by Kitt Rose
I squeezed her hand. “Libby, just trust me on this, it's not Greg.”
Surprisingly, she didn't argue, just shrugged. “You know him better than me. Should we head out?”
“Yeah.”
After I paid for the meal, we climbed back in the car to finish the last leg of the drive. When we hit Grand Forks, I headed straight to the hotel. We were supposed to meet the coven leader first thing in the morning, so we'd sleep in town tonight.
Elliot reserved a room for us at one of the nicer hotels. After I dropped our bags on the bed, Libby asked if we could go to the University.
Grand Forks was where Libby's mother had gone to school. Libby had visited the campus countless times in her youth. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to visit those ghosts, but I couldn't deny her.
17
Libby
Grand Forks campus was smaller than I remembered. Not that it was small, just that, as a child, I remembered the school as being this huge world. Constantly moving and crowded. Exciting. Like some foreign land, just begging for me to run off and explore it. If I was being honest, back then, I'd dreamed of one day coming to this school, of being one in the crowd of bustling students.
Of course, I hadn't been used to crowds in those days. My elementary school class had been all of twenty-two students, with one classroom per grade. I'd known the name and face of every student in my class and likely knew where they lived and who their parents were too. It was the consequence of a small town, one I hadn't realized I liked until it was gone.
Now the amazing campus I remembered seemed sad and unimpressive. The huge groups of loud students seemed… less exciting.
I knew it was my experiences that had changed me, not the campus or the population.
And this place was rife with memories now.
As Ash and I walked, hand in hand, through the campus, a weight seemed to settle into my chest. Being here made me miss my mom in a way I hadn't in so many years. I half expected to turn a corner and see her there, and that made me blink away the tears threatening. It was then that I realized my childhood dream of coming here wouldn't have worked, even if she hadn't moved us across the country. Even if we would have stayed, she would have died of the cancer and this place would still be haunted by her memory. But that wasn't entirely unwelcome.
I was silent the entire way back to our hotel, clutching Ash's hand as if it could hold me more firmly to reality, instead of this dark corner of my mind that I had retreated to. Ash asked me if I wanted dinner, but food was the last thing on my mind.
He seemed to sense my hesitance, my sadness, and offered to order room service so that I could relax. I was beyond grateful. As soon as we got into the room, I decided a bath was in order, maybe for the alone time, or the promise of fragrant warm water on tense muscles and still sore body parts.
I gave Ash a quick kiss, moving to step away. He grabbed the back of my head, fingers deep in my hair, and pulled me back to his mouth, kissing me hungrily.
I gasped, clutching him.
When he pulled back, I blinked dazed eyes up at him, at his beauty. His pale hair was once again hanging in his face, and I pushed it back off his forehead so that nothing would interrupt my view of those amazing eyes.
“I don't know what's going through your mind right now, other than missing your mom, but I'm here if you need or want to talk. Okay?” he said.
Reaching up, I pressed a finger into the dip of his cupid's bow, running my index over the line of his upper lip. “Thank you,” I whispered, my chest warm and full with gratitude for his understanding.
I closed myself in the bathroom and turned on the faucet, cranking the dial to hot. I sat on the edge of the deep tub, as the water heated and steam rose around me. The air in front of me fogged, the mirror becoming obscure, time lost in thoughts as intangible as the white puffs that moistened the air around me.
Outside the bathroom, there was a knock on the door—our food most likely—and it seemed to break whatever spell I was under. I turned, found the bathtub too full, and snapped off the water, letting out some of the overflow. Then, stripping, I stepped into the too hot water. It scalded my skin, turning my body red. I welcomed the slight pain. It brought me back to me and because of that, it felt good.
Sinking into the water, it rose to touch my chin. I slipped down deeper until it lapped against my mouth. That was when the tears came. There was no slow start, or ramp up, no warning. One moment I was fine, the next tears were streaking down my cheeks in a silent flood of agony.
