Before the Claiming Read online

  Before the Claiming

  Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories

  by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

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  Table of Contents

  About the Authors

  Copyright Page

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Authors’ Note

  We came up with the idea for Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories because the two of us wanted a chance to tell our readers all the stories that never made it into the Beautiful Creatures novels. We’ve been writing about the Mortals and Casters in Gatlin for eight years now, and we’re dying to share all their secrets… or at least as many as we can before Ridley finds out what we’re doing.

  These stories are also our opportunity to answer the questions readers ask us most often, like: How did Lila fall in love with Macon? Why did Amma show up at Wate’s Landing to take care of Ethan? What is life like in Gatlin now? Best of all, we’re writing them for our own pleasure as much as for yours.

  The truth is, Ethan and Lena, John and Liv, Macon and Lila, Amma and Marian, Link and Ridley—not to mention the entire Wate, Ravenwood, and Duchannes families—they’re our families, too. Gatlin is our hometown as much as it’s home to our characters and our readers. Thank you for sharing this journey with us, and we hope these stories make parting with Gatlin a little easier. But if you still miss Gatlin and your Caster family, you can always visit them between the pages.

  So read on. You can start with any story in this series without reading the others. However, for our most committed readers (and honorary Casters), if you read all of them, you’ll learn more than a few things you didn’t know about your favorite Mortals and Casters.

  We look forward to sharing the next story with you, and talking about all of them with you online. See you soon in the Gatlin County Library!

  Love,

  Kami & Margie

  For all the Casters and Outcasters who love the world of Beautiful Creatures as much as we do:

  This one is for you.

  We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

  —William Shakespeare

  I. Something Blue

  “I’m sure I have something blue in here,” Lena’s grandmother Emmaline said, digging through the Victorian trunk at her feet.

  “Why would you think that?” Gramma’s daughter, Delphine—more affectionately known as Aunt Del—asked. “Your entire wardrobe is black and ivory. I’m beginning to think you’re the Palimpsest in the family, and you’re stuck in a time before talkies.” Aunt Del was the Palimpsest in the family. Within the Caster world, where powerful Supernaturals had different magical talents, she could see the future and the past in any given place—an ability that rendered Aunt Del confused, to say the least.

  Gramma glared at her. “I’m simply trying to fit in with the other women in the community without attracting any more attention.”

  Mitchell Wate’s upcoming wedding had forced Gramma out of the privacy of Ravenwood Manor and into the Gatlin public eye of Main Street—where all the best (and only) shops in town were located. It seemed Mitchell’s fiancée had lost her mother at a young age—which, according to Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace, meant the poor girl didn’t know the first thing about planning a proper Southern wedding. Of course, they had offered their expertise without waiting to be asked, and after tasting six hummingbird cakes (even though she asked for a buttercream) and trying on a dozen antebellum wedding gowns (even though she wasn’t a fan of hoopskirts), Mrs. English had begged Emmaline Duchannes to step in and help.

  Lena’s grandmother was flattered. She hadn’t gotten to watch Lena’s mother tie the knot (Cataclyst weddings weren’t exactly popular with Light Casters), and she had always dreamed of planning a wedding. A Mortal one would have to do. The only problem was that she knew a lot more about ordering candied sea horses and braised peacock than honey ham and pigs in a blanket. And now she was in charge of finding “something blue.”

  “Why blue? Why not, I don’t know, something diamond? Jewel-encrusted? What’s so special about blue?” Gramma sighed.

  Ethan smiled and helped Gramma lift an unwieldy box out of the footlocker. It looked like the archival boxes his mother had used for historical documents and photographs. But this one had seen better days—or decades.

  “I don’t know, but it’s nice of you to help Mrs. English with the wedding,” Ethan said.

  “I know it means a lot to her,” Lena agreed.

  Gramma adjusted one of the tortoiseshell combs in her hair. “Your father deserves a little happiness after the last few years, and so does that poor woman, after everything she’s been through.” She shook her head.

  “Really.” Aunt Del sniffed. “They’ve both had more than their share of being blue.”

  No one talked about the period of time that Lilian English didn’t even remember, when the Lilum—the most powerful being in the supernatural world—had possessed Ethan and Lena’s English teacher while Lake Moultrie dried up and grasshoppers infested Gatlin like locusts.

  Back then, it had felt like the end of days.

  Now, as Ethan carried the box to the coffee table, it sounded like a different kind of disaster was happening. A terrible howl came from the next room. A flash of gray and white whipped past Ethan as Lucille Ball tore through the living room.

  Boo Radley bounded after the cat, a mass of heavy black fur.

  “Boo! Stop!” Lena shouted.

  Even a Caster dog as intelligent and obedient as Boo couldn’t resist chasing a cat that was a little too big for her britches.

  As Boo cut behind Ethan, the dog’s huge body knocked Ethan off balance. He managed to keep hold of the box, but the lid flew off, sending a smattering of objects raining down on them—letters and scraps of yellowed paper, dried flowers and a deck of playing cards, buttons and costume jewelry, and a little blue book.

  Lena picked it up with a triumphant smile. “At least we found something blue.”

