Beautiful Creatures (6 page)

When the bell rang, I turned to Lena. I don’t know what I thought I was going to say. Maybe I was expecting her to thank me.
But she didn’t say anything as she shoved her books back into her bag.

156. It wasn’t a word she had written on the back of her hand.

It was a number.

Lena Duchannes didn’t speak to me again, not that day, not that week. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about her, or
seeing her practically everywhere I tried not to look. It wasn’t just her that was bothering me, not exactly. It wasn’t about
how she looked, which was pretty, even though she was always wearing the wrong clothes and those beat-up sneakers. It wasn’t
about what she said in class—usually something no one else would’ve thought of, and if they had, something they wouldn’t have
dared to say. It wasn’t that she was different from all the other girls at Jackson. That was obvious.

It was that she made me realize how much I was just like the rest of them, even if I wanted to pretend I wasn’t.

It had been raining all day, and I was sitting in ceramics, otherwise known as AGA, “a guaranteed A,” since the class was
graded on effort. I had signed up for ceramics last spring because I had to fulfill my arts requirement, and I was desperate
to stay out of band, which was practicing noisily downstairs, conducted by the crazily skinny, overly enthusiastic Miss Spider.
Savannah sat down next to me. I was the only guy in the class, and since I was a guy, I had no idea what I was supposed to
do next.

“Today is all about experimentation. You aren’t being graded on this. Feel the clay. Free your mind. And ignore the music
from downstairs.” Mrs. Abernathy winced as the band butchered what sounded like “Dixie.”

“Dig deep. Feel your way to your soul.”

I flipped on the potter’s wheel and stared at the clay as it started to spin in front of me. I sighed. This was almost as
bad as band. Then, as the room quieted and the hum of the potter’s wheels drowned out the chatter of the back rows, the music
from downstairs shifted. I heard a violin, or maybe one of those bigger violins, a viola, I think. It was beautiful and sad
at the same time, and it was unsettling. There was more talent in the raw voice of the music than Miss Spider had ever had
the pleasure of conducting. I looked around; no one else seemed to notice the music. The sound crawled right under my skin.

I recognized the melody, and within seconds I could hear the words in my mind, as clearly as if I was listening to my iPod.
But this time, the words had changed.

Sixteen moons, sixteen years

Sound of thunder in your ears

Sixteen miles before she nears

Sixteen seeks what sixteen fears….

As I stared at the spinning clay in front of me, the lump became a blur. The harder I focused on it, the more the room dissolved
around it, until the clay seemed to be spinning the classroom, the table, my chair along with it. As if we were all tied together
in this whirlwind of constant motion, set to the rhythm of the melody from the music room. The room was disappearing around
me. Slowly, I reached out a hand and dragged one fingertip along the clay.

Then a flash, and the whirling room dissolved into another image—

I was falling.

We were falling.

I was back in the dream. I saw her hand. I saw my hand grabbing at hers, my fingers digging into her skin, her wrist, in a
desperate attempt to hold on. But she was slipping; I could feel it, her fingers pulling through my hand.

“Don’t let go!”

I wanted to help her, to hold on. More than I had ever wanted anything. And then, she fell through my fingers….

“Ethan, what are you doin’?” Mrs. Abernathy sounded concerned.

I opened my eyes, and tried to focus, to bring myself back. I’d been having the dreams since my mom died, but this was the
first time I’d had one during the day. I stared at my gray, muddy hand, caked with drying clay. The clay on the potter’s wheel
held the perfect imprint of a hand, like I had just flattened whatever I was working on. I looked at it more closely. The
hand wasn’t mine, it was too small. It was a girl’s.

It was hers.

I looked under my nails, where I could see the clay I had clawed from her wrist.

“Ethan, you could at least try to make somethin’.” Mrs. Abernathy put her hand on my shoulder, and I jumped. Outside the classroom
window, I heard the rumble of thunder.

“But Mrs. Abernathy, I think Ethan’s soul is communicatin’ with him.” Savannah giggled, leaning over to get a good look. “I
think it’s tellin’ you to get a manicure, Ethan.”

The girls around me started to laugh. I mashed the handprint with my fist, turning it back into a lump of gray nothing. I
stood up, wiping my hands on my jeans as the bell rang. I grabbed my backpack and sprinted out of the room, slipping in my
wet high-tops when I turned the corner and almost tripping over my untied laces as I ran down the two flights of stairs that
stood between the music room and me. I had to know if I had imagined it.

