Ками Гарсиа: Beautiful Creatures

Stop & Steal every day after practice. There were only so many ways you could talk about the same girls and so many Slim Jims you could eat.

Swish. Ten. I couldn’t miss. Maybe it was just genetics. Maybe it was something else. I hadn’t figured it out, but since my mom died, I had stopped trying. It was a wonder I made it to practice at all.

Swish. Eleven. Earl grunted behind me, bouncing the ball even harder. I tried not to smile and looked over to the parking lot as I took the next shot. I saw a tangle of long black hair, behind the wheel of a long black car.

A hearse. I froze.

Then, she turned, and through the open window, I could see a girl looking in my direction. At least, I thought I could. The basketball hit the rim, and bounced off toward the fence. Behind me, I heard the familiar sound.

Swish. Twelve. Earl Petty could relax.

As the car pulled away, I looked down the court. The rest of the guys were standing there, like they’d just seen a ghost.

“Was that—?”

Billy Watts, our forward, nodded, holding onto the chain-link fence with one hand. “Old

Man Ravenwood’s niece.”

Shawn tossed the ball at him. “Yep. Just like they said. Drivin’ his hearse.”

Emory shook his head. “She’s hot all right. What a waste.”

They went back to playing ball, but by the time Earl took his next shot, it had started to rain again. Thirty seconds later, we were caught in a downpour, the heaviest rain we’d seen all day. I stood there, letting the rain hammer down on me. My wet hair hung in my eyes, blocking out the rest of the school, the team.

The bad omen wasn’t just a hearse. It was a girl.

For a few minutes, I had let myself hope. That maybe this year wouldn’t be just like every other year, that something would change. That I would have someone to talk to, someone who really got me.

But all I had was a good day on the court, and that had never been enough.

9.02

A Hole in the Sky

Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, string beans, and biscuits—all sitting angry and cold and congealed on the stove where Amma had left them. Usually, she kept my dinner warm for me until I got home from practice, but not today. I was in a lot of trouble. Amma was furious, sitting at the table eating Red Hots, and scratching away at the New York Times crossword. My dad secretly subscribed to the Sunday edition, because the ones in The Stars and Stripes had too many spelling mistakes, and the ones in

Reader’s Digest were too short. I don’t know how he got it past Carlton Eaton, who would’ve made sure the whole town knew we were too good for The Stars and Stripes, but there was nothing my dad wouldn’t do for Amma.

She slid the plate in my direction, looking at me without looking at me. I shoveled cold mashed potatoes and chicken into my mouth. There was nothing Amma hated like food left on your plate. I tried to keep my distance from the point of her special black # 2 pencil, used only for her crosswords, kept so sharp it could actually draw blood. Tonight it might.

I listened to the steady patter of rain on the roof. There wasn’t another sound in the room.

Amma rapped her pencil on the table.

“Nine letters. Confinement or pain exacted for wrongdoin’.” She shot me another look. I shoveled a spoonful of potatoes into my mouth. I knew what was coming. Nine across.

“C. A. S. T. I. G. A. T. E. As in, punish. As in, if you can’t get yourself to school on time, you won’t be leavin’ this house.”

I wondered who had called to tell her I was late, or more likely who hadn’t called. She sharpened her pencil, even though it was already sharp, grinding it into her old automatic sharpener on the counter. She was still pointedly Not Looking at me, which was even worse than staring me right in the eye.

I walked over to where she was grinding and put my arm around her, giving her a good squeeze. “Come on, Amma. Don’t be mad. It was pouring this morning. You wouldn’t want us speeding in the rain, would you?”

She raised an eyebrow, but her expression softened. “Well, it looks like it’ll be rainin’ from now until the day after you cut that hair, so you better figure out a way to get yourself to school before that bell rings.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I gave her one last squeeze and went back to my cold potatoes. “You’ll never believe what happened today. We got a new girl in our class.” I don’t know why I said it. I guess it was still on my mind.

“You think I don’t know about Lena Duchannes?” I choked on my biscuit. Lena

Duchannes. Pronounced, in the South, to rhyme with rain. The way Amma rolled it out, you would have thought the word had an extra syllable. Du-kay-yane.

“Is that her name? Lena?”

Amma pushed a glass of chocolate milk in my direction. “Yes and no and it’s none a your business. You shouldn’t be messin’ with things you don’t know anything about, Ethan

Wate.”

Amma always spoke in riddles, and she never gave you anything more than that. I hadn’t been to her house in Wader’s Creek since I was a kid, but I knew most of the people in town had. Amma was the most respected tarot card reader within a hundred miles of

Gatlin, just like her mother before her and her grandmother before her. Six generations of card readers. Gatlin was full of God-fearing Baptists, Methodists, and Pentecostals, but they couldn’t resist the lure of the cards, the possibility of changing the course of their own destiny. Because that’s what they believed a powerful reader could do. And Amma was nothing if not a force to be reckoned with.

Sometimes I’d find one of her homemade charms in my sock drawer or hanging above the door of my father’s study. I had only asked what they were for once. My dad teased

Amma whenever he found one, but I noticed that he never took any of them down.

“Better safe than sorry.” I guess he meant safe from Amma, who could make you plenty sorry.

“Did you hear anything else about her?”

“You watch yourself. One day you’re gonna pick a hole in the sky and the universe is gonna fall right through. Then we’ll all be in a fix.”

My father shuffled into the kitchen in his pajamas. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a box of Shredded Wheat out of the pantry. I could see the yellow wax earplugs still stuck in his ears. The Shredded Wheat meant he was about to start his day. The earplugs meant it hadn’t really started yet.

I leaned over and whispered to Amma, “What did you hear?”

She yanked my plate away and took it to the sink. She rinsed some bones that looked like pork shoulder, which was weird since we’d had chicken tonight, and put them on a plate.

“That’s none a your concern. What I’d like to know is why you’re so interested.”

I shrugged. “I’m not, really. Just curious.”

“You know what they say about curiosity.” She stuck a fork in my piece of buttermilk pie. Then she shot me the Look, and was gone.

Even my father noticed the kitchen door swinging in her wake, and pulled an earplug out of one ear. “How was school?”

“Fine.”

“What did you do to Amma?”

“I was late for school.”

He studied my face. I studied his.

“Number 2?”

I nodded.

“Sharp?”

“Started out sharp and then she sharpened it.” I sighed. My dad almost smiled, which was rare. I felt a surge of relief, maybe even accomplishment.

“Know how many times I sat at this old table while she pulled a pencil on me when I was a kid?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question. The table, nicked and flecked with paint and glue and marker from all the Wates leading up to me, was one of the oldest things in the house.