  Ethan brushed dried flower petals out of her hair. “I’m not sure Mrs. English wants to carry a copy of”—he peered over Lena’s shoulder at the faded cloth cover—“The Link Between Dreams and Memories: A Study in Accessing Long-Term Memory.”

  Lena scrunched up her nose. “She might. That sounds interesting.”

  A strange expression passed over Gramma’s face. “I haven’t seen that book in years. I thought it was lost.” She took the book from Lena and brushed off the cover, as if it were the most valuable thing in the world.

  “What is it?” Lena asked.

  Aunt Del stared at the book, her eyes glinting with tears. “It’s the book that saved your life, Lena. Or I suppose I should say it’s the one that helped Macon save it.” She yanked an embroidered handkerchief out of her pocket.

  “What do you mean?” Lena asked. “Why haven’t I ever heard of it?”

  Gramma walked over and tucked a curl behind Lena’s ear. “It’s the book Macon used to teach himself how to feed on dreams instead of blood—something he did so he could help me keep you safe for all those years. He swore that if I trusted him, he’d find a way to control the Darkness inside him.”

  “And you believed him?” Lena asked.

  “Not for a second.” Gramma opened the book’s worn cover and paused to look at Lena. “But I was wrong.”

  Seventeen Years Ea
rlier

  II. Let It Rain

  The phone rang and the doorbell chimed at exactly the same time.

  Emmaline Duchannes eyed the door warily as she reached for the cordless phone on the antique French table in the foyer. She wasn’t accustomed to unexpected visitors, especially not after dark. She spent little time in Charleston, even though her Victorian home was on the best block of Charleston’s Battery—very far south of Broad. She had made a point of not getting acquainted with her wealthy Mortal neighbors.

  “Hello?” she said into the telephone, prepared to scare away a solicitor.

  “Emmaline! Thank god you’re home! I had a vision.” Arelia, Macon’s mother, sounded breathless on the other end of the line. Arelia’s powers as a Diviner allowed her to see flashes of the present and the future. Unfortunately, they were rarely moments one would choose to see, which often left the Diviner unsettled. “You need to get over to Sarafine’s house right away,” Arelia rushed on.

  The doorbell chimed two more times.

  “Sarafine and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms,” Emmaline said, opening the carved oak door. She hadn’t seen her daughter since Sarafine was Claimed by the Dark on her sixteenth birthday, and she wasn’t in a hurry to now. Things never ended well between the two of them, and she had no reason to believe that would ever change.

  I tried. I really did.

  She opened the door. A slip of a woman stood on the porch in a flowered dress and orthopedic shoes, clutching a patent-leather handbag. The woman cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to bother you, Ms. Duchannes, but what I have to tell can’t wait. My name is Amma—”

  Emmaline covered the phone with her hand and cut her off. “I know who you are. Your reputation precedes you, Miss Treadeau.” It was true. There wasn’t a Caster within fifty miles who hadn’t heard the stories about the Seers of Wader’s Creek—and Amma Treadeau was the central figure in at least half of them. She was practically folklore itself, as far as the Lowcountry was concerned.

  “Is someone there?” Arelia asked on the other end of the line.

  “Yes,” Emmaline said. “A Seer from Gatlin. Wader’s Creek, actually.”

  Amma raised an eyebrow, impressed. Emmaline waved the older woman inside and shut the door. She didn’t need any of her nosy neighbors overhearing their conversation.

  “Wader’s Creek? To read your cards? Get rid of her! There’s no time.” The voice on the other end reached a fever pitch, and Emmaline was sure the Seer could hear Arelia.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt.” Amma gestured at the phone. “But the cards were callin’ to me tonight, and I didn’t like what they had to say.”

  A chill ran up Emmaline’s spine. A frantic call from a Diviner like Arelia, and a visit from the most famous Seer and tarot card reader in the state—possibly in all of the South—on the same night? Those two events couldn’t be a coincidence.

  I don’t believe in coincidences anyway, she thought.

  “It’s about your daughter’s house,” Amma said, her expression grave. “There’s gonna be a fire.”

  The phone slipped out of Emmaline’s hand and clattered against the hardwood floor. Sarafine was a Cataclyst—a Caster capable of controlling the elements. But fire was a Cataclyst’s weapon of choice.

  And not just any fire, Emmaline knew.

  Dark Fire. The elemental flame from which all power came.

  If it was true and Sarafine had lost control of her powers again, the prospects were unbelievably grim already. The destruction would be unimaginable.

  Heaven help us all.

  “I already called Macon. He can make it there faster than you,” Arelia said, on the other end of the phone line. But no one was there to hear it.

  Emmaline and Amma were already halfway to the basement, where the round door that led into the Caster Tunnels was hidden underneath a dented washing machine that hadn’t worked in years.

  “We have to hurry,” Emmaline said, shoving aside the machine to reveal the Doorwell. She could barely choke out the words she said next. “My granddaughter is in that house.”

  III. The Bright One

  Fire engines and an ambulance blocked the narrow street in front of Sarafine’s house. Now that they were outside the Caster Tunnels, Emmaline and Amma elbowed their way through the crowd of curious onlookers standing on the sidewalk. A steady drizzle fell from the dark sky, and for a moment, Emmaline allowed herself to hope.

