Stepping onto the Livingroom rug, the woman catches sight of me and looks up from her phone. Instantly she drops it in her bag and stands with her hand stretched out toward me.
“Ellie Rose?” she asks with a firm cold voice. She must be in her 50’s, but if you didn’t see the lines on her face, she would look young. Her hair is perfectly straight and long hanging down well past her shoulders and her white ruffled blouse and black skirt are perfectly tailored to her overly slim figure.
“Yes,” I say as I reach to shake her hand.
She grabs my fingers and moves my hand up and out to the side as she looks me over from top to bottom. Next to where she was sitting, I see a very large white garment bag draped over the couch and a round platform standing up on its side.
I recognize the platform as being very similar to the one I had to stand on when I was getting fitted with a bridesmaid dress for my cousin’s wedding a couple of years ago. Is this what Dorian meant when he said that he’d ‘have something dropped off’? That he would send a tailor to my house?
“Go and take off that sweater and jeans,” Kari says impatiently and obviously a little disgusted by my clothing choice. I have a feeling that she’s the type that is only tolerant of people who are overly polished like herself.
Sheepishly I ask, “Did Dorian send you?”
“I don’t work in sales, so I don’t know or care who paid for it. I am here to ensure that this gown,” she says waiving her arm toward the garment bag, “Fits beautifully on the Ms. Ellie Rose who resides at this address.” She really seems to resent answering questions, so I can see why she wouldn’t be a good fit in any sales department.
She continues, “Someone has already paid the bill, or I wouldn’t be here. Our boutique does not work on credit, we do not give refunds, and we very rarely make house calls, so I would prefer to do this quickly, so I can be on my way back to Chicago.”
Wow, she came all that way? I can’t imagine how much this must cost. Not wanting to give her any more reason to be cranky, I run off in the direction of my room, passing my mother who was obviously spying.
From my dresser I grab a tank top and a pair of tights, and then quickly put them on. I remember from when I was measured for my cousin’s wedding that you need to wear something light, so it won’t throw off their measurements. I only found that out after I had arrived wearing a bulky sweatshirt and jeans. At least I won’t need to make that mistake again.
Going back into the living room, I see that my mother has disappeared, and that Kari has the platform set up in the middle of the room and a tape measure draped around her neck.
She quickly gestures for me to step up on the platform where she starts wrapping the tape measure around me and calling out numbers to her phone laying on the couch.
Before long, she drapes the tape measure back around her neck and grabs a folded screen that was hidden beneath the garment bag. She quickly unfolds and places the screen in an L shape to shield me from the doorway and open windows. As the last panel is stretched to full height, she says, “Take off the shirt and bra, the leggings can stay, then put your arms up.”
I turn away from her and take off my shirt, but I feel a little awkward about standing in front of a stranger without a top in the middle of the living room. I’m glad there’s a screen, but Kari is still right there so I stand with my arms crossed.
I hear the rustling of fabric behind me and then hear Kari shout, “Arms up!” and I know that I can’t keep my protective posture – she certainly has no patience for modesty.
As soon as my arms are in the air, a waterfall of dark green fabric slides down around me. She guides the straps around my hands so that the dress slides down into place. She zips up the back before she starts spreading out the hem around the edge of the platform.
I wish that I had a mirror, but even without it I can see that this is a real gown; something like you’d see on TV. While I’m looking down at the dress, Kari is already pinching folds of fabric and weaving pins through them.
In five minutes time there are so many pins pointing in all directions that I’m afraid that I won’t be able to get out of this dress without one of them stabbing me. She stands back several times to look at the dress before putting even more pins into it. If there was a mirror, I’m sure that I’d look like a green porcupine by now.
She stands back one final time before nodding and saying, “We’re done.” I’ve been frozen in place for a while now not wanting to get stabbed and I don’t know how to take this dress off.
“Stay still,” she commands. She walks around behind me and unzips the dress and then guides each of my arms out and lets the dress drop to the floor. She then holds down one side so that I’m able to step out unscathed.
Before I’m able to put my tank top back on, she has the dress back on a hanger and into the garment bag and I’ve lost my chance to look at it. With a few more quick movements, she has everything else packed up and is on her way out the door. I offer to help, but she refuses.
After closing the door behind Kari, I turn around to see my mother looking at me from the kitchen. She’s standing near the counter holding a wooden spoon with one hand, stirring the contents of a bowl she’s holding in her opposite arm.
“Who’s Dorian?” She asks with a faked casual tone.
For a second, the conversation I had with Dorian springs into my mind. Maybe it would be easiest to tell others that we’re a couple. On second thought, I decide to not to go there yet – it would just lead to a lot more questions.
“He’s a friend of mine from school,” I say.
My mother’s still looking at me and her silence is a clue to me that she’s still expecting more information.
“Em tricked him into taking me to the fall ball,” I say hoping that she’ll let it drop.
“So, he bought you a dress?” she asks.
“I think so. He’s got a lot of money,” I say hoping that it won’t seem like such a grand gesture to her if she knows he can afford it.
