Beautiful Secrets (Cranksepticeye Fanfiction)

~10.09~ A Crack in the Plaster

When I woke up, I had no idea where I was. I tried to focus on the first few things that came into view. Words. Phrases handwritten in what looked like carefully scripted Sharpie, right on the ceiling over the bed.
moments bleed together, no span to time
There were hundreds of others, too, written everywhere, parts of sentences, parts of verses, random collections of words. On the closet door was scrawled fate decides. On the other, it said until challenge by the fated. Up and down the door I could see the words desperate / relentless / condemned / empowered. The mirror said open your eyes; the window panes said and see.
Even the pale white lampshade was scribbled with the words illuminatethedarknessilluminatethedarkness over and over again, in an endlessly repeating pattern.
Jack's poetry, I was finally getting to read some of it. Even if you ignored the distinctive ink, this room didn't look like the rest of the house. It was small and cozy, tucked up under the eaves. A ceiling fan swirled slowly above my head, cutting through the phrases. There were stacks of spiral notebooks on every surface, and a stack of books on the nightstand. Poetry books. Plath, Eliot, Bukowski, Frost, Cummings - at least I recognized the names.
I was lying in a small white iron bed. This was Jack's room, and I was lying in his bed. Jack was curled in a chair at the foot of the bed, his head resting on the arm.
I sat up, groggy. "Hey. What happened?"
I was pretty sure I passed out, but I was fuzzy on the details. The last thing I remembered was the freezing cold moving up my body, closing up my throat, and Jack's voice. I though he had said something about me being his boyfriend, but since I was about to pass out at the time and nothing had really happened between us, that was doubtful. Wishful thinking, I guessed.
"Ethan!" He jumped out of the chair and onto the bed next to me, although he seemed careful not to touch me. "Are you okay? Ridley wouldn't let go of you, and I didn't know what to do. You looked like you were in so much pain, and I just reacted."
"You mean that tornado in the middle of your dining room?"
He looked away, miserable. "That's what happens. I feel things, I get angry or scared and then . . . things just happen."
I reached over and put my had over his, feeling the warmth move up my am. "Things like windows breaking?"
He looked back at me, and I curled my hand around his until I was holding it in mine. A random crack in the old plastering the corner behind him seemed to grow, until it curled its way across the ceiling, circled the frosted chandelier, and swirled its way back down. It looked like a heart. A giant, looping heart had just appeared in the cracking plaster of his bedroom ceiling.
"Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"Is your ceiling about to fall on our heads?"
He turned and looked at the crack. When he saw it, he bit his lip, and his cheeks turned pink. "I don't think so. It's just a crack in the plaster."
"Were you trying to do that?"
"No." A creeping pink spread across his nose and cheeks. He looked away.
I waned to ask him what it was he'd been thinking, but I didn't want to embarrass him. I just hoed it had something to do with me, with his hand nestled in mine. With the word I thought I heard him say, the moment before I blacked out.
I looked dubiously at the crack. A lot was riding on that crack in the plaster.
"Can you undo them? These things just . . . happen?"
Jack sighed, relieved to talk about something else. "Sometimes. It depends. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed that I can't control it and I can't fix it, not even after. I don't think I could have put the glass back into that window at school. I don't think I could have stopped the storm from coming, the day we met."
"I don't think that one was your fault. You can't blame yourself for every storm that rolls through Anston County. Hurricane season isn't even over yet.
He flipped over onto his stomach and looked me right in the eye. He didn't let go, and neither did I. My whole body was buzzing with the warmth of his touch. "Didn't you see what happened tonight?"
"Maybe sometimes a hurricane is just a hurricane, Jack."
"As long as I'm around, I am hurricane season in Anston County." He tried to pull his had away, but that only made me hold on more tightly.
"That's funny. You seem more like a boy to me."
"Yeah, well I'm not. I'm a whole storm system out of control. Most Casters can control their gifts by the time they're my age, but half the time it feels more like mine control me." He pointed to his own reflection in the mirror on the wall. The Sharpie writing scribbled itself across the reflection as we watched. Who is this boy? "I'm still trying to figure it all out, but sometimes it feels like I never will."
"Do all Casters have the same powers, gifts, whatever?"
"No. We can all do simple things like move objects, but each Caster also has more specific abilities related to their gifts."
Right about now, I wished there was some kind of class I could take so I'd be able to follow these conversations, Caster 101, I don't know, because I was always sort of lost. The only person I knew who had any special abilities was Anna. Reading futures and warding off evil spirits to count for something, right? And for all I knew, Anna could move objects with her mind; she could sure get my butt moving with just a look. "What about Aunt Del? What can she do?"
