Beautiful Creatures (42 page)

“Mamma, be careful.” Reece looped her arm through her mother’s, helping her negotiate the overgrowth. Aunt Del had a hard
enough time walking around without bumping into anything in the daylight, but in the dark it was asking too much.

“We have to make a rubbing from one of our ancestors’ tombstones. We’re studying genealogy.” Well, that was sort of true.

“Why Genevieve?” Reece asked, looking suspicious.

Reece looked at Lena, but Lena immediately turned away. Lena had warned me not to let Reece see my face. Apparently, one look
was all it took for a Sybil to know if you were lying. Lying to a Sybil was even trickier than lying to Amma.

“She’s the one in the painting, in the hall. I just thought it would be cool to use her. It’s not like we have a big family
cemetery to choose from, like most people around here.”

The hypnotic Caster music from the party was starting to fade in the distance, replaced by the sound of dry leaves crackling
under our feet. We had crossed over into Greenbrier. We were getting close. It was dark, but the full moon was so bright we
didn’t even need our flashlights. I remembered what Amma had said to Macon at the graveyard.
Half moon’s for workin’ White magic, full moon’s for workin’ Black.
We weren’t going to be working any magic, I hoped, but it didn’t make it seem any less spooky.

“I’m not sure Macon would want us wandering out here in the dark. Did you tell him where we were going?” Aunt Del was apprehensive.
She pulled on the collar of her high-necked lace blouse.

“I told him we were going for a walk. He just told me to stay with you.”

“I don’t know that I’m in good enough shape for this. I have to admit, I’m a bit winded.” Aunt Del was out of breath, and
the hair around her face had escaped from her always slightly off-center bun.

Then I smelled that familiar scent. “We’re here.”

“Thank goodness.”

We walked toward the crumbling stone wall of the garden, where I’d found Lena crying the day after the window shattered. I
ducked under the archway of vines, into the garden. It looked different at night, less like a spot for cloud gazing and more
like the place a cursed Caster would be buried.

This is it, Ethan. She’s here. I can feel it.

Me, too.

Where do you think her grave is?

As we crossed over the hearthstone where I’d found the locket, I could see another stone in the clearing a few yards just
beyond it. A headstone, with a hazy looking figure sitting on it.

I heard Lena gasp, just barely loud enough for me to hear.

Ethan, can you see her?

Yeah.

Genevieve. She was only partially materialized, a mix of cloudy haze and light, fading in and out as the air moved through
her ghostly form, but there was no mistaking it. It was Genevieve, the woman in the painting. She had the same golden eyes
and long, wavy red hair. Her hair blew gently in the wind, as if she was just a woman sitting on a bench at the bus stop,
instead of an apparition sitting on a headstone in a graveyard. She was beautiful, even in her present state, and terrifying
at the same time. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

Maybe this was a mistake.

Aunt Del stopped dead in her tracks. She saw Genevieve, too, but it was clear she didn’t think anyone else could see her.
She probably thought the apparition was just the result of seeing too many times at once, the muddled images of this place
in twenty different decades.

“I think we should go back to the house. I’m not feeling very well.” Aunt Del clearly didn’t want to mess with a hundred-and-fifty-year-old
ghost in a Caster graveyard.

Lena tripped over a loose vine and stumbled. I grabbed her arm to catch her, but I wasn’t fast enough. “Are you okay?”

She caught herself and looked up at me for a split second, but a split second was all Reece needed. She zeroed in on Lena’s
eyes, looking into her face, her expression, her thoughts.

“Mamma, they’re lyin’! They aren’t doin’ a history project at all. They’re lookin’ for somethin’.” Reece put her hand to her
temple as if she was adjusting a piece of equipment. “A book!”

Aunt Del looked confused, even more confused than she usually looked. “What sort of book would you be looking for in a graveyard?”

Lena broke away from Reece’s gaze and her hold. “It’s a book that belonged to Genevieve.”

