Chapter 7
Seven
The next two days went by relatively normally considering how bizarre the first one had been.
Lori had finally texted me back. A simple: “I’ll be back at the end of the week. Make yourself comfortable. You might run into the young man staying with me. Theo. He’s a joy.”
I nearly choked on my tea at the word “joy.” The man skulked around, always in black, looking borderline menacing.
Theo and I solely coexisted. There was no small talk or pleasantries. Although, he did try leaving food out for me.
I wouldn’t say he was avoiding me as much as I was avoiding him.
He was always lingering and watching me with interest, like he might speak, but never did.
I’d wake up and make coffee, and he’d be right there in the doorway. If I tried eating at the kitchen table, he would start cooking. If I was sketching outside, under a blanket while the rain fell, he stepped out onto the porch like he was coincidentally getting some air at the same time.
He never said much. He was a man—sorry, warlock—of very few words. The quiet, looming type.
We were cooped up in this tiny house as the rain continued to stream outside. It must be a record for Maine in October because I’d never seen this much precipitation in my entire life.
I longed to go on a walk amidst the fall foliage that was barely still clinging on. But yesterday when I’d tried to walk outside with an umbrella, a gust of wind had blown it completely inside out within seconds.
So now I sat in the living room, a giant sketchpad splayed out in my lap as I played around with some colored pencil sketches I was working on.
My favorite medium was oil paints, but I hadn’t been able to afford them lately and over half of my last palette was used up or dried out because I hadn’t screwed a few caps on tight enough.
I was kicking myself for that now that I was too broke to buy new ones.
My knees were up on the couch supporting the paper as I got immersed in the detail of the iris I was working on.
A creak caused me to jerk my head up.
Of freaking course.
Theo was there in the doorway, watching me.
“Why are you always sneaking around?”
“I’m just standing here.”
I dipped my chin and looked up at him, but he was genuinely oblivious.
“What are you doing?” He angled his chin toward my sketchpad.
“I’m knitting.”
His eyebrows bunched together.
I sighed and put my knees down, revealing my work in progress. “I’m drawing, what does it look like? Or do people not do that in your realm?”
He tilted his head to look at my drawing. It was a large eye with a landscape drawn into the iris. Almost as if it were a reflection.
“You’re an artist,” he said, ignoring my sarcastic jab.
“Lately, not so much.” I pulled my sketchpad into my chest so he couldn’t examine it anymore. I felt vulnerable when his eyes were tracing my work like that. They were so dark and intense. Like all the time. Was that a warlock thing or a Theo thing?
“You’re talented.” He stated it like a fact. Like that little glimpse at my work was enough to tell him everything he needed to know.
“Talent doesn’t mean much.” I was always unable to take a compliment. My mother said never letting anyone in was my fatal flaw.
I didn’t mean to have such a tough exterior. It came naturally to me.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
These were the most words we’d exchanged since the grocery store the other day. For Theo, this was basically the equivalent of him being a Chatty Cathy.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said, sitting up now. “You’ve still hardly been forthcoming.”
I could physically see him clam up, as if he was retreating in on himself despite still remaining in the arched doorframe.
I sighed, sitting up further. “I was supposed to get here next month but because my life is so glamorous, I got bugs in my apartment and had to leave in a hurry. So now I’m here.”
He nodded. “Where were you staying?”
“Brooklyn.” He didn’t say anything and I faltered. “It’s a borough in New York City.”
That got the tiniest little smirk out of him which unfortunately sent some butterflies flying through my gut.
“I know what Brooklyn is.”
“Well excuse me for not knowing what you know since you haven’t told me anything about yourself or your weird realm.” I put realm in air quotes, unable to take the word seriously.
“We’re well acquainted with the mortal realm. We learn all about it. Some people even travel here often…exploring.” His gaze wandered past me to the window.
“Oh great. So it’s only us humans that are left in the dark?”
“Some outsiders know. Especially those that live close to the portals. Your grandmother knows,” he pointed out.
“Well, Lori is a little batty in case you haven’t noticed.’
His eyebrows furrowed. “Batty?”
“Never mind.” I waved off the comment. “What’s your realm called? Does it have a name.”
He hesitated before responding. “My town is called The Hallows. There are others, though.”
I snorted. “That seems appropriate.”
Theo tilted his head.
“What else can you tell me? Can I at least get the cliff notes if we’re going to be coexisting?”
Ignoring each other had become torturous when we couldn’t actually leave the house. It wasn’t like I could afford to hole up at a coffee house and spend money on a latte every day.
He let out a low chuckle. The sound of it took me by surprise. “Sorry. This is my first time interacting with someone who knows what I am but also knows nothing at the same time. This is new for me, too.”
“And Lori was chill with this whole thing? How did she know?”
He just nodded in response.
I sighed, trying to summon patience. “Care to elaborate at all?”
“I think she said her stepmother was a witch.”
“What?” My mouth hung open. Was that possible? She’d never mentioned it.
“It was how she learned about crystals and energy healing. It’s a common occupation where I’m from.”
“Huh.” I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking it over.
“She was with my grandfather, Eliot, for a time. They were…involved.”
I paused, letting that soak in.
