by S. M. McCoy
“Why are you staring?” I patted myself down and continued, “Am I hanging out?”
“No, no, no.” She stepped closer, her eyes narrowing. “You’re bleeding.” She grabbed some toilet paper and pressed it to the back of my neck.
“I hadn’t noticed.” I took the toilet paper from my neck to look at it. A large blotch of blood drenched it. Then I heard her screech. “What now?”
“This is bad, worse, bad, worse.” Aislin couldn’t seem to make up her mind which vocab word would be more appropriate, but both basically were telling me it wasn’t good.
“What? Spit it out!” I took some fresh toilet paper and pressed it to my neck to make sure it had stopped bleeding.
“Okay, let me calm down first.” She ran her hands through her hair and leaned on the counter with labored breathing. “This isn’t supposed to be happening like this. This wasn’t how you were supposed to learn about things.”
“Stop dancing around the question!” I glared at her and tapped my foot. I thought it worked because she let out one large breath and turned toward me.
“This isn’t human.” She froze in place and her gaze became vacant.
“And still you’re dancing. Spit it out already.” She remained glossy-eyed so I walked up to her then placed my hands firmly on her shoulders. Shaking her, I asked again, “What’s going on?”
“Ser—” Her eyes still hazy, she stuttered as if confronting a fear. “Serpent…” She shook her head and her eyes returned to normal. “No, it’s silly. It’s nothing. Let’s get ready.” She switched gears so fast I was having whiplash. We already talked about serpents, they were draining my energy, and I was going to learn how to protect myself, blah di blah blah.
“What does serpent have to do with anything?” I held her in place before she could escape on some other train of thought. She spoke of energy serpents yesterday as if they were no big deal, and now she looked like spiders were covering the walls, the floor, and preparing for an invasion that ended in human annihilation as we knew it.
“You’ve been…I mean you have…there are…teeth marks. Nah, you probably just scratched off a scab from something else. Just looks like…nothing.” She stepped away from me as my grip loosened.
Looking down at her feet as she exited the bathroom, she mumbled under her breath, “I was with her all night, how would any of that happen? No need to have her worry, I will find something, I will fix this. This is too soon, she’s too young to start training now. What if this changes everything?”
“Aislin…”
She perked up and smiled over her shoulder. “Let’s get pumped for the grand ball. I’ll be back to use your make up. Let me know if you need help fixing your hair.”
She’s deflecting.
False cheer.
I knew that song and dance. It was very well put together; that smile could have fooled anyone, anyone that was—except me. I was the queen of that song and dance; I would not be fooled by a false smile.
I’d run with it for now, but I would get to the bottom of this.
“Sure thing.” I stayed staring at the mirror as it slowly defogged. Picking up a small vanity mirror, I turned around and removed the toilet paper from my neck.
Through the vanity mirror I looked at the reflection of my neck. The toilet paper stuck to the wound. As I peeled the paper off, I found myself staring at two gashes and several small scabbed indents around them: a bite mark. When did this happen? I would’ve thought I’d know when someone had gotten that close, wouldn’t I have?
No, I repeated to myself.
I felt my arms shake as I clenched my fingers into a fist. Do you see me going into someone’s personal bubble and stabbing them in the eye? No, because that’s rude. And that’s excluding the harassment and assault charges that would follow directly after. How could I not know?
Then I thought of Victor’s lips caressing along my skin, lightly trailing down the curve. His tongue flicking once, seductive, enough wetness to have his hot breath sending bumps through my arms and tingles in the tips of my fingers urging them to reach out and grab him closer. Hug him back. Pulses radiated in my neck, and a dampness made my shirt cling to my shoulder that day. I shivered and wiped more steam from the bathroom mirror, waiting for the sensations to pass.
I wasn’t going out in public today—I couldn’t risk seeing him, not now.
“Chrys!” I heard my name being called from across the hall.
“You need something?” I yelled back then walked out of the bathroom to find some leggings to pull on.
Sifting through the pile of clothes lumped in the closet, since I never liked to sort them after the laundry was done, I pulled out a pair covered in little smiling rocks, cupcakes, and hearts mixed with thought bubbles that said, Rocks need love too.
“Would you come here, please?” she called back.
I opened the door to see her kneeling next to an altar with candles. Domino, the lizard, slicked his tongue at me in greeting. I didn’t even flinch this time. It was like seeing it on a movie film.
“What’s this about?” I stood within the doorframe waiting for a reply.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t bite; I mean…never mind, just get your butt over here.” She patted the space next to her.
“What am I getting myself into?” I slowly made my way to sit next to her as she laughed. “What’s so funny?”
I’d had enough hocus pocus for a while. Was this what they called shock therapy? Keep plunging into more unexplainable things besides creepy dreams that warned me about my impending death. I felt better already; no need for more therapy, thank you. Let the curtains close on this one.
“What are you ‘getting’ yourself into, that’s rich.” She chuckled then continued, “You’re already in it, just walking down a dark alley with no defense and no flashlight to see.” She took my hands and faced me toward her. “I’m giving you a bit of light and as much protection as I deem necessary, so for my peace of mind whether you believe or not, do this for me.”
