Beautiful Secrets (Cranksepticeye Fanfiction)

~2.11~ Family Reunion

Once my dad was safely in the hands of reenactment medics, I couldn't get back to the party fast enough. I pushed past the girls from Jackson, who had ditched their jackets, and were looking skanky in their tank tops and baby tees, gyrating to the music of the Holy Rollers. Minus Mark who, to his credit, was right on my heels. It was loud. Live band loud. Live ammo loud. So loud that I almost didn't hear Larkin's voice calling me.
"Ethan, over here!" Larkin was standing in the trees just past the reflective yellow rope that separated the Safe Zone from You-Could-Get-Your-Butt-Shot-Off-If-You-Cross-This-Line Zone. What was he doing in the woods, past the Safe Zone? Why wasn't he at the house? I waved to him and he motioned me over, disappearing behind the rise. Usually jumping that rope would've been a tough choice, but not today. I had no choice but to follow him. Mark was right behind me, stumbling, but still somehow keeping up with me, the way it used to be.
"Hey, Ethan."
"Yeah?"
"About Rid, I should've listened."
"It's okay, man. You couldn't help it. I should've told you everything."
"Don't sweat it, I wouldn't have believed you."
The sound of gunfire echoed over our heads. We both ducked, instinctively.
"Hope those are blanks," Mark said nervously. "Wouldn't it be crazy if my own dad shot me out here?"
"With my luck lately, it wouldn't surprise me if he shot us both."
We reached the top of the rise. I could see the thicket of brush, the oaks, and the smoke of the artillery field beyond us.
"We're over here!" Larkin called, from the other side of the thicket. By the "we," I could only assume he meant him and Jack, so I ran faster. Like Jack's life depended on it, because for all I knew maybe it did.
Then I realized where we were. There was the archway to the garden at Greenbrier. Larkin and Jack were standing in the clearing, just beyond the garden, in the same place where we had dug up Genevieve's grave just a few weeks ago. A few feet behind them, a figure stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight. It was dark, but the full moon was right over us.
I blinked. It was- It was-
"Mom, what the heck are you doing out here?" Mark was confused.
Because his mom was standing in front of us, Mrs. Fischbach, my worst nightmare, or at least in my top ten. She looked strangely in - or out of - place, depending on how you looked at it. She was wearing ridiculous volumes of petticoats and the stupid calico dress that cinched her waist way too tightly. And she was standing right at Genevieve's grave. "Now, now. You know how I feel about profanity, young man."
Mark rubbed his head. This made no sense at all, not to him, and not to me.
Jack, what's happening?
Jack?
There was no response. Something was wrong.
"Mrs. Fischbach, are you okay?"
"Delightful, Ethan. Isn't it a wonderful battle? And Jack's birthday too, he tells me. We've been waiting for you. At least, one of you."
Mark stepped closer. "Well, I'm here now, Mom. I'll take you home. You shouldn't be out past the Safe Zone. You're gonna get your head blown off. You know what a bad shot Dad is."
I grabbed Mark's arm, holding him back. There was something wrong, something about the way she was smiling at us. Something about the panicked look on Jack's face.
What's going on? Jack!
Why wasn't he answering me? I watched as Jack pulled my mom's ring out of his sweatshirt and grabbed it by the chain in his hand. I could see his lips move in the darkness. I could barely hear something, only a whisper, in the far corner of my mind.
Ethan, get out of here! Get Uncle Macon! Run!
But I couldn't move. I couldn't leave him.
"Mark, Angel, you are such a thoughtful boy."
Mark? It wasn't Mrs. Fischbach standing in front of us. It couldn't be.
Mrs. Fischbach would no more call Mark Edward Fischbach "Mark" than she would streak through the streets naked. "Why you would use that ridiculous nickname when you have such a dignified name, I cannot imagine," she'd say every time one of us accidentally called her house and asked for Mark.
Mark felt my hand on his arm and stopped. It was starting to register with him, too; I could see it on his face. "Mom?"
"Ethan, get out of here! Larkin, Mark, somebody, go get Uncle Macon!" Jack was screaming . He couldn't stop. He looked mire frightened than I had ever seen him. I ran toward him.
I could hear the sound of a shell being released from a canon. Then a flurry of gunfire.
My back slammed into something hard. I felt my head crack and everything sort of went out of focus for a second.
"Ethan!" I could hear Jack's voice, but I couldn't move. I'd been shot. I was sure of it. I fought to stay conscious.
