Chapter Twenty-Four
I woke up in a bed, towels wrapped around my swimsuit, strong arms wrapped around the towels. I was in Wyn’s arms. Was it only moments ago I’d been dreaming of this, or was this the dream and the wolves had been real? I could hardly tell.
‘You’re OK,’ Wyn whispered into my hair when I shifted against him. ‘You’re safe, you’re OK.’
We sat up together, his arms never once breaking their hold on me. My hair was a nest of matted tangles, drying too quickly in knots full of swimming pool water and styled by the Stovell family’s finest pillows.
‘You were there,’ I whispered in the smallest possible voice. ‘You saw what they did.’
‘You went under the water,’ he replied in a daze. ‘When you didn’t come up, I dove in to pull you out, but the pool kept getting deeper and when I came up for air, I came up in the woods. It was a crynhoad but it wasn’t my pack. Where were we?’
‘Here. But not now.’
He exhaled heavily through his nose.
‘When I went back for you, I came back up and everything was normal.’
‘Normal.’ I smiled at the thought. ‘Good one.’
‘Whatever that was, a vision, a prophecy,’ he said, fire in his voice. ‘I won’t let it happen.’
‘It’s already happened. That wasn’t my trial, it was another Bell witch. From a long time ago.’
The news didn’t seem to make him any happier.
‘They wouldn’t listen to her. Why wouldn’t they listen?’ He stopped and bit his lip under a furrowed brow. ‘Did you stop them?’
‘No.’
What followed after Wyn vanished was so much worse than anything he could imagine.
Witches, it transpired, could live far too long without their arms, without their legs.
Even when they ripped her heart out of her chest, it kept on beating, and I could almost taste the metallic tang of blood on my tongue here in this room, in this bed, in Wyn’s arms.
‘The blessing only shows me things I need to know,’ I told him, carefully running my hands through my snarled-up hair. ‘There has to be something we can learn from what we saw. I know it was terrible but—’
‘I learned I’m never letting the pack anywhere near you,’ he replied, resolute. ‘I know I said we’d find a way to explain everything to them, but there is no way. The more distance between you and my family the better. No arguments, Em.’
I wasn’t about to give him one, at least not until I understood what my magic wanted me to learn.
‘Do you need anything?’ he asked, kissing the top of my head when I tested my limbs, rolling my head and stretching my legs. ‘Water, Advil? I’m not sure what’s the best cure for unexpected time travel.’
‘It’s this,’ I said, resting against his chest. ‘Best possible treatment. At least until the twins get back.’
He didn’t move but kept me in his embrace, shifting his weight on the bed. Despite the chuckle that found its way out of his chest, I could see the tight set of his jaw and the grim scowl that marred his beautiful face.
‘Maybe we don’t tell them,’ I suggested through a yawn, suddenly drained. ‘Jackson and Lydia, I mean. No need to freak them out.’
‘Whatever you want,’ Wyn replied. ‘I trust you.’
Relaxing into him as I closed my eyes, I clung to those last three words, almost as sweet as an I love you.
The next morning finally dawned after a difficult night.
Wyn wasn’t nearly as good at playing the everything-is-fine game as I’d hoped and even though Lydia marched us through the rest of the day without stopping to ask what had brought on his reflective mood, her brother didn’t miss a beat.
All afternoon and all evening, he’d kept his eyes on me and Wyn, hurt, maybe, suspicious, definitely.
When I padded downstairs, the sun was only just up but already chasing the moon out of the sky and I was glad of it. I didn’t want to see the moon after it stood so idly by, watching what happened to my ancestor, doing nothing to change her fate.
‘Didn’t have you down as a morning person.’
Jackson stood in the middle of the kitchen, sipping a glass of something green. There was a bullet blender on the counter, alongside leftover parts of assorted fruits and vegetables.
‘Juice?’ He nodded to the upturned blender cup. ‘It’s fresh.’
‘I’m thinking coffee,’ I replied, sloping over to the other side of the room and wishing I’d thrown something over, or under, my Braves jersey. Jackson only wore a pair of low-slung sweatpants and they clung to his chiselled hips like they were hanging on for dear life.
‘Didn’t get much sleep, huh?’
I shook my head, fighting with the lid of the coffee grinder. Of course the Stovells had a fancy barista-type machine, of course there was no instant coffee in this house.
‘In a good way or a bad way?’ he asked.
‘There’s a good way?’
‘At least one I can think of.’
It took me too long to catch his meaning and when the realization dawned on my embarrassed face, he laughed.
‘It’s a joke, Em,’ he said, strolling across to take over my poor attempt at coffee making, expertly filling the machine to pull a shot of espresso. ‘You really aren’t a morning person, huh?’
