“The only tea I have is Earl Grey. Do you want me to call your mother? I’m sure—”
“NO! I mean, no ma’am. Please don’t call my momma.”
Mrs. Abrim sat on the edge of Channie’s bed and brushed her hair off her forehead. “We haven’t really talked about what happened the night your parents came home and found you and Josh in bed.”
Channie’s temperature instantly went from sub-normal to fevered. She hid her face behind her hands.
“Channie. I’m not judging you.” Mrs. Abrim patted Channie’s arm. “Normally, I’d insist you at least call them, but Josh has told me a little about your parents. We may need to look into a long-term solution.”
“Long term?”
“As much as I’d like to let you stay here indefinitely, it’s really not appropriate.” Mrs. Abrim stood up and smoothed her shirt down over her hips. “If you don’t feel safe at home, we should consider foster care.”
Channie had no intention of letting Mrs. Abrim dump her onto a family of strangers. She’d swallow her pride and move back home before she went into foster care.
Mrs. Abrim said, “I didn’t mean to upset you. We can wait a little longer and see if things calm down at home. You have my number in your phone, call me if you need anything.”
Channie picked at the fuzz on her blanket and nodded.
Mrs. Abrim gave her a quick hug then went back downstairs.
Even with the door shut, Channie could hear Josh and Elijah campaigning to stay home and take care of her. Elijah continued to beg even as the family exited the house, but Josh gave up a little too easily. Sure enough, he walked through the front door at nine-fifteen.
His clown-sized feet rattled the house as he bounded up the stairs and burst into Channie’s room.
Channie said, “Did you even go to class?”
“I couldn’t concentrate knowing you were home...all alone and lonely...in bed …” He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.
“Joshua Vincent Abrim!”
“You sound just like my mom.”
“And what do you think she’d say if she knew you were here instead of at school?”
“How about we not tell her?”
“You are impossible.”
Josh kicked off his shoes and leapt onto the bed, straddling Channie’s hips with his feet. He bounced gently, making the bedsprings creak, and smirked at her. “Besides, you didn’t activate that itching thing on my shield this morning.”
“Oh, crap. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I took a detour down to Hole-In-One Bagel then came home. You want a bagel? I bought a cranberry-walnut one for you.”
He bounced the bed harder, making Channie scramble for the blankets to keep herself covered. “Maybe later.”
“So, are you really sick?”
“Would it matter?”
“If you’re sick, I’ll bring you chicken soup. If you’re not, let’s go downstairs and watch a movie.”
“You mean...make out.”
“Of course.”
“I’m not sick, sick, but I am a nervous wreck. Now get off my bed.”
“Actually it’s my bed, but I don’t mind sharing.”
“Josh! Cut it out.”
“The new moon tonight freaking you out?”
“Well, duh.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“We need to decide if we’re going to open the book again.”
“Of course we are. It’s the only way to free ourselves from these damned curses that are trying to destroy us. Right?”
“I think so. But I don’t really know.”
Josh bounced onto his butt and sat beside Channie, then twisted sideways and leaned closer. “Maybe I’ll finally be able to kiss you tonight.”
She put her hand on his chest and pushed him back. “What if the book makes things worse?”
“Something tells me it would be a huge mistake to ignore the book.” He kissed the top of her head then hopped off the bed. “We need to do what it says. Trust me.”
If Channie had trusted Josh when he said they should remove the stains underwater, he wouldn’t have suffered. She wished she’d never laid eyes on that damned book.
“All right. I trust you.”
Channie and Josh pretended to watch a movie as they laid side by side in his bed, but she wouldn’t let him put on his gloves. Trust only goes so far when dealing with an adolescent boy. He got downright whiney about it, until Channie threatened to send him back to school.
They decided to meet in the soundproof entertainment room in the basement thirty minutes after midnight to open the Book of the Dead.
~***~
Channie couldn’t stand lying in bed, waiting as the seconds ticked by. She threw off the covers, got dressed and went to the window.
Her breath frosted the glass. She drew a heart with her finger and wrote “Joshua Vincent Abrim” in the middle of it. She blew on the glass and drew another. This time she wrote “Mrs. Enchantment Abrim.” The clouds parted. A faint glow of sapphire blue rimmed the edge of the new moon. It was beautiful—the exact color of Josh’s eyes—but unlike Josh’s eyes, this particular new moon felt sinister. The way it blotted out a perfect circle of stars and punched a hole in the night sky, filled Channie with a sense of foreboding. She hugged her arms to her chest and shivered.
At a quarter past midnight, Channie couldn’t wait any longer. She grabbed her back pack and a flashlight. Her hands shook, causing the beam to waver on the carpet as she tiptoed downstairs—avoiding the fifth step from the top.
Josh was lying on his stomach with his face turned towards the back of the sofa, his left arm hung over the edge, fingers softly curled with the back of his knuckles resting on the floor. The covers were a tangled mess around his waist, but he was wearing a t-shirt so Channie was able to touch his shoulder without burning either of them. “Josh. Wake up, it’s time.”
