Beautiful Chaos (12 page)

Lena was kneeling in the mud. She reached for something about the size of a shoe box.

“What is it?” Even when I got closer, it was hard to tell.

“I’m not sure.” She wiped the mud off with her hand, revealing rust and dented metal. There was a melted keyhole on one side. “It’s a lockbox.” Lena handed me the box. It was heavier than it looked.

“The lock is melted, but I think I can open it.” I looked around and picked up a piece of broken rock. I lifted the rock to
get some leverage, when suddenly the metal hinges scraped open. “What the—?” I looked up at Lena, and she shrugged.

“Sometimes my powers still work the way I want them to.” She kicked at a puddle. “Other times, not so much.”

Even though the box was burnt and dented on the outside, it had protected the contents: a silver bracelet with an intricate design, a worn paperback copy of
Great Expectations
, a photo of Sarafine in a blue dress, with a dark-haired boy at a school dance. There was a cheesy backdrop behind them, like the one Lena and I had posed in front of at the winter formal. There was another photo, tucked under the bracelet—a baby picture of a little girl. I knew it was Lena because the child looked exactly like the baby Sarafine had been holding in her arms.

Lena touched the edge of the baby picture and lifted it above the box. The world around us started to fade, the sunlight quickly turning to darkness. I knew what was happening, but this time it wasn’t happening to me. I was following Lena into the vision, the way she had followed me the day I sat in church with the Sisters. Within seconds the muddy ground turned to grass—

Izabel was shaking violently. She knew what was happening, and it had to be a mistake. It was her deepest fear, the nightmares that had haunted her since she was a child. This wasn’t supposed to happen to her—she was Light, not Dark. She had tried so hard to do the right things, to be the person everyone wanted her to be. How could she be anything but Light, after all that? But as the devastating cold tore through her veins, Izabel knew she was wrong; it wasn’t a mistake. She was going Dark.

The moon, her Sixteenth Moon, was full and luminous now. As she stared at it, Izabel could feel the rare gifts her family was so sure she possessed—the powers of a Natural—being twisted into something else. Soon her thoughts and heart would not be her own. Sorrow, destruction, and hate would force everything else out. Everything good.

Izabel’s thoughts tortured her, but the physical pain was unbearable, as if her body was tearing itself to shreds from the inside. But she forced herself to her feet and ran. There was only one place she could go. She blinked hard, her vision clouded by a golden haze. Tears burned her skin. It couldn’t be true.

By the time she made it to her mother’s house, her breath was ragged. Izabel reached above the door and touched the lintel. But for the first time it didn’t open. She pounded on the door until her hands were cut and bleeding, then she slid to the ground, her cheek resting against the wood.

When the door opened, Izabel fell, her face slamming against the marble floor of the hallway. Even that didn’t compare to the pain raging through her body. A pair of black laceup boots was barely inches from her face. Izabel clutched at her mother’s legs frantically.

Emmaline pulled her daughter up from the floor. “What happened? What is it?”

Izabel tried to hide her eyes, but it was impossible. “It’s a mistake, Mamma. I know how it looks, but I’m still the same. I’m still me.”

“No. It can’t be.” Emmaline grabbed Izabel’s chin so she could see her daughter’s eyes. They were as yellow as the sun.

A girl not much older than Izabel came down the winding staircase, taking the steps two at a time. “Mamma, what’s going on?”

Emmaline whirled around, pushing Izabel behind her. “Go back upstairs, Delphine!”

But there was no way to hide Izabel’s glowing yellow eyes. Delphine froze. “Mamma?”

“I said go upstairs! There’s nothing you can do for your sister!” Their mother’s voice was defeated. “It’s too late.”

Too late? Her mother didn’t mean that—she couldn’t. Izabel wrapped her arms around her mother, and Emmaline jumped as if she’d been stung. Izabel’s skin was as cold as ice.

Emmaline turned, holding Izabel by the shoulders. Tears already marked the woman’s face. “I can’t help you. There’s nothing I can do.”

