Chapter 17
Dina stood in her bedroom in the cottage, looking out at the moonlit forest. So much was happening so fast. They had kissed, and it had been better than she’d imagined. Goddess knows that she’d been imaginingit.
She had dressed in a daze, throwing on a silky purple dress that corseted her, making her tits look about as voluptuous as they could be. The whole time, she thought about Scott. It might have been a blessing in disguise that they’d been interrupted in the lovers’ nook, because otherwise she wouldn’t have stopped. Being around him unleashed something inside of her; she found herself craving things she hadn’t wanted before.
But there was still a part of her she was holding back: her magic. Maybe it was the wedding, seeing most of her friends and family coupled up and in love, but Dina felt a growing urge to reveal her witchcraft to Scott. She felt more at home around him than she’d ever felt with anyone else. Even Rory.
How would he react if she showed him her magic? Would he become angry and jealous as Rory had? She hadn’t felt the need to share her magic with other romantic partners before sleeping with them, but with Scott it felt like a bridge she had to cross. She felt a need for him to understand her entirely—body and mind and soul. To see this facet of her and acceptit.
A reminder of the hex scratched at the back of Dina’s mind, but she chose not to pay attention to it. When she was around Scott, the hex and her problems all felt far away. Like they belonged to another Dina—not her, not right now.
There was a knock at her bedroom door.
“Dina, are you ready?” Scott asked.
They had one final dinner before the wedding tomorrow, and Dina didn’t want to waste another minute alone in a room when she could be with Scott. If all she could have was this one perfect weekend with him, she would take it. Even if the feelings stirring inside her told her she wanted more.
Heart in her throat, Dina opened the door to Scott.
He filled the doorway, dressed sharply in a maroon two-piece suit that brought out the darkness of his beard. She saw the way he took her in, his eyes darkening as they trailed down her body, leaving scorch marks in their wake.
“Fuck, Dina. You’re gorgeous,” he growled. “Would you like me to escort you there?”
Her mouth felt dry. “Escort me? That’s very gentlemanly of you.”
“I have been known to occasionally act like a gentleman.”
“Is that so?” Dina took Scott’s proffered arm and they headed out of the cottage, locking the door with the giant wrought-iron key.
The forest stilled around them, waiting. Night had settled in, bringing slivers of moonlight with it that pierced through the canopy of great oaks and spruces. The path was barely visible in the blue-black night. Dina shuddered in a breath, suddenly nervous now that the moment had arrived. The moonlight had made the decision for her. She would show Scott her magic, here and now.
“There’s something I think I want to show you,” she said abruptly, her words almost sounding like a question.
“What is it?”
“You won’t freak out?”
Scott tilted his head and brushed his lips against hers.
“You can tell me anything. It might surprise me, but I won’t run away,” he promised.
“I must be going crazy, doing this so soon,” she muttered. “Wait here.”
She dashed back to the cottage. She hadn’t performed this spell before, but the way to do it had already formed in her mind, easy as breathing. Dina re-emerged with an empty teacup, mischief alive in her expression.
“You ready?”
He swallowed, nodding.
Dina raised her arms, palms facing upward, the teacup held high. The forest grew dark around them. Like any sliver of moonlight was vanishing, leaving them in absolute black.
Only it wasn’t for long, as a pool of silvery substance—not liquid but not air either—began to swarm around her, like it was raining moonlight. She turned her face to the sky and was bathed in a milky glow. Sometimes she forgot how much joy raw magic brought her.
The rivers of moonlight twisted in rivulets across her body, until they all collected into the teacup in a shimmering liquid. For a moment, the air around them was scented like fresh coffee and spices.
Dina met Scott’s eyes, testing him. He couldn’t speak, but he wasn’t running away.
With an ecstatic smile, Dina flicked the teacup, flinging moonlight outward, splashing it against the trunks of trees, coating ferns and shrubs near the path like silver luminescent paint. As it landed, it began to fade, until—within seconds—full night had returned. Dina set the teacup down on the front step of the cottage.
As if nothing peculiar had happened, Dina looped her arm back through Scott’s. As if she hadn’t just upended his world. Her arm was warm in his, and he held her as close to him as politeness would permit.
“Was that moonlight?” Scott said, his voice raw. “In a teacup?”
“It was,” she whispered back.
They walked on in silence toward the candlelight emanating from Honeywell House.
—
Scott splashed his face with cool water. He was in a small bathroom just outside the North Parlor, where the braver among the wedding party had decided to forgo a night of beauty sleep and were instead playing a highly competitive game of Scrabble.
What had he witnessed?