I pushed open the double doors of the music room with both hands. The stage was empty. The class was filing past me. I was
going the wrong way, heading downstream when everyone else was going up. I took a deep breath, but knew what I would smell
before I smelled it.

Lemons and rosemary.

Down on the stage, Miss Spider was picking up sheet music, scattered along the folding chairs she used for the sorry Jackson
orchestra. I called down to her, “Excuse me, ma’am. Who was just playing that—that song?”

She smiled in my direction. “We have a wonderful new addition to our strings section. A viola. She’s just moved into town—”

No. It couldn’t be. Not her.

I turned and ran before she could say the name.

When the eighth-period bell rang, Link was waiting for me in front of the locker room. He raked his hand through his spiky
hair and straightened out his faded Black Sabbath T-shirt.

“Link. I need your keys, man.”

“What about practice?”

“I can’t make it. There’s something I’ve gotta do.”

“Dude, what are you talkin’ about?”

“I just need your keys.” I had to get out of there. I was having the dreams, hearing the song, and now blacking out in the
middle of class, if that’s even what you’d call it. I didn’t know what was going on with me, but I knew it was bad.

If my mom was still alive, I probably would’ve told her everything. She was like that, I could tell her anything. But she
was gone, and my dad was holed up in his study all the time, and Amma would be sprinkling salt all over my room for a month
if I told her.

I was on my own.

Link held out his keys. “Coach is gonna kill you.”

“I know.”

“And Amma’s gonna find out.”

“I know.”

“And she’s gonna kick your butt all the way to the County Line.” His hand wavered as I grabbed the keys. “Don’t be stupid.”

I turned and bolted. Too late.

9.11

B
y the time I got to the car, I was soaking wet. The storm had been building all week. There was a weather advisory on every
radio station I could get any reception from, which wasn’t saying much considering the Beater only got three stations, all
AM. The clouds were totally black, and since it was hurricane season, that wasn’t something to be taken lightly. But it didn’t
matter. I needed to clear my head and figure out what was going on, even if I had no idea where I was going.

I had to turn on the headlights to even drive out of the parking lot. I couldn’t see more than three feet in front of the
car. It wasn’t a day to be driving. Lightning sliced through the dark sky ahead of me. I counted, as Amma had taught me years
ago—one, two, three. Thunder cracked, which meant the storm wasn’t far off—three miles according to Amma’s calculations.

I pulled up at the stoplight by Jackson, one of only three in town. I had no idea what to do. The rain jackhammered down on
the Beater. The radio was reduced to static, but I heard something. I cranked the volume and the song flooded through the
crappy speakers.

Sixteen Moons.

The song that had disappeared from my playlist. The song no one else seemed to hear. The song Lena Duchannes had been playing
on the viola. The song that was driving me crazy.

The light turned green and the Beater lurched into drive. I was on my way, and I had absolutely no idea where I was going.

Lightning ripped across the sky. I counted—one, two. The storm was getting closer. I flipped on the windshield wipers. It
was no use. I couldn’t even see halfway down the block. Lightning flashed. I counted—one. Thunder rumbled above the roof of
the Beater, and the rain turned horizontal. The windshield rattled as if it could give way at any second, which, considering
the condition of the Beater, it could have.

I wasn’t chasing the storm. The storm was chasing me, and it had found me. I could barely keep the wheels on the slick road,
and the Beater started to fishtail, skating erratically back and forth between the two lanes of Route 9.

I couldn’t see a thing. I slammed on the brakes, spinning out into the darkness. The headlights flickered, for barely a second,
and a pair of huge green eyes stared back at me from the middle of the road. At first I thought it was a deer, but I was wrong.

There was someone in the road!

I pulled on the wheel with both hands, as hard as I could. My body slammed against the side of the door.

Her hand was outstretched. I closed my eyes for the impact, but it never came.

The Beater jerked to a stop, not more than three feet away. The headlights made a pale circle of light in the rain, reflecting
off one of those cheap plastic rain ponchos you can buy for three dollars at the drugstore. It was a girl. Slowly, she pulled
the hood off her head, letting the rain run down her face. Green eyes, black hair.

Lena Duchannes.

I couldn’t breathe. I knew she had green eyes; I’d seen them before. But tonight they looked different—different from any
eyes I had ever seen. They were huge and unnaturally green, an electric green, like the lightning from the storm. Standing
in the rain like that, she almost didn’t look human.