Chapter Twenty-Three
I spent the rest of the evening agonizing over what my mom had told me through Emory. Could I really leave everyone again? It had been difficult enough the first time; I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do it a second. And the idea of just giving up made me want to throw up. It went against everything I’d ever stood for.
It was also particularly confusing, given that my mom had always been the one to encourage me to fight. All those lectures about preparing for a possible battle . . . why would she have pushed so hard for that if she was just going to tell me to wave the white flag in the end? Unless she knew that things would be much worse if we didn’t.
Frustrated and more confused than ever, I chose to sleep on it. The decisions I had to make were too big to reach in one night. I knew time was of the essence, but I really felt like I needed a little time to digest it all. So I put on my cute pajamas of capris and a cami with little seagulls all over them and slipped under the covers. Magic took a lot out of you, and we’d been going strong for most of the day. My whole body was sore from tensing up during the spells, and I could feel small bruises forming in spots where the others had hit me with both their fists and spells. It was a good hurt though, the kind that came with knowing that you worked a hard day.
Even so, I was looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep. That’s why, when I heard a light knock on my door just as I was drifting off, I wished I could ignore it. But when it happened again less than a minute later, I threw the covers off and padded reluctantly to the door. Ever since getting back, I’d been trying my hardest to show the others that I wanted to be there and that we were a team, not just a coven of individuals. Which meant that I couldn’t just do whatever I wanted to with no regard for anyone else. Even if I was currently debating whether to stay or go.
Besides, if there was anything I did understand from what my mom had been trying to tell me, it was that I needed to stop thinking only of myself. She’d seemed pretty clear on that. So I plastered a smile on my face before unlocking my door and opening it.
“Hey. You weren’t already asleep, were you?” Asher asked quietly. He was leaning up against the door frame and looked unbearably adorable. It was like something out of a movie. In fact, maybe I’d already fallen asleep and this was a dream.
Then I grew sad. How was I supposed to leave Asher, too? Especially since I’d been the one to get him into this mess.
“Uh, no,” I said, looking back at the bed that I’d obviously just been lying in a few seconds before. With a quick glance down at my pj’s, I crossed my arms over my chest and tried my best to appear awake. “Not yet, anyway. What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing. I just didn’t get to see you much today. Thought maybe we could hang out or something.” He looked at my outfit and then smiled. “Unless you want to go to bed.”
“Nice try, Asher,” I said sarcastically, hearing the flirtatiousness in his voice.
“There you go with your mind in the gutter again,” he said, wagging his finger at me.
“Please, like you weren’t trying to get into bed with me.”
“Well, if you insist!” He breezed past me and jumped halfway across the room, landing with a thud on my mattress. I watched with amusement as he lay back, crossed his legs at the ankles, and folded his arms behind his head. “You coming?”
I paused for a second, trying to decide what to do. Then with an exaggerated eye roll, I closed the door and locked it behind me. If there was a possibility that this would be my last night with Asher, I was willing to take the chance of being alone with him. I highly doubted that anything serious was going to happen with a house full of kids.
At least I wasn’t going to let anything happen with everyone else downstairs.
“Fine, you can stay. But this is strictly a PG sleepover, got it?”
“So that means freezing each other’s underwear and having pillow fights?” When I gave him a look that said I wasn’t amused, he added, “I’m a boy, remember? We never had sleepovers growing up. Now explain to me what goes on at these so-called slumber parties. And does kissing fall under the PG category?”
My face grew warm with embarrassment and my body tingled. As if I needed another reminder that I was really into this guy.
“Let’s start with talking and see where it goes,” I said, laughing at his bravado.
Once again I slid under the covers and noticed with relief that Asher wasn’t trying to follow me in. Instead, he stayed on top of the comforter and kept his hands to himself. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the idea of kissing him again, but I wasn’t sure that now was the right time to be getting sexy. Not with imminent doom pressing down on us and all.
“So what do you want to talk about?” he asked when I’d settled back into my warm cocoon of a bed.
“Dunno,” I said, thinking. “What’s your full name?”
“Asher Aaron Astley the third,” he answered.
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re a third?”
“Yep. You know that the best things come in threes, right?” he asked.
“Oh, do they? Good to know.”
“Now my turn. When did you know that you were a witch?”
“Wow, start off with something simple, why don’t you,” I said with a snort.
“Sorry,” he said, and looked down at the puffy comforter between us. “We could just get straight to the making out. . . .”
