Beautiful Creatures

by Kami Garcia

  “So there’s really no getting around this Claiming thing?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  I stared at the words that didn’t bring me any closer to understanding. “But what happens, exactly, during the Claiming? Does this Claiming Moon send down some kind of Caster beam, or something?”

  She scanned the page. “It doesn’t exactly say. All I know is it takes place under the moon, at midnight—‘IN THE MIDST OF THE GREAT DARKNESSE & UNDERE THE GREAT LIGHT, FROM WHICHE WE CAME.’ But it can happen anywhere. It’s nothing you can really see, it just happens. No Caster beam involved.”

  “But what happens exactly?” I wanted to know everything, and it still felt like she was holding something back. She kept her eyes on the page.

  “For most Casters, it’s a conscious thing, just like it says here. The Person of Power, the Caster, Casts the Eternal Choice. They choose if they want to Claim themselves Light or Dark. That’s what the free will and agency is all about, like Mortals choose to be good or bad, except Casters make the Choice for all time. They choose the life they want to lead, the way they will interact with the magical universe, and one another. It’s a covenant they make with the natural world, the Order of Things. I know that sounds crazy.”

  “When you’re sixteen? How are you supposed to know who you are and who you want to be for the rest of your life by then?”

  “Yeah, well, those are the lucky ones. I don’t even get a choice.”

  I almost couldn’t bring myself to ask the next question. “So what will happen to you?”

  “Reece says you just change. It happens in a second, like a heartbeat. You feel this energy, this power moving through your body, almost like you’re coming to life for the first time.” She looked wistful. “At least, that’s what Reece said.”

  “That’s doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Reece described it as an overwhelming warmth. She said it felt like the sun was shining on her, and no one else. And at that moment, she said you just know which path has been chosen for you.” It sounded too easy, too painless, like she was leaving something out. Like the part about what it felt like when a Caster went Dark. But I didn’t want to put it out there, even if I knew we were both thinking about it.

  Just like that?

  Just like that. It doesn’t hurt or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.

  That was one of the things I was worried about, but it wasn’t the only thing.

  I’m not worried.

  Me neither.

  And this time, we made a point of staying away from what we were thinking, even to ourselves.

  The sun crept across the braided rug on Lena’s floor, the orange light turning all the colors of the braid into a hundred different kinds of gold. For a moment, Lena’s face, her eyes, her hair, everything the light touched turned to gold. She was beautiful, a hundred years and a hundred miles away, and just like the faces in the Book, somehow not quite human.

  “Sundown. Uncle Macon will be up, any minute. We have to put the Book away.” She closed it, zipping it back into my bag. “You take it. If my uncle finds it, he’ll just try to keep it from me, like everything else.”

  “I just can’t figure out what he and Amma are hiding. If all this stuff is going to happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it, why not tell us everything?”

  She wouldn’t look at me. I pulled her into my arms, and she lay her head against my chest. She didn’t say a word, but between two layers of sweatshirts and sweaters, I could still feel her heart beating against mine.

  She looked over at the viola until the music died out, dimming like the sun in the window.

  The next day at school, it was clear we were the only people thinking about anything that had to do with any kind of book. No hands were raised in any classes, unless someone needed the hall pass for the bathroom. Not a single pen touched a scrap of paper, unless it was to write a note about who had been asked, who didn’t have a prayer of being asked, and who had already been shot down.

  December only meant one thing at Jackson High: the winter formal. We were in the cafeteria when Lena brought the subject up for the first time.

  “Did you ask anyone to go to the dance?” Lena wasn’t familiar with Link’s not-so-secret strategy of going to all the dances stag so he could flirt with Coach Cross, the girls’ track coach. Link had been in love with Maggie Cross, who had graduated five years ago and came back after college to become Coach Cross, since we were in fifth grade.

  “No, I like to fly solo.” Link grinned, his mouth full of fries.

  “Coach Cross chaperones, so Link always goes by himself so he can loiter around her all night,” I explained.

  “Don’t wanna disappoint the ladies. They’ll be fightin’ over me once somebody spikes the punch.”

  “I’ve never been to a school dance before.” Lena looked down at her tray and picked at her sandwich. She looked almost disappointed.

  I hadn’t asked her to the dance. It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d want to go. So much was going on between us, and every part of it was so much bigger than a school dance.

  Link shot me a look. He had warned me this would happen. “Every girl wants to be asked to the dance, man. I have no idea why, but even I know that much.” Who knew Link might actually be right, considering his Coach Cross Master Plan had never panned out?

  Link drained the rest of his Coke. “A pretty girl like you? You could be the Snow Queen.”

  Lena tried to smile, but it wasn’t even close. “So what’s with the whole Snow Queen thing? Don’t you just have a Homecoming Queen like everywhere else?”

  “No. This is the winter formal, so it’s an Ice Queen, but Savannah’s cousin, Suzanne, won every year until she graduated and Savannah won last year, so everyone just calls it the Snow Queen.” Link reached over and grabbed a slice of pizza from my plate.