"She's a Palimpest. She reads time."
"Reads time?"
"Like, you and I walk into a room and see the present. Aunt Del sees different points in the past and the present, all at once. She can walk into a room and see it as is today and is it was ten years ago, twenty years, ago, fifty years ago, at the same time. Kind of like when we touch the locket. That;s why she's always so confused. She never knows exactly when or even where she is."
I though about how I felt after one of the visions, and what it would be like to feel that way all of the time. "No kidding. How about Ridley?"
"Ridley's a Siren. Her gift is the Power of Persuasion. She can put any idea into anyone's head, get them to tell her anything, do anything. If she used her power on you, and she told you to jump off a cliff - you'd jump." I remembered how it felt in the car with her, like I would've told her almost anything.
"I wouldn't jump."
"You would. You'd have to. A Mortal man is no match of a Siren."
"I wouldn't." I looked at him. His clothes were blowing in the breeze around him, except there wasn't an open window in the room. I searched his eyes for some kind of sign he was feeling the same way I was. "You can't jump off a cliff if you've already fallen off a bigger one."
I head the words coming out of my mouth, and I wanted to take them back as soon as I said them. They had  sounded a lot better in my head. He looked back at me, to see if I was serious. I was, but I couldn't say that. Instead, I changed the subject. "So what's Reece's superpower?"
"She's a Sybil, she reads faces. She can see what you've seen, who you've seen, what you've done, just by looking into your eyes. She can open your face and literally read it, like a book." Jack was still studying my face.
"Yeah, who was that? The older woman Ridley turned into for a second, when Reece was staring at her? Did you see that?"
Jack nodded. "Macon wouldn't tell me, but it had to be someone Dark. Someone powerful."
I kept asking. I had to know. It was like finding out I'd just had dinner with a bunch of aliens. "What can Larkin do? Charms shakes?"
"Larkin's an Illusionist. It's like a Shifter, But Uncle Barclay's they only Shifter in the family."
"What's the difference?"
"Larkin can Spellcast, or make anything look like anything he wants, for a spell - people, things, places. He creates illusions, but they're not real. Uncle Barclay can Shiftcast, which means he can actually change any object into another object, for as long as he wants."
"So your cousin changes how things seem, and your uncle changes how they are?"
"Yeah. Mostly, Gramma says their powers are too close. It happens sometimes with parents and their children. They're too much alike, so they're always fighting." I knew what he was thinking, that he would never know that for himself. His face clouded over, and I made a stupid attempt to lighten the mood.
"Ryan? What's her power? Dog fashion designer?"
"Too soon to tell. She's only ten."
"And Macon?"
"He's just . . . Uncle Macon. There's nothing Uncle Macon can't do, or wouldn't do for me. I spent a lot of time with him growing up." He looked away, avoiding the question. He was holding something back, but with Jack, it was impossible to know what. "He's like my father, or how I imagine my father." He didn't have to say anything else. I knew what it was like to lose someone. I wondered if it was worse to never have them at all.
"What about you? What's your gift?"
As if he just had one. As if I hadn't seen them in action since the first day of school. As if I hadn't been trying to get up the nerve to ask him this question since the night he sat on my porch in his green pajamas.
He paused for a minute, collecting his thoughts, or deciding if he was going to tell me; it was impossible to know which. Then he looked at me, with his endless blue eyes. "I'm a Natural. At least Uncle Macon and Aunt Del think I am."
A Natural. I was relieved. It didn't sound as bad ad a Siren. I don't think I could have ever handled that. "What exactly does that mean?"
"I don't even know. It's not really one thing. I mean, supposedly a Natural can do a lot more than other Casters." He said it quickly, almost like he was hoping I wouldn't hear, but I did.
More than other Casters.
More. I wasn't sure how I felt about more. Less, I could have handled less. Less would've been good.
"But as you saw tonight, I don't even know what I can do." He picked at the quilt between us, nervous. I pulled on his hand until he was lying on the bed next to me, propped up on one elbow.
"I don't care about any of that. I like you the way you are."
"Ethan, you barely know anything about me."
The drowsy warmth was washing through my body, and to be honest, I couldn't have cared less what he was saying. It felt so good just to be near him, holding his hand, with only the white quilt between us. "That's not true. I know you write poetry and I know abut the raven on your necklace and I know you love orange soda and your grandma and Milk Duds mixed into your popcorn."
For a second, I thought he might smile. "That's hardly anything."
"It's a start."
He looked me right in the eye, his blue eyes searching my hazel ones.
"Your name is Jack McLoughlin."
"Okay, well, for starters, it's not."
