by Nem Rowan
He shrugged again. "I guess I just picked on that because it was his weakness. It was the only part of him I could hurt. It wasn't because he was transgender, it was because I saw the chink in his armour. His lack of self-esteem. I used it against him, because he was Evan's son. I had got rid of Evan, and yet there in front of me was another version of him. He was a reminder that Wenda had chosen Evan over me and I hated him for it."
I sighed, shaking my head as I made a tutting sound. At least he was acknowledging it and had come to understand why he had done it, but that didn't make it okay.
"Do...do you think...if I apologised, he might forgive me?" he asked hesitantly. "If I had said cruel things to you, about your gender, would you forgive me?"
"Maybe, but you'd have to work as my personal slave for a decade first." I smiled, leaning close so that I could brush my nose against his. "I think if he never forgives you, you fucking deserve it. But there's no harm in apologising if you mean it."
"I mean it." He swallowed deep.
"Sweetheart, come on now. Come here." I let go of his hand and he relinquished mine from his mutual, vise-like grip so that I could put my arm round him. I held him to me tightly, swaying gently as he buried his face in the crook of my neck. I could feel him trembling, holding back his tears for me when he didn't need to.
"Don't you think your mum would want you to forgive yourself so you could heal?" I whispered to him, my voice close to his ear where I knew he would have to listen.
"Yes," came the wet, slightly muffled response.
"Yeah, I bet she would an' all," I agreed, stroking my hand up and down his back as his arms clutched me round my torso, his fingertips digging into my shoulder blades. "Where is she now? Does she know you're out of prison?"
"She...She died when I was young," he replied. "When I was fourteen. She had...she had cancer."
"Oh...I know how that feels. My mum died when I was a kid, too. She had a drug overdose. I know what it feels like to lose your mum," I told him, feeling comfortable enough to let him know in the hopes that he would find kinship with me. "But ya know, mums, when they love you, they never really leave. Anyone who loves you, they never leave. They're always in yer heart. As long as you remember, they stay with you."
Those were words I had uttered to myself late in the night, laying alone in a cell in a young offender's unit. Words that had kept my mum alive, even when she was long since gone.
I could feel his sobs flowing through him before they escaped his throat, and for a long time I just cradled him, both of us rocking as though drifting on a vast and unknowable ocean of emotions, memories and shadows that visited us in the night, knowing that despite appearances, we were one and the same. These were things he had never told anyone, and I felt privileged that he had allowed me to see inside him where they hid, a place I knew not many people had been. I still had a lot of questions, though. One by one, they rose to the forefront of my mind like buoys bobbing on the surface of our ocean.
"Ceri?" I inquired softly, feeling it a sin to disrupt him when he had finally calmed down.
"Yeah?" he mumbled back.
"If you want to go back to Wales and see these people, I'll come with you. I'll hold your hand. So you don't have to do it alone. I think you need to tell them you're sorry in person. If I was one of them, I'd want you to say it to my face," I told him, although the prospect of being there and watching him, so helpless and prostrate in front of these strangers, frightened me. "You can't keep running away from it. Maybe that's the key. If you can say sorry, it'll let ya heal."
Finally he straightened, lifting his head so that he could look at me. I had never seen him look so pitiful. His damaged face was red with sorrow and his cheeks were wet with tears.
"Okay." he nodded, though I saw fear in his eyes. "Leon, you're the first person I've met where I've felt safe to tell you the truth. You make me feel so...so free. I wish I could be like you."
"I'm sure Mecky's got another dress you could wear," I teased, and we both giggled and grinned, leaning our foreheads together as we found the idea of Ceri in a dress so amusing. It was a relief to hear his laughter again after what had been said.
"The truth is, I'm not free either. I've got baggage. You said when we first met, how angry I was. I am angry, angry at Wallace Reed. I'll be free when we've killed that son of a bitch," I confessed as I gazed into his eyes.
"I promise we'll find him. I promise," he assured me, managing a small smile that didn't make it to his eyes.
