Chapter 23
They worked at it for three straight hours, stopping only for the occasional coffee or water break.
Elias wanted to push her, which was fine, because Charlie wanted to be pushed—especially if it would strengthen her connection to the current that she had briefly harnessed within herself. The one that enabled her to fly.
No—levitate, not fly, as Elias kept reminding her.
After her first soaring success, however, Charlie’s progress stalled.
Every time she closed her eyes and reached inside herself for that current—the pushing feeling that, according to Elias, represented the core of her magic—she felt as if she were fumbling about in the dark.
Searching for something that didn’t even exist. By the second hour of no action, the Vikings grew bored, opting to head inside for their daily dose of reality television, Henry toddling after them.
Since then, the highest she’d managed to lift herself off the ground was two feet, and even that had felt like a shot in the dark, like an action she couldn’t possibly replicate.
“Relax,” Elias said for the two hundredth time.
Charlie was standing on her flat rock, eyes squeezed shut, hands at her sides with palms tilted outward.
“You were able to find it so quickly that first time because you didn’t know what you were looking for.
That mindset kept you open to whatever would come. It kept you relaxed.”
“Excellent,” Charlie said. “You’re telling me that I’ll only be able to access my magic if I’m not actually looking for it?”
“No.” Elias’s footsteps crunched on the dry grass as he paced. “I’m telling you that you need to relax. That’s all. Don’t go into this with any preconceived notions. Leave yourself open to whatever comes.”
Charlie sighed. How was she supposed to re-create something about which she had no preconceived notions? Grammatically, practically, and philosophically … it made no sense.
Just like everything else in her life.
I am the child of a god.
Every time she thought those words, it felt as if it were the first time.
A few minutes would pass, she would focus all of her attention on trying to access her magic, and, as a result, she would forget why she was trying to do so in the first place.
Then she would remember, and it was like getting hit in the head by a baseball bat all over again.
I am the child of a god.
It was the type of life-altering realization that consumed a person’s entire being, and it was probably a large part of why she was having so much difficulty re-accessing her magic.
“Can we break for lunch?” she asked, opening her eyes. “I’m sick of chasing a river that doesn’t want to be found.”
“Fine, fine.” Elias waved a hand as she hopped off the stone and headed toward her backpack on the porch. He followed close behind, jogging up the steps and plopping down at the top. “Refueling is a good idea. Then we can get back into it for another couple of hours.”
“I brought sandwiches.” She dug around in her backpack until she felt the familiar crinkle of a brown paper bag and lifted it up, waving it over her head.
He eyed it skeptically. “You brought me lunch?”
“Don’t be too flattered.” She tossed the plastic-wrapped ham-and-cheese onto his lap. “I bring an extra sandwich for Lou every day.”
“You do? Why?”
She lowered herself onto the stairs, keeping a few feet between them. “Because she’s always hungry but refuses to spend any money on food.”
He chuckled. “I know how that is. My friend Mikey was the same. Had more than enough money to pay for his own ice cream but never would.”
Charlie looked over at him in surprise.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s … weird. Hearing you talk about your past.” She toyed with the plastic. “Picturing you as a normal kid with normal friends who ate normal ice-cream cones.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, unwrapping his sandwich. “I was never ‘normal.’ At least, I hope not—normal is boring.”
It was such a simple thing to say, but for some reason, those words made Charlie’s heart skip a beat.
“But I get what you’re saying,” Elias went on, taking a bite of the ham-and-cheese.
“To you, I’m like how kids see their parents.
They came from nowhere. They were born as adults, complete with diaper bags and a minivan.
Me, on the other hand…” He winked at Charlie.
“I materialized in the forest one day as a fully grown eighteen-year-old with a devastatingly handsome face and a secret ability to turn into a shadow demon.”
“Pretty much.”
He smirked. “I have a past, Charlotte. Everyone does.”
Her heart skipped another beat. This is it. This was her opening. Her opportunity to learn more about how he’d become a mare—and how to undo that process.. She would have to play it right, though. Casual and light. Just a girl curious about the life of the boy sitting next to her.
“Is that so?” she asked. “Because if we’re being honest here, I know next to nothing about your past. And what I do know, I had to pry out of you like a lid on an old jar of sticky strawberry jelly.”
