Chapter Twenty-Three
‘You’re sure you don’t want to come with?’ Jackson asked, smiling at me before shifting to a more suspicious glance at Wyn. ‘Someone needs to be on constant Lydia duty otherwise we’ll come back with nothing but chips and ice cream.’
‘And that’s a problem how?’ Lydia shoved her brother in the ribs, so hard he almost toppled over. ‘We can handle the grocery store by ourselves. Let them alone.’
Letting us alone was what Jackson was afraid of, but he couldn’t say it out loud. Lydia grabbed his car keys and held them up high.
‘If you’re that stressed about going to the store with me, I’m more than happy to take myself.’
‘Give me those.’ Jackson snatched the key fob out of her hand and stormed off through the kitchen, into the garage. I laughed but Wyn said nothing, a silent observer at my side.
‘Y’all behave now,’ Lydia sang as she skipped after him. ‘I can’t prove it but I would not be surprised to find Ms Stovell has those nanny cameras all over this house. If you see a stuffed bear winking at you, flush it.’
‘Why do I get the feeling Jackson isn’t too crazy about me being here?’ Wyn asked when two car doors slammed shut in quick succession.
‘Didn’t he say he had to wake up super early?’ I suggested. ‘Could be he isn’t a morning person.’
‘Could be he wanted you all to himself.’
‘Could be I wanted you all to myself.’
I slipped my arms around his neck and looked around the cavernous kitchen. ‘Empty house, me and you, seems silly to waste time trying to guess what Jackson’s thinking.’
‘I don’t need to guess,’ Wyn replied as he picked me up off the ground and placed me on the kitchen counter. ‘You don’t have to be a witch to read his mind.’
‘What about mine?’ I asked, nose to nose. ‘What am I thinking?’
He answered with a kiss, confident and territorial, his teeth grazing my bottom lip when he broke away.
‘You’re psychic,’ I whispered. ‘That was exactly it.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, hands planted on the counter at either side of me. ‘We should make a list.’
‘A list of what?’
‘All the things we want to do over the next few weeks.’
My smile soured.
‘Before you have to go back to Asheville.’
When I looked away, he tenderly cupped my chin and turned my face back to his. ‘After that, we’ll start a new list. Everything we want to do in the fall and the winter and the new year, then next spring, next summer. I want to make forever plans with you but forever has to start someplace.’
‘It already started,’ I said, leaning back in for another kiss. ‘It’s just hard, knowing we’re always on a clock.’
‘Then it’s up to me to make every moment count,’ he murmured against my lips. ‘What do you want to do this summer?’
‘Besides stay alive, keep my friends out of danger and avoid Armageddon?’
‘Besides that.’
The prickling rush of heat that flamed over my skin had nothing to do with my magic and everything to do with the man positioned between my thighs.
‘I can’t think of anything,’ I said, almost dizzy. It was true, I literally couldn’t think of a single thing, my brain was just one loud, happy buzz.
‘There’s a drive-in movie theatre over in Beaufort, could be fun,’ Wyn suggested. ‘It’s only an hour or so from Savannah, we can drive back after the movie. Unless—’
‘Unless?’
‘Unless you wanted stay in Beaufort for the night. It’s a real pretty town. They’ve got some cute bed and breakfast places by the waterfront.’
Stay in Beaufort. At a bed and breakfast. He’d been thinking about this. It was a sweet possibility, the two of us, cosy in the cab of his cherry-red truck, a short drive back to a quaint hotel, not having to kiss goodnight at the door …
‘Or we can drive back to Savannah, it’s no big deal,’ he added hurriedly, his confidence uncertain when I didn’t answer right away. ‘I only thought—’
‘That sounds great,’ I pushed the words through my lips and made them real. ‘I would love that.’
‘The drive-in or …’
‘All of it,’ I said, tiny sparks flicking at my fingertips. ‘It all sounds great.’
It didn’t sound great, it sounded heavenly.
Bell House was my home but it was Ashley’s home too.
This place was a mansion but with Jackson glooming around like a bitter shadow and the now unshakable threat of Ileen Stovell’s spy cameras, we would never truly be alone.
But the two of us at a bed and breakfast in another town …
I could imagine myself waking up in his arms. And everything that came before that too. My skin burned.
‘Is it hot in here or is it me?’ Wyn muttered, taking a step backwards and walking over to the window. ‘Would you look at that pool. I am ready to jump right in. Unless pools aren’t safe for you? We could hang out in the AC and watch a movie?’
