The White Aura

by Felicia Tatum

  I stood up and started to throw my leg over the bench when my arm crashed into something hard. I looked into Aiden Cavalier’s eyes as he oofed. His dark gray, intense, and stormy eyes. He was the star basketball and soccer player for the school. Heck, he even ran track. Yeah, he was that guy. He was one year ahead of me, a senior, and the object of every female underclassman’s affection. Except mine. I couldn’t stand him. He was cocky and annoying with his “better-than-everyone-else-because-I-can-play-sports” attitude.

  “Hey, Whitehead, what’s the rush?” he said once he caught his breath.

  I had an inkling he knew that I couldn’t stand him. Perhaps that’s why he talked to me so much. He was trying to win over the last holdout. I wished I’d hit him harder.

  “Some of us don’t get the privilege of being excused every time we’re late for class,” I said to him with a smile that was sweet but still said I can’t stand you.

  “Ouch. Jealous, are you, Whitehead? You could get the same privileges, you know. I’ve watched you run track. You’re good. And you could hang with me…no one would bother caring if you’re late.” His overly-confident attitude destroyed all good looks he possessed. His brows did that awkward thing boys do when they look a girl over as he stood there ogling me.

  Oh, my gosh. I seriously wanted to slap the smirk off his face.

  “I actually don’t like being late for class, Cavalier. I like keeping my grades up, and I want to get into a good college based on my brain, not my physical abilities,” I snapped at him. How did he annoy me so quickly and with so few words?

  I walked away and got as far as the cafeteria doors when I realized he was beside me. I rolled my eyes and kept on, speeding my pace a bit as I wondered where in the world Juniper had run off to. She had gotten up two seconds before me and escaped this awful interaction. The bell rang again, and I found my opportunity to lose Aiden, thank goodness. I sped up when students poured out of a classroom, and ditched him in the crowded hall.

  I got to my locker just as J arrived, her eyes gleaming with mischief and dancing in excitement.

  “Where were you? I needed backup!” I said, exasperated.

  “Sorry, sorry. I know you can’t stand—”she nodded her head in Aiden’s direction,“but he’s adorable and I think you should give him a chance. I’m pretty sure he likes you, Liv.” Her sneaky grin made me roll my eyes for the second time in less than five minutes.

  Oh, brother. Was she serious? Leave it to Juniper to be all love-struck on a guy based solely on looks. She was always on some hot guy kick, swearing I was too pretty to be single, and I needed to date someone already. I loved her, really, but she was annoying with the boy obsession. It was partly why I was hadn’t told her of my dream man. She would take the information and go crazy with it. Figuring out what was going on was difficult enough without my best friend planning a wedding, or some other ridiculous event, because she found out.

  I snagged my English book and started walking to class, glancing around to avoid any other unwanted encounters. This was the only one J and I didn’t have together this year. She got the good teacher while I was stuck with the worst in the grade, the one who gave all the homework and the hardest tests. Focusing was a must because I absolutely could not fail, so I would have to wait until history to scold her about the Aiden nonsense. Aiden Cavalier liked me? I didn’t think so. Me give Aiden a chance? Absolutely deplorable to think of either.

  SCOTT

  The coffee shop on 4th Street held memories from the day I first saw my love walking down the street. Dressed in casual clothing with a light scarf wrapped around her neck, hair flowing, she’d literally taken my breath away. She’d walked quickly, eyes cast straight ahead. There was this overwhelming feeling in my gut, a tingly sensation setting me on fire when she neared, and I’d jerked my head up as the emotions took hold. I knew she was to be my heart mate for all eternity based on the stories I’d heard from my parents and basically every sorcerer who’d found their other half. I’d rushed to the door, stepping outside to see her disappear around the corner. From that moment forward, my heart was lost to her. My thoughts were consumed with her silky red hair, and my eyes longed to peer into hers. The protectiveness I felt for her was overwhelming. I would do anything it took to keep her safe.

