Burning in a Memory

by Constance Sharper

  Adam kept asking questions but obviously wasn’t looking for an answer. He finally stopped.

  “This isn’t about him. This isn’t his choice to decide whether you are worth being around,” Adam said.

  “But you’re leaving, Adam. You told me before your whole coven was moving away to somewhere I couldn’t follow, and you didn’t know when you would return,” she said. She parroted his words back to him and they sounded just as final the second time around.

  “Yes, we are. And I’m not going to lie that the place we are going isn’t easy to visit. But that doesn’t mean you can’t come. I mean….” Adam’s cheeks reddened as he struggled for words. Suddenly he closed the distance between them and seized her by the arms. He used her arms as leverage to pull her close and leaned down until their cheeks touched. The sensation took her by surprise just as he whispered in her ear.

  “You told me once you didn’t have plans for this holiday weekend, right? Come with me and spend the weekend with us. We have a spare room that you can stay in. It’s a long way and it’s not near a city, so it’s the only practical way to go. It’s a nice place, it’ll be a fun break, and you can go home afterward.”

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered, though she had a light-headed feeling telling her that she did.

  “I know it sounds crazy. Especially because I’m concerned I may be on the run forever. But I feel like if I stop seeing you now, then there’s no chance of us reconnecting after all of this ends. I’m sick of giving up everything in my life.”

  She let the words sink in while replaying them several times in her head before deciding she was certain she knew what they meant. Adam finally backed off and left a foot of space between them. She took a clean breath and composed herself before speaking.

  “You’re asking me to your place for the weekend? How will Tony take that?”

  “You let me deal with Tony. Will you come with me?” he said.

  He waited anxiously for her answer.

  “It’s so spontaneous, I love it.” She plastered a grin on her face. “Of course, I’ll go. But I haven’t even packed.”

  His face lit up.

  “I have go home, anyway, and then I can pick you up. I’ll take you there so don’t worry about driving. Can you pack in an hour?” he asked.

  For most people, that would have been a brutal question. But Adelaide was always packed, always ready to go. She’d take the hour to shower and fix her makeup. She feigned some concern but agreed.

  “Yes, one hour is fine.”

  Despite her ready agreement, he hesitated.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Now was not the time for hesitation.

  “I want to clarify. I’m glad you’re coming, but don’t feel this invitation obligates you in any way to me. I mean that I’m totally okay if you just come as my friend.”

  He backed away a few steps.

  “I didn’t think I was obligated,” she said quickly, to stop his retreat. “It’s fine.”

  “I just wanted to make it clear that anything outside of friendship isn’t a must.”

  Adelaide took a second long look at Adam. She knew he was sweet and nice from the second she met him, but now it was more prominent. The temptation was overpowering and she reached out for him. Touching his shoulders, she closed the distance between them. If she held even a bit of indecision, it vanished at the sensation of his warm skin.

  “Okay, nothing is expected of me more than friendship. Got it. Does this mean we can kiss now?” she asked.

  His face flushed red so quickly that even the immediate turn of his head couldn’t hide it. His hands caught hers and he stepped back. His shoulders met the wall but he didn’t release her. She watched his face expectantly.

  “I’m getting the feeling that I’ll never know what to expect from you.”

  She cracked a smile. Adam closed the gap before she did. Pulling her closer, he planted his lips on hers in a heartbeat. He smelled like honey and his skin burned hot.

  The sound of a car door broke them apart. Simultaneously, they both looked toward the window and found the source just to be the neighbor’s Mustang roaring its engine. Adam finally released her completely.

  “I should hurry so we can get on the road. Pack up and think warm vacation.”

  She nodded but she would have agreed to anything. Her lips tingled but she resisted the urge to lick them. For all of Adam’s shyness, the kiss had been overwhelming. Adam released her apparently reluctantly and left. Only when he was out of the driveway could she relax.

  This was her way in, she knew. This was her miracle.

