Hex

by Kali Emerson

My eyes felt heavy as the dizziness of sleep consumed me. I hadn't felt tired until the drum of the tires on the highway rocked me back and forth. My muscles relaxed, and my head was quiet from rational thought.

  Then, I was standing in the middle of the street somewhere in Boston. I looked around and saw a few row houses, and a Starbucks to my left. A fence holding a park to my right. It was completely empty, no cars or people. I was alone…standing in the night with only the street lights glaring down at me. The world glowed in a sepia tone. It was quiet and dead. When I looked down, my feet were bare, rooting themselves in the asphalt, damp. I wiggled my toes against the black tarry pebbles. Then I realized what it was.

  I had a dream like this before.

  I looked up from my feet and saw a dark shadow in the distance. Under the streetlights it looked like a clip from an old film. I felt drops of water on my skin, so I lifted my hand, feeling them on my palms. The rain pelted my hair dampening it, and the dark shadow in the distance became fuzzy. I blinked a few times as the water started getting in my eyes, and noticed the figure walking toward me. I didn't remember that happening in the dream before. I only remembered the place.

  The figure got within a few feet of me and then stepped into the same light of the street lamp. His long grey hair hung stringing down his shoulders over his shirt. He was the old man from the restaurant. I knew I was lucid dreaming, I had total control over what I did and said there. That meant it could have really been him somehow visiting me in my own head.

  “What do you want from us?” I finally broke the silence.

  “You.” The man shrugged his shoulders, not hesitating.

  “But why…we are not special.”

  “Well…you are. It was time to introduce ourselves again. Once we got word of the two of you meeting we arranged to give you The Sight Card.”

  That must have been the white business card he gave us.

  “It will tell you how to find us, if you are truly deserving of the prophecy."

  “There's nothing written on the card.”

  “I know.”

  As soon as he was there, it ended. The man was gone, leaving me alone in the middle of the street again…no rain.

  I blinked my eyes open, back in the front seat with Alex singing to something I didn't recognize.

  “Are you okay baby?” He turned the music down.

  “Yes.” I didn't exactly know how to explain it yet. I would wait until we got home so I could process it.

  I rubbed my eyes and pulled my pack of cigarettes out of my purse. Alex stuck his pointer and middle finger out, moving them like scissors to signal that he wanted one too. I handed him the one that I already pulled out and got myself a new one. I held it between my lips and lit the other end, inhaling sharply. It was warm,bitter but once it hit my lungs I felt relieved.

  I took another drag letting the smoke out slower that time. My finger hit the down button to open the window slightly, as streaks of melted snow dripped into the car.

  7

  It was weird having someone in my life so suddenly, that wanted so fully to be a part of everything I did. We’d known each other for a short time and he already wanted to meet my dad, he wanted to see where I grew up. I almost felt guilty for rushing him through such an intimate experience. I’d wanted to know him so entirely, and had stolen the show when he had the opportunity to know me.

  Everything was still so raw from the death of my mother, I was sure he understood that I didn’t want to be anywhere near that place. I thought about the summers we could spend there instead, watching the waves crash against the rocks just as I had through my childhood. I imagined we would live there too someday. The house was for me, after my dad was gone.

  Really, he could give it to me whenever he wanted. But it had been tradition to give the house to the next generation, once they got married and were preparing for a family. It was an outdated tradition because it assumed the next generation would have children after them.

  When the house is given to me, I wouldn’t have anyone to give to next. The tradition would end with me, and it made me feel sad. I didn’t want to have to sell the house to someone who wouldn’t take care of it, or appreciate it for the beautiful antique structure it was. I didn’t even know if Alex would want to live there with me. Regardless, it would be ours.

  I opened the front door and the apartment felt cold and empty. Alex's footsteps echoed through the apartment as he headed to my bedroom for a nap. I wanted to sleep more, too. I just wanted to curl up with him, and get warm under the covers instead of doing what I had planned on doing. The idea of closing my eyes made them water.

  My mother's book was sticking out of my tote bag that sat slumped over by the front door. My fingers twitched where my hand hung at my side. I'd used my magic to manipulate energy in the past, and the object usually had to already be moving. So lifting the book might be an impossible task.

  I thought about what the grey haired man had said in my dream, about being special. I couldn’t shake the words from my head and I hadn’t told Alex about my ability, or the dream yet. I wasn’t ready to talk about something that had always been pushed down and told to be put away. I was always told that it was nothing, that I shouldn’t worry about it. If the grey haired man was right, or even real, that would mean what I had been given was significant.

  I lifted my hand and adjusted my fingers, aiming for the book. I wanted to at least try. I felt the energy reaching out of my fingers toward it like it did normally. The book shook slightly but I wasn't able to lift it up. My arm dropped to my side in frustration. I lifted my arm up again aiming for the book, and it moved a little more that time.

  I readjusted myself, planting my feet to the floor, trying one more time. The book moved more violently, and started to lift upward out of the bag. I almost had it all the way out when I heard the floor creak behind me, startling me. It was Alex standing in the doorway of my bedroom. His mouth hung open in surprise as the book dropped to the floor with a crack.

