Julian
CAMERON SAID WE’D FIND another way, but after we left Chastain Castle, he and Cassie decided not to get involved with the Chastain family’s drama.
This, of course, means I have to figure out how to find another way all on my own.
Since we got back two nights ago, I’ve been piddling around the house Abraham lent us, trying not to act suspicious. My dad has no idea I snuck out that night, and he’s been hovering and overly concerned whenever he’s not on his laptop job hunting.
I can’t function like this; I can’t continue with my life ignoring what is happening at Chastain Castle. I need to do something. Otherwise, I might just fall apart.
Sure, I have concluded that I do not deserve the love that Atlas has for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it. That doesn’t mean I won’t do everything in my power to earn it.
But I can’t earn his affection by sitting around on my ass or working at McDonald’s.
I need to save him.
In the bathroom mirror, I remove the gauze from my face. The stitches will fall out on their own, but I no longer need to hide behind this itchy cloth, which is nice. I can finally use all of my field of vision again.
I’m grateful it didn’t take my eyeball.
The gash is deep, and it runs from the upper right corner of my forehead, through my eyebrow, and over my eye, ending right before it reaches my nose.
If the new mark—one that will inevitably be a scar—didn’t signify the abuse I know Atlas is still enduring, I would find it kind of amusing that I now look like a villain from a cartoon.
The bruise on my cheek is now a yellowish black instead of purple, which I guess means it’s healing.
I stare at my own reflection: the determination in my eyes and the set of my jaw. An idea is forming in my head, one that can potentially help solve this cure issue, but could also be a dead end.
I just have to slip past my father.
Getting past Jeremy Walsh proves easier than I expected. He’s on his laptop, doing a Zoom interview for a work-from-home position he’s barely qualified for.
I snatch his truck keys from the kitchen counter and make a break for it. I’ll have questions to answer later, but for now, at least I’ll get the job done.
The drive to Madam Lu’s only takes fifteen minutes.
Her hours for Wednesday are longer than her hours for Saturday, so my hope that she can fit me in again is high.
As I pull up and see only one car parked in the driveway, they heighten further.
The inside of what I assume is her home and her business smells just as good as it did last time; incense are burning everywhere, and I’m conscious of the ticking of a clock this go around.
Madam Lu is not at her desk, so I awkwardly stand around for a moment, taking in the various potted plants, the small waiting area, and the diagram on the wall showing the different areas of the body in which a person’s energy centers are located.
When a door in the hallway opens and closes, I startle, turning to face Madam Lu, who is entering as she speaks to someone on the phone.
“Yes, I can get you booked for Saturday at noon. Let me…” She trails off, her eyes widening as she notices me standing by her desk.
I wave, offering her a small smile.
“Oh, yes, sorry. Let me get you booked.” Madam Lu holds up a finger, as if to tell me hold on, and begins to type away at her laptop as she speaks to the customer she’s getting information from.
I return to my observing, taking a look at the low table in the waiting area where several books sit. They all have something to do with aura or crystals, or some other hippie thing. The colors are nice.
“Julian,” Madam Lu suddenly calls, and I stand upright, turning to face her.
“Oh, are you done? Sorry.” I walk back toward her desk sheepishly.
“Your face,” she blurts out, her eyes still wide as saucers. “What did that to you?”
I notice how she doesn’t say who but what, as if she already knows. Her warning to leave dark magic alone rings in my ear, and though I wasn’t the one to fuck with it, I still feel as if I’m about to be chastised.
Lowering my gaze, I scratch the back of my neck.
“Uh… I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.” I do believe she would, actually. It’s kind of a cop out answer.
“Try me,” Madam Lu deadpans.
“A demon.”
“An incubus?” she counters.
My mouth falls open, eyes widening, which pulls at my stitches and makes me wince. “Yes, how did you know?”
“Have you forgotten that I touched that cursed book? I saw what bargain that man made, and what he made it with. The demon of desire.”
I stare at her, at her disapproving glare and her sad eyes. As if she pities me. As if she’s scared for me.
“I need your help,” I rush out, letting my desperation bleed into my words.
Madam Lu shakes her head. “I am not an exorcist.”
“No, I know. I just… I need you to take a look at this prophecy. I need help deciphering it.” I take a deep breath, resting my hands on the high desk.
“Look, Madam Lu, someone I care about very much is suffering. I need to help him. I have been trying to sort through this prophecy for weeks now, and nothing is making sense. Please.”