“And she’s good with words.” He shook his head. “Add it to the ever-growing list of your remarkable qualities.”
“Oh, please.” She snorted. “Enough with the insincere flattery; it won’t win you any favors.”
“It wasn’t insincere,” he said, taking another bite of his sandwich, “but all right.”
They fell silent, then, Elias chewing contentedly and gazing out at the trees, Charlie staring down at the sandwich on her lap. Her fingernails dug into her palms. Don’t listen to him, she urged herself. He’s just trying to get on your good side. He doesn’t mean it.
“However,” Elias went on, “if it really means that much, I’ll tell you. About my past. About my time as a normal kid with normal friends, as you say.”
She looked over at him, raising her eyebrows. “Seriously?”
“Sure.” He laughed hollowly. “You already know about the worst thing that ever happened to me. We can only go up from there, right?”
There it was again—the melting sensation in her chest. A thawing, like an icicle caught in the first rays of spring sunshine.
“Right,” she said quietly.
“So.” He tore off a slice of crust. “Ask away.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected him to agree so quickly.
Nor had she expected that she would be the one steering the conversation.
She wanted to gather her thoughts, but there was no time.
“Uh, okay. Well. Let’s start with the basics.
You once told me you grew up in rural Illinois—not eastern Michigan, like everyone at school thinks. Is that true?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “When I first got to Silver Shores, I lied about where I was from because I didn’t want people snooping into my past. But what I told you was the truth.
I’m from a tiny town called Rochelle, about an hour and a half from Chicago.
Population: nine thousand. Famous for the absolutely thrilling fact of being at the intersection of two important railroads. Next question.”
“Was it a nice place to grow up?”
He shrugged. “Nice enough.”
“You lived on a farm, right?”
“Yeah. A little one, not one of those commercial behemoths. A family farm. The main house was two stories, then we had a garden, a chicken coop, a field for corn and squash, and a barn for the goats and pigs. Every morning, my sister Olive and I would run out of the house in our pajamas to collect eggs from the coop and bring them to our mom to scramble or fry.” He smiled, a soft curl of the lips.
A look of wistfulness that Charlie had never seen on his face before.
“You, Olive, and Banana, right?” she asked. “The husky?”
Elias’s eyes lit up. “You remember.”
Of course, I do. I remember everything about you.
That was what she didn’t say.
Instead, she shrugged, cheeks warming. “Sure. You only told me a few weeks ago.”
He raised his eyebrows, but didn’t press the issue.
“We had the run of the neighborhood,” he said, going on. “Lots of trees and cornfields, as you can probably imagine. Endless space. We had an old tetherball pole and trampoline in our backyard, and you should have seen the way Olive would laugh when I’d double-bounce Banana.”
Charlie let out a surprised laugh, imagining a husky flying through the air over a trampoline.
Elias grinned back, the expression warm and genuine.
“Mostly we’d play alone, but our friends would sometimes come in from town to visit.
My parents were out of town for work a lot, as I think I told you already, and Aunt Sheila, who babysat us, wouldn’t have noticed if a truck ran through the front door.
So, naturally, the other kids loved hanging at our place. ”
“Naturally.” Charlie couldn’t help but grin back.
Elias’s eyes brightened. “Every time you smile, I’m shocked,” he said. “I never thought I’d see it again. Not directed toward me, anyway.”
She rolled her eyes, but the smile stayed in place. “Don’t let it get to your head.”
“Too late.” He winked. “What else do you want to know?”
Looking down at her half-eaten sandwich, Charlie considered what to ask next. She didn’t want to raise his suspicions. “You never told me what they did,” she said. “Your parents. What kept them away for weeks at a time.”
“Well, the story was that they were traveling doctors.” He picked at the crust of his sandwich, tearing off soft flakes of bread and rolling them between his fingers.
“Some doctors travel to third-world countries, but my parents said they were what you’d call locum tenens: travel doctors who work around the US, going from hospital to hospital, usually in underfunded areas that need more help.
When I was a kid, I bought that story without question.
It wasn’t until after they were murdered that I began to ask questions like: If they were really doctors, why did they work less in the winter, when it was cold outside?
Hospitals are indoors, and they need support year-round. ”