by Sarra Cannon
My pulse raced. How could someone so perfect be interested in spending time with a girl like me? The corner of his mouth curled into a smile, and my knees went weak.
He stood as I approached. There was a book in his hand and he kept his finger inside to hold his page. “Look who decided not to ditch me today?” he teased.
“Haha, very funny,” I said. “Last night wasn’t my fault. Believe me I would have much rather been with you.”
He raised one eyebrow, studying me more closely. “You went to see the council?”
“How did you know?” I asked. Then, I shook my head. “Wait, not here. We’ll talk about it later. What’s the surprise?”
“If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
I laughed. Well, more like giggled. He kind of brought out the girly side of me. “I guess not.”
The back of the bike was packed with stuff. There was a blanket strapped on the back, but I couldn’t tell what was underneath. A basket of some sort?
He handed me a helmet and our fingers touched. I started to pull the helmet away, but he held onto it, running his index finger along the outside edge of my pinky. I looked up and our eyes met. Everything else fell away from my vision. There could have been a thousand people in that parking lot, and I wouldn’t have seen a single soul except Jackson. The look in his green eyes made my breath catch in my throat and my hands go all clammy.
I yanked the helmet away and put it on, thinking that if I let him stare into my eyes like that much longer, I might just melt onto the blacktop. “I can’t go far,” I said. “New rules.”
“Since when are you the type of girl who follows the rules?”
I rolled my eyes. “Since last night, I guess.”
“Tell me.”
“Home by seven. They said they’ll be watching my tattoo to make sure I stay near school and Shadowford home, but if you get the urge to keep riding to, say, California, I won’t complain.”
Jackson laughed and threw his leg over the seat. “Get on,” he said. “I won’t take you too far.”
I climbed onto the back of the bike and put my arms around his waist. He drove toward Shadowford, but instead of turning down the driveway, he kept going. I hadn’t been this far out of town since Mrs. Meeks, my social worker, first brought me to Peachville just a few months ago.
“Where are we going?” I shouted.
Jackson just shook his head. I relaxed into him. The cool wind made my eyes water and my cheeks burn, but it felt nice to be on the road. We passed a small farm with cows grazing in the pasture. The sun was shining and it was warm for a day this late in the fall. A thick forest of pine trees on our left opened up into a beautiful pecan orchard.
Jackson slowed his bike and turned down a dirt road that ran alongside the pecan trees.
We followed the road all the way to the back of the orchard, out of the view of the main road. Jackson stopped the bike and lowered the kick-stand. We both pulled our helmets off and got off the motorcycle.
“This is gorgeous,” I said.
He smiled and unhooked the red flannel blanket from the back. Underneath was a basket. I was right. He took the basket and blanket in hand and told me to follow him.
We walked to the middle of the orchard and he spread out the blanket in a gorgeous patch of warm sunshine. I sat down and looked inside the basket. He’d brought a feast! Cookies, a handful of sandwiches, chips, fresh fruit, and a bottle of white wine.
“Wow, what’s all this for?” I said, blushing.
“Decoration,” he teased, opening the bottle of wine and pouring two glasses.
I took a sip. I’d never had wine before, and I expected it to be bitter. But it wasn’t. It was actually kind of sweet.
“Like it?” he asked.
“It’s delicious,” I said. I took a strawberry from the plastic container and popped it into my mouth. The sweet flavor rushed across my tongue as I bit into it. I wondered if I was the first girl Jackson had ever brought to a pecan orchard. “I don’t think this is what the Order had in mind when they put me on probation.”
Jackson’s eyebrows drew together in the middle. “What exactly happened last night? I can tell something’s different about you.”
I nearly choked on the strawberry. I knew I needed to tell him about the confirmation ritual, but I was afraid he’d be upset with me for agreeing to take the next step.
“Besides the clothes,” he said. “You don’t need magic to be beautiful, you know.”
“How come you’re the only one who could tell I was using magic today?”
He shrugged. “It’s just part of who I am. I can just tell.”
“So does that mean you see through my glamour?” I asked, looking down at my outfit. All that work to impress him and he might not even be able to see it.
“If I choose to,” he said. “I can tell you’re using one, but if I want to see the truth, I can. Or if I want to see the magic, I can see that too.”
“So it’s basically like that potion I took to get rid of the memory spell they cast on me? The Elixir of Kendria?”
He nodded. “Yeah, only I don’t need the potion like regular humans do.”
“But you make it, right? And give it to people?” I thought of the night I’d heard Tori asking him for it.
“I used to share it with Morgyn before she died,” he said. He took a long drink of wine. “Sometimes Mary Anne buys it from me. I don’t know. Various people in town that know, I guess. Mostly they hear about it from friends.”
“Makes you sound like a drug dealer,” I said.
He laughed. “I think the magic is more like a drug,” he said. “What I sell is immunity. Freedom.”