“So, you want to know the first time I knew I was a witch, right?” I said quickly, ignoring his last comment. “Um, I think I was about three and there was this candy that I really wanted in a store, but my parents wouldn’t buy it for me. I got really mad and started to throw a tantrum in the car and the next thing I knew, the candy was in my hands. I was already eating it by the time my parents noticed, and when they asked me about it, I told them it had just appeared. After that I think they realized they had to have the talk with me.”
“The talk?”
“ ‘Responsible magicking,’ ” I said, doing air quotes. “Letting me know that I wasn’t like other kids, that my friends couldn’t just conjure something up because they wanted it badly enough. That’s how I found out I had certain . . . abilities.”
“Didn’t it freak you out?” Asher asked.
“Nah. It’s all I’ve ever known. And I sort of already knew it before that day. My parents always thought they were being sneaky when they were casting, but the truth is, you can’t hide anything from a kid. Especially one who’s magically inclined,” I said. “Okay, my turn. Where did you come from, Asher Aaron Astley the third? I mean, you just showed up one day and suddenly you’re everywhere I turn. Why are you here?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to just make out?” he asked with a laugh.
“Nuh-uh. I answered your question. You answer mine.”
“Okay, okay. I guess that’s fair,” he said. He didn’t speak again right away, but after a slightly awkward pause he continued. “I’m here because my parents passed away and I had to come live with my aunt.”
Hello, mouth, meet my foot. I hope you feel comfortable in there.
I studied his face as I tried to figure out what to say in response. I decided that the truth was probably my best option. “I’m so sorry, Asher,” I said, feeling horrible. Then a thought came to mind. “So you do understand what I’m going through.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, sadly.
I reached for his hand and slipped my fingers into his. Our skin made for a great contrast of colors; his was a dark caramel, mine was porcelain like a doll’s. There was something oddly intimate about holding hands with someone. It was one of the few things you could do to show affection without it necessarily being sexual. I wanted to comfort him, to bring an emotional connection into physical territory. It’d been a long time since I’d found someone I wanted to be intimate with. And now that I’d found him, it would be even harder to let him go.
Asher looked up at me briefly and smiled in a way that seemed forced. His face looked slightly pained, as if the memory physically hurt him. But then it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and he was squeezing my hand back. He rolled over and stared up at the ceiling.
“Thanks. It’s been a while now, so . . .” His words trailed off. “It gets easier.” The pain in his voice told me otherwise, but I decided to believe him for the time being.
“How do you do it? Be normal after something like this, I mean.” I was actually really curious to hear his answer.
“You think I’m normal?” he asked, chuckling and shaking his head. “I think you’re the only one who’d describe me that way.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, as normal as any of us are, anyway. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Well, you start off waking up every morning thinking about them and being sad and angry that the universe has let such a horrible thing happen. Then you get up and go about your life,” he said, absently tracing the design on the bedspread. “And then the next day you do the same thing. If you do it enough, eventually it starts to hurt less and you find that not every little thing reminds you of what you’ve lost. You never get over it completely, but over time, you create a new normal. And having a good distraction never hurts.”
He made it sound so easy, even though I knew the journey he talked about had been anything but. Still, it gave me hope and also made me feel closer to him. I’d been feeling really alone in what I was going through since I couldn’t bring up my grief to the other Cleri members. With them, I had to be the strong one. But with Asher, he not only understood, but he’d survived. Which also made him that much more attractive to me. Suddenly his offer to make out seemed more inviting.
“In that case, wanna be my distraction?” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively. The tension in his face relaxed into a sexy smile.
“Absolutely. Anything I can do to help. You know I’m here for you.”
Leaning into him, I attempted to put the subject of our parents out of my mind.
I woke up with a start. A glance over at the empty bed space next to me told me that I was alone. When I’d fallen asleep, Asher had been in bed with me. We hadn’t done much more than make out, but it had been enough to pull me even deeper into whatever was going on with us. This both scared and thrilled me at the same time. I hadn’t felt this way about anyone before, so it was like entering into uncharted territory.
And now I was waking up after falling asleep alongside the guy that I was digging and he was nowhere to be found. I rubbed at my eyes to try to get rid of the sleepies and sat up to look around the room. Nope. Definitely not there. Maybe he’d just gone to the bathroom? Or to the kitchen to get a midnight snack? There had to be an explanation that didn’t involve him ditching me in the middle of the night.
Right?