‘I’m really not,’ I agreed.
After the incident in the pool, Wyn had stuck to my side like glue, wearing the kind of expression that would make anyone think he’d received the worst possible news.
All afternoon, at dinner, around the firepit afterwards, while Lydia handed out chunks of chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers for s’mores, he had one hand on me at all times, a protective talisman, as though he could stop anything bad from happening to me by sheer force of will.
But I drew a line at sharing my bed. This wasn’t how I wanted to wake up with him for the first time.
‘Good thing you’re done with school,’ Jackson said as I moved over to the fridge, relieved Ashley wasn’t here to judge me for how sweet and milky I took my coffee for a change. ‘Class starts at eight fifteen.’
‘I would fail everything,’ I replied, placing a huge cup in the microwave.
He gave me a disappointed look, removed the mug and started up the steamer on the coffee maker. I made no move to stop him, I was not in the right frame of mind to be messing around with a steamer; third-degree burns were not the thing missing from this vacation.
‘Only two more years to go,’ he said loudly over the sound of the frothing milk, moving the cup up and down until it was thick and foamy, then he poured the shot of espresso into the milk, a pretty coffee-coloured heart sitting on the surface.
‘Impressive,’ I said when he presented it with a flourish and a bow.
‘It’s easy once you know how. Work in enough coffeeshops and you soon figure it out.’
‘How come you’ve had a bunch of different hobbies and jobs and Lydia’s only extracurricular is fighting people on Reddit?’
Jackson smiled into his juice glass while I added an obscene amount of sugar to my coffee.
‘I love my sister but she doesn’t pay attention to boring old things like finances.
Sports and things like the historical society go a long way with a lot of colleges, part-time jobs go a long way with living expenses.
I’m hoping to get a scholarship but, if I don’t, I want to be able to pay my way. ’
‘Oh,’ I said, wrapping my hands around my perfect cup of coffee. ‘Right.’
Lydia wasn’t the only one who didn’t pay attention to finances.
Before coming to Savannah, I didn’t think about money because I believed we didn’t have any.
Now I didn’t think about it because, in theory, we had more than anyone could ever spend in a lifetime.
Even if Ashley was having trouble prising it out of the bank.
‘Wyn’s going into senior year, right?’
My anxiety prickled at the sound of the name on Jackson’s lips.
‘Right.’
‘Guess he’ll be heading back home soon. For school.’
‘His classes don’t start until the end of August,’ I replied, simultaneously wishing he would get to the point and hoping he never would. ‘We have heaps of time.’
‘Couple of weeks.’
‘A lot can happen in a couple of weeks.’
Upstairs I heard the heavy thundering of feet crashing above our heads.
‘And so it begins,’ Jackson intoned in an ominous voice. ‘T-minus two minutes to hurricane Lydia.’
‘Couldn’t be quiet to save her life,’ I agreed, sipping my coffee, hating the discomfort between us. Why couldn’t things be the way they were before the DeSoto?
‘So, I guess I’m sorry if I acted like an ass yesterday,’ he said, a similar regret colouring his voice and his cheeks. ‘I wasn’t expecting Wyn to be here.’
‘Lydia should’ve cleared it with you,’ I replied. ‘But yeah, you’ve been known to be friendlier.’
‘Yeah, well. The thing is, I know I said I could wait—’
‘Please don’t,’ I interrupted before he could say something he couldn’t take back. ‘It doesn’t matter if Wyn is in Savannah or Asheville or the next room – nothing’s going to change. But I hate when things are weird between you and me.’
‘Me too,’ he replied. ‘But I don’t like it, Em.’
‘Yeah, he can tell,’ I said, impatient for Lydia to come crashing in the room. ‘We all can.’
‘I don’t like the situation,’ Jackson clarified. ‘It’s not him, it’s what he is. I don’t like having a Were around you. I don’t trust him.’
‘Do you trust me?’ I asked.
‘Completely.’
‘Then you can trust Wyn, because whatever is happening, he isn’t part of it.’
‘Only he is,’ he said. ‘Whether you like it or not, he is involved in this and not on our side. This isn’t about my feelings, Emily, this is about your safety.’
‘Is it?’ I pressed. ‘Really?’
‘Morning, y’all!’ Lydia flew into the room, a brightly coloured silk scarf wrapped around her hair, old-fashioned men’s pyjamas on her body. ‘Do I smell coffee? Because if I don’t, I should.’
‘I was just heading out for a run,’ Jackson said, setting his juice down on the counter, only for his sister to pick it right back up and take a long drink. ‘You should be able to work the Gaggia between the two of you.’