  It was pretty obvious Lena wanted to be asked. Another mysterious thing about girls—they want to be asked to stuff even if they don’t want to go. But I had a feeling that wasn’t the case with Lena. It was almost like she had a list of all the things she imagined a regular girl was supposed to do in high school, and she was determined to do them. It was crazy. The formal was the last place I wanted to go right now. We weren’t the most popular people at Jackson lately. I didn’t mind that everyone stared when we walked down the hall, even if we weren’t holding hands. I didn’t mind that people were probably saying things right now, cruel things, while the three of us sat alone at the only empty table in the crowded lunchroom, or that a whole club full of Jackson Angels was patrolling the halls just waiting for us to screw up.

  But the thing is, before Lena, I would’ve cared. I was just starting to wonder, I mean, if maybe I was under some kind of spell myself.

  I don’t do that.

  I didn’t say you did.

  You just did.

  I didn’t say you had Cast a spell. I just said, maybe I was under one.

  You think I’m Ridley?

  I think… forget it.

  Lena searched my face even more intently, like she was trying to read it. Maybe she could do that, too, now, for all I knew.

  What?

  The thing you said the morning after Halloween, in your room. Did you mean it, L?

  What thing?

  The writing on the wall.

  What wall?

  The wall in your bedroom. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You said you were feeling the same way I was.

  She started fidgeting with her necklace.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Falling.

  Falling?

  Falling… you know.

  What?

  Never mind.

  Say it, Ethan.

  I just did.

  Look at me.

  I’m looking right at you.

  I looked down into my chocolate milk.

  “Get it? Savanna
h Snow? Ice Queen?” Link dumped vanilla ice cream on top of his French fries.

  Lena caught my eye, blushing. She reached her hand under the table. I took it in mine, then almost yanked my hand away, the shock of her touch was so strong. It really was like sticking my hand in a wall socket. The way she looked at me, even if I couldn’t hear what she was thinking, I would’ve known.

  If you have something to say, Ethan, just say it.

  Yeah. That.

  Say it.

  But we didn’t need to say it. We were all by ourselves, in the middle of the crowded lunchroom, in the middle of a conversation with Link. Between the two of us, we had no idea what Link was even talking about, anymore. “Get it? It’s only funny because it’s true. You know, Ice Queen, Savannah is one.”

  Lena let go of my hand and threw a carrot at Link. She couldn’t stop smiling. He thought she was smiling at him. “Okay. I get it, Ice Queen. It’s still stupid.” Link stuck a fork into the gloppy mess on his tray.

  “It makes no sense. It doesn’t even snow here.”

  Link smiled at me over his ice cream fries. “She’s jealous. You better watch out. Lena just wants to be elected Ice Queen so she can dance with me when they make me Ice King.”

  Lena laughed in spite of herself. “You? I thought you were saving yourself for the track coach.”

  “I am, and this is gonna be the year she falls for me.”

  “Link spends the whole night trying to come up with witty things to say when she walks by.”

  “She thinks I’m funny.”

  “Funny looking.”

  “This is my year. I can feel it. I’m gonna get Snow King this year, and Coach Cross is finally gonna see me up there on the stage with Savannah Snow.”

  “I can’t really see how it plays out from there.” Lena began to peel a blood orange.

  “Oh, you know, she’ll be struck by my good looks and charm and musical talent, especially if you write me a song. Then she’ll give in and dance with me and follow me up to New York after graduation, to be my groupie.”

  “What is that, like an after-school special?” The orange peel came off in one long spiral.

  “Your girlfriend thinks I’m special, dude.” Fries were falling out of his mouth.

  Lena looked at me. Girlfriend. We both heard him say it.

  Is that what I am?

  Is that what you want to be?

  Are you asking me something?

  It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it. Lena had felt like my girlfriend for a while now. When you considered everything we’d been through together, it was sort of a given. So I don’t know why I had never said it, and I don’t know why it was hard to say it now. But there was something about saying the words that made it more real.

  I guess I am.

  You don’t sound so sure.

  I grabbed her other hand under the table and found her green eyes.

  I’m sure, L.

  Then I guess I’m your girlfriend.

  Link was still talking. “You’ll think I’m special when Coach Cross is hangin’ all over me at the dance.” Link got up and tossed his tray.

  “Just don’t be thinking my girlfriend’s saving you a dance.” I tossed mine.

  Lena’s eyes lit up. I was right; she not only wanted to be asked, she wanted to go. In that moment, I knew I didn’t care what was on her regular-high-school-girl to-do list. I was going to make sure she got to do everything on it.

  “Are you guys goin’?”

  I looked at her expectantly and she squeezed my hand.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  This time she smiled for real. “And Link, how about I save you two dances? My boyfriend won’t mind. He would never tell me who I can and can’t dance with.” I rolled my eyes.

  Link put his fist up and I tapped my knuckles against his. “Yeah, I bet.”

  The bell rang and lunch was over. Just like that, I not only had a date to the winter formal, I had a girlfriend. And not just a girlfriend, for the first time in my whole life, I had almost used the L word. In the middle of the cafeteria, in front of Link.

  Talk about hot lunch.

