Beautiful_Creatures[1].pdf

Beautiful Creatures

By Kami Garcia

this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any

means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission

the publisher.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com .

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Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

First eBook Edition: December 2009

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real

persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the authors. To the extent

any

real names of individuals, locations, or organizations are included in the book, they are

used fictitiously and not intended to be taken otherwise.

STRENGTH TO LOVE and LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL speeches by DR.

heirs to the estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House New York, NY.

ISBN: 978-0-316-07128-4

Contents

Before: The Middle of Nowhere

9.02: Dream On

9.02: New Girl

9.02: A Hole in the Sky

9.11: Collision

9.12: Broken Glass

9.12: Greenbrier

9.12: The Sisters

9.14: The Real Boo Radley

9.15: A Fork in the Road

9.24: The Last Three Rows

10.09: Gathering Days

10.09: A Crack in the Plaster

10.09: The Greats

10.10: Red Sweater

10.13: Marian the Librarian

10.31: Hallow E‘en

11.01: The Writing on the Wall

11.27: Just Your Average American Holiday

11.28: Domus Lunae Libri

12.01: It Rhymes with Witch

12.06: Lost and Found

12.07: Grave Digging

12.08: Waist Deep

12.13: Melting

12.16: When the Saints Go Marching In

12.19: White Christmas

1.12: Promise

2.04: The Sandman or Something Like Him

2.05: The Battle of Honey Hill

2.11: Sweet Sixteen

2.11: Lollipop Girl

2.11: Family Reunion

2.11: The Claiming

2.12: Silver Lining

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

For

Nick & Stella

Emma, May & Kate

and

all our casters & outcasters, everywhere.

There are more of us than you think.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate;

only love can do that.

—M ARTIN L UTHER K ING J R .

BEFORE

The Middle of Nowhere

There were only two kinds of people in our town. ―The stupid and the stuck,‖ my father

had affectionately classified our neighbors. ―The ones who are bound to stay or too

dumb

to go. Everyone else finds a way out.‖ There was no question which one he was, but I‘d

never had the courage to ask why. My father was a writer, and we lived in Gatlin, South

Carolina, because the Wates always had, since my great-great-great-great-granddad,

Ellis

Wate, fought and died on the other side of the Santee River during the Civil War.

Only folks down here didn‘t call it the Civil War. Everyone under the age of sixty called

it the War Between the States, while everyone over sixty called it the War of Northern

Aggression, as if somehow the North had baited the South into war over a bad bale of

cotton. Everyone, that is, except my family. We called it the Civil War.

Just another reason I couldn‘t wait to get out of here.

Gatlin wasn‘t like the small towns you saw in the movies, unless it was a movie from

about fifty years ago. We were too far from Charleston to have a Starbucks or a

McDonald‘s. All we had was a Dar-ee Keen, since the Gentrys were too cheap to buy all

new letters when they bought the Dairy King. The library still had a card catalog, the

high

school still had chalkboards, and our community pool was Lake Moultrie, warm brown

water and all. You could see a movie at the Cineplex about the same time it came out

DVD, but you had to hitch a ride over to Summerville, by the community college. The

shops were on Main, the good houses were on River, and everyone else lived south of

Route 9, where the pavement disintegrated into chunky concrete stubble—terrible for

walking, but perfect for throwing at angry possums, the meanest animals alive. You

never

saw that in the movies.

Gatlin wasn‘t a complicated place; Gatlin was Gatlin. The neighbors kept watch from

their porches in the unbearable heat, sweltering in plain sight. But there was no point.

Nothing ever changed. Tomorrow would be the first day of school, my sophomore year

Stonewall Jackson High, and I already knew everything that was going to happen—

where I would sit, who I would talk to, the jokes, the girls, who would park where.

There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicenter of the

middle of nowhere.

At least, that‘s what I thought, when I closed my battered copy of Slaughterhouse-Five ,

clicked off my iPod, and turned out the light on the last night of summer.

Turns out, I couldn‘t have been more wrong.

There was a curse.

There was a girl.

And in the end, there was a grave.

I never even saw it coming.

9.02

Dream On

Falling.

I was free falling, tumbling through the air.

―Ethan!‖

She called to me, and just the sound of her voice made my heart race.

―Help me!‖

She was falling, too. I stretched out my arm, trying to catch her. I reached out, but all I

caught was air. There was no ground beneath my feet, and I was clawing at mud. We

touched fingertips and I saw green sparks in the darkness.

Then she slipped through my fingers, and all I could feel was loss.

Lemons and rosemary. I could smell her, even then.

But I couldn‘t catch her.

And I couldn‘t live without her.

I sat up with a jerk, trying to catch my breath.

―Ethan Wate! Wake up! I won‘t have you bein‘ late on the first day a school.‖ I could

hear Amma‘s voice calling from downstairs.

My eyes focused on a patch of dim light in the darkness. I could hear the distant drum of

the rain against our old plantation shutters. It must be raining. It must be morning. I must

be in my room.

My room was hot and damp, from the rain. Why was my window open?

My head was throbbing. I fell back down on the bed, and the dream receded as it

always

did. I was safe in my room, in our ancient house, in the same creaking mahogany bed

where six generations of Wates had probably slept before me, where people didn‘t fall

through black holes made of mud, and nothing ever actually happened.

I stared up at my plaster ceiling, painted the color of the sky to keep the carpenter bees

from nesting. What was wrong with me?

I‘d been having the dream for months now. Even though I couldn‘t remember all of it,

the

part I remembered was always the same. The girl was falling. I was falling. I had to hold

on, but I couldn‘t. If I let go, something terrible would happen to her. But that‘s the thing.

I couldn‘t let go. I couldn‘t lose her. It was like I was in love with her, even though I

didn‘t know her. Kind of like love before first sight.

Which seemed crazy because she was just a girl in a dream. I didn‘t even know what

she

looked like. I had been having the dream for months, but in all that time I had never

seen

her face, or I couldn‘t remember it. All I knew was that I had the same sick feeling inside

every time I lost her. She slipped through my fingers, and my stomach dropped right out

of me—the way you feel when you‘re on a roller coaster and the car takes a big drop.

Butterflies in your stomach. That was such a crappy metaphor. More like killer bees.

Maybe I was losing it, or maybe I just needed a shower. My earphones were still around

my neck, and when I glanced down at my iPod, I saw a song I didn‘t recognize.

Sixteen Moons.

What was that? I clicked on it. The melody was haunting. I couldn‘t place the voice, but I

felt like I‘d heard it before.

Sixteen moons, sixteen years

Sixteen of your deepest fears

Sixteen times you dreamed my tears

Falling, falling through the years…

It was moody, creepy—almost hypnotic.

―Ethan Lawson Wate!‖ I could hear Amma calling up over the music.

I switched it off and sat up in bed, yanking back the covers. My sheets felt like they were

full of sand, but I knew better.

It was dirt. And my fingernails were caked with black mud, just like the last time I had

the dream.

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