  Following her, not my proudest moment, I’d caught her meeting up with someone and heard her name. Olivia. It echoed through my mind, singing to my soul. After some stealthy stalking, all in the name of love, I’d heard her last name. Though familiar, it didn’t ring any immediate bells, but gave me enough to locate her in my dreams. Her face alone would do it, but a name made it so much easier. From there, I’d begun my dreamwalking.

  As sorcerers, we stopped aging at age 25. We looked 25 for a thousand years and then began to age at a very slow rate. My grandmother was at least 1500 and looked no more than 50. I was not sure of the exact number because she’s very sensitive about her age. Learned my lesson the hard way when I’d discovered our sorcerer trick with our aging.

  It was sorcerer law that we absolutely could not do a spell to make a human stop aging. Unless….the human was yours. There was a whole process the council would go through to prove you were indeed linked with the human. Once they determined a positive heart link, the spell was cast. This was set into place so we could be with our heart mates for life. The council mostly regulated and enforced, but occasionally something big would happen between supernatural beings and they would have to intervene. So far, I hadn’t encountered them, and hoped I wouldn’t until Livvie and I met, and then I would have to.

  I snapped back to reality as my grandmother swayed into the room, using her magic to throw the door open with the swish of her hand. She was sometimes dramatic with her powers.

  “Hey little one, is something troubling you?”

  She called me little one, even though I stood at least a foot taller. It began when I was small, following her around and asking a ton of questions when I’d visit. As I grew, the name embarrassed me a few times, but then I started to not care. And of course, she didn’t care about my height and only smirked and shook her head when I pointed it out.

  “No, Grandma, just thinking of the first time I saw Livvie. I wish I could see her in the waking hours…this dream stuff isn’t enough for me,” I said sadly. I was closest to my grandmother. She didn’t want to shield me from my powers as much as my parents did. I could be just me when around her. I’d rushed to tell her all about Olivia the day I saw her and felt our connection.

  “Little one, you know that you have to wait, or she will die. This curse is evil and I wish we could change things.” She paused like there was something she wasn’t sure she should say. “There is a legend stating that if you kill the descendant of the sorcerer who cast the curse, the curse is broken forever.”

  “What? Why hasn’t anyone told me about this before?” I almost screamed at her, interrupting her sentence. I snapped my head up, my eyes wide. The shock of her words made me quiver in anger and hope. What if I could prevent anyone else from ever having the worries I do now? Could I save the family while also securing Olivia’s safety?

  “Little one…it is legend. If it were true, it would more than likely start a war. It would be murder. It’s not worth it. You can wait six months; it will be painful, but you do have the advantage of dreamwalking. Others before you haven’t,” she said with her voice soft. Warmth flowed through me and my heartbeat calmed. She’d been around much longer than I and had probably seen many of our ancestors suffer from not being with the one they love.

  She was right. I loved my grandma, and I admired her because she was so wise and knew me so well. She stood barely five feet tall, with dark brown hair that was beginning to get gray strands here and there. She had eyes the color of the ocean. Because she was a healer, she had a soothing air about her that was a comfort to any living creature in her presence. One look at her and no one would believe she was one of the most powerful sorceresses on the planet. Ti
ny, compact, and full of magical energy that could knock anyone into tomorrow.

  I had heard many stories about her, and many legends were in our books about her fights in the 1800’s. It was amazing, the things she had survived. She had defeated many grotesque creatures and destroyed some very powerful sorcerers. She had even fought vampires and won, something unheard of in our community. Vampires normally weren’t as civilized as sorcerers, many of them going rogue and using their abilities to deceive and destroy. Some were good, but most weren’t. Vampires were sneaky and almost impossible to kill, using their charm and strength to outwit and conquer. Yet Grandma had killed quite a few in her day. She was my hero.

  “Why don’t you just listen in on her for a little while? You’ll feel connected with her and maybe it won’t be so painful,” she suggested with a smile and turned to leave. Once a sorcerer linked with his or her human, it became very painful to be away. We became ill and slowly began to die without our heart mates. It seemed all in my family knew of their heart mate before age eighteen, so we had all had our share of pain. Luckily no one had died yet, but a few had come very, very close. Damned if I let my Livvie be the first. Grandma had a magical concoction to lessen the pain, and though our heart mate tie was new, I would have to begin mixing and drinking it to survive. Our spirit encounters didn’t have the same effect as a face-to-face meeting, but it definitely helped.