Curling into myself, I brought my knees to my chest, winding my arms around them. My limbs shook as I pulled tighter and tighter, fighting to keep myself from flying apart. Trying to stay quiet as my heart broke all over again.
I remembered my mom coming home the day she had been diagnosed. She had gone from healthy to sick overnight.
On Thursday, we had been giggling over a movie, painting our toenails a bright blue, then Friday morning she'd been unable to get out of bed. Her skin had been grayish, cheeks sunken and her eyes underlined with dark purple bruises. I had found her that morning, laying in a stinking puddle of vomit and crying because she had been too weak to get up.
Thinking back on it, I couldn't remember where Mick had been. All I remember was trying to clean her up while Justice called 911. We had followed the ambulance to the hospital, silent and afraid. Neither of us had thought to call Mick. It was only later that evening when mom asked about him that we had. He'd told us he would come in the morning, seemingly unconcerned by her illness.
My dislike of him turned to hate that day. Hate that had only grown until he disappeared. But I'd had other things on my mind then.
It had taken nearly a week for the diagnosis, and four months later, we buried her.
I'd been numb when Papa, Gigi, Johnny, and Dad came. But a malignant anger grew in me like the cancer that had taken my mom, swift and brutal. Its focus had been my dad.
How dare he come to my mom's funeral. As if he cared about her.
Justice had called me out on my misplaced rage. He reminded me that it hadn't been Dad who left Mom. I had known that, but it had felt good to be angry at someone, because cancer didn't have a face.
And then they'd left a few days later, leaving us with Mick. He'd been sullen and silent, sleeping away the days and drinking away the night with his buddies.
He'd cornered me a few days before disappearing, calling me a fat bitch and grabbing my arm hard enough to leave a mark. I hadn't told Justice. He would have killed him.
And then Mick left, and it was just us. Justice and me. It would never again be just us.
“Justice,” I whispered into the bathroom.
In the back of my mind, the darkest corner, I heard him. He sighed, short and irritated with me.
Pay attention. His voice whispered in my head.
“To what?” I asked no one.
Too many coincidences. Too many tragedies. Even we aren’t that unlucky.
“But we are, or were. Maybe things are changing now. I'm home. I have…” I laughed softly, feeling somewhat insane for what I was about to say as much as for saying it to someone who wasn't there. Would never be there again. “I have Ash now.”
I felt like pinching myself. I had Ash. And Ash had had me last night. And it had been pretty freaking spectacular. The way he had felt above me, inside me… He had imprinted himself on my soul. Maybe there was something to his claim that we were meant to be, that I was part of him. I certainly had never felt like this with Daniel. Even when…
“Nope. Not going there,” I told myself, sinking back into the water.
Justice was silent in my mind for a long moment, so long I thought he was gone again. Retreating into my memories. And then he said two words.
Malicious envy.
“What?”
There are two kinds of envy. I learned about them in a psychology class once. The usual kind, benign envy. That's when someone else gets the girl or guy you want, the pro
motion at work, a car you've been eyeing. Maybe you work a little harder for the next girl or guy, the next promotion, or you figure out how to get that dream car. Your envy propels you to do better. Or maybe you wallow a little and move on.
Then there's malicious envy. They stole your girl or guy, robbed you of your promotion, and took your car, so you actively look for ways to take those things away from them. Their jealousy propels them to do you harm.
I thought about what that meant. “So, you're saying that someone hates me, or Ash, or us, enough to try and hurt us?”
But of course, the Justice in my head didn't respond. He could only tell me what I already knew. And I remembered when he had taken that class, helping him study for his finals. That's what I was hearing. My brother was a ghost, as much as the campus had been my mother's phantom.
In the rapidly cooling water, I shivered, lost in thought. Did someone hate me? Or Ash? Aside from losing me, what had happened to Ash? Nothing. Not like what had happened in my life. But it felt very self-centered to think that this was all about me.
