Beautiful Creatures (22 page)

Ridley smiled. “You sure about that?”

“Dinner is ready, and you know how Kitchen feels about serving cold food.” Macon walked into the dining room. Everyone filed
in after him, even though he had barely spoken loud enough for the four of us in the room to hear him.

Boo led the way, lumbering in with Ryan. Aunt Del followed, on the arm of a gray-haired man about my dad’s age. He was dressed
like he was right out of one of the books in my mom’s study, with knee-high boots, a frilly shirt, and a weird opera cape.
The two of them looked like an exhibit from a Smithsonian museum.

An older girl entered the room. She looked a lot like Ridley, except she had on more clothing and she didn’t look so dangerous.
She had long, straight blond hair with a neater version of Ridley’s choppy bangs. She looked like the kind of girl you’d see
carrying a stack of books on a fancy old college campus up North like Yale or Harvard. The girl locked eyes with Ridley, like
she could see Ridley’s eyes through the dark shades she was still wearing.

“Ethan, I’d like to introduce you to my older sister, Annabel. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean Reece.” Who doesn’t know their own sister’s
name?

Reece smiled and spoke slowly as if she was choosing her words carefully. “What are you doin’ here, Ridley? I thought you
had another engagement tonight.”

“Plans change.”

“So do families.” Reece reached out her hand and waved it in front of Ridley’s face, just a simple flourish, like a magician
waving his hand over a top hat. I flinched; I don’t know what I was thinking, but for a second I thought Ridley might disappear.
Or more preferably, I might.

But she didn’t disappear, and this time, it was Ridley who flinched and looked away, like it was physically painful to look
Reece in the eye.

Reece peered into Ridley’s face, as if it were a mirror. “Interestin’. Why is it, Rid, when I look in your eyes all I can
see are
hers
? You two are as thick as thieves, aren’t you?”

“You’re babbling again,
Sis
.”

Reece closed her eyes, concentrating. Ridley squirmed like a pinned butterfly. Reece fluttered her hand again, and for a moment,
Ridley’s face dissolved into the murky image of another woman. The woman’s face was somehow familiar, only I couldn’t remember
why.

Macon clapped his hand down heavily on Ridley’s shoulder. It was the only time I’d seen anyone touch her, except me. Ridley
winced, and I could feel a twinge of pain shooting from her hand, down my arm. Macon Ravenwood was clearly not a man to be
taken lightly. “Now. Like it or not, the Gathering has commenced. I won’t have anyone ruining the High Holidays, not under
my roof. Ridley has been, as she so helpfully clarified,
invited
to join us. Nothing more needs to be said. Please, everyone have a seat.”

Lena sat down, her eyes locked on the two of us.

Aunt Del looked even more worried than when we had first arrived. The man in the opera cape patted her hand reassuringly.
A tall guy about my age in black jeans, a faded black T-shirt, and scuffed motorcycle boots wandered in looking bored.

Ridley handled the introductions. “You’ve already met my mother. And this is my father, Barclay Kent, and my brother, Larkin.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Ethan.” Barclay stepped forward as if to shake my hand, but when he noticed Ridley’s hand on my arm,
he stepped back. Larkin drew his arm around my shoulder, only when I looked over his arm had become a snake, flickering its
tongue in and out of its mouth.

“Larkin!” Barclay hissed. The snake became Larkin’s arm again in an instant.

“Jeez. Just tryin’ to lift the mood around here. You’re all such a bunch a whiners.” Larkin’s eyes flickered yellow, slitted.
Snake eyes.

“Larkin, I said that was enough.” His father gave him the kind of look only a father can give a son who’s always disappointing
him. Larkin’s eyes changed back to green.

Macon took a seat at the head of the table. “Why don’t we all sit down? Kitchen has prepared one of her finest holiday meals.
Lena and I have been subjected to the clatter for days.” Everyone took their seats at the enormous rectangular claw-foot table.
It was dark wood, almost black, and there were intricate designs, like vines, carved into the legs. Huge black candles flickered
in the center of the table.

“Sit over here by me, Short Straw.” Ridley led me to an empty chair, across from the silver bird holding Lena’s place card,
as if I had a choice.

I tried to make eye contact with Lena, but her eyes were fixed on Ridley. And they were fierce. I just hoped Ridley was the
only one her anger was directed at.

