Beautiful Creatures

by Kami Garcia

  But today, nobody was looking at the board. Everyone was staring out the windows. The black Lincolns followed the hearse in a convoy down the street, behind the athletic field. Now that Macon had come out, so to speak, he seemed to enjoy making a spectacle of himself. For a guy who only came out at night, he managed to command a lot of attention.

  I felt a kick in my shin. Link was hunched over the desk, so Mr. Lee couldn’t see his face. “Dude. Who do you think is in all those cars?”

  “Mr. Lincoln, would you like to tell us what happened next? Especially since your father will be commandin’ the Cavalry tomorrow?” Mr. Lee was staring at us with his arms crossed.

  Link pretended to cough. Link’s dad, a browbeaten shell of a man, had the honor of commanding the Cavalry in the Reenactment since Big Earl Eaton died last year, which was the only way a reenactor ever advanced in rank. Someone had to die. It would have been a big deal in Savannah Snow’s family. Link, he wasn’t too big on the whole Living History scene.

  “Let’s see, Mr. Lee. Wait, I got it. We, uh, won the battle and lost the war, or was it the other way around? ’Cause around here, it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

  Mr. Lee ignored Link’s comment. He probably hung the Stars and Bars, the Confederate flag, in front of his house all year round, I mean his doublewide. “Mr. Lincoln, by the time Hatch and the Fed’rals reached Honey Hill, Colonel Colcock—” the class snickered, while Mr. Lee glared. “Yes, that was his real name. The Colonel and his brigade of Confederate soldiers and militia formed an impassable battery a seven guns across the road.” How many times were we going to have to hear about the seven guns? You would have thought it was the miracle of the fish and the loaves.

  Link looked back to me, nodding in the direction of Main. “Well?”

  “I think it’s Lena’s family. They were supposed to be coming in for her birthday.”

  “Yeah. Ridley said somethin’ about that.”

  “You guys still hanging out?” I was almost afraid to ask.

  “Yeah, man. Can you keep a secret?”

  “Haven’t I always?”

  Link pulled up the sleeve of his Ramones T-shirt to reveal a tattoo of what looked like an anime version of Ridley, complete with the Catholic schoolgirl mini and knee socks. I was hoping Link’s fascination with Ridley had lost some steam, but deep down I knew the truth. Link would only get over Ridley when she was good and done with him, if she didn’t make him jump headlong off a cliff first. And even then, he might not get over her.

  “I got it over Christmas break. Pretty cool, huh? Ridley drew it for me herself. She’s a killer artist.” The killer part I believed. What could I say? You tattooed a comic book version of a Dark Caster on your arm, who by the way has you under some kind of love spell and who also happens to be your girlfriend?

  “Your mom is gonna freak when she sees that.”

  “She’s not gonna see it. My sleeve covers it, and we have a new privacy rule in my house. She has to knock.”

  “Before she barges in and does whatever she wants?”

  “Yeah, well, at least she knocks first.”

  “I hope so, for your sake.”

  “Anyway, Ridley and I have a surprise for Lena. Don’t tell Rid I told you, she’ll kill me, but we’re throwin’ Lena a party tomorrow. In that big field at Ravenwood.”

  “That better be a joke.”

  “Surprise.” He actually looked excited, as if this party was ever going to happen, as if Lena would ever go, or Macon would ever let her.

  “What were you thinking? Lena would hate that. She and Ridley don’t even speak.”

  “That’s on Lena, man. She should get over it, they’re family.” I knew he was under the influence, a Ridley-fied zombie, but he was still pissing me off.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just stay out of it. Trust me.”

  He opened a Slim Jim and took a bite. “Whatever, man. We were just tryin’ to do somethin’ nice for Lena. It’s not like she has that many people willin’ to throw her a party.”

  “All the more reason not to have one. No one would come.”

  He grinned and stuffed the rest of the Slim Jim into his mouth. “Everyone will come. Everyone’s already comin’. At least, that’s what Rid says.”