"Ceri, what was that stuff about magic you wrote about?" I changed subject, but only because it was becoming increasingly difficult not to. I thought he would become embarrassed or try to deny it, so I was surprised when he appeared relieved that I had brought it up.
"Before I went into prison, I was a witch. That's how I learned to make the medicine that would sedate you on a full moon. My mentor is a witch, too. I know it sounds crazy, but... Well, I guess if you'd tried to tell me you were a werewolf, it'd sound pretty nuts, too." he smiled, entertained by his own words. "I stopped doing witchcraft because... I kind of lost control. It started to eat me alive, made me go a bit mad. That's why I stopped. Sometimes I do little things, but I can't do proper witchcraft anymore. I'm scared it'd take away my sanity again."
"So witchcraft is what made you lose your shit? I thought you were a junkie or something," I half-joked, but I had to admit that witchcraft was the last thing I had expected.
"No." he chuckled shyly. "But I guess the power I got from it was like a drug."
"So like, can you fly? Can you put curses on people?" I inquired, releasing him so that I could sit down on the edge of the bed.
"I can fly if I turn into a bird, and yes, I can curse people. But that takes a lot of energy, and I won't do it again. I abandoned my goddess a long time ago, and she would do nothing to help me out if I asked now," he spoke, keeping his voice at a low undertone. "You know how I got those people to answer my questions even though it was obvious I'm just a jobless loser, not a copper? That's how I did it. There's a lot you don't know about witchcraft, and I could spend all night by yere explaining it to you. But you gotta know that I won't do it again, even if it meant being able to find Wallace Reed right this second, I won't do it. I won't risk turning into a monster again; I think you of all people can understand that."
I sighed, nodding my head. "...I understand. It's a bit of a bummer, but yeah..."
It felt a bit weird accepting that he was a witch, but after what I had been through, it seemed reasonable that if werewolves existed, why not other things? I had given up trying to define what was reality a long time ago. I was disappointed that he was unwilling to use his skills to solve our problem, but if it meant he would go mad, maybe it was better this way. I'd rather stay a werewolf and have Ceri, than become human again and lose him. A tiny part of me in the back of my mind was telling me that what I was doing, trusting him and even allowing myself to want to love him, was both dangerous and stupid, and that when everything was over, I'd be left on my own, fending for myself again.
"If you don't want to do witchcraft again, I won't ask ya," I promised.
Seeming relieved, he nodded and reached to stroke my hair, touching the top of my head and then running his knuckles against my cheek where the stubble was already growing back.
"Do you wanna see something?" he asked with a slight hint of excitement.
"Sure. What is it? It better not be something rude." I grinned up at him, wondering what on earth he could show me that I didn't now know about.
He went to the desk, kneeling so that he could open the bottom drawer, which squeaked on its rollers as he drew it out. I watched as he lifted out a long wooden box and came towards me, holding it as though it was fragile and priceless in both his hands.
"This is my athame. It's a ceremonial knife," he told me as he sat down beside me and undid the bronze clasps on the lid, before carefully opening it up. Inside I saw only folds of glossy black silk, which he delica
tely turned aside, opening the sheet of fabric so that its shining secret would be visible to our eyes. What had been hidden in its nest of silk was a shimmering silver knife; it was about eight inches in length, not including the handle, and the blade was narrow and pointed with tiny symbols engraved down the length. The handle was also cast in silver and wrapped neatly in a binding of matte black leather.
"Wow, it's beautiful. I bet you could make a sweet bit of coin if you pawned that." I eyed it curiously, wondering why he would need such a trinket in the first place.
"I couldn't sell it. My mentor gifted it to me when I got out of prison. But since I got it, it's stayed in this box and I haven't had the heart to use it," he admitted as he gently stroked his fingertips up and down the blade, treating it like it was a kitten in there and not a dangerous weapon.
"I guess you'd use it for witchcraft? Is that why?"
"Yeah," he nodded, swallowing deeply and tucking the silk back over it so that he could close the box. "Morcant, my mentor, sent it as a gesture of forgiveness. He wants me to return, so we can go back to the beginning. He wants to fix me and make me a great witch again, but I'm too afraid."
