Hexen's Binding

by J. Kowallis

  “I wouldn’t know,” I admit. “The first time he called, I hung up on him. I let the others all go to voicemail. All of which I never listened to and then deleted.”

  Alaric looks at me the same way he did when he first saw the flour smeared all over the kitchen. “You what?”

  “Angie already laid into me. I know what I did was stupid, but I wasn’t ready to talk with him yet.”

  He opens his mouth and I cut him off.

  “And I know. He’s part of the prophecy and I shouldn’t ignore him, but Sera told me to stay away and to be honest . . . I haven’t wanted to talk to him. For a lot of reasons that I don’t want to discuss.”

  Alaric licks his lips. While I can see that he’s trying to be understanding, he’s uneasy.

  “You have to,” Angie cuts in. “You can’t put it off any longer.”

  I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, one hand resting on my hip. “I know.”

  Something beeps and I open my eyes, dropping my arm. Angie’s standing in front of me. Her ancient, landline phone with its curling, twisting, grungy cord is held out toward me. “Call him.”

  I hold her gaze, “Right now?”

  Angie presses a single button on the phone and even from this distance, I can hear the familiar tone before a series of musical beeps follow.

  Ring.

  “You called him?!” I hiss.

  “Take the phone, Taran,” she sniggers.

  Ring.

  I snatch the phone out of her hand. “Fine. But, get out!” I hiss.

  “It’s private enough,” my dad grumbles.

  Angie shakes her head and steps toward him. “Come on, Alaric. Leave the girl to her boy. I’ve got something else I want to show you anyway.” She pushes Alaric outside and when the door shuts behind them, I’m swallowed in uncomfortable silence. Aside from the nerve-strangling fourth ring that just echoed from the phone. It sinks into my skin, settling in my bones.

  “Angie?” a voice answers on the other end. Only, it’s not Coll, like I’d assumed. It’s Emilia.

  My mind goes blank. The thick soundlessness begins to itch under my skin, and I press the phone to my ear. I clear my throat. “Hi, Emilia. It’s not Angie. It’s Taran.”

  Silence. This time on her end.

  I walk nervously to the couch in the living room, thinking this was the worst idea. After falling down into the overstuffed cushions, my chest tightens. I feel sick. There’s even a blip of time where I actually consider hanging up.

  “Yeh called back,” she finally says, her voice a whisper.

  “Yeah,” I clear my throat again. What is the matter with me? “Um, why are you whispering?”

  “Coll’s in the washroom. Hang up, and call Sera’s phone. I think Angie has it stored on speed dial four.”

  I nod, “Okay?”

  “Good. Goodbye.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear the moment it goes dead and stare at the far corner of the room, confused. Immediately, I press the number four and hold it down. This time it’s answered on the second ringtone.

  “Angelica?” Sera replies. “I haven’t heard from yeh in forever. How are yeh?”

  “Yeah. It’s not Angelica. It’s Taran. Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been answering Coll’s calls, but I just had the weirdest conversation with Emilia.”

  “Taran? Yeh talked with Emilia?”

  “Yeah,” I tuck my free hand between my thighs, “I tried calling Coll, and she answered, and was all cryptic and whispering and told me to call you.”

  “Good,” she breathes.

  “Why?” I ask.

  For a while, she remains quiet, and I hear some kind of shuffling on the other end. “Why haven’t yeh answered our calls?” she finally asks.

  I frown. “Your calls? I thought it was Coll.”

  She breathes hard into the phone. “I don’t know about Coll reachin’ out to yeh, but we’ve called yeh at least seven times.”

  “You called me? Sera,” I scrunch my eyes, “you told me stay away from all of you. I did what you asked. Why have you called me nonstop?”

  “Look,” there’s an edge of frustration in her voice. “Somethin’s . . . not been right. Really, if I’m bein’ honest, it hasn’t been right since that day. He kept goin’ on about our da killin’ mum, and everythin’ he remembered wasn’t right. I thought about callin’ Angelica, but I don’t know. I knew that if we called her . . .” she goes quiet again. “I knew we needed to talk to yeh. It seemed that whatever made yeh remember things a certain way was probably the same thing that was affectin’ Coll.”