  “How did you do that?” The words came out like a whisper.

  “I don't know. I've always been able to do it a little bit.”

  “Why wouldn't you tell me something like that?”

  “I don't know it just never came up in conversation. I didn't think it was important.”

  “Well, it is.” His tone was stern and I could tell he was upset with my secret. He wasn’t upset that I could do it, he was upset that I had kept something like that from him, when it would have been so easy just to tell him.

  He shook his head at himself and placed his fingers on his temples.

  “Don't be sorry. I forget sometimes that we haven't known each other that long.”

  He made his way over to the couch and sat down.

  “I won't be able to sleep now.”

  I picked the book up with my hands, making my way over to the couch and dropping it on the table. I flipped open the front cover looking at the names again, turning the first page to look for an index. There wasn’t one. I scanned through several love spells, something to summon a ghost, and a handful of demon and God/ess invocation spells. There was nothing about reincarnation.

  I was so sure I had seen something when I was younger, maybe it was an overactive imagination. But it was just too specific to have imagined it. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement.

  Alex slid the book over in front of him and flipped to one of the pages that had been torn out.

  “Do you think it could have been one of these pages?”

  I reached over and ran my finger down the torn edges. It was possible that one of those pages was the one we were looking for. I wouldn’t even know where to start to look for something like that, and it was unreasonable to think we could find them. Someone ripped the pages out for a reason, and they might have been gone forever or hidden someplace really, really well.

  “I don’t know.” I looked back at him studying the page before that. It was the resurrection spell I had
come across when we were still at the house.

  “What's this for?”

  “It’s only supposed to work if the person wasn’t fated to die.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I suppose you couldn’t, until you try.”

  He picked up the bloody piece of paper and turned it in his hands.

  “He tried to bring her back?”

  I let my shoulders drop, thinking about my dad again trying his best to bring my mom back after she left us so selfishly.

  “Yes.”

  He bent toward me and fastened his arm around my waist flattening his nose into my neck. It had been hard for me, in the past, to accept physical comfort when I was upset. I made it known to everyone I ever loved that I didn’t need it to feel better. But he disarmed me, and I evaporated into his touch.

  I sat like that for a while, allowing his touch to reassure me. When I was satisfied, I stood up to go to bed. I took off my jeans in the middle of the hallway and once I got into the room I stretched my arms above my head and tossed my shirt into my hamper. The bed was cold from neglect, but it felt nice against my warm skin. He got under the covers next to me and wrapped his legs in mine. His arm was shoved under his pillow and his other arm gently laid on my thigh.

  I looked at him laying there for a long time. He fell asleep instantly. He’d drifted off into a place in his mind that I didn’t have access to. I wondered what it would be like if I could read his mind. If it was anything like my own head, he wouldn’t want me to be in it anyway.

  I turned around to lay the other direction. It woke him just enough to readjust himself with me and pull me close into him. I felt the soft tickle of his breath on the back of my neck pulling me in tighter. I laid there for a long time, looking at the winter sun shining through the curtains in my bedroom. It made me regret getting sheer curtains. It was too light in the room to fall asleep as fast as Alex had.

  The only place my eyes could be shielded, was against his body. I turned, disturbing his rest again to shove myself into his body. He was warmer than I was, and I could smell faint peppermint from his aftershave. He hadn’t used it that day so it was almost too faint to smell if I hadn’t been looking for it. I closed my eyes letting myself melt into him, and fell asleep quickly.

  When I woke up it was late into the evening and Alex had already gotten up. The sun had gone down and the light from the windows switched from a bright yellow, to a dim blue. I dropped my arm on top of the comforter and let out a sigh. His side of the bed felt cold, so he must have gotten up a while ago.

  I swung my feet off the bed, slid my feet into my slippers and rubbed my eyes. My hands stretched far above my head and I stood up scooting toward the door. He was cooking grilled cheese and tomato soup. I could hear the crackling from a cast iron pan. The only pan I owned and the only one I would use. He was humming a song but stopped when he heard the chair scrape across the floor behind him.

  Alex sat down in the chair across from me, and slid me an empty plate. I grabbed the sandwich on the top of the pile and took a big bite. It was crunchy like I liked it, and he used my favorite cheese.

  “I had this weird dream.” He looked down at his own food, and dipped the sandwich into the hot soup.

  “What was it about?” I was curious, and thought about my own dream that I hadn’t told him about yet.

  “Do you remember that grey haired guy from the restaurant?”

  My eyes shot up quickly back up at him.

  “Yes. Why?”

  His eyebrows scrunched together, wondering why I had reacted the way I did.

  “This is going to sound dumb.” He sighed, loudly.

  “It won’t. Just tell me.”

  “He came to me in a dream. It was so weird, he appeared to me saying something about only being able to contact them if we were truly deserving.”

  “What?” I was in shock. There was no way it was a trick or a coincidence.

  “Maybe it was just my imagination getting the be-”

  “No.”

  He looked up at me from his food.

