Beautiful Creatures (47 page)

Macon paced. “That’s not important.”

“Actually, it’s important to me.”

Macon shrugged. “It’s Boo. He is, for lack of a better word, my eyes.”

“What?”

“He sees what I see. I see what he sees. He’s a Caster dog, you know.”

“Uncle Macon! You’ve been spying on me!”

“Not on you, in particular. How do you think I manage as the town shut-in? I wouldn’t get far without man’s best friend. Boo
here sees everything, so I see everything.” I looked at Boo. I could see the eyes, human eyes. I should have known, maybe
I had always known. He had Macon’s eyes.

And something else, something he was chewing. He had a ball of something in his mouth. I bent down to take it from him. It
was a crumpled, soggy Polaroid. He had carried it all the way from the gym.

Our picture from the formal. I was standing there, with Lena, in the middle of the fake snow. Emily was wrong. Lena’s kind
did show up on film, only she was shimmering, transparent, as if from the waist down she had already begun to dissolve into
some kind of ghostly apparition. Like she really was melting, before the snow had even hit her.

I patted Boo’s head and pocketed the photo. This wasn’t something Lena needed to see, not right now. Two months until her
birthday. I didn’t need the picture to know we were running out of time.

12.16

L
ena was sitting on the porch when I pulled up. I insisted on driving because Link wanted to ride with us, and he couldn’t
risk being seen in the hearse. And I didn’t want Lena to have to walk in alone. I didn’t even want her to go, but there was
no talking her out of it. She looked like she was ready for battle. She was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, black jeans,
and a black vest with a fur-trimmed hood. She was about to face the firing squad, and she knew it.

It had only been three days since the dance, and the DAR hadn’t wasted any time. The Jackson Disciplinary Committee meeting
this afternoon wasn’t going to be much different than a witch trial, and you didn’t have to be a Caster to know that. Emily
was limping around in a cast, the winter formal disaster had become the talk of the town, and Mrs. Lincoln finally had all
the support she needed. Witnesses had come forward. And if you twisted everything everyone claimed they saw, heard, or remembered
far enough, you could squint, slant your head just right, and try to see the logic: that Lena Duchannes was responsible.

Everything was fine until she came to town.

Link jumped out and opened the door for Lena. He was so riddled with guilt, he looked like he was going to puke. “Hey, Lena.
How ya doin’?”

“I’m okay.”

Liar.

I don’t want him to feel bad. It’s not his fault.

Link cleared his throat. “I’m real sorry about this. I’ve been fightin’ with my mom all weekend. She’s always been crazy,
but this time it’s different.”

“It’s not your fault, but I appreciate you trying to talk to her.”

“It might have made a difference if all those hags from the DAR weren’t talkin’ her other ear off. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Asher
must’ve called my house a hundred times in the last two days.”

We drove past the Stop & Steal. Even Fatty wasn’t there. The roads were deserted, like we were driving through a ghost town.
The Disciplinary Committee meeting was scheduled for five o’clock sharp, and we were going to be right on time. The meeting
was in the gym because it was the only place at Jackson big enough to accommodate the number of people that were likely to
show up. That was another thing about Gatlin, everything that went on involved everyone. There were no closed proceedings
around here. From the look of the streets, the whole town had all but shut down, which meant just about everyone was going
to be at the meeting.

“I just don’t get how your mom pulled this off so quickly. This is fast even for her.”

“From what I overheard, Doc Asher got involved. He hunts with Principal Harper and some bigwig on the School Board.” Doc Asher
was Emily’s dad and the only real doctor in town.

“Great.”

“You guys know I’m probably going to get kicked out, right? I’ll bet it’s already been decided. This meeting is just for show.”

Link looked confused. “They can’t kick you out without hearin’ your side a the story. You didn’t even do anything.”

“None of that matters. These things are decided behind closed doors. Nothing I say is going to matter.”

She was right, and we both knew it. So I didn’t say anything. Instead, I pulled her hand up to my mouth and kissed it, wishing
for the hundredth time that it was me going up against the whole School Board, instead of Lena.

But the thing was, it would never have been me. No matter what I did, no matter what I said, I would always be one of them.
Lena never would. And I think that was the thing that made me the angriest, and the most embarrassed. I hated them even more
because deep down, they still claimed me as one of their own, even when I dated Old Man Ravenwood’s niece and took on Mrs.
Lincoln and wasn’t invited to Savannah Snow’s parties. I was one of them. I belonged to them, and there was nothing I could
do to change that. And if the opposite were true, and in some way they belonged to me, then what Lena was up against wasn’t
just them. It was me.

The truth was killing me. Maybe Lena was going to be Claimed on her sixteenth birthday, but I had been claimed since birth.
I had no more control over my fate than she did. Maybe none of us did.

I pulled the car into the parking lot. It was full. There was a crowd of people lined up at the main entrance, waiting to
get in. I hadn’t seen this many people in one place since the opening of
Gods and Generals
, the longest and most boring Civil War movie ever made and one that half my relatives starred in as extras, because they
owned their own uniforms.

Link ducked down in the backseat. “I’m gonna slide out here. I’ll see y’all in there.” He pushed open the door and crawled
out between the cars. “Good luck.”

Lena’s hands were in her lap, shaking. It killed me to see her this nervous. “You don’t have to go in there. We can turn around
and I can drive you right back to your house.”