I unzipped the duffel bag I’d been carrying and pulled out a shovel. I walked toward the grave slowly, trying to ignore the
fact that Genevieve’s ghost was watching me the whole time. Maybe I was going to get struck by lightning or something; it
wouldn’t have surprised me. But we’d come this far. I pushed the shovel into the ground, scooping out a pile of earth.

“Oh, Great Mother! Ethan, what are you doing?” Apparently, grave digging brought Aunt Del back to the present.

“I’m looking for the book.”

“In there?” Aunt Del looked faint. “What sort of book would be in there?”

“It’s a Casting book, a really old one. We don’t even know if it’s in there. It’s just a hunch,” Lena said, glancing at Genevieve,
who was still perched on the tombstone only a foot away.

I tried not to look at Genevieve. It was disturbing the way her body faded in and out, and she stared at us with those creepy
golden cat eyes, vacant and lifeless like they were made of glass.

The ground wasn’t that hard, especially considering it was December. Within a few minutes, I had already dug a foot deep.
Aunt Del was pacing back and forth, looking worried. Every once in a while, she’d look around to be sure none of us were watching,
then she’d glance over at Genevieve. At least I wasn’t the only one freaked out about her.

“We should go back. This is disgustin’,” Reece said, trying to make eye contact with me.

“Don’t be such a Girl Scout,” Lena said, kneeling over the hole.

Does Reece see her?

I don’t think so. Just don’t make eye contact with her.

What if Reece reads Aunt Del’s face?

She can’t. No one can. Aunt Del sees too much at once. No one but a Palimpsest can process all that information and make any
sense of it.

“Mamma, are you really going to let them dig up a grave?”

“For star’s sake, this is ridiculous. Let’s stop this foolishness right now and go back to the party.”

“We can’t. We have to know if the book is down there.” Lena turned to Aunt Del. “You could show us.”

What are you talking about?

She can show us what’s down there. She can project what she sees.

“I don’t know. Macon wouldn’t like it.” Aunt Del was biting her lip uneasily.

“Do you think he’d prefer we dig up a grave?” Lena countered.

“All right, all right. Get out of that hole, Ethan.”

I stepped out of the hole, wiping the dirt on my pants. I looked over at Genevieve. She had a peculiar look on her face, almost
as if she was interested to see what was about to happen, or maybe she was just about to vaporize us.

“Everyone, have a seat. This might make you dizzy. If you feel queasy, put your head between your knees,” Aunt Del instructed,
like some kind of supernatural flight attendant. “The first time is always the hardest.” Aunt Del reached out so we could
take her hands.

“I can’t believe you are participatin’ in this, Mamma.”

Aunt Del took the clip out of her bun, letting her hair spill down around her shoulders. “Don’t be such a Girl Scout, Reece.”

Reece rolled her eyes and took my hand. I glanced up at Genevieve. She looked right at me, right into me, and held a finger
to her lips as if to say, “Shh.”

The air began to dissolve around us. Then we were spinning like one of those rides where they strap you against the wall and
the whole thing spins so fast you think you’re going to puke.

Then flashes—

One after the next, opening and closing like doors. One after another, second after second.

Two girls in white petticoats running in the grass, holding hands, laughing. Yellow ribbons tied in their hair.

Another door opened.

A young woman with caramel-colored skin, hanging clothes on a wash line, humming quietly, the breeze lifting the sheets into
the wind. The woman turns toward a grand white Federal-style house and calls out,
“Genevieve! Evangeline!”

And another.

A young girl moving across the clearing at dusk. She looks back to see if anyone is following her, red hair swinging behind
her. Genevieve. She runs into the arms of a tall, lanky boy—a boy who could’ve been me. He leans down and kisses her.
“I love you, Genevieve. And one day I’m goin’ to marry you. I don’t care what your family says. It can’t be impossible.”
She touches his lips, gently.

“Shh. We don’t have much time.”

The door closes and another opens.