The table was overflowing with food, even more than the last time I was here; every time I looked at the table there was more.
A crown roast, filet tied with rosemary, and more exotic dishes I’d never seen before. A large bird stuffed with dressing
and pears, resting on peacock feathers arranged to resemble a live bird’s open tail. I was hoping it wasn’t an actual peacock,
but considering the tail feathers, I was pretty sure it was. And sparkling candies, I think, shaped exactly like real seahorses.

But no one was eating, no one except Ridley. She seemed to be enjoying herself. “I just love sugar horses.” She popped two
of the tiny golden seahorses into her mouth.

Aunt Del coughed a few times, pouring a glass of black liquid, the consistency of wine, into her glass from the decanter on
the table.

Ridley looked at Lena across the table. “So, Cuz, any big plans for your birthday?” Ridley dipped her fingers into a dark
brown sauce in the gravy boat next to the bird I hoped wasn’t a peacock, and licked it off her fingers suggestively.

“We’re not discussing Lena’s birthday tonight,” Macon warned.

Ridley was enjoying the tension. She popped another seahorse into her mouth. “Why not?”

Lena’s eyes were wild. “You don’t need to worry about
my
birthday. You won’t be invited.”

“
You
certainly should. Worry, I mean. It’s such an
important
birthday, after all.” Ridley laughed. Lena’s hair started to curl and uncurl itself as if there was a wind in the room. There
wasn’t.

“Ridley, I said that’s enough.” Macon was losing his patience. I recognized his tone as the same one he’d had after I took
the locket out of my pocket, during my first visit.

“Why are you taking her side, Uncle M? I spent just as much time with you as Lena did, growing up. How did she suddenly become
your favorite?” For a moment, she almost sounded hurt.

“You know it has nothing to do with favorites. You have been Claimed. It’s out of my hands.”

Claimed? By what? What was he talking about? The suffocating haze around me was getting thicker. I couldn’t be sure I was
hearing everything correctly.

“But you and I are the same.” She was pleading with Macon, like a spoiled child.

The table began to shake almost imperceptibly, the black liquid in the wine glasses gently sloshing from side to side. Then
I heard a rhythmic tapping on the roof. Rain.

Lena was gripping the edge of the table, her knuckles white. “You are NOT the same,” she hissed.

I felt Ridley’s body stiffen against my arm, which she was still wrapped around like a snake. “You think you are so much better
than me, Lena… is it? You don’t even know your real name. You don’t even realize this relationship of yours is doomed. Just
wait until you’re Claimed and you find out how things really work.” She laughed, a sinister, painful sort of sound. “You have
no idea if we are the same or not. In a few months, you could end up exactly like me.”

Lena looked at me, panicked. The table began to shake harder, the plates rattling against the wood. There was a crackle of
lightning outside, and rain began pouring down the windows like tears. “Shut up!”

“Tell him, Lena. Don’t you think Short Straw here deserves to know everything? That you have no idea if you’re Light or Dark?
That you have no choice?”

Lena leapt to her feet, knocking her chair over behind her. “I said, shut up!”

Ridley was relaxed again, enjoying herself. “Tell him how we lived together, in the same room, like sisters, that I was exactly
like you a year ago and now…”

Macon stood at the head of the table, gripping it with both hands. His pale face seemed even whiter than usual. “Ridley, that’s
enough! I will Cast you out of this house if you say another word.”

“You can’t Cast me out, Uncle. You aren’t strong enough for that.”

“Don’t overestimate your skills. No Dark Caster on Earth is powerful enough to enter Ravenwood on their own. I Bound the place
myself. We all did.”

Dark Caster? That didn’t sound good.

“Ah, Uncle Macon. You’re forgetting that famous Southern hospitality. I didn’t break in. I was invited in, on the arm of the
handsomest gent in Gat-dung.” Ridley turned to me and smiled, pulling her shades from her eyes. They were just wrong, glowing
gold, as if they were on fire. They were shaped like a cat’s, with black slits in the middle. Light shone from her eyes, and
in that light, everything changed.

She looked over at me, with that sinister smile, and her face was twisted into darkness and shadows. The features that had
been so feminine and enticing were now sharp and hard, morphing before my eyes. Her skin seemed to be tightening around her
bones, accentuating every vein until you could almost see the blood pumping through them. She looked like a monster.

I had brought a monster into the house, into Lena’s house.

