Beautiful Creatures (30 page)

The old woman stood on her toes, reaching high above the door. There, illuminated by the distant light of the fires, Genevieve
could see a small piece of smooth stone above the door, with a crescent moon carved into it. Ivy put her hand over the small
moon and pushed. The stone door began to move, opening with the sound of stone scraping stone. Ivy reached for something on
the other side of the doorway. A candle.

The candlelight illuminated the small room. It couldn’t have been bigger than a few feet wide all around. But there were old
wooden shelves on every side, piled high with tiny vials and bottles, filled with plant blossoms, powders, and murky liquids.
In the center of the room, there was a weathered stone table, with an old wooden box lying on it. The box was modest by any
standard, the only adornment a tiny crescent moon carved on its lid. The same carving from the stone above the door.

“I’m not touchin’ it,” Ivy said quietly, as if she thought the box itself could hear her.

“Ivy, it’s just a book.”

“No such thing as just a book, ’specially in your family.”

Genevieve lifted the lid gently. The book’s jacket was cracked black leather, now more gray than black. There was no title,
just the same crescent moon embossed on the front. Genevieve lifted the book tentatively from the box. She knew Ivy was superstitious.
Although she had mocked the old woman, she also knew that Ivy was wise. She read cards and tea leaves, and Genevieve’s mother
consulted Ivy and her tea leaves for almost everything, the best day to plant her vegetables to avoid a freeze, the right
herbs to cure a cold.

The book was warm. As if it were alive, breathing.

“Why doesn’t it have a name?” Genevieve asked.

“Just ’cause a book don’t have a title, don’t mean it don’t have a name. That right there is
The Book a Moons.”

There was no more time to lose. She followed the flames through the darkness. Back to what was left of Greenbrier, and Ethan.

She flipped through the pages. There were hundreds of Casts. How would she find the right one? Then she saw it. It was in
Latin, a language she knew well; her mother had brought a special tutor in from up North to make sure she and Evangeline learned
it. The most important language as far as her family was concerned.

The Binding Spell. To Bind Death To Life.

Genevieve rested the Book on the ground next to Ethan, her finger under the first verse of the incantation.

Ivy grabbed her wrist and held it tight. “This isn’t any night for this. Half moon’s for workin’ White magic, full moon’s
for workin’ Black. No moon is somethin’ else altogether.”

Genevieve jerked her arm from the old woman’s grip. “I don’t have a choice. This is the only night we have.”

“Miss Genevieve, you need to understand. Those words are more than a Cast. They’re a bargain. You can’t use
The Book a Moons
, without givin’ somethin’ in return.”

“I don’t care about the price. We’re talkin’ about Ethan’s life. I’ve lost everyone else.”

“That boy don’t have no more life. It’s been shot right out of ’im. What you tryin’ to do is unnatural. And there can’t be
no right in that.”

Genevieve knew Ivy was right. Her mother had warned her and Evangeline often enough about respecting the Natural Laws. She
was crossing a line none of the Casters in her family would ever have dared.

But they were all gone now. She was the only one left.

And she had to try.

“No!” Lena let go of our hands, breaking the circle. “She went Dark, don’t you get it? Genevieve, she was using Dark magic.”

I grabbed her hands. She tried to pull away from me. Usually all I could feel from Lena was a sunny sort of warmth, but this
time she felt more like a tornado. “Lena, she’s not you. He’s not me. This all happened more than a hundred years ago.”

She was hysterical. “She
is
me, that’s why the locket wants me to see this. It’s warning me to stay away from you. So I don’t hurt you after I go Dark.”

Marian opened her eyes, which were bigger than I’d ever seen them. Her short hair, normally neat and perfectly in place, was
wild and windblown. She looked exhausted, but exhilarated. I knew that look. It was like my mom was haunting her, especially
around the eyes. “You are not Claimed, Lena. You’re neither good nor bad. This is just what it feels like to be fifteen and
a half, in the Duchannes family. I’ve known a lot of Casters in my day and a whole lot of Duchannes, both Dark and Light.”

Lena looked at Marian, stunned.

Marian tried to catch her breath. “You are not going Dark. You’re as melodramatic as Macon. Now calm down.”

How did she know about Lena’s birthday? How did she know about Casters?

“You two have Genevieve’s locket. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We don’t know what to do. Everyone tells us something different.”

“Let me see it.”

I reached into my pocket. Lena put her hand on my arm, and I hesitated. Marian was my mom’s closest friend, and she was like
family. I knew I shouldn’t question her motives, but then I had just followed Amma into the swamp to meet Macon Ravenwood,
and I would never have seen that coming. “How do we know we can trust you?” I asked, feeling sick even asking the question.

“‘The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.’”

“Elton John?”