  “Affecting him? Is he all right?” I shift on the couch, picking at the hem of my jeans. So, he doesn’t remember things the way they do. Of course, he doesn’t. Garrit erased his mind.

  “Honestly, no. Can we talk? In person, I mean.”

  “Just you and me?” I lift an eyebrow.

  “You, me, Emilia.”

  I look toward the front door of Angelica’s house. “Can I bring Angelica and my dad?”

  “Of course. How do you even know her? You’re callin’ from her phone.”

  “As it turns out, apparently she and Alaric are friends. At least, friends in the sense that he knew she’d help me.”

  “What are yeh needin’ help with? Gettin’ your right memory back?”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t lost any memories. But I can explain it all to you when we meet up. Possibly explain why you feel Coll’s not all there. Where do you want us to come? Coll’s apartment? We might be able to fix—”

  “No!” she blurts. “Oh, jayz, no. Come to my flat. Coll has a meetin’, I believe, tomorrow mornin’ so I think we’ll be safe to talk without him. Come at nine. If yeh want, I can even make yeh breakfast. But, we’re goin’ to do this without Coll.”

  I have to admit, a part of me is disheartened to know he won’t be there, a strange sense of relief and confusion wash over me.

  “All right. We’ll be there.”

  “Thank yeh,” she replies. Without another word, the line goes dead.

  Seven

  The taut, familiar pull. The warm glow in my body. It all dissipates as I appear in front of Sera’s doorstep. Two seconds later, Angie arrives, followed by Alaric.

  “She didn’t give you any other indication as to why she wanted to talk in person?” Alaric asks for the tenth time.

  I look up at the ceiling, exasperated. “Again, no. She didn’t. I know as much as you do at this point.”

  I reach up and knock on the door, my second knock landing on a whoosh of air as the door opens before my knuckles have a chance to rap against the hard wood. Sera’s face is long, her eyeshadow, or perhaps just the shadowy circles around her eyes, is particularly dark.

  “Hi, Sera,” I say.

  “Lovie,” Angie greets her.

  Sera forces a humorless smile and opens the door wider. “This must be your da,” she says looking at my father.

  I nod. “Can we come in?”

  She returns the nod and beckons us in. Once the door closes, I notice Emilia sitting in the main living room. She stands up, a bottle of water in her hand. She offers a polite smile, but both women are suspiciously quiet and nervous. Why, I don’t know.

  Sera invites us all to take a seat at various areas in her small living room. Two of the kitchen bar stools have been pulled out as well, offering two more seating places. I graciously allow Angie to take a seat on the couch next to Emilia—who smiles at her with warmth—while my dad takes a place in the furry armchair Sera added to the décor since the last time I visited, and I sit down on one of the bar stools, my back to the front door. Sera takes the second bar stool and pivots it around to face me a little better.

  “Well,” I clear my throat, “if I wasn’t sure that this would be awkward beforehand, I certainly feel it now. Are you guys all right?”

  Sera glances at her hands, then to her sister. “Where do we start?” she asks.

  Emilia takes a sip from her
water bottle and then screws the lid back on tightly. “I suppose we should go back to the day Coll lost his memory.”

  “Wait,” I hold up my hand with a sigh. “I want to tell you what happened first before—”

  “Taran,” Alaric cuts me off. “I think we should let them go first.”

  “No,” I respond with a firm tone, then turn to Sera. “I came to your apartment that day wanting to help Coll. He couldn’t remember a single thing, and you shoved me out of your home. Not only that, but you told me never to contact you again. Now, I get that you were scared. I understand that Coll was confused, but you have no idea what the hexen world is like because Coll kept you from this life. You couldn’t help him, you couldn’t understand, and the one person who had any actual clue about what was going on was me. The least she can do, Alaric,” I briefly glance at him, “is to hear me out.”

  I focus my attention on Sera again. She holds my gaze for a time. Only shifting her jaw a fraction of an inch before nodding.

