Beautiful Secrets (Cranksepticeye Fanfiction)

~11.27~ Just Your Average American Holiday

I blinked a few times, glancing around the room. My father was still staring athis potatoes. Aunt Mercy was still wrapping a biscuit in her napkin. I lifted my hands in front of my face, wiggling my fingers. "What the hell was that?"
"Ethan Nestor!" Aunt Grace gasped.
Anna was splitting her biscuits and filling them with ham. She looked at me, caught off guard. It was obvious she hadn't intended for me to hear their little talk. She gave me the Look. Meaning, you keep your mouth shut, Ethan Nestor.
"Don't you use that kinda language at my table. You're not too old for me to wash your mouth out with a bar a soap. What do you think it is? Ham and biscuits. Turkey and stuffing. Now I been cookin' all day, I expect you to eat."
I looked over at Jack. The smile was gone. He was staring at his plate.
Jack. Come back to me. I won't let anything happen to you. You'll be okay.
But he was too far away.

Jack didn't say a word the whole way home. When we got to Ravenwood, he yanked open the car door, slammed it behind him, and took off toward the house without a word.
I almost didn't follow him in. My head was reeling. I couldn't imagine what Jack was feeling. It was bad enough to lose your mother, but even I couldn't guess what it would feel like to find out your mother wanted you dead.
My mother was lost to me, but I wasn't lost. She had anchored me, to Anna, my father, Mark, Anston, before she left. I felt her in the streets, my house, the library, even the pantry. Jack had never had that. He was cut loose and coming unmoored, Anna would say, like the poor man's ferries on the swamp.
I wanted to be his anchor. But right now, I don't think anyone could.