My mouth went slightly dry, so I grabbed another strawberry. Freedom. Would I ever have that again? I wondered if I would ever really be able to make all my own choices ever again, or if this stupid town was going to swallow me whole.
“You never answered my question about last night,” he said, his voice softening.
I swallowed and wiped strawberry juice from my lips. “I was summoned to a meeting of the Order,” I said. I had no idea how Jackson would take the news of the new ritual they’d done, but I didn’t want to lie to him.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “What happened?”
I started from the beginning and told him about how they were upset that I’d gone into the hospital to save him. Then, I told him about the ritual and that the Order finally told me the truth about being the future Prima.
Jackson made a noise. “The truth?” he said. “They’ll never tell you the whole truth. Not until they have you completely locked into their plan. You forced them to tell you something more than they wanted to tell you, though, and that’s something.”
“Everyone treated me so different at school today,” I said. “At first, I thought it was just because of the new clothes, but then I started to think maybe it was something more.”
“The ritual they performed on you was kind of like a baptism,” he said. He’d barely touched the sandwich in his hand. I wondered if I’d made him lose his appetite.
“I was never baptized as a child,” I said.
“Instead of immersing you in water, they poured their demon slaves into you,” he said. “They gave you a small piece of their power as a sacrifice.”
Goosebumps crawled across my flesh. “Did I do a bad thing by letting them…” My voice trailed off and I dropped my head low.
Jackson put his finger under my chin and lifted my head. “You had no choice,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”
My eyes stung, but I held back my tears.
“It’s good that you have more power,” he said. “I have a feeling you’re going to need it in the months ahead.”
We sat in silence, the fun atmosphere of the surprise picnic completely dissolved now that I had brought up the ritual. I drank the rest of my wine and let the warmth of it fill me up. My eyes studied his face as he lay there on the flannel blanke
t. He was so perfectly sculpted. A perfect human. But how had he gotten this form? Could he turn back into a demon anytime he wanted?
His eyes flickered to my face, then dipped down to my necklace. Instinctively, my hand reached up to touch the sapphire pendant. I wasn’t used to drinking, and it made me feel a little numb. And maybe a little brave.
“Tell me about the demon that keeps saving my life,” I said.
My question shocked him. He sat up suddenly, his body tense.
He shook his head. “You know I don’t want to talk about my past,” he said. “We’ve been over this.”
Yes. We’d been over it and over it during the week I’d spent in the hospital waiting for my arm to heal. Jackson didn’t want to tell me about his past or about his being a demon. He didn’t want to talk about himself much at all. But I needed to know the truth. He hadn’t said a single word about what that guy Isaac had told me. He’d said that Jackson killed people when he came through the portal for the first time. Was it true? I didn’t want to believe it.
And he hadn’t told me how he knew the demon attached to my necklace.
“I’m asking about my past,” I said. “Not yours.”
His eyes searched my face. I thought he was going to stand up and walk away from me like he’d done so often in the hospital when I pressed him about his past. Instead he moved closer to me on the blanket. He ran his finger along the silver chain around my neck, his warm fingertips brushing against my skin.
“Aerden,” he said.
My eyes opened wide. Aerden. That was the name he’d called the demon when he first appeared that night in the old hospital. I took Jackson’s hand in mine and lifted it to my lips. I kissed the knuckles on his fingers.
“Who is he?” I asked. “Every time I’ve been in trouble, he’s come to help me. Did my mother send him to watch out for me?”
Jackson swallowed hard and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. He didn’t speak for a moment, and I didn’t dare interrupt the silence. It was as if there was a war going on inside of him. I knew he was trying to decide whether to open up and let me in or whether to keep shutting me out.
Finally, he looked up and moistened his lips.
“Aerden is my brother,” he said.
There’s Got To Be A Way
My mouth fell open in surprise. “Your brother?”
“I told you it was a long story,” he said, taking another sip of wine.
I couldn’t put a voice to all the questions that flooded my thoughts. I knew that what the Order was doing to the demons was wrong, but I’d never thought of them as having families and being capable of love the same way humans were. But that was silly wasn’t it? I mean, I knew Jackson was a demon, yet I desperately wanted him to love me.
“Tell me,” I said. I put my hand on his. “Please.”
Jackson began slowly, his voice shaky. “Aerden is Peachville’s first demon. The Prima’s demon,” he said. “He was torn from our world a hundred years ago.”
“That’s why he protects me,” I said. I slid the pendant back and forth along the silver chain. The zipping sound was so familiar to me now, it brought some comfort.
“When a demon gate is first created, the witches of the Order use a special stone. It isn’t always a sapphire. Sometimes they use emeralds or topaz or even diamonds. I don’t know the exact reason behind the different stones, but I think it has something to do with the specific energy of the location.” He stood and began to pace the ground under the branches of the pecan trees. “The stone is used to create the portal, and a part of the connection between the first demon and the first witch is trapped inside the stone. A piece of the stone is chipped off to create a necklace like yours.”
“What does it do?”
