Beautiful Creatures (67 page)

It couldn’t be true. I knelt next to Uncle Macon and slowly reached out to touch his perfectly shaven face. Usually, I would
find the misleading warmth associated with a human being, fueled by the energy of the hopes and dreams of Mortals, but not
today. Today, his skin was ice cold. Like Ridley’s. Like the dead.

Without giving something in return.

“No… please no.” I had killed Uncle Macon. And I hadn’t even Claimed myself. I hadn’t even chosen to go Light, and I had still
killed him.

The rage began to well up inside me again, the wind whipping up around us, swirling and churning like my emotions. It was
beginning to feel familiar, like an old friend. The Book had made some kind of horrible trade, one I didn’t ask for. Then
I realized.

A trade.

If Uncle Macon was here, where Ethan had been lying dead, could that mean that maybe Ethan was out there alive?

I was on my feet, running toward the crypt. The frozen landscape tinted in that golden light. I could see Ethan, lying in
the grass in the distance next to Boo, where Uncle Macon had been just moments ago. I made my way over to him. I reached for
Ethan’s hand, but it was cold. Ethan was still dead and now Uncle Macon was gone, too.

What had I done? I had lost them both. Kneeling in the mud, I buried my head in Ethan’s chest and wept. I held his hand against
my cheek. I thought of all the times he had refused to accept my fate, refused to give up, to say good-bye.

Now it was my turn. “I won’t say good-bye. I won’t say it.” It had come to this, just a whisper in a field of smoldering weeds.

Then I felt it. Ethan’s fingers began to curl and uncurl, searching for mine.

L?

I could barely hear him. I smiled as I cried, and kissed the palm of his hand.

Are you there, Lena Beana?

I laced my fingers through his, and swore I would never let them go. I held up my face and let the rain fall upon it, washing
away the soot.

I’m here.

Don’t go.

I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you.

2.12

I
looked at my cell. It was broken.

The time still read 11:59.

But I knew it was well after midnight, because the fireworks finale had started, even though it was raining. The Battle of
Honey Hill was over for another year.

I lay in the middle of the muddy field, letting the rain wash over me. As I watched the small-time fireworks attempt to explode
in the still drizzling night sky, everything was cloudy. My mind just couldn’t focus. I had fallen, hit my head and a few
other places, too. My stomach, my hip, my whole left side ached. Amma was going to kill me when I came home, banged up like
this.

All I remembered was, one second I was holding onto that stupid angel statue, and the next second I was lying flat on my back
in the mud, here. I thought a piece of that statue broke off when I was trying to climb to the top of the crypt, but I wasn’t
really sure. Link must have carried me out here after I knocked myself out like an idiot. Aside from that, it was like my
mind had been wiped clean.

I guess that’s why I didn’t understand why Marian, Gramma, and Aunt Del were huddled near the crypt, crying. Nothing could
have prepared me for what I saw when I finally stumbled over there.

Macon Ravenwood. Dead.

Maybe he had always been dead, I didn’t know, but now he was gone. I knew that much. Lena threw herself onto his body, the
rain drenching both of them.

Macon, wet from the raindrops for the first time.

The next morning, I pieced together a few things about the night of Lena’s birthday. Macon was the only casualty. Apparently,
Hunting had overpowered him after I lost consciousness. Gramma explained that feeding on dreams was much less substantial
than feeding on blood. I guess he had never really stood a chance against Hunting. Still, it hadn’t stopped him from trying.

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.