  Nine

  She shifted the bag to her other shoulder to help redistribute the weight. The temptation to drop her duffle on the doorstep beside her grew by the minute with the brutal increase of humidity. Her eyes slipped to the phone protruding from her front pocket, but the screen remained dark. Despite his earlier text about being on the way, he was still nowhere to be seen. She rocked back on her heels and hoped her neighbor wouldn’t spot her outside. She didn’t need a follow up from the other day.

  “Come on, Adam,” she spoke to the open air. “You are coming, right?”

  While she managed to keep her thoughts from hedging on panic, fear still solidified back in her mind. Tony would hate her for going and he might get the rest of the coven on his side. She wouldn’t have even taken the risk if she was Adam, but admired him for his defiance. By the time the red Jeep hummed to the corner, she stood frozen.

  “Adelaide!” he called before he hopped from the driver’s seat. His voice stirred her and she shifted to life as Adam ran up the steps. He gave her a blinding smile when he reached the last step, but didn’t hug her this time.

  “Did you get everything?” he asked while his left hand snuck over to tug the bag away from her. She let it go and he swung it over his shoulder.

  “I think I’m good,” she whispered. While he stood inches away, he also stood too close for her to use her full voice. He stood so close that she couldn’t think about anything but their last encounter.

  “Angie’s here,” he said, his words snapping her from the daze. In a second, he turned and walked down the pathway with a bounce in his step. “All aboard!” he hollered.

  For the first time, she could see the distinctive figure of Angie in the car’s passenger seat. She swallowed the lump in her throat and followed Adam. Angie stared at her the entire walk to the car.

  “Hi,” she said in a desperate attempt to break the ice when she reached the door.

  “Hi,” Angie parroted back, leaving them in a stalemate.

  Adam left them to stack Adelaide’s bag into the trunk. Adelaide bounced from foot to foot now, desperate for something to say to the mage. Angie certainly didn’t help with moving the conversation along, so Adelaide addressed the awkwardness head on.

  “Something tells me that Adam didn’t tell you I was coming,” she said.

  This got Angie’s full attention.

  “Oh, yes, he told me when we were already on the way here.”

  “And you’re pissed because he didn’t run it by you?”

  This could be a therapy session for all Adelaide cared, so long as the redhead would lose the glower.

  “No, he was going to do it anyway. When Adam gets something in his head, he doesn’t stop,” she said.

  Adelaide took that opportunity to slip into the back seat. Angie lowered her voice.

  “I’m more curious as to why you went along with it. You two just met,” Angie hissed.

  “We’re just friends,” Adelaide retorted but it sounded stupid when she said it now. Angie fixated on something else though.

  “This isn’t a vacation. We are going there to get away from danger and shades. I don’t think you understand that.”

  If the woman planned to add anything else, she was silenced when Adam joined them in the car. He twisted the key and the motor roared to life a second before they pulled from the curb.

  “I
had the door fixed on the Jeep earlier but the mechanic didn’t have enough time to do a great job so it’ll rattle a bit,” he said with a gesture to Angie’s right. “Let me know if its grating on your nerves too much.”

  “You didn’t fix it on your own? Are you not the car type?”

  The car sped through the streets. Her question earned a laugh from him as he effortlessly navigated them through traffic.

  “I couldn’t fix bent metal like that if I wanted to. Well, short of drastic means. The shades tear up my stuff so often that I get a discount at the shop.”

  She thought momentarily of her own car. Since it didn’t take her an hour to pack, she’d used the extra time to move her car out of the garage and ditch it at a nearby shopping center. She bet her chips that the car wouldn’t be towed from there, but then she didn’t expect to be at this second home for long.

  “I’m sure you’d be a quick study if you ever tried to learn,” she said.

  The Jeep roared onto another road and wind pierced the gap, making the door rattle. The all-consuming noise replaced words for a few minutes. Only when the car had settled onto a long stretch of lonely highway did Adelaide speak.