I pushed myself all the way up, and let go of his hand. "What are you talking about?"
"It's not my name. Ridley wasn't lying about that." Some of the conversation from earlier started to come back to me. I remembered Ridley saying something about Jack not knowing his real name, but I didn't think she had meant literally.
"Well, what is it then?"
"I don't know."
"Is that some kind of Caster thing?"
"Not really. Most Casters know their real names, but my family's different. In my family, we don't learn our birth names until we turn sixteen. Until then, we have other names. Ridley's was Julia. Reece's was Annabel. Mine is Jack."
"So who's Jack McLoughlin?"
"I'm a McLoughlin, that much I know. But Jack, that's just a name my gramma started calling me, because she thought it was fitting."
I didn't say anything fora  second. I was trying to take it all in. "Okay, so you don't know your first name. You'll know in a couple of months."
"It's not that simple. I don; know anything about myself. That's why I'm so crazy all the time. I don't know my name and I don't know what happened to my parents."
"They died in an accident, right?"
"That's what they told me, but nobody really talks about it. I can't find any record of the accident, and I've never seen their graves or anything. How do I even know it's true?"
"Who's going to lie about something as creepy as that?"
"Have you met my family?"
"Right."
"And that monster downstairs. that - witch, who almost killed you? Believe it or not, she used to be my best friend. Ridley and I grew up together living with my gramma. We moved around so much we shared the same suitcase."
"That's why you guys don't have much of an accent. Most people would never believe you had lived in the South."
"What's your excuse?"
"Professor parents, and a jar full of quarters every time I dropped a G." I rolled my eyes. "So Ridley didn't live with Aunt Del?"
"No. Aunt Del just visits on the holidays. In my family, you don't live with your parents. It's too dangerous." I stopped myself from asking my next fifty questions while Jack raced on, as if he'd been waiting to tell this story for over a hundred years. "Ridley and I were like siblings. We slept in the same room and we were home-schooled together. When we moved to Virginia, we convinced my gramma to let us go to a regular school. We wanted to make friends, be normal. The only time we ever spoke to Mortals was when Gramma took us on one of her outings to museums, the opera, or lunch at Olde Pink House.
"So what happened when you went to school?"
"It was a disaster. Our clothes were wrong, we didn't have a TV, we turned in all our homework. We were total losers."
"But you got to hang out with Mortals."
He wouldn't look at me. "I've never had a Mortal friend until I met you."
"Really?"
"I only had Ridley. Things were just as bad for her, but she didn't care. She was too busy making sure no one ever bothered me."
I had a hard time imagining Ridley protecting anyone.
People change, Ethan.
Not that much, not even Casters.
Especially Casters. That's what I'm trying to tell you.
He pulled his hand away from me. "Ridley started acting strange, and then the same guys who had ignored her started following her everywhere, waiting for her after school, fighting over who would walk her home."
"Yeah, well. Some girls are just like that."
"Ridley isn't some girl. told you, she's a Siren. She could people do things, things the wouldn't normally do. And those boys were jumping off the cliff, one by one." He twisted his necklace around his fingers and kept talking. "The night before Ridley's sixteenth birthday, I followed her to the train station. She was scared out of her mind. She said she could tell she was going Dark, and she had to get away before she hurt someone she love. Before she hurt me. I'm the only person Ridley ever loved. She disappeared that night, and I never saw her again until today. I think after what you saw tonight, it's pretty obvious she went Dark."
"Wait a second, what are you talking about? What do you mean going Dark?"
Jack took a deep breath and hesitated, like he wasn't sure if he wanted to tell me the answer.
"You have to tell me, Jack."
"In my family, when you turn sixteen, you're Claimed. Your fate is chosen for you, and you become Light, like Aunt Del and Reece, or you become Dark, like Ridley. Dark or Light, Black or White. There's no gray in my family. We can't choose, and we can't undo it once we're Claimed."
"What do you mean, you can't choose?"
"We can't decide if we want to be Light or Dark, good or evil, like Mortals and other Casters can. In my family, there's no fee will. It's decided for us, on our sixteenth birthday."
I tried to understand what he was saying, but it was too crazy. I'd lived with Anna long enough to know there was White and Black magic, but it was hard to believe that Jack had no choice about which one he was."
Who he was.
He was still talking. "That's why we can't live with our parents."
"What does that have to do with it?"
"It didn't used to be that way. But when my gramma's sister, Althea, went Dark, their bother couldn't send Althea away. Back then, if a Caster went Dark, they were supposed to leave their home and family, for obvious reasons. Alhtea's mother thought she could help her fight it, but she couldn't, and terrible things started happening in the town where they lived."