  Ridley. Of course. She’d have the whole damn town following her around, like the Pied Piper, at the suck of her first lollipop.

  That didn’t seem to be Link’s understanding of the situation. “My band, the Holy Rollers, are gonna play for the very first time ever.”

  “The what?”

  “My new band. I started it, you know, at church camp.” I didn’t want to know anything else about what had happened over winter break. I was just happy he had made it back in one piece.

  Mr. Lee banged on the blackboard for emphasis, drawing a big number eight in chalk. “In the end, Hatch could not move the Confederates and withdrew his forces with a count of eighty-nine dead and six hundred and twenty-nine wounded. The Confederates won the battle, only losin’ eight men. And that”—Mr. Lee pounded proudly on the number eight—“is why you all will be joinin’ me at the Livin’ History Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill tomorrow.”

  Living History. That’s what people like Mr. Lee called Civil War reenactments, and they weren’t kidding. Every detail was accurate, from the uniforms to the ammunition to the position of the soldiers on the battlefield.

  Link grinned at me, all Slim Jim. “Don’t tell Lena. We want her to be surprised. It’s, like, her birthday present from the two of us.”

  I just stared at him. I thought about Lena in her dark mood and her orange prison jumpsuit. Then, Link’s no doubt terrible band, a Jackson High party, Emily Asher and Savannah Snow, the Fallen Angels, Ridley, and Ravenwood, not to mention Honey Hill blowing up in the distance. All under the disapproving eye of Macon, Lena’s other crazy relatives, and the mother who was trying to kill her. And the dog that allowed Macon to see every move we made.

  The bell rang. Surprise wouldn’t even begin to describe how she would feel. And I was the one who’d have to tell her.

  “Don’t forget to sign in when you arrive at the Reenactment. You don’t get credit if you don’t sign in! And remember to stay inside the ropes of the Safe Zone. Gettin’ shot won’t get you an A in this class,” Mr. Lee called as we filed out the door.

  Right about now, getting shot didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.

  Civil War reenactments are a seriously strange phenomenon, and the Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill was no exception. Who would actually be interested in dressing up in what looked like really sweaty wool Halloween costumes? Who wanted to run around shooting antique firearms so unstable they had been known to blow people’s limbs off when fired? Which is, by the way, how Big Earl Eaton had died. Who cared about re-creating battles that happened in a war that took place almost a hundred and fifty years ago and that, in fact, the South didn’t actually win? Who would do that?

  In Gatlin, and most of the South, the answer would be: your doctor, your lawyer, your preacher, the guy who fixes your car and the one who delivers your mail, most likely your dad, all your uncles and cousins, your history teacher (especially if you happen to have Mr. Lee), and most definitely, the guy who owns the gun shop over in town. Come the second week of February, rain or shine, Gatlin thought about, talked about, and fussed about nothing but the Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill.

  Honey Hill was Our Battle. I don’t know how they decided that, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the seven guns. People in town spent weeks preparing for Honey Hill. Now that it was down to the last minute, Confederate uniforms were being steamed and pressed all over the county, the smell of warm wool wafting through the air. Whitworth rifles were cleaned and swords polished, and half the men in town had spent last weekend at Buford Radford’s place making homemade ammunition, because his wife didn’t mind the smell. The widows were busy washing sheets and freezing pies f
or the hundreds of tourists descending on the town to witness Living History. The members of the DAR had spent weeks preparing for their version of the Reenactment, the Southern Heritage Tours, and their daughters had spent two Saturdays baking pound cakes to serve after the tours.

  This was particularly amusing because the DAR members, including Mrs. Lincoln, conducted these tours in period dress; they squeezed into girdles and layers of petticoats that made them look like sausages about to burst from their casings. And they weren’t the only ones; their daughters, including Savannah and Emily, the future generation of the DAR, had to putter around the historic plantation houses dressed like characters from Little House on the Prairie. The tour had always started at the DAR headquarters, since it was the second-oldest house in Gatlin. I wondered if the roof would be fixed in time. I couldn’t help imagining all those women wandering around the Gatlin Historical So-ciety, pointing out starburst quilt patterns above the hundreds of Caster scrolls and documents awaiting the next bank holiday below.