Madam Lu watches me wearily, her eyes continuously darting back to the gash on my face. Then, after a moment, she sighs.
“Fine. Follow me.” Once again, the older woman guides me to that back room, sitting at her low table.
“Here,” I say, offering the piece of paper where I had written down the prophecy before I left the house.
“The way At—he understood it was to pray and be good, and the cure would come to him through the waves of the Pacific. I think he’s off the mark, because if he were right, it would have happened by now. ”
Madam Lu nods, reading over the lines a few times.
“I don’t have much experience with these things,” she says honestly, peering up at me through thick lashes.
“That’s alright.”
“But,” she adds. “I’m not sensing prayer or innocence through these verses.”
“I knew it,” I mutter, my mind returning to Atlas on his knees in the chapel, crying.
“I can’t see who wrote this, and I can’t see exactly what it means, just to be candid with you. But what I can say is that what I can feel from these verses is love.”
My heart stutters in my chest, making my eyes sting.
“Love?” I parrot.
“Yes. Nothing is truer or purer than genuine love. And if there are stipulations that must be met, that means actions need to be taken for this balance to be restored. I cannot tell you what actions; I cannot see that. But I can tell you this, Julian: the man who made the bargain that led to this curse did so out of desperation, out of love. Don’t you think that, in the end, love would also be the cure?
” As Madam Lu’s monologue comes to an end, I am left speechless.
On the one hand, I feel as if the picture has come into focus. And on the other hand, I feel even more confused than I was when I walked in.
“So, what? Someone needs to love him? He already has plenty of people who do.” I take the paper as Madam Lu passes it my way.
She shrugs. “I can only tell you what I believe, what I feel. That is all I know. I’m sorry, Julian. I wish I could be of more help.”
“It’s alright,” I say, sighing. “I really appreciate you taking a look. Here.” I hold out a hundred-dollar bill, one I pulled from an ATM on my way here.
“No.” She holds up a hand. “I refuse to take that from you. But promise me something instead.”
“Okay,” I reply hesitantly, laying the bill on the table. I don’t plan on taking it with me either way.
“Do not try to fight that demon. If it comes down to it, when face-to-face, it will win.”
“Yeah,” I huff, giving her a small, sarcastic laugh. “I already learned that the hard way.”
Madam Lu winces, her eyes tracing the gash on my face once more.
With a few more departing words of wisdom, such as to carry Black Tourmaline in my pocket, I leave the house and get back in my dad’s truck.
I feel defeated. Sure, I got new information, whatever that information even means. But now I’m even more confused, and I feel mentally exhausted.
I need a coffee, and I need to turn my brain off for a moment.
With that in mind, I pull out my phone and shoot a text to Cassie, asking if she and Cameron want to meet at the coffee shop we went to two days ago.
I wait a good five minutes, but she doesn’t respond.
Maybe the interaction at Chastain Castle really turned them off. I sensed some kind of tension between them and Atticus while I was there—maybe Cameron took Cassie from him? He did seem upset when I mentioned her before on Christmas.
I have no capacity to be stressed about their issues and mine, though, so I bottle that up for a later time.
My mind is still reeling, and I need some kind of company, so as I drive around aimlessly with Madam Lu’s words still stuck on repeat, I give Susie a call.
“Julieee,” she sings, answering on the third ring. “How are you, sweet cheeks?”
I almost outwardly sigh at the comfort her voice brings me.
“Not great, Susie. Not great,” I tell her honestly.
“What? Why?!”
“I got let go.”
“Huh?! But you loved it there! What happened?” I can hear her moving around on the other end of the line, then just her steady breathing, as if she’s getting comfortable for this gossip session.
“Just… conflicts of interest, I guess. You know how Atlas has that condition? Well, I want to help him, and they feel it’s safer if I leave.”
I can’t tell Susie everything; not only would it be a betrayal to Atlas, but she would probably think I’m crazy.
“That blows, Julian,” she says sadly. “I’m so sorry. What are you going to do now? Do you need somewhere to go? You know you can always come and stay with Lan and me.”
“We have somewhere to stay for now, but thanks,” I reply softly. “I just wanted to hear your voice. I was feeling lonely.”
“Aww, you poor thing. Here, let me talk your ear off then. You remember that girl, Kimberly, that I hooked up with? Well, she ghosted me! Can you believe…” Susie continues to rant about her being betrayed by Kimberly, and I smile, enjoying the sound of her voice and the distraction it’s providing me.