“In case of emergency or in case of an opportunity for escape?” Reece questions knowingly.
I don’t answer, but we share a look that speaks thousands of words. Reece seems to know me so well. I guess spending two years watching me would do that though. In actuality, there is money tucked away in every single wallet or purse I own, stashed on the off chance that I might have seen my opportunity and finally marshaled up the courage to take it.
We continue on and I grab a couple pairs of jeans and some plain tank tops along with a hoodie then carry on to the intimate apparel section and grab a couple bras and some matching panties. I notice the smirk on Reece’s face as I throw a thong into the cart, but I ignore it. They’re just underwear, come on, what are we, five? He can handle it. Finally, I grab two sets of PJs and am done.
“That was probably the most impressive feat of womanry I have ever witnessed.” Reece says as we make our way to the checkout counters.
“What? Buying a bra without trying it on?” I ask.
“No, you just picked out a whole new wardrobe in less than ten minutes,” he says. “That’s got to be a world record or something. When Cass needs to go shopping, it’s a day-long excursion. I wait around and she tries on the same shirt in five different colors. This is probably the most pleasurable clothes shopping experience I’ve ever had.”
“Well, to be honest, it’s the first clothes shopping experience I’ve had in the last seven years,” I say. “Donovan always had people who did that for me. So, I guess I could say that you’re the best I’ve ever had too. Umm, I mean … you’re the shopping experience…no, this is the best shopping … ugh, you get what I mean.”
My face feels so hot right now, and I think I might be coming down with foot in mouth syndrome, but Reece just chuckles. “Yep, I am picking up what you’re putting down. Don’t worry about it.”
I pay for the clothes, and then Reece grabs my bags and directs me to the little café by the front of the store that has an attached Starbucks. We order coffees and I get a sandwich and some banana bread and we sit in one of the dark corners so I can eat.
“So,” I say between mouthfuls of sandwich, “teach me about Binds.”
Reece grins and wipes some crumbs from my chin with a napkin. “I love how eager you are to learn. Your enthusiasm will go a long way in helping you master it. Whatever you are trying to do with your Binds, you have to focus and really want it or the Bind won’t work.”
“Okay, focus and determination, check,” I try to put forth my most determined face. “What do I need to do next?”
It looks like Reece is trying not to laugh. “You don’t have to look angry, just clear your mind. See this napkin,” he points to the crumpled up one that he just used on me. “I want you to focus on it and try to push it off the table.”
“But how? Like telekinesis?” I am not following.
“Exactly like telekinesis. How do you think the commons ever learned about such a thing in the first place? Some careless Mage probably wasn’t paying attention and was caught performing a Bind in front of one of them. When you think about it though, that is the perfect description for what we do, move things with our minds.”
I shift in my seat while trying to keep my eyes on the napkin. “How is getting someone to fall asleep, moving things with your mind?”
“Well, what else could it be? If we can push inanimate objects like this napkin with our minds, why can’t we push an idea or suggestion into someone else’s head? Not everyone can do it, though. Most Mages don’t have enough power to perform a mind control Bind and most of the ones that do, don’t have very strong ability. They may be able to get someone to fall asleep or think that they are freezing cold, but the effect wouldn’t last very long. I, myself, have limited ability when it comes to those types of Binds. I was able to get you to fall asleep, but I think those bumps on the head that your husband gave you is the reason you stayed sleeping for so long.”
“Reece—” I break my stare down with the napkin because I am really not getting any sign that this is working for me. “My mother used to speak in Latin when I was a kid. I remember thinking that they were cuss words because I only caught her saying them every once in a while and when I did, she would act like she didn’t mean for me to hear them. Do you think she was the kind of Mage who needed to verbalize her Binds and that she used Latin to keep them a secret from me? And if so, do you think that I might need to use verbal commands for them to work for me too?”
At the mention of my mother, Reece takes on a somber air that makes me wonder what kind of memories he may have had of his own parents. I wonder what kind of childhood would create the sweet and easygoing person seated before me, the kind of person who would save a young girl from an orphanage and keep her from the fate of the other Mage children. The kind of person who would go against orders to save a woman from her abusive husband, just because he couldn’t stand to see her get hurt again.
“I don’t know for sure,” he replies. “But, there’s a good possibility that your mom was using another language for her Binds, especially if she didn’t want you to know about it. It’s worth a try.”
He looks to the napkin and back at me with so much hope on his face that it will kill me to disappoint him if this doesn’t work. I close my eyes for a second and think, Mom, I don’t know why you kept this a secret from me. I don’t understand why you didn’t want me to know who I was or who you really were, but I love you and I trust that you had a good reason for it. But now that I am no longer in the dark, I don’t need an explanation; I just need this to work right now. Please, please, let this work.
“Ophelia, open your eyes,” Reece is saying excitedly.
I open them to see the napkin hovering over the palm of my hand. I keep my eyes locked on it and will it to hop from my hand over to Reece’s. It does, swiftly and directly, as if I had picked it up and tossed it over. Reece catches it and looks up, beaming at me.
“You didn’t even have to say anything; the ability just came out of you naturally!” Reece whoops and gives me a high five.
