Stray Witch

by Eva Alton

  We were alone in that back-end street. Completely alone and invisible. I prayed for someone to appear, but nobody did.

  “Mark, let me go,” I cried, pushing him away from me.

  He ignored me, and tried to kiss me, so I bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

  “Oh!” he said in surprise, slapping my face really hard and making it hit the hard wall behind us. “Did he teach you that too?”

  “I said let me go!”

  “I’m still your legal husband until the Emberbury court rules otherwise. So I can do as I please. I can take what is rightfully mine, whenever I want, however I want.”

  “No, you can’t!” I screamed in horror, “Even I know that’s not true!”

  “You’ll have a hard time proving anything,” he chuckled, sticking one hand under my skirt.

  This wasn’t the first time it happened, but it might have been the most humiliating. We were in the middle of the street, in plain daylight, and I had clearly stated that I wanted him to get off me.

  And then I felt it―the energy Julia had written about in her diary. The fury, the hatred, the boiling anger running through my veins. It made my hands tingle, like tiny electric currents. I had felt it hundreds of times before, but I had never paid attention to it.

  “Freaking maggot,” I shouted, and hit Mark in the balls as hard as I could. No magic involved, but he crouched, twisted in agony and held his crotch, giving me just enough time to jump away from his reach.

  I was about to bypass a small truck which was blocking the exit when I felt two harsh hands on my back, and Mark pounced on me with a snarl, pinning me against the sizzling hot metallic hood of a vehicle.

  This time, the irrational look in his eyes told me he wasn’t going to repeat his previous mistake.

  This time, he wouldn’t allow me to escape until he was done with me.

  Chapter 16

  Clarence

  I descended abruptly into Emberbury, feeling the wind rustling my feathers. I was drunken with the usual mixture of remorse and bliss which always accompanied me after a good day’s chase. Once upon a time, I had felt a comparable anguish after succumbing to the influence of sweet conscious-numbing opiates and unfamiliar―or not―women’s charms. Back then, I had vainly strained to find solace and get away from my tortured reality. Today, the world had changed, and so had I seemingly, but the agony remained unmoved―and even by any other name, it still tasted as bitter as the first time.

  Saint Anne’s park shone like a green emerald under my extended wings, and I considered going back home. But it was such a lovely summer day―one of those I had rarely, or possibly never, experienced during my youth in foggy London. It didn’t really help that I had spent most of my mortal life inhaling oil paint fumes or―even more often―frequenting the godforsaken, filthy hellholes where I had met Anne. It had been a long time since I had last thought about her, but the dinner with Alba, and even more so our conversation over that glass of wine, had rekindled disturbing memories of a lover long turned to ashes. Oh, Anne. My undoing, my path to perdition. She seemed so alive some days.

  “In that cup you have drunk not love alone, but love and death together,” Brangien had said to Tristan.

  She could have very well said it to me.

  Hovering over The Brook district, my glitz-loving raven eyes spotted a shiny piece of blood amber sparkling in the distance. I smiled back at Lady Luck as I recognized Alba’s vintage hair clip from the heights. The smile didn’t last for long, though, because there was a tall, sandy-haired man visibly mishandling her and pressing her forcefully against the side of a vehicle. The man’s fingers were digging into her breasts, and his mouth marked her neck, sending waves of indignation down my vampire core. I saw her twist under his weight, but she wasn’t shouting. She had given up. Just like Rose Auberon two centuries ago.

  I had seen that man before, and I didn’t like him.

  At all.

  It didn’t help that I felt particularly vindictive that morning, for reasons wholly alien to the Anderssons below me―and Mark Andersson had the bad luck of reminding me viciously of someone else.

  My father’s words echoed in my mind, the sound of bone slapping soft skin still as tender as the memories of Anne Zugrabescu stripped over red satin sheets soaked in alcohol.