  “So, I know this is a question that came a bit too late, but how are you two related? Outside of being in the same coven?” she asked.

  She already knew Adam and Leon were brothers. The others, though, she didn’t quite understand. Angie couldn’t have appeared less related to Adam by blood. They stood drastically different in height, differed in pale to tan skin tone, and appeared too close in age.

  “Angie isn’t directly related to me. She’s Tony’s stepsister. Tony is married to Priya. Priya and Preeti are twins and technically my aunts,” he explained.

  By the time she finished making a mental roadmap, her mind spun. Others knew their coven as the Colton coven, but it was ironic now that Adam and Leon were the only two of the nuclear family.

  “What was the last name of the twins? Are they Colton’s?”

  “No,” Angie answered this time.

  Adelaide shut her mouth. Maybe the coven was known only because of Leon Colton and everyone imposed that last name on the group.

  “That’s one massive extended family then,” Adelaide said.

  “Yea. It’s just because the shades have been picking us off for so long,” Angie pointed out. Her words were indistinguishable in tone, somewhere between angry and careless. Before Adelaide could pinpoint which, Angie turned on the radio, sufficiently preventing any follow up questions. Instead of music came monotone voices reading daily news reports. Angie flipped the knob and turned it up, as if the news was suddenly the most interesting thing on Earth. Adelaide welcomed it only as so far as it freed her from an awkward conversation.

  She scanned the horizon, seeing nothing but mountains and orange landscape. The road brought them into countryside that she didn’t know existed, and would never distinctively recognize again. Adam drove them on with a surprising mental roadmap. There was a reason Adam said this wasn’t a visiting sort of place, and that reminded her how important this weekend would be for reaching her goal.

  When the hours crept on, she leaned back against the door and let her eyes shut. She didn’t intend to fall asleep but found herself waking a while later. Adam glanced back her way.

  “Good morning,” he said as he drove.

  “Morning?” Blinking to clear her eyes, she sat up quickly in the seat. She grabbed the eggshell necklace around her neck until the chain tugged into her skin. The flash of pain brought her all the way back to reality. She looked at the darkness outside of the car next.

  “Well, not morning exactly,” Adam clarified.

  She stole a look at the car dashboard to find the time displayed in blocky digits. At ten p.m. she was surprised it was so dark, but then she realized there were no city lights out here to dilute the sky. She sized up the place with some difficulty but couldn’t recognize anything outside of the windows.

  “How long was I out?” she asked quickly.

  “You weren’t or at least not completely. You were muttering while halfway asleep… about how you hated the news and it was putting you to sleep,” he said.

  She blushed. She didn’t remember saying anything, but she knew it probably didn’t sound great either. Adam laughed again and this time the sound of it stirred Angie in the front seat. She muttered incoherently too.

  “Sorry for not keeping you awake or giving you company. You should have woken one of us,” Adelaide said.

  “I’ve made this drive half a million times when I was young. It doesn’t bother me. I’d tell you to go back to sleep, but we are almost there.”

  On cue, Adam slowed down. He pulled off the road and threw the Jeep into four-wheel drive to climb over the bumpy land. The door squealed loudly now and Angie too sat up awake. He stopped in another few minutes before parking. Once the cloud of dust cleared, she grabbed for the knob and pushed open the door. Then she could see their destination.

  Built into the side of mountainous terrain was a house of at least three stories. She could spot the faint glow coming from the highest bedrooms. With no other structures in sight nearby meant this place was plopped out in the middle of some heavy acreage. Her attention dropped back to ground level and she stiffened, spotting the familiar Toyota. Tony waited right outside of it. She could hear the sounds of the twins somewhere nearby but didn’t pay attention to it. She only saw Tony and the glower he gave her.