“Are you sure that I am the one who needs help?” I raised my eyebrow at her and she glared at me. I know I was making light of something serious, but I could sense we both needed a little semblance of the carefree that we used to have together.
A small giggle escaped that strained mouth, unable to hold on to her agitation for long before she flicked my nose. “Enough. Concentrate with me.” She smiled and squeezed my hands gently. I could always count on her to make a stressful situation more readily tolerable.
“What exactly am I concentrating on?” I whispered, with one eye open, obviously not mastering the mediation she was trying to do.
How could I mediate when the shadows that followed me in the park were probably more than just prickling sensations on my neck, but real monsters trying to suck the life out of me?
Voices were speaking to me, time was missing, and the mysterious people after me were probably supernatural. How else could I explain the coincidence between submitting my address to find my mother’s death certificate and all of a sudden having my aura attacked?
It was too close to not be related.
Why did they want me? What was I running away from?
“I need you to visualize a barrier around yourself.”
What would that even look like? A wall? But all I saw were colors behind my lids. Swirling around and they shaped a person—they shaped around Aislin. She released one of my hands; I lifted it and saw light blue watercolors painting in front of me in scattered splotches as I waved. Hallucinations were becoming common place for me by this point.
“Now I need you to strengthen that barrier with whatever you can think of, reinforce it.”
With her free hand, palm toward me, she hovered inches away from the necklace hanging from my neck. I felt a surge of electricity coursing through my body, not a painful sensation, but an exhilarating one. The pulse snapped to my neck and burned as I saw a glow pass from Aislin’s hand into the crystal. Sweat dropped
along my neckline.
“What was that?” I grabbed my neck and stumbled back toward the exit.
“That was the power of nature coursing through me into the stone. It should boost the protection long enough for us to get to New York without anyone knowing we’ve left.” Her breath was heavy and her eyes were glazed as she looked my way.
“No, why’d it burn me?” I took my hand from my neck as the pain subsided.
My hand was bloody.
The puncture wounds reopened.
I rushed off to the bathroom and grabbed a handful of toilet paper to soak it up. Luckily it didn’t get to the sweater, but now I was worrying about it opening up whenever it acted up to something. My wound was like a parasite complaining when the nutrition of the host it was killing wasn’t good enough.
“Serpents are dangerous. If that bite was more than a feeding then they either wanted you dead, or worse…” She followed me and opened up the makeup kit where we kept our first aid supplies.
I sat upon the toilet seat lid hands burrowing into my hair. As my hands slid to my face, I let the strands fill my mouth, gnawing on them in frustration.
“What’s worse than death?” I said through my hair, my teeth grinding.
“Turning into one of them.” Ghostly, her voice subdued so low I almost didn’t notice it.
My eyes widened and, sweeping my hair out of my face, I couldn’t even fathom what that would even mean. Aislin patted a warm damp cloth on the open wound.
Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I could see the light glow of the crystal around my neck pulsing with energy. I remembered the last time I looked in the mirror and saw the mark of my impending death. Was this it? Is that what it meant? I would become a serpent?
What next?
Next thing I knew Aislin would start flying a broomstick and fending off demons trying to eat me alive. Then garden gnomes would attack the Earth and steal the supply of chocolate to anger the masses into fighting against each other. What the heck was I going on about?
I thought I’d cracked. I really needed a normal night to gain some balance in this mayhem I called living death.
“Don’t forget about the letter I put on your bed.” Aislin dug through the bag and found a bandage. She moved my hand away from the wound, pressed her thumb to it, and counted to three silently. The bleeding stopped and I stared in the mirror while she wiped the excess blood away with the cloth. “Just in case,” she said while topping it off with the bandage. “It’s a very special day,” she continued.
She had remembered my birthday, and I smiled while wondering if she had planned something. Until I realized that I hadn’t told her when my real birthday was and became more curious on how she knew.
It’s not that I was disappointed that no one would celebrate me being alive or anything. More that I only told one person the truth, and it wasn’t her. She’d done nothing but be supportive, but for some reason every time I thought about telling her more about why and who I was, it got all caught up in my throat like a mouthful of peanut butter.
“I’ll have to teach you how to protect yourself, but we need to get out of this town first. Lucky for us, we already had plans to do that. The letter is on your bed.” Aislin tapped the necklace she’d just given me and nodded her head like her work here was done. I knew better—she was avoiding the conversation she didn’t want to have. This was a distraction, that something normal both of us needed.
“Oh,” I said not as enthusiastically as a normal person would, given curiosity and the lure of something special. But I couldn’t get over the fact that it wasn’t my something special. Of course I had to learn to protect myself, and how much could a letter really be exciting anyway?
She turned on her heel in triumph, as her magical thumb healed up my wounds, and her barrier spell would protect me from monsters. Only thing was it didn’t protect me from myself. Giving me one last smile over her shoulder, she tromped back downstairs.
