Beautiful Creatures(71)

“Sure.”

The bags of candy were in the hall. I ripped them open and turned them over into a big glass bowl. I couldn’t get Lena’s words out of my head. A night of such Dark power. I remembered Ridley standing in front of her car, outside the Stop & Steal, all sticky sweet smiles and legs. Obviously, identifying Dark forces wasn’t one of my talents, or deciding who you should and shouldn’t open your front door for. Like I said, when the girl you couldn’t stop thinking about was a Caster, Halloween took on a whole new meaning. I looked at the bowl of candy in my hands. Then I opened the front door, put the bowl out on the porch, and went back inside.

As I settled in to watch The Shining, I found myself missing Lena. I let my mind wander, because it usually found a way of wandering over to wherever she was, but she wasn’t there. I fell asleep on the couch waiting for her to dream me, or something.

A knock at the door startled me. I looked at my watch. It was nearly ten, too late for trick-or-treaters.

“Amma?”

No answer. I heard knocking again.

“Is that you?”

The den was dark, and only the light of the TV was flickering. It was the moment in The Shining when the dad chops down the hotel room door with his bloody axe to bludgeon his family. Not a great moment for answering any door, especially on Halloween. Another knock.

“Link?” I clicked off the TV and looked around for something to pick up, but there was nothing. I picked up an old game console, lying on the floor in a pile of video games. It wasn’t a baseball bat, but some decently solid old-school Japanese technology. It had to weigh at least five pounds. I raised it over my head and took a step closer to the wall separating the den from the front hall. Another step, and I moved the lace curtain covering the glass-paned door, just a millimeter.

In the darkness of the unlit porch, I couldn’t see her face. But I would recognize that old beige van, still running in the street in front of my house, anywhere. “Desert Sand,” she used to say. It was Link’s mom, holding a plate of brownies. I was still carrying the console. If Link saw me, he’d never let me live this down.

“Just a minute, Mrs. Lincoln.” I flipped on the porch light, and unbolted the front door. But when I tried to pull it open, the door jammed. I checked the lock again, and it was still bolted, even though I had just unbolted it.

“Ethan?”

I unbolted the lock again. It bolted shut with a snap, before I could take my hand away from it. “Mrs.

Lincoln, I’m sorry, my door seems to be stuck.” I rattled the door with all my weight, juggling the console. Something fell to the floor in front of me. I stopped to pick it up. Garlic, wrapped in one of Amma’s handkerchiefs. If I had to guess, there was one over every door and every windowsill. Amma’s little Halloween tradition.

Still, something was keeping the door from opening, just like something had tried to open the study door for me just days ago. How many bolts in this house were going to just keep locking and unlocking themselves? What was going on?

I unbolted the lock one more time and gave the door a final pull. It flung open, banging against the wall in the front hall. Mrs. Lincoln was lit from behind, a dark figure in a pool of pale lamplight. The silhouette was unsettling.

She stared at the game console in my hand. “Video games will rot your brain, Ethan.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I brought you some brownies. A peace offerin’.” She held them out expectantly. I should’ve asked her to come in. There was a formula for everything. I guess you could call it manners, Southern hospitality.

But I had tried that with Ridley, and it hadn’t gone so well. I hesitated. “What are you doing out tonight, ma’am? Link’s not here.”

“Of course he’s not. He’s at the Snows’, which is where every upstandin’ member a the Jackson High student body should be lucky enough to be. It took quite a number a phone calls on my part to get him an invitation, in light a his recent behavior.”

I still didn’t get it. I’d known Mrs. Lincoln my whole life. She had always been an odd duck. Busy getting books taken off the library shelves, teachers fired from the schools, reputations ruined in a single afternoon. Lately, she was different. The crusade against Lena was different. Mrs. Lincoln had always had conviction, but this was personal.

“Ma’am?”

She looked agitated. “I made you brownies. I thought I could come in, and we could talk. My fight’s not with you, Ethan. It’s not your fault that girl is usin’ her deviltry on you. You should be at the party, with your friends. With the kids who belong here.” She held out the brownies, the gooey double chocolate chip fudge brownies that were always the first thing to go at the Baptist Church Bake Sale. I had grown up on those brownies. “Ethan?”

“Ma’am.”

“Can I come in?”

I didn’t move a muscle. My grip tightened around the console. I stared at the brownies, and suddenly I didn’t feel hungry at all. Not even the plate, not a crumb of that woman was welcome in my house. My house, like Ravenwood, was starting to have a mind of its own, and there was no part of me or my house that was going to let her in.

“No, ma’am.”

“What was that, Ethan?”

“No. Ma’am.”

Her eyes narrowed. She pushed the plate toward me, as if she was going to come in anyway, but it jerked like it had hit an invisible wall between her and me. I saw the plate tumble, falling slowly to the ground until it shattered into a million bits of ceramic and chocolate, all over our Happy Halloween doormat. Amma would pitch a fit in the morning.