Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles 1)

One after the next, opening and closing like doors. One after another, second after second.

Two girls in white petticoats running in the grass, holding hands, laughing. Yellow ribbons tied in their hair.

Another door opened.

A young woman with caramel-colored skin, hanging clothes on a wash line, humming quietly, the breeze lifting the sheets into the wind. The woman turns toward a grand white Federal-style house and calls out, “Genevieve! Evangeline!”

And another.

A young girl moving across the clearing at dusk. She looks back to see if anyone is following her, red hair swinging behind her. Genevieve. She runs into the arms of a tall, lanky boy—a boy who could’ve been me. He leans down and kisses her. “I love you, Genevieve. And one day I’m goin’ to marry you. I don’t care what your family says. It can’t be impossible.” She touches his lips, gently.

“Shh. We don’t have much time.”

The door closes and another opens.

Rain, smoke, and the crackling sound of fire, eating, breathing. Genevieve stands in the darkness; black smoke and tears streak her face. There’s a black leather-bound book in her hand. It has no title, just a crescent moon embossed on the cover. She looks at the woman, the same woman who was hanging laundry on the clothesline. Ivy. “Why doesn’t it have a name?” The old woman’s eyes are filled with fear. “Just ’cause a book don’t have a title, don’t mean it don’t have a name. That right there is The Book a Moons.”

The door slams shut.

Ivy, older and sadder, standing over a freshly dug grave, a pine box resting deep in the hole. “Though I walk through the valley a the shadow a death, I fear no evil.” There is something in her hand. The Book, black leather with the crescent moon on the cover. “Take this with ya, Miss Genevieve. So it can’t cause nobody else any harm.” She tosses the Book into the hole with the casket.

Another door.

The four of us sitting around the half-dug hole, and below the dirt, farther down where we can’t see without Del’s help, the pine box. The Book rests against it. Then farther down, into the casket, Genevieve’s body, lying there in the darkness. Her eyes closed, her skin pale porcelain, as if she was still breathing, perfectly preserved in a way no corpse could ever be. Her long, fiery hair cascading onto her shoulders.

The view spirals back up, out of the ground. Back up to the four of us, sitting around the half-dug hole, holding hands. Up to the headstone and Genevieve’s faded figure, staring down at us.

Reece screamed. The last door slammed shut.

I tried to open my eyes, but I was dizzy. Del had been right, I felt like I was going to be sick. I tried to get my bearings, but my eyes wouldn’t focus. I felt Reece drop my hand, backing away from me, trying to get far away from Genevieve and her terrifying golden gaze.

Are you okay?

I think so.

Lena’s head was between her knees.

“Is everyone all right?” Aunt Del asked, her voice even and unshaken. Aunt Del didn’t seem so confused or clumsy anymore. If I had to see all that every time I looked at something, I’d pass out, or go crazy.

“I can’t believe that’s what you see,” I said, looking at Del, my eyes finally beginning to refocus.

“The gift of Palimpsestry is a great honor, and a greater burden.”

“The Book, it’s down there,” I said.

“That it is, but it appears it belongs to this woman,” Del said, gesturing toward Genevieve’s apparition, “who the two of you don’t seem particularly surprised to see.”

“We saw her before,” Lena admitted.

“Well, then, she chose to reveal herself to you. Seeing the dead is not one of the gifts of a Caster, even a Natural, and certainly not within the realm of Mortal talents. One can only see the dead if the dead so will it.”

I was scared. Not standing on the steps of Ravenwood scared, or having Ridley freeze the life out of me scared. This was something else. It was closer to the fear I felt when I awoke from the dreams, and the thought of losing Lena. It was a paralyzing fear. The kind you feel when you realize the powerful ghost of a cursed Dark Caster is staring down at you, in the middle of the night, watching you dig up her grave to steal a book from on top of her coffin. What was I thinking? What were we doing coming out here, digging up a grave under a full moon?

You were trying to right a wrong. There was a voice in my head, but it wasn’t Lena’s.

I turned to Lena. She was pale. Reece and Aunt Del were both staring at what was left of Genevieve. They could hear her, too. I looked up at the glowing golden eyes as she continued to fade in and out. She seemed to sense what we were here for.

Take it.