I closed my eyes…and saw the shadows. It wasn’t a dream this time, I saw them clear as if my eyes were open. They told me the Council wanted my blood, but it wasn’t ready yet.
I couldn’t tell you why I believed the voices then. What scared me more than how they followed me around, even outside my dreams, was how much I trusted them. No one could know I saw the shadows move. No one could know they spoke to me. Worst of all, no one could know I felt powerful when they did.
All my secrets stayed with me, for today.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Letter
Normal is a word that people use to pretend that problems don’t exist in everyone’s life. See that guy over there, he doesn’t have problems, that’s what it must be like to be normal, he seems happy. That person is strange because they aren’t smiling. Normal people smile.
Smile for the normal people, Crystal.
Those “normal” people are as strange as the next person, but I had to admit to myself about now how “normal” is a true word for everyone else’s problems being something I would gladly trade with my own. Even if I did have to pretend that normal was a smile I could adopt.
Until then, strange was the new smile.
“Adopt your strange smiles here, courtesy of Crystal.”
“How much for a smile?” I looked up to see Victor in the doorway of my bedroom.
“It’s an adoption process. There’s a bunch of paperwork involved,” I replied then hid my beet-red face under my covers, turning away from him.
“I have the time.”
“What are you doing here?” I called out muffled from the down comforter.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” Victor was referring to Aislin.
“Know what?”
“I brought you a cupcake from the shop. Yesterday didn’t turn out as planned. I went to pick you up and saw Aislin take you home.” The bed shifted as his weight dispersed on the side of the mattress, his hand resting on the lump of covers and sheets above my arm.
“What kind?” I peeked out from my fortress.
“Lemon.”
“It has a candle on it.” I paused, letting the rest of the comforter fall from my face.
“I made it myself.”
“Just one.” Just one candle. All you needed was one.
“Well, didn’t know how your appetite would be after…” He held out the cupcake in his palm. I had this overwhelming feeling to smack the cupcake out of his hand and throw my arms around him, but instead I stared at him. My pulse in my neck throbbed, and I winced seeing flashes of his face contorting, his eyes flickering violet from his normal blue and then back again.
“No, you’re right. I’m not that hungry, for cake.” I sat up, letting his other hand slide off my arm, fingers trailing along my body until he lifted them away. My skin ached to have those hands touching me—just a pinky linking with mine would be enough, for now. I looked down at his fingers baring his weight leaning into the cushion, longing.
Why was he here? Something about him made my insides turn, and it only made me want to raise my shields up more to meet the chaos, lean into them, and cling against all odds that it protected me from these overwhelming feelings that I should run away right now. Something was wrong with me because I equally couldn’t let him leave me. I grabbed his hand instinctually.
I couldn’t shake that he was more a part of my problems that either of us would admit, and yet I couldn’t send him away. I wanted him here, with me, for as long as he would stay. In a twisted way I felt safe with him, but who could I trust now with everything going on? I couldn’t put my finger on why I both wanted to wrap my arms around him and push him away. My brain addled with thoughts of the shadows, even now I could feel them pulling at me to leave, to find something for them.
He brought me a cupcake, my favorite kind, with a single candle. No one had done that for me since my father. It made me want to cry, to shout, to push, to pull. My body couldn’t decide how to react, so it did what it knew best: shut down. I did nothing, no tea
rs welled up in my eyes, no hugs flung forth into his arms, and no thank-yous left my vocal cords. I didn’t listen to the shadows, their voices faded.
“Crystal…” He paused in what seemed like an attempt to wait out the numbness floating through me. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
“You don’t have to.” I almost pleaded with him to not say what I thought he was going to say.
“Before I came to this town last year, I didn’t remember much of who I was, or who I wanted to be. I’d been to so many places, been so many people, that I lost everything.” He shifted and I saw only his profile, looking away from me.
A gaze so thoughtful, as if outside my window were the answers painted in the stars hidden in the light of the sky before asking, “Do you remember the first time we met?”
The question shocked me to my core, because Victor meant so much to me, but a simple question about when we first met was as lost to me now as he said he was then. I couldn’t think of the first time we met. I’d been forgetting everything.
“I looked different then,” he continued, “homeless, and no thought or care about changing a thing. You gave me a name that day, when I couldn’t remember what name was mine. None of them were more my name than the one you gave me.” His hand reached out to me, and he talked as if he had lived centuries before this one, but he was the same age as my fake self, wasn’t he? Eighteen years old, but those blue eyes looked older, and aged the longer I stared into them.
“Victor…” He was talking nonsense about names and not remembering things, and all the intensity in his voice made me stop before I could say something stupid about how none of what he was saying made any sense…nonsense. And yet…my heart ached. It pulled at something inside me, like I was reaching for something lost myself. Like I had forgotten something important.
“I wanted to give you a gift worthy of such a gift as you’ve given me.” He turned back toward me and his eyes seemed to flicker like a sunset of colors reflected off them for merely a millisecond. I could see the universe swirl. I touched my neck and the pulse shook me from daze.