by Tara Brown
I frown, "My home that you burned to the ground was Willow's home."
He shakes his head, "Earth Witches live here. I want answers. There is no way she raised you and knows nothing."
He walks up to the front door and places me down. He flexes his huge hands and knocks on the huge black door.
"I kind of imagined Earth Witches would live in a faerie land, with flowers everywhere and colors. This is like the Wicked Witch's house."
The door creaks open. A stunning redhead answers. She smiles bright red lips at us. Her eyes glow green like Willow's. Her skin is pale white and her long green dress looks like it came over on the Mayflower.
"We've been expecting you Van Helsing." She has an accent.
"Were you one of the brides in Dracula?" I ask.
She wrinkles her nose at me and looks confused. She opens the door. He leads and she looks at him like he is a piece of meat. I feel sorry for her. I don’t miss feeling that way about him. I'm enjoying the odd contempt and disgust I have when I think about him.
The house is exactly the way I would imagine a bunch of witches would live. Cats, dust, cobwebs, dimly lit, and an actual straw broom in the corner by the front door.
The foyer looks like an old fashioned brothel. There are huge velvety couches everywhere and tall floor lamps. Women mill about in old-fashioned, floor length dresses with bright green eyes and beautiful faces. I feel homely. It's like hanging with Michelle and Mona.
I hug my arms around me.
He looks around at them and grins, "Ladies."
Some smile coyly and others outright lick their lips. They all seem to feel the way about him that I used to.
The redhead looks at me and points to the huge red velvet couch to my right. "Have a seat?"
I shake my head and creep up behind him. She watches me and laughs.
I smell something familiar and look to the right. Willow stands amongst them. She looks hurt, no pained.
I run to her. I can't fight it. I run to her and wrap my arms around her. She hugs me and kisses my forehead.
"I'm so sorry Rayne."
I shake my head and burrow into her chest.
She isn’t in jeans and a t-shirt. She's in an old black velvet dress with her strawberry blonde hair in a bun. I wince when I see the knitting needle.
She feels me tremble and hugs me harder. "I wish I could have told you. I wish I'd just made you stay home."
I star to cry, "I killed a man Willow. I killed a man and I don’t know what's wrong with me."
She pulls my face back, "Nothing is wrong with you baby girl. You're perfect. It’s the five devils that are coming for you. It's them that will ruin you and make you evil."
I frown.
"Willow you're getting ahead of yourself." The redhead smiles at me.
I cling to Willow and let her comfort me. If she stabs the knitting needle into me I know it will be with love. I know it will be her freeing me.
Wyatt struts around like a cock in a hen house, "We need answers."
Willow sighs, "He's in love with her."
I look back at him and watch his eyes. They never leave me. He can see the question on my face. His face gives away nothing but the discomfort of being with Willow.
"I don’t love her. I saved her. That’s all. Don’t try to read something into it, witch."
He glares at her. He hates her. I don’t blame him. The stabbing in the neck had to have scared the shit out of him. It scared me and I wasn’t even the one getting stabbed.
The redhead laughs and crosses her arms, "He can't love her Willow. That’s like a dog falling in love with its food dish." The others laugh and watch his face. They lick their lips and want him. I can see it.
He shakes his head, "I hand-fasted with her to save her. She was sick and getting worse." I have to admit I didn’t want him to love me, but his words sting nonetheless. His dark blue eyes sparkle and he grins at a woman across the room with curly blonde hair.
"She shouldn’t have been with you. She wasn’t sick. She was hungry and you know the effect you have on us, if we aren’t careful." Willow speaks softly and strokes my head. She is my mother. I don’t care about the rest it.
Willow ignores them and looks at me, "The five devils will bring you the pain and sin of the world and fill you up. They can get to you in the last years of your life. Once they come the change starts. I figured with all the different species at a college you'd be fine. I put protection charms all over you. Plus I put the spell on your dorm. No evil or anger or pain would find you in there. It wouldn’t be able to see you. You slept there every night right?"