  Victor Auberon had made his wife cry so many times, that little Clancy had spent whole days curled up in a closet, praying to the Lord just like the priest had explained: begging Him to make them both invisible, to take him and his mother somewhere safe, where Victor would never find them. Nevertheless, the Lord had never been too attentive towards little Clancy’s prayers.

  Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord, Victor had repeated once and again, as the blows bruised Rose’s delicate skin, but always in the most inconspicuous places.

  I considered it an unexpected blessing that God and I―grown up Clancy―weren’t on the best of terms anymore, particularly since my sharp fall into hell. Hopefully, He wouldn’t mind my interference in the Anderssons’ affairs. The scene unfolding under my wings was making me furious. Exceedingly furious. And I might do something imprudent.

  In my turbulent mind, the visions of my mother, Rose, merged into Alba’s. Mr. Andersson’s aggressive stance turned him magically into my own father, so many years ago. Back then, I had glared at all that violence with the forced passivity of a little child. But today, I wasn’t little Clancy anymore, and I wasn’t going to allow that man to hurt her.

  I swooped down, focusing on the man’s small, round eyes.

  Mr. Andersson screamed the first time I poked him.

  I could have blinded him, maimed him forever, and I was actually about to; but then, a brief flash stopped me on my tracks when his blond strands gleamed and reminded me about that same trait in Alba’s innocent daughters. Taking a sharp turn, I aimed for the man’s neck and shoulders, making him bend backwards in sheer pain and release his prisoner. I croaked, unable to utter any human words, and Alba sprung away from the truck she had been trapped against and ran towards the exit of the cul-de-sac.

  I kept breaking the man’s skin with my beak, enjoying the smell of his blood and stealthily licking it as he screamed under my attack.

  When Alba was far enough, I left the man and flew after her, overtaking her after a couple of seconds and remaining low enough for her to see me.

  “Clarence!” she shouted, looking at me as she sprinted across the street. “Is that you?”

  I turned my head and squawked in her direction, hoping she would understand. She did, and she started to follow me.

  The man had already recovered from my bites, and I could see his navy-clad shape barging his way among the pedestrians.

  As I reached the red brick building on 13th Westside Avenue, I perched on the white cement planter by the door and waited for her to reach me.

  Run Alba.

  Run faster.

  Please, do.

  She appeared, panting, and tried frantically to open the door. Her husband was getting closer. I dug in the dirt with my beak and showed her a small, silver object hidden among the rose bushes: a key.

  She took it with trembling hands and unlocked the door, then jumped inside and waited for me to follow before closing it back.

  Once darkness was guaranteed, I conjured the mist and waited for my body to shift back.

  Feeling my feet back on the floor, I approached the panting woman in the dimness, making sure not to touch her. At that time, the last thing she needed were yet another man’s hands on her. She was shaking, and my heart hurt for her.

  “Are you alright?” I asked her, keeping an arm’s distance between us so I wouldn’t scare her even more.

  “I am now,” she answered, but her knees gave out, and she slid down to the floor, dissolving into tears.

  Chapter 17

  Alba

  The inside of the house in Emberbury’s historic downtown was completely dark, with all blinds pulled do
wn and thick curtains over the windows. I leaned on a fabric-covered wall, allowing my breath to become regular again and letting my eyes adjust to the shadows.

  I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his reassuring presence next to me.

  “Clarence,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.

  “Mm-hmm,” his voice wasn’t more than a soft, raspy grumble.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  Despite his unusual terseness, a sigh of relief escaped my lips. His clothes rustled somewhere in the room, but he remained silent. The old house was surprisingly damp and cold, despite the sunny day outside.

  I shivered and turned toward the place where Clarence must be. “Can you get closer? I can’t see you.”

  I wanted to know he’d stay with me until the danger passed. I wished to hear him say that Mark wouldn’t be able to find me.

  Clarence moved so soundlessly that he startled me when his sleeve brushed over my shoulder.

  “Wait here,” he whispered, “I’ll get a candle.”

  After a brief while, I heard him strike a match, and soon, a soft glow of candlelight surrounded us.

