6. Amelie #2
I laced up my boots and stepped into a cream linen skirt and a pale blue top I’d found in the trunk.
Fern already learned my favorite color, I’m not even sure my mother knew that.
I grabbed the thick cloak off the hook on the back of the door.
Then I tore out the page Fern showed me and tucked into the waist of my pants.
If I survived my second attempt at surviving dangerous men, I at least wanted a memory of the dreamy days I spent here.
Hoping Fern knew it wasn’t her I was running from, I tried the doorknob and to my surprise, it twisted. “Thank you, Fern,” I whispered.
My heart hurt at the thought of leaving the sentient home.
I needed her to know I would’ve happily lived out the rest of my days here.
Not considering how mad I might go by the end in solitude, at least I would’ve been happy in my delusion.
I imagined that I’d think I was a princess by the time I was old and wrinkly. An almost happy ending.
The door typically creaked when it hit the halfway open point, but it was silent tonight. Checking for my housemate, I noticed the house was eerily still. No sounds of breath or life to ache the floorboards.
The front door was maybe twenty paces from the bedroom. Twenty paces and I would be alone again.
Taking meaningful, efficient steps to find my exit, the moonlight poured in through the window.
Perfectly illuminating my path. I was only an arm’s length away from safety when I turned to take one last look at Fern.
Admiring the work she’d put in the last few days to make this once dirty, dilapidated cottage a nice, cozy home, my eyes pricked with tears that I had to leave it behind.
The couch already had an imprint from my butt having consumed so many books in the same spot. My book on alchemy I chose from the library was closed with my last read page dog-eared on the desk.
Each night, I rested in the sitting room and had a perfect view of the clearing outside. Right as day turned to dusk, fireflies would start flitting around as far as the eye could see. The petals on the wildflowers would start flowing and swaying to the music of the Forest.
Butterflies and strange looking dragonflies appeared out of nowhere and created the smallest breeze as they flapped their small wings.
Pollen sparkled through the air, and the cottage brightened with candlelight.
The Forest was no longer only the variety of bright greens and blues but every color God had added to Earth’s pallet and then some.
Shades of pinks and purples, reds and oranges.
As if they were taking advantage of simply existing here.
It was the most magical thing I’d ever seen, and I felt so privileged to experience it. I would miss it terribly, but I kept a blind hope that where I ended up would be just as magical.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t include an ancient Witch who was out for my blood either.
Turning back to the door, I ran into a wall. Fern must have sealed me in again.
She didn’t have big, magical hands to grab my shoulders, though.
“You’re leaving me already, pretty girl?”
Fuck.
“I’m not ancient , by the way. I’m somewhere around three hundred, I think. Birthday’s don’t matter when you’ll have hundreds of them.”
I scrunched my skirt in my hands, trying to keep them from trembling.
“I’m sorry if I woke you.” My voice was shaky and terribly unconvincing. “I was hoping to see the lights again. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Oh?” he questioned. “Well, let’s go see them, then. I wasn’t aware that the creatures had a midnight showing, too.” A knowing smirk appeared on his lips. He knew I was lying. It was hopeless. “Coming?” He stood in the doorway, waiting for me to follow .
“Uh…yeah.”
His large body took up all the space in the doorway, not allowing me a way around him.
Staring me down with a hungry expression on his face, he slowly turned to the side, leaving only enough space for my chest to graze his and my back to hitch on the door frame.
Finally, on the front step of the cottage, I turned back to him standing an arm’s length away.
I painted on my most convincing smile. “Okay, let’s go, then.”
He looked at his feet before moving his gaze up my body, drinking me in as he did. My stomach rolled, but not like it did when the guard’s looked at me.
“I can’t leave. But if you want to, all you have to do is run.
I can’t follow you.” Kiaran leaned against the door frame lazily, tucking his hands into the pockets of his silky black pajama pants.
“I can, however, send all the darkest parts of myself to chase you. Take that awful music the Forest sings for you and change it to the screams of the lives that have perished here. I’ll make your departure as demoralizing as possible, only to drive you back here to me. ”
His words lingered in the air between us as my heart sank lower and lower into my stomach with each backward step.
“Is that a threat?”
Kiaran’s head tilted slightly. One side of his mouth drew up in a smirk, then he fucking winked at me. “It’s a promise.”