Lightning streaked across the black sky. A bolt tore down, splitting the huge oak that shaded their house. The splintered trunk crashed down, taking out part of the roof with it. A window shattered upstairs, and the sound of glass breaking echoed through the house.

Izabel recognized the unfamiliar look on her mother’s face.

Fear.

“It’s a mistake. I’m not—” Dark. Izabel couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“There are no mistakes, not where the curse is concerned. You are Claimed Light or Dark; there is no in between.”

“But Mamma—”

Emmaline shook her head, pushing Izabel across the threshold. “You can’t stay here. Not now.”

Izabel’s eyes went wild. “Gramma Katherine isn’t going to let me live there anymore. I have nowhere else to go.” She was sobbing uncontrollably. “Mamma, please help me. We can fight this together. I’m your daughter!”

“Not anymore.”

Delphine had been silent, but she couldn’t believe what her mother was saying. She couldn’t turn her sister away. “Mamma, it’s Izabel! We have to help her!”

Emmaline looked at Izabel, remembering the day she was born. The day Emmaline had silently chosen her child’s true name. She had imagined the moment she would share it with Izabel—staring into her daughter’s green eyes and tucking her black curls behind her ear as she whispered the name.

Emmaline stared into her daughter’s glowing yellow eyes, then turned away.

“Her name isn’t Izabel anymore. It’s Sarafine.”

The real world came into focus slowly. Lena was standing a few feet away, still holding the box. I could see it shaking in her hands, her eyes wet with tears. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling.

In the vision, Sarafine was just a girl whose fate was decided for her. There wasn’t a trace of the monster she was now. Was that how it happened? You opened your eyes and your whole life changed?

L? Are you okay?

Our eyes met, and for a second she didn’t answer. When she did, her voice was quiet in my mind.

She was just like me.

9.15

I
looked down at my sneakers in the darkness. I could feel the moisture seeping through the canvas, then my socks, until my skin was numb with cold. I was standing in some kind of water. I could hear it moving, not so much rushing as rippling. Something brushed against my ankle and then moved away. A leaf. A twig.

A river.

I could smell the rot, mixed with mud. Maybe I was in the swamp near Wader’s Creek. The dark fringe in the distance could be swamp grass, and the tall forms, cypress trees. I reached up with one hand. Fluttering feathers, tickling long and light. Spanish moss. This was definitely the swamp.

I crouched low and felt the water with my hand. It felt thick and heavy. I scooped a handful and held it to my nose, letting it trickle through my fingers. I listened.

It didn’t sound right.

Despite everything I knew about pond rot and bacteria and larvae, I stuck one of my fingers in my mouth.

I knew the taste. I’d know it anywhere. Like sucking on the handful of coins I’d stolen from the fountain in Forsyth Park when I was nine.

It wasn’t water.

It was blood.

Then I heard the familiar whispering and felt the pressure of another body knocking into mine.

It was him again. The me who wasn’t me.

I’M WAITING.

I heard the words as I fell. I tried to respond, but when I opened my mouth, I began to choke on the river. So I thought the words, though I could barely even think.

What are you waiting for?

I felt myself sinking to the bottom. Only there was no bottom, and I kept falling and falling—

I woke up thrashing. I could still feel his hands around my neck, and the dizziness—the overwhelming feeling that the room was closing in on me. I tried to catch my breath, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. My sheets were smeared with blood, and my mouth still tasted like dirty pennies. I wadded up the top sheet and hid it under my bed. I’d have to throw it away. I couldn’t let Amma find a blood-soaked sheet in my hamper.

Lucille jumped onto the bed, her head cocked to one side.
Siamese cats had a way of looking at you like they were disappointed. Lucille had it down.

“What are you staring at?” I pushed my sweaty hair out of my eyes, the salt from my sweat mixing with the salt from the blood.

I couldn’t make sense of the dreams, but I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep.

So I called the one person I knew who would be awake.

Link climbed through my window twenty minutes later. He hadn’t worked up the nerve to try Traveling yet, ripping through space and materializing wherever he wanted, but he was still pretty stealth.