My Date with a Wendigo

by Genevieve McCluer

  There are almost thirty people watching. Most are seated, though a few either aren’t bipedal enough or are too large for the chairs. I swear we didn’t invite this many people. There were a lot of plus-ones.

  The last few find seats, and without any sort of signal, the room goes quiet. Every eye turns to James.

  “Well, apparently, these two crazy kids decided to trust me with this, God knows why.” Warm laughter erupts through the large room. “They made me promise no human sacrifices, no orgies, and no pots of blood, so I guess I’ll go with something simple.” He looks between the two of us, a soft smile on his lips. It’s too genuine. It doesn’t suit him. “I have never, in my thousands of years, seen any two people love each other more than Elizabeth Rosseau and Abigail Lester. I include myself there. I know what we all think when we look at them, Stop making the rest of us look bad.” Doesn’t this stuff usually wait for the reception? I guess when it’s the officiator making the jokes, they have the stage, and James certainly seems to want to take it. Although, wow, that was a really tame joke for him. Is he following a script? “I believe they both have vows they want to read, so I’ll let them get to that.”

  Abby clears her throat. She was always a nervous public speaker, and it’s only gotten worse since she became a wendigo. You’d think speaking in front of her diet group all the time would have helped, but she almost ran away when she had to speak during rehearsal. “I can’t recall a point in my life before I knew you, Elizabeth, but even if I did, my life wouldn’t have begun until then. You’ve been my best friend since we were three. We did everything together. I don’t know when my feelings moved from friendship to love or if they were there all along, but because of you, I never questioned my sexuality, and until I ran away, I never had to worry that I would be alone. No matter what, I knew we’d be together our whole lives, whatever type of relationship that ended up being.” I smile, urging her to keep going. She gulps but manages to continue. “You’ve always been the one to get me through every hurdle in my life. Without you, it was like I was only half living.” All of the undead members of the audience laugh, and I swear I hear Sandra chuckle. “Liz, you’re my everything. I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life, yearning for the chance to call you my wife.” I tear up, and her hand flies up under her veil to wipe away a tear. “So, I guess I should shut up so we can get to that.”

  I resist the urge to stick my tongue out. Way to undermine your big dramatic speech. I sniffle. Fuck, that really got to me. “I wish she would’ve told me any of that back when we were younger,” I say to the array of fiends before us, gaining another laugh. “I know exactly when I fell in love with you, Abby. It was the minute I first saw you. I wasn’t quite aware enough that it was an option for me to act on, then, but it’s why I wasn’t able to bring myself to go a day without having you by my side. You’ve been the most important part of my life since I was a little girl. Abigail, I hope you know by now that I would’ve helped you get through anything, and you never have to hide from me. You’re my world. I love you with every fiber of my being, and I always have and always will. The only life that I can even imagine is one spent with you. I’ve been terrified of any sort of commitment for so long, but with you, I just want to declare our love to the whole world. Now, let’s do just that.” I turn to James. At least the end of my speech was a little less tonally inconsistent.

  James pats us each on our shoulders, which requires a bit of a stretch for Abby. “I don’t have it in me to delay the big kiss any longer. By the power vested in me by the province of Ontario and Hell, I pronounce you wife and wife because you two weirdos are monogamous for some reason. I pronounce you Abigail and Elizabeth Rosseau-Lester. Both of you, kiss the bride.”

  Abigail swoops me into her arms, holding me, gently guiding my lips to hers, and kissing me for the whole world to see. I melt despite the cold of her touch. This is all I’ve wanted.

  Abby is finally my wife.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Abigail

  On the dance floor, I hold my wife in my arms as the music starts, our hips swaying in perfect sync. I want to say it a million times: my wife. This is all I’ve ever wanted. Of course, there is a certain issue with having a siren as your wedding musician.

  Liz starts to flit away, missing a step of our dance as she turns toward the band.

  “Honey.” My voice is singsong all on its own. I wonder if I could imitate Caris’s voice along with its effects, but I want it to be my voice she responds to.

  She does. She turns back. “Sorry.” Her eyes meet mine. “I’m here. I love you.”