After a few seconds, my eyes came back into focus. I was on the ground, my back against a massive oak. The gunshot must have thrown me backward into the tree. I felt around to see where I'd been hit, but there was no blood. I couldn't find the bullet's point of entry. Mark was a few feet away, propped awkwardly against another tree. He looked just as out of it as I felt. I got to my feet, stumbling toward Jack, but my face slammed right into something and I ended up back on the ground. It felt just like the time I had walked into a sliding glass door at the Sister's house.
I hadn't been shot; this was something else. I'd been hit by a different kind of weapon.
"Ethan!" Jack was screaming.
I got up again and stepped forward slowly. There was a sliding glass door there all right, except this one was some kind of invisible wall encircling the tree and me. I banged on it and my fist smacked it but it didn't make a sound. I slammed my palms against it over and over. What else could I do? That's when I noticed Mark banging on his own invisible cage.
Mrs. Fischbach smiled at me, with a smile more wicked than anything Ridley could muster on her best day.
"Let them go!" Jack shrieked .
Out of nowhere, the sky opened up and rain literally poured out of the clouds, like it was being dumped from a bucket. Jack. His clothes and hair were waving wildly. The rain turned to sleet and fell sideways, attacking Mrs. Fischbach from every direction. In a matter if seconds, we were all soaked to the bone.
Mrs. Fischbach, or whoever she was, smiled. There was something about her smile. She looked almost proud. "I'm not going to hurt them. I just want to give us some time to talk." Thunder rumbled in the sky over her head. "I was hoping I would get a chance to see some if your talents. How I've regretted I wasn't there to help you hone your gifts."
"Shut up, witch." Jack was grim. I had never seen his blue eyes like this, the steely way they were set on Mrs. Fischbach . Flint hard. Resolute. Full of hate and anger. He looked like he wanted to rip Mrs. Fischbach's head off, and he looked like he could do it.
I finally understood what Jack had been so worried about all year. He had the power to destroy. I had only seen the power to love. When you discovered you had both, who could figure out what to do with that?
Mrs. Fischbach turned to Jack. "Wait until you realize what you can really do. How you manipulate the elements. It's the true gift of a Natural, something we have in common."
Mrs. Fischbach looked up at the sky, the rain running down beside her as if she was holding an umbrella. "Right niw you're making rain showers, but soon you'll learn to control fire as well. Let me show you. How I do like playing with fire."
Rain showers? Was she kidding? We were in the middle of a monsoon.
Mrs. Fischbach held up her palm and lightning sliced through the clouds, electrifying the sky. She held up three fingers. Lightning erupted, with the flick if every manicured nail. Once. Lightning struck the ground, kicking up the dirt, two feet away from where Mark was trapped. Twice. Lightning burned through the oak behind me, cleaving the trunk neatly in half. A third time. Lightning struck Jack, who simply held up his own outstretched hand. The flash if electricity ricocheted off him, landing instead at Mrs. Fischbach's feet. The grass started to smolder and burn.
Mrs. Fischbach laughed and waved her hand. The fires in the grass died out. She looked at Jack with a glint of pride. "Not bad. I'm happy to see the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
It couldn't be.
Jack glared and turned up both palms, a protective stance. "Yeah? What do they say about the bad apple?"
"Nothing. No one has ever lived to say it." Then Mrs. Fischbach turned to Mark and me in her calico dress and miles if petticoats, with her hair braided down her back. She looked right at us, her violet eyes blazing. "I'm so sorry, Ethan. I hoped our first meeting would be under different circumstances. It's not every day that you meet your son's first boyfriend."
She turned to Jack. "Or your son."
I was right. I knew who she was, and what we were dealing with.
Sarafine.
A moment later, Mrs. Fischbach 's face, her dress, her whole body literally started to split down the middle. You could see the skin on either side pulling away like the crumpled wrapper of a candy bar. As her body split down the center, it started to fall like a coat being shrugged from someone else's shoulders. Underneath was someone else.
"I don't have a mother." Jack shouted.
Sarafine winced, as if she was trying to look hurt because she was Jack's mother. It was undeniable genetic truth. She had the same curly brown hair as Jack, although hers was longer, flowing to her waist. Although, where Jack was frighteningly beautiful, Sarafine was just frightening. Like Jack, Sarafine had elegant features, but instead of Jack's green eyes, she had the same glowing violet eyes as Ridley and Genevieve. And they eyes made all the difference.
