Chapter 30
Aster was curling into her seat on a plane to Iceland in the dead of night with nothing but a fake passport and a change of clothing, soon to meet a council of vampires that could probably end her life with a blink, and all she could think about was one thing.
And that one thing was currently trying to order wine during takeoff.
“You must sit down, ma’am.”
“No, actually, I think you must sit down.”
“Ma’am, if you don’t sit down in the next five seconds, the authorities will be called when we land.”
Aster had to hand it to the plane staff. Calling the bluff on thousand-year-old menace Sylvia Maroven was truly something deserving an award. Maybe a trophy.
“Fine! God. I’m going, I’m going,” Sylvia groaned, throwing her hands in the air.
The plane was nearly at a ninety degree angle by the time Sylvia fell into her seat, a full bottle of wine cradled in her hands like a newborn. Aster could feel the back of her neck burning with the intensity of the flight attendant’s wrath being pointed at the two of them.
“I hate flying economy,” Sylvia seethed, twisting the bottle cap open.
“Then Suggest us into Business class.”
Sylvia took a long swig of the wine, rubbed her hand over her mouth, then pinned Aster with a glare through dark sunglasses. “Don’t taunt me, you hag.”
Aster grinned as wide as a child.
Both Sylvia and Aster were on a collective break from all suggestions since Aster’s little re-awakening, which meant they had to actually spend their money wisely. Combined with the fact that they purchased these flights on such short notice, they’d ended up in Economy Class.
This was not a problem for Aster, who could appreciate a tight space. (She was known to sleep in old coffins to prank tourists.) It was a fate worse than death for Sylvia Maroven.
And, Sylvia Maroven, never one to give in gently to an unpleasant situation — and thank God for that, or else she would have given up on Aster five hundred years ago — the other vampire was currently writhing in her seat like a cat trapped under the thumb of a vet, knees ruthlessly kicking at the teenager sitting in front of them.
She re-adjusted her position every five seconds, making small, strange, guttural noises, until she finally gave up, and put her head on Aster’s shoulder, linking their arms with a huff.
“I hate this plane. I hate this tiny little television screen. I hate that I’m the flightless variation of vampire. I hate that I can’t Suggest anyone into giving me lorazepam. And I hate that your shoulder is so bony,” she announced bitterly. “It’s like you’re made of skeleton.”
“Sylvia, all humans are made of skeleton.”
“Well I wish you were made of something more comfortable. Like cotton.”
“Then I’d be a rug.”
“Exactly,” Sylvia tutted. Aster could tell she was brewing a stupid joke from the way her grip tightened on Aster’s bicep. “You’d look very nice draped on my living room floor.”
Aster rolled her eyes. But no amount of pretending to be detached and unaffected could stop the warmth that started puttering around in her chest when Sylvia kept herself pressed there.
“You are so predictable,” Aster sighed, shoving the feelings down. “And annoying.”
Sylvia’s fingernails dug into her arm.
“And you love it,” Sylvia whispered.
Aster’s heart nearly stopped in her chest.
She looked over to Sylvia then, at the way she was curled up into a contorted ball of limbs in her seat, her chaotic brown waves spilling over an oversized dark purple hoodie, her eyes fluttered closed, her mouth in a tiny, deviant smile, and images of last night chewed at Aster like a feral dog off the leash.
Three words. Three words. Three words.
“I do.” Aster blew out a breath. “Against my better judgement.”
She felt Sylvia’s body heave out a light laugh, and then sag into her.
Last night, after they’d had sex, Sylvia had laid there next to Aster, stock still, for several seconds. Legs and arms and fingers all frozen like a corpse. If it wasn’t for Aster’s super-hearing, she might have thought Sylvia had died. But she could hear her pulse scattering like a jet engine.
Aster hadn’t been brave enough to say anything to her—her mind spinning around the indirect confession over and over again—three words, three words, three words—but luckily she didn’t have to. Sylvia had broken the silence a moment later, turning on her side to look at Aster.
“I’m going to move our flights up,” Sylvia had whispered.
“I can’t take the waiting anymore.” Waiting for what, Aster wanted to ask.
Waiting to say you love me with your whole chest and mean it, Aster hoped selfishly, silently, as Sylvia squeezed her hand, slipped the blindfold off, and stalked out of bed.
Sylvia was up all the rest of the night on her computer muttering things to herself. Aster stayed in bed and she didn’t get a blink of sleep — and you could see it in the shadows under her eyes the following morning. Like she’d stepped freshly out of a morgue.
