Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles 1)

“I can’t recollect. Do you remember a GD, Grace?”

“GD… GD? No, I can’t say as I do.” I’d lost them.

“Oh my goodness. Look here at the time, girls. It’s time for church,” Aunt Mercy said.

Aunt Grace motioned toward the garage door. “Ethan, you be a good boy and pull the Cadillac around, ya hear. We just have ta put on our faces.”

I drove them four blocks to the afternoon service, at the Evangelical Missionary Baptist Church, and pushed Aunt Mercy’s wheelchair up the gravel driveway. This took longer than actually driving to the church because every two or three feet the chair would sink into the gravel and I’d have to wiggle it from side to side to free it, nearly tipping it and dumping my great-aunt into the dirt. By the time the preacher took the third testimony from an old lady who swore Jesus had saved her rosebushes from Japanese beetles or her quilting hand from arthritis, I was zoning out. I flipped the locket through my fingers, inside the pocket of my jeans. Why did it show us that vision? Why did it suddenly stop working?

Ethan. Stop. You don’t know what you’re doing.

Lena was in my head again.

Put it away!

The room started to disappear around me and I could feel Lena’s fingers grasping mine, as if she was there beside me—

Nothing could have prepared Genevieve for the sight of Greenbrier burning. The flames licked up its sides, eating away at the lattice and swall

owing the veranda. Soldiers carried antiques and paintings out of the house, looting like common thieves. Where was everyone? Were they hiding in the woods like she was? Leaves crackled. She sensed someone behind her, but before she could turn around a muddy hand clamped over her mouth. She grabbed the person’s wrist with both hands, trying to break their hold.

“Genevieve, it’s me.” The hand loosened its grip.

“What are you doin’ here? Are you all right?” Genevieve threw her arms around the soldier, dressed in what was left of his once proud gray Confederate uniform.

“I am, darlin’,” Ethan said, but she knew he was lying.

“I thought you might be…”

Genevieve had only heard from Ethan in letters for the better part of the last two years, since he had enlisted, and she hadn’t received a letter since the Battle at Wilderness. Genevieve knew that many of the men who had followed Lee into that battle had never marched back out of Virginia. She had resigned herself to die a spinster. She had been so sure she had lost Ethan. It was almost unimaginable that he was alive, standing here, on this night.

“Where is the rest a your regiment?”

“The last I saw, they were outside a Summit.”

“What do you mean, the last you saw? Are they all dead?”

“I don’t know. When I left, they were still alive.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I deserted, Genevieve. I couldn’t fight one more day for somethin’ I didn’t believe in. Not after what I’ve seen. Most a the boys fightin’ with me didn’t even realize what this war is about—that they’re just spillin’ their blood over cotton.”

Ethan took her cold hands in his, rough with cuts. “I understand if you can’t marry me now. I don’t have any money and now I don’t have any honor.”

“I don’t care if you have any money, Ethan Carter Wate. You are the most honorable man I’ve ever known. And I don’t care if my daddy thinks our differences are too great to overcome. He’s wrong. You’re home now and we’re gonna get married.”

Genevieve clung to him, afraid he might disappear into thin air if she let go. The smell brought her back to the moment. The rancid smell of lemons burning, of their lives burning. “We have to head for the river. That’s where Mamma would go. She’d head south toward Aunt Julianne’s place.” But Ethan never had time to answer. Someone was coming. Branches were cracking like someone was thrashing through the brush.

“Get behind me,” Ethan ordered, pushing Genevieve behind him with one arm and grabbing his rifle with the other. The brush parted and Ivy, Greenbrier’s cook, stumbled into view. She was still in her nightgown, black with smoke. She screamed at the sight of the uniform, too frightened to notice it was gray, not blue.

“Ivy, are you all right?” Genevieve rushed forward to catch the old woman, who was already starting to fall.

“Miss Genevieve, what in the world are you doin’ out here?”

“I was tryin’ to get to Greenbrier. To warn y’all.”

“It’s too late for that, child, and it wouldn’t a done no good. Those Blue Birds broke down the doors and walked right into the house, like it was their own. They gave the place the once-over to see what they wanted to take, and then they just started settin’ fires.” It was almost impossible to understand her. She was hysterical, and every few seconds she was wracked with a fit of coughing, choking on both the smoke and her tears.