Beautiful Creatures (4 page)

“Hardly. You should see what she’s wearin’.” Strike One.

“And how pale she is.” Strike Two. You could never be too thin or too tan, as far as Savannah was concerned.

Emily sat down next to Emory, leaning over the table just a little too much. “Did he tell you
who
she is?”

“What do you mean?”

Emily paused for dramatic effect.

“She’s Old Man Ravenwood’s niece.”

She didn’t need the pause for this one. It was like she had sucked the air right out of the room. A couple of the guys started
laughing. They thought she was kidding, but I could tell she wasn’t.

Strike Three. She was out. So far out, I couldn’t even picture her anymore. The possibility of my dream girl showing up disappeared
before I could even imagine our first date. I was doomed to three more years of Emily Ashers.

Macon Melchizedek Ravenwood was the town shut-in. Let’s just say, I remembered enough of
To Kill a Mockingbird
to know Old Man Ravenwood made Boo Radley look like a social butterfly. He lived in a run-down old house, on Gatlin’s oldest
and most infamous plantation, and I don’t think anyone in town had seen him since before I was born, maybe longer.

“Are you serious?” asked Link.

“Totally. Carlton Eaton told my mom yesterday when he brought by our mail.”

Savannah nodded. “My mamma heard the same thing. She moved in with Old Man Ravenwood a couple a days ago, from Virginia, or
Maryland, I don’t remember.”

They all kept talking about her, her clothes and her hair and her uncle and what a freak she probably was. That’s the thing
I hated most about Gatlin. The way everyone had something to say about everything you said or did or, in this case, wore.
I just stared at the noodles on my tray, swimming in runny orange liquid that didn’t look much like cheese.

Two years, eight months, and counting. I had to get out of this town.

After school, the gym was being used for cheerleading tryouts. The rain had finally let up, so basketball practice was on
the outside court, with its cracked concrete and bent rims and puddles of water from the morning rain. You had to be careful
not to hit the fissure that ran down the middle like the Grand Canyon. Aside from that, you could almost see the whole parking
lot from the court, and watch most of the prime social action of Jackson High while you warmed up.

Today I had the hot hand. I was seven-for-seven from the free throw line, but so was Earl, matching me shot for shot.

Swish.
Eight. It seemed like I could just look at the net, and the ball would sail through. Some days were like that.

Swish.
Nine. Earl was annoyed. I could tell by the way he was bouncing the ball harder and harder every time I made a shot. He was
our other center. Our unspoken agreement was: I let him be in charge, and he didn’t hassle me if I didn’t feel like hanging
out at the Stop & Steal every day after practice. There were only so many ways you could talk about the same girls and so
many Slim Jims you could eat.

Swish.
Ten. I couldn’t miss. Maybe it was just genetics. Maybe it was something else. I hadn’t figured it out, but since my mom
died, I had stopped trying. It was a wonder I made it to practice at all.

Swish.
Eleven. Earl grunted behind me, bouncing the ball even harder. I tried not to smile and looked over to the parking lot as
I took the next shot. I saw a tangle of long black hair, behind the wheel of a long black car.

A hearse. I froze.

Then, she turned, and through the open window, I could see a girl looking in my direction. At least, I thought I could. The
basketball hit the rim, and bounced off toward the fence. Behind me, I heard the familiar sound.

Swish.
Twelve. Earl Petty could relax.

As the car pulled away, I looked down the court. The rest of the guys were standing there, like they’d just seen a ghost.

“Was that—?”

Billy Watts, our forward, nodded, holding onto the chain-link fence with one hand. “Old Man Ravenwood’s niece.”

Shawn tossed the ball at him. “Yep. Just like they said. Drivin’ his hearse.”

Emory shook his head. “She’s hot all right. What a waste.”

They went back to playing ball, but by the time Earl took his next shot, it had started to rain again. Thirty seconds later,
we were caught in a downpour, the heaviest rain we’d seen all day. I stood there, letting the rain hammer down on me. My wet
hair hung in my eyes, blocking out the rest of the school, the team.

The bad omen wasn’t just a hearse. It was a girl.

For a few minutes, I had let myself hope. That maybe this year wouldn’t be just like every other year, that something would
change. That I would have someone to talk to, someone who really got me.

But all I had was a good day on the court, and that had never been enough.

9.02

F
ried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, string beans, and biscuits—all sitting angry and cold and congealed on the stove
where Amma had left them. Usually, she kept my dinner warm for me until I got home from practice, but not today. I was in
a lot of trouble. Amma was furious, sitting at the table eating Red Hots, and scratching away at the
New York Times
crossword. My dad secretly subscribed to the Sunday edition, because the ones in
The Stars and Stripes
had too many spelling mistakes, and the ones in
Reader’s Digest
were too short. I don’t know how he got it past Carlton Eaton, who would’ve made sure the whole town knew we were too good
for
The Stars and Stripes
, but there was nothing my dad wouldn’t do for Amma.

She slid the plate in my direction, looking at me without looking at me. I shoveled cold mashed potatoes and chicken into
my mouth. There was nothing Amma hated like food left on your plate. I tried to keep my distance from the point of her special
black # 2 pencil, used only for her crosswords, kept so sharp it could actually draw blood. Tonight it might.