  “Look, there are a lot of things that changed that day. Or, maybe I should say because of that day.” I take a breath and blow it out through my nostrils. Without immediately realizing it, I start to push on my cuticles with my thumb nail. “You know Coll and I worked together to find Craniarann. Well, that day we found it.”

  Sera’s eyes go wide, and Emilia straightens.

  “And because of what happened in Bryden, the life you know became reality.”

  This time, that look of surprise turns to confusion. Both sisters flash their eyes to one another and then to Angie. Their foster mother nods and then motions to me with her hand. “Keep listening.”

  I tell them the whole story. My life. Including everything Coll had ever told me. From the video Sera once showed me of their young family at that beach, to Michael’s slaughter of his wife, his beating and torturing of Coll, and my own father’s former fate. When I talk about my nightmares, the ones where my dad would be killed every night in my sleep, I swear I see his face get darker like a shadow hanging over him. My voice becomes more and more strangled, frustrated when I get to the end of the story. The day Coll lost his memory, accused me of being one of his father’s “whores” and traveled to Sera’s apartment. Then, I explain the timeline change. I realize I’ve broken their world apart, but at this point I don’t care. The truth is the truth, and no effort to hide it away will ever change that.

  “So, you asked me to stay away, and I did. Yes, Coll lost his memory, but not as much as you think he did.” I clear my throat. “Which is why I kind of hoped he’d be here so we could fix things because whatever’s going on with him is, I’m sure, just a memory loss. Do you think he’d sit down and let Angie restore his memory?”

  Angie’s eyes dart to me, both of us knowing full well that she doesn’t intend to perform that particular spell.

  Sera and Emilia start to look uncomfortable again. Not that they didn’t look uneasy before, but this question triggers something. My eyes squint as I look at them, studying their reactions. Something I said, or maybe something happened between the last time I saw them that makes me feel like my entire tirade was unnecessary.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Coll’s not hisself,” Emilia blurts.

  Sera gives her a frustrated look. “What we mean is that he’s been actin’ . . . strange. He’s not right.”

  “Aside from the memory loss?” Alaric asks.

  Both of Coll’s sisters turn to him. Emilia nods and Sera—all she does is stare him down, looking uncomfortable and angry. She can’t be angry at Alaric, can she?

  “It’s hard to explain,” Emilia inches forward in her seat.

  “Try your best,” I answer. “Sera? You seemed particularly anxious to talk. So, tell me what’s going on.”

  Sera’s mouth drops open and discomfort washes over her. “It’s not just me. It’s both of us. Emilia and I have both seen things. For a while, we were just dealin’ with his memory loss. He seemed normal aside from that. It took a few weeks before I started to notice differences. And it progressively got worse. Sometimes he’s exactly the way you’d expect him to be. But most times, he’s . . . lost,” she looks out across the room, not really focused on anything in particular. I realize the anger I saw in her face is not pinned on Alaric. In fact, it’s not even anger at all. It’s fear.

  “It feels like I’m talkin’ to a stranger. Someone who looks at me, and only sees what’s on the outside. When my brother used to look at me, I felt like he actually saw me. Understood me. This Coll is wrong. He’s changed. If . . . if I were the superstitious-fae-believin’ kind, I’d think he’d been swapped out for a changelin’.”

  “Well, those don’t exist so you can’t go—” I say under my breath.

  At that, Alaric clears his throat. At the sheepish look on his face my own jaw drops.

  Disbelief. Annoyance. “You’re shitting me.”

  Alaric sighs, “It may still be a fairy tale, but while not confirmed, there have been documentations in the hexen world of human babies being traded for realistic human-looking hobs.”

  “Hobs? You mean elves? Fairies?” I shake my head and put up a hand. “You know what? I’m not getting into this discussion on fantasy and fairies right now. I want to talk reality. About Coll.”

  “Do yeh now?” a sixth voice chimes in.

  My pulse comes to a screeching halt. That voice. That lilt. Until this moment, I didn’t realize how much I missed it. I close my eyes for half a beat, breathing in, surprised by the paralyzing ache inside of me.

  We’d all been so entranced by the discussion that not a single one of us heard the front door open. There’s this tightness in my chest I can’t seem to shake, and nausea waves through me.