Before I could respond, I fell straight on my ass. A large log tucked itself under my knees. A log that was not there before.
“See? So easy.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking all too impressed with himself.
“Ha! Good job, magic man. You put a log on the ground. Very scary,” I taunted and put my hands up in a false surrender. Maybe not the smartest idea, but maybe it’d test if he was lying about not being able to leave the cottage. If I piss him off, he’d try to chase after me.
I wasn’t thinking straight.
Why the fuck would I want him to chase me? Hadn’t enough scary men chased me? I had to be dreaming, dream Amelie was so much braver.
“You want scary? I can do scary. Let’s see…” He tapped his pointer finger against his chin, mocking me. Bringing his hand to shoulder height, he twirled his wrist around, creating a silhouette of something, then threw it toward me.
Though it looked terribly stupid, I felt it. The cool wisp cut through the air past my cheek so fast, I flinched. Trying to recover from the embarrassment of startling at literal air, I got back on my feet.
“Has it been boring being alive for, what was it? One thousand years? Scaring people by throwing air at them?”
He laughed now, forearms crossed over his stomach, like if he let go, his guts would fall out from laughing so hard. His head bobbed back as the sound of his laugh muffled, replaced by low, rumbling growls behind me.
Turning, I saw figures of wolves in the tree line past the cottage’s clearing. They were snarling and stalking toward us. Realizing now that he wasn’t throwing air at me, he was throwing magic out to the woods to summon wolves .
It would be safest to sprint inside, but that’s exactly what he said he wanted. His laughter was softer now. He was studying me to see what my next move would be. A smarter human would accept their death now and concede, but I’m not sure anyone had ever accused me of being smart.
Spinning on my heels, I took off straight toward the path that called to me that first night. The one I should’ve taken. If I had just kept going, I would’ve only had to run for my life the first time.
I made it to the path, narrowly missing a rogue tree branch that appeared from thin air.
The crackling of leaves warned me that the wolves were running in the trees beside me, barking at me as if calling for their dinner.
My feet moved on their own accord, which made it hard to shift them when a large rock appeared in my path.
I tried to hurdle it and almost cleared it, but my shin grazed the top, slowing me with a stumble.
A wolf slipped from the shadow of the large trees and was only a leap away from taking me down with it.
I tried to pick up my speed, but the air was getting heavier.
The air was thick like molasses. My feet stuck to the ground, I couldn’t move.
My upper body was fighting my legs. Exhaustion reaped my body at the push and pull. Fuck Kiaran.
“Give up yet?” His voiced boomed through the brush on either side of me.
“Nope,” I shouted back.
I tumbled forward when he lifted the weight he’d place upon me. The wolves circled around me, dancing with each other, bringing me to a complete stop. I turned back to see the candlelight flickering in the cottage.
The oversized, magical wolf was only a few feet from me now, stalking me. It crept up to stand front and center. I held my breath as it panted into my face.
The wolf straightened his hind legs and lowered his head to hover over his massive paws, which were at least four times bigger than any dog I’d ever seen, then he pounced.
Knocking me back on my ass with an oomph.
I tried to defend myself, but before I could take a swing at the smelly creature, it was licking my face.
I couldn’t help but laugh. I was sure this was not Kiaran’s intention when he sent the predators after me. Even non-magical ones were incredibly dangerous. The hunters in the village, who were experts in tracking and killing them, did not show the animal disrespect by not fearing them.
But this wolf was basically an oversized dog.
It took my shirt between its teeth and threw me up onto its back.
I’d hoped it would be my ride on my journey away from the cottage, but to no avail, it was bringing me back to Kiaran and Fern.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on Kiaran’s face as he watched me approach atop his scary, magical wolf.
His mouth popped open, and his arms uncrossed, falling flat against his sides.
He reversed the twirl of his hand that conjured the wolves initially, and before I could think, I was free-falling to the ground. My animal friend had disappeared into thin air, leaving me alone by the bushes of berries.
“How the fuck did you end up riding my wolf?” He didn’t exactly seem mad, but he was definitely frustrated.
“My guess is as good as yours. I’m taking it as a compliment though that your bloodhounds didn’t eat me when they had the chance.”
“Well,”—he winked at me—“there’s always next time.”
That fucking wink.