Beautiful Creatures

  CORPUS CORPORIS MEI, MEDULLA MENSQUE,

  ANIMA ANIMAE MEAE, ANIMAM NOSTRAM CONECTE.

  CRUOR PECTORIS MEI, LUNA MEA, AESTUS MEUS.

  CRUOR PECTORIS MEI. FATUM MEUM, MEA SALUS.”

  “Stop, child, ’fore it’s too late!” Ivy’s voice was frantic.

  The rain poured down and lightning sliced through the smoke. Genevieve held her breath and waited. Nothing. She must have done it wrong. She squinted to read the words more clearly in the dark. She screamed them into the darkness, in the language she knew best.

  “BLOOD OF MY HEART, PROTECTION IS THINE.

  LIFE OF MY LIFE, TAKING YOURS, TAKING MINE.

  BODY OF MY BODY, MARROW AND MIND,

  SOUL OF MY SOUL, TO OUR SPIRIT BIND.

  BLOOD OF MY HEART, MY TIDES, MY MOON.

  BLOOD OF MY HEART. MY SALVATION, MY DOOM.”

  She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, when she saw Ethan’s eyelids struggling to open.

  “Ethan!” For a split second, their eyes met.

  Ethan fought for breath, clearly trying to speak. Genevieve pressed her ear closer to his lips and she could feel his warm breath on her cheek.

  “I never believed your daddy when he said it was impossible for a Caster and a Mortal to be together. We would have found a way. I love you, Genevieve.” He pressed something into her hand. A locket.

  And as suddenly as his eyes opened, they closed again, his chest failing to rise and fall.

  Before Genevieve could react, a jolt of electricity surged through her body. She could feel the blood pulsing through her veins. She must have been struck by lightning. The waves of pain crashed down on her.

  Genevieve tried to hold on.

  Then everything went black.

  “Sweet God in Heaven, don’t take her, too.”

  Genevieve recognized Ivy’s voice. Where was she? The smell brought her back. Burnt lemons. She tried to speak, but her throat felt like she had swallowed sand. Her eyes fluttered.

  “Oh Lord, thank you!” Ivy was staring down at her, kneeling beside her in the dirt.

  Genevieve coughed and reached for Ivy, trying to pull her closer.

  “Ethan, is he…” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry, child. He’s gone.”

  Genevieve struggled to open her eyes. Ivy jumped back, as if she’d seen the Devil himself.

  “Lord have mercy!”

  “What? What’s wrong, Ivy?”

  The old woman struggled to make sense of what she saw. “Your eyes, child. They’re… they’ve changed.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “They ain’t green no more. They’re yellow, as yellow as the sun.”

  Genevieve didn’t care what color her eyes were. She didn’t care about anything now that she’d lost Ethan. She started to sob.

  The rain picked up, turning the ground under them to mud.

  “You’ve got to get up, Miss Genevieve. We have to commune with the Ones in the Otherworld.” Ivy tried to pull her to her feet.

  “Ivy, you’re not makin’ sense.”

  “Your eyes—I warned you. I told you about that moon, no moon. We have to find out what it means. We have to consult the Spirits.”

  “If there’s something wrong with my eyes, I’m sure it was because I was struck by lightnin’.”

  “What did you see?” Ivy looked panicked.

  “Ivy, what’s goin’ on? Why are you actin’ so strange?”

  “You weren’t struck by lightnin’. It was somethin’ else.”

  Ivy ran back toward the burning cotton fields. Genevieve called after her, trying to get up, but she was still reeling. She leaned her head back in the thick mud, rain falling steadily on her face. Rain mixed with the tears of defeat. She drifted in and out of the moment, in and out of consciousness. She heard Ivy’s voice, faint, in the distance, calling her name. When her eyes focused again, the old woman was next to her, her skirt gathered in her hands.

  Ivy was carrying something in the folds of her skirt, and she dumped it out on the wet ground next to Genevieve. Tiny vials of powder and bottles of what looked like sand and dirt knocked against each other.

  “What are you doin’?”

  “Makin’ an offerin’. To the Spirits. They’re the only ones who can tell us what this means.”