  Slowly, I turn around to see him. For a lot of reasons I don’t accept and try to swallow down, my head starts to spin. My chest, my neck burns betraying the casual calmness I wanted so badly to portray when I finally saw him. He’s here. Standing just feet away.

  Coll shuts the door slowly. He looks just like I remember. Except, slightly different. He cut his hair shorter, I think. His clothes, again different. His dark amber eyes scan each face. I notice that his gaze lingers particularly long on me. In that time, I see what it is that Emilia tried to explain. In a brief flash, I think I see him. The eyes that used to send chills of teenage excitement up and down my neck.

  Then, something settles, and it doesn’t feel like it’s Coll looking back at me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something is wrong. Out of place. It’s the same feeling I had when Angie gave me his spell book to look over. Despite the odd feeling, there’s something direct and burrowing about his gaze. As if it’s drilling through me, and not into me. I search his eyes, hoping I’m just seeing things, thinking that maybe it’s just been too long since I last saw him. People can change so much in just a few months. Can’t they?

  Even when I notice his gaze lingering on me, even when my breath catches in my throat, I can’t pull my eyes away.

  “Coll,” Sera jumps to her feet, “I thought yeh had a meetin’.”

  He momentarily scans her. “I did. It’s over.” Coll slips his navy blazer off and lays it across the kitchen bar jutting out from the wall like a peninsula. He loosens the navy tie and unbuttons the top button of his maroon and white checkered shirt.

  “So, what’s goin’ on here? Taran?”

  Taran.

  I never meant to make you feel like less of a person. If I’m bein’ completely honest—I’m afraid that if I start usin’ your name, I won’t be able to stop.

  He called me Taran. And he recognizes me. But, why shouldn’t he? He did call me months ago, after all. And I can assume Sera and Emilia told him things.

  “It’s good to see you,” I say, trying to keep my voice from betraying the tension I feel all while my skin flushes.

  “Once upon a time, I might ‘ave said the same to yeh. What’s she doin’ here, Sera?” he asks, walking to the fridge.

  �
�I invited her. I thought maybe you were both havin’ the same memory problems.”

  Coll stops, the door of the fridge open. He only pauses for a moment before bending over to pull out a bottle of Budweiser. Without even snapping his fingers, the bottle cap pops off under the influence of his magic and lands on the counter. After swallowing and giving a mild hiss, he looks at me.

  “And?”

  “Yeah,” I answer for her, my tongue involuntarily twisting. “I’m rem—remembering things wrong too. I was scared about it, and that’s why I didn’t want to talk.” I manage to chuckle lightly, holding his piercing gaze that continues to unnerve me, “Imagine how terrified I was to find out that the father I thought was dead for twenty years was actually alive.”

  “I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout yeh, Taran.” His focus flicks to Angie. “I asked, ‘why is she here?’”

  “Interesting. I didn’t think you had a problem with me, Coll.”

  “Then, I suppose you’ll have to forgive me. I only remember the Angelica Crowther I used to know. I don’t have a problem with yeh per say, but I thought we were done with magic in this family. Are we not, Sera?” He takes another swig from his bottle and leans back on the counter.

  “Done with magic? That doesn’t sound like the Coll I know.” I stand up.

  “I’m tryin’ to respect my sister’s wishes.” Coll scans me head to toe. “Which brings me to the second question. Second statement, I guess I should say.”

  For a while all he does is look at my face. Studies it. Those golden, wild eyes searching my face, grazing over my skin. Then, after another prolonged scan of my body—during which instinctively . . . shrink back and shiver—he finally talks again. “Taran, you’re lookin’ good.”

  My skin heats. While I thought the flush of my skin would have been due to the fact that I haven’t heard him use that hidden tone—a tone veiled by his typical attempts to mock me—this time, it’s all wrong. So fake.

  “It’s good to see you haven’t lost your touch,” I reply, a tense smiling hinting at the corners of my lips. And just when I thought I’d be the one finishing the conversation with dignity, one final word slips over my tongue. “Douchebag.”