He propped himself up on his elbows and said, “Hey, beautiful. You ready to do this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Channie tried not to look as Josh pulled a pair of sweats on over his boxers, but felt no need to avert her gaze when he took off his t-shirt to replace it with a more cuddle-compatible hoodie. When they got to the basement, the only light other than their flashlights came from a glowing green dot on the front of one of the electronic game boxes. Josh swore and switched it off. “If Elijah burns out another console, I’m going to wring his scrawny little neck.”
Channie sat on the floor and pulled her journal and the Book of the Dead out of her backpack. Josh propped a chair under the doorknob and dialed the adjustable lights to their lowest setting. Channie untied the knot in the pillowcase, but hesitated to put her hand inside.
Josh said, “You want me to get it?”
Channie shook her head and shoved her hand into the pillowcase. A tingling sensation ran up her arm as soon as she touched the book. She lowered it onto the floor and knelt in front of it. Josh scooted around to sit cross-legged beside her, bumping her thigh with his knee. He arched his eyebrows and said, “Together?”
Channie nodded. They both trembled like autumn leaves in a storm and opened the book.
Lavender, lemon, sage and sandalwood filled Channie’s nose. Josh inhaled deeply and said, “It smells like us, right?”
“Yes.” The scent was reassuring and mildly intoxicating.
The book grew warm as the sparkling flame leapt from the blank page and engraved the next step of the spell …
True love’s kiss will set you free
But pure and chaste it must be.
One unclean thought will seal your fate
Changing all you love—to all you hate.
Daughter of power, conquer your fear
For in the fire, your path becomes clear.
A royal mage you must wed,
Before you share a lover’s bed.
Son of darkness, heed this advice,
Forsake all others that migh
t entice
And lead astray with a wanton smile
The foolish boy they wish to beguile.
Burn the image in your heart and mind
Of true love’s kiss, and surely you’ll find
The strength and the will and the power to keep
The promise you made so your love would not weep.
Josh pulled out his phone and snapped a photograph of the glowing page. Channie didn’t want to copy the hateful message in her journal, but if something happened to Josh’s phone and they couldn’t remember every single word, they had no chance of fighting this evil magic that demanded she marry against her will.
When she finished, Josh kissed the top of her head and pulled her onto his lap. “If you were forced to marry someone else...but you still loved me...would you consider a relationship outside of marriage?”
Channie pressed her hand against Josh’s chest. His heart thumped against her palm in sync with her own racing pulse. “I’m not going to let some evil book tell me who I can and cannot marry.”
“It sounds like the book isn’t opposed to adultery.”
Channie leaned back to look in his eyes. “I don’t break promises and there is no promise more sacred than marriage vows.”
“Even if you got married with the understanding that it wasn’t real? Maybe this royal mage won’t want to marry you either.”
Channie slid off Josh’s lap and stood up. “I’d rather die a virgin than bind myself with meaningless marriage vows.” Josh had no idea what all was involved when two mages married. Channie didn’t either—she’d heard a few snippets here and there, but the ceremony everyone attended was only the beginning. The actual marriage involved magic and sex and that wasn’t something people talked about.
Josh rose and placed his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll figure something out. At least there’s no time limit.”
“Are you kidding me?...You have until the full moon sets, to bind your hearts with no regrets...remember? This message doesn’t replace the previous one.”
“If that’s true, why would the book tell you to bind your heart to mine and then marry someone else?”
“I don’t know!” Channie took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. This is just so confusing and frustrating.”
Josh nodded and said, “I understand.” Which meant he wasn’t accepting her apology, but he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “We still need to figure out what the rest of it means.”
Channie didn’t want to talk about it either. She knew they’d have to deal with it soon, but there were plenty of other things they needed to figure out. “I’m obviously the daughter of power, but why would you be the son of darkness? That is a direct reference to dark magic.”
“Maybe it’s just a poetic device or a typo?” Josh rubbed the back of his neck and grinned. “A magical book that needs spell-check.”
Channie laughed in spite of herself. “Good one, Josh. But seriously, the book wouldn’t make a mistake like that. One of your parents must have hired a mage...maybe during their divorce? It’s illegal, but some mages hire themselves out to MDs.
“My family fights their battles in court with divorce attorneys and money, not blood and magic.”
“For now, let’s just assume you are ‘the son of darkness,’ even if we don’t know what it means. What’s next?”
Josh leaned to the side and read out of Channie’s journal. “True love’s kiss will set you free, but pure and chaste it must be …”
Channie closed her eyes and pressed her face into Josh’s hoodie-protected shoulder, fighting tears. “We can’t even touch without setting each other on fire.”
Josh stroked her hair and wound a tendril around his index finger. “I would kiss you right now if it would break the curse, I don’t care how much it hurts. But...if we don’t keep our thoughts pure and chaste when we kiss, we’ll be cursed and end up hating each other. Maybe that’s how you’ll end up marrying a royal—”
“I already told you—I’m not marrying anyone!”
Josh jerked away from her as if she’d slapped him.
Channie took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I’m sorry Josh. I know none of this is your fault. But please, I don’t want to talk about marrying some old goat of a mage right now. I can’t deal with it.”
“Alright. Let’s focus on kissing without lust. How do you propose we do that?”