She had looked like a wild and beautiful creature, a goddess, something ethereal and undecipherable. Dina had filled his vision, the pale light dancing around her, as she’d broken his world, and everything he thought he knew, apart.
He was ninety percent sure that Dina was a witch. The other ten percent…well. He was flirting with the idea that she might be some kind of djinn, or succubus, but neither of those terms felt quite right. And “magician” made him think of rabbits in hats and coins collected from behind ears. No, if there was ever a word to describe Dina Whitlock, it was “witch.”
Scott didn’t think he’d forget this night for the rest of his life, and there was absolutely no way that had been an illusion or a trick of the light.
But if Dina was a witch, what did that make him? Was he under her spell? From the way his cock had gone rock-hard the moment she’d returned his kiss in the lovers’ nook, he was certainly under some primal influence.
After the maze it had taken all his willpower not to carry her straight to the cottage, throw her down onto the kitchen counter and make her come over and over again. He bet her face looked lovely when she came.
There was no doubt in his mind now that she wanted him back. He splashed his face again, trying to regain some semblance of composure. The cool water was helping. Alcohol had been free-flowing at dinner earlier, though Scott had stayed away from drinking too much. He wanted to remember every second of tonight and getting drunk reminded him of Alice.
He wasn’t proud of what he’d become in the weeks after he’d found out that she’d cheated on him. He’d wanted to forget all about it and drink himself into painless oblivion. Everywhere he looked, there she was. The sofa that they’d picked out together when she’d first moved in. The mugs she’d bought him as gifts in the cupboards.
He was haunted by the pictures of them on the wall. He’d looked so happy back then, so unaware. And she’d looked happy too. How could she have lied to him that entire time? In all those years, how did he never see the truth in her eyes?
Scott splashed more cold water onto his face, washing away the memories.
That part of his life was over now, he reminded himself. He had a new apartment, and he was more himself than he’d felt in a long time. He was making London his home again. He would be there for his mums, for his friends, and for Dina—if she’d have him.
Scott made his way back into the parlor, just as Dina screeched at the top of her lungs, “I win! Pay up, fuckers!” To which he heard simultaneously shouted replies from Rosemary of “?‘Qi’ is not a word” and “You don’t win money in Scrabble.”
Dina caught Scott’s eye as he made his way back to the group.
“Scott, can you please mediate for us? These halfwits are saying I made up ‘qi’!” Dina rolled her eyes dramatically. “It’s the vital force that is inherent in all things.”
“Sorry to break it to you all, but Dina is right. ‘Qi’ is a Scrabble word. Also spelled ‘K-I’ or ‘C-H-I.’ Let’s see…” Scott bent over the board and caught a whiff of Dina’s perfume—vanilla and cinnamon.
“Q is worth ten, but you have it on a triple letter so that’s thirty-one points total. She beat you all!”
Immy huffed loudly and looked like she was ready to upend the board.
“Oh, come on, Immy, you know you can never beat me at Scrabble, especially not tonight.” Dina sidled over to her friend and threw an arm around her.
“My job is literally words, Dina. I do the words!”
“I know you do, honey.”
They whiled away the rest of the evening with party games: charades, pin the veil on the bride, and for those willing to contort themselves in all manner of positions, Twister. Scott found it particularly hard to concentrate on that game when Dina reached her arm over him to touch a red circle. Her breasts, delectably pushed up in that sin of a dress, brushed against his chest, and shortly after he had to excuse himself from the game, lest the wedding party see his erection.
And then again, when they played a round of Pictionary, Dina became particularly frustrated with her team’s inability to guess what she’d scrawled on the board, and she pulled her hair free of its updo. Dark brown curls cascaded around her face as she locked eyes with Scott, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap that hair around his fist and have her paint his cock with her lipstick. She had unleashed something in him.
As it grew closer to midnight, Scott noticed that Dina, Immy, and Rosemary had begun exchanging furtive glances with complicated facial expressions—the secret language women had with their friends that he had no hope of understanding. There was something in the air tonight though, even he could feelit.
He looked over at Dina, currently playing darts in a corner of the parlor, her skin glowing a burnished gold by the firelight.
Was it her magic that he felt? His brain was still trying to define what he’d seen her do with the moonlight. Mostly, he felt relieved. He’d always wanted to believe in magic, to believe that the world was bigger than what he saw around him. He’d tried so hard to believe. In a way, he’d dedicated his work to it. But Scott didn’t have to try anymore. Dina was the manifestation of everything he’d so desperately wanted to believein.
Being alive meant being vulnerable, and she’d trusted him with the most vulnerable side of her. He wanted to be worthy of that trust. He wanted to earn it, and continue earning it, for as long as she’d have him.