  Caris is still singing. I can’t believe that worked. She really is head-over-heels for me. I twirl her and hold her mere inches from the ground. We’ve been practicing a lot…in the woods. We didn’t break into the school again.

  “I thought I was the one leading.”

  “You got distracted.”

  With a smirk, she takes over and actually manages to twirl me. We had to put so much work into figuring out how to manage that despite our size difference. “I’m not distracted anymore.” She pulls herself flush against me as the music picks up pace, leading me through the song, trying out every applicable move we’ve practiced.

  When the song is done, a few people applaud, and I feel arms wrap around me. “That was amazing.” I’d recognize that squeal anywhere.

  “Thank you, Ashley.”

  “You two are such a cute couple. So now that you’ve had your dance, is the floor open for business?”

  “You want to go grab your guy?”

  “Of course.” I can hear the grin in her voice.

  I pull away and smile. “Get to it.”

  When I turn back, I look for Liz, but she took the cue to talk to her own maid of honor. And have another slice of cake. It sucks that I can’t even have my own wedding cake without throwing up. It made cutting the slice for her kind of weird, but the moment was too cute to pass up. At least it’s beautiful. We went with a three-layer chocolate cake, made by our favorite satyr bakers. I take the moment to find James. “Thank you. As hokey as that was, it was a wonderful ceremony.”

  “Just because I think human weddings are weird doesn’t mean I don’t know how to handle them.” He holds a forkful of cake. Incubi are so lucky. “I was happy to help. You two are great for each other. It’s almost like you’re a whole new person.”

  “More like I’m my old self.”

  “Either way, you seem to be happier.”

  “I really am.” I lean against the table, watching my wife talk to her former kidnapper. It’s been a crazy year. “I can’t believe it all really happened.”

  “I can.”

  “What, you called all this?”

  “Yeah, Ashley owes me a hundred bucks. I bet her last year that you’d be married within a year.”

  I shrug. I don’t care enough to deal with his bullshit right now. “I’m gonna go grab my wife.”

  “Have fun.”

  I join her and Sandra at the cake. “Everything all right?”

  Liz clings to my arm and leans against me. “Everything is wonderful.”

  Sandra smiles. “Can I take a picture?”

  “I—”

  Liz looks up at me pleadingly. I guess I can put up with it. “Okay.”

  We line up in front of the cake with me on my knees so we can both be in the photo. Sandra takes a bunch of pictures with the two of us posed differently each time. For the last one, Liz is sitting in my lap and kissing me. Maybe I’ll actually be able to handle seeing these pictures. Even I have to admit, this dress looks pretty good on me. Maybe those giant spiders really were descended from Arachne because they sure know how to sew.

  “Want to dance some more?” Liz asks.

  There are a few things I’d rather be doing right now, but a little more dancing sounds pretty fun. “Of course. After you.”

  She smirks and takes my hand, dragging me back to the floor. Nora’s dance moves have almost ca
used an earthquake, and she’s being led away by that anthropophage I never caught the name of when we start. Feeling Liz pressed against me, her warmth, her presence, is enough to make me both quite happy that I agreed to more dancing and all the more desperate to take her back home.

  Caris’s voice is very versatile, and we dance our way through an even larger assortment than the night Liz proposed. After the last song, as the reception is starting to come to a close, I carry her back to her chair, her dress sticking to her body with sweat. She hooks her arm around my waist as I set her down. “How are you still fine? You’re wearing a corset. There is no way you should be able to put up with all of this better than me.”

  “Wendigo.” Okay, there’s one advantage.

  She fans herself. “Grab me a drink?”

  The satyr couple is cleaning up, but there’s still a bit of champagne left. I grab a glass and bring it back. “Your champagne, madam?” I offer, showing my teeth in a goofy grin. With her, I don’t even want to hide.

  She swallows it in a single swig. “Well, I’m feeling a bit better. Want to take me home and wear me out all over again?”

  “You read my mind.”

  She throws her arms around my neck, letting me swoop her back up in my arms. “Should I hang some cans from you with a Just Married sign?”

  With a heavy sigh, I glare. “You’re not drunk enough for that joke.”

  “Get me more champagne?”