Sarafine was wearing a dark green corseted velvet dress, kind of modern and Gothic and turn-of-the-century, all at the same time, and black motorcycle boots. She literally stepped out of Mrs. Fischbach's body, which fused back together within seconds, as if someone had sewn up the seam. Leaving the real Mrs. Fischbach collapsed in the grass with her hoopskirt flipped up, revealing her knee-high support hoes and petticoats.
Mark was in shock.
Sarafine straightened, shaking free of the weight, shuddering. "Mortals. That body was just insufferable, so awkward and uncomfortable. Stuffing its face every five miniutes. Disgusting creatures."
"Mom! Mom, wake up!" Mark pounded his fists against what was obviously some kind of force field. No matter what a dragon she was, Mrs. Fischbach was Mark's dragon, and it must have been hard to see her tossed aside like a piece of inconsequential human trash.
Sarafine waved her hand. Mark's mouth was still moving, but he wasn't making a sound. "That's better. You're lucky I didn't have to spend all my time in your mother's body over the last few months. If I had, you'd be dead by now. I can't tell you the number of times I nearly killed you out if boredom at the dinner table, droning on about your stupid band."
It all made sense now. The crusade against Jack, the Jackson Disciplinary Committee meeting, the lies about Jack's school records, even the weird brownies on Halloween. How long had Sarafine been masquerading as Mrs. Fischbach?
In Mrs. Fischbach.
I had never really understood what we were up against until now. The Darkest Caster living today. Ridley seemed so harmless in comparison. No wonder Jack had been dreading this day for so long.
Sarafine looked back at Jack. "You may think you don't have a mother, Jack, but if that's true, it's only because your grandmother and your uncle took you from me. I've always loved you." It was disconcerting how Sarafine could move so easily from one set of emotions to another, from sincerity and regret to disgust and contempt, each emotion as hollow as the next.
Jack's eyes were bitter. "Is that why you've been trying to kill me, Mother?"
Sarafine tried to look concerned, or maybe surprised. It was hard to tell because her expression looked so unnatural, so forced. "Is that what they told you? I was simply trying to make contact - to talk to you. If it hadn't been for all their Bindings, my attempts would never have put you in any danger, a fact they knew. Of course, I understand their concern. I am a Dark Caster, a Cataclyst. But Jack, you know as well as anyone, I had no choice in that matter. It was decided for me. It doesn't change the way I feel about you, about my only son."
"I don't beleive you!" Jack spat. He looked unsure of himself, even as he said it, like he wasn't sure what to beleive.
I checked my cell phone. 9:59. Two hours until midnight.
Mark slumped against the tree, his head in his hands. I couldn't look away from Mrs. Fischbach, lifeless in the grass. Jack was looking at her, too.
"She's not, you know. Is she?" I had to know for Mark's sake.
Sarafine tried to look sympathetic. But I could tell she was losing interest in Mark and me, which wasn't good for either of us. "She'll return to her previously unappealing state soon. Nauseating woman. I'm not interested in her or the boy. I was only trying to show my son the true nature of Mortals. How easily they can be influenced, how vindictive they are." She turned to Jack. "Just a few words from Mrs. Fischbach and look how easily the whole town turned on you. You don't belong in their world. You belong with me."
Sarafine turned to Larkin. "Speaking of unappealing states, Larkin, why don't you show us those baby blues, I mean violets?"
Larkin smiled and squeezed his eyes shut, reaching his arms over his head like he was stretching after a long nap. But when he opened his eyes again, something was different. He blinked wildly, and with each blink his eyes began to change. You could almost see the molecules rearranging. Larkin transformed, and there standing in his place was a pile if snakes. The snakes began to coil and climb onto each other, until Larkin emerged once again from the twisting heap. He held out his two rattlesnake arms that hissed and crawled back into his leather jacket until they became his hands. Then he opened his eyes. But instead of the blue eyes I was used to seeing, Larkin stared back at us with the same violet eyes as Sarafine and Ridley. "Green was never my color. One of the perks of being an  Illusionist."
"Larkin?" My heart sank. He was one of them, a Dark Caster. Things were worse than I thought.
"Larkin, what are you?" Jack looked confused, but only for a second. "Why?"n
But the answer was staring right at us, in Larkin's violet eyes. "Why not?"
"Why not? Oh, I don't know, how about a little family loyalty?"
