I stumbled down into the kitchen, where Aunt Del and Gramma were talking in low tones about arrangements. I remembered the low tones and the arrangements when my mom died. I hated them both. I remembered how much it hurt for life to go on, for aunts and grandmothers to be making plans, calling relatives, sweeping up the pieces when all you wanted to do was crawl into the coffin, too. Or maybe plant a lemon tree, fry some tomatoes, build a monument with your bare hands.
“Where’s Lena?” My tone was not low, and I startled Aunt Del. Nothing could startle Gramma.
“Isn’t she in her room?” Aunt Del was flustered.
Gramma calmly poured herself another cup of tea. “I believe you know where she is, Ethan.”
I did.
Lena was lying on the crypt, right where we had found Macon. She was staring up at the gray morning sky, muddy and wet in her clothes from the night before. I didn’t know where they had taken his body, but I understood her impulse to be here. To be with him, even without him.
She didn’t look at me, though she knew I was there. “Those hateful things I said, I’ll never get to take them back. He never knew how much I loved him.”
I lay down next to her in the mud, my sore body groaning. I looked over at her, her black hair curling, and her dirty wet cheeks. The tears ran down her face, but she didn’t try to wipe them away. Neither did I.
“He died because of me.” She stared up at the gray sky, unblinking. I wished there was something I could say to make her feel better, but I knew better than anyone that words like that didn’t really exist. So I didn’t say them. Instead, I kissed all the fingers on Lena’s hand. I stopped when my mouth tasted metal, and I saw it. She was wearing my mom’s ring on her right hand.
I held up her hand.
“I didn’t want to lose it. The necklace broke last night.”
Dark clouds were blowing in and out. We hadn’t seen the last of the storm, I knew that much. I wrapped my hand around hers. “I never loved you any more than I do, right this second. And I’ll never love you any less than I do, right this second.”
The gray expanse was just a moment of sunless calm, in between the storm that had changed our lives forever, and the one still to come.
“Is that a promise?”
I squeezed her hand.
Don’t let go.
Never.
Our hands twisted into one. She turned her head, and when I looked into her eyes, I noticed for the first time that one was green, and one was hazel—actually, more like gold.
It was almost noon by the time I started the long walk home. The blue skies were streaked with dark gray and gold. The pressure was building, but it seemed a few hours from breaking. I think Lena was still in shock. But I was ready for the storm. And when it came, it would make Gatlin’s hurricane season look like a spring shower.
Aunt Del had offered to drive me home, but I wanted to walk. Though every bone in my body ached, I needed to clear my head. I jammed my hands in my jeans pockets and felt the familiar lump. The locket. Lena and I would have to find a way to give it back to the other Ethan Wate, the one lying in his grave, just as Genevieve had wanted us to. Maybe it would give Ethan Carter Wate some peace. We owed them both that much.
I came down the steep road leading up to Ravenwood and found myself once again at the fork in the road, the one that had seemed so frightening before I knew Lena. Before I knew where I was going. Before I knew what real fear felt like, and real love.
I walked past the fields and down Route 9, thinking of that first drive, that first night in the storm. I thought about everything, how I had almost lost my dad and Lena. How I had opened my eyes to see her staring at me, and all I could think was how lucky I was. Before I realized we had lost Macon.
I thought about Macon, his books tied with string and paper, his perfectly pressed shirts, and his even more perfect composure. I thought about how hard things were going to be for Lena, missing him, wishing she could hear his voice one more time. But I would be there for her, the way I wished someone had been there for me when I lost my mom. And after the past few months, after my mom sent us that message, I didn’t think Macon was really gone, either. Maybe he was still out there somewhere, looking out for us. He had sacrificed himself for Lena, I was sure of that.
The right thing and the easy thing are never the same. No one knew that better than Macon.
I looked up at the sky. The swirls of gray were seeping across the flat blue, as blue as the paint on my bedroom ceiling. I wondered if that one shade of blue really kept the carpenter bees from nesting. I wondered if those bees really believed it was the sky.
It’s crazy what you see if you aren’t really looking.
I pulled my iPod out of my pocket and turned it on. There was a new song on the playlist.
I stared at it for a long time.
Seventeen Moons.
I clicked on it.
Seventeen moons, seventeen years,
Eyes where Dark or Light appears,
Gold for yes and green for no,
Seventeen the last to know.
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DELETED SCENE FROM BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
We drove down Dove Street toward the railroad tracks, the sameness of the houses blending together in a uniform blur of perfectly manicured lawns and wraparound porches. Link was messing around with the radio, trying to cue up his latest demo track, which would undoubtedly be horrible.
“Hey, man, keep your eyes on the road.” But it was already too late.
I heard the whistle before I saw the train barreling down the track. We didn’t have time to slow down, and neither did the train. It was coming right at us.
Link slammed on the brakes. “Holy crap!”
