A Paranormal Easter: 14 Paranormal & Fantasy Romance Novellas
Page 45
I panicked.
The room closed in around me, and Alyssa was so close it felt as if I was suffocating. I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away from me. The move— helped in no small way by the alcohol— knocked both of us off balance. I stumbled into the counter and managed to catch myself, but Alyssa crashed straight to the floor. The look on her face was horrible to behold— confusion, hurt, and red-hot anger.
Jake rushed to make sure she was okay, but I couldn’t bring myself to stay and do the same. “I’m sorry…” I mumbled, mostly under my breath, and then I bolted out of the kitchen and out of the house as fast as my inebriated state would allow.
The cool, humid air cleared my head enough to dissipate my irrational terror, although it did nothing for my confusion. Alyssa’s aggressive advances were so beyond my experience that I just couldn’t make sense of them. Not that I would have been able to make much sense of anything at that moment— the copious amounts of punch I had consumed made sure of that.
I should have gone back to the dorms, but I was afraid that Jake and Alyssa might hunt me down there and demand an explanation for what had just happened. That was a battle I did not have the strength to face just then. Instead, I ambled off toward the trails and trees I had spent so much time exploring. I knew that their familiarity would be calming— as would the fact that they would be virtually deserted at that time of night.
It was a stupid idea. It was dark— naturally— and guess who hadn’t brought a flashlight? The trails were also slick from all the recent rain, and my balance had definitely seen better days. I tripped several times on unseen roots or stumbled into puddles before I finally gave up trying to move forward and just plopped down where I was. Without the effort of moving to distract me, I had nothing to do but think.
You’ve gone and made a holy mess of things, haven’t you, Grant?
I had, indeed. My first college party, my first time drinking, first time drunk, first kiss. Unfortunately, not my first awkward social encounter. And at the end of it all, I was sitting in the middle of a dark forest, drunk beyond reason, and feeling sorry for myself. To say I was regretting my choices that evening would be a gross understatement.
It wasn’t long before I started shivering in the damp cold and realized that I would be in for an even more miserable night if I did not get moving back toward campus and the dorms. After a few wobbly attempts to regain my feet, I managed to stand upright, and I set off in what I hoped was the correct direction. I went about five steps before I put my foot down off the side of the path, lost my balance, and went rolling— tumbling, cartwheeling, catapulting— down the hill next to me. My feet were up and my head was down, and a half-second later, it was completely reversed, just to repeat the cycle over and over and over. I bumped off bushes and roots and trunks and rocks before I slid to a halt in a big puddle of mud at the bottom. Rivers of debris flowed down the hill after me, pelting me from above and half-burying me before I succeeded in shaking myself free.
I sat in stunned silence for a good long while. It didn’t really occur to me to inspect for gashes or sprains or broken bones. All I knew was that I was even colder and wetter than I had been before and that I now had a large hill to climb in order to get home. In a moment of self-pity, I actually felt the beginnings of tears sting the backs of my eyes. Enough, I chided myself. Crying will gain you nothing but red eyes and self-loathing.
I brushed myself off and got up onto my knees. A twinge in my leg let me know that I had very definitely injured something, but I ignored it. I crawled a few feet when my hand came down next to a lump on the ground that immediately caught even my addled attention. Mostly because I could actually see it, even in the nearly pitch dark of the woods. It was vaguely egg-shaped, and a faint reddish light glowed from the parts of it that weren’t caked in mud. I lowered my face to it in order to get a better look and gasped in disbelief.
It was a giant, astonishingly beautiful opal.
I didn’t believe what I was seeing at first. If it really was an opal, it was likely one of the largest ever discovered. It was easily bigger than an ostrich egg. And it was too regularly shaped not to have been worked by a gem-cutter at some point, so why would it be abandoned out in the middle of a wooded park?
But the more I inspected it, the more I was convinced that my initial impression was right. I’d collected and studied many opals since that afternoon Pierce first introduced them to me. And this one had the unmistakable, iridescent fire that made opals so fascinating. And oh, did it ever. It was mostly red, but it was streaked through with just about every other color imaginable— colors that swirled and sparkled deep within the stone. A stone that shone of its own accord— giving off light instead of just reflecting it. Of all the confounding things about that opal— and there were many— that was the one thing that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around.
I reached out and grabbed the gem with the intent of examining it more closely. Before I could lift it, something bit me— hard— on the pad of my ring finger. I let go of the opal and jerked my hand back with a startled cry.
“Ow!”
A quick glance at my finger revealed that it was bleeding steadily from my brand-new wound. “What the—?” I looked back over at the opal just in time to see something come flying up in a frenzy from behind it. It, too, had its own aura— purple this time— which immediately brought to mind a firefly, but it had the temper of a hornet. And it was bigger than any insect I had ever seen. It shot straight for my face, buzzing and shrieking and stabbing at me in a colossal fit of rage.
For the second time that evening, I panicked.
The adrenaline pouring into my bloodstream seemed to shock my system into sobriety, at least for the moment. I leapt to my feet and ran, not daring to look back— although I could still hear that bug from Hell zooming after me. I didn’t stop until I broke free from the trees and stumbled onto the familiar territory of the school grounds.