She sets the bowl and spoon down on the table and I can see that I’m in for a maternal speech.
“When men buy things for women, they might wrongly have certain expectations,” she says in her most motherly tone. I’ve heard this before, and I know she’s going to finish no matter what I say at this point. “That doesn’t mean that you owe him anything, but it isn’t nice to lead him on.” I stand there and tune out for a while until I hear something new. “…you could hurt Wyatt’s feelings”
Huh?
“What does this have to do with Wyatt?” I ask, completely confused. Now she looks like the one who’s hiding something. Thankfully it looks like that’s enough to end her lecture. She grabs up the bowl, shrugs her shoulders and turns back toward the counter.
On another night, I might put some effort into trying to figure her out but after the day I’ve had, I just don’t have the energy. I head to my room and mentally tick through the list of things that happened today; Em’s trick to get Dorian and me to the ball, Dorian’s revelation that I’m some kind of temporary cure for his curse and that he tried to kill himself again hoping for a permanent one, my mistaken feelings that Dorian was falling for me, an angry seamstress, and a lecture from my mother. There were some amazing things too; Dorian’s expression as I teased about his tater tot casserole, the way he so quickly agreed to us being a couple even if it was just for appearances, and Dorian caring about my worries enough to buy me a dress.
Buying a gown for me was such a sweet gesture, but I’ll have to tell him tomorrow that he can’t do things like that. I really don’t need my family thinking that I’ve got some kind of sugar daddy that I’m stringing along. My parents never had a lot of money, but they’ve always had a lot of pride and they raised me to not take gifts from others that you can’t repay. Letting Emily lend me so many clothes is hard enough to explain – being gifted a custom gown, especially by a man they’ve never met, is even harder to find an explanation for.
&
nbsp; As for everything else, I just need some time to process. Ever since Dorian came back, I feel like my life is suddenly taking place on a speeding train. I can focus on something to make it clear for only a second, before the pace makes it blur into the landscape again. Too many things are going past, and I don’t have enough time to really see them all.
The biggest implication of everything that I’ve learned today is that Dorian will be in my life for a very long time. He’s a good man, so I can’t imagine any way that he would stay away and risk his curse harming more people. We will literally need to be within touching distance probably for the rest of my life – I’m okay with that.
Honestly, I feel a lot more than okay about touching Dorian regularly for the foreseeable future. Ever since he came into my life it feels like a new part of me has woken up. When he said that he couldn’t stay away from me, I know the feeling he was talking about because I feel it too – I’m drawn to him.
I’m glad that he will need to be near me, but what I want more than anything else is for him to want me for more than a cure. I want him to hold me tight in his arms and kiss me with passion. I want to tell people that we’re a couple but not as part of a cover story. I want him to be near me because he loves me, not because of some insane curse.
There is just too much to think through and too many paths with a dark end. Now that he knows my touch allows him to have contact with other living things, does this mean I’m going to have to watch him meet and fall in love with a beautiful perfect woman that’s more in his league? How perfect that I could make it possible.
The weight of all this information and all the unknowns is just too much. Laying on my bed, I turn into my pillow and start to weep. It’s been years since anything has made me cry like this, but as uncertainty and doubt run through me, my crying turns into loud sobs muffled by my pillow.
Just when I really through myself into a full-blown ugly cry, I feel a hand on my shoulder. My mother must have heard me crying and come to console me. I turn around with my eyes all blurry and blink quick to clear them. The colors are all wrong, and with clearer eyes I gasp because it isn’t my mother.
Chapter 13
He’s wearing a tight t-shirt and jeans with an oversized belt buckle, but the first thing that registers in my mind is his bright orange hair, but all the spikes are now tipped in a neon green color.
He stands looking down at me with an expression that asks ‘are you done yet’ as I wipe the tears from my face. I’m about to ask how he got in my room when he holds up one hand in front of my face with his palm facing me.
“I’m not here to answer questions, I’m here to ask them,” he says with an injured tone.
I sit up and can see myself in the mirror above my dresser. I quickly run my hand through my hair to tame it back down into place, but there’s nothing I can do about the red splotches on my face from crying, so I just hold my head high and pretend they aren’t there as I bring them under control.
“I don’t care about people that compare me to Witches, but Dorian would want me to fix whatever caused all this blubbering,” he said while waving his hand around in my general direction. “Out with it!”
He must have been listening when I was talking to Dorian about him and not liked what I said. Well, I’m not too fond of him either and I’ve had just about enough of magical beings not allowing me to ask questions, so I decide that I’m just not going to talk with him. I look him straight in the eye and cross my arms in defiance.
“Now you don’t want to talk?” he asks. “You certainly did enough talking before to get in a few insults about me.”
“I like to be in conversations where both people can get answers to their questions.” My comment is directed in part at Dorian too, but it came out a little more acidic than it would have if he were here.