I heard tires screeching, felt the car rolling. I could see my books tumbling around inside the Beater, like we were in the drum of a gigantic washing machine. My body smashed against the passenger door. I could see the whole thing happening, but I couldn’t stop it.
Ethan!
I heard a voice, not mine or Link’s. It was a girl’s.
It was familiar.
The Beater flipped onto its side, sliding across the road toward the tracks. I could hear the metal scraping against the asphalt. I saw the train right in front of us.
We were going to die.
I saw the street twisting upside down, and I was falling.
Then I heard her voice, like a whisper.
Ethan.
The car froze upside down in mid-air, more like mid-roll. I could move, but Link was frozen, his face twisted into a scream I couldn’t hear. The train rushed past, only inches from my open window, while the Beater hung there, suspended in the moment before impact. The rearview mirror snapped off, ricocheting against the side of the Beater.
Then the car righted itself, the tires gently touching the ground, as if someone had put it down. And us. We were sitting in front of the train in a car that was still rocking back and forth, at the end of two long black skid marks. They looked like claw marks that an enormous animal had scratched into the street.
Link was screaming, “Holy crap! Holy crap!”
I felt like screaming, but I couldn’t make a sound. I stared at the train as the last car sped past us. I tried to open the door, but my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t get it open.
Link was shaking his head. “Do you know how freakin’ close that was?”
The last car of the train flew by.
I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out of the car. I pushed my shoulder into the door and stumbled out onto the gravel. I closed my eyes, collapsing against the side of the Beater. Ten seconds earlier and I’d be dead.
If it hadn’t been for—what? What the hell had happened?
I looked up. A car was on the oth
er side of the tracks. I had never seen it before. You can’t imagine how impossible that is, because I know every single car in Gatlin. This car was long and black, like a hearse.
Actually, it was a hearse.
I tried to look in the window, but it was blacked out. It didn’t matter. I knew who was driving. I mean, I didn’t know who was driving, exactly.
But I knew she had green eyes and black hair.
Amma’s Recipes
Amma’s Cookie Pie
Ingredients
2 eggs
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup sugar
½ cup unbleached flour
½ pound (2 sticks) butter, melted and cooled
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 unbaked 9-inch piecrust (prepared or homemade)*
Vanilla ice cream (optional)
*In Amma’s kitchen, the crust is homemade. If you are using a frozen piecrust, use a deep-dish style and thaw it completely. Place the pie on a cookie sheet and bake 10 minutes longer.
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a bowl, beat the eggs until they foam. Add the sugars and flour, and beat again until mixed. Gently blend in the butter. Stir in the chips and nuts. Spoon the mixture into the pie shell.
3. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. A knife inserted into the center should come out clean. (There may be melted chocolate on the knife; as long as there is no batter, the pie is done.)
4. Serve warm or cooled, with vanilla ice cream if desired.
Amma’s Fried Green Tomatoes
Ingredients
3 medium, firm green tomatoes
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup fine dry bread crumbs
¼ cup vegetable oil
Additional salt and pepper for seasoning
Directions
1. Cut tomatoes into ½-inch slices. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Let tomato slices set for 10 minutes.
2. Put flour, milk, eggs, and bread crumbs separately into four different shallow dishes. Dip the tomato slices in milk, then flour, then eggs, then bread crumbs.
3. Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Fry the tomato slices in batches for 4 to 6 minutes, or until both sides are golden brown. Add the remaining oil as you cook additional batches.
4. Blot on paper towels. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste.
About the Authors
KAMI GARCIA and MARGARET STOHL came up with the concept for the world of Beautiful Creatures over lunch. Margaret had always been captivated by fantasies and wanted to write a supernatural novel, while Kami loved stories set in the South and wanted to write a book that drew upon her deep Southern roots. With nothing to write on, they scribbled their ideas for a story that combined their shared passions on a paper napkin. By the time they left, the world of Beautiful Creatures had been born. Both Kami and Margaret live in Los Angeles, California, with their families. They now write on computers instead of napkins and are excited that Beautiful Creatures is now a major motion picture. They invite you to visit them online at beautifulcreaturesauthors.com.
BY KAMI GARCIA & MARGARET STOHL
The #1 New York Times Bestselling Series
Beautiful Creatures
Beautiful Darkness
Beautiful Chaos
Beautiful Redemption
And Don’t Miss These New Novels from #1 New York Times Bestselling Authors
Icons
BY MARGARET STOHL
May 2013
“Epic in scale and exquisite in detail—a haunting futuristic fable of loss and love.”
—Ally Condie, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Matched trilogy
Unbreakable (The Legion: Book 1)
BY KAMI GARCIA
October 2013
“Tense and deliciously twisty, Unbreakable is a breath-stealing midnight run through some of the creepiest locales I’ve seen rendered in fiction.”