"Oh, right," I murmured, realising his conflicted feelings.
"It's made of the purest sterling silver. A charged athame could kill a werewolf with a single strike. It's best if you don't touch it; I don't know what would happen if you did," he told me as he did up the latches on the lid.
"I won't touch it. But, if for whatever reason you end up in a place where there's a chance I could kill ya, I'd appreciate if you stuck it in me and let me die." I lowered my voice, unsure if what I was saying was the right thing to say, but I knew if it came to it, I'd rather get stabbed than to wake up after the full moon and discover Ceri in pieces all over the place.
"Don't say that. We'll never be in a place like that," he mumbled, leaning close to me and nudging my forehead with his.
I didn't want to argue; I appreciated his optimism in that regard. Tilting my head, I shuffled close to him and gently kissed the corner of his mouth, my eyes closed as I listened to his heart beating beside me. Even now, I could hear it pounding when I got close. Even now, he felt nervous being next to me. I found his shyness adorable.
Twenty-Three
I remembered it like the back of my hand. The club scene was my favourite place to be; I didn't have much in the way of a job; I was just a kid still and my grades had been too poor for me to make it into college. Instead, I threw myself into partying. It was a hot night that night. The grounds around the high-rise flats were busy with gangs of youths, some playing football and others hanging about, smoking the devil's lettuce. I had to wait for a gap in the crowd before I could escape onto the quieter streets into town where they wouldn't see me, because if I was spotted leaving the tower block in the kind of clothes I went out in, I'd get the shit kicked out of me faster than they could shout 'fag in a dress'.
I had the radio on in my bedroom, blasting out Mary J. Blige while I sat in front of the mirror, my skinny knock-knees together under the desk of my dressing table while I applied my makeup. It was a Friday, and there was no excuse for me not to be out on the town. The other option was to stay in and listen to Pete farting in front of the television.
The window was open, and the breeze brought in the muggy, warm summer air of the city. My bedroom walls were plastered in posters of Take That, Celine Dion and George Michael. There was even a topless Brad Pitt in there somewhere. Tacky ornaments of fairy children with glittery wings that had once belonged to my mum adorned the shelf above my single bed, and a picture of her took up the small space atop my bedside table, her frame surrounded by chewing gum wrappers, mascara tubes and unused condoms. All of my bedding was Rainbow Brite patterned; my mum had bought it for me when I was little and after she had died, I couldn't let go of it. Whenever I wrapped myself up in the duvet, I felt that she was there holding me, keeping me safe and warm.
A feather boa hanging from my dresser lamp was probably a fire hazard. My whole life was a fire hazard; I was so smoking hot that I might have died of the flames at any second. All of the men in the club desired me. They wanted my slim body against theirs, my thin legs around their waists and my girly voice crying out their names. In the beginning, when I realised how wanted I was, I allowed them to take advantage of me, but eventually I came to acknowledge the power it gave me over them, and overnight I became hard to get, a cock-tease who made them work for it. It had got me into a few difficult situations in the past, when a guy came to the conclusion, eventually, that all my flirting was just so that I could wind him up and squeeze a few drinks out of him.
Slater worked at one of the clubs; he was young then and served drinks at the bar. He was tall and thin as a rake, his peanut-shaped head shaved short back and sides and a big gold chain hanging round his neck. His arms were covered in tattoos and he always had a chunky earring in one earlobe that wobbled every time he moved. I never understood why a straight guy like him wanted to work surrounded by fairies and dykes, but he said the best friends he had ever made were gay.
"And anyway, how can you judge me when you're dressed like a hooker who fell into a Christmas tree?" he reasoned as he placed a cocktail down on the bar in front of me.
We'd become instant friends, just add water.
