I ordered my brain to stay in the topic at hand, but my body- Parker’s body- wanted to throw my girl to the floor and devour her.
I struggled in that moment. I wasn't sure if my physical reaction to Roz was coming from me, Jimmy, or from the lust Parker had felt for her. It was disconcerting and I was almost angry, trying to understand what exactly I was feeling.
Dude, relax, I told myself. You're a horny teenager and the love of your life just kissed you for the first time in ages.
That settled me somewhat, but despite the pep talk with myself, I felt the stirrings of jealousy. Parker’s body remembered things. I already established that weeks ago. Did it also remember the way she felt pressed against him? The way she tasted when he had kissed her? Is that where these incredibly strong urges were coming from? Or was it simply being able to feel her truly physically for the first time?
I was inexplicably torn. I wanted Roz to myself, as myself. I didn't want to share her, not with Parker or his body. And yet his body was having a difficult time fighting off the urge to throw her on the round table and having its way with her.
“Jimmy, please pay attention!” Nicole demanded.
Startled, I glanced up. A blush crept into my cheeks as if I had been caught red-handed with my dirty thoughts. Or, with the dirty thoughts of this body.
“Uh, sorry,” I managed. “What were you saying?”
She smirked as if she knew what I been thinking.
“I said, we have a few serious matters at hand and we need everyone to share whatever information there is. Prudence Evans is continuing her torture, correct?”
I nodded. “Last night it was fire. Small, little droplets of fire that fell from her hands. She managed to singe me good when Roz showed up.”
“What happened when Roz appeared?” She asked.
“Prudence went after her. Once she was out of the room, I focused on freeing myself from the magic she'd used to hold me in place. She still doesn't know I can use it, now.” I looked to Roz and raised her hand to my lips, giving it a quick kiss. “I was so afraid she would kill you.” A shudder of fear came over me which I quickly pushed aside, and returned to my story. “I concentrated on releasing myself from the ropes of smoke and calmed myself down, like you showed me this week,” I continued, “And before I knew it they had disappeared. When I finally figured out where Roz was hiding, I blasted Prudence with magic, not enough to seriously hurt her. While she was unconscious I placed the forgetting spell over her. I made sure she didn't remember Roz had been there, but I also left enough memory so that she still believed I couldn't conjure this power.”
“And what happened to Roz?” Devon asked.
“She was gone,” I replied. “Just like that.”
“She disappeared?” Cindy asked.
“Yes. She had been crouched beneath the bed. I pulled her out from under it, held her, and then she vanished in my arms.”
The group turned to look at Roz.
“And what do you remember about last night?” Nicole asked her.
Roz swallowed. “Well, it's like… Jimmy… said…” she blushed at how she had hesitated using my name. I found it completely endearing. “I was hiding under the bed, and then that terrible woman found me. The next thing I knew I was back in my own bed, at home.”
“Do you remember wishing to go home? Or picturing your bed? Your bedroom, maybe?” Nicole inquired.
Roz shrugged. “I just wanted to wake up. I thought it was a dream… I didn't know it was… real.” Her eyes shone brightly with the fear from the night before, and maybe with something else that couldn't be understood. “If I wasn't dreaming, then what was I doing?”
Nicole stood from her chair and walked to one of the shelves behind me. She went directly to the old book she was looking for, and pulled it from its place.
“This tome is one of the guidelines all witches of the Light adhere to,” she explained as she resumed her seat. “It has a great many lessons in it, and spells, charms, things like that. It was spelled centuries ago so that only those seeking to do good and to follow the Light may read it.”
Roz nodded at the explanation and looked at the book now resting on the table. It was thick with yellowed paper, and had a brown leather cover worn with age. In gold ink, words of a different language had been written by hand. The only other adornment was a gold, open circle with four short lines at the top, bottom, and sides. It almost resembled a crude drawing of a compass.
“This is known simply as Liber de Lumine, or Book of Light. As I said, it is the guideline for our kind. Sort of our bible, if you will.”
Roz nodded in both understanding and confusion. “Okay, so what does that have to do with me? I'm not a witch of the Light, or the Dark, for that matter.”
“Indeed, you are not,” Nicole said with a smile, “But, you are something more.”
Nicole quickly opened the pages of text before her, each one having been written by hand in beautiful script ages ago. She came to a stop halfway through the book, her keen eyes landing on what she was looking for.
“Now, please understand my translation abilities aren't what they used to be,” she explained, “But I'll do the best I can.” Nicole was silent for a few seconds, and then began reading the text before her, as it was written.
“Erit omnis qui calcat in somnis
Videtur quod non sit qui.
Cum oculos in caelum et capillus de nocte,
Dilexit tenebras lucem et salvi erimus.
Cum tempus fuerit in furore et transiit,
Et tenebrae iam auferre amorem spiritu
Et quod amor moritur tamquam scintilla,
Et lux in tenebris vicerit.”