Rain, smoke, and the crackling sound of fire, eating, breathing. Genevieve stands in the darkness; black smoke and tears streak
her face. There’s a black leather-bound book in her hand. It has no title, just a crescent moon embossed on the cover. She
looks at the woman, the same woman who was hanging laundry on the clothesline. Ivy.
“Why doesn’t it have a name?”
The old woman’s eyes are filled with fear.
“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.”

The door slams shut.

Ivy, older and sadder, standing over a freshly dug grave, a pine box resting deep in the hole.
“Though I walk through the valley a the shadow a death, I fear no evil.”
There is something in her hand. The Book, black leather with the crescent moon on the cover.
“Take this with ya, Miss Genevieve. So it can’t cause nobody else any harm.”
She tosses the Book into the hole with the casket.

Another door.

The four of us sitting around the half-dug hole, and below the dirt, farther down where we can’t see without Del’s help, the
pine box. The Book rests against it. Then farther down, into the casket, Genevieve’s body, lying there in the darkness. Her
eyes closed, her skin pale porcelain, as if she was still breathing, perfectly preserved in a way no corpse could ever be.
Her long, fiery hair cascading onto her shoulders.

The view spirals back up, out of the ground. Back up to the four of us, sitting around the half-dug hole, holding hands. Up
to the headstone and Genevieve’s faded figure, staring down at us.

Reece screamed. The last door slammed shut.

♦  ♦  ♦

I tried to open my eyes, but I was dizzy. Del had been right, I felt like I was going to be sick. I tried to get my bearings,
but my eyes wouldn’t focus. I felt Reece drop my hand, backing away from me, trying to get far away from Genevieve and her
terrifying golden gaze.

Are you okay?

I think so.

Lena’s head was between her knees.

“Is everyone all right?” Aunt Del asked, her voice even and unshaken. Aunt Del didn’t seem so confused or clumsy anymore.
If I had to see all that every time I looked at something, I’d pass out, or go crazy.

“I can’t believe that’s what you see,” I said, looking at Del, my eyes finally beginning to refocus.

“The gift of Palimpsestry is a great honor, and a greater burden.”

“The Book, it’s down there,” I said.

“That it is, but it appears it belongs to this woman,” Del said, gesturing toward Genevieve’s apparition, “who the two of
you don’t seem particularly surprised to see.”

“We saw her before,” Lena admitted.

“Well, then, she chose to reveal herself to you. Seeing the dead is not one of the gifts of a Caster, even a Natural, and
certainly not within the realm of Mortal talents. One can only see the dead if the dead so will it.”

I was scared. Not standing on the steps of Ravenwood scared, or having Ridley freeze the life out of me scared. This was something
else. It was closer to the fear I felt when I awoke from the dreams, and the thought of losing Lena. It was a paralyzing fear.
The kind you feel when you realize the powerful ghost of a cursed Dark Caster is staring down at you, in the middle of the
night, watching you dig up her grave to steal a book from on top of her coffin. What was I thinking? What were we doing coming
out here, digging up a grave under a full moon?

You were trying to right a wrong
. There was a voice in my head, but it wasn’t Lena’s.

I turned to Lena. She was pale. Reece and Aunt Del were both staring at what was left of Genevieve. They could hear her, too.
I looked up at the glowing golden eyes as she continued to fade in and out. She seemed to sense what we were here for.

Take it.

I looked at Genevieve, unsure. She closed her eyes and nodded ever so slightly.

“She wants us to take the Book,” Lena said. I guessed I wasn’t losing my mind.

“How do we know we can trust her?” She was a Dark Caster after all. With the same golden eyes as Ridley.

Lena looked back at me, with a glint of excitement. “We don’t.”

There was only one thing to do.

Dig.

The Book looked exactly as it had in the vision, cracked black leather, embossed with a tiny crescent moon. It smelled like
desperation and it felt heavy, not just physically, but psychically. This was a Dark book; I knew it just from the seconds
I managed to hold it, before it singed the skin off my fingertips. It felt like the Book was stealing a little bit of my breath
each time I inhaled.

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.