But how could she sleep after that? How could she ever do anything except exist in wide-eyed shock, trembling at the edge of a panic attack, shivering in complete and utter fear, knowing now that Sylvia might love her back?
Because what else could ‘three words’ mean?
A hundred things, surely, plausibly, but Aster didn’t let herself even explore those possibilities.
She needed it to be simple. She needed it to be I love you.
She needed it to be the ribbon that was trapping something much greater inside a gift box.
She needed to rip open the wrapping paper and hear all of it come spilling out of Sylvia like water from a dam.
But—Aster reminded herself with a sharp inhale—she was patient.
And closer than ever to getting what she wanted.
And the anticipation is all anyone ever really remembers in the end, isn’t it?
At least, that’s what she told herself as they jumped into a yellow taxi, swerved through Manhattan traffic, trampled through security, and finally landed themselves in this very jet, headed to Reykjavík.
***
“So,” Aster mused, “Does the Council provide hotel vouchers for visitors, or what?”
Sylvia made an annoyed sound as Aster nudged her with their elbow.
They were halfway over the Atlantic by then, and Aster could only entertain herself enough by watching Despicable Me on repeat.
She had tried to get Sylvia to watch the movie with her, insisting that she was actually a lot like the main character, Gru, but Sylvia swore off anything animated out of hand.
The moving pictures made her nauseous, Sylvia would insist. Aster knew this was bullshit. Sylvia just didn’t like things made for children. Probably because she never got to be one.
That was one of the things Aster would do first, once the curse was lifted.
She wanted to give Sylvia a childhood. Of course she couldn’t travel back in time and kill Catrina Maroven straight out of the cradle—but she wanted to approximate something like it. She wanted to make Sylvia feel so safe, and secure, that it was almost stifling.
She wanted to fill her life with freedom, and love, and the whimsy you only get at eight years old. She wanted to erase Sylvia’s brain of every bad thing Catrina had ever said to her.
And she wanted to remember every second of it.
“Ha ha. You’re not funny,” Sylvia mumbled slobberly against her shoulder. But the way Aster could feel her smile said otherwise. “I booked us a bedroom already.”
Aster grazed her hand down Sylvia’s back and hummed, “One bedroom?”
“Oh, don’t get puritanical on me now.”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“Useless questions,” Sylvia muttered. “Yes, we’ll even have to sleep in the same bed. Is that okay with you, Hester Prynne?”
“We both know you never finished The Scarlet Letter.”
“I don’t need to read a book to taunt you with it.”
Aster laughed, raking her hand through Sylvia’s hair. She listened to the other woman’s breath stutter a bit. It was almost inaudible compared to the roaring of the plane’s engine.
“I like when you —” Sylvia cut herself off.
Aster’s hand stilled.
“When I?”
“That. The thing you just stopped doing.”
Aster felt her heart squeeze.
“Playing with your hair?”
Sylvia gave her a non-committal mutter. Aster took it as a yes.
“Okay, baby,” Aster teased, feeling the pet name fall out of her.
Aster’s whole body tensed when she realized she’d said it. They’d never said it outside of sex, outside of the raw intimacy of the night time—but Sylvia didn’t protest, didn’t even blink, she just hummed into Aster’s side, and said, “First word.”
More.
***
As the flight attendants went down the aisle pouring tea and coffee, New York Night transitioning jarringly into Iceland Morning, Aster was left to wonder, as she often did, what exactly Sylvia meant.
If she meant More as in please, never stop calling me your baby.
Or more as in, Get back to work, my thoughts are too loud when you aren’t itching my skull.
***
Knowing Sylvia, it was probably both, and also neither.
Just like her coffee order.
“We don’t serve red wine for breakfast, ma’am.”
***
Sylvia had three large suitcases and a carry-on. Aster had a half-full backpack and her iPod. All together they had too much luggage for the bellboy frantically trying to shove it into the rickety elevator on their way to the tenth floor of the Grand Reykjavik Hotel.
Evidently, Sylvia had skimped on the flights so she could spend it all on their temporary living quarters. The one-bedroom was deliriously spacious—with giant, broad windows overlooking the Reykjavik waterfront.
The walls were made of unpainted wood, and the decoration was minimalist: there was a giant slab of white, empty canvas just sitting above the bed, that Sylvia referred to as “chic” and Aster referred to as “pointless.”
There was also a bathtub. A large brass one, meant for two people.
“We should take one later,” Sylvia offered nonchalantly, and Aster nearly fainted at the idea.