  But the DAR weren’t the only ones to get into the act. The War Between the States was often referred to as the “first modern war,” but if you took a walk around Gatlin the week before the Reenactment, there was nothing modern looking about it. Every Civil War relic in town was on display, from horse-drawn wagons to Howitzers, which any preschooler in town could tell you were artillery cannons resting on a set of old wagon wheels. The Sisters even dragged out their original Confederate flag and tacked it up on their front door, after I refused to hang it on the porch for them. Even though it was all for show, that’s where I drew the line.

  There was a big parade the day before the Reenactment, which gave the reenactors an opportunity to march through town in full regalia in front of all the tourists, because the next day they’d be so covered in smoke and dirt that no one would notice the shiny brass buttons on their authentic shell jackets.

  After the parade, there was a huge festival, with a pig pick, a kissing booth, and an old-fashioned pie sale. Amma spent days baking. Outside of the County Fair, this was her biggest pie show, and her biggest opportunity to claim victory over her enemies. Her pies were always bestsellers, which drove Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Snow crazy—Amma’s primary motivation for all that baking in the first place. There was nothing she liked better than showing up the women of the DAR and rubbing their noses in their second-rate pies.

  So every year when the second week of February rolled around, life as we knew it ceased to exist, and we all found ourselves back at the Battle of Honey Hill, circa 1864. This year was no exception, with one peculiar addition. This year, as pickups pulled into town towing double-barreled cannons and horse trailers—any self-respecting cavalry reenactor owned his own horse—different preparations were also under way, for a different battle.

  Only this one didn’t begin at the second-oldest house in Gatlin, but the oldest. There were Howitzers, and then there were Howitzers. This battle wasn’t concerned with guns and horses, but that didn’t make it any less of a battle. To be honest, it was the only real battle in town.

  As for the eight casualties of Honey Hill, I couldn’t really compare. I was only worried about one. Because if I lost her, I would be lost, too.

  So forget the Battle of Honey Hill. To me, this felt more like D-Day.

  2.11

  Sweet Sixteen

  L eave me alone! I told all of you! There’s nothing you can do!

  Lena’s voice woke me from a few hours of fitful sleep. I pulled on my jeans and a gray T-shirt without even stopping to think about it. About anything other than this: Day One. We could stop waiting for the end to come.

  The end was here.

  not with a bang but a whimper not with a bang but a whimper not with a bang but a whimper

  Lena was losing it, and it was barely daylight.

  The Book. Damn, I’d forgotten it. I ran back up into my room, two stairs at a time. I reached up to the top shelf of my closet, where I’d hidden it, bracing myself for the scorching that went along with touching a Caster book.

  Only it didn’t happen. Because it wasn’t there.

  The Book of Moons, our book, was gone. We needed that book, today of all days. But Lena’s voice was pounding in my head.

  this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper

  Lena reciting T. S. Eliot was not a good sign. I grabbed the keys to the Volvo and ran.

  The sun was rising as I drove down Dove Street. Greenbrier, or the only empty field in Gatlin to everyone else in town—making it the location of the Battle of Honey Hill—was beginning to come to life, too. The funny thing was, I couldn’t even hear the artillery outside my car window, because of the artillery going off in my head.

  By the time I ran up the steps of Ravenwood’s veranda, Boo was waiting for me, barking. Larkin was on the steps, too, leaning against one of the pillars. He was in his leather jacket, playing with the snake that curled and uncurled its way around his arm. First it was his arm, then it was a snake. He Shifted idly between shapes, like a dealer shuffling a deck of cards. The sight of it caught me off guard for a second. That, and the way he made Boo bark. Come to think of it, I couldn’t tell if Boo was barking at me or Larkin. Boo belonged to Macon, and Macon and I hadn’t exactly left things on speaking terms.