Almost immediately, the house began to shake violently. The crystal chandeliers were swinging, the lights flickering. The
plantation shutters banged open and shut again and again as the rain battered the roof. The sound was so loud, it was almost
impossible to hear anything else, like the night I almost hit Lena when she was standing in the road.

Ridley tightened her ice-cold grip on my arm. I tried to shake her loose, but I could barely move. The coldness was spreading;
my whole arm was starting to feel numb.

Lena looked up from the table, in horror. “Ethan!”

Aunt Del stamped her foot across the room. The floorboards seemed to roll beneath her feet.

The coldness had spread throughout my body. My throat was frozen. My legs were paralyzed; I couldn’t move. I couldn’t pull
away from Ridley’s arm, and I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening. In another few minutes, I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

A woman’s voice floated across the table. Aunt Del. “Ridley. I told you to stay away, child. There’s nothing we can do for
you now. I’m so sorry.”

Macon’s voice was harsh. “Ridley, a year can make all the difference in the world. You’re Claimed now. You’ve found your place
in the Order of Things. You don’t belong here anymore. You have to go.”

A second later, he was standing right in front of her. Either that, or I was losing track of what was happening. The voices
and faces were starting to spin around me. I could barely catch my breath. I was so cold, my frozen jaw wouldn’t even move
enough to chatter. “Go!” he shouted.

“No!”

“Ridley! Behave! You must leave this place. Ravenwood is not a place of Dark magic. This is a Bound place, a place of Light.
You can’t survive here, not for long.” Aunt Del’s voice was firm.

Ridley answered with a snarl. “I’m not leaving, Mother, and you can’t make me.”

Macon’s voice interrupted her tantrum. “You know that’s not true.”

“I’m stronger now, Uncle Macon. You can’t control me.”

“True, your strength is growing, but you are not ready to take me on, and I will do whatever is necessary to protect Lena.
Even if that means hurting you, or worse.”

The weight of his threat was too much for Ridley. “You would do that to me? Ravenwood’s a Dark place of power. It always has
been, since Abraham. He was one of us. Ravenwood should be ours. Why are you Binding it to the Light?”

“Ravenwood is Lena’s home now.”

“You belong with me, Uncle M.
With Her
.”

Ridley stood up, dragging me to my feet. The three of them were standing now—Lena, Macon, and Ridley, the three points of
a really frightening triangle. “I’m not scared of your kind.”

“That may be, but you have no power here. Not against all of us, and a Natural.”

Ridley cackled. “Lena, a Natural? That’s the funniest thing you’ve said all night. I’ve seen what a Natural can do. Lena could
never be one.”

“A Cataclyst and a Natural aren’t the same.”

“Aren’t they, though? A Cataclyst is a Natural gone Dark, two sides of the same coin.”

What was she talking about? I was in over my head.

And then I felt my body seize up, and I knew I was blacking out—that I was probably going to die. It was like all the life
had been sucked out of me, with the warmth of my blood. I could hear the sound of thunder. One—then lightning and the crash
of a tree branch just outside the window. The storm was here. It was right on us.

“You’re wrong, Uncle M. Lena isn’t worth protecting, and she’s certainly not a Natural. You won’t know her fate until her
birthday. You think that just because she’s sweet and innocent now, she’ll be Claimed by the Light? That means nothing. Wasn’t
I the same a year ago? And from what Short Straw here has been telling me, she’s closer to going Dark than Light. Lightning
storms? Terrorizing the high school?”

The wind grew stronger, and Lena was getting angrier. I could see the rage in her eyes. A window shattered, just like in English
class. I knew where this was going.

“Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Rain came pouring into the dining room. Wind followed, sending glasses
and plates crashing to the floor, black liquid staining the floor in long streaks. No one moved.

Ridley turned back to Macon. “You’ve always given her too much credit. She’s nothing.”

I wanted to break free from Ridley’s hold, to grab her and drag her out of the house myself, but I couldn’t move.

A second window shattered, then another, and another. Glass was breaking everywhere. China, wineglasses, the glass on every
picture frame. Furniture was banging against the walls. And the wind, it was like a tornado had been sucked into the room
with us. The sound was so loud, I couldn’t hear anything else. The tablecloth blew right off the table, with every candle,
platter, and plate still on it, throwing everything against the wall. The room was spinning, I think. Everything was being
sucked out into the foyer, toward the front door. Boo Radley screamed, that horrible human scream. Ridley’s grip seemed to
loosen around my arm. I blinked hard, trying not to pass out.