“Close. Ernest Hemingway. In his own way, sort of the rock star of his time.”

I smiled, but Lena was not so willing to have her doubts charmed away. “Why should we trust you when everyone else has been
hiding things from us?”

Marian grew serious. “Precisely because I’m not Amma, and I’m not Uncle Macon. I’m not your Gramma or your Aunt Delphine.
I’m Mortal. I’m neutral. Between Black magic and White magic, Light and Dark, there has to be something in between—something
to resist the pull—and that something is me.”

Lena backed away from her. It was inconceivable, to both of us. How did Marian know so much about Lena’s family?

“What are you?” In Lena’s family, that was a loaded question.

“I’m the Gatlin County Head Librarian, same as I’ve been since I moved here, same as I always will be. I’m not a Caster. I
just keep the records. I just keep the books.” Marian smoothed her hair. “I’m the Keeper, just one in a long line of Mortals
entrusted with the history and the secrets of a world we can never entirely be a part of. There must always be one, and now
that one is me.”

“Aunt Marian? What are you talking about?” I was lost.

“Let’s just say, there are libraries, and then there are
libraries
. I serve all the good citizens of Gatlin, whether they are Casters or Mortals. Which works out just fine since the other
branch is more of a night job, really.”

“You mean—?”

“The Gatlin County Caster Library. I am, of course, the Caster Librarian. The
Head
Caster Librarian.”

I stared at Marian as if I was seeing her for the first time. She looked back at me with the same brown eyes, the same knowing
smile. She looked the same, but somehow she was completely different. I had always wondered why Marian stayed in Gatlin all
these years. I thought it was because of my mom. Now I realized there was another reason.

I didn’t know what I was feeling, but whatever it was, Lena was feeling the opposite. “Then you can help us. We have to find
out what happened to Ethan and Genevieve, and what it has to do with Ethan and me, and we have to find out before my birthday.”
Lena looked at her expectantly. “The Caster Library must have records. Maybe
The Book of Moons
is there. Do you think it could have the answers?”

Marian looked away. “Maybe, maybe not. I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m so sorry.”

“What are you talking about?” She wasn’t making sense. I’d never seen Marian refuse help to anyone, especially me.

“I can’t get involved, even if I want to. It’s part of the job description. I don’t write the books, or the rules, I just
keep them. I can’t interfere.”

“Is this job more important than helping us?” I stepped in front of her, so she had to look me in the eye when she answered.
“More important than me?”

“It’s not that simple, Ethan. There’s a balance between the Mortal world and the Caster world, between Light and Dark. The
Keeper is part of that balance, part of the Order of Things. If I defy the laws by which I’m Bound, that balance is jeopardized.”
She looked back at me, her voice shaky. “I can’t interfere, even if it kills me. Even if it hurts the people I love.”

I didn’t understand what she was talking about, but I knew Marian loved me, like she had loved my mom. If she couldn’t help
us, there had to be a reason. “Fine. You can’t help us. Just take me to this Caster Library, and I’ll figure it out myself.”

“You’re not a Caster, Ethan. This isn’t your decision to make.”

Lena stepped next to me, and took my hand. “It’s mine. And I want to go.”

Marian nodded. “All right, I’ll take you, the next time it’s open. The Caster Library doesn’t operate on the same schedule
as the Gatlin County Library. It’s a bit more
irregular
.”

Of course it was.

10.31

T
he only days of the year that the Gatlin County Library was closed were bank holidays—like Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day,
New Year’s Day, Easter. As a result, these were the only days the Gatlin County Caster Library was open, which apparently
wasn’t something Marian could control.

“Take it up with the county. Like I said, I don’t make the rules.” I wondered what county she was talking about—the one I
had lived in my whole life, or the one that had been hidden from me for just as long.

Still, Lena seemed almost hopeful. For the first time, it was as if she actually believed there might be a way to prevent
what she had considered the inevitable. Marian couldn’t give us any answers, but she anchored us in the absence of the two
people we relied on most, who hadn’t gone anywhere, but seemed far away just the same. I didn’t say anything to Lena, but
without Amma I was lost. And without Macon, I knew Lena couldn’t even find her way to lost.

Marian did give us something, Ethan and Genevieve’s letters, so old and delicate they were almost transparent, and everything
she and my mother had collected about the two of them. A whole stack of papers in a dusty brown box, with cardboard printed
to look like wood paneling on the sides. Although Lena loved poring over the prose—
“the days without you bleed together until time is nothing more than another obstacle we must overcome,”
—all it seemed to amount to was a love story with a really bad, and really Black ending. But it was all we had.

Now all we had to do was figure out what we were looking for. The needle in the haystack, or in this case, the cardboard box.
So we did the only thing we could do. We started looking.