I often went to the club just to see him. He talked about how he wanted to open a club of his own, and when he did, I was welcome to come and work for him as a dancer. I scoffed at the idea, but in my heart, I felt flattered that he had offered that to me. Pete kept going on at me about getting a job, but it didn't matter if I put on a suit and tie, as soon as I opened my mouth and people heard my feminine voice, they drew a line through my name and sent me out the door. People talked about equality, and if it existed somewhere, I never saw it. Employers didn't want a flaming homo working in their office; it might try it on and turn the other men gay, too. How self-important have you gotta be to think every gay person in the vicinity is gonna fancy you? Some of these guys would have been more attractive with paper bags over their heads.
That night was the end of my teenage club antics.
I leaned out the bedroom window, observing the positions of the different groups of people and knowing that soon they would be sparse enough for me to make a stealthy exit. I had to move fast otherwise I would be caught. I opened my bedroom door and slipped out, high heels clopping on the linoleum as I crept along the hallway, my handbag swinging on my arm and my drop earrings tinkling when I moved my head. Before I could shimmy past the living room door, the enormous shape of Pete in his football t-shirt and jogging bottoms suddenly appeared before me, blocking my exit. The bastard had been in the bathroom instead, tricking me.
"You ain't goin' out dressed like that, Leon. You look like a prostitute. Come on now, lad. Why don't ya stay in and watch the telly with me?" he wheezed at me as I squeezed past him and near enough threw myself at the front door.
"I ain't staying in with you! And I ain't watching no football neither! Leave me alone!" I shouted at him as I fumbled with the chain, careful not to damage my false nails or chip my varnish.
"Leon, you gonna get hurt one o' these days, lad. What would yer mother think? Come on, go an' put some proper clothes on and we'll have a takeaway," he tried to reason with me.
Finally, I got the door open and I stumbled out onto the hallway. We were right at the end of the hallway, nearest to the stairs, but I couldn't make it down all those steps in these shoes so I had to somehow get to the lift before he could stop me. There had been a few occasions where he had managed to prevent me from getting out of the door, pressing his enormous size against it and waiting it out while I howled and shrieked at him. This time though, a huge greasy hand grabbed onto my wrist as I turned to head for the lift and I spun sharply, whacking him in the head with my handbag and sending his glasses flying off his face.
"Don't hit me like that! You can't keep doing this! Yer mum would be so upset if she saw ya like thi
s!" He pleaded as I tried to wrestle myself free.
"You don't know what mum would have said! Stop bringing her into this! Let me go!" I screeched, my handbag slapping him across the side of his head.
It became abundantly clear that I wasn't going to make it to the lift if things kept up this way; one thing I did know was that he hated using the stairs, so instead I turned towards them, resorting to dragging him out of the flat doorway in the hopes that he would eventually let go.
"Leon, I know it's 'cause ya just want attention! You didn't do this when yer mum was around," he protested. He grabbed onto the door frame to get some leverage, but his hands were slippery from the chips he'd been stuffing his face with and his palm slid free with a squeak.
He blundered after me, staggering from foot to foot in his slippers, skidding along the tiled floor as I wriggled in his grasp. Just the sensation of his hands touching me sent shudders of abhorrence through me; sometimes it was so bad that I felt myself heave and I worried I'd be sick.
"Well you weren't a fat bastard while she was around, either! What's yer excuse, then!" I spat, twisting in his grasp and hearing the sound of fabric tearing.
"Look at ya! Look at yer silly clothes! What kind of man wears pink!" He ignored my insults by turning them back on me, but all it did was make me even more angry.
I gasped when I felt the heel of my shoe wobble at the very edge of the steps. A wrong step and I could end up tumbling backwards, then there was no way I'd be going out to the club.
"Let go of me, Pete! Let go!" I screamed at him.
We were wrestling and struggling with each other, his hands pawing at me, grabbing at my clothes and hair, trying to inch me back to the flat where he could lock me away. I was furious as he was messing up my outfit and my hair was losing its immaculate style. How dare he criticise me for the way I wanted to dress, while he sat in that chair day in day out, filling his gob with junk food? It seemed we were at a stalemate, and so what happened next came as a complete shock to me.