  12.13

  Melting

  I don’t see why she can’t meet you here. I was hopin’ to see Melchizedek’s niece all dolled up in her fancy dress.” I was standing in front of Amma so she could tie my bow tie. Amma was so short, she had to stand three stairs up from me to reach my collar. When I was a kid, she used to comb my hair and tie my necktie before we went to church on Sundays. She had always looked like she was so proud, and that’s how she was looking at me now.

  “Sorry. No time for a photo session. I’m picking her up from her house. The guy is supposed to pick up the girl, remember?” That was a stretch, considering I was picking her up in the Beater. Link was catching a ride with Shawn. The guys on the team were still saving him a seat at their new lunch table, even though he usually sat with Lena and me.

  Amma yanked on my tie and snorted a laugh. I don’t know what she thought was so funny, but it made me edgy.

  “It’s too tight. I feel like it’s strangling me.” I tried to wedge a finger in between my neck and the collar of my rented jacket from Buck’s Tux, but I couldn’t.

  “Isn’t the tie, it’s your nerves. You’ll do fine.” She surveyed me approvingly, like I imagined my mom would have if she’d been here. “Now, let me see those flowers.” I reached behind me for a small box, a red rose surrounded by white baby’s breath inside. They looked pretty ugly to me, but you couldn’t get much better from Gardens of Eden, the only place in Gatlin.

  “About the sorriest flowers I’ve ever seen.” Amma took one look and tossed them into the wastebasket at the bottom of the stairs. She turned on her heel and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “What did you do that for?”

  She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a wrist corsage, small and delicate. White Confederate jasmine and wild rosemary, tied with a pale silver ribbon. Silver and white, the colors of the winter formal. It was perfect.

  As much as I knew that Amma wasn’t crazy about my relationship with Lena, she had done this anyway. She’d done it for me. It was something my mom would have done. It was only since my mom had died that I realized how much I relied on Amma, how much I had always relied on her. She was the only thing that had kept me afloat. Without her, I probably would have drowned, like my dad.

  “Everything means somethin’. Don’t try to change somethin’ wild into somethin’ tame.”

  I held the corsage up to the kitchen lamp. I felt the length of the ribbon, carefully probing it with my fingers. Under the ribbon, there was a tiny bone.

  “Amma!”

  She shrugged. “What, are you gonna take issue with a teeny little graveyard bone like that? After all this time growin’ up in this house, after seein’ the things you’ve seen, where’s your sense? A little protection never hurt anybody—not even you, Ethan Wate.”

  I sighed and put the corsage back in the box. “I love you, too, Amma.”

  She gave me a bone-crushing hug, and I ran down the steps and into the night. “You be careful, you hear? Don’t get carried away.”

  I had no idea what she meant, but I smiled at her anyway. “Yes, ma’am.”

  My father’s light was on in the study as I drove away. I wondered if he even knew tonight was the winter formal.

  When Lena pulled the door open, my heart almost stopped, which was saying something considering she wasn’t even touching me. I knew she looked nothing like any of the other girls at the dance would look tonight. There were only two kinds of prom dresses in Gatlin County, and they all came from one of two places: Little Miss, the local pageant gown supplier, or Southern Belle, the bridal shop two towns over.

  The girls who went to Little Miss wore the slutty mermaid dresses, all slits and plunging necklines and sequins; those were the girls that Amma would never have allowed me to be seen with at a church picnic, let alone the winter formal. They we
re sometimes the local pageant girls or the daughters of local pageant girls, like Eden, whose mom had been First Runner Up Miss South Carolina, or more often just the daughters of the women who wished they had been pageant girls. These were the same girls you might eventually see holding their babies at the Jackson High School graduation in a couple of years.

  Southern Belle dresses were the Scarlett O’Hara dresses, shaped like giant cowbells. The Southern Belle girls were the daughters of the DAR and the Ladies Auxiliary members—the Emily Ashers and the Savannah Snows—and you could take them anywhere, if you could stomach it, stomach them, and stomach the way it looked like you were dancing with a bride at her own wedding.

  Either way, everything was shiny, everything was colorful, and everything involved a lot of metallic trim and a particular shade of orange folks called Gatlin Peach, that was probably reserved for tacky bridesmaids’ dresses everywhere else but Gatlin County.

  For guys, there was less obvious pressure, but it wasn’t really any easier. We had to match, usually our date, which could involve the dreaded Gatlin Peach. This year, the basketball team was going in silver bow ties and silver cummerbunds, sparing them the humiliation of pink or purple or peach bow ties.

  Lena had definitely never worn Gatlin Peach in her life. As I looked at her, my knees started to buckle, which was starting to become a familiar feeling. She was so pretty it hurt.

  Wow.

  Like it?

  She spun around. Her hair curled around her shoulders, long and loose, held back with glinting clips, in one of those magical ways girls have of making their hair look like it is supposed to be up, but also sort of falling down. I wanted to run my fingers through it, but I didn’t dare touch her, not a single hair. Lena’s dress fell from her body, clinging to all the right places without looking Little Miss, in silvery gray strands, as delicate as a silver cobweb, spun by silver spiders.