My mind spun. That was probably why I didn't notice the door opening. Or the footsteps. Or the big hulking man candy, in just a pair of boxer briefs, before he scooped me up out of the now cold water.
My teeth chattered harder when his arms and the extreme heat of him surrounded me.
“What in the hell are you trying to do, turn into a prune or freeze yourself to death?” he asked, voice annoyed and amused all in one.
I looked up at him, the sharp curve of his cheekbone, and stroked a hand down his face. Melancholy owned me. It shone through my voice like a beacon.
“Sorry, I was thinking. But I think the prune part is too late,” I said, holding up one very wrinkly hand. “Much too late.”
Ash grabbed my hand, kissing my fingers one at a time. And then he scraped his teeth over the pad of my index. “I knew I shouldn't have let you go to the school. I was afraid it would make you sad.”
I nodded, too tired all of a sudden to even worry about the “let me” part of his sentence. “It just made me think about a lot of stuff.”
“Figured,” he said, setting me on the edge of the bed. He dried and dressed me, then pulled back the covers. “In you go.”
The sheets were cool and smooth under me as I stretched out on my side. Ash climbed in after me, his arms closing around me a moment later. He was a firm, hot presence against my back. Immovable safety. I shuddered and his arms tightened around me.
“Ash?” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“This feels right. You and me. It scares me, but I haven't felt this whole in… Well, I don't know how long.”
Breath hit the back of my neck in a strong exhalation that sounded like relief and understanding to me.
His chin rested on my shoulder, his hand slipping under my tee to palm my belly. It was a possessive gesture that was made tender by the care he took, the softness of his touch. That same softness was in his whispered words. “There's a part inside me that has always been wild. It's the animal part, the creature that is other side of me. Always watchful, waiting for the danger, the ambush, the hunt. You make that part settle down so that I feel…” He paused, his lips brushing the skin behind my ear while his fingers stroke my stomach. “I imagine I feel like humans do when I'm with you.”
“Is that good?” I wasn't sure. Human didn't seem like such a good thing compared to Protean. We were fragile, after all.
“Yeah, it is. In some ways. In others, well, I just don't know. Now go to sleep. Tomorrow we meet the witches and hopefully get some answers.”
18
Libby
I didn't know what to expect from witches. In Georgia, I had known a few Wiccans. And of course, I'd seen movies with a wide range of portrayals, read books. But whatever my mind had thrown together at the prospect of meeting witches, this wasn't it.
Not even remotely.
Ash's directions led us to a large home on a perfectly normal street. The lot the pretty peach house was on was large. The yard was beautifully landscaped with a substantial garden visible from the street. We climbed the steps to the whitewashed porch and knocked on a gleaming wooden door. Through the small leaded glass window at the top, I watched a wavering figure of a woman walk down a long hallway.
Noise behind me made me turn, and I brought a hand up to shield my eyes from the bright morning sun. A man was jogging down the street, his headphones leaking music into the quiet street.
It was just so normal. The street, the jogger, and the woman who opened the door.
She was maybe a few years younger than me. I would be shocked if she was older than twenty-one or twenty-two. In a pair of worn jeans, bare feet, and a Grateful Dead tie-dyed tank top, she looked like a college student. Her dirty blonde hair was cut into a sleek bob, and when she smiled, her denim-blue eyes crinkled while dimples popped in her cheeks.
“May I help you?” she asked in a slightly husky voice.
Ash gestured to me. “This is Libby, and I'm Asher Stefan. We are here to see Ms. Selene.”
The woman nodded, stepped back and gestured us into the house.
Ash walked inside, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him. At the threshold of the door, the moment before I stepped through, something burned across my skin. It was as if I'd touched an electric fence, a sharp, shock of pain.
Except this was different. The sensation didn't go away so much as sink into me. It passed through each layer of my body, seeming to dive through skin to muscle to bone, before shrink-wrapping the very cells that made up my body. Everything buzzed and burned. Just when I thought I couldn't take the pain a moment longer, it vanished, leaving my entire body tingling.
