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Page 17-22
In the small town of Gatlin, South Carolina, Ethan Wate, the main character, couldn't even remember the last time someone new moved into town. On the first day of his sophomore year, though, a new girl moves into the town. It's a pretty big deal, because in the town, everybody knew everybody, so the girl was already pinned as weird, especially since she was the niece of Macon Ravenwood, a recluse who never leaves his house. Ethan, for some reason, has a sudden interest in the girl, which is odd. -
55-60
Lena Duchannes, the new girl in Gatlin, is basically an outcast because she isn't stick-thin with blond air and because she lives with the shut-in. Ethan has tried to become her friend by sitting by her in class. Some of the "popular" kids continue to make fun of her during class, and for some reason Ethan can hear voices in his head saying "shut up." When, Lena gets up to sharpen her pencil, the teasing continues and a window shatters, unexpectedly, even though Lena didn't do anything to it. -
Pages 73-75
After the window-breaking incident, Lena runs off and Ethan follows her. He finds her crying in an old, grown up garden. They are talking when Ethan finds an old locket, with the engraving ECW and GKD. When they both touch it, there is a horrible image from the Civil War when Union soldiers were burning houses. A girl named Genevieve is running from her burning home, when she runs into her lover, Ethan who has deserted the Confederate Army. -
Pages 139-141
In the middle of the might, Lena wakes Ethan up and tells him that her family has supernatural powers and that they are known as "Casters." He learns that every caster is specialized and that Lena is a "Natural" and that she has control over the elements. "The people in my family, and me, we have powers. We can do things that regular people can't do. We're born that way, we can't help it. We are what we are" (139). -
Pages 163-178
Around Halloween, Lena is having a family holiday, so Ethan is hanging out with his friends. That's when Lena's cousin, who has an obsession with red lollipops, comes along and drags Ethan against his will to this family gathering at Ravenwood. When they get there, everyone acts like Ridley, the cousin, is an evil bug. At dinner, the family tries to get Ridley to leave, saying that she has been turned evil. Lena caused objects to fly around the room when she wouldn't leave and Ethan blacked out. -
Pages 189-191
Lena tells Ethan what here family meant by Ridley being "Dark." In the Caster World, Casters are claimed as Light and Dark when they turn sixteen years old. If a Caster turns dark, they are supposed to leave their family because bad things could happen. "...when you turn sixteen, you're Claimed. Your fate is chosen for you, and you become Light... Or you become Dark..." (189). Lena also tells Ethan that she thinks she is going to go Dark too, even if she doesn't want to. -
Pages 263-270
On Halloween night, Ethan wakes up to Lena screaming for help in his head. He rushes over to her house to find her family in a circle around a-lifeless-Lena saying a chant to try and save. Ethan, breaks the circle, even if it isn't possible, and somehow he saves Lena. Macon believes that Ethan has some type of power and that he should protect Ethan. They later learn that a Dark Caster named Sarafina attacked Lena on that night and that is why she almost died. -
Pages 349-350
Ethan and Lena have to dig up a grave to find The Book of Moons. The Book of Moons is a Dark Caster book that Lena can use to stop Sarafina before her birthday. They believe the book is in Genevieve's grave, the girl from the Civil War they have been having visions about. "The Book looked exactly as it had in the vision, cracked black leather, embossed with a tiny crescent moon" (350). -
Pages 374-384
IN Gatlin around Christmas, there is a winter formal. When Ethan and Lena go to the formal around Christmas time, bad things happen. Ridley shows up, dumps slush all of over Lena and Ethan, and then causes electrical surges in the gym, along with causing people to fall off stages and hurt themselves. She makes it so everything is blamed on Lena, too, and it is chaos. "Forget light strands shorting out;within seconds all the bulbs above the stage and the track lighting began to blow..." (383). -
Pages 427-433