  “Later.” I take her home. We have our whole honeymoon to enjoy. She’s taking the next week off from her appointments, and we have no intention of leaving our cabin for anything in the world.

  * * *

  Liz sits across from me, some roast chicken and corn on her plate. My stomach growls. I can handle it. “You sure you’re okay?” she asks.

  “I’m all right.” It’s always meat that’s the issue. I can’t eat it, either, but it reminds me of the one thing I can eat. I see Liz, knife in her hand, looking terrified and running away, and I know there’s no way I could ever eat human again. I shake my head, and the knife in her hand is just for her dinner, not for me. Still silver, though, but killing me with that thing would be a hell of a lot more work than it’s worth.

  “You don’t have to watch me eat if you can’t handle it, Abby.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to miss a second of my new life with my wife.”

  “Well, as long as you’re rhyming, you must be fine. Just, if it ever is too much, I’d rather be able to continue spending time with my wife than have her go off on another human-eating spree.”

  “That was one time.”

  She snickers and smiles, a bit of rosemary on her lips. “One time for four years. I want you here, every day, with me.”

  “I’ll take care of myself.”

  “You better.” She stabs the chicken, and my stomach does its best to continue reminding me of just how hungry I always am.

  “Okay, I’ll be in the living room.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” I throw myself onto the couch, the momentum moving it a few inches. I can still smell the chicken, but that’s nowhere near as bad as having to watch her eat it. Some days, it doesn’t get to me; other times, it really does. I turn on the TV. We have satellite now, and solar panels, so we don’t have to go through so much fuel. I watch some mindless crime drama while I wait for her to finish up. For some reason, the dead bodies in the show don’t make me at all hungry.

  Before long, I hear her rinsing her plate, and she hurries over to the couch. I move my feet, letting her plop down and burrow between my legs to lay her head on my chest. “I’m sorry.”

  I run my fingers through her hair. “It’s okay. It’s just a bad day for it, apparently.”

  She nuzzles me, fingers winding their way around to the hand on the remote.

  “Are you trying to change the channel or hold my hand?”

  “Both.”

  I hand her the remote, and she transfers it to her other hand so she can still hold mine. “What do you want to watch?”

  She brushes soft kisses down my chest.

  “Or did you want to turn off the TV and go upstairs?” I tug lightly at her hair.

  She shakes her head. Her hair tickles me and prompts a giggle. “I’m still worn out from this morning.” She taps a button on the remote, angling so she can see the screen, and searches through the channels for anything good. “Want to watch a movie?” she asks after a while. We don’t watch enough TV to know what’s good. We’ve only had satellite for a few weeks, and the coverage is spotty at best up here.

  “Sure.” I try to rise to put something on, but she clings to me.

  “I did not think this through.” She buries her face against me again, more kisses trailing up to my clavicle. “How about we just cuddle and watch whatever that show was?”

  “You’re the one who wanted to change the channel.”

  “And I have made my regret for that decision clear.”

  I run my hand down her back, gripping her ass and pulling her up another foot, her lips now at my neck. “Fine. As long as you regret it.” I snatch the remote and flip back to the crime drama marathon as another episode starts.

  “Do you even like this show?”

  I shrug. “It’s watchable.”

  She rolls to the side, trapping my left arm under her body and resting her head on my shoulder. I wrap my right arm around her, my hand resting on her thigh. “Then I guess I can put up with an episode.”

  We end up watching three episodes despite neither of us being into it. We’re simply too worn out and comfortable to be bothered to move. When the show ends, her lips trail up my neck and find my lips.

  “I think I’m ready for another round.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” I carry her to the bedroom, and we resume our honeymoon festivities. We only have a few more days before she’ll have to go back to work, and we intend to do our absolute best to make the most of it. After all, we only have the rest of our lives.

  About the Author

  Genevieve McCluer was born in California and grew up in numerous cities across the country. She studied criminal justice in college but, after a few years of that, moved her focus to writing. Her whole life, she’s been obsessed with mythology, and she bases her stories in those myths.

  She now lives in Arizona with her partner and cats, working away at far too many novels. In her free time she pesters the cats, plays video games, and attempts to be better at archery.

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