Larkin swiveled his head, as the thick golden chain around his neck writhed into a snake, tounge flickering against his cheek. "Loyalty's not really my thing."
"You betrayed everyone, your own mother. How can you live with yourself?
He stuck out his tounge. The snake crawled into his mouth and disappeared. He swallowed. "It's a whole lot more fun being Dark than Light, cousin. You'll see. We are what we are. This is what I was destined to be. There's no reason to fight it." His tounge flickered, now forked, like the snake inside of him.
"I don't know why you're so worked up about it. Look at Ridley. She's having a great time."
"You're a traitor!" Jack was losing control. Thunder rumbled over his head, and the rain intensified again.
"He's not the only traitor, Jack." Sarafine took a few steps toward Jack.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your beloved Uncle Macon." Her voice was butter and I could tell it wasn't lost on Sarafine that Macon had all but stolen her son from her.
"You're lying."
"He's the one who had been lying to you all this time. He let you beleive your fwte was predetermined - that you didn't habe a choice. That tonight, on yiur sixteenth birthday, you will be Claimed Light or Dark."
Jack shook his head stubbornly. He raised his palms. Thunder rumbled, and the rain began to pour, in thick sheets and torrents. He shouted to be heard. "That's what happens. It happened to Ridley and Reece and Larkin."
"You're rig, but you're different. Tonight, you will not be Claimed. You will have to Claim yourself."
The words hung in the air. Claim Yourself. Like the words themselves had the power to stop time.
Jack's face wad ashen. For a second, I thought he was going to pass out. "What did you say?" He whispered.
"You have a choice. I'm sure your uncle didn't tell you that."
"That's impossible." I could barely hear Jack's voice in the shrieking wind.
"A choice afforded to you because you are my son, the second Natural in the McLoughlin family. I may be a Catalyst now, but I was the first Natural born into our family."
Sarafine paused, then repeated a verse:
" 'The First will be Black,
But the Second may choose to turn back.' "
"I don't understand." Jack's legs gave you from under him, and he fell to his knees in the mud and tall grass.
"You've always had a choice. Your uncle has always known that."
"I don't beleive you!" Jack threw up his arms. Clumps of earth ripped up from the ground between them, swirling into the storm. I shielded my eyes as bits of dirt and rock flew at us from every direction.
I tried to shout over the storm, but Jack could barely hear me. "Jack, don't listen to her. She's Dark. She doesn't care about anyone. You told me that yourself."
"Why would Uncle Macon hide the truth from me?" Jack looked directly at me, as if I was the only one who would know the answer. But I didn't know. There was nothing I could say.
Jack slammed his foot against the ground in front of him. The ground began to tremble, then roll beneath my feet. For the first time ever, an earthquake had hit Anston County. Sarafine smiled. She knew Jack was losing control, and she was winning. The electrical storm in the sky flashed over our heads.
"That's enough, Sarafine!" Macon's voice echoed across the field. He appeared out if nowhere. "Leave my nephew alone."
Tonight, in the moonlight, he looked different. Less like a man and mire like what he was. Something else. His face looked younger, leaner. Ready for a fight. "Are you referring to my son? The son you stole from me?" Sarafine straightened and began to twist her fingers, like a soldier checking his arsenal before a battle.
"As if he ever meant anything to you," Macon said calmly. He smoothed his jacket, impeccable as usual. Boo burst out of the bushes behind him, as if he'd been running to catch up. Tonight, Boo looked exactly like what he was - an enormous wolf.
"Macon. I feel honored, except I hear I missed the party. My own son's sixteenth birthday. But that's all right. There's always the Claiming tonight. We've a couple hours yet, and I wouldn't miss that for the world."
"Then I suppose you will be disappointed, as you're not invited."
"Pity. Since I've invited someone myself, and he's dying to see you." She smiled and fluttered her fingers. As quickly as Macon had materialized, another man appeared, leaning against a willow trunk, where no one had been standing before.
"Hunting? Where did she dig you up?"
He looked like Macon, but taller and a little younger, with slick jet-black hair and the same pallid skin. But where Macon resembled a Southern gentlemen from another time, thus man looked fiercely stylish. Dressed in all black, a turtleneck, jeans, and a leather bomber, he looked more like a movie star you'd see on the cover of a tabloid rag than Macon's Cary Grant. But one thing was obvious. He was an Incubus, too, and not - if there was such a thing - the good kind. Whatever Macon was, Hunting was something else.