“Maybe we can desensitize ourselves if we …” Heat crept up Channie’s throat and flooded her cheeks. “… practice touching?”
Josh chuckled, lightening the mood. “That might work for you, but the more we touch, the more I want...well...more.”
A pile of blankets in the northeast corner shifted, startling Channie.
Josh bolted across the room and dialed the lights all the way up. He groaned and said, “Elijah, what are you doing in here?”
Elijah’s eyes were as big as silver dollars. He pointed at the Book of the Dead and said, “Can I see it?”
Channie clambered to her feet and said, “No, it’s too dangerous.”
“Then why are you guys messing with it?”
Josh said, “That’s none of your damn business.”
Elijah’s eyes lit up as a wide grin spread across his face. “Am I a wizard, too?”
“Of course not, dork. What makes you think you might be a wizard?”
“Harry Potter didn’t know he was a wizard until Hagrid told him.”
“Jeeze! Harry Potter isn’t real.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I saw that book glow and I heard the spell you read.”
Josh said, “We were just messing around, there’s no such thing as magic.”
“He already knows, Josh. There’s no point shutting the barn door after the horse is gone.” Channie needed to find out how much Elijah understood about what he’d seen. She wasn’t sure he’d tell her if she just up and asked him so she went at it sideways. “Do you have any questions about what you saw or heard while Josh and I were using the magic book? I imagine it was pretty scary.”
“It was cool.” Elijah’s grin faded as worry creased his brow. “If Josh kisses you, will you have to marry him?”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard you talking about true love’s kiss. I just wondered if it was like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.”
Channie smiled. “It’s sort of like that.” Maybe it was exactly like that. Maybe, if they broke the chastity curse with a pure, chaste kiss, it would break the rest of the spells too. Maybe she wouldn’t have to marry a mage after all.
“Did an evil witch put a spell on you?”
“She sure did.” Channie didn’t want to explain a Chastity curse to an eight-year-old boy. Besides, ‘evil witch’ was one of the nicer things Channie had called Momma lately.
Elijah said, “If Josh kisses you—are you going to love him forever?”
Josh clenched his jaw and stared at her with his mouth pressed into a thin, hard line. And once again, just like at the race, a thread of golden energy spiraled out of Channie’s heart-of-hearts, opening a conduit of magic between them. But this time, love wasn’t the only thing they shared. The intensity of Josh’s heart-ache nearly overwhelmed her.
She focused on the spark of hope growing inside her chest and pushed it along the golden thread of their connection. When it broke through the wall of his pain, Josh sucked in a quick, shallow breath.
Elijah’s question hung in the air...If Josh kisses you, are you going to love him forever?
Channie’s eyes filled with tears as she reached for Josh. “I already do.”
~***~
Channie and Josh stayed up all night, going over the spell, looking for loopholes or hints of how they could manage a pure, chaste kiss before the next full moon.
She said, “Maybe if we kiss really fast? And don't give ourselves a chance to think about what we’re doing, we can avoid feeling lusty. Or we could close our eyes. I’ll p
retend you’re Eric. And you can pretend I’m Old Lady Windsor.”
Josh hunched his shoulders, scrunched his face and shivered. “I’m already scarred for life just imagining it, but if it works, it’s worth it.”
“Maybe we should try touching first, you know, skin-to-skin, just to be sure.”
It was a good suggestion. It was also good they were alone in the soundproof media room. If anyone would have heard their screams of agony, they would have thought they were trying to kill each other.
They cut class the next day and tried everything they could think of to obliterate their lust. They took a cold shower together—fully clothed. They watched “Saw,” “Friday the 13th,” and “Resident Evil.” They had no success at all until they stood beside an open dumpster behind La Petite pre-school.
Josh was able to hold Channie’s cheeks in his palms for a few precious seconds. But even as they gagged on the stench of rotting garbage and dirty diapers, they still couldn’t keep their lust for each other under control long enough to kiss. Channie screamed as Josh ripped his hands off her burning face. He darted behind the dumpster and retched. As soon as Channie heard the contents of Josh’s stomach splatter the pavement, she leaned over and puked into a barberry hedge.
They pushed their bikes halfway home before Channie felt strong enough to ride.
Ever the optimist, Josh said, “That almost worked.”
Channie pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to keep from gagging. “And like most things in life...almost doesn't count.”
They rode the rest of the way home in silence. When they rolled their bikes into the garage, Josh said, “I have an idea. But you aren’t going to like it.”
Channie lifted her helmet off her head and shook out her hair. “What is it?”
“The book said...True love’s kiss will set you free, but pure and chaste it must be...It didn’t say I had to be the one to kiss you.”
“But I don't want to kiss anyone else! Besides, I don’t think any other boy will be any better at keeping his thoughts pure.”
“I was thinking of Elijah.”
“Elijah! But he’s only eight! No way!”
“Think about it. He’s the perfect age. He’s old enough to fall head over heels in love with you—even if it’s only puppy-love—but young enough to still be pure and chaste.”
“I won’t use him like that.”
“What choice do we have?”
“I don’t know, Josh. It just seems really...mean.”