  “I hate him,” I said quietly.

  Clarence nodded slowly, but remained on the other side of the room, with his arms crossed and his brows furrowed, as he scrutinized me thoughtfully.

  I had a few splatters of blood on my clothes, but it wasn’t mine. I realized it must be Mark’s and felt oddly delighted about it. I stood up and walked towards Clarence.

  He lifted his palm and stopped me. “No, please. Stay where you are,” he said. His tone was colder than usual, and I wondered whether I had offended him in any way. He must have noticed because he added in a kinder tone, “You smell of his blood.”

  “Ah.” So that was it.

  I slumped on the floor right next to him and put my head between my knees with my arms around them. Remembering his warning, I took care to avoid any physical contact. As far as I knew, my blood was supposed to smell awful, but Mark’s was surely more enticing. He always had to be better at everything. Even that.

  A large antique mirror with a bronze frame hung on the wall in front of us. When I looked at it, I saw myself and the candle, but not Clarence. I blinked, rubbed my eyes and looked again.

  “What’s wrong with that mirror?” I asked.

  Clarence winced and blew out the candle, leaving us in complete darkness again.

  “The curse,” he said, his voice husky and remorseful. “Mirrors can’t reflect the image of a creature with no soul.”

  “If that were true, shaving cuts would have killed Mark a long time ago,” I said, remembering Mark’s deep hatred for stubble.

  Clarence laughed softly and the tips of his fingers brushed against my hand, leaving a cold tingling in their path. “I wish it worked that way.”

  My mind wandered back to Mark, and I asked myself how long it would take for him to stop searching for me.

  “Did you hurt him?” I asked, trying to see Clarence’s face in the darkness. It was hard, but by then my eyes had got used to the scarce light, and I managed to make out the shape of his jawline against the dim brightness which escaped the blinds.

  “Did he hurt you?” was his only answer.

  I shook my head. No, Mark hadn’t hurt me per se. At least not physically, not today. To tell the truth, I had seen much worse from him on occasion.

  “Splendid. Because I was tempted to pluck his eyes out,” Clarence said in a ragged voice.

  “Ouch.” My vivid imagination presented me with a very realistic picture of an eyeless Mark. “He hasn’t been the best husband, but that would have been a little bit... extreme,” I said in shock.

  “I told you I was a soul-less creature,” he muttered. “That’s what we do.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I said.

  “That’s very kind of you, but you have known me for little more than a week,” he answered bitterly. “It’s too soon to form a judgment, don’t you think?”

  “I’ve been wrong before,” I conceded tiredly, remembering how I had thought Mark and I would be happy ever after. All my colleagues from Emberbury’s Polytechnic Institute had envied me for my old childhood acquaintance turned into a fancy Harvard boyfriend. Back then, my life had looked like a fairytale waiting to happen. “Still, you have helped me twice in pretty dire situations. You have a talent to be in the right place at the right moment, don’t you, Clarence? Or are you still following me round-the-clock because of Elizabeth’s orders?”

  “I like sparkling things,” he said in a livelier tone, as he touched my hair lightly. “I can’t help pursuing them. It must be my raven brain.”

  A hollow laugh escaped my lips, and I leaned slightly against the hand which caressed my head, allowing its comforting touch to spread all over my body.

  “I’ll try to remember that. Does this mean I should make sure I don’t venture into dangerous territory without trinkets in my hair?”

  “Seems to me you are already doing that,” he pointed out, tugging lightly at my grandma’s cherry amber brooch.

  I tilted my head toward his shoulder, trying to follow his hand as he moved it away once more. As soon as it was gone, I realized how much I missed it.

  “Thanks for getting him off me,” I said. “I owe you one. Actually, two.”

  “You don’t really want to be indebted to a vampire,” he answered. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, I managed to glimpse his mischievous smile. “We are known for a broad range of sins, and I might come to collect my debt, eventually.”