I feel panic. The man in the chair.
"She slept at my place twice."
Her face lifts. Her bright eyes smolder, "You never left her side did you?"
He shakes his head.
I look at her and then at him, "The man in the chair. The man with the sweater. I heard the water running. He was there watching me sleep."
Willow's face is devastated. "I told you no sex. No sleepovers. No sex. No meat. I told you to do the poses. I did them for nineteen years Rayne. I was teaching you."
Wyatt takes a step forward, "It's my fault. I took a shower. I made her sick. She would have gone back to her room but I made her sick. She took mini sips from me in the bar."
The witches make a face. I can tell they know the pain I've been in.
"The sickness is the evil. Is he the only one you've seen?"
I nod, "Yeah. I haven’t seen any others, but I've slept at Michelle's, in her dorm."
"I protected her dorm. I figured you would sleep there. Her father told me she was going and about the surgery and changes. The only thing I never figured on, was a Van Helsing."
The redhead laughs, "Not one that would fall in love with the Sin Eater." There were those words again, love and sin eater.
"I told you I'm not in love with her." He crosses his arms and looks indifferent. I believe him, but they don’t seem convinced.
The redhead laughs again and crosses her arms, "Me thinks the Slayer doth protest too much." She looks like she is toying with him.
He looks angry but then puts his fake charming face on, "I've never been much of a one lady sort of man." The blonde with the curls giggles. I almost throw up, but I know my guts are empty.
The redhead looks severe for the smallest of moments, "She can't stay here." Her eyes dart at Wyatt. She fears him. They all desire and fear him.
I sigh.
Willow squeezes my hand, "I know that Glory but she needs a moment of explanation. I owe her that. I owe her what I know." I get marginally excited.
"What am I? What is a Sin Eater? How was I born dead? How was I born at all?"
Willow's eyes sparkle. She is getting emotional. She looks at the others and then she takes my hand. She pulls me to the back of the room and through a hallway. It's long and dark and black. My eyes do the thing they do and I can see the doorways that line the hallway. Every door is closed. She pulls me to a huge black door and when she opens it I am stunned.
She pulls me into a white light. My eyes hurt it's so bright. I shield my face and let her pull me along.
The bright light turns out to be a garden with huge lights high and skylights above it. The garden is warm in a way that gets into my bones and warms my soul. Pretty flowers and strange plants are growing in huge rows. The green house is the biggest I've ever seen. Vines climb the walls. Bee's and bugs flit about doing their work. I can see Willow being happy in a place like this.
"What is this place?"
She smiles and looks proud, "This is our garden."
Chapter Twelve
He's quiet and continuously gripping the steering wheel of the boat. His fingers seem to be apart of whatever conversation is going on in his head.
I don’t feel sick. I feel glorious. It's remarkable. Everything is alive and moving in a constant harmonious pattern. Even his erratic driving is not noticeable.
He looks back at me an
d rolls his eyes, "Whatever she gave you is obviously helping."
I scowl, "She never gave me anything."
He grins, "You never ate anything while you were in the garden?" His tone is patronizing.
I am about to answer but I recall flower petals. They were rose colored and sweet. She put them in my hand and I ate them like candy.
"What was it?" His grid widens. "They're Fae, you shouldn’t eat things they give you. Ever. Alice in Wonderland didn’t come from nowhere."
I frown and look over the edge of the boat at the choppy waves. I want to roll my eyes at the Alice in Wonderland comment, but I have a terrible feeling that he isn’t kidding. He doesn’t really kid like normal people.
I cross my arms and watch the water. We drive up to the rocky cavern and he parks the boat where it had been when we left. The huge cave is awesome. I can imagine how amazing his childhood was.
I look around and wait for something dark and creepy to attack. The weird elevator makes a creaky noise and then drops to the floor.
Instead of vampires, a woman in a cardigan steps off. She's probably Willow's age but with more city miles. Her forehead wrinkles when she sees us.