‘Pools are fine,’ I said, slipping down from the counter, the tiled floor cool against my hot feet. ‘As far as I know. I’m basically a toddler, can’t be left by water unsupervised.’
‘Good thing I can’t take my eyes off of you.’
My teeth bit down into my bottom lip, tempering a smile so big I was afraid it might force every flower on the island into bloom.
‘I’m going to go change,’ I said as he peeled off his T-shirt, already in swimming shorts. As if I wasn’t struggling to contain myself already.
‘Don’t take too long,’ Wyn called as I headed for the stairs. ‘We only have forever.’
Whenever the skies were clear and the sun was high, my dad called it a top dollar day.
Walking out of the house and into the backyard I wished more than anything he was with me.
It was such a top dollar day, the enormous swimming pool sparkling the exact same shade as the sky, it was hard to tell who was reflecting whom.
‘You were gone too long,’ Wyn chided, breaking the surface of the water and bursting up like some sort of Greek god.
‘I was gone five minutes.’
‘Like I said, you were gone too long,’ he said again.
Grinning so hard it made my face hurt, I hopped onto the blazing hot concrete that surrounded the pool, hastily making my way into the water. The temperature was perfect, cool, not cold, and I walked then swam over to Wyn, testing my front crawl and my magic.
‘You’re good?’ he asked when I reached him, arms sliding back around his neck, where they always wanted to be.
‘More than,’ I confirmed as my legs locked around his waist. It might’ve made me nervous on dry land, to be so intimate, but in the water it felt natural.
‘Wish we had a pool.’ Wyn leaned back, soaking his hair until it was slicked back from his head and almost jet black. ‘My gramps had an above ground pool when we were kids, but he never cleaned it right and my mom wouldn’t let us swim in it.’
‘That’s almost as harsh as eating my still-beating heart,’ I joked, but he didn’t laugh. ‘Too soon?’
‘Not too soon because it’s not going to happen.’
He sounded so sure it was almost easy to believe him.
‘I’ve been thinking of more things we should do,’ he said, his cheeks turning slightly pink as I shifted against the waistband of his shorts. ‘SCAD has an open day next week, thought we could go check it out.’
‘The art school?’
He nodded. ‘I know you could go to just about any school you wanted, but we could take a look. It’s not just art degrees, they have a bunch of stuff.’
‘I hadn’t considered it,’ I confessed. ‘Not so long ago, school was all I could think about. Now it’s the last thing on my mind.’
‘That’s understandable. There’s no law that says you have to go next year, but if you do, there’s still time. Applications aren’t due for a couple of months.’
Water lapped at my skin, blinding sunlight bouncing off its glassy surface.
‘For years I convinced myself college was going to be the thing that defined me,’ I confessed.
‘I was so sure I was going to roll up to some ultra-impressive school and they would hand me a personality at orientation, like, a little envelope with my room key, dining hall card and a list of all the proper things you’re supposed to like and dislike.
Everything I missed out on because of all the years I spent travelling with my dad. Joke’s on me, I guess.’
Wyn shook his head in disbelief.
‘Emily, that’s …’
‘Tragic?’ I suggested. ‘Full-on pathetic?’
‘Impossible,’ he finished. ‘As if anything or anyone could define you.’
My legs tightened around his waist and he pulled me closer, foolish flesh and bones the only thing separating my heart from his.
‘It kills me to know you don’t realize how extraordinary you are,’ he said, his nose nudging mine. ‘I’m not talking about your magic, I mean you. All the things you’ve been through and you came out standing on your own two feet, brave and bold and fearless.’
I laughed softly. ‘You can’t be talking about me. I didn’t come through anything yet, I’m still in it.’
‘Then I’m right there with you. College applications, drive-in movies, defeating the forces of evil, Savannah Banana games—’
‘Sorry,’ I cut in. ‘What exactly was that last one?’
‘Coolest baseball team ever, I’ve got the tickets already so there’s no backing out. It’s about time you invested in America’s pastime and it’s my civic duty to teach you,’ he said, planting a kiss on my nose. ‘Your skin is turning pink. Let me get the sunscreen.’
Wyn slid out of my arms, swimming over to the deep end.
Treading water, I watched him go. Lydia might never objectify a person but …
if not Wyn, who? And if not now, when? His stroke was smooth and even, muscles working effortlessly under his deeply tanned skin, strong arms, powerful legs.
It only took one second for me to forget where I was, lose my footing and dip under the water.