“I recognize that look,” his mum said, coming to sit beside him on the window seat. Juniper jumped into the space between them, wriggling around on her little legs until she found the perfect spot to nap, her head nuzzling into Scott’s side.
“What look?”
“The way you’re looking at her,” Alex said, tipping her head in Dina’s direction. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a girlfriend?”
“I don’t.”
“I see.”
“It’s all very new.”
“Pssh,” his mum said, waving her hand dismissively. “New doesn’t matter. When you know you know. I told Helene I loved her on our second date.”
“Not everyone can be that lucky. What if…what if she doesn’t want what I want?”
“Did she say that?”
“In so many words.”
His mum reached out and squeezed his hand. “Well, maybe I’m biased, but seeing you two together, it doesn’t look like just a weekend thing. I worry about you getting hurt. I just…I don’t want to lose you again because a relationship went south and you need to escape.”
Scott glanced at his mum. She wore a sorrowful expression.
“If it doesn’t work out, I won’t leave again. I promise.” He tickled Juniper’s head and she wriggled further onto his lap, her belly splayed upward for more scratches.
“I should never have left in the first place,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what I was doing, I just had to get out.”
Alex smiled. “I get it. You don’t need to justify yourself to me. You know we both love you, whether you’re here or on the other side of the world.” She pulled him close and pressed a kiss to his temple.
“I love you too,” he said. They sat together for a moment more, until Juniper began dreaming, letting out small yips in her sleep.
“Better get this one to bed,” his mum said, scooping Juniper into her arms. “She gets cranky in the mornings, just like Helene.” She smiled, love written all over her face. “Goodnight,” she said, “and whatever you get up to tonight, I don’t want to hear about it.” Then she winked and left the room.
Scott sat for a little longer by the window, enjoying the crisp air and view of the full moon, until something moved in the corner of his eye. Outside, walking through the fields, was Dina. He watched her, paying particular attention to the sway of her hips as she walked, until she disappeared into the treeline. Where was she going this late on Halloween? Shortly after, he spotted Immy and Rosemary heading the same way.
“Ah, spotted them did you?” Eric said, walking over and handing a beer to Scott. They clinked the bottles together then moved back to the worn leather sofa by the fire.
“Where did they go?” Scott asked.
“Ah, um, it’s a secret bachelorette thing.” Eric was slurring his words a little.
“I see. A secret you can’t even tell your best man?” Scott laughed.
“Don’t pull that card. Look”—Eric took a small sip of his drink—“I am under oath not to tell anyone about the field.”
“What field?”
“Ah shit. The north field. Look, just…don’t go there, okay. It’s a private thing they do every year. Something, I dunno, magical.”
“Hmm. My lips are sealed.”
Eric brushed his hair back out of his face and grinned over at Scott.
“I get married tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“Isn’t that insane?” Eric’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Do you remember when we were at that bar in Iceland and we made that pact to only ever get married at the same time?”
“Yeah,” Scott laughed, “I remember.”
“Well, I think I might need to back out of that deal, unless you have something to tell me?”
“No weddings on the horizon for me.” Scott smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Eric leaned closer. “Is it going to be hard for you tomorrow?”
“Because of Alice? Maybe. But I’ll be too happy seeing you tie the knot to care.”
Eric nodded. He took another swig of his beer.
“She never deserved you, you know. I always thought that.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
“What about Dina then?”
Scott arched an eyebrow. “What about her?”
“I don’t know, just thought there might be something going on between you two.”
He wasn’t wrong, but whatever was going on between Scott and Dina right now felt too big to try to describe. His heart thrummed even thinking about her.
“I plead the fifth,” Scott said.
Eric chuckled. “I see how it is.”
They sat for a while in peaceful silence. The fire burned low and the room slowly emptied out as the remaining wedding party trickled off to bed.
“I’ve missed this,” Eric began. “Maybe it’s the full moon. But…I don’t know, man, I just…it’s not easy for me to…I missed you. I missed having a best friend.”
Maybe it was the moon, because he’d never had so many heart-to-hearts in such a short space of time. Or maybe that was just what weddings did—they brought out feelings that had lain dormant for too long.
“I don’t know how much it’s worth, but I am sorry that I just upped and left. I should have told you, should have trusted that you’d be there for me.”
“I know you are. And you’re here now, that’s all that matters.”
They drank in silence for a little longer, until Scott realized that Eric had fallen asleep, and he woke him and told him to go to bed.
Scott sat there for a while longer, until the fire had burned down to glowing embers.