I turned back to stare at the empty air that I had just passed through, frozen.
Ash tugged at my hand. “Lib?”
“Wha-what was that?” I asked, glancing back at Ash, all the fine hairs on my body standing on end.
The woman who had opened the door raised one thick eyebrow. “Interesting. You felt the ward.”
“Ward?” I looked back to the door. I squinted, running my eyes from corner to corner, top to bottom, but there was nothing there.
The woman tutted, reaching past me to close the door. I had to jump out of the way or it would have hit me.
Ash growled softly.
“Oh hush, child of Proteus. We can't be standing in the doorway having these kinds of conversations and you know it.”
I didn't have to look to see Ash was angry. The air itself grew heavy with it. I blindly grasp my way up his arm from his hand, until I could grip his bicep, squeezing. Now was not the time to mouth off and Ash had always had a temper.
“I didn't catch your name,” I asked, injecting a little sugar into my tone.
“That's because I didn't offer it,” she said with a laugh. “I am Selene Johansen, High Priestess of this coven, daughter of Hecate.”
Ash froze, his body becoming like iron under my grasp. “Daughter of Hecate?”
“Yes. And I do mean that quite literally, so that we might start out right Marked One. Honesty is the best policy, no?”
“How is that possible?” I gasp. “I mean, are the gods—oh my gosh, does that sound weird—are they just… wandering around?”
Selene shrugged, looking like a teenager. “Who knows. Hecate likes to live as a human from time to time. I'm the result of one of those times. She got a wild hair and I had her as my mother for ten years before she got bored and left me with the nearest coven.”
“What about your father?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Selene just shrugged. “Who knows, who cares.”
“Okay, one more wildly inappropriate question. How old are you?”
Selene grinned, apparently amused by me. “I am much, much older than I appear.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Her smile widened. “I was born in the early eighties.”
My face fell. Well that wasn't—
“The eighteen-eighties,” she interrupted with a smirk.
My mouth dropped open. Holy crap.
“So, you're a demigod? Immortal?” My mind was having extreme difficulty wrapping itself around the idea.
“I don't know about that. But I have a little bit of extra power, and my aging slowed drastically once I hit puberty.” She started walking, motioning for us to follow her down a cozy hallway.
The walls were painted a cheery yellow, with dark wood flooring and trim. Photographs lined the walls, from old black and whites to modern color selfies, showcasing women of all ages and walks of life. My eyes were everywhere. There were too many things to look at, all at once. When we reached the end of the hall, Selene opened a solid wood door, that looked like it might lead to a cellar. But it didn't.
The room beyond the door was more in line with what I expected when the word “witch” was spoken, though it did not fit in this house. In fact, it seemed like someone had transplanted the space here from some ancient castle. It was cavernous. A pentagram was inlaid into an exquisitely tiled floor. The stone walls appeared damp, and moss covered the stones closest to the floor. Flickering torches were spaced along the walls, casting shadows that seemed to writhe and dance.
Selene immediately moved close to the wall and started deeper into the room that stretched on and on. Ash and I followed. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped. Footsteps sounded on the stone floor behind us. I looked over my shoulder to see that the doorway we had come through was hanging in empty air, seemingly infinite space behind it. I couldn't see how far the room went beyond the door because it gradually descended into blackness.
When we reached the opposite end of the room, there was a rough wooden door set into a stone archway. Selene opened it with a creaking of hinges. I blinked against the brightness beyond. It wasn't sunlight. It was cool and silvery, and as I followed through the doorway, with Ash a step behind me, I found myself in a room made entirely of glass.
Beyond its peaked roof, millions of stars twinkled in the sky, the moon big and bright. Green hills and a turbulent sea surrounded us on three sides, and as I turned back the way we came and looked up, a dark, gothic castle towered overhead.