I know how Eliza Doolittle must have felt when she could finally say the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain because at this moment, all I want to do is dance around this little Target Starbucks like a lunatic. Reece is right. I think about the bubbles at the dinner the other night and other strange things that have occurred over my life. The ability does come out of me naturally; I’ve been using it all along.
I finish up my food and coffee and although I want to work on more Binds, Reece says that we should get going and that we will have plenty of time tomorrow to see what all I can do. He puts all of my purchases into his backpack and asks me to strap it to my back for the ride home. My heart plummets into my stomach at the thought of having to get back on that motorcycle, but we throw away our trash and head out the doors for the parking lot anyway.
We put our helmets on and Reece climbs on to the bike. I stand next to it, trying to gather as much mettle as I can. Reece laughs, “Come on, just get on. It won’t be so bad this time, I promise.”
I resign myself to my fate and throw my leg over the back.
“Hold on,” Reece commands over my shoulder. I put my hands on his hips and clutch as firmly as I can. He grabs hold of my arms until they’re gripping his chest tighter, bringing my chest into direct contact with his back. He takes off out of the parking lot, and I lay my head against his back in between his shoulder blades. I close my eyes and wish for it to be over, but before I know it, I am actually enjoying this. The hum of the engine, the feel of the wind as it rips around his body and mine, and the way our two bodies feel like one as we move into each turn—it’s a rush I have never experienced in my life. When we make it back to the building, I am actually sad to get off the bike. Reece seems sad for the ride to be over, too.
We head up to the apartment and walk to my door. Reece hands me my bags and places a sweet kiss on my forehead. “This was an awesome night, Phee,” he says while
opening my door for me. “Tomorrow, we’ll wake up early and start working right away, okay?”
I can’t give him an answer because as I turn the light on in my room, Spencer is sitting on my bed, waiting. “Isn’t this nice,” he says, but his tone doesn’t sound nice, it sounds like every word is laced with poison. “Date night at Target. Maybe next time you decide to ignore my warning and go out with half the country on the lookout for you, you’ll go with someone who isn’t such an idiot, taking you to a store that is jam packed with cameras. There are now even more pictures of you on the illegal web, as well as your knight in shining armor here. Oh, and they have one of you making something levitate. Exposing your abilities in public is against Mage Law, but you’re not big on following laws, are you, Reece? Thankfully, it wasn’t a serious infraction and hasn’t made any of the common news reports. However, I’m sure it’s been brought to the attention of your husband, Ophelia. Way to go.”
He gets up and pushes past me, giving Reece the dirtiest look known to man. “By the way, nice sweatpants,” he says as a parting shot. Ugh, I hate that man.
My mother sits at her desk scanning the ledger before her. I have tried to convince her to switch to a computer accounting system for the store, but she insists on doing everything by hand. Since I don’t have to be the one crunching numbers, I don’t press her on it.
I watch her enter numbers and mess with her calculator, guiding a lock of hair behind her ear every time it falls in front of her eyes. I am an undetected observer of this scene. She fiddles with her electric pencil and puts the tip of it to her mouth, tapping it against her full lips. My mother is beautiful. I have always thought so, but the way she is sitting there with her regal posture and the way the light shines a halo around the crown of her shiny dark brown hair, I am taken aback by her beauty. She is the quintessential image of motherhood. One of those women whose skin radiates a glow of happiness and contentedness that makes even stranger’s kids want to curl up with her instantly and feel secure. I always hoped I would look like her when I grew up, and with my own tawny hair and wide, deep-set fawn eyes, I feel lucky to have been handed down some of her attributes.
As I stare mesmerized by her, there is a noise that causes my mother to look up from her ministrations and call out, “I’m in the back, I’ll be out in just a minute.”
A customer has entered the shop and Mom, ever the believer in humanity, has deemed this unknown person safe to wander around unobserved. We don’t even have a surveillance system in this place. If I ever come out of this trance I am in, I’m going to make sure Mom is a little more cautious in the future.
I’m brought out of the safety lecture I’m prepping in my head for her when Mom speaks again.
“Oh, it’s you, Phee. You’re home early today. Go get changed and get out to the shop. I have some dusting I’d like you to do today if things are slow.”
I start to reply and look up to find myself in a strange conundrum. I am watching Mom conversing with me … only it cannot be me. I am over here to her left, and Mom’s eyes are on a person standing in the doorway in front of her who looks to be a perfect doppelganger of myself.
“Hey, Mom,” the me who isn’t me speaks. My voice sounds so different from the way I hear it through my own head. It’s a surprise to perceive it this way; so foreign and distant.
Abruptly, Mom looks up to this other me, startled. “Who are you?” she asks, caution lacing her words. “What have you done with Ophelia?”
“What are you talking about, Mom? I am Ophelia,” the other me replies, and she looks absolutely hurt by my mother’s words. “Are you feeling all right? Here, let me get you some water. I think you must have been working too hard all day.”
