Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles 2)

I stared at the tall stone columns flanking the entrance to Savannah’s famed Bonaventure Cemetery, on the outskirts of town. It was one of the most famous cemeteries in the South, and one of the most well protected. Which was a problem, since it had closed at dusk.

“Dude, this is a joke, right? Are you guys sure this is where we’re supposed to be?” Link didn’t look too happy about wandering around the cemetery at night, especially with a guard at the entrance and a patrol car that passed by the front gates every so often.

Liv looked up at a statue of a woman clinging to a cross. “Let’s get this over with.”

Link pulled out his garden shears. “I don’t think these babies will do the job.”

“Not through the gates.” I pointed at the wall on the other side of the trees. “Over them.”

Liv managed to step on every part of my face, kick me in the neck, and wrench her sneakers deep into my shoulder blade before I shoved all six pounds of her over the gate. She lost her balance at the top and landed with a thump.

“I’m fine. No worries,” Liv called from the other side of the wall.

Link and I looked at each other, and he bent down. “You first. I’ll climb up the hard way.”

I stepped on his back, grabbing onto the wall. He pushed himself up until he was standing. “Yeah? How are you gonna do that?”

“Gotta look for a tree that’s close enough to the wall. Has to be one somewhere around here. Don’t worry. I’ll find you.”

I was at the top. I clung to the wall with both hands.

“I didn’t ditch school all these years for nothin’.”

I smiled, and let myself fall.

Five minutes and seven trees later, the Arclight led us deeper into the cemetery, past the crumbling Confederate headstones and the statues guarding the homes of those who had been forgotten. There was a tight cluster of moss-covered oaks, whose crossed branches created an arch over the path, barely wide enough to squeeze through. The Arclight was flashing and pulsing.

“We’re here. This is it, right?” I looked over Liv’s shoulder at the selenometer.

Link looked around. “Where? I don’t see anything.” I pointed to space between the trees. “Seriously?”

Liv looked nervous, too. She didn’t want to climb through brambles of Spanish moss in a dark graveyard. “I can’t get a reading now. It’s going crazy.”

“It doesn’t matter. This is it, I’m sure.”

“You think Lena and Ridley and John are back there?” Link looked like he was planning to go back and wait for us out front, or maybe at a rib joint.

“I don’t know.” I pushed the moss aside and stepped through.

On the other side, the trees were even more ominous, hanging over our heads and creating a sky of their own. There was a clearing ahead of us, with a huge statue of a beseeching angel in the center of the graves. The graves were bordered in stone, outlining the breadth of each plot. You could almost see the coffins buried in the earth beneath them.

“Ethan, look.” Liv pointed past the statue. I could see silhouettes framed by a tiny slice of moonlight. They were moving.

We had company.

Link shook his head. “This can’t be good.”

For a second, I couldn’t move. What if it was Lena and John? What were they doing in a graveyard at night, alone? I followed the path, flanked by even more statues—kneeling angels staring into the heavens, or the ones looking down at us as they wept.

I had no idea what to expect, but when the two figures came into view, they were the last two people I expected to see.

Amma and Arelia, Macon’s mother. The last time I’d seen her was at Macon’s funeral. They were sitting between the graves. I was a dead man. I should have known Amma would find me.

There was another woman sitting in the dirt with them. I didn’t recognize her. She was a little older than Arelia, with the same golden skin. Her hair was woven in hundreds of tiny braids, and she was wearing twenty or thirty strands of beads—some gemstones and colored glass, others tiny birds and animals. She had at least ten holes winding around each ear, and long earrings hung from each hole.

The three of them were sitting cross-legged in a circle, headstones dotting the dirt around them. Their hands were joined in the center of the circle. Amma had her back to us, but I had no doubt she knew I was there.

“It took you long enough. We’ve been waitin’, and you know how I hate to wait.” Amma’s voice was no more agitated than usual, which didn’t make any sense, since I had disappeared without even a note.