Damien’s face took on a deathly pallor, like he’d seen a ghost.
“Damien?” I asked. He’d gone silent. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but something was going on behind his darting eyes.
“I think someone killed my sister,” he said.
“What? Why do you think that?”
“I wasn’t allowed to see the body for more than a moment when I went in to identify her. She was… I know I saw blood on her.”
“Blood?”
“It didn’t make sense. They told me she’d drowned in her pool, but I know what I saw.”
“Damien, that’s—”
“I’m not a Diviner,” said Damien, “I’m not a clairvoyant or good at reading entrails, or even cards. There wasn’t a spell I could use to help answer the questions I had, but the feeling I got... you couldn’t make it up. That cold thing that happens to your stomach when something grips you so hard…”
I stretched for his hand and took it, squeezing it tightly. My heart broke for him all over again. “Why didn’t you tell me this the other night?” I asked.
“That’s not important,” he said. “What’s important is I think you’re in greater danger than you think.”
“What? Why?”
“Because… for days after my sister died, my dreams were plagued with images of a wavy knife covered in blood.”
That same cold thing Damien just described overtook me. I shuddered like a fig leaf, and all pain in my body numbed for a moment. “And you think… maybe…” I wasn’t able to formulate the sentence.
Damien simply nodded. When I met his eyes again I caught a kind of sadness in them. I’d seen it before, at the river. It happened every time he thought of his sister. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, its nothing.”
“Damien, tell me,” I said.
“I wasn’t there. I should’ve been there for you.”
“There’s no way you could’ve known.”
“I’m just sorry. After everything that’s happened, the last thing I want is to see someone else get hurt.”
“Do you think he’ll come back?”
“I don’t know… but if he’s the same person who killed my sister, he might.”
“He can’t be same person,” I said.
“No?”
“I saw the reports on the news,” I said brushing hair over my ear, further exposing the swollen skin on my cheeks. “I followed the story. The cops thought it was suspicious at first, they even had a suspect. Then you see the body and spot blood. A while after, they say her death was accidental.”
“What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is that if someone did kill your sister like you’re suggesting, the person who attacked me wasn’t the same guy. I’ve seen enough TV to recognize a sloppy attack.” I couldn’t believe the words falling out of my slightly busted mouth. My insensitivity knew no bounds once my logical mind took over.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to be so blunt.”
“It’s alright, but Amber, this guy was waiting for you. He took a ceremonial blade and went for your throat with it. This wasn’t a coincidence, it was premeditated. Maybe he wasn’t the same guy, but that just makes me feel worse.”
“So then we have to do a little more digging before he comes back.”
Damien stared at me doe-eyed. “You want to help me investigate?”
“I’m involved now,” I said, “You said yourself at the cabin that I could be a target, and the other night someone attacked me. I can’t go back to my regular life now, not until this is over.”
Birds chirping gleefully outside filled the silence that fell between us. I contemplated this whole big mystery. Damien’s face too was a mystery. What thoughts lived behind his beautiful hazel eyes?
At once my heart broke and welled up with all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings for him. He wouldn’t leave his girlfriend for me, but at least I would’ve known what it was like to experience the intensity I get from him every time we meet.
Damien checked his phone. “I have to go,” he said.
“So soon?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m sorry—there’s something I have to take care of. I don’t want to do it, but I’ve got my phone on me. Call me, okay?”
Damien nodded and left in a hurry without a word of explanation. I guess he didn’t need to explain himself, but as I watched his car disappear into the hazy street the hole in my chest grew so wide it could’ve swallowed the planet.
CHAPTER 24
The hatch to my attic squeaked open. After hoisting myself up with a groan fit for a woman three times my age, I took a moment to scan the room for my mom’s old Wiccan things. I found the dusty brown box marked “Mom” stuffed away behind my dad’s chest of old clothes, beneath a rug which at first looked brown, but upon moving it I realized was actually red. I coughed and covered my nose as dust attacked me from all sides, then pulled my mom’s box into the center of the room.
Sat on my knees, I peeled the tape on the box with all the delicacy in the world and pulled it open as if it were a sacred chest. A white Venetian mask with a silver trim stared up at me from the box, which seemed to be full of books—hardbacks and paperbacks—and other trinkets of indeterminate age and origin.
I pulled the mask out of the box and set it down on the floor, then retrieve and inspect them before settling them next to the mask; The Wiccan Bible, A Witch’s Guide to Herbs, Nordic Runes, Celtic Symbolism and Their Meanings.
Each of these books seemed to have been printed sometime in the last decade and came complete with barcodes and even diagrams. Nothing struck me as particularly unusual; I even owned a copy of the same black, paperback Wiccan Bible. It was beneath these relatively mundane titles where I started to find tomes of real knowledge, the secret beneath her secret.
One by one I unearthed a number of hand-written books, most of them in my mom’s handwriting. I flicked through the first few pages of each and learned, immediately, that they were her Books of Shadows. She had written four volumes! But why did she stuff them away in the attic?