I listened to the steady patter of rain on the roof. There wasn’t another sound in the room. Amma rapped her pencil on the
table.

“Nine letters. Confinement or pain exacted for wrongdoin’.” She shot me another look. I shoveled a spoonful of potatoes into
my mouth. I knew what was coming. Nine across.

“C. A. S. T. I. G. A. T. E. As in, punish. As in, if you can’t get yourself to school on time, you won’t be leavin’ this house.”

I wondered who had called to tell her I was late, or more likely who hadn’t called. She sharpened her pencil, even though
it was already sharp, grinding it into her old automatic sharpener on the counter. She was still pointedly Not Looking at
me, which was even worse than staring me right in the eye.

I walked over to where she was grinding and put my arm around her, giving her a good squeeze. “Come on, Amma. Don’t be mad.
It was pouring this morning. You wouldn’t want us speeding in the rain, would you?”

She raised an eyebrow, but her expression softened. “Well, it looks like it’ll be rainin’ from now until the day after you
cut that hair, so you better figure out a way to get yourself to school before that bell rings.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I gave her one last squeeze and went back to my cold potatoes. “You’ll never believe what happened today. We
got a new girl in our class.” I don’t know why I said it. I guess it was still on my mind.

“You think I don’t know about Lena Duchannes?” I choked on my biscuit. Lena Duchannes. Pronounced, in the South, to rhyme
with rain. The way Amma rolled it out, you would have thought the word had an extra syllable. Du-kay-yane.

“Is that her name? Lena?”

Amma pushed a glass of chocolate milk in my direction. “Yes and no and it’s none a your business. You shouldn’t be messin’
with things you don’t know anything about, Ethan Wate.”

Amma always spoke in riddles, and she never gave you anything more than that. I hadn’t been to her house in Wader’s Creek
since I was a kid, but I knew most of the people in town had. Amma was the most respected tarot card reader within a hundred
miles of Gatlin, just like her mother before her and her grandmother before her. Six generations of card readers. Gatlin was
full of God-fearing Baptists, Methodists, and Pentecostals, but they couldn’t resist the lure of the cards, the possibility
of changing the course of their own destiny. Because that’s what they believed a powerful reader could do. And Amma was nothing
if not a force to be reckoned with.

Sometimes I’d find one of her homemade charms in my sock drawer or hanging above the door of my father’s study. I had only
asked what they were for once. My dad teased Amma whenever he found one, but I noticed that he never took any of them down.
“Better safe than sorry.” I guess he meant safe from Amma, who could make you plenty sorry.

“Did you hear anything else about her?”

“You watch yourself. One day you’re gonna pick a hole in the sky and the universe is gonna fall right through. Then we’ll
all be in a fix.”

My father shuffled into the kitchen in his pajamas. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a box of Shredded Wheat out
of the pantry. I could see the yellow wax earplugs still stuck in his ears. The Shredded Wheat meant he was about to start
his day. The earplugs meant it hadn’t really started yet.

I leaned over and whispered to Amma, “What did you hear?”

She yanked my plate away and took it to the sink. She rinsed some bones that looked like pork shoulder, which was weird since
we’d had chicken tonight, and put them on a plate. “That’s none a your concern. What I’d like to know is why you’re so interested.”

I shrugged. “I’m not, really. Just curious.”

“You know what they say about curiosity.” She stuck a fork in my piece of buttermilk pie. Then she shot me the Look, and was
gone.

Even my father noticed the kitchen door swinging in her wake, and pulled an earplug out of one ear. “How was school?”

“Fine.”

“What did you do to Amma?”

“I was late for school.”

He studied my face. I studied his.

“Number 2?”

I nodded.

“Sharp?”

“Started out sharp and then she sharpened it.” I sighed. My dad almost smiled, which was rare. I felt a surge of relief, maybe
even accomplishment.

“Know how many times I sat at this old table while she pulled a pencil on me when I was a kid?” he asked, though it wasn’t
really a question. The table, nicked and flecked with paint and glue and marker from all the Wates leading up to me, was one
of the oldest things in the house.

I smiled. My dad picked up his cereal bowl and waved his spoon in my direction. Amma had raised my father, a fact I’d been
reminded of every time I even thought about sassing her when I was a kid.

“M. Y. R. I. A. D.” He spelled out the word as he dumped his bowl into the sink. “P. L. E. T. H. O. R. A. As in, more than
you, Ethan Wate.”

As he stepped into the kitchen light, the half-smile faded to a quarter, and then it was gone. He looked even worse than usual.
The shadows on his face were darker, and you could see the bones under his skin. His face was a pallid green from never leaving
the house. He looked a little bit like a living corpse, as he had for months now. It was hard to remember that he was the
same person who used to sit with me for hours on the shores of Lake Moultrie, eating chicken salad sandwiches and teaching
me how to cast a fishing line. “Back and forth. Ten and two. Ten and two. Like the hands of a clock.” The last five months
had been hard for him. He had really loved my mother. But so had I.