Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles 1)

“My mother? My own mother?”

The door flung open. Macon stood there in the doorway, a disheveled mess. He was in rumpled linen pajamas, only what it really was, I hate to say, was more of a nightdress. His eyes were redder than usual and his skin whiter, his hair tousled. He looked like he had been run over by a Mack truck.

In his own way, he wasn’t all that different from my dad, a fine mess. Maybe a finer mess. Except the nightdress; my dad wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress.

“My mother is Sarafine? That thing that tried to kill me on Halloween? How could you keep this from me?”

Macon shook his head and rubbed his hand over his hair, annoyed. “Amarie.” I would’ve paid anything to see Macon and Amma square off in a fight. My money would be on Amma, all the way.

Macon stepped across his doorway, pulling the door shut behind him. I caught a glimpse of his bedroom. It looked like something out of Phantom of the Opera, with wrought iron candelabras standing taller than I was and a black four-poster bed draped with gray and black velvet. The windows were draped with the same material, hanging sullenly over the black plantation shutters. Even the walls were upholstered in fraying black and gray fabric that was probably a hundred years old. The room was pitch dark, dark as night. The effect was chilling.

Darkness, real darkness, was something more than just a lack of light.

As Macon stepped through the doorway, he emerged into the hall perfectly dressed, not a hair out of place on his head, not a wrinkle in his slacks or crisp white shirt. Even the smooth buckskin shoes were without a scuff. He looked nothing like he had a moment before, and all he’d done was step through his own bedroom door.

I looked at Lena. She hadn’t even noticed, and I felt cold, remembering for a moment how different her life must have always been than mine. “My mother’s alive?”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“You mean, the part about how my own mother wants to kill me? When were you going to tell me, Uncle Macon? When I was already Claimed?”

“Please don’t start this again. You’re not going Dark.” Macon sighed.

“I can’t imagine how you can think otherwise. Since I am the daughter of, and I quote, ‘the Darkest Caster living today’.”

“I understand you’re upset. This is a lot to take in, and I should have told you myself. But you have to believe I was trying to protect you.”

Lena was more than just angry now. “Protect me! You let me believe that Halloween was just some random attack, but it was my mother! My mother is alive, and she was trying to kill me, and you didn’t think I should know about it?”

“We don’t know that she’s trying to kill you.”

Picture frames started to bang against the walls. The bulbs in the fixtures lining the hallway shorted out one by one, down the length of the hallway. The sound of rain pelted the shutters.

“Haven’t we had enough bad weather in the last few weeks?”

“What else have you been lying about? What am I going to find out next? That my father is alive, too?”

“I’m afraid not.” He said it like it was a tragedy, something too sad to talk about. It was the same tone people used when they talked about my mother’s death.

“You have to help me.” Her voice was cracking.

“I will do everything in my power to help you, Lena. I always have.”

“That’s not true,” she spat back at him. “You haven’t told me about my powers. You haven’t taught me how to protect myself.”

“I don’t know the scope of your powers. You’re a Natural. When you need t

o do something, you’ll do it. In your own way, in your own time.”

“My own mother wants to kill me. I don’t have any time.”

“As I said before, we don’t know that she’s trying to kill you.”

“Then how do you explain Halloween?”

“There are other possibilities. Del and I are trying to work that out.” Macon turned away from her, as if he was going to go back into his room. “You need to calm down. We can talk about this later.”

Lena turned toward a vase, sitting on the credenza at the end of the hall. As if pulled by a string, the vase followed her eyes to the wall next to Macon’s bedroom door, flying across the room and smashing against the plaster. It was far enough from Macon to be sure it wouldn’t have hit him, but close enough to make a point. It wasn’t an accident.