“Your grandfather and my grandmother were…dating?”
“I guess you could call it that. They had a companionship. He was here often for work. Even stayed here a few months out of the year when they grew closer.”
“Work.”
He nodded, unaffected by my lack of understanding over the whole thing. “He was an anthropologist studying the modern human realm so he was here often. That’s how they met.”
“Of course, makes total sense.”
His eyebrows furrowed together. “You love that tone,” he said, making me feel like a child who had been scolded. My mom hated my sharp tongue and sarcasm. But it was a coping technique I’d never quite been able to shake.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “But you’re being so vague. You aren’t giving me anything.”
He looked uncomfortable then, like he might bolt as he glanced at the door. A loud bang of thunder nearly shook the house and caused me to jump in my seat.
He walked fully into the living room and sat in the armchair that was way too small for him. His legs were at least a foot away from my curled up knees but my entire body still lit up all the same. I inhaled deeply, desperate to slow my pounding heart.
“Our realm isn’t so different from this one. Our infrastructure is more well-kept but less modern, our population is considerably smaller. But it looks like a city you might visit.”
“You’re all in one city? Near Maine?”
He shook his head. “The Hallows is the largest city in our realm, but we’re spread out across the world. Our kind split off from the rest of the population some time in the 1600s for reasons I’m sure you can guess.”
“Did burning at the stake have anything to do with it?”
He sighed and nodded. “Of course not all the lore is accurate. But the memory of our kind has worn off, so now outsiders believe we’re just some magical story to tell their kids. And enough protection spells have been cast over the decades that we’re well masked. It’s more peaceful this way.”
I was grateful he was finally sharing more, but still weirded out by it all the same. “So all the rumors about this town are true?”
He winced. “It’s hard to keep completely protected. Especially with our kind traveling here and inevitably mingling.”
“Where is it?” I asked. “Could we walk there?”
“It’s not far. They took over cities and land that already existed. Back then, they just…made everyone forget it ever existed. The map that you know has blind spots.”
“Right, obviously,” I said, my mind spinning.
“It’s really not as confusing as it sounds.”
“Nope. You’re right. Totally normal.”
He smiled softly. “That was exactly the problem. Your people don’t take well to things they don’t consider normal. It finally became too much.”
“You can cast spells, then? Do you have a wand?”
Theo let out the softest breath of a laugh. “Not quite. It’s more internal than that. Moving something with my energy for instance, it’s as natural as you using your hand.”
“So no shapeshifting? Time moving? Love potions?”
A soft smile rounded his lips. “I’m afraid it’s much less exciting than all that, although we do use our energy to assist with healing and building and other things you might deem…magical.” The way his mouth wrapped around that word made me shiver.
It really didn’t seem all that strange when I thought about it. All of the stories about magic and witches had to come from something. Why not reality? And driving out people who were different sounded exactly like the work of mankind.
“But you all know in your realm?” I asked. “About us?”
“Yes. People study you. Travel here. Report back.” His voice grew colder with those words. Like something had shifted.
“Weird,” I whispered as I set my sketchbook down on the coffee table.
“No weirder than you all going on trips to see a bunch of caged animals or fish.”
I pursed my lips and considered this. “Fair.”
The silence hung heavy between us.
There should probably be a million and five questions buzzing through my mind but I was coming up blank. Part of the reason could be because he intimidated me in more ways than one.
The only sound drifting through the tiny living room was the loud ticking of the large clock standing near the doorway. I glanced from my hands to Theo who was studying the carpet. Despite the heaviness of the awkwardness, he made no move to stand.
“Is that where you’re from?” he finally asked. “New York?”
How boring was I? I was in the room with a warlock and he’s the one asking me about my upbringing. I really had to google some questions.
“We moved around a bit when I was a kid, but I’ve been there since high school. My mom’s still out there.”
“Why aren’t you staying with her?”
My cheeks burned even though his tone wasn’t a particularly rude one. Was he implying I wasn’t welcome here? That I should leave?
“She lives in a studio she shares with her boyfriend. Cramped would be an understatement. Besides”—I cleared my throat, trying to shove away any defensiveness—“I like staying with Lori.”
“If she’s your grandmother, why do you call her Lori?”
“I didn’t meet here until I was, like, ten. Grandma felt weirdly intimate for a woman I hadn’t so much as seen a picture of, so she told me to call her Lori.”
He nodded. I waited for him to ask about why I hadn’t met her until I was ten. Then I would have to share about my absentee father. How he was estranged from her so my mother and I had never met her until after he disappeared and Lori reached out.
But he said nothing. There was no prying.
More silence.
“I’m hiding out here for a couple of months,” he finally shared. “I met Lori through my grandfather. He brought me here once, a while back. So when I was looking for a place to stay, this was all I could think of.”
“And she just invited you in? No questions asked?”
“She’s generous like that.”
I sighed. “That she is.” I knew her generosity well. I was often on the receiving end of it. She barely knew me, but any time she had the opportunity to see me she was always warm and sunny. The memories I had of her were few, but all of them were fond.
“So are you going to finally elaborate on why you need to lie low, or…”
He opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by a loud banging on the porch before the door crashed open and we both jumped to our feet.