  The rain might slow down the fire.

  Maybe they weren’t too late.

  Amma gazed up at the clouds as she shoved past a cluster of suburban housewives gossiping like old hens.

  “Did you ever meet her?” The one in the pink foam curlers bobbed her head with every word.

  “The mother? She wasn’t friendly.” A bathrobed bystander crossed her arms for emphasis. “Hardly spoke to anyone. I waved a few times when I saw her walkin’ the baby, but she ignored me.”

  “She was probably a Yankee from somewhere up North. They have the worst manners,” the lady in the furry cat slippers answered.

  Mortals, Emmaline thought. Even in times of tragedy, they still can’t stop saying nasty things about each other.

  “The Veil is thin. I can feel it,” Amma said, her voice low. “Means somebody crossed over.”

  Emmaline wasn’t surprised the Seer could sense subtle changes in the Veil—the line between this world and the Otherworld, the land of the spirits. Most Seers could. But at times like this, Emmaline wondered if the ability felt more like a burden than a gift.

  I don’t know how she can bear it.

  Anxiety churned in Emmaline’s stomach, and she gathered her long skirt in one hand and used the other to push through the crowd. But when she reached the orange cones and the edge of the sidewalk, she gasped.

  The scorched foundation and bits of wet framework were all that remained of the house. Everything else was gone.

  The Caster’s hand flew to her lips. “We’re too late.”

  “Maybe,” Amma said in a measured tone. “Maybe not.” She pointed a bony finger at the ladder truck parked closest to them.

  A hulking black dog with a heavy coat of wild fur and the snout of a wolf stared back at them, as if he was waiting. Emmaline recognized the animal immediately—Boo Radley, Macon Ravenwood’s Caster dog. If Boo was here, Macon wouldn’t be far behind.

  Boo Radley barked, and one of the firefighters shooed him away. But Boo only circled back.

  “I reckon that mangy dog is waitin’ on us,” Amma said, skirting her way around the roped-off area.

  Emmaline only nodded and followed. She couldn’t think about anything except the child—the granddaughter she’d never seen. The little girl hadn’t asked to be born into a family of cursed Casters, or to a mother who had been Claimed by the Dark.

  Was it the child’s fate to be punished for that now?

  As they worked their way toward the back of the house, Boo waited just beyond the tree line, peeking out from between oaks in the wooded area behind the houses.

  “If I’d known we were gonna be trompin’ through the mud, I wouldn’t have worn my good shoes,” Amma muttered.

  “You can always go back,” Emmaline said stiffly.

  “No, I can’t. I want to find that child,” Amma said. “Not chase around Macon Ravenwood’s good-for-nothing dog.”

  They followed Boo Radley into the darkness of the trees.

  “This way,” a voice called to them from the shadows.

  Emmaline breathed a sigh of relief as Macon stepped out from behind a towering oak.

  “We’ve been expecting you,” he said.

  A raven-haired baby, no more than a year old, stared back at her from Macon’s arms, the child’s cheeks smudged with ash.

  Macon held up his lighter, and green eyes blinked in the circle of flickering yellow. “Lena. She’s beautiful.”

  “Thank heavens,” Amma said, her shoulders dropping as she exhaled.

  Emmaline rushed forward a
nd plucked the little girl from Macon’s somewhat awkward hold. “What about the child’s father?” she asked tentatively.

  Macon shook his head.

  Emmaline, momentarily distracted by her granddaughter’s black curls, looked up. “Were you able to save him, too?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Macon shoved his hands in the pockets of the black cashmere overcoat hanging loosely on his lanky frame. If it weren’t for his pupil-less obsidian eyes, someone could easily mistake him for a handsome Mortal businessman instead of a deadly Incubus. “And I’m not the one who saved Lena,” Macon said quietly.

  Amma scowled, scanning the woods. “Then who the devil saved her?” She pointed to Boo, who was sitting at Macon’s feet listening as if he understood the entire conversation. “If you tell me it was that crazy-lookin’ dog a yours, I’m done here.”

  “Though I have no doubt Boo Radley is capable of such a rescue, he wasn’t responsible,” Macon said. “When I arrived, it was pouring rain and the clouds were black—only the ones above Sarafine’s house. A weather pattern you don’t see often in the Mortal world, but one a particular type of Caster might bring about.”

  Amma stared at the Incubus. “Excuse me?”

  Macon’s dark eyes were on the child now. “The storm spread quickly, but those clouds were the point of origin. I witnessed it myself. It was unmistakable.”

  Emmaline gave Macon a strange look. “Are you saying—?”

  “The child saved herself,” Macon finished. “A survival instinct, which can only mean one thing. Lena Duchannes—your granddaughter, and Sarafine’s daughter, is a—”

  “Don’t. Say it. It’s not true. Lena’s just a baby. A sweet, innocent baby.” Emmaline clung to the child in her arms.

  Lena perked up at the sound of her name and smiled at the grandmother she had never met, a fact that wasn’t lost on Emmaline, now that she was holding her.