  “Hey, Larkin.” He nodded, disinterested. It was cold, and a puff of breath crept out of his mouth, as if from an imaginary cigarette. The puff stretched out into a circle that became a tiny white snake, which then bit into its own tail, devouring itself until it disappeared.

  “I wouldn’t go in there if I was you. Your girlfriend is a little, how should I put it? Venomous?” The snake curved its length around his neck, then became the collar of his leather jacket.

  Aunt Del flung the door open. “Finally, we’ve been waiting for you. Lena’s in her room and she won’t let any of us in.”

  I looked at Aunt Del, so muddled, her scarf dangling lopsidedly from one shoulder, her glasses askew, even her off-kilter gray bun coming unraveled from its twist. I leaned in to give her a hug. She smelled like one of the Sisters’ antique cabinets, full of lavender sachets and old linens, handed down from Sister to Sister. Reece and Ryan stood behind her like a mournful family in a grim hospital lobby, waiting for bad news.

  Again, Ravenwood seemed more attuned to Lena and her mood than to Macon’s, or maybe this was a mood they shared. Macon was nowhere to be found, so I couldn’t tell. If you could imagine the color of anger, it had been splashed over every wall. Rage, or something equally dense and seething, was hanging from every chandelier, resentment woven into thick carpets padding the room, hatred flickering underneath every lampshade. The floor was bathed in a creeping shadow, a particular darkness that had seeped up into the walls, and right now was rolling across my Converse so I almost couldn’t see them. Absolute darkness.

  I can’t say for sure how the room looked. I was too distracted by how it felt, and it felt pretty rank. I took a tentative step onto the grand flying staircase that led up to Lena’s bedroom. I’d gone up those stairs a hundred times before; it’s not like I didn’t know where they went. And yet somehow, today felt different. Aunt Del looked at Reece and Ryan, following behind me, as if I was leading the way into an unknown war front.

  When I stepped onto the second stair, the whole house shook. The thousand candles of the ancient chandelier swinging over my head shuddered and dripped wax down onto my face. I winced and jerked back. Without warning, the stairway curled up beneath my feet and snapped underneath me, tossing me back onto my butt, sending me skidding halfway across the polished floors of the entry hall. Reece and Aunt Del made it out of the way, but I took poor Ryan with me like a bowling ball hitting the pins at County Line Lanes.

  I stood up and shouted up the stairs. “Lena Duchannes. If you sic those stairs on me again, I’m gonna report you to the Disciplinary Committee myself.”

  I took a step onto the first stair, and then the second. Nothing happened. “I will call M
r. Hollingsworth and personally testify that you’re a dangerous lunatic.” I double-jumped the stairs, all the way up to the first landing. “Because if you do that to me again, you will be, you hear me?” Then I heard it, her voice, uncurling in my mind.

  You don’t understand.

  I know you’re scared, L, but shutting everyone out isn’t going to make things any better.

  Go away.

  No.

  I mean it, Ethan. Go away. I don’t want anything to happen to you.

  I can’t.

  Now I was standing at her bedroom door, leaning my cheek against the cold white wood of the paneling. I wanted to be with her, as close to her as I could get without having another heart attack. And if this was as near as she would let me get, it was enough for me, for now.

  Are you there, Ethan?

  I’m right here.

  I’m afraid.

  I know, L.

  I don’t want you to get hurt.

  I won’t.

  Ethan, I don’t want to leave you.

  You won’t.

  What if I do?

  I’ll wait for you.

  Even if I’m Dark?

  Even if you’re very, very Dark.

  She pulled the door open and pulled me inside. Music was blasting. I knew the song. This was an angry, almost metal version of it, but I recognized it all the same.

  Sixteen moons, sixteen years

  Sixteen of your deepest fears

  Sixteen times you dreamed my tears

  Falling, falling through the years…

  It looked like she had been crying all night. She probably had. When I touched her face, I saw it was still striped with tears. I held her in my arms, and we swayed while the song played on.