With only one way to find out, I got out of bed and tiptoed across the room. Slipping out the door, I made my way toward the room where Asher was supposed to be staying and pushed it far enough open to peek inside. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the bed was still made and there was nobody sleeping in it. That meant he at least hadn’t left me to go sleep alone.
Turning around and heading in the opposite direction, I made my way downstairs, being careful not to wake anyone up. People had been crashing all over the house since we’d gotten here, taking any spots that were available. It was sort of first come, first served around here, which meant that some unlucky individuals were always stuck with the floor in the living room or on a row of uncomfortable chairs lined up to make a sort of cot. Since it was crowded enough that everyone was practically on top of each other, I knew that even the slightest creak would wake the whole place.
As I crept past the living room, I glanced in to see who’d been stuck with the floor for the night, but to my surprise, the place was empty. There wasn’t a single person lying on the couch, draped across a chair, or slumming it on the carpet. There wasn’t anyone anywhere.
Now I was confused and getting a little worried. I continued on to the kitchen, hoping to see everyone sitting around, eating and gossiping. Even knowing they were holding a secret meeting without me would’ve been preferable to the alternative.
But there was no one there, either.
I was beginning to freak out when I heard the front door open and close, and footsteps coming down the front entryway. Hoping for some clue to where everyone had gone, I poked my head around the corner.
When my eyes adjusted enough to see who had just entered, I gasped in shock. I recognized the girl coming down the hallway, though I’d never met her before. She had dark hair that hung over one shoulder in a loose braid, wisps grazing her cheeks, which were wet with tears. As she came toward me, her floor-length skirt swished around her legs and then followed behind her with the force of her walk. Her eyes were intense as she turned at the stairs, and took them two at a time until she got to the second floor.
The girl was on a mission.
I quickly went after her, conscious of the fact that I was no longer being quiet. If my hunch was right though, that didn’t matter. She was already gone by the time I made it upstairs, but I could hear her rummaging around and followed the sounds into my old room. I didn’t have to open the door to see what was going on, since she’d left it open in her haste to find what she was looking for.
The girl had pushed the bedside table over to the wall, exposing a slightly dirty and dusty floor. Getting down on her hands and knees, she began to pull at the floorboards, until one of them gave way. I watched as she yanked another plank loose and threw it onto the bed behind her. Her hands disappeared into the hole she’d created and a few seconds later, they popped back out with an extra-large book and something shiny that reflected under the lights.
I took a step forward to try to see exactly what she was holding, no longer worried that she’d catch me. The girl turned away and sat with her back resting against the bed. She propped up the leather-bound book on her knees. I watched as she conjured a quill out of thin air, leafed through the pages until she came to the one she was looking for, and then began to write. The pen moved across the pages with an urgency I’d never seen before. It was as if she couldn’t make her hand move fast enough, and after a few seconds she let go of the pen and allowed it to work its magic alone.
By the time the quill stopped moving, more than five pages had been written. The girl let her legs slowly extend until they were lying flat, like she was exhausted. Taking a deep breath, she reached to her side and grabbed the object that had been gleaming in the light. Inching closer to her, I could see that it was a ring.
As she slipped on the gold band, I was drawn even farther into the room, suddenly mesmerized by the jewel embedded in it. The size of the ruby took my breath away. It was bigger than anything I’d ever seen before, and for a second I wondered if it was fake.
The girl began to mumble words that I couldn’t quite understand, either because they were in a different language or possibly just because she was speaking so fast I couldn’t discern what they were. As I watched, the ruby began to glow bright red and the air around it started to radiate what I assumed was heat. And based on the fact that I saw beads of sweat starting to form on her forehead, I knew I was right. I halfway expected to feel the warmth myself.
Then the intensity went away and I watched as she put everything back in the floor and fit the boards back into place. Tugging at the table until it was once again covering the spot, the girl was careful to hide the treasures she’d taken so much care to keep secret.
“Do not worry, Mother, I will not forget you. The world will not forget you,” she said to the empty room.
When I woke up back in my parents’ room, tears were running down my cheeks. Without looking, I could feel Asher lying beside me and heard him lightly snoring into his pillow. Rolling over onto my side, I tried to process what I’d just been shown. Because I had no doubt the girl in my dreams wanted me to see what she’d done.
It was the first time I’d ever had a dream about Bridget’s daughter, Christian.
And suddenly, there in the dark, with Christian’s memories fresh in my mind, I knew that I’d been given a clue about what I was supposed to do next.