I went to stand in the surf after a few minutes and finally admitted that the dress was a good idea. No wet jeans to worry about. I watched that warm glow of the sun over the water until Linden walked up beside me, jeans rolled up to his knees.
“That was some move you did in there,” I said, looking up at him.
He shrugged. He was still mad. “He deserved it.”
“I mean, I didn’t know you were that strong.”
“Ah, you reserve it when you really need it,” he said. He took a deep breath and stretched out his fingers. “Besides being a little shocked, I’m really surprised at you today.”
“Why’s that?” I asked as the water washed over our feet.
He gave me a confused look. “Not to bring it up again, but your house burnt down, and you seem um … okay with that.”
“I’m not okay with it,” I corrected. “Far from it. But I accept that I can’t do anything about it right now. No one can. What I can do is pretend this is my home for now and enjoy it.” I gestured out to the expanse of water in front of us.
“Wow,” he grinned, “that’s impressive, really. I’m glad you think that way.”
“Yeah me, too, or else I’d be a wreck.”
He laughed and turned, looking back at the house. “You can think of it as a home as long as you want. Don’t pretend, because it really is.”
“Well thanks,” I said. “But don’t worry, I don’t expect it to be forever.”
Linden pursed his lips and shrugged dramatically. “I dunno—I wouldn’t mind it.”
He walked away, leaving me to try to decipher what he meant. I concluded I couldn’t quite figure it out, so I jogged to catch up with him. I caught his hand and turned him around, kissing him firmly. I could always pretend it meant what I wanted it to.
I had just touched the skin at his waist when he pulled back a little, blinking rapidly. He swallowed hard and choked out a laugh.
“What?” I asked, pulling back to look at his whole face.
“Ignore me,” he replied, pushing my hands further up his chest. He smiled, though I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
We stayed there until it was too dark to see much. Going back to the house sounded like a good idea since I was getting tired again. Inside, everything was quiet and Calder happily announced that Nerio had decided to go driving for a while. I smiled in response to this, just following Linden back up the stairs to the bedroom. I let him pull off the dress and drape it across the dresser. The heat of his skin was enough warmth for me, though he still didn’t reach for the clasps of my bra. I lay on top of him, wanting to get lost in him again. He seemed to be on the same page, his hands roaming everywhere, but he slowly began to stop and just kissed my neck.
“Hm?” he asked, noticing the subtle change in my attitude.
“What? Nothing,” I said quickly.
He gave me a look and turned over so we were both on our sides, facing each other. “I’ve been with enough girls to know that face.”
That comment threw me off my original track. “Enough?” It brought back what Nerio had said to me the night I found out Alysana was sick.
“Hey, give me some leeway here, I’m older than you,” he rebutted.
“Okay, okay, so what’s your point?” I asked, trying not to imagine him kissing someone else.
He seemed to see right through me. He rolled onto his back and put one hand to his forehead. “I guess I’m just going to try to explain this.”
“All right …” I instantly felt embarrassed, exposed too much. I waited for him to go on, all the while wondering what kind of girls he had been with in all his drifting. Were there other undines he’d been with? I wonder how different they really were from me … did being an undine give them some kind of advantage besides the fact that they weren’t a witch?
“I’ve been with girls, right. But I didn’t really feel as … as …” He couldn’t seem to find the words. I wished I had never reacted or thought about what I had been thinking about.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to—”
“Just give me a sec,” he said. He rubbed the side of his nose, addressing the ceiling. “I haven’t slept with anyone in a very long time.”
Yes, he was able to see straight through me. My cheeks felt as hot as they had in front of the fire. I didn’t look at him, waiting to see if he would continue.
“There are a lot of myths surrounding the whole thing,” he said, “and no one really knows what to believe. It all got really skeptical a while ago so … I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“What kind of myths?”
He paused and sighed. “You don’t want to know.”
“Ugh, Linden!” I sat up in impatience and looked down at his surprised face. “Is that the excuse for everything? There’s ‘a lot of myths’ and ‘you don’t want to know’?”
“No,” he said defensively. “But I know for a fact that if you knew, you’d want nothing to do with me.”
“You don’t know that because you haven’t told me anything! And the things I do know about you didn’t have me running away, did they?” He didn’t speak so I went on. “Just tell me.”
He slowly started frowning and took on a guarded expression. “No. I know what I’m saying.”
“How am I ever going to learn anything about you? You barely tell me anything; I have to try to fill in the blanks myself. I don’t know where you came from, I don’t know how old you really are, and I don’t know what ascending is, I don’t know your middle name. And yes, these things are important.”
He just stared at me for a minute. “I don’t have a middle name.”
I dropped my hands in exasperation and lay down again, my back to him. The bed moved as he scooted closer.
“Okay, let’s say my middle name is Jack,” he said as he pulled my hair away from my neck.
“It’s too late, you don’t have one,” I mumbled.
“Seriously though, Riley. I know what I’m talking about in this case, and if you knew the details you wouldn’t be so keen on being here.”
“Linden …”
“I will think about it though. Trying to explain it.”