“Fine, we can have a conversation if it’s so important to you. And for the record, I told Dorian his little Scheherazade scheme was silly. Why you would trust magazine articles for dating advice more than me? I have NO idea. I’ve done a lot of other things for your benefit too, so you have no reason to be so antagonistic toward me.” Scheherazade - I remember the tale where Scheherazade stretched out a story by only telling a small part each night. Coan must be referring to Dorian’s ‘one question a day’ plan? And dating advice? What could he mean by that?
How can Dorian stand talking to this guy? Everything he says leads to more questions and it is making me even more frustrated. I also have very good reasons to be antagonistic towards him!
“You put a spell on me that could make people go crazy if I talk to them about you!” I certainly think that’s reason enough.
“Would you rather never have seen Dorian again?” he asks the question, but his face looks like he knows that I would never choose that option.
“I could have seen him without your spell,” I retort back.
“Then you would have been the one to go mad Ms. Rose. I suppose at least then you wouldn’t be making remarks about me.” He puts his finger on his chin and stares off into the distance like he’s thinking through the positive possibilities of that alternative timeline. When someone is as old as Coan is supposed to be, you’d think they’d be a little less sensitive.
“You put one of these rings Dorian’s finger, just like you did mine, didn’t you?” I ask, holding up my hand to show the delicate gold band on my pinky.
“Yes, and I think I did an excellent job. It could have been just a plain boring band, but yours is the prettiest one I’ve made yet. A band like that would cost a fortune in a jewelry store, and it wouldn’t be indestructible like the one on your finger. Besides – I gave you a choice. That’s something that no one else has ever had.”
“If you didn’t bind Dorian, you wouldn’t have had to bind me, and we’d all be better off. And you did all that just so you and your friends can be all mysterious?” That’s what really annoys me about all of this. I don’t mind not being able to talk with people or write any of this down. Honestly, I do like the ring. What bugs me is that there just doesn’t seem to be a good reason for any of it.
“You think I would do all of this because I don’t want to be recorded? Look at me – I should have songs written about me, I should have a million followers on Instagram, I should have a YouTube channel! Druids, including me, wouldn’t do this without very good reason!” Seeing Coan so impassioned by not being able to have a social media career calms a little bit of my anger. I hadn’t even thought that Coan would want to be a star, but he obviously feels that he’s lost something - maybe it this isn’t just some weird vanity trip.
“Then what’s your reason?”
“Ellie, what did you learn about Druids from history class?”
I try to remember, but not much is coming to mind. History was never my best subject, but it seems like there should be something. Oh, “They wear robes, right?”
“Obviously some of us have better fashion sense,” he says waving his hand down and then up highlighting his ensemble. “Anything else?”
“Um…Stonehenge? They were from northern Europe?” I may have gotten that from a movie, but I can’t remember.
“That’s where the order started, yes.” He looks at me like I’m a little slow.
With a sigh he says, “I suppose that we’ve been working a very long time to avoid ties with your world, so it’s probably a good thing that so much has been forgotten.”
“To become what I am, what we are, a person needs to do a great number of things to separate themselves from the world that you know. You know now that magic has consequences – to become the guardians that we are, the biggest consequence is that we are removed from the ties of the normal mortal world – it lets us move life force, energy – that’s what magic is.
“If one of us gets tied to your world in a real tangible way like being written about, having a photograph taken, or taking part in the circle of life, then all of the magic that was tied to that person turns dark like a black ho
le. Human kind can do terrible things on its own, but the kind of void left when one of our kind is destroyed by being tied to the world is like releasing Dorian’s curse 100-fold. Think of events like plagues, wars and famine.”
I didn’t see that coming, but I still don’t understand. “What are you guarding? Why do you call yourself a guardian?”
“We guard what you see as the normal cycle of life – birth, life, and death. That all creatures have a right to the energy within them when they are born. Druids were the world’s first priests and they saw how the strong could strip life away unfairly from the weak – we created ourselves to try and keep some balance in the world, and as a consequence we are apart from it. It’s a bargain that some of us make because we’re selfish scared creatures, but by the time we realize the price it’s too late. Whatever reason someone has for joining, it doesn’t matter. It only matters that we stay to protect the world for others.”
I still don’t see that this all makes sense, but I can see that Coan really believes in what he’s doing. His expression reminds me of the pain that I’ve seen on Dorian’s face and I know that the cost to him has been much more than potential Facebook friends. Perhaps their friendship goes deeper than I realized – Dorian and Coan both seem to share an old sadness.
I can see that Coan is sinking down into old memories and I have no right or desire to push him there just so I can make myself feel better by transforming my frustration into anger. It isn’t him that I’m really frustrated with anyways – it’s the unknown in this whole situation.
To change the subject, I ask him the first question I had when I realized he was in my room. “Does Dorian have you watching me again?”
The mention of Dorian’s name seems to perk him up and his face regains some of its normal lofty air.
“I am not Dorian’s errand boy,” he says haughtily. I guess it’s good to see him acting more like his arrogant self again. “I watched for a few brief weeks as a favor to him, but now I’m doing it just because I’m nosey – it still doesn’t make you interesting.”
Lucky: Dorian Gray Novels Book 1 Page 12