  “I had the same dream. When we were in the car.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know I didn’t think it was important.”

  He let out another sigh, letting his sandwich drop onto the plate sending crumbs spraying onto the table. It was a trend, him getting upset with a lack of information coming from me. I wished I had told him all of those things when they happened, instead of keeping them to myself.

  “I know that this might be hard to understand for someone who’s labeled herself as a loner her whole life, but regardless of how little we’ve gone through, so far I see myself as your partner and I will never ever judge you for anything you think someone else might look down on you for.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. But we need to figure this out, no more secrets.”

  I nodded my head again. We finished our dinner and cleaned up together, then retired to the living room. I placed a blanket out on the couch and we curled up together. I wanted to continue to relax because of the eventful morning.

  He sat on the couch first, draping the blanket over his lap and signaling for me to lay down on him. I grabbed another blanket, covering myself with it as I sat down, laying my head on his legs. He had his arm wrapped around me and his hand was holding my butt. His other hand was settled on my head, playing with the knots in my curls.

  I held the remote up to start surfing through shows and movies. He had told me before that he wanted me to watch all of his favorite superhero movies. There were thousands, so there probably wasn’t enough time in our lifetime to finish them all.

  I clicked on a Marvel movie.

  “Daredevil?” He stopped messing with my hair to look down at me.

  “Yes. I haven't seen it yet.” He shook his head.

  “That's not even a good one.”

  “It's okay. I want the full effect. You said I have to watch all of them.”

  “Okay. That's fair.” He went back to detangling my hair with his fingers.

  As the beginning credits started Alex moved his hand down slightly, in between my legs. I was still only in underwear, so it didn't take a hard touch to feel what he was trying to do.

  “I want to watch this move, Alex.”

  “You can still watch it.”

  He moved his fingers to push my underwear to the side. I moved my top leg forward slightly, so he could have easier access. The images on the TV turned to a blur of moving colors. I gave into the feeling, with my eyes as I leaned into his fingers. No longer paying attention to the movie at all.

  I let him toy with me for another minute or two then, I turned my body so that I was flat on my back. As soon as I moved he readjusted the position of his hand and plunged his middle finger inside me. I let out a light gasp and looked up at him. He was watching what he was doing at the other end of me.

  I reached down with my right arm to tend to an area not being paid attention to and used my other hand to touch my nipple. I was burning, and my body was warm against Alex's rough touch.

  His tough palms were a sharp contrast to the inside of my soft, fleshy body. I kneaded faster, inching closer and closer to an orgasm. My other hand switched to gripping his wrist and it vibrated against his vigorous motion.

  The two of our hands were working together to achieve the climax. His fingers matched mine as we hit a perfect, in-sync rhythm.

  “Don't stop.” I breathed. He kept the pace and I reached the peak, letting out a loud moan. He looked down at my expression as I came back down, admiring the pink and the sweat on my cheeks. I could feel my heart beat pulse between my legs.

  He slid his fingers out, and put them in his mouth. I watched his tongue as it flicked across the tips. I sat up and slid my shirt over my head, throwing it across the room, over the coffee table and turned over facing Alex. He leaned back in his seat and I straddled him pushing my body against his.

/>   I was still hot, and my cheeks were still painted pink. My wild hair was sticking to my forehead. I pushed myself into him harder. He was only wearing pajama pants, so I took advantage of the thin material between us. He moved his hands down my bare back.

  I leaned down and passed his face, so my nose was a quarter of an inch away from his neck. I pressed my lips against his skin and his hands tightened around my waist, pulling me harder into him. The world seemed to stop around us whenever we were intimate. He made me feel better than anyone ever did. He knew exactly what I wanted and where I wanted it, all I had to do was give him silent directions with my body queues. My fingertips dragged along his arms moving up and around his neck. I moved my face in front of his and he pulled me in to kiss me. I felt the energy again moving between us like a feverish desire.

  “I love you.”

  My body went cold.

  I hadn't expected him to say it to me, even though from the moment we met we knew we did. It had been something incredibly unspoken between the two of us. Like saying the words didn't make a difference in how it made us feel. Because it didn't.

  “I love you too.”

  But saying the words felt so freeing. Chains had been broken between us and I felt something rush my body. All of my nerves were alive and on fire. We didn't look away from each other and I knew he felt the same flames as I did.

  Both of us were blazing and it was clear why it was called twin flames. There was no denying it, we couldn't even in the deepest parts of our mind. I knew him as he knew me, our whole soul connecting to be one again.

  “Mara.”

  My body started to melt into him.

  “I have loved you for what feels like thousands of years. When I saw you at that cafe, my heart stopped and I was taken out of reality. I knew I had to find you.” He kissed my cheekbone and scrunched his eyebrows together.

  “It must have been fate then…seeing you at that party. Because if I didn't get to meet you that night, I might have been scouring the earth forever. Even if that meant I only saw your freckled face one more time. I've wanted to tell you how much you mean to me since that day. I've been waiting to say that I love you, because I was afraid you would think we were moving too quickly.” I shook my head and held his head in my hands.