At the bottom of the box I found a memory. The plain orange book, the type kids are given in elementary school, had my name on it. “Amber Lee – Age Six”. I’d completely forgotten my early school years, but in the pictures drawn on the pages I rediscovered my six year old self; that little girl obsessed with the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
I watched my younger self’s interpretations of the story unfold on the pages. Little Red Riding Hood was a Witch, and the big bad wolf was her most trusted friend. Together they ventured through the forest and helped old ladies with their gardens, fought off dangerous and fantastical creatures, and kept their homes safe. A smile swept across my face.
Another memory crept into my mind. I saw the little girl with the platted copper hair sitting down, waiting for her mother. I was at school. Behind the door to my right my mom argued viciously with a teacher, whose name I couldn’t remember, about the content of my drawings and the things I would say in class. The teacher said I was displaying un-Christian like behavior, that I had claimed to be a White Witch in class, and she wanted to know where the influence was coming from.
When my dad found out about what happened at school he and my mom had a big fight at home. I recalled the way my father waved the book in my mother’s face, his accusatory tone, and the tears streaking from her face.
“How could she possibly have learned all this unless you put it into her head?” said my father, yelling so loud the building shook.
“She’s six, Harold! Kids watch movies all the time!”
“Movies don’t make your kid parade herself as a witch at her school! Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?”
“Embarrassing? I’m the one who had to deal with the teacher because you’re too much of a coward to do talk to her!”
“Coward?”
“You don’t want her challenging your beliefs because you know you??
?”
My father cut her off with a backhand slap so hard it made her head spin. He threw the book in the trash and leave the room, and wondered how I’d ever forgotten that reprehensible scene.
I ran my fingers over the book fought the sadness building inside of me. My mom and dad seemed so happy the last time I saw them. It was hard to believe I may have been blocking out traumatic experiences growing up, and that those same scenes could be playing out to this day. I wondered if fear of my father’s hand was what caused her to lock her magick away in a box forever.
After shoving the box back into its place in the darkness, I took my mom’s Books of Shadows and the mask and placed them on the altar I kept beneath the window overlooking the back garden. Then I went about the attic and set up a comfortable reading space with pillows, candles, incense, and some of Marilyn Manson’s more melodramatic ballads playing softly from my smartphone dock.
I lay down on the bed of pillows and sighed loudly as my pained body relaxed for the first time in a while. Once my mind was clear, I picked up my mom’s books and set upon the task of looking for a simple spell to cast. Her handwriting was neat and warm. Reading her words on the page was like listening to her soft, motherly voice in my ear.
Damien’s words came to mind when I read the outline of a Clairvoyance spell my mother had outlined in her first Book of Shadows. “I’m not a diviner or a clairvoyant.” Having never done it before I wondered how it would have helped him unravel some of the mystery surrounding his sister’s death.
My mother had taken great care in outlining the spell. Every step was numbered, every component listed. I was lucky I only needed four things—a bowl, water, a droplet of blood, and an item belonging to the person or place I wanted to see. Damien’s clothes! Perfect. Damien had rushed out on me one too many times. I had to practice my craft, so I’d practice on him. He won’t mind, right?
After gathering the bowl of water and Damien’s clothes from my wardrobe I returned to the attic and drew a pentacle into the hardwood using chalk. I placed the bowl full of water in the center of the pentacle circle and laid Damien’s black top over my lap. In my mind I imagined every curve of Damien’s face, the impression of his hair and the hazel in his eyes.
“Damien,” I said, staring into the still, formless water, “Don’t get mad.”
Taking a needle, I pricked the tip of my index finger and dripped a few droplets of blood into the bowl. As crimson droplets hit the water I focused on Damien’s face and let my mind fingers run wantonly over every single groove of his face and body in the way I would’ve done if he were in the room with me now. Thinking about Eliza and Evan worked me up, so Damien would pay the price.
With the image of Damien’s face cupped between my hands firm upon my mind, I opened my eyes and stared into the water. A cherry pool danced inside the bowl as it spread, and if I looked hard enough I could see Damien. The blurry image swirled in the pool of dark liquid as if it came out of a projector.
I spied a bedside table in the image, and a headboard. Damien sat shirtless on his bed with his back against a pillow. My heart raced as I traced the lines of his chest and stomach. I’d never seen him with his shirt off, so to see a six-pack—albeit one with less definition than Aarons—made my jaw drop. A trail of body hair disappeared into the line of his black combat pants. I wanted to reach into the pool and run my fingers through them, but doing so would’ve ruined the image.
Damien’s eyes lit up and a smile swept across his face. I couldn’t believe I had to be the voyeur in his closet to truly realize how beautiful his smile was. Could he see my phantasmal eye floating around in his room? Did he know what I was doing? I wondered what brought the smile on so I willed for my perspective to change, moving my angle from the space above his abdomen to a view from atop his shoulder.
A girl smiled back at him from his laptop screen. She wore her long, dark hair in the same way as Eliza did but she could’ve been even more beautiful than her. This was Damien’s girlfriend, and they were in the middle of a video call. Pale skin, dark hair, deep brown smoky eyes; she was a total package.