Jack stalked past Boo, who was sitting on the front veranda not even panting, even though he had dutifully run behind our car the whole way home. He had also sat in my front yard all through dinner. He seemed to like sweet potatoes and little marshmallows, which I had chucked out the front door when Anna went into the kitchen for more gravy.
I could hear shouting from inside the house. I sighed, got out of the car, and sat down on the porch steps next to the dog. My head was already pounding, a sugar low. "Uncle Macon! Uncle Macon! Wake up! The sun's down, I know you're not asleep in there!"
I could hear Jack yelling from inside my head, too.
The sun's down, I know you're not asleep!
I was waiting for the day Jack was going to spring it on me and tell me the truth about Macon, like he'd tole me the truth about himself. Whatever he was, he didn't seem like an ordinary Caster, if there even was such a thing. The way he slept all day and just appeared and disappeared wherever he felt, you didn't need to be a genius o see where that was going. Still, I wasn't sure I wanted to go there today.
Boo stared at me. I reached out my hand to pet him, and he twisted his head as if to say, we're good. Please don't touch me boy. When we heard things start to break inside, Boo and I got up and followed the noise. Jack was banging on one of the doors upstairs.
The house had reverted to what I suspected was Macon's preferred state, dilapidated antebellum finery. I was secretly relieved not to be standing in a caste. I wished I could stop time and go back three hours. To be honest, I would have been perfectly happy if Jack's house had transformed into a doublewide trailer, and we were all sitting in front of a bowl of lettuce stuffing, just like the rest of Anston.
"My mother? My own mother?"
The door flung open. Macon stood there in the doorway, a disheveled mess. He was in rumpled linen pajamas, only what it really was, I hate to say, was more of a nightdress. His eyes were redder than usual and his skin whiter, hair tousled. He looked like he had been run over by a Mack truck.
In his own way, he wasn't all that different from my dad, a fine mess. Maybe a finer mess. Except the nightdress; my dad wouldn't be caught dead in a dress.
"My mother is Sarafine? That thing that tried to kill me on Halloween? How could you keep this from me?"
"Macon shook his head and rubbed his hand over his hair, annoyed. "Annette." I would've paid anything to see Macon and Anna square off in a fight. My money would be on Anna, all the way.
Macon stepped across his doorway, pulling the door shut behind him. I caught a glimpse of his bedroom. It looked like something out of Phantom of the Opera, with wrought iron candelabras standing taller than I was and a black four-poster bed draped with gray and black velvet. The windows were draped with the same material, hanging sullenly over the black plantation shutters. Even the walls were upholstered in fraying black and gray fabric that was probably a hundred years old. The room was pitch dark, dark as night. The effect was chilling.
Darkness, real darkness, was something more than just a lack of light.
As Macon stepped through the doorway, he emerged into the hall perfectly dressed, not a hair out of place on his head, not a wrinkle in his slacks or crisp white shirt. Even the smooth buckskin shoes were without a scuff. He looked nothing like he had a moment before, and all he'd done was step through his own bedroom door.
I looked at Jack. He hadn't even noticed, and I felt cold, remembering for a moment how different his live must have always been than mine. "My mother's alive?"
"I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that."
"You mean, the part about how my own mother wants t kill me? When were you going to tell me, Uncle Macon? When I was already Claimed?"
"Please don't start thins again. You're not going Dark." Macon sighed.
"I can't imagine how you can think otherwise. Since I am the daughter of, and I quote, 'the Darkest Caster living today'."
"I understand you're upset. This is a lot to take in, and I should have told you myself. But you have to believe I was trying to protect you."
"Jack was more than just angry now. "Protect me! You let me believe Halloween was just some random attack, but it was my mother! My mother is alive, and she was trying to kill me, and you didn't think I should know about it?"
"We don't think she was trying to kill you."
Picture frames started to bang against the walls. The bulbs in the fixtures lining the hallway shorted out one by one, down the length of the hallway. The sound of rain pelted the shutters.
"Haven't we had enough bad weather in the last few weeks?"
"What else have you been lying about? What am I going to find out next? My father is alive, too?"
"I'm afraid not." He said it like it was a tragedy, something too sad to talk about. It was the same tone people used when they talked about my mother's death.
"You have to help me." His voice was cracking.
"I will do everything in my power to help you, Jack. I always have."
"That's not true," he spat back at him. "You haven't told me about my powers. You haven't taught me how to protect myself."
"I don't know the scope of your powers. You're a Natural. When you need to do something, you'll do it. In your own way, in your own time."
"My mother wants to kill me. I don't have any time."
"As I said before, we don't know that she's trying to kill you."
"Then how do you explain Halloween?"
"There are other possibilities. Del and I are trying to work that out." Macon turned away from him, as if he was going to go back into his room. "You need to calm down. We can talk about this later."
Jack turned toward a vase, sitting on the credenza at the end of the hall. As if pulled by a string, the vase followed his eyes to the wall next to Macon's bedroom door, flying across the room and smashing against the plaster. It was far enough from Macon to be sure it wouldn't have hit him, but close enough to make a point. It wasn't an accident.
It wasn't one of those times Jack had lost control and things just happened. He had done this on purpose. He was in control.
Macon spun around so fast I didn't even see him move, but he was standing in front of Jack. He was as shocked as I was, and he had come to the same realization; it was no accident. And the look on Jack's face tole me he was just as surprised. He looked hurt, as hurt as Macon Ravenwood was capable of looking. "As I said, when you need to do something, you'll do it."
Macon turned to me. "It will be even more dangerous, I'm afraid, in the coming weeks. Things have changed. Don't leave him alone. When he his here, I can protect him, but my mother was right. It seems you can also protect him, perhaps better than I can."
"Hello? I can hear you!" Jack had recovered from his display of power and the look on Macon's face. I knew he'd torture himself over it later, but right now he was too angry to see that. "Don't talk about me like I'm not in the room."
A lightbulb exploded behind Macon, and he didn't even flinch.
"Are you listening to yourself? I need to know! I'm the one being hunted! I'm the one she wants, and I don't even know why."
They stared at each other, a Ravenwood and a McLoughlin, two branches of the same twisted Caster tree. I wondered if this would be a good time for me to go.
Macon looked at me. His face said yes.
Jack looked at me. His said no.
He grabbed me by the hand, and I could feel the heat, burning. He was on fire, as angry as I'd ever seen him. I couldn't believe every window in the house hadn't blown out.
"You know why she's hunting me, don't you?"
"It's-"
"Let me guess, complicated?" The two of them stared at each other. Jack's hair was curling. Macon was twisting his silver ring.
Boo was backing away on his belly. Smart dog. I wished I could crawl out of the room, too. The last of the bulbs blew, and we were standing in the dark.
"You have to tell me everything you know about my powers." Those were his terms.
Macon sighed, and the darkness began to dissipate. "Jack. It's not as if I don't want to tell you. After your little demonstration, it's clear that I don't even know what you're capable of. No one does. I suspect, not even you." He wasn't completely convinced, but he was listening. "That's what it means to be a Natural. It's part of the gift."
He began to relax. The battle was over, and he had won it, for now. "The what am I going to do?"
Macon looked distressingly like my father when he came into my room when I was in fifth grade to explain the birds and the bees. "Coming into your powers can be a very confusing time. Perhaps there is a book on the subject. If you like, we can go see Marian."
Yeah, right. Choices and Changes. A Modern Guy's Guide to Casting. My Mom Wants to Kill Me: A Self-Help Book for Teens.
It was going to be a long few weeks.