  Adelaide shifted as quickly and as subtly as possible to stand beside Adam. Adam surprised her by taking her hand but the gesture wasn’t necessarily a sweet one. Once he swung her duffle over his shoulder, he tightened his grip and pulled them to the house without waiting for Angie. Her stomach did back-flips with every step. Even with the massive berth between them and Tony, she could feel the heavy tension in the air. Tony’s eyes bore into her and his painfully rigid figure never budged. Adam led them swiftly into the house and shut the door behind them.

  Finally and apparently alone, Adelaide let out a hissing breath.

  “Something tells me that you didn’t tell Tony I was coming,” Adelaide asked.

  Adam only answered with a hum in his chest. His attention lingered on other things which he shortly pointed out.

  “We have a spare bedroom upstairs for you. There are three basic floors and the basement. On this first floor there are just family rooms, living rooms, kitchen…”

  He walked so she followed. Her head spun as she took in the house. The inside had mild decorations for the size and grandeur, leaving nothing that particularly stood out to her. Other than a few dusty corners, it looked like an elegant farm house plucked from the Hollywood hills. Its size genuinely shocked Adelaide. Every time she thought they reached the end of the house, there was an entire extra set of corridors. Adam led them through the stainless steel kitchen to winding stairs.

  “This place is all yours?” she asked. She’d have chopped it out and rented it out as separate condos if she could.

  “It is now. It once belonged to a coven bigger than ours but somewhat went down the line of descent until we ended up with it,” he explained, noticeably leaving out what happened to the prior coven. She let it go. With every step up the stairs, he seemed less and less angry with Tony but she gave him extra space.

  “This is amazing,” she credited him. He nudged open the first door and gestured for her to go inside.

  Furniture in the room was sparse but sufficient. A full sized bed sat in the corner and smelled of fresh laundry detergent. A desk covered in plastic took up the length of the wall beside the bed. If this place had once been someone’s room, they left no personal ruminants.

  “I hope you like it,” he said. For the first time, she heard life return to his voice and a hint of nervousness. She plastered on a smile.

  “It’s nice,” she commented. Her eyes swept from him to the hallway. Just visible from this vantage point was another door. The door was shut and the room unlit. “Is y
our bedroom up here too?”

  “No, I’m downstairs. Closest to the kitchen.”

  She fought off a cringe when she had to ask the follow up question.

  “Who else has the bedroom on this floor?”

  Adam followed her gaze and shook his head immediately.

  “No one currently. What I mean to say is that he isn’t here yet.”

  “Someone besides those I’ve met?” she asked too quickly. “I mean, I thought there were only five of you. Is Charlotte coming?”

  “No. There are usually six of us, but it’s not Charlotte. She’s a part of her second husband’s coven anyway.”

  Adam wouldn’t get into details so she moved to distract him.

  “You sure you don’t want to move up here then? Within hollering range in case of Tony? He got me like that last time and took me home,” she said. She doubted he’d make the drive to dump her off now, but reminding Adam of it distracted him from their missing coven member.

  “Please don’t worry about Tony. I won’t let him bother you,” he said sharply.

  She thought for a moment he would fume all over again, but his anger came and went quickly. He appeared to concentrate solely on her. The entire third floor sounded quiet other than the wind from her open window. Without the sounds of the other coven members, she knew they stood there alone. She suddenly noticed how close they were. Without thought, she licked her lips but stayed put.

  “I’m glad you came, Adelaide,” he said simply.

  He leaned down but only kissed her cheek. The touch was fleeting and he left the room. She wished him a quiet goodnight and backed away from the door. Collapsing back on the bed, the full weight of exhaustion hit her. Adelaide fixed the bed sheets, lost her shoes, and slid under the first layer. They had to believe her disguise enough for her to sleep and save up energy. To get this far meant they absolutely believed her in her humanity. But humanity didn’t mean Tony was okay with her and that set her on edge.

  The wind softly beat the blinds against the wall when another twenty minutes passed, and then she could hear the hint of voices. Adelaide perked up and moved until she could hear clearly. She couldn’t tell the twins voices apart but identified them as a group. She heard Tony clearly.