Ethan and Lena are at Ethan's house, studying the Book of Moons, when the door to his mom's old study opens by itself. His mom had died a year before this, too. They go inside and begin to realize that the open books in the room are opening to specific pages all by themselves. Ethan remembers when he was little and his mom would make him puzzles using numbers and the alphabet and they did that with the numbers of the book and found the message "Claim Yourself." -
Pages 438-440
It is seven days until Lena's sixteenth birthday, which means it is seven days until she is Claimed. Ethan and Lena are rushing to find something in the Book of Moons about Lena being able to clam herself. They still do not understand the message that was left for them, and Lena is beginning to cut herself off from her family because she thinks she is going to go Dark. "I could tell Lena was starting to give up. Her ceiling was completely covering Sharpie with words she was too scared to expres" -
Pages 467-477
It is Lena's sixteenth birthday, and she has shut everybody out, even Ethan. When Ethan finally gets to speak to her, though, they begin to look on the bright side of things. Ethan gave his birthday present to her, a necklace of Ethan's mom's. Lena begins to come out of her shell. She finally goes down to visit her family and they attempt to put a protection spell on her, since they know Sarafina is probably going to try and kill Lena. -
Pages 483-498
Ridley, who is a Siren, decides to trick everybody from Lena's school into throwing Lena birthday party. The magic Ridley put the people under made them be nice to her and get her presents and play music and general,y be good people. Lena and Ethan both know it is a trick, but they decide to go along with it until things are figured out. "'You have absolutely no idea what this means to me,' The sarcasm was lost on them" (495). -
Pages 499-505
Ethan's father is manipulated by Ridley into almost committing suicide by jumping off of a balcony. This was a plan so Sarafina could separate Ethan and Lena and either cause Lena to go Dark, or kill her only daughter. "'Ethan, he's out on the balcony, like he's gonna jump" (500). "If she used her power on you, and she told you to jump off a cliff- you'd jump"(502). -
Pages 540-545
Macon is basically killed by his own brother, Hunting. Ethan has to run all the way back to Ravenwood to get help before running all the way back to whee Lena was to help her. He also has to make a stop at the Caster Library to grab a healing book. When he gets back, there is fire everywhere, even if it is pouring down rain, and he can't find Lena through the smoke. -
Pages 551-554
While Ethan is searching for Lena in the smoky forest, a figure appears out of the darkness. Ethan thinks it is Lena and runs forward, before he realizes that it is Sarafina instead. Sarafina takes a knife and stabs Ethan in the gut, thinking that Lena will go Dark to save him. Ethan then, dies and Lena finds the Book of Moons to try and resurrect him. -
Page 560-563
Lena uses the Book of Moons to try and save Ethan, even if it means going Dark. It ends up that Ethan is saved, but the Book had to take something else, so Macon died instead. Sarafina and her Dark followers end up disappearing. Lena chose to be not Light, but not Dark either... So now her uncle is dead, she has been claimed as both Lught and Dark, and Ethan is saved. -
Pages 118-132
Ethan goes over to the Ravenwood mansion, where Lena lives to deliver some homework, when Macon Ravenwood, the man who hasn't been seen outside of his home in years, invites Ethan inside for dinner. He accepts and the house is kind of creepy. Ethan, at some point, takes out the locket and shows it to Macon and he becomes really angry. "He was having trouble keeping it together now. I had pushed him too far." (131). -
Pages 303-314
On Black Friday, Lena and Ethan visit the Caster Library, who is ran by a family friend of Ethan's which he didn't know. The library is filled with old scrolls and documents. That's where they find out Sarafina, the darkest Caster ever, is Lena's mother and that she murdered Lena's father. "'No one has ever made it far enough to find out. Some of the aisles turn into tunnels. Parts of the Lunae Libri are still uncharted. There are are many things down here even I've never seen" (307). -
Pages 524-526
When Ethan finds Lena after the incident with his father, he finds her with her mother, Sarafina. Sarafina is threatening her and telling her lies, but Lena also finds out that she has always been able to claim herself Light or Dark, with horrible consequences. If Lena chooses Light, Macon will die. If she chooses Dark, the rest of her family will die. "If you choose to go Dark, all the Light Casters in our family will die'" (525).