  Slowing my breath, I relaxed and focused on stilling my anxiousness. Dreamwalking and espying took a lot of power and concentration, which wasn’t the easiest when I consistently thought about the worst outcome possible, but somehow, I managed to push those bad things from my head and let being in her presence consume me. Leaning back, I rested my head on the chair and closed my eyes, willing my spirit to find hers, to connect.

  OLIVIA

  History was my last class of the day, and I was beyond ready to head home. Mr. Mayfield, my English teacher, had been in an awful mood. Our reflection papers hadn’t been the best, and he spent most of the class chewing us out for it. I really shouldn’t have been concerned, because I made a 93, but something about being yelled at as a group irked me. I understood the majority needed the extra lessons, but it annoyed me nonetheless. Sending me to the hall or letting me sit and read could have been a better use of my time.

  So then in History with J, I couldn’t concentrate. We had less than a half-hour left. Currently, Mrs. Steele was going over the Cold War, her voice lulling me to sleep as she droned on straight from the textbook. I knew that all of this information would be on the next test, but I couldn’t make my mind pay attention. The kid behind me was clicking her pen in and out, over and over. That noise drove me crazy, and it took all I had to not yank it out of her hand and throw it across the room.

  “Psst.”

  I looked to my left, seeing Juniper hissing out the side of her mouth and sliding a note across the floor. Lifting my foot, I stopped it from going under my desk. With a nonchalant fake yawn, I dropped my pen and picked up the note.

  “So what’s up with u and Aiden? –J”

  I just shook my head at her. No way would I have this conversation in class. Especially through a note. Her face fell, and I could see the disappointment, but I couldn’t let that get to me. Juniper was my best friend, so I knew she meant well, but I couldn’t tell her that a tiny part of me was actually attracted to Aiden. She was very outgoing, and the minute I let it out, she would do everything she could to “help” me with him and end up embarrassing me. The whole school would think I wanted to date him, his ego would inflate and probably explode, killing us all. It really was a dangerous situation to tell J anything about boys.

  Besides, I didn’t know if I wanted to date him or anything. But I did like the attention that the hot senior in school was giving me. It didn’t exactly hurt that he had dreamy eyes that seemed to be able to see inside my soul, and I often found them turned in my direction. All girls dreamed of this, didn’t they? Being the center of some boy’s attention? A popular boy’s attention that everyone else happened to want…it was the stuff movies were made of.

  What was wrong with me, though? By night I’m dreaming of this hot guy and totally almost sexing him up. By day I’m acting like I couldn’t stand the school jock and secretly wanting him to pay a little more attention to me. Did I want either one of them? Heck, was the sexy guy even real? If my dream man were real, I wouldn’t think twice about Aiden, but I couldn’t live my life relying on dreams to make me happy. I didn’t know. Maybe he was someone I had seen in passing and now he had taken over my nights. Or maybe he was an actor I saw in a movie so bad that I tried to rid myself of the memory of watching it but remembered him.

  Either way, the obsession was insane.

  The bell rang, startling me from my thoughts. I looked around and saw the class furiously scribbling something down on their papers. Oh, well, I’d have to ask Juniper about that later. I gathered my belongings and hurried to my locker. Juniper wasn’t far behind me. I knew what she was going to ask, though, so I threw my history books in, grabbed my math folder with homework, and turned to go.

  “Olivia!”

  “Hey, Whitehead.”

  Juniper called from behind me and Aiden from my right, but I ignored both. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to either, so I just kept walking, dodging in and out of the crowd of students until I made it out the back door. Neither of them would find me this way. I walked the back way to track practice, not looking behind me once.

  ###

  My feet pounded the track as sweat dripped from my forehead and slid down my face. My heart pounded, and my breath came fast. Running was my escape. Practice was finished twenty minutes ago, but the frustrations from everything weren’t gone. So I ran. The sun was setting, but not enough that it was dark, yet. The orange-yellow sky gave a calming backdrop as I worked out my feelings.