“No. I’m going in.”

“Why do you want to subject yourself to this? You said it yourself, this is probably just for show.”

“I’m not going to let them think I’m scared to face them. I left my last school, but I’m not going to run away this time.”
She took a deep breath.

“It’s not running away.”

“It is to me.”

“Is your uncle coming at least?”

“He can’t.”

“Why the hell not?” She was all alone in this, even though I was standing right next to her.

“It’s too early. I didn’t even tell him.”

“Too early? What is that about, anyway? Is he locked up in his crypt or something?”

“More like,
or something
.”

It wasn’t worth trying to talk about now. She was going to have enough to deal with in a few minutes.

We walked toward the building. It started to rain. I looked at her.

Believe me, I’m trying. If I let go, it would be a tornado.

People were staring, even pointing, not that I was surprised. So much for common decency. I looked around, half expecting
to see Boo Radley sitting by the door, but tonight, he was nowhere in sight.

We entered the gym from the side, coincidentally—the Visitor’s entrance, Link’s idea, which turned out to be a good one. Because
once we got inside, I realized people weren’t standing out front waiting to get in, they were just hoping to hear the meeting.
Inside, it was standing room only.

It looked like a pathetic version of a grand jury hearing from an episode of one of those courtroom dramas on TV. There was
a big plastic folding table in the front of the room, and a few teachers—Mr. Lee of course, sporting a red bow tie and his
own backwoods brand of pre-judice; Principal Harper; and a couple of people who must have been members of the School Board—sitting
in a row at the tables. They all looked old and annoyed, like they wished they could be at home watching QVC or religious
programming.

The bleachers were filled with Gatlin’s finest. Mrs. Lincoln and her DAR lynch mob were taking up the first three rows, with
the members of the Sisters of the Confederacy, the First Methodist Choir, and the Historical Society taking up the next few.
Right behind them were the Jackson Angels—also known as, the girls who wanted to be Emily and Savannah, and the guys who wanted
to get into Emily’s and Savannah’s pants—sporting their freshly screened Guardian tees. The front of the shirts had a picture
of an angel that looked suspiciously like Emily Asher, with her huge white angel wings spread wide open, wearing what else—a
Jackson High Wildcats T-shirt. On the back, there was simply a pair of white wings designed to look like they were sprouting
right out of the person’s back, and the Angels’ battle cry, “We’ll Be Watching You.”

Emily was sitting next to Mrs. Asher, her leg and its huge cast propped up on one of the orange cafeteria chairs. Mrs. Lincoln
narrowed her eyes when she saw us, and Mrs. Asher put her arm around Emily protectively, as if one of us might run over there
and beat her with a club like a defenseless baby seal pup. I saw Emily slip her phone out of her tiny silver bag, text-ready.
Soon, her fingers would be flying. Our school gym was probably the epicenter of local gossip for four counties tonight.

Amma was sitting a few rows back, fiddling with the charm around her neck. Hopefully, it would make Mrs. Lincoln grow the
horns she’d been so artfully hiding all these years. Of course, my dad wasn’t there, but the Sisters were sitting next to
Thelma, across the aisle from Amma. Things must have been worse than I thought. The Sisters hadn’t been out of the house this
late since 1980, when Aunt Grace ate too much spicy Hoppin’ John and thought she was having a heart attack. Aunt Mercy caught
my eye and waved her handkerchief.

I walked Lena to the seat in the front of the room obviously reserved for her. It was right in front of the firing squad,
dead center.

It’s going to be okay.

Promise?

I could hear the rain pounding on the roof outside.

I promise this doesn’t matter. I promise these people are idiots. I promise nothing they say will ever change the way I feel
about you.

I’ll take that as a no.

The rain beat down harder on the roof, not a good sign. I took her hand and pressed something into it. The little silver button
from Lena’s vest, that I’d found in the Beater’s cracked upholstery, the night we met in the rain. It looked like a piece
of junk, but I had carried it in my jeans pocket ever since.

Here. It’s sort of a good luck charm. At least it brought something good to me.

I could see how hard she was trying not to crack. Without a word, Lena took off her chain and added it to her own collection
of valuable junk.

Thanks.
If she could have smiled, she would have.

I made my way back toward the row where the Sisters and Amma were sitting. Aunt Grace stood up, resting on her cane. “Ethan,
over here. We saved you a seat, darlin’.”

“Why don’t you sit down, Grace Statham,” an old blue-haired woman sitting behind the Sisters hissed.

Aunt Prue turned around. “Why don’t you mind your own business, Sadie Honeycutt, or I will mind it for you.”

Aunt Grace turned to Mrs. Honeycutt and smiled. “Now you come right on over here, Ethan.”

I squeezed in between Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace. “How you holdin’ up, Sweet Meat?” Thelma smiled and pinched my arm.

Thunder crashed outside, and the lights flickered. A few old women gasped.

An uptight-looking guy sitting in the middle of the big folding table cleared his throat. “Just a little hiccup in the power
is all. Why doesn’t everyone kindly take their seats so we can get started. My name is Bertrand Hollingsworth, and I’m Head
a the School Board. This meeting’s been called to respond to the petition requestin’ the expulsion of a Jackson student, a
Miss Lena Duchannes, is that right?”