  “Ivy, calm down. You’re talkin’ gibberish.”

  The old woman pulled something from the pocket of her housedress. It was a shard of mirror. She thrust it in front of Genevieve.

  It was dark, but there was no mistaking it. Genevieve’s eyes were blazing. They had turned from deep green to a fiery gold, and they didn’t look like her eyes in another unmistakable way. In the center, where a round black pupil should have been, there were almond-shaped slits, like the pupils of a cat. Genevieve threw the mirror to the ground and turned to Ivy.

  But the old woman wasn’t paying attention. She had already mixed the powders and the earth and she was sifting them from hand to hand, whispering in the old Gullah language of her ancestors.

  “Ivy, what are you—”

  “Shh,” the old woman hissed, “I’m listenin’ to the Spirits. They know what you’ve done. They’re gonna tell us what this means.

  “From the earth a her bones and the blood a my blood.” Ivy pricked her finger with the edge of the broken mirror and smeared the tiny drops of blood into the earth she was sifting. “Lemme hear what ya hear. See what ya see. Know what ya know.”

  Ivy stood up, arms open to the heavens. The rain poured down upon her, the dirt running down her dress in streaks. She began to speak again in the strange language and then—

  “It can’t be. She didn’t know no better,” she wailed at the dark sky above.

  “Ivy, what is it?”

  Ivy was shaking, hugging herself, and moaning, “It can’t be. It can’t be.”

  Genevieve grabbed Ivy by her shoulders. “What? What is it? What’s wrong with me?”

  “I told you not to mess with that book. I told you it was the wrong kinda night for Castin’, but it’s too late now, child. There’s no way to take it back.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “You’re cursed now, Miss Genevieve. You been Claimed. You’ve Turned, and there’s nothin’ we can do to stop it. A bargain. You can’t get nothin’ from The Book a Moons without givin’ somethin’ in return.”

  “What? What did I give?”

  “Your fate, child. Your fate and the fate a every other Duchannes child that’s born after you.”

  Genevieve didn’t understand. But she understood enough to know that what she had done couldn’t be undone. “What do you mean?”

  “On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it’s been promised. What you bargained. The blood of a Duchannes child, and that child will go Dark.”

  “Every Duchannes child?”

  Ivy bowed her head. Genevieve wasn’t the only one who was defeated on this night. “Not every one.”

  Genevieve looked hopeful. “Which ones? How will we know which ones?”

  “The Book will choose. On the Sixteenth Moon, the child’s sixteenth birthday.”

  “It didn’t work.” Lena’s voice sounded strangled, far away. All I could see was smoke, and all I could hear was her voice. We weren’t in the library, and we weren’t in the vision. We were somewhere in between, and it was awful.

  “Lena!”

  And then, for a moment, I saw her face in the smoke. Her eyes were huge and dark—only now, the green looked almost black. Her voice was now more like a whisper. “Two seconds. He was alive for two seconds, and then she lost him.”

  She closed her eyes and disappeared.

  “L! Where are you?”

  “Ethan. The locket.” I could hear Marian, as if from a great distance.

  I could feel the hardness of the locket in my hands. I understood.

  I dropped it.

  I opened my eyes, coughing from the smoke still
in my lungs. The room was swirling, blurry.

  “What the hell are you children doing here?”

  I fixed my eyes on the locket and the room came back into focus. It lay on the stone floor, looking small and harmless. Marian dropped my hand.

  Macon Ravenwood stood in the middle of the crypt, his overcoat twisting around him. Amma was standing next to him, her good coat buttoned on the wrong buttons, clutching her pocketbook. I don’t know who was angrier.

  “I’m sorry, Macon. You know the rules. They asked for help, and I am Bound to give it.” Marian looked stricken.

  Amma was all over Marian, like she had doused our house in gasoline. “The way I see it, you’re Bound to take care a Lila’s boy, and Macon’s niece. And I don’t see how what you’re doin’ does either.”

  I waited for Macon to lay into Marian, too, but he didn’t say a word. Then I realized why. He was shaking Lena. She had collapsed across the stone table in the center of the room. Her arms were spread wide, her face down against the rough stone. She didn’t look conscious.