The night was finally quiet with no signs nor sounds of a furious arthropod pursuer. I walked straight over to the nearest curb and sat down to catch my breath. I still had no idea what had happened, and all I could do was shake my head in disbelief. Giggles started bubbling up through my chest, and there was nothing I could do to suppress them. I succumbed to a fit of manic laughter that I’m sure sounded completely unhinged to anyone who happened to hear it. Honestly, I didn’t feel entirely sane at that moment.
“Well, Grant,” I cackled to myself. “You’ve just gone and had the worst night of your life. Congratulations! No more punch for you!”
3
Moonlily the Guardian
“Holy shit, dude! What the hell happened to you?”
I cracked my eye open at the sound of Jake’s startled outburst, and the light made it feel as if my head would crack open, as well. The headache was intense. I assumed it was a symptom of a well-deserved hangover.
I had eventually made it back to my dorm room the night before. By the time I got there, the only thing I wanted to do was collapse onto my bed and sleep. Nothing else. So, as I scanned over myself, I saw what must have elicited Jake’s reaction. Every inch of me was covered with either mud, blood, or some sort of plant debris. The floor hadn’t been spared, either. Did I care in that moment? No. No, I didn’t. I was more concerned about the shooting pain in my head and the uncomfortable roiling in my gut.
“I had a rough night,” I finally answered.
“I can see that.”
“Are you just now getting home?”
“Yeah, I stayed over with a friend.” He looked over me with a critical eye. After a moment, he went over and rummaged around near our fridge before dropping a banana and a box of orange juice on my bedside table. “Here,” he said. “Get these in you and then take a shower. It’ll help you feel better.”
“I think it’ll just make me puke.”
He chuckled. “Just go slow. You’ll be fine.”
Reluctantly, I took his advice. I drank about half the box
of juice in small sips and took a couple of bites of the banana. That seemed to be about all I could handle right then, so I shuffled into the bathroom and took a long shower. The hot water sluicing over my body and rinsing all of the muck away felt so good it was almost transformative. I did find a nice, long cut in my right thigh that explained the pain from the night before and the blood all over my bed, so I spent extra time cleaning that out, as well as the bite on my finger. I definitely didn’t want to flirt with an infection.
By the time I came back out of the bathroom, I was feeling fairly human again. Not completely better, but enough so that I didn’t feel like I’d vomit at any moment. The state of the bed made it off-limits, so I sat down in my desk chair and grabbed my juice and banana again.
“Doing better?” Jake asked.
“Yes.” I gestured to my snack. “Thanks for this. It helped.”
“No problem, man. Been there a few times, myself. It’s the definition of misery.”
“I won’t argue that.”
“Look, Grant,” he started after a short silence. “I want to apologize for what Alyssa did last night. I’ve known her a long time, and she’s always been like that. She likes guys. A lot. And she can be so forward about it that it becomes obnoxious. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about her.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t,” he replied. “But thank you for being understanding. I felt horrible after you ran out. Where did you go, by the way?” he asked. “I looked for you but couldn’t find you.”
“I went out to the woods.”
“Well, that explains the mud,” he grinned. We both glanced over at my filth-encrusted bed. “You have some laundry to do, my friend.”
I chuckled and immediately regretted it as pain stabbed through my head again. “Yes, I do.” I stood up, chucked my now-empty juice box and banana peel into the trash and grabbed my keys from my bedside table. “I guess I better go buy some soap, then.”
We nodded our goodbyes as I headed out the door. I would buy the detergent while I was out, but I had other plans that I intended to accomplish first. Namely, I wanted— needed— to find out if what I’d seen the night before was real or just a drunken hallucination. But I was not going to head back into the woods without being prepared. I drove to the nearest big box store, strolled into the cleansers aisle to acquire the laundry soap I needed, and then wandered over to the garden section to look for my weapon of choice: a butterfly net.
Feeling at least marginally more ready to face whatever lurked in the forest, I drove back to campus and then hiked up the trails, looking for the place where I had plummeted over the edge. It wasn’t hard to find. Long skid marks that cut through the compost of the forest floor like scars stretched from the edge of the trail and down the hill until they disappeared from sight in the underbrush. One tentative step after the other, I slowly made my way down to the bottom. I only lost my balance twice, but I managed to keep from repeating my somersaulting plunge by sitting straight down into the mud. More laundry.
The opal was harder to find in the daylight than it had been the night before. It was as coated in mud as I had been, and without its red glow lighting up the dark, it was nearly invisible. I certainly wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t known what I was looking for. Discovering that I hadn’t dreamed up the whole episode was a relief, but it was disconcerting, as well. Because I still had no idea what the opal truly was, or why it was out in the middle of the woods. And worse yet, it meant that whatever had attacked me the night before was real, as well.
Wielding my butterfly net, I inched closer to the gem. I made no attempt to silence my approach. Even so, it was not until I touched the opal that that flying demonic bug erupted from hiding and made a beeline for my face again.
