Beautiful Creatures
Page 46
Macon always said he would do anything for Lena. In the end, he was a man of his word.
Everyone else seemed to be all right, at least physically. Aunt Del, Gramma, and Marian had dragged themselves back to Ravenwood, with Boo trailing behind them, whimpering like a lost pup. Aunt Del couldn’t understand what had happened to Larkin. Nobody knew how to break the news to her that she had not one but two bad seeds in her family, so no one said a thing.
Mrs. Lincoln didn’t remember anything, and Link had a hard time explaining what she was doing in the middle of the battlefield in her petticoat and pantyhose. She had been appalled to find herself in the company of Macon Ravenwood’s family, but had been civil as Link helped her to the Beater. Link had a lot of questions, but I figured it could wait until Algebra II. It would give us both something to do when things returned to normal, whenever that would be.
And Sarafine.
Sarafine, Hunting, and Larkin were gone. I knew that because when I came to, they had disappeared, and Lena was there, leaning against me as we walked back toward Ravenwood. I was fuzzy on the details, like everything else right now, but it appeared that Lena, Macon, all of us had underestimated Lena’s powers as a Natural. She had somehow managed to block out the moon and save herself from being Claimed after all. Without the Claiming, it looked like Sarafine, Hunting, and Larkin had fled, at least for now.
Lena still wasn’t talking about it. She still wasn’t talking much at all.
I had fallen asleep on the floor of her bedroom, next to her, our hands still intertwined. When I woke up, she was gone and I was alone. Her bedroom walls, the same ones that had been so covered with writing you couldn’t see an inch of the white walls underneath all the black, were now completely blank. Except for one, the wall that faced the windows was covered from floor to ceiling with words, only the writing no longer looked like Lena’s. The girly script was gone. I touched the wall as if I could feel the words, and I knew she had been up all night, writing.
macon ethan
i lay my head down on his chest and cried because he had lived
because he had died
a dry ocean, a desert of emotion
happysad darklight sorrowjoy swept over me, under me
i could hear the sound but i could not understand the words
and then i realized the sound was me, breaking
in one moment i was feeling everything and i was feeling nothing
i was shattered, i was saved, i lost everything, i was given
everything else
something in me died, something in me was born, i only knew
the girl was gone
whoever i was now, i would never be her again this is the way
the world ends not with a bang but a whimper
claim yourself claim yourself claim yourself claim
gratitude fury love despair hope hate
first green is gold but nothing green can stay
don’t
try
nothing
green
can
stay
T. S. Eliot. Robert Frost. Bukowski. I recognized some of the poets from her shelf and her walls. Except for the Frost, Lena got it backward, which wasn’t like her. Nothing gold can stay, that’s how the poem goes.
Not green.
Maybe it all looked the same to her now.
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.
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.
Acknowledgments
IT ONLY TOOK THREE MONTHS to write the first draft of Beautiful Creatures. Turns out, the writing was the easy part. The getting it right part was harder, and took the help of a lot more people. Here is the Beautiful Creatures family tree:
RAPHAEL SIMON & HILARY REYL
Who saw it before there was anything to see
SARAH BURNES, OF THE GERNERT COMPANY,
AGENT EXTRAORDINAIRE
Who read it & got it from the start
COURTNEY GATEWOOD,
OF THE GERNERT COMPANY, AGENT 007
Who got it across the pond & beyond
JENNIFER HUNT & JULIE SCHEINA
LITTLE, BROWN’S MERCILESSLY GENIUS EDITORIAL TEAM
Who made us sweat & cry until we got it right
DAVE CAPLAN, OUR TALENTED AND PSYCHIC DESIGNER
Who created the road to Ravenwood just as we imagined it
MATTHEW CHUPACK
Who translated our Pig Latin into actual Latin
ALEX HOERNER, PHOTOGRAPHER TO THE STARS (AND US)
Who made us look good without any Casting
OUR NORTH CAROLINA RELATIVES, ESPECIALLY
HAYWOOD AINSLEY EARLY, GENEALOGIST
Who helped us plant our family trees
& ANNA GATLIN HARMON,
OUR FAVORITE DAUGHTER OF THE CONFEDERACY
Who lent us her maiden name & kept us talkin’ right
AND OUR READERS:
HANNAH, ALEX C, TORI, YVETTE, SAMANTHA, MARTINE, JOYCE,
OSCAR, DAVID, ASH, VIRGINIA, JEAN X 2, KERRI, DAVE,
MADELINE, PHILLIP, DEREK, ERIN, RUBY,
AMANDA, & MARCOS
Whose wanting to know what happened next
changed what happened next
ASHLY, AKA TEENAGE VAMPIRE QUEEN
SUSAN & JOHN, ROBERT & CELESTE, BURTON & MARE
Who listened & cheered us on, as they have our whole lives
MAY & EMMA
Who stayed home from school twice to edit out the cheese,
& who figured out the missing bit of the end,
as only a 13 & a 15 year old could
KATE P AND NICK & STELLA G
Who fell asleep every night to the sound of a laptop clicking
& OF COURSE,
ALEX & LEWIS
Who found all the holes
& made sure the universe didn’t fall through them,
who put up with all of the above
and then some.
About the Authors
Like Amma, KAMI GARCIA is very superstitious, and like any self-respecting girl with Southern roots, she makes her biscuits by hand and her pies from scratch. She has relatives in the Daughters of the American Revolution, but has yet to participate in a reenactment herself. Kami attended George Washington University and has an MA in education. She is a teacher and reading specialist, and leads book groups for children and teenagers.
Like Lena, writing has gotten MARGARET STOHL in and out of trouble since she was fifteen. She has written and designed many popular video games, which is why her two bad beagles are named Zelda and Kirby. Margaret fell in love with American literature at Amherst and Yale, earned an MA in English from Stanford, and studied creative writing under poet George MacBeth at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.
KAMI AND MARGARET both live in Los Angeles, California, with their families. Beautiful Creatures is their debut novel. Kami and Margaret invite you to visit them online at www.kamigarciamargaretstohl.com.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 688d5d14-2244-417a-9284-8786ef1ed7f3
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 25.5.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.25 software
Document authors :
Kami Garcia
Margaret Stohl
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