  “Lena!” I pulled her into my arms, ignoring Macon, who was already next to her. Her eyes were still black, staring up at me.

  “She’s not dead. She’s drifting. I believe I can reach her.” Macon was working quietly. I could see him twisting his ring. His eyes were strangely alight.

  “Lena! Come back!” I pulled her limp body into my arms, leaning her against my chest.

  Macon was mumbling. I couldn’t make out the words, but I could see Lena’s hair begin to stir in the now familiar, supernatural wind I’d come to think of as a Casting breeze.

  “Not here, Macon. Your Casting won’t work here.” Marian was tearing through the pages of a dusty book, her voice unsteady.

  “He’s not Castin’, Marian. He’s Travelin’. Even a Caster can’t do that. Where she’s gone, only Macon’s kind can go. Under.” Amma was trying to be reassuring, but she wasn’t very convincing.

  I felt the cold settling over Lena’s empty body and knew Amma was right. Wherever Lena was, it wasn’t in my arms. She was far away. I could feel it myself, and I was just a Mortal.

  “I told you, Macon. This is a neutral place. There is no Binding you can work in a room of earth.” Marian was pacing, clutching the book as if it made her feel like she was helping in some way. But there were no answers inside. She had said it herself. Casting couldn’t help us here.

  I remembered the dreams, remembered pulling Lena through the mud. I wondered if this was the place where I lost her.

  Macon spoke. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t seeing. It was like they were turned inward, to wherever Lena was. “Lena. Listen to me. She can’t hold you.”

  She. I stared into Lena’s empty eyes.

  Sarafine.

  “You’re strong, Lena; break through. She knows I can’t help you here. She was waiting for you in the shadows. You have to do this yourself.”

  Marian appeared with a glass of water. Macon poured it onto Lena’s face, into her mouth, but she didn’t move.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  I grabbed her mouth and kissed her, hard. The water dribbled out of our mouths, like I was giving mouth-to-mouth to a drowning victim.

  Wake up, L. You can’t leave me now. Not like this. I need you more than she does.

  Lena’s eyelids fluttered.

  Ethan. I’m tired.

  She sputtered back to life, choking, spitting water across her jacket. I smiled in spite of everything, and she smiled back at me. If this was what the dreams were about, we had changed the way they ended. This time, I had held on. But in the back of my mind, I think I knew. This wasn’t the moment when she slipped out of my arms. It was only the beginning.

  Even if that was true, I had saved her this time.

  I reached down to pull her into my arms. I wanted to feel the familiar current between us. Before I could wrap my arms around her, she jerked up and out of my arms. “Uncle Macon!”

  Macon stood across the room, propped against the crypt wall, barely able to support his own weight. He leaned his head back against the stone. He was sweating, breathing heavily, and his face was chalk white.

  Lena ran and clung to him, a child worried for her father. “You shouldn’t have done that. She could have killed you.” Whatever he was doing when he was Traveling, whatever that meant, the effort had cost him.

  So this was Sarafine. This thing, whoever She was, was Lena’s mother.

  If this was a trip to the library, I didn’t know if I was ready for what might happen in the next few months.

  Or as of tomorrow morning, 74 days.

  Lena sat, still dripping wet, wrapped in a blanket. She looked about five years old. I glanced at the old oaken door behind her, wondering if I could ever find my way out alone. Unlikely. We’d gone about thirty paces down one of the aisles, and then disappeared down a stairwell, through a series of small doors, into a cozy study that was apparently some sort of reading room. The passageway had seemed endless, with a door every few feet like some sort of underground hotel.

  The moment Macon sat down, a silver tea service appeared in the center of the table, with exactly five cups and a platter of sweet breads. Maybe Kitchen was here, too.

  I looked around. I had no idea where I was, but I knew one thing. I was somewhere in Gatlin, yet somewhere further away from Gatlin than I’d ever been.

  Either way, I was out of my league.