Wyn couldn’t see her, I was sure of it. A pale young woman, her blue dress swirling around her and dark hair that floated in front of her face, obscuring the grief-stricken expression and wide-open eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You won’t be alone much longer.’
And then it all went dark.
There were so many wolves gathered together, I could barely see the ground.
When I came to it was late, sometime in the evening, and according to the massive assembly of Weres surrounding me, a full moon.
I was shaking, still in my swimsuit and horribly exposed, but the Weres couldn’t see me, it wasn’t possible they’d allow a witch to wander freely into their gathering.
Just like in the Pirates’ House, I’d slipped backwards in time.
The wolves stood in a clearing, in a forest that would one day be cut down to make way for expensive homes for rich people and they would have to move on.
Some of them, including one large grey wolf who stood beside me, to the mountains outside of Asheville.
Without seeing him out of phase, I knew it was Wyn’s grandfather and I didn’t know whether to move closer or run as fast as I could.
‘Please,’ I heard a woman yell at the head of the crowd. ‘Please, listen to me, I didn’t do it.’
‘We’ve listened to as much as we need to hear. Hold still before I rip your throat out,’ replied another female voice, one that seemed too high-pitched and sweet to deliver such a grim sentence.
‘But I didn’t kill the wolf,’ the first woman screamed. ‘Why would I?’
I pushed through the crowd, hands sinking into the plush fur of the wolves even though they couldn’t feel my touch. As soon as I reached the front, I knew the answer to the condemned woman’s question. Hands bound behind her back, red hair, green eyes that stared straight into mine.
‘I didn’t do it,’ my ancestor called to me, screaming until her voice was hoarse. ‘There was someone else there, he was trying to kill me, the wolf saved my life.’
‘And that’s how we know you’re lying,’ the female Were said, slapping the witch with an open palm. ‘Why would a wolf help you?’
‘Because he was trying to kill us both!’
‘If that were true, he would be standing here today, not you. There isn’t a human alive who could kill a Were, and no Were would surrender their life for a witch.’
‘My name is Cathy Bell,’ the witch went on, ignoring the Weres now, speaking only to me.
‘The year is 1814 and I swear it, I swear it on our line, there was a man and he attacked us both, last full moon. I didn’t see his face, he was wearing a hood, but he had a sword, a silver sword with a gold hilt, shaped so strangely and—’
The clearing rumbled with the howling of the wolves. They threw back their heads, some crouching down, others rearing up on their hind legs, all of them drowning out the witch’s words. I watched, helpless. It was all I could do. Witness her suffering, hear her, believe her.
‘You’re here,’ she said to me as the last remaining female Were slipped back into the crowd and welcomed her phase. ‘That means she’s safe.’
I nodded, knowing she couldn’t say more, wouldn’t put her daughter at risk.
These were not the reasonable peacekeeper Weres I’d imagined when Catherine first told me about them.
These creatures were vengeful and cruel.
Their bloodlust filled the air thicker than the smell of smoke from a nearby bonfire and if there had been any doubt in my mind about Wyn’s explanation of what would happen if the lone wolf found me and took me to his pack, it was gone now.
This was their idea of a trial: a helpless witch, bound at the ankles and wrists, no Weres left unphased to listen, only furious, ravenous wolves with no interest in the truth.
And she was telling the truth, I felt it in my bones.
She forced herself up to her feet, eyes open. Her magic was still close but she was a conduit, she had no violence in her. The blessing gave her the ability to speak to the dead and meet people in their dreams. She had only ever used it to help people but it couldn’t help her now.
‘I’m not afraid,’ she said as the growling wolves nipped at her arms and legs as if to test the statement, not knowing she wasn’t talking to them. ‘If you’re here, I’m not afraid.’
And so I stayed. Even when my magic tugged at my guts, the blessing doing its best to save me from what was about to come, I stayed, bearing witness to the brave, proud, defiant witch.
‘Emily?’
Horrified, I turned to see Wyn standing at the back of the clearing.
‘Em,’ he said as the pack surged forward. ‘Where are we?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I told him, holding out a hand for him to come and stand beside me.
He staggered forward, overcome by what was happening to him or around him or both.
‘Can’t we help her?’ he asked and with tears in my eyes, I shook my head.
‘We can’t do anything but we need to watch.’
Wyn’s hand found mine and he stood so close there wasn’t a sliver of moonlight between our bodies.
‘Find him,’ Cathy Bell said to me as the first wolf sank its teeth into her thighs and Wyn disappeared. ‘Find him before he finds you.’
They were the last words she spoke before the wolves tore her to pieces. And all I could do was watch.