—Ransom Riggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Keep reading for exclusive sneak peeks of Beautiful Darkness, Dangerous Creatures, Icons, and Unbreakable…
A Sneak Peek of Beautiful Darkness…
BEFORE
Caster Girl
I used to think our town, buried in the South Carolina backwoods, stuck in the muddy bottom of the Santee River valley, was the middle of nowhere. A place where nothing ever happened and nothing would ever change. Just like yesterday, the unblinking sun would rise and set over the town of Gatlin without bothering to kick up so much as a breeze. Tomorrow my neighbors would be rocking on their porches, heat and gossip and familiarity melting like ice cubes into their sweet tea, as they had for more than a hundred years. Around here, our traditions were so traditional it was hard to put a finger on them. They were woven into everything we did or, more often, didn’t do. You could be born or married or buried, and the Methodists kept right on singing.
Sundays were for church, Mondays for doing the marketing at the Stop & Shop, the only grocery store in town. The rest of the week involved a whole lot of nothing and a little more pie, if you were lucky enough to live with someone like my family’s housekeeper, Amma, who won the bake-off at the county fair every year. Old four-fingered Miss Monroe still taught cotillion, one empty finger of her white-gloved hand flapping as she sashayed down the dance floor with the debutantes. Maybelline Sutter was still cutting hair at the Snip ’n’ Curl, though she had lost most of her eyesight around the same time she turned seventy, and now she forgot to put the guard down on the clippers half the time, shearing a skunk stripe up the back of your head. Carlton Eaton never failed, rain or shine, to open your mail before he delivered it. If the news was bad, he would break it to you himself. Better to hear it from one of your own.
This town owned us, that was the good and the bad of it. It knew every inch of us, every sin, every secret, every scab. Which was why most people never bothered to leave, and why the ones who did never came back. Before I met Lena that would have been me, five minutes after I graduated from Jackson High. Gone.
Then I fell in love with a Caster girl.
She showed me there was another world within the cracks of our uneven sidewalks. One that had been there all along, hidden in plain sight. Lena’s Gatlin was a place where things happened—impossible, supernatural, life-altering things.
Sometimes life-ending.
While regular folks were busy cutting back their rosebushes or picking past worm-eaten peaches at the roadside stand, Light and Dark Casters with unique and powerful gifts were locked in an eternal struggle—a supernatural civil war without any hope of a white flag waving. Lena’s Gatlin was home to Demons and danger and a curse that had marked her family for more than a hundred years. And the closer I got to Lena, the closer her Gatlin came to mine.
A few months ago, I believed nothing would ever change in this town. Now I knew better, and I only wished it was true.
Because the second I fell in love with a Caster girl, no one I loved was safe. Lena thought she was the only one cursed, but she was wrong.
It was our curse now.
2.15
Perpetual Peace
The rain dripping off the brim of Amma’s best black hat. Lena’s bare knees hitting the thick mud in front of the grave. The pinpricks on the back of my neck that came from standing too close to so many of Macon’s kind. Incubuses—Demons who fed off the memories and dreams of Mortals, like me, as we slept. The sound they made, unlike anything else in the universe, when they ripped open the last bit of dark sky and disappeared just before dawn. As if they were a pack of black crows, taking off from a power line in perfect unison.
That was Macon’s funeral.
r /> I could remember the details as if it had happened yesterday, even though it was hard to believe some of it had happened at all. Funerals were tricky like that. And life, I guess. The important parts you blocked out altogether, but the random, slanted moments haunted you, replaying over and over in your mind.
What I could remember: Amma waking me up in the dark to get to His Garden of Perpetual Peace before dawn. Lena frozen and shattered, wanting to freeze and shatter everything around her. Darkness in the sky and in half the people standing around the grave, the ones who weren’t people at all.
But behind all that, there was something I couldn’t remember. It was there, lingering in the back of my mind. I had been trying to think of it since Lena’s birthday, her Sixteenth Moon, the night Macon died.
The only thing I knew was that it was something I needed to remember.
The morning of the funeral it was pitch-black outside, but patches of moonlight were shining through the clouds into my open window. My room was freezing, and I didn’t care. I had left my window open the last two nights since Macon died, like he might just show up in my room and sit down in my swivel chair and stay awhile.
I remembered the night I saw him standing by my window, in the dark. That’s when I found out what he was. Not a vampire or some mythological creature from a book, as I had suspected, but a real Demon. One who could have chosen to feed on blood, but chose my dreams instead.
Macon Melchizedek Ravenwood. To the folks around here, he was Old Man Ravenwood, the town recluse. He was also Lena’s uncle, and the only father she had ever known.
I was getting dressed in the dark when I felt the warm pull from inside that meant Lena was there.
L?
Lena spoke up from the depths of my mind, as close as anyone could be and about as far away. Kelting, our unspoken form of communication. The whispering language Casters like her had shared long before my bedroom had been declared south of the Mason-Dixon Line. It was the secret language of intimacy and necessity, born in a time when being different could get you burned at the stake. It was a language we shouldn’t have been able to share, because I was a Mortal. But for some inexplicable reason we could, and it was the language we used to speak the unspoken and the unspeakable.