Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles 1)

I unbolted the lock again. It bolted shut with a snap, before I could take my hand away from it. “Mrs. Lincoln, I’m sorry, my door seems to be stuck.” I rattled the door with all my weight, juggling the console. Something fell to the floor in front of me. I stopped to pick it up. Garlic, wrapped in one of Amma’s handkerchiefs. If I had to guess, there was one over every door and every windowsill. Amma’s little Halloween tradition.

Still, something was keeping the door from opening, just like something had tried to open the study door for me just days ago. How many bolts in this house were going to just keep locking and unlocking themselves? What was going on?

I unbolted the lock one more time and gave the door a final pull. It flung open, banging against the wall in the front hall. Mrs. Lincoln was lit from behind, a dark figure in a pool of pale lamplight. The silhouette was unsettling.

She stared at the game console in my hand. “Video games will rot your brain, Ethan.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I brought you some brownies. A peace offerin’.” She held them out expectantly. I should’ve asked her to come in. There was a formula for everything. I guess you could call it manners, Southern hospitality. But I had tried that with Ridley, and it hadn’t gone so well. I hesitated. “What are you doing out tonight, ma’am? Link’s not here.”

“Of course he’s not. He’s at the Snows’, which is where every upstandin’ member a the Jackson High student body should be lucky enough to be. It took quite a number a phone calls on my part to get him an invitation, in light a his recent behavior.”

I still didn’t get it. I’d known Mrs. Lincoln my whole life. She had always been an odd duck. Busy getting books taken off the library shelves, teachers fired from the schools, reputations ruined in a single afternoon. Lately, she was different. The crusade against Lena was different. Mrs. Lincoln had always had conviction, but this was personal.

“Ma’am?”

She looked agitated. “I made you brownies. I thought I could come in, and we could talk. My fight’s not with you, Ethan. It’s not your fault that girl is usin’ her deviltry on you. You should be at the party, with your friends. With the kids who belong here.” She held out the brownies, the gooey double chocolate chip fudge brownies that were always the first thing to go at the Baptist Church Bake Sale. I had grown up on those brownies. “Ethan?”

“Ma’am.”

“Can I come in?”

I didn’t move a muscle. My grip tightened around the console. I stared at the brownies, and suddenly I didn’t feel hungry at all. Not even the plate, not a crumb of that woman was welcome in my house. My house, like Ravenwood, was starting to have a mind of its own, and there was no part of me or my house that was going to let her in.

“No, ma’am.”

“What was that, Ethan?”

“No. Ma’am.”

Her eyes narrowed. She pushed the plate toward me, as if she was going to come in anyway, but it jerked like it had hit an invisible wall between her and me. I saw the plate tumble, falling slowly to the ground until it shattered into a million bits of ceramic and chocolate, all over our Happy Halloween doormat. Amma would pitch a fit in the morning.

Mrs. Lincoln backed down the porch steps warily, and disappeared into the darkness of the old Desert Sand.

Ethan!

Her voice ripped me right out of my sleep. I must have drifted off. The horror marathon was over and the television had broken down into a loud, gray fuzz.

Uncle Macon! Ethan! Help!

Lena was screaming. Somewhere. I could hear the terror in her voice, and my head was pounding with such pain for a second I forgot where I was.

Someone please help me!

My front door was wide open, swinging and banging in the wind. The sound ricocheted off the walls, like gunfire.

I thought you said I was safe here!

Ravenwood.

I grabbed the car keys to the old Volvo, and ran.

I can’t remember how I got to Ravenwood, but I know I nearly drove off the road a few times. My eyes could barely focus. Lena was in such intense pain, our connection so close, that I nearly blacked out just from feeling it through her.

And the screaming.

There was always the screaming, from the moment I’d woken up, until the moment I pressed the crescent and let myself into Ravenwood Manor.