Nicole raised her eyes when she had finished, and everyone else stared back at her, not comprehending. I was the only one who knew what the text meant, as I had been in this shop several times throughout the week to seek help and enlightenment, and also to learn how to control this newfound power of mine. During the past few days I had felt a bond begin to grow with Nicole, and I trusted her insight implicitly. I did not, however, trust the prophecy she had just read, and I knew Roz wouldn't either.
“How about in English?” Cindy asked, confused. “I mean, I picked up a few of the words, because I recognized them from some of our spells, but….?”
“Yes! English!” Nicole agreed. She shuffled through a notebook she had sitting to the side of the table and stopped when she found it. “This is how I've best translated it.”
She then read the prophecy, this time in English.
“There will be one who walks in dreams
One who is not as she seems,
With eyes of sky and hair of night,
Loved by Dark and saved by Light.
When her time comes and rage has passed,
She'll thwart her Dark love with a blast,
And as true love dies with a spark,
The Light shall overcome the Dark.”
Silence. Nothing but silence. The seconds ticked by as Nicole and I waited for some sort of response, but none of the ladies voiced a word.
I looked to Roz, unsure of what sort of emotions would play across her lovely face.
She sat in stony silence, eyes dark and raging at Nicole as if to dare the older woman to explain.
“I'm pretty sure you got that wrong,” she said firmly.
Nicole straightened and looked down at both the tome and the notebook. “Do you know Latin?” She asked Roz. “I admit I'm rusty at translation but-”
“No,” Roz replied icily, “I do not know Latin. But I do know that true love will not die with a spark, or with anything else in this world of magic! Not when I just got him back.”
Nicole looked at Roz with a small smile of understanding. “I think we need to discuss exactly what this prophecy means. It doesn't have to be taken literally.”
“I don't care what it means,” Roz said, her voice frozen and full of anger. “Nothing is going to take Jimmy away from me again. Not you. N
ot Parker’s mother. Not these stupid magic games. Nothing.”
With that, she rose from the table and stormed out of the room.
Chapter 26
~Roz~
I hurried from the bookstore and turned to the right, away from Drew and the coffee shop, away from Mystical’s Mystics, and away from Jimmy.
I needed a moment. Just one, solitary moment.
I mean, let’s be real. You don't tell a girl her true love is back from the dead only to tell her she's going to lose him again. You just don't do that!
My hands shook and my head swarmed with the implications of everything, as I strode down the sidewalk. My heart hammered in my chest. My blood boiled in my veins.
I was so damn mad!
They all sat with me and listened to the same prophecy as I, but how could they have remained so calm about it? None of The Pastels looked alarmed, or angry. They may have looked shocked, but they certainly weren't upset. Odie was confused, and rightly so. I was, as well.
But Jimmy. My Jimmy. He just sat there, looking just like Parker, taking it all in so nonchalantly. For a minute, he had acted like him, too.
I slowed my hurried, angry gait.
He acted like Parker?
No. That wasn't accurate. He didn't act like Parker. He had done absolutely nothing that was like Parker. He had sat and listened calmly, rationally, to the prophecy. He hadn't had any sort of reaction to it except to see how I had taken it.
That's because he already knew what the text would say.
Of course. He already knew about the prophecy. He had said something about that earlier.
But still! He had just come back to life, even if it was in a different body than his own. Surely he wouldn't have been so complacent to hearing that terrible phrase- true love dies with a spark.
And then I came to a full stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
True love dies with a spark.
The book didn't say he would die. The prophecy said true love would die. It could have meant that I would die, not him. Or, an even more terrible thought- our love would die. Was that what it meant? That our love wasn't meant to last the test of time? That at some point, we would end up hating one another like those couples who grow old and bitter, resenting each other?
You just got him back. Stop thinking like that, my Inner Roz admonished me.
I wrapped my arms around my chest. I suddenly felt so lost and alone, and I knew running out on them- on him- had been a childish thing to do. I turned around slowly to head back to the bookstore, then stopped again when I saw his face. He was there right behind me, he had been the whole time, watching me in silence with a pained look on his face.
“For what it's worth, I don't believe it,” he said softly. “It could mean anything, Roz. It doesn't have to mean I'm going to die. Again.”
I stepped up to him and gazed into his Parker-eyes. They were beautiful, such an amazing shade of aqua, but deep inside I longed for the rich brown of the Jimmy I knew as a ghost.
“And even if it does,” he said, “It doesn't mean anything. We've faced death before. Hell, I was dead when we found each other. That alone is proof that not everything is to be taken literally. Like death being forever,” he finished.
“I'm such a mess,” I blurted out. “I don't know how to process all of this. You're alive. You're here. That's all I want to concentrate on… not that other junk. Not some stupid prophecy, or magic, or dreams. Just you.”
He smiled tenderly at me and placed his fingers beneath my chin. “I'm here. I'm always here. We don't have to worry about anything else for now.”
His arms came around me and I nuzzled my face into his chest. He smelled good. So, so good. I breathed in his scent, of wood and cinnamon and unknown manly spices, and my insides immediately quivered in reaction to him.
“I've missed you.” I whispered.
“I've missed you, too,” he said.
We stood that way for several minutes, holding each other on Main Street, forcing passersby to walk around us as we held on to the love we had missed for so long.
