Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1)

by Kami Garcia

There was a curse. There was a girl. And in the end, there was a grave. I never even saw it coming.

Giving me twilight vibes

Lemons and rosemary. I could smell her, even then.

Kind of like love before first sight.

Butterflies in your stomach. That was such a crappy metaphor. More like killer bees.

If I didn’t think about it, it wasn’t happening.

Amma slid the same old blue and white china plate—Dragonware, my mom had called it—of

“We out of chocolate milk?” I drank chocolate milk the way some people drank Coke or coffee. Even in the morning, I was always looking for my next sugar fix.

The tragedy of his band, Who Shot Lincoln,

read all the time. Books were the one thing that got me out of Gatlin, even if it was only for a little while. I had a map on my wall, and every time I read about a place I wanted to go, I marked it on the map. New York was Catcher in the Rye. Into the Wild got me to Alaska. When I read On the Road, I added Chicago, Denver, L.A., and Mexico City. Kerouac could get you pretty much everywhere. Every few months, I drew a line to connect the marks. A thin green line I’d follow on a road trip, the summer before college,

Amma was the most respected tarot card reader within a hundred miles of

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.”

Thick ivy grew so densely over the exterior walls that in some places it was impossible to see the windows underneath. As if the grounds had swallowed up the house itself, trying to take it back down into the very dirt it had been built upon.

They looked like circles and crescents, maybe the phases of the moon.

These were more like hieroglyphs, surrounding what looked like a single word, in a language I didn’t recognize.

landed on half of them. I reached for the brass ring suspended from a lion’s mouth that served as a knocker, and I knocked.

grabbed the bush closest to me and ripped off a branch. Rosemary. Of course. And in the tree above my head, there it was: a strangely perfect, smooth, yellow lemon.

I’m stupid to the power of stupid.”

Only I never got tired enough. And I couldn’t read, because reading didn’t feel the same. I couldn’t disappear into the character of Holden Caulfield, because I couldn’t get lost in the story, not the way you need to be, to become somebody else.

Hurricane Lena,

Macon Ravenwood was dressed impeccably, as if it was, I don’t know, 1942.

“No, books. She would have maybe twenty going at a time, lying all over our house—on the kitchen table, by her bed, the bathroom, our car, her bags, a little stack at the edge of each stair. And she’d use anything she could find for a bookmark. My missing sock, an apple core, her reading glasses, another book, a fork.”

“No. Ravens are the most powerful birds in the Caster world. Legend has it that they can draw energy into themselves and release it in other forms.

“That’s cute.”

“If by cute you mean tragic.”

fate decides. On the other, it said until challenged by

the fated.

Genevieve could see a small piece of smooth stone above the door, with a crescent moon carved into it.

The Book a Moons.”

“Elton John?” “Close. Ernest Hemingway. In his own way, sort of the rock star of his time.”

deviltry

You’re not the only one falling.

“THE GREATEST OF THE DARKNESSE BEING THE POWERE CLOSEST TO THE WOLD & THE UNDYRWOLD, THE CATA-CLYSTE. THE GREATEST OF THE LIGHT BEING THE POWERE CLOSEST TO THE WOLD & THE UNDYRWOLD, THE NATURAL. WHERE THERE IS NOT ONNE THERE CANNOT BE THE OTHERE, AS WITHOUTE DARKNESSE THERE CAN BE NO LIGHT.”

“AT THE TYME OF CLAIMING, THE TRUTHE WILL BE MADE MANIFESTE. WHAT APPEARS DARKNESSE MAYE BE THE GREATEST LIGHT, WHAT APPEARS LIGHT MAYE BE THE GREATEST DARKNESSE.”

What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you.’”

Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’

Dreaming about a Caster girl I would always love.

the world ends not with a bang but a whimper

first green is gold but nothing green can stay

I noticed for the first time that one was green, and one was hazel—actually, more like gold.

It’s crazy what you see if you aren’t really looking.

Seventeen moons, seventeen years, Eyes where Dark or Light appears, Gold for yes and green for no, Seventeen the last to know.