Beautiful Creatures(96)

I reached my arm out of the hole, holding it above my head. Lena took it from my hand and I climbed back out. I wanted to get out of there, as quickly as possible. It wasn’t lost on me that I was standing on Genevieve’s casket.

Aunt Del gasped. “Great Mother, I never thought I would see it. The Book of Moons. Be careful. That book is as old as time, maybe older. Macon will never believe we—”

“He’s never going to know.” Lena brushed the dirt from the cover gently.

“Okay now, you’ve seriously lost it. If you think for one minute we’re not goin’ to tell Uncle Macon—”

Reece crossed her arms like an irritated babysitter.

Lena held the Book up higher, right in front of Reece’s face. “About what?” Lena was staring at Reece the same way Reece had stared into Ridley’s eyes at the Gathering, intently, with purpose. Reece’s expression changed—she looked confused, almost disoriented. She stared at the Book, but it was like she couldn’t see it.

“What is there to tell, Reece?”

Reece squeezed her eyes shut, as if she was trying to shake off a bad dream. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it abruptly. A hint of a smile twitched across Lena’s face, as she turned slowly toward her aunt. “Aunt Del?”

Aunt Del looked as confused as Reece, which was how she looked most of the time, anyway, but something was different. And she didn’t answer Lena, either.

Lena turned slightly and dropped the Book on top of my bag. As she did, I saw green sparks in her eyes, and the curling motion of her hair as it caught the moonlight, the Casting breeze. It was almost as if I could see the magic churning around her in the darkness. I didn’t understand what was happening, but the three of them seemed to be locked in a dark, wordless conversation I couldn’t hear or understand.

Then it was over, and the moonlight became moonlight again, and the night faded back into night. I looked behind Reece, at Genevieve’s headstone. Genevieve was gone, as if she had never been there at all.

Reece shifted her weight, and her usual sanctimonious expression returned. “If you think for a minute I’m not goin’ to tell Uncle Macon you dragged us out to a graveyard for no good reason, because of some stupid school project you didn’t even end up doin’—” What the hell was she talking about? But Reece was dead serious. She didn’t remember what had just happened, any more than I understood it.

What did you just do?

Uncle Macon and I have been practicing.

Lena zipped up my duffel bag, with the Book inside. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just this place is really creepy at night. Let’s get out of here.”

Reece turned back toward Ravenwood, dragging Aunt Del behind her. “You’re such a baby.”

Lena winked at me.

Practicing what? Mind control?

Little things. Teletossing Pebbles. Interior Illusions. Time Binds, but those are hard.

That was easy?

I Shifted the Book out of their minds. I guess you could say I erased it. They won’t remember it, because in their reality, it never happened.

I knew we needed the Book. I knew why Lena did it. But somehow it felt like a line had been crossed, and now I didn’t know where we stood, or if she could ever cross back over to where I was. Where she used to be.

Reece and Aunt Del were already back in the garden. I didn’t need to be a Sybil to tell Reece wanted to get the hell out of there. Lena started to follow them, but something stopped me.

L, wait.

I walked back over to the hole and reached into my pocket. I opened the handkerchief with the familiar initials, and lifted the locket up by its chain. Nothing. No visions, and something told me there weren’t going to be any more. The locket had led us here, showed us what we needed to see.

I held the locket over the grave. It seemed only right, a fair trade. I was about to drop it when I heard Genevieve’s voice again, softer this time.

No. It doesn’t belong with me.

I looked back at the headstone. Genevieve was there again, what was left of her breaking into nothingness each time the wind blew through her. She didn’t look as terrifying.

She looked broken. The way you would look if you lost the only person you ever loved.

I understood.

12.08

Waist Deep

There was only so much trouble you could get into before the threat of more trouble wasn’t even a threat anymore. At some point, you’d waded so far in you had no choice but to paddle through the middle, if you had any chance of making it to the other side. It was classic Link logic, but I was starting to see the genius in it. Maybe you can’t really understand it yourself until you’re waist deep in it.

By the next day, that’s where we were, Lena and me. Waist deep. It started with forging a note with one of Amma’s #2 pencils, then cutting school to read a stolen book we weren’t supposed to have in the first place, and ended with a pack of lies about an extra-credit “project” we were working on together. I was pretty sure Amma was going to catch on about two seconds after I said the words extra credit, but she had been on the phone with my Aunt Caroline discussing my dad’s “condition.”

I felt guilty about all the lying, not to mention the stealing, forging, and mind erasing, but we didn’t have time for school; we had too much actual studying to do.

Because we had The Book of Moons. It was real. I could hold it in my hands— “Ouch!” It burned my hand, like I had touched a hot stove. The Book dropped to the floor of Lena’s bedroom. Boo Radley barked from somewhere in the house. I could hear his paws click their way up the stairs, toward us.