***
Lord, he was handsome.
I had always thought Parker was exceptionally good-looking, but knowing he was actually Jimmy now made it seem like he was that much more gorgeous. Of course, he could have shown up in the body of Gregor, the old man Nicole was in love with, and I still would've thought he was the best looking thing I'd ever seen. Regardless, my heart stopped several times that afternoon, whenever his eyes met mine or he sent a smile my way.
We went back into the bookstore, waving at Gregor who sat on a stool behind the counter, and made our way to the round table once again. The others forgave me immediately for running off, waving it aside like it was of no consequence.
I felt like a heel. But, I had also needed that moment to run away, to think, to hold my love. My stunning, beautiful, incredible love.
Lord, he was handsome.
“So basically, we all agree Rosalind is the one this prophecy talks about, yes?” Nicole asked. Everyone nodded their agreement except for me.
“Couldn't there be some other girl out there with dark hair and blue eyes? I mean, why exactly does it have to be me?”
“Because, Rosalind, you have the gift of astral projection. Not very many people have it. Some may have a form of it, or some may claim they have it when in fact they have a vivid imagination during their dreams. But you, my dear, are an actual astral projector.”
“And where is the proof?” I asked stubbornly.
No one said a word, but one by one they each turned to Jimmy. He looked at them, looked at me, and put his hand inside his jeans pocket. When he pulled his hand back out, he set something down on the table top.
The pocket goddess.
“Oh,” I breathed. “Of course.”
“I'm pretty sure that's your proof, toots,” he said with a grin.
I looked at him and grimaced. “I don't want to be an astro-whatever-it-is.”
“Astral projector,” Nicole corrected. “It means you can teleport anywhere in your dreams. Sometimes you can teleport your actual, physical body. Sometimes it will only be your spirit. And at some point, you will be able to do it without being asleep. But it's best to know this now, my child, so you can learn how to control it.”
Erica nodded. “During witchcamp last summer, I heard a story of an astral projector who ended up teleporting in front of an oncoming train! Crazy stuff!”
I stared at Erica hard.
“Did you say witchcamp?” Odie asked.
Erica nodded. “I go every summer! It's such a blast!”
Jess remarked, snidely, “They tell those stories to everyone at witchcamp,” she said with an eye roll. “It's to figure out who the naive ones are.”
“It's never heard that story at my witchcamp,” Belle said in concern. “I did hear of a warlock who turned to ash from excessive use of his powers, but-”
“Oh I heard that too!” Cindy exclaimed excitedly. “And all that was left of him was-”
“Ladies!” Nicole yelled out. “Is this the time or place to share witchcamp stories? Honestly!”
Her disapproval ran through each of us, and we all placed our focus back to the task at hand.
“Okay,” I said, “So how do I learn how to control my… my astral… projection…?” Such a weird term. This was going to take some getting used to.
“That's just it,” Belle said darkly. “There is no way to control it. No proper technique, anyway. It's different for every person. You'll just have to dig deep, try different things, and figure out what works for you.”
I was dumbfounded. “Are you serious?”
She nodded.
“It's true, Rosalind,” Nicole concurred. “What I would suggest, is to begin with a few small, simple exercises. As you fall asleep, picture yourself in a place you want to visit. Imagine what it looks like, what the air feels like, what the scents are. If you wake up and you're there, then that's a technique that
works.”
“Sure, of course,” I grumbled, “Just imagine where I want to go, okay.”
They made it sound so easy.
“How about if I want to go home again?” I asked. “I don't want to find myself facing Prudence Evans in the middle of the night again, and not be able to get out of there.”
“Think back to what happened last night, right before you woke back up in bed,” Devon suggested. “Did you make a wish to go home? Or picture it in your head?”
I shrugged. “I honestly don't remember. Everything turned into a blur once Prudence found me. I know there was a blast of light, and then, I was at home in bed.”
“Try different things,” Cindy said. “When you find what works, then you'll know.”
“Well that's just great,” I said sarcastically, throwing my hands up. “We know what I am, but not how to control it. Awesome!”
Nicole chuckled. “Welcome to the world of the supernatural!”
Chapter 27
~Roz~
The world of the supernatural could kiss my out-of-shape butt.
I was so sick of all things magical and otherworldly that all I wanted to do was go home and hide my head beneath my pillow. Ever since coming to Marion, it had been nothing but one crazy supernatural event after the other. All I wanted was normal, was that too much to ask?
Of course, if I hadn't come to Marion, I never would've known the true meanings of family, and love. I suppose it was worth the trade-off, when I thought about it. And, at least now I knew exactly why my dreams were so real and lifelike. They were never dreams at all. They were actual events that had happened.
It made me reflect back on the time I had dreamt of seeing my sister, Angelina. She had been dead for so long, but in my dream she had looked to be in her twenties, and so absolutely beautiful I'd thought she was surely a ghost, or an apparition of some sort. She had said no, she wasn't a ghost now. She was now something similar to an angel, but not exactly.
Rage in Pain Roz: The R.I.P. Series Book 2 Page 14