Wyatt's back stiffens.
She crosses her arms and refuses to make eye contact with me, no matter how much I smile.
"I had to see for myself." Her words are sharp and pointy and I'm certain Wyatt's ears are bleeding.
"Hello mother. This is Rayne. My very own Sin Eater, something I've always wanted." His words are dry and sarcastic.
She meets his gaze and smiles softly, "Your sister had to defend the house. They came looking for her. We learned a few things while we've been waiting for you."
He steps off the boat but keeps his body between hers and mine.
She is wearing tan slacks and a cream colored cardigan. I'm having a hard time straightening my back and being uppity around her. She doesn’t scare me.
Not until she meets my gaze.
Then she scares me in ways that make me feel like I have never felt fear before.
Her face changes the way Wyatt's does. Her eyes glower at me and sort through my varying sins. I swear she can see everything. She makes a face and I'm scared she's looking at my lust for him.
Her mouth sneers and her forehead gets dark. She is sinister looking. It's almost like a wind comes from behind her and blows her raven black hair. Okay, it could be that I'm still high from the pink flowers.
"Rayne." I snap out of it and look at Wyatt. I am trembling, "She wants to kill me."
He nods, "She ate the flowers at the Earth Witches place. Did Fitz tell you everything?"
She is giving me a strange look, "Yes. He said she was raised by an Earth Witch and warned about you by a Fire Witch. Since when do they work together to protect a Sin Eater?"
He looks at me and I can't help but feel lost, as usual. "I don’t know. Using us as the common enemy maybe. Fitz was the one who said the Earth Witches were the guardians of the Sin Eater. The Earth and Fire Witches are better at playing nice than the others."
She shrugs and he offers me a hand off the boat.
I don’t take it. I don’t trust him. I climb off and inch closer to the elevator without going to close to her. I steal a glance at her and notice her face looks normal.
I watch her, waiting for her to turn it back on, "What are you?" I ask.
She looks at me and raises an eyebrow.
"My mom is one of us."
I think for a second, "But if your last name is Van Helsing and your mom is a Van Helsing…how deep is the gene pool?"
His mother's face instantly turns and she growls at me. I put my hands up, "Sorry I talk when I'm nervous."
He grabs my hand and pulls me behind him. He presses the button and the wall slides out and we start moving up. She doesn’t stop clenching her jaw or giving me the death stare.
The wall shoots open and she storms off the elevator. He looks back at me, "You're rude Rayne. Really rude."
He drags me off the elevator and I notice his sister sitting at a chair with their uncle.
The uncle looks at me then Wyatt. He shakes his head.
Wyatt ignores the obvious warning and pulls me up the stairs.
Of course what does he care, it isn’t his neck out on the line. It's mine.
I try to tug my hand from his but his grip isn’t relenting.
He drags me across the foyer and up the second set of stairs. I start to struggle but he flips me over his shoulders and carries me to the room.
"Put me down."
He doesn’t speak. He places me in the room I showered and changed in, and he closes the door. I hear a key clanking in the lock.
"Try to rest Rayne." His voice is muffled from the other side.
I put my hand against the door and slump onto the floor. Tears don’t fall. I'm not willing to be weak anymore. I'm not willing to let him be more important than me.
I feel myself fading from the lack of food and water. I'm exhausted and scared.
'Don’t be sad.'
I look around the room. No one is there with me.
"Whose here?" I whisper.
'If I show myself to you, you must stay calm. Swear it'
I nod, "I swear." I continue to hunt the darkening room. The whisper is different than the dead who whisper to me.
I see a sparkle of light. It's faint and I can only see it if I focus hard. It gets brighter. My eyes do the thing they do and suddenly I can see her. She is a beautiful girl in a long flowing white dress. She is distorted and ephemeral in her movements. She is there and then she isn’t. She sparkles with life or light that is beyond what I live and breathe. Her long red hair is shiny and sparkles with the same dusting of faerie magic as the rest of her.