  I tried to find a comfortable spot in an upholstered chair that looked like it could have belonged to Henry VIII. Actually, there was no way of knowing that it hadn’t. The tapestry on the wall also looked as if had come from an old castle, or Ravenwood. It was woven into the shape of a constellation, midnight blue and silver thread. Every time I looked at it, the moon appeared in a different stage.

  Macon, Marian, and Amma sat across the table. Saying Lena and I were in trouble was putting the best possible spin on it. Macon was furious, his teacup rattling in front of him. Amma was beyond that. “What makes you think you can take it upon yourself to decide when my boy is ready for the Underground? Lila would skin you herself, if she was here. You’ve got some nerve, Marian Ashcroft.”

  Marian’s hands were shaking as she lifted her teacup.

  “Your boy? What about my niece? Since I believe she was the one who was attacked.” Macon and Amma, having ripped us to shreds, were starting in on each other. I didn’t dare look at Lena.

  “You’ve been trouble since the day you were born, Macon.” Amma turned to Lena. “But I can’t believe you would drag my boy into this, Lena Duchannes.”

  Lena lost it. “Of course I dragged him into this. I do bad things. When are you going to understand that? And it’s only going to get worse!”

  The tea set flew off the table and into the air, where it froze. Macon looked at it, without so much as blinking. A challenge. The entire set righted itself and landed gently back on the table. Lena looked at Macon as if there were no one else in the room. “I’m going to go Dark, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it? I’m going to end up just like my—” She couldn’t say it.

  The blanket fell from her shoulders, and she took my hand. “You have to get away from me, Ethan. Before it’s too late.”

  Macon looked at her, irritated. “You’re not going to go Dark. Don’t be so gullible. She only wants you to think that.” The way he said She reminded me of the way he said Gatlin.

  Marian put her teacup down on the table. “Teenagers—everything is so apocalyptic.”

  Amma shook her head. “Some things are meant to be and some take some doin’. This one isn’t done just yet.”

  I could feel Lena’s hand shaking in mine. “They’re right, L. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She yanked her hand away. “Everything’s going to be okay? My mother, a Cataclyst, is trying to kill me. A vision from a hundred years ago just clarified that my whole family has been cu
rsed since the Civil War. My sixteenth birthday is in two months, and that’s the best you can do?”

  I took her hand again, gently, because she let me. “I saw the same vision you did. The Book chooses who it takes. Maybe it won’t choose you.” I was clutching at straws, but they were all I had.

  Amma looked at Marian, slamming her saucer on the table. The cup rattled against it.

  “The Book?” Macon’s eyes drilled down on me.

  I tried to look him in the eye, but I couldn’t do it. “The Book in the vision.”

  Don’t say another word, Ethan.

  We should tell them. We can’t do this alone.

  “It’s nothing, Uncle M. We don’t even know what the visions mean.” Lena wasn’t going to give in, but after tonight I felt like I had to. We had to. Everything was spiraling out of control. I felt like I was drowning and I couldn’t even save myself, let alone Lena.

  “Maybe the visions mean not everyone in your family goes Dark when they’re Claimed. What about Aunt Del? Reece? Think cute little Ryan is going to the dark side when she can heal people?” I said, moving closer to her.

  Lena shrank back into her chair. “You don’t know anything about my family.”

  “But he’s not wrong, Lena.” Macon looked at her, exasperated.

  “You’re not Ridley. And you’re not your mother,” I said, as convincingly as I could.

  “How do you know? You’ve never even met my mother. And by the way, neither have I, except in psychic attacks that no one can seem to prevent.”

  Macon tried to sound reassuring. “We were unprepared for these sorts of attacks. I didn’t know she could Travel. I didn’t know she shared some of my powers. It is not a gift afforded to Casters.”

  “Nobody seems to know anything about my mother, or me.”

  “That’s why we need the Book.” This time, I looked right at Macon as I said it.

  “What is this book you keep talking about?” Macon was losing his patience.

  Don’t tell him, Ethan.

  We have to.

  “The Book that cursed Genevieve.” Macon and Amma looked at each other. They already knew what I was going to say. “The Book of Moons. If that’s how the curse was Cast, something in it should tell us how to break it. Right?” The room fell silent.