  I completed a circuit of the track when I heard a whistle. I slowed, breathing deeply to calm my insides, and saw Aiden standing by the bleachers. I looped around and came to a stop beside him. I worked to catch my breath as I stretched my body. Running was exhausting. “Hey,” I said in between breaths.

  He gave me a half smile. The wind gusted lightly, causing his hair to ruffle. His eyes were bright and mysterious. As always. “Heya, Whitehead.”

  Seeing him standing in the dimming light made my heart beat faster. He looked at me intently, and I couldn’t stop myself from wondering how long he had watched me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to talk to you after practice, but you kept running. So, I waited.”

  “The whole time?”

  “Yep.” He looked around briefly, reached into his back pocket, and produced an ice cold water bottle. He half bowed and presented it to me like he was a butler.

  Laughing, I took the water. “Thank you oh-so-much, kind sir.”

  “No problem. Hey, I’m here for you, Whitehead. At your service.” He flashed that fabulous smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back. He moved closer.

  I looked up at him and noticed him staring. I took a long drink. The cool liquid felt amazing sliding down my throat, and it helped me to stop thinking about Aiden’s eyes. “Wanna walk for a few minutes? Just once around the track…” I needed to cool down.

  “Sure. I’d love to spend more time with you.”

  We kept a steady pace. We were both runners, so walking wouldn’t tire us out easily. I sipped more water and wondered why he wasn’t speaking. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “I just wanted to hang out. I want you to like me, Whitehead. What better way than to let you get to know my amazingly fantastic personality?” he asked while bumping his body into mine.

  My skin felt alive after the explosive contact with his. As much as I didn’t want to be, I was attracted to Aiden Cavalier. “Then tell me more, Cavalier.”

  “I’m not as smart as people think I am. I’m just good at memorizing the information. If you asked me half the stuff on my hi
story test, I couldn’t answer it now,” He leaned in like he was letting me in on a big secret. “And the test was this morning.”

  I laughed loudly and punched his arm. “People don’t like you for your brains. You’re mister jock star. Remember?”

  His face fell a little. “Oh, yeah. I’d rather people think I’m smart. Being a jock isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yeah, I get privileges…I have a good body…teachers think I’m a god…which is all fine and dandy. But then…I meet someone like you. You aren’t impressed by any of that, are you?”

  He looked sad, and I couldn’t help reaching to comfort him. Seeing someone hurting pained my heart and I couldn’t stop myself. I placed my hand on his arm and squeezed him. “No. I’m not. Realizing that is kind of impressive, though.” I winked at him.

  His eyes got wider, and his face lit up. He hugged me, and I felt the warmth of his body pressed against mine. I breathed in his scent and felt dizzy from it. I leaned back and looked into his eyes, and they looked like he wanted to kiss me. I pushed myself away and said, “Well, thanks for waiting for me, Aiden. This walk was fun, but we’ve circled around once. I really need to get home and cleaned up.” I turned to walk, grabbing my towel and the empty water jug I drank at practice.

  He started to talk, but I rushed off. My legs screamed at me to slow, but I couldn’t. Pushing forward, I hurried to the locker room, only relaxing once inside. I felt bad about leaving so abruptly, but I had to get away. Being that close to Aiden…smelling him and holding him…it was dangerous. If I didn’t want to end up wanting him, I must be more careful.

  SCOTT

  Time was slipping away, my mind focused on Olivia instead of school, and I was going to be late for my English class. Less than five minutes to get to my building, and I was on the other side of campus. While I could use magic to get there, it was a big risk of exposing magic to society. I’d rather be late. My feet pounded through the grass covering the last courtyard, my backpack beating me up along the way. Out of breath, I stumbled up the stairs and in the front, running smack dab into a crowd of students. “Excuse me. I’m sorry.” I yelled my apologies as I hurried up the three flights of stairs to my classroom. I looked at my watch, seeing I only had one minute until class began. My professor was the type who locked the door precisely at starting time. I couldn’t afford to miss another class, especially this close to finals.