Sure he would. I just nodded and closed my eyes, no longer in any kind of mood to talk to him. He left me alone, which was good for the time being. When I had calmed down and didn’t care so much, I turned around to find he was already asleep. Carefully moving his arm to drape over my side, he instinctively held me close and entangled his legs with mine. At least in his sleep he was forgiving.
THE COMING STORM
I woke up the following morning to find myself lying in the same position. Linden breathed easily, his breath fluttering my hair. I watched him sleep for a few minutes until I heard voices from the house. Maybe they needed him soon, the tones sounded urgent. I started to kiss his chin, the light stubble there scratching my skin. I grinned to myself and kept going until he moved slightly.
“Forgiving, are you?” he mumbled.
“Only sometimes,” I said, moving on to his shoulder. He smiled and stretched, muscles quivering, and paused to listen to the house.
“Sounds like another argument. Perfect,” he sighed as he sat up. “Let’s make for the pier or something.”
“I could definitely do that,” I agreed.
“’Kay, just let me talk to Rhys for a few minutes. You get dressed and all, I’ll be right back.” He stood and left the room in just his boxers, closing the door behind him. I yawned and ignored his comment, choosing to doze for a few minutes instead.
I would have stayed asleep if I hadn’t heard Calder’s voice coming up the stairs. Remembering our little argument from the night before, I got up fast, pulling on the green dress as quickly as I could before darting into the hall. It was empty, but I chanced calling out for Calder in a quiet voice.
He stuck his head out the bathroom door. “Hey, Riley.”
“Hey,” I replied, walking towards him. I was so glad he was on this floor when Lind
en was downstairs. “Can I ask you a quick question?”
“Um, sure,” he said, looking hesitant.
“Do you know if Linden ever had uh—a girlfriend before?” I asked, starting out simple, if not a little embarrassing for me.
Calder looked relieved and thought about it for a moment. “There was one about like … twenty years ago. That was the last kind of serious one, but not really. Before that he never really had a real girlfriend like you; not that I can remember.”
I blushed when he called me a ‘real girlfriend’. I had never actually applied the term to myself. But my mind was also stuck on another fact: twenty years ago was his last kind-of-girlfriend? That would make him three years old, and that made absolutely no sense.
“Calder, how old is Linden?” I asked next.
“Twenty-three,” he said immediately. But I just shook my head.
“He can’t be just twenty-three. In Elemental years, how old is he?”
He sighed and got a sort of pained look on his face. He knew he was trapped here as long as Linden didn’t come back up the stairs right now.
“Okay, but keep in mind that we age really differently than you—”
“I know, I know, you’re not immortal, but I know you live a lot longer,” I said, impatient to get the answer.
“Right. And one hundred years old for you is pretty old.”
“Yes,” I said slowly, wanting him to just spit it out.
“Okay, well a hundred is like … pretty young for us. Your hundred is our one thousand.”
I was able to stomach that all right; Linden wasn’t exactly getting on in the years, so he wasn’t that old.
When I didn’t react to that, Calder went on. “I’m sixteen by your standards, two-hundred and twelve by ours.”
I just stared at him, unable to really see him living that long already. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t go on, and I tried to shake off the minor shock. “Okay—okay, so that makes Linden …?”
He looked past me towards the stairs, a hopeful look on his face. There were voices nearby, but I wouldn’t let him out of this.
“Calder!” I shook his arm.
“He told me not to tell you,” he whispered fiercely.
“I don’t care, I need to know!” I replied.
“But why? If it’s going to freak you out, why would you want to know?”
“How do you know I’m going to freak out? If you’re two-hundred and twelve, he can’t be that much older than you,” I said, now hearing footsteps on the stairs. I looked at him pleadingly, and he grit his teeth before whispering, “Two-fifty-three.”
He disappeared into the bathroom right away, shutting the door behind him. I just stood there as Linden appeared around the corner.
“Calder taking forever?” he asked as he saw me.
“Yeah—yeah, he is,” I replied, walking away. “It’s okay though. Get all your talking done?”
“Yep. Let me get dressed, then we can go,” he said.
While I waited, I thought about what Calder had told me. I wasn’t about to overreact like he thought I might. It was something to really get used to, but I wasn’t repelled by it. Still, I wouldn’t mention it yet to keep the peace between everyone.
I acted normal when we drove into the town, though I was secretly watching him and visualizing the number: 253. It was a mystery how they aged, but it must take a while for really noticeable changes to surface. Those classic slim fitted jeans and the studded belt that was threatening to break any day didn’t say Ancient Being to me. But that’s how I was starting to think of him; he was something different from humans, though it didn’t look like it, and he’d lived through centuries of lifetimes. I wanted to know what that was like, but I wouldn’t ask him. Not yet. I could always go back to Calder for some more answers.
I played tourist all day, looking at the old buildings that reminded me of the photos Rene used to show me of Salem, her birthplace. Everything was rimmed with ocean, and I don’t think it left my sight all day. While passing by the frequent houses near the coast, I couldn’t help but silently judge them all, choosing which one I would live in if I had the choice. This seemed very real to me with the absence of my home. I shuddered at the thought of standing in that place as it burnt down, and Linden noticed right away.