I wondered if he could ever leave a girl like her for a freckled ginger like me. In a surprise twist, the girl lifted her black top over her hair and revealed a pair of breasts like I’d never seen before, and my bubble popped. I plunged my hand into the bowl without a second’s hesitation, spilling the water all over the floor and destroying the chalked pentacle.
“What a fucking moron,” I said aloud.
My stomach twisted itself into a tight knot. The tuna and sweetcorn sandwich I ate a while ago threatened to reclaim its freedom through my esophagus. I shot upright, stormed down the stairs and fetched a glass of water from the kitchen to calm down, but it was a while before the scene would leave my mind.
He never talked about his girlfriend, never said he’d be meeting online her or talking to her. You’d think he was single! I wasn’t used to guys just being sweet, I guess, and I took his niceness as intent… what an idiot.
I had to stop lusting after Damien, and that moment was my wake up call.
CHAPTER 25
Loud, euphoric groans escaped my lips. I gripped onto the bed sheets and pulled them to me, bucking my legs, eyes rolling to the back of my skull. My breasts glistened with sweat, nipples hard under Aaron’s fingers. His tongue was like a jackhammer, quick and fast, working hard to bring me to an even louder, and more satisfying, orgasm than the one I’d already had.
Aaron’s naked form climbed the bed, lying beside me. I shuffled onto my side. Aaron’s hard, slickened body pressed against my back. With one arm beneath me and another on my waist, he guided himself into me. My breath hitched. I wanted to scream with delight but no air would leave my lungs. I hugged my pillow tightly as he found his rhythm, closing my eyes and biting my lower lip to stifle the moans.
His powerful fingers found the tender spot between my legs as our bodies rocked together. The temperature in the room skyrocketed. Flesh slapped on flesh in a steady allegro beat, steady pressure building like a glacier about to erupt. Half way between a groan and a scream, I closed my eyes and floated away onto cloud climax. When I came back down, our rhythm had slowed and Aaron was kissing my shoulder.
We heaved and sweat together. Aaron pulled my auburn hair over my neck and pressed his lips against my skin, in the space where jaw meets my jugular—my sweet spot. Something was different this time. His tender kisses found the bruises left on me from the attack, fingers caressing my warm and prickling flesh.
But the tenderness made me go cold soon after it set me ablaze. I pulled away from him and sat up straight on the side of the bed. In an instant I disconnected from him. This isn’t right.
“I’m going for a shower,” I said, attempting to return to the regular level of intimacy we were both used to sharing.
As warm water washed away the sins of the flesh I thought about this strange encounter with Aaron. He was normally so disconnected from me emotionally, but also so passionate about wanting me. The latter part hadn’t changed, but the change in the former made me wonder whether this arrangement was slipping into relationship land. Did I want that with Aaron? When I came out of the shower and headed downstairs I found Aaron dressed and ready to leave.
He advanced on me, his hair still a wild mess. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?” I asked, attempting to hide my eyes from him.
“I think maybe I got a little weird upstairs.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, I promise I have no hidden agenda. It’s just, the other night—after what happened—I realized that I took you for granted more than I should. I didn’t want to do that anymore.”
“Aaron,” I said. No other words would leave my lips.
“I know this whole thing is meant to be light and casual and it’s cool, it is. I just… I care. I think it’s time you knew that.”
I came up to him, found his eyes, and smiled. “It’s okay,” I s
aid. A surge of power rushed through me—a rush that comes with being in control—but a tide of guilt quickly washed the energy away.
Aaron nodded and I walked him to my doorstep. I made sure my robe was closed before stepping outside into the hazy cold.
“For the record,” said Aaron. He spun around to face me. “I think you’re pretty badass with a busted lip. That look is hot on you.”
My cheeks went bright red. I smiled and turned my face away but he took my chin with his fingers and guided my lips to his. We kissed and I reciprocated almost on instinct, running my hands through the back of his hair.
I was left floating when we pulled apart. Aaron made the short walk from my porch to the sidewalk with no more than a goodbye, and I watched him go with bubbles in my stomach. But the bubbles popped, and my cozy body froze.
Damien advanced on a hard stride, all stares and flared nostrils. I let him in and he dropped a plastic bag on the floor before we spoke. “What’s going on with him?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” I snapped.
“Him, isn’t he the one from the diner?”
My hackles rose, blood flushed to my face. “Yes, and?”
“What are you doing with him?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Damien.”
The penny dropped. Until then he hadn’t truly caught the reason for me wearing a bathrobe. “How long has this been going on for?” he asked.
“This has been going on for a few months, why do you care?”
“Because he’s a jerk! I don’t get why girls like guys like him!”
“Aaron is not a jerk! We keep up appearances because we didn’t want any of our friends to get weird about the situation.”
“Are you listening to yourself? You’re selling yourself short. You’ll never find respect with a guy like that!”
The image of Damien’s girlfriend burrowed its way into my brain on the back of an icy needle. My chest literally shook.