“It connects you to the demon. To Aerden,” he said. “Whenever someone tries to use magic against you, he’ll always come to help. It’s especially important when it’s worn by a Future, like you. Before she’s been combined with the demon in the initiation ceremony. After the initiation, the necklace takes on different powers. Like allowing you to teleport to the ritual room. Every Prima in your family has worn that necklace before you.”
I pictured the stone around my mother’s neck. And her mother before her. It was the only solid connection I had to my family, and it was precious to me. I never knew that to Jackson it symbolized the day he lost his brother to the Order of Shadows.
“One day, we were a family,” he said. His fist was balled up by his side. “And the next, he was gone. At first, I didn’t understand where he’d gone. It was like he just disappeared into thin air. It took me nearly fifty years to find him.”
“So you came through the portal,” I said. “To Peachville. Fifty years ago?”
Jackson nodded. “1962. Once I came through the portal, there was no way back,” he said. “I was stuck here, and so was Aerden.”
“So, how did you become human instead of being forced into the body of another witch like the others?” I asked.
“A curse,” he said. He turned his face away from me. “The Order cursed me and turned me into this human form.”
I stood and ran my hand down his back. I had a feeling he wasn’t telling me the whole truth, but I was scared to ask. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he might have done back then.
“I came here thinking I could save him and bring him home, but I was too late,” he said. “He’s bound to your family for eternity, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” He turned to me. “And if your family dies out, my brother dies with you.”
I could hear the anguish in his voice. It was obvious how much he loved his brother, but did he care about me at all? Or did he only spend time with me and try to protect me because he wanted to protect his brother? It was all so confusing.
I took a step backward and tripped over a plate full of fruit. I fell to the ground and cursed. My eyes watered.
“Harper.” Jackson rushed to my side. He picked up my hands and wiped the dirt from my palms. “Are you okay?”
I avoided his eyes. I didn’t want him to see the tears in mine, so I kept my head down. Wasn’t I the one who’d pushed him to tell me the truth? I needed to stop being such a baby. I knew as well as anyone that the truth could be painful.
And that when it came down to it, most people had a hidden agenda. Why did I expect Jackson to be any different? Hadn’t I learned my lesson by now?
“I’m fine,” I said. “It just stings.” I rubbed my hands along the side of my jeans, then held them up to him. “Help me up.”
Jackson gripped my hands in his and tugged me upward. For a moment, our faces were dangerously close. I opened my mouth slightly so I could draw in a deep, calming breath. Anything to slow the beating of my heart.
“Thanks,” I said. I tore my gaze from his, feeling sad and confused.
I sat back down on the flannel blanket and picked up all the fruit that had spilled. I tried to act like nothing was wrong, but I had a feeling he could see right through me.
He sat down and helped me pack the food and wine into the picnic basket. We worked in silence for a minute, the tension thick between us. I was starting to get the worst headache from using the glamour all day, and I just wanted to go home.
“Thanks for the picnic,” I said. “Sorry if I kind of ruined it.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you about my brother. I don’t want you to feel like you’re in any way responsible for what happened to my family.”
“No, but I’m the reason he’s stuck here now,” I said.
Jackson didn’t say anything. What could he say? He fastened the basket on the back of the motorcycle, and I folded the blanket. I watched him work and wondered what would happen to us if I was ever officially joined with Aerden. We could never have a real future together with his brother enslaved inside me.
“Is there no way to break the bond of a Prima and her demon?” I asked, handing Jackson the folded blanket.
; “Not without killing them both,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve spent the past fifty years looking for any way to free my brother from this slavery. I’ve never found a single reference to anyone breaking the bond without killing the Prima, the demon, and the entire town.”
“What if we could find a way to close the demon gate?”
Jackson shook his head. “It’s been done. Once before in Paris. A group called the Hand of God smashed the portal stone and closed the demon gate.”
“What happened?”
“Everyone died.”
“Oh,” I said, hanging my head. “What if we just ran away?”
Jackson turned to look at me, sadness in his eyes.
“What if we just got on your bike and drove away? If I never go through the initiation, maybe we could spend our lives trying to find a way to free your brother without the Order breathing down our necks.”
Jackson carefully tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then placed his palm on my cheek. “I wish we could,” he said. “You have no idea how much.”
“Why can’t we?”
“The Order would find us no matter where we tried to hide,” he said. “Especially now that you’ve gone through the confirmation ritual. Running away would make things so much worse for us both. Besides, there is no way to free my brother.”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “We still have almost two years to look for a way out of this. There’s got to be a way.”
Jackson let his hand slip from my face.
“Let’s get you home” he said. “It’s almost seven.”
I climbed onto the motorcycle, my heart aching.
I Guess I Was Expecting More
Even with the important game coming up, I couldn’t take my mind off my afternoon with Jackson. How had I managed to screw things up so royally? Instead of enjoying the beautiful picnic, I pushed him to tell me his most painful secrets.