“Cold?” he asked, though I could tell he knew differently.
“No, I was just thinking,” I replied. He nodded to himself and leaned against the railing in front of us.
“Are you worried?”
“No,” I replied, “not really. This whole ocean thing kind of keeps the panic down.”
“Good to know. I thought I was the only person who felt like that sometimes. Kind of just want to drown down there for a while to forget things.”
His tone hinted at something else, and there was a brief flash of concern across his face before it was gone. I sighed and decided now or never.
“When’s your birthday?” I asked.
He looked at me with some suspicion, probably since I changed the subject so quickly. “October 25th.”
“Scorpio,” I muttered, remembering the lessons I’d had in astrology when I was younger.
“Good call,” he said, pointing to a small tattoo of a scorpion on his arm. I had never noticed it before, hidden between the petals of the lotus on his upper arm. It had a very old, vintage look to it, and for the moment I resisted the urge to just examine his tattoos for a while.
“So you’ll be how old?” I asked, acting like I couldn’t remember.
“Twenty-four.” He definitely suspected me of something now.
“Or two hundred and fifty-four?”
His jaw went slack, and then the muscles tightened. I could hear his teeth click together. “So Calder wasn’t hogging up the bathroom, he was hiding there.”
“It’s not his fault, I forced it out of him.”
“I told him—asked him—to resist whatever pleading you tried.”
“Well you don’t see me trying to get away, do you?” I pointed out, nudging his arm. He glanced at me, and I smiled as big as I could to emphasize my point. He laughed weakly.
“Okay, so you know that much.” He stood up straight and walked away from the railing. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to start spilling stories.”
I sighed and trailed after him calling, “I never expected you to.”
He didn’t seem very angry about the whole thing after a few minutes. Maybe he warmed up to the idea more, since I didn’t mention it again or change my attitude the rest of the day. When a huge fleet of clouds appeared on the horizon, he suggested we go back to the house.
“This isn’t just my storm, that’s a collected effort,” he said as we got in the car. I glanced back at the clouds, the tops piles of white while the undersides were a dark blue-gray. The idea of a storm here was exciting for me—how would the ocean react? Was the house even at a safe distance if things got violent? I asked Linden as we approached the drive, the clouds right behind us.
He laughed, “Rhys chose this place for a reason. It gets a little risky during storms, but that’s what he likes about it.”
That didn’t do much for my nerves, especially since I could see Nerio was inside. I bet his attitude would greatly affect the whole outcome. Hopefully, I could just stay out of his way.
As soon as we walked in, Linden yelled for Calder.
“She begged,” he called back from the living room.
“That’s what I told you to look out for,” Linden replied, going towards him.
“Well she doesn’t mind anyway,” Calder shrugged.
Rhys had walked into the room and was surveying the scene with interest. “Mind what?”
“My age,” Linden said.
Rhys nodded and smiled to himself muttering, “I told you she wouldn’t care.”
Linden just shrugged, knowing he had been proven wrong. I laughed to myself and joined Calder on the couch.
�
�You look happy,” he commented.
“Yeah well—I got one thing out of you,” I grinned.
“And that’s it,” he warned, “that’s all I’ll tell you.”
I left it at that, deciding I could maybe prod him for more at another time. Who knows, maybe Linden would even take the liberty now that he knew I wouldn’t react badly.
I didn’t have much time to think on it as Nerio burst in, almost running into the living room. He stopped short when he saw me and almost seemed in pain as he opened his mouth and spoke to me.
“That vulcani you came across—what was his name?”
I took a moment to give him the same look. “Aidan, why?”
“He gave no other name?”
I frowned slightly. “No, not that I heard of.”
He stormed into the kitchen, frustrated, and called for Rhys. I looked to Calder, confused, but he only shrugged. “He’s probably still being paranoid about the whole thing. He’s convinced you’re some kind of bad omen.”
“Well that’s a surprise,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Anyway, I’m going to go upstairs.”
Calder looked a little disappointed to be left alone in the middle of the brewing storm, but at least he wasn’t an enemy to some.
Alone in the room, I opened the window for some of the fresh air. The wind was picking up outside and the surf was making a loud crash against the sand and rocks. The sky was completely covered now, just waiting to let loose. I watched the water for a few minutes before I turned to the dresser to sort through the shells I had collected there. I sorted them into piles depending on shape and size, gasping quietly when I held a spiraled shell in my hand. I remembered that dream I had with the two people entwined as a shell. Holding the actual thing in my hand was different, and I pondered over what the whole thing could have meant. Maybe it had been some kind of foreshadow of this whole thing, though the two people confused me a little. I would have liked to be so lucky as to think it was supposed to be me and Linden, but it would take a better interpreter to prove that. I settled for the fact that I remembered the dream and went on sorting.
I jumped when I heard a crack. I dropped the shell I’d been holding and whirled towards the window. It was the same noise that I had heard the night of the fire. I could barely breathe, but I rushed to the window and looked out. Scouring what I could see, I couldn’t deny that there was absolutely no one there. I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of my fear. They would both be insane to try to come to a house full of undines; they would be outnumbered.
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