Beautiful Darkness by Kami García, Margaret Stohl Read Free Book Online Page A

he let go. He was staring down the
     hall, in the direction of the study.
    The framed portrait of Ethan Carter Wate was hanging in the hallway. I still wasn’t used to seeing it, even though I was the
     one who had hung it there the day after Macon’s funeral. It had been hidden under a sheet my whole life, which seemed wrong.
     Ethan Carter Wate had walked away from a war he didn’t believe in and died trying to protect the Caster girl he loved.
    So I had found a nail and hung the painting. It felt right. After that, I went into my dad’s study and picked up the sheets
     of paper strewn all over the room. I looked at the scribbles and circles one last time, the evidence of how deep love can
     run and how long loss can last. Then I cleaned up and threw the pages away. That felt right, too.
    My dad walked over to the painting, studying it as if he was seeing it for the first time. “I haven’t seen this guy in a long
     time.”
    I was so relieved we had moved on to a new subject, thewords came tumbling out. “I hung it up. I hope it’s okay. But it seemed like it belonged out here, instead of under some
     old sheet.”
    For a minute, my dad stared up at the portrait of the boy in the Confederate uniform, who didn’t look much older than me.
     “This painting always had a sheet over it when I was a kid. My grandparents never said much about it, but they weren’t about
     to hang a deserter on the wall. After I inherited this place, I found it covered up in the attic and brought it down to the
     study.”
    “Why didn’t you hang it up?” I never imagined that my dad had stared at the same hidden outline when he was a kid.
    “I don’t know. Your mother wanted me to. She loved his story—the way he walked away from the war, even though it ended up
     costing him his life. I meant to hang it. I was just so used to seeing it covered up. Before I got around to it, your mom
     died.” He ran his hand along the bottom of the carved frame. “You know, you were named after him.”
    “I know.”
    My dad looked at me as if he was looking at me for the first time, too. “She was crazy about that painting. I’m glad you hung
     it up. It’s where he belongs.”

    I didn’t escape the fried chicken or Amma’s guilt trip. So after dinner, I drove around the Sisters’ neighborhood with Link
     looking for Lucille. Link called her name between bites of a chicken leg wrapped in an oily paper towel. Every time he ran
     his hand over his spiky blond hair, the shine got shinier from all the grease.
    “You shoulda brought more fried chicken along. Cats dig chicken. They eat birds in the wild.” Link was driving slower than
     usual so I could keep an eye out for Lucille while he beat time to “Love Biscuit,” his band’s terrible new song, on the steering
     wheel.
    “Then what? You’d drive around while I hung out the window with a chicken leg in my hand?” Link was so transparent. “You just
     want more of Amma’s chicken.”
    “You know it. And Coca-Cola cake.” He hung his drumstick bone out the window. “Here, kitty kitty…”
    I scanned the sidewalk, looking for a Siamese cat, but something else caught my eye—a crescent moon. It was on a license
     plate stuck between a bumper sticker of the Stars and Bars, the Confederate flag, and one for Bubba’s Truck and Trailer. The
     same old South Carolina plates with the state symbol I had seen a thousand times, only I’d never thought about it before.
     A blue palmetto and a crescent moon, maybe a Caster moon. The Casters really had been here a long time.
    “Cat’s stupider than I thought, if he doesn’t know about Amma’s fried chicken.”
    “She. Lucille Ball’s a girl.”
    “It’s a cat.” Link swerved, and we turned the corner onto Main. Boo Radley was sitting on the curb, watching the Beater roll
     by. His tail thumped, one lonely thump of recognition, as we disappeared down the road. The loneliest dog in town.
    At the sight of Boo, Link cleared his