She reached up and laced her fingers behind my neck, pulling me into her. I found her lips, and we were all over each other as if we were afraid we might never have the chance to touch again. This time, when her mouth tugged at my bottom lip, biting gently into my skin, there was no blood. Just urgency. I turned, pushing her against the rough wooden wall behind the ticket booth. Her breath was ragged, echoing in my ear even louder than my own. I raked my hands through her curls, guiding her mouth to mine. The pressure in my chest started to build, the shortness of breath, the sound of the air as I tried to fill my lungs. The fire.

Lena felt it, too. She pushed away from me, and I bent over trying to catch my breath.

"Are you okay?"

I took a deep breath and stood up again. "Yeah, I'm all right. For a Mortal."

She smiled a real smile and reached for my hand. I noticed she had drawn crazy-looking designs on her palm in Sharpie. The black curls and spirals swirled from her palm around her wrist and up the base of her arm. The pattern looked like the henna the fortune-teller wore, in the tent that smelled like bad incense at the other edge of the fairgrounds.

"What is that?" I held her wrist, but she pulled it away. Remembering Ridley and her tattoo, I hoped it was Sharpie.

It is.

"Maybe we should get you something to drink." She led me around the side of the booth, and I let her. I couldn't stay mad, not if there was a possibility the wall between us was finally coming down. When we kissed a minute ago, that's what I felt. It was the opposite of the kiss on the lake, a kiss that had taken my breath away for different reasons. I might never know what that kiss was. But I knew this kiss, and I knew it was all I had -- a chance.

Which lasted two seconds.

Because then I saw Liv, carrying two cotton candies in one hand and waving at me with the other, and I knew the wall was about to go back up, maybe for good. "Ethan, come on. I have your cotton candy. We're going to miss the Ferris Wheel!"

Lena dropped my hand. I knew how it must have looked -- a tall blond, with long legs and two cotton candies and an expectant smile. I was doomed before Liv even got to the word we.

That's Liv, Marian's research assistant. She works with me at the library.

Do you work at the Dar-ee Keen together, too? And the fair?

Another flash of heat lightning tore across the sky.

It isn't like that, L.

Liv handed me the cotton candy and smiled at Lena, holding out her hand.

A blond? Lena looked at me. Seriously?

"Lena, right? I'm Liv."

Ah, the accent. That explains everything.

"Hi, Liv." Lena pronounced her name like it was an inside joke between us. She didn't touch Liv's hand.

If Liv noticed the slight, she ignored it, letting her hand drop. "Finally! I've been trying to get Ethan to introduce us properly, since it seems he and I are chained together for the summer."

Clearly.

Lena wouldn't look at me, and Liv wouldn't stop looking at her.

"Liv, this really isn't a good --" I couldn't stop it. They were two trains colliding in painfully slow motion.

"Don't be silly," Lena interrupted, looking at Liv carefully, as if she was the Sybil in her family and she could read Liv's face. "So nice to meet you."

He's all yours. Take the whole town while you're at it.

It took Liv about two seconds to realize she'd walked into something, but she tried to fill the silence all the same. "Ethan and I talk about you all the time. He says you play the viola."

Lena stiffened.

Ethan and I. There was nothing mean about the way Liv said it, but the words themselves were enough. I knew what they meant to Lena. Ethan and the Mortal girl, the girl who was everything Lena couldn't be.

"I've gotta go." Lena turned around before I could catch her arm.

Lena --

Ridley was right. It was only a matter of time before another new girl came to town.

I wondered what else Ridley had been telling her.

What are you talking about? We're just friends, L.

We were just friends once, too.

Lena took off, pushing her way through the sweaty crowd, causing a chain reaction of chaos as she went. Her ripple effect seemed endless. I couldn't see it perfectly, but somewhere between us a clown fumbled as the balloon character in his hands popped, a child cried as a snow cone dropped, and a woman screamed as a popcorn machine began to smoke and catch fire. Even in the slippery blur of heat and arms and noise, Lena affected everything in her wake, a pull as powerful as the moon to the tides, or the planets to the sun. I was caught in her orbit, even as she pulled away from mine.

I took a step, and Liv put her hand on my arm. Her eyes narrowed as if she was analyzing the situation, or registering it for the first time. "I'm sorry, Ethan. I didn't mean to interrupt. I mean, if I was interrupting, you know. Something." I knew she wanted me to tell her what happened without having to ask. I didn't say anything, which I guess was my answer.

The thing is, I didn't take another step. I let Lena go.

Link walked toward us, fighting his way through the crowd, carrying three Cokes and his own cotton candy. "Man, the line at the drink booth is brutal." Link handed Liv a Coke. "What'd I miss? Was that Lena?"

"She left," Liv said quickly, as if things were that simple.

I wished they were.

"Whatever. Forget the Ferris Wheel. We'd better get over to the main tent. They're gonna announce the winners a the pie-bakin' contest any minute, and Amma will tan your hide if you aren't there to watch her moment a glory."

"Apple pie?" Liv brightened.

"Yep. And you eat it wearin' Levi's, with a napkin tucked into your shirt up here. Drinkin' a Coke and drivin' a Chevy, while singing 'American Pie.' " I listened to Link ramble and Liv's easy laugh as they walked ahead of me. They didn't have nightmares. They weren't haunted. They weren't even worried.

Link was right. We couldn't miss Amma's moment of glory. I sure wasn't winning any ribbons today. The truth was, I didn't need to bring the mallet down on the old, rigged carnival scale to know what it would say. Link might be CHICKEN LITTLE, but I felt lower than A REAL WUSS. I could pound away all I wanted, but the answer would always be the same. No matter what I did lately, I was caught somewhere between LOSER and ZERO, and it was starting to feel like Lena was holding the hammer. I finally understood why Link wrote all those songs about getting dumped.