Beautiful Creatures (68 page)

It was almost noon by the time I started the long walk home. The blue skies were streaked with dark gray and gold. The pressure
was building, but it seemed a few hours from breaking. I think Lena was still in shock. But I was ready for the storm. And
when it came, it would make Gatlin’s hurricane season look like a spring shower.

Aunt Del had offered to drive me home, but I wanted to walk. Though every bone in my body ached, I needed to clear my head.
I jammed my hands in my jeans pockets and felt the familiar lump. The locket. Lena and I would have to find a way to give
it back to the other Ethan Wate, the one lying in his grave, just as Genevieve had wanted us to. Maybe it would give Ethan
Carter Wate some peace. We owed them both that much.

I came down the steep road leading up to Ravenwood and found myself once again at the fork in the road, the one that had seemed
so frightening before I knew Lena. Before I knew where I was going. Before I knew what real fear felt like, and real love.

I walked past the fields and down Route 9, thinking of that first drive, that first night in the storm. I thought about everything,
how I had almost lost my dad and Lena. How I had opened my eyes to see her staring at me, and all I could think was how lucky
I was. Before I realized we had lost Macon.

I thought about Macon, his books tied with string and paper, his perfectly pressed shirts, and his even more perfect composure.
I thought about how hard things were going to be for Lena, missing him, wishing she could hear his voice one more time. But
I would be there for her, the way I wished someone had been there for me when I lost my mom. And after the past few months,
after my mom sent us that message, I didn’t think Macon was really gone, either. Maybe he was still out there somewhere, looking
out for us. He had sacrificed himself for Lena, I was sure of that.

The right thing and the easy thing are never the same. No one knew that better than Macon.

I looked up at the sky. The swirls of gray were seeping across the flat blue, as blue as the paint on my bedroom ceiling.
I wondered if that one shade of blue really kept the carpenter bees from nesting. I wondered if those bees really believed
it was the sky.

It’s crazy what you see if you aren’t really looking.

I pulled my iPod out of my pocket and turned it on. There was a new song on the playlist.

I stared at it for a long time.

Seventeen Moons.

I clicked on it.

Seventeen moons, seventeen years,

Eyes where Dark or Light appears,

Gold for yes and green for no,

Seventeen the last to know.

I
T ONLY TOOK THREE MONTHS
to write the first draft of
Beautiful Creatures
. Turns out, the writing was the easy part. The getting it right part was harder, and took the help of a lot more people.
Here is the
Beautiful Creatures
family tree:

R
APHAEL
S
IMON
& H
ILARY
R
EYL

Who saw it before there was anything to see

S
ARAH
B
URNES, OF
T
HE
G
ERNERT
C
OMPANY
,

A
GENT
E
XTRAORDINAIRE

Who read it & got it from the start

C
OURTNEY
G
ATEWOOD
,

OF
T
HE
G
ERNERT
C
OMPANY
, A
GENT
007

Who got it across the pond & beyond

J
ENNIFER
H
UNT
& J
ULIE
S
CHEINA

L
ITTLE
, B
ROWN’S
M
ERCILESSLY
G
ENIUS
E
DITORIAL
T
EAM

Who made us sweat & cry until we got it right

D
AVE
C
APLAN
, O
UR
T
ALENTED AND
P
SYCHIC
D
ESIGNER

Who created the road to Ravenwood just as we imagined it

M
ATTHEW
C
HUPACK

Who translated our Pig Latin into actual Latin

A
LEX
H
OERNER
, P
HOTOGRAPHER TO THE
S
TARS
(
AND US
)

Who made us look good without any Casting

O
UR
N
ORTH
C
AROLINA
R
ELATIVES, ESPECIALLY

H
AYWOOD
A
INSLEY
E
ARLY
, G
ENEALOGIST

Who helped us plant our family trees

& A
NNA
G
ATLIN
H
ARMON
,

OUR FAVORITE
D
AUGHTER OF THE
C
ONFEDERACY

Who lent us her maiden name & kept us talkin’ right

A
ND
O
UR
R
EADERS
:

H
ANNAH
, A
LEX
C, T
ORI
, Y
VETTE
, S
AMANTHA
, M
ARTINE
, J
OYCE
,

O
SCAR
, D
AVID
, A
SH
, V
IRGINIA
, J
EAN X
2, K
ERRI
, D
AVE
,

M
ADELINE
, P
HILLIP
, D
EREK
, E
RIN
, R
UBY
,

A
MANDA
, & M
ARCOS

Whose wanting to know what happened next

changed what happened next

A
SHLY, AKA
T
EENAGE
V
AMPIRE
Q
UEEN

S
USAN
& J
OHN
, R
OBERT
& C
ELESTE
, B
URTON
& M
ARE

Who listened & cheered us on, as they have our whole lives

M
AY
& E
MMA

Who stayed home from school twice to edit out the cheese,

& who figured out the missing bit of the end,

as only a 13 & a 15 year old could

K
ATE
P
AND
N
ICK
& S
TELLA
G

Who fell asleep every night to the sound of a laptop clicking

&
OF COURSE
,

A
LEX
& L
EWIS

Who found all the holes

& made sure the universe didn’t fall through them,

who put up with all of the above

and then some.

Like Amma, K
AMI
G
ARCIA
is very superstitious, and like any self-respecting girl with Southern roots, she makes her biscuits by hand and her pies
from scratch. She has relatives in the Daughters of the American Revolution, but has yet to participate in a reenactment herself.
Kami attended George Washington University and has an MA in education. She is a teacher and reading specialist, and leads
book groups for children and teenagers.

Like Lena, writing has gotten M
ARGARET
S
TOHL
in and out of trouble since she was fifteen. She has written and designed many popular video games, which is why her two
bad beagles are named Zelda and Kirby. Margaret fell in love with American literature at Amherst and Yale, earned an MA in
English from Stanford, and studied creative writing under poet George MacBeth at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.

K
AMI AND
M
ARGARET
both live in Los Angeles, California, with their families.
Beautiful Creatures
is their debut novel. Kami and Margaret invite you to visit them online at
www.kamigarciamargaretstohl.com
.