Hunting cracked what must have passed for a smile, to his kind. He began to circle Macon. "Brother. It's been a long time."
Macon didn't return the smile. "Not long enough. I'm not surprised you'd take up with someone like her."
Hunting laughed, raunchy and loud. "Who else would you expect me to take up with? A pack of Light Casters, like you did? It's ridiculous. The idea that you can just walk away from what you are. From our family legacy."
"I made a choice, Hunting."
"A choice? Is that what you all it?" Hunting laughed again, circling closer to Macon. "Mire like a fantasy. You don't get to choose what you are, Brother. You're an Incubus. And whether you choose to feed on blood or not, you are still a Dark Creature."
"Uncle Macon, is what she said true?" Jack wasn't interested in Macon and Hunting's little reunion.
Sarafine laughed, shrilly. "For once in your life, Macon, tell the boy the truth."
Macon looked at him, stubbornly. "Jack, it's not that simple."
"But is is true? Do I have a choice?" His hair was dripping, tangled in wet ringlets. If course, Macon and Hunting were dry. Hunting smiled and lit a cigarette. He was enjoying this.
"Uncle Macon. Is it true?" Jack pleaded.
Macon looked at Jack, exasperated, and looked aeay. "You do have a choice, Jack a complicated choice. A choice with dire consequences."
All at once, the rain stopped completely. The air was perfectly still. If thus was a hurricane, we were in the eye. Jack's emotions churned. I knew what he was feeling, even without hearing his voice in my head. Happiness, because he had finally gotten the one thing he had always wanted, the choice to decide his own fate. Anger, because he had lost the one peron he had always trusted.
Jack stared at Macon as if through new eyes. I could see the darkness creeping into his face. "Why didn't you tell me? I've spent my whole life terrified I was going to go Dark." There was another crash if thunder and the patter of rain began to fall again, like tears. But Jack wasn't crying, he was angry.
"You do have a choice, Jack. But there are consequences. Consequences you could not understand, as a child. You can't really begin to understand them now. Yet I have spent every day if my life pondering them, since before you were born. And ad your dear mother knows, the conditions of this bargain were determined long ago."
"What kind if consequences?" Jack looked at Sarafine skeptically. Cautiously. As if his mind was opening to new possibilities. I knew what he was thinking. If he couldn't trust Macon - if he had been keeping thus kind of secret all thus time - maybe his mother was telling the truth.
I had to make him hear me.
Don't listen to her! Jack! You can't trust her-
But there was nothing. Our connection was broken in the presence of Sarafine. It was like she had cut the phone line between us.
"Jack, you can't possibly understand the choice you are being pressured to make. What is at stake."
The rain turned from a patter if tears to a screaming downpour.
"As if you could trust him. After a thousand lies." Sarafine glared at Macon and turned to Jack. "I wish we had more time to talk, Jack. But you have to make the Choice, and I am Bound to explain the stakes. There are consequences; your uncle wasn't lying about that." She paused. "If you choice to go Dark, all the Light Casters in our family will die."
Jack went pale. "Why would I ever agree to do that?"
"Because if you choose to go Light, all the Dark Casters and Lilum in our family will die. " Sarafine turned and looked at Macon. "And I do mean, all. Your uncle, the man who has been like a father to you, will cease to exist. You will destroy him."
Macon disappeared and materialized in front of Jack, not even a second later. "Jack, listen to me. I am willing to make th e sacrifice. That's why I didn't tell you. I didn't want you to feel guilty about letting me go. I have always known what you would choose. Make the Choice. Let me go."
Jack was reeling. Could he really destroy Macon if what Sarafine said wad true? But if it was true, what other choice did he have? Macon was only one person, even though Jack loved him.
"There is something else I can offer," Sarafine added.
"What could you possibly have to offer me that would make me kill Gramma, Aunt Del, Reece, Ryan?"
Sarafine tentatively took a few steps toward Jack. "Ethan. We have a way the two if you can be together."
"What are you talking about? We're already together. " sarafine cocked her head slightly and her eyes narrowed. Something passed across her golden eyes. Recognition.
"You don't know. Do you?" Sarafine turned to Macon and laughed. "You didn't tell him. Well, that's not playing fair."
"Know what?" Jack snapped.
"That you and Ethan can never be together, not physically." Casters and Lilium cannot be with Mortals." She smiled, relishing the moment. "At least not without killing them."