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? Why not take them with her?
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 was viciously arguing with a teacher whose name I couldn’t remember about the content of my drawings and the things I would say, and had said, in class. The teacher told my mother I was displaying un-Christian-like behavior, that I had claimed to be a White Witch in class, and that she demanded 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 remembered the way my father waved the little orange 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 them into her head?” my father said, yelling so loud the building shook.
“She’s six, Harold! She’s six and she reads! How can you expect her to not make up stories?”
“Books and 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 were too much of a coward to go 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 left the room, now, years later, I found myself wondering how I’d ever forgotten that reprehensible scene.
I ran my fingers over the book and 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.
And whether or not she knew anything about True Witches.
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 in the center of the room, along the longest wall. 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.
Then I came down to the bed of pillows and sighed loudly as my pained body relaxed for the first time in a while. When 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, warm, and motherly. Reading her words on the page was like listening to her soft voice in my ear.
But as I stumbled upon the outline of a Clairvoyance spell my mother had outlined in her first Book of Shadows I found Damien’s voice creeping into my mind.
“I’m not a diviner or a clairvoyant,” he had told me.
I had never before used my psychic senses to look into a faraway place as Clairvoyants could do, but I could see how having the gift would have helped him with his sister’s death. I wondered if Clairvoyants could look into the past too, or the future.
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 with clothes he left in my house.
He wouldn’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, felt the texture of his hair, and drank in the hazel of 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 the blood spread into the water in a mesmerizing dance I focused on Damien and allowed myself to feel him. This was a simple case of letting my “mind fingers” run wantonly over every single groove of his face and body in the way I would’ve done if Eliza hadn’t cock-blocked him up at the cabin.
With the image of Damien’s face cupped between my hands firm upon my mind, I opened my eyes and stared into the water. Watching the dance of blood in water, I thought that if I looked hard enough I would be able to see Damien in the water. That the water would shift and churn until I saw him and whatever he was doing. But it wasn’t like that. The water was a conductor for the Magick, and the Magick beamed the images directly into my mind’s eye.
I spied a bedside table in my mind, and a headboard. Damien was sitting 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 my concentration, and the image.
Damien’s eyes lit up and a smile swept across his face. I couldn’t believe that I had to be a voyeur in his closet to truly realize how beautiful his smile was, but I saw it now; pretty, wide, and just wide enough to not be creepy. 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.
Then I saw her.
A girl was smiling back at him from the laptop on his lap. She wore her long, dark hair in the same way 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 the total package. Exactly the kind of girl I thought Damien would be in to.
I wondered if he could ever leave a girl like her for a freckled ginger like me. But I didn’t have to think about it too hard. Damien was a good guy. Loyal, caring, and gentle. Yeah, he had kissed me up at the cabin, but that could just as easily have been the euphoria of spellcasting hard at work.
Yeah. It was probably that.
Right?
Then, in a surprise twist, the girl on the screen bit her lip, lifted her black top over her hair, and revealed a pair of perky breasts like I’d never seen before. She smiled, teased one of her nipples with her finger, and said something I couldn’t hear. I didn’t have to be psychic or clairvoyant to divine what was about to happen.
Having had enough, I plunged my hand into the bowl without a second’s hesitation and spilled the water all over the floor, destroying the chalked pentacle in the process.
“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 with her online. You would honestly 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.
No. Moron!
I had to stop lusting after Damien, and this was my wake up call.
Chapter Twenty Five
Loud, euphoric groans escaped my lips. I gripped onto the bed sheets and pulled them to me. I was on my side, adrenaline numbing any pain I was in. Aaron’s hard, slick body was pressed against my back, and with the rhythm of his hips he was helping me forget all that had happened to me. 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 moaning into the fabric.
The temperature in the room skyrocketed. Pressure between us built like a volcano about to erupt. Half way between a groan and a scream, I closed my eyes and floated away onto cloud climax, as did he. 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 my jaw met my jugular—my sweet spot. Something was different this time. His tender kisses found the bruises left on me from the attack, his fingers caressing my warm and prickling flesh, and his body was wrapped around mine like a protective blanket.
But the tenderness made me go cold soon after it set me ablaze, when I remembered who he was and what he represented. I pulled away from him and sat up straight on the side of the bed. In an instant I disconnected from him, as easily as turning off a TV.
This isn’t right, I thought.
“I’m going for a shower,” I said, attempting to return to the regular level of intimacy we were both used to sharing.