"What kind of problems?"
"Althea was an Evo. They're incredibly powerful. They can influence people like Ridley an, but they can also Evolve, morph into other people, into anyone. Once she Turned, unexplained accidents started happening in town. People were injured and eventually a girl drowned, That's when Althea's mother finally sent her away.
I thought we had problems in Anston. I couldn't imagine a more powerful version of Ridley hanging around. full-time. "So now none of you can live with your parents?"
"Everyone decided it would be too hard for parents to turn their backs on their children if they went Dark. So ever since then, children live with other family members until they're Claimed."
"Then why does Ryan live with her parents?"
"Ryan is . . . Ryan. She's a special case." He shrugged. "At least, that's what Uncle Macon says every time I ask."
It all sounded so surreal, the idea that everyone in his family possessed supernatural powers. They looked like me, like everyone else in Anston, well, maybe not everyone, but they were completely different. Weren't they? Even Ridley, hanging out in front of the Stop & Steal - none of the guys had suspected she was anything other than an incredibly hot girl, who was obviously pretty confused if she was looking for me. How did it work? How did you get to be a Caster instead of just some ordinary kid?
"Were your parents gifted?" I hated to bring up his parents, I knew what it was like to talk about you dead parent, but at this point I had to know.
"Yes. Everyone in my family is."
"What were their gifts? Were they anything like yours?"
"I don't know. Gramma's never said anything. I told you, it's like they never existed. Which just makes me think, you know."
"What?"
"Maybe they went Dark, and I'm going to go Dark, too."
"You're not."
"How do you know?"
"How can I have the same dreams you have? How do I know when I walk into a room whether or not you've been there?"
Ethan.
It's true.
I touched his cheek, and said quietly, "I don't know how I know. I just do."
"I know you believe that, but you can't know. I don't even know what's going to happen to me."
"That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard." It was like everything else tonight; I hadn't meant to say it, at least not loud, but I was glad I did.
"What?"
"All that destiny garbage. Nobody can decide what happens to you. Nobody but you."
"Not if you're a McLoughlin, Ethan. Other Casters, they can choose, but not us, not my family. When we're Claimed at sixteen, we become Light or Dark. There is no free will."
I tilted his chin with my hand. "So you're a Natural. What's wrong with that?"
I looked into his eyes, and I knew I was going to kiss him, and I knew there was nothing to worry about, as long as we stayed together. And I believed, for that one second, we always would.
I stopped thinking about the Jackson basketball playbook and finally let him see how I felt, what was in my hind, What I was about to do, and how long it had taken me to get up the nerve to do it.
Oh.
His eyes widened, bigger and bluer, if that was even possible.
Ethan- I don't know-
I leaned down and kissed his mouth. It tasted salty, like his tears. This time, not warmth, but electricity shot from my mouth to my toes. I could feel it tingling in my fingertips. It was like shoving a pen into an electrical outlet, which Mark had dared me to do when I was eight years old. He closed his eyes and pulled me into him,  and for a minute, everything was perfect. He kissed me, his lips smiling beneath mine, and I knew he had been waiting for me, maybe just as long as I had been waiting for him. But then, as quickly as he had opened himself up to me, he shut me out. Or more accurately, he pushed me back.
Ethan, we can't do this.
Why? I thought we felt the same way about each other?
Or maybe we didn't. Maybe he didn't.
I was staring at him, from the end of hie outstretched hands that were still resting on my chest. He could probably feel how fast my heart was beating.
It's not about that . . .
He started to turn away, and I was sure he was about to run away like he had the day we found the locket at Greenbrier, like the night he left me standing on my porch. I put my had on his wrist, and instantly felt the heat. "What is it?"
He stared back at me, and I tried to hear his thoughts, but I heard nothing. "I know you think I have a chance about what's going to happen to me, but I don't. And what Ridley did tonight, that was nothing. She could've killed you, and maybe she would have if I hadn't stopped her." He took a deep breath, his eyes glistening. "That's what I could turn into - a monster - whether you believe it or not."
I slit my arms back around his neck, ignoring him. But he went on. "I don't want you to see me like that."
"I don't care." I kissed his cheek.
He climbed off the bed, sliding his arm out of my hand.
"You don't get it." He held up his hand. 122. One hundred and twenty two more days, smeared in blue ink, as if that was all we had.
"I get it. You're scared. But we'll figure something out. We're supposed to be together."
"We're not. You're a Mortal. You can't understand. I don't want you to get hurt, and that's what will happen if you get too close to me."
"Too late."
I heard every word he had said, but I only knew one thing.
I was all in.