I was ready for it this time, though. I swiped at it with my net, swinging like I was Babe Ruth aiming for the bleachers. I missed, but I forced my assailant to dodge away from my face and zip around in a tight arc to regroup. We repeated this several times— caught up in an awkward, ridiculous dance— until BAM! That little hellspawn hit the back of the net with a solid thud.
I closed up the net’s opening in my fist before my captive could escape. Whatever it was, it was still very, very unhappy. It thrashed about, still trying to fly even though its wings were hopelessly entangled. It was also making a lot of noise. It wasn’t buzzing, though. In fact, it didn’t sound like any insect I had ever heard. It was shrieking terrible, angry sounds that assailed my ears the same way curses would. The voice was strange— but at the same time, it felt vaguely familiar, as if I could almost understand what it was saying.
Almost, nothing. It only took me half a second to realize that I could understand what it was saying. The words were so colorfully derogatory they made me catch my breath. I lifted the net to eye-level to get a better look. The flailing stopped as my prey scrutinized me, as well. The first thing I saw was a pair of long legs— not insect legs as I’d expected, but human-like legs that ended with dainty little bare feet. There were arms, and hands, and a lot of lavender-tinted skin and long wavy strands of amethyst hair. The most striking features of them all, however, were the iridescent butterfly wings that still twitched in frustration every few seconds.
I was so enthralled by this creature that I forgot to be wary. I didn’t release it from the net, but I cupped it in my other hand so it was no longer dangling in space and brought it even closer. Its hands parted its hair, revealing a beautiful, feminine face. Beautiful— and terrible. She scowled at me with an almost palpable vehemence.
“What—?”
“I’m a fairy, you walnut,” she spat. And then she bit me again, straight through the netting.
I dropped the net. As soon as it hit the ground, it began writhing around again, and then a second later, the fairy shot out and into the air. She stopped just inches from my nose and hovered there, a glare firmly affixed on her tiny face. She held the most diminutive and wickedly sharp-looking spear I had ever seen, and she brandished it threateningly in my direction.
“Time to go,” she commanded.
I held my hands out in what I hoped would be taken as a peaceful and submissive gesture. “Okay,” I replied. “Okay. I’m going.”
I went without looking back. My mind was churning, trying to make sense of what I had just seen and failing miserably. I did know one thing for certain, however.
The fairy had won the first two rounds, without a doubt. But she was very much mistaken if she thought there wouldn’t be a round three.
It was extremely difficult to concentrate in my Monday classes. For the first time since starting college, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d be doing after my daily academic duties were done, instead of just dreading another quiet and lonely evening in the dorm. I leapt out of my seat as soon as my final class was dismissed and hurried to my room to drop off my backpack. On my way back out, I stopped at a vending machine in the hallway to purchase something I thought might be useful, and then I booked it out to the hills.
The fairy didn’t wait for me to get close this time before she came out of hiding. As I had come to expect, she flew right up into my face when she heard me coming, her spear held at the ready.
“Why do you keep coming back, human?”
“I want to get to know you,” I answered simply. And that was true, as far as it went. What I was really much more interested in was getting to know more about her. It sounds almost heartless, now, looking back on it, but I wanted to study her— the way zoologists studied new species they discovered in the wild. She was a curiosity, and I was determined to understand her. Her— and her opal. That gem hadn’t let go of its hold on me, either. “Here,” I said as I reached into my coat pocket. “I brought you something.”
She stared at the chocolate bar in my outstretched hand with a skeptical eye. But she did not make any move to take it.
“It’s a peace offering,” I encouraged her.
“A peace offering?”
It took what felt like forever for her to fly over and take the chocolate out of my hand. She settled on a nearby tree branch with her new prize, used the tip of her spear to cut open the wrapper, and then broke off a small piece of the candy with her tiny little hands. Her expression remained suspicious as she took a bite, but it transformed as she tasted the chocolate. A smile positively lit up her face— the impression no doubt heightened by the fact that the purple aura that always surrounded her brightened considerably, as well. She was literally glowing with pleasure.
“This is wonderful,” she beamed. “Thank you, human.”
“You can call me Grant.”
“Thank you, Grant,” she corrected. She held up another piece of the bar. “What is this?”
“It’s called chocolate. It’s a kind of candy.”
“It’s…” She trailed off as she tried to think of an appropriate descriptor. “Wonderful,” she said again as she took another bite.
I found a stump nearby and parked myself on it. The two of us sat quietly in each other’s company for a while as she continued to nibble at the candy bar. Eventually, she snapped off a larger piece, and then she flew over to my stump and landed next to me.
“Would you like a piece?”
“Sure.”
She hefted the chocolate into my palm, brushing against me as she did. I’m not sure what I expected the touch of a fairy to feel like— when she wasn’t biting me, that was— but I was amazed by how warm she was. She felt like one of those chemical hand-warmers people stick in their pockets on bitter winter days. It wasn’t entirely surprising, therefore, when the chocolate she gave me spread into a mushy puddle in my hand. I scraped it off with a finger and stuck it in my mouth.