Aaron didn’t protest. Instead he watched me walk away and disappear behind the bathroom door. As warm water washed away the sins of the flesh I thought about this strange encounter with Aaron. He was normally so far from me emotionally, but also so passionate about wanting me, that none of it made sense sometimes. 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? And did I have any power to stop it?
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 said. A surge of power rushed through me—a rush that came 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 night’s cold embrace.
He took a few steps away from the house, spun around, and said “For the record; 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 when I saw who was coming up along the path Aaron had just disappeared behind. They saw each other. I knew that they had seen each other. How could they not have?
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 speaking.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” I snapped.
“Him, Aaron, 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.”
When he noticed my attire—a bath robe and nothing else—the penny dropped. “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 from the heavy beating of my heart. I could have punched him across the face, but that wouldn’t have done me much good.
“He isn’t the only one who wants to keep it a secret, Damien!” I said, “Don’t think for a moment that I’m not totally in control of this. Everything happens on my terms, not his, and when he’s with me he gives me nothing but respect, which is completely different to all of the other losers I’ve ever been with.”
“Oh, and I’m supposed to just believe that? How many women out there say they’re in control of things when, really, they’re being taken for a ride but they’re just too damn blind to see it?”
“Aaron is the guy who saved my life the other night,” I finally said, “He was there, he chased the attacker off and he’s been patrolling my neighborhood almost every hour of the day since it happened. Where were you?”
Damien’s face changed color. I’d plunged a dagger into his gut and blood poured out of his mouth in gushes. What had I done? “I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t—”
“No, you’re right,” Damien said, backing away, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Tiny shards of glass pooled beneath my eyes. “Damien, please wait.”
He had his hand on the door. “No, I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry. I was about to tell you not to settle for second best but I’m… this isn’t my place.”
“Damien, please,” I said. I practically begged.
But he opened the door and made for an escape. “I’ll see you in class,” he said on the way out. I had no choice but to let him leave.
As I went to lock the door I noticed Damien had left without taking the plastic bag he had brought with him. Inside there were some snacks and a copy of the original Carrie movie; a movie I’d told him at the cabin I wanted to see. He had told me he owned it but hadn’t a clue where he had put it. I guess he went and found it.
I threw the bag on the sofa and stormed back to my room, completely over the entire situation. Just last night he had been cyber-sexing his girlfriend! What gave him the right to be jealous about the company I kept? I wanted to scream, to thrash, or to throw something at the wall. But I was in too much pain to do any of that.
So instead I just went to bed furious, but what happened the next morning made the bile go away.
Chapter Twenty Six
I awoke to a gentle breeze and a coldness I couldn’t explain. In the sleepy moments between regaining consciousness and opening my eyes all I wanted
to do was go back to sleep, but a strange tug pushed me to wakefulness. Though my vision was blurred, I saw hundreds of tiny luminous orbs, wafting in on the draft through the open window.
They were like silver fireflies dancing an intricate dance. Some flew together, others flew separately, but they went about my room and filled it with light and a kind of cold that wasn’t at all uncomfortable or painful but somehow warm and comforting. Was I dead? Had the man with the knife come back and finished the job while I slept?
I blinked to shake the sleep off and watched a pair of flakes as they drifted toward me, hovering before my eyes. They scurried away from my hand as I tried to touch them, coasting around with intelligence. Several more came to me, whizzing past my face and ears, weaving in and out of my hair. Whispers filled the room, an incomprehensible cacophony I couldn’t hope to understand but enjoyed hearing all the same.
“What are you?” I asked.
But at the sound of my voice the orbs vanished dispersed into even tinier particles and left nothing but tiny sparkles falling to the ground. My silver spangled bedroom fell into a dismal grey once more, and this time the cold was starting to bother me.
I refused to get out of bed for a few minutes hoping the fireflies would return, but they didn’t. So I took advantage of the early morning to have breakfast, which I didn’t normally get a chance to do, and left for class. Staying home another day was simply out of the question. Sure, I would get some looks, but I could always tell people I had been in a fight. Besides, I needed to brave the outdoors.
Walking the streets with a sharp eye reminded me of what it was like during high school. I would scan every bush, every car, and the corner of every building for potential bullies waiting to ambush me. But what could I do? I enjoyed being indoors sometimes, but I had class and work, a life to live. Was I supposed to spend my days afraid of leaving my own home just because some idiot with a knife tried to end me?
In any case, I wanted to see Damien. I had hoped and prayed the whole way to Raven’s Hall that he wouldn’t skip today like he did the other day so that I could speak to him, but oftentimes my prayers went unanswered. Did he hate me? It seemed like he did and I couldn’t blame him… could I?