She leaves the room for a moment and I watch my mother scribble over her desk and then scatter papers to cover what she has written. She tosses the marker down and then the strangest thing happens. For an instant, she looks in my direction. Not the Ophelia who spoke to her, but me, the silent spectator me. She smirks and whispers, “adomonitio,” in warning. Then she looks away, but for a second, I could have sworn that she had been looking right at me and speaking directly to me. Now it seems as if she is in the room alone again, that is, until the other Ophelia reenters with a glass of water.
“NO!” My mom is up out of her chair now and coming around the desk. Seeing her take such an offensive stance toward me is very odd. I get the sense that I must be dreaming now and relax a bit in the knowledge that none of this is real. I know for sure that this crazy scene has never occurred between my mother and me, although it feels genuine. This is a very convincing dream.
She comes at the other me cautiously, but with a definite look of someone planning to subdue or take down their opponent. “Who sent you here?” she yells.
“Calm down, Mom. Calm down, please!” The other Ophelia pleads, but it’s too late; Mom charges at her, knocking her backwards into the doorframe. Ophelia pushes back with all of her might and the two of them stumble into the filing cabinet next to the desk, spilling all of the drawers out, the files and paper start spreading out and blowing around by the stream of air from a nearby table fan.
Mom rights herself, but Ophelia lunges at her now, and the two of us fall over the desk. Knick-knacks and pictures crash to the floor, and the glass from one of the frames shatters as it hits the hardwood floor, scattering in every direction. Mom tries to break away and is going back towards the door when something stops her.
“You!” she screams at whoever is in the doorway. I am trying to maneuver my dream observing self so that I may see who has caused her so much alarm, but I can’t seem to move my head in that direction. I watch in disbelief as the me with an active role in the dream comes behind my mom and hits her over the head with a heavy glass paperweight that has a jelly fish trapped inside of it. I know that paperweight—I bought it for her on my 3rd grade field trip to the aquarium. I remember how heavy the thing was to lug around all day but how happy she looked when I pulled it out of my bag at the end of the day and handed it to her.
With the force of the blow and the heaviness of the paperweight, I am left with no doubt. My mother, the woman who always made time for me, who always seemed happy to see me no matter what mood she was in, the woman who has been my only friend and family member; the director of my life is sprawled on the floor dead. And … I’m the one who killed her.
I awaken with a start to find a pair of strong arms shaking me, and two penetrating eyes searching my face for answers. I avert my eyes from Spencer’s. I can’t have him digging around in my mind right now.
“Are you all right?” He asks and there is genuine concern in his voice. “I went to get something to drink from the kitchen and heard you screaming from there. I’m surprised that the whole building didn’t wake up.”
I can hear him trying to mask his worry with irritation, but I don’t care. I’m so shaken from the nightmare that I can’t help it, I start to sob loudly. Once the tears start coming, it seems there is no way to stop them, this is ten years of pent-up sadness, regret, and pain flowing out of my eyes that has somehow been released with the dream.
Spencer doesn’t seem to know what to do at first. I catch a look of horror on his face for the predicament he has put himself in but then, he seems to become resigned to my wailing and he puts an arm around me, pulling my face into his chest. He brings his other arm up and begins to move my hair away from my wet cheeks and brush it back from my face. Once the wet locks are situated to his liking, he moves his palms over my hair repetitiously and whispers tenderly, “Shoo, it’s all right, you’re all right” until my sobbing eases up.
My eyes are still leaking and Spencer now holds me with his palm cradling my left cheek, my other is still pressed into one of his pecs and I must be calming down because I finally notice that the man is wearing no shirt and the pec that I am leaning into is rather nice and defined. It’s a peculiar thing to dwell on in my current situation, but at the same time, it’s hard not to.
The man has an amazing chest.
“What happened?” he asks me. He’s rocking me gently, as if I’m a child afraid of monsters chasing her in a nightmare, when in actuality, the monster from the nightmare is me.
“Spencer … I think I might have killed my mother,” I whisper it as if the less power of voice that I give to the statement, the less likely it will be true.
“Why would you think that?” Spencer asks.
“Because … it was in my dream … I killed her, Spencer. I smashed her skull in.” I begin to wail again.
Spencer draws his arm away and pushes me out of his embrace, holding me at arm’s length by my shoulders. “Look at me, Ophelia.” When I don’t follow his command, he shakes me lightly. “Look at me, damn it. I promise, I just need to say something to you. Nothing more, look at my eyes … trust me.” His words sound like an unaccustomed plea and it occurs to me that he isn’t used to asking anyone to do something, he’s used to telling them. He is giving me the gift of choice on this, so I look into his eyes and take it.
“You did not kill your mother,” he says with absolute conviction. “I know that to be true. I can’t say how I know … you just have to trust me on this. You didn’t kill your mom, Oberon and his son did.”
“Oberon and Donovan? Donovan had something to do with her death?” I am seething. All of those years spent with him, tolerating him, and even loving him before he began hurting me, and the whole time, he was responsible for the greatest loss of my life? And that wasn’t enough for him he had to trap me too?
If this is true, that bastard is going to pay.
Spencer gives me a look loaded with sincerity. “It was Oberon and his son. I am positive of this.”
“But … I saw myself do it and my mom left me messages and one of them was Adomonitio…”
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