"Are you a faerie?"
She smiles but her movements seem delayed and imprecise. Her giggle fills the air but her mouth has long since stopped the giggle. She puts a finger to her lips and floats to me. Her gown flows around her and moves with the air or maybe her disposition. It is as much a part of her as my skin is of me. I have a hard time seeing where it stops and she starts. She is horror movie creepy but I feel no fear.
"I am your mother's friend."
"What are you?"
She floats around me and never seems to be able to sit still.
"I have no time Rayne. The evil in the house prevents me from being here completely. If they come, they will catch my essence and destroy it. You must get away. You must run from them."
"How can I? I'm dangerous and I don’t know enough about myself. I killed a man. Willow told me about needing the sins of bad humans to survive but she only told me what she knew. She was told by my mother to keep me safe and help me control it. She was to keep me from hurting myself or anyone else. She knew I would collect the debt of the world. That’s what she called it."
Her light fades, but her voice is strong, "JUST RUN RAYNE! FIND LILLITH! FIND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD AND FIND YOUR FREEDOM!"
Where her entrance was jerky and inconstant, her departure is swift and frightening. She is sucked backwards rapidly, as she screams and then she is gone and I am alone. Alone in the dark. I now see this is the theme of my life. I've always been alone in the dark in some way or another. I blink and look at the wall she got sucked out of. I wait for the delayed terror I should be feeling.
I am not shocked or afraid. Everything else that’s happened in the past couple of days has either stripped common sense from me or weathered my sensitivity. My responses are not what they used to be. I stand and look around the room. I miss my old self.
I lift one of the windows and feel the instant cold wind attack. It's a blustery day on the ocean and the wind finds the open window without delay.
I push the screen and it falls out onto the shingled roof. It scrapes its way down the shingles and falls down onto the grass below. Every scrape and sound is magnified by the wind and the fact I am trying to sneak out.
I close the window and sit on the bed.
Surely he will come after a noise like that one.
I sit and wait. My hands fidget. I love fidgeting. Pretty woman or no pretty woman, fidgeting rocks.
I tap my foot and count to one hundred. He doesn’t come. I count to two hundred and nothing. I am standing up to peek out the window, when I hear the key. I sit back down and look out a different window.
"You hungry?" I turn to see a tray of food.
I want to eat it, but I saw Flowers in the Attic. I look for cookies with sugar dusted on them but it's a huge bowl of soup. It looks like tomato. I can smell the basil in it. My mouth is watering. I could drool like a dog. Not just any dog either. Like a bullmastiff.
He places it on the bureau. There are huge fluffy white rolls and butter and an assortment of squares.
"Would you prefer to eat downstairs with us?"
I shake my head and walk to the tray. I lift the spoon and smell it. It's amazing. They must have a professional cook to go with their mansion.
I hold the spoon up to him.
He frowns and opens his mouth. He swallows the soup. I butter a roll and offer him a bite. He takes a bite and chews it. I might as well have offered him cardboard to eat, by the look on his face.
I pour a cup of the tea in the teapot and pass him the china mug. He sips from it and passes it back.
"You may go." My words are soft.
He looks broken in some way. I've insulted his mother and her food and for that I must suffer through the heartbroken look on his face. Lucky for me, I don’t believe he has a heart.
He remains where he is. Watching me.
"You cannot love something like me remember?"
He winces, it's subtle and only because my eyes are doing their thing, can I see it.
I butter the rest of the bun and the other side. Hunger pains are nearly crippling me.
He runs a single finger down my arm. I shiver from it. He leans in and kisses my cheek. I turn and let him have me. He kisses and pulls and wraps himself around me. He encompasses me completely. I feel the strangest feeling. It's not like with other guys. When I kiss them I feel something filling me. With him I feel like my body is trying to pull but he is an empty hole. So I pull but the wind just whistles through him.