  “Oh-oh. What if I try to repay you with iron bolts and shiny pebbles? Do you think that would do?”

  He snorted, then threw me a long, deep gaze which glinted mysteriously in the darkness as his fingers found mine. “Are you cold?” he asked, pressing my hand like trying to ascertain whether that was an acceptable temperature for a mortal or not. I was still shaking, despite the sweltering heat outside. When I nodded, he took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders. It smelled of rust and old forests, just like him.

  “How do you do it?” I asked, as I tried to button up the stiff piece of clothing and not look like I had just escaped a circus.

  “Do what?”

  “You just shift back and forth, and your clothes appear and disappear? Just like that?”

  He shrugged, lighting the candle once again. “I don’t know. It just... happens.”

  “And what about the things in your pockets? And your cane, your hat?”

  “They wait for me in some kind of limbo, I suppose,” he picked up his cane like he just remembered about it.

  “That’s a ridiculous explanation!”

  “Why can souls be left in limbo, but not my keys?” He sounded peeved and amused at the same time.

  “Because nobody in their right mind would believe that!”

  “You willingly married Mr. Andersson. That’s hard to believe, too.”

  “People make mistakes,” I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned back against the wall.

  “Please forgive me,” he said, his eyebrows drawing together. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s okay. You are right, anyway.”

  “Was he always like that?” he asked.

  “No, he wasn't. Or maybe I was too blind to see it.”

  Our hands were on the floor, almost touching again. I slid my palm sideways until I could feel his cold skin, and I threaded my fingers through his. Despite its iciness, his touch was mystifyingly calming, almost homey. There was nothing I needed more at that moment. I feared he would pull back again; but this time he didn’t. He just pressed his eyelids together and inhaled deeply, squeezing my hand tighter.

  “I miss walking in broad daylight, like I used to,” he said, playing with my ring and twisting it left and right.

  “Flying must be quite exciting, too. I wish I could try.”

  “It gets old after a while, trust me,” he slipped my ring off obliviously, like h
is stealthy fingers were commanded by an entirely different part of his brain. I gave him a scolding look, and he swiftly put it back, with a quiet snort of realization. His face straightened again. “It’s not a bad life, but it deprives you of a few nice things.”

  I rubbed my thumb against the back of the ring, delighted to find his index finger on the way.

  “It’s the first rule of life,” I said, “You can’t have everything.”

  “Sometimes I fear I can't have anything worth having,” he said wistfully, and silence fell on us like an iron blanket.

  AFTER A COUPLE OF HOURS of overwhelming stillness, Clarence offered to fly out of the house and check whether the coast was clear of crazy almost-ex-husbands.

  Once he gave me the go-ahead, I went back to the bookstore and bought Elizabeth’s books. The shop assistant informed me that a couple of the titles I needed were only available on request and would take a few days to arrive. I decided to just download the electronic copy of the missing books on my laptop and show them to Elizabeth. Maybe she would stop thinking about eBooks as witchcraft if she saw with her own eyes that the dancing words weren’t going to jump at her. I shook my head at the silliness of the vampire matriarch: a creature who was able to shift into a raven and live forever was afraid of a bunch of patterns of zeros and ones on a screen.

  Once the matter with Elizabeth’s books was sorted out, I stopped at the supermarket to buy some food for the girls, although it was proving harder and harder to find healthy things for them to eat which required no cooking and no refrigeration―almost as hard as getting them to shower with nearly cold water every evening. Life must have been hard for Julia, but at least she had dealt with those drawbacks on her own, without the added burden of a couple of fussy children who were missing warm water baths and fresh pancakes every morning.

  The dark bird of prey followed me silently everywhere I went like a noiseless, all-seeing shadow. It waited outside the stores perched on a traffic light or a nearby tree, its eyes bright and attentive to my every move and everything around us. I finished my errands with drops of sweat dripping down my forehead―not only because of the heat, but also because of the looming threat of crossing paths with Mark once again on the same day.