Chapter 12 #2
“The shutter,” Caleb says. “I secured it, but the latch was practically rusted through. You know how the sea air is.”
“Oh, I know,” I say. It comes out stilted, awkward, which is not the way I want it to sound. I want it to pretend like this was fine.
It’s not fine, I realize. That’s not fine, and I’m not fine. And I’m stuck here with Caleb until the roads are cleared. And there’s so much unsaid between us.
I close my eyes, cupping the warm hot cocoa in my hands, Nonna’s words coming back to me in a flash.
“Sometimes the storm is in here,” she had said, tapping her chest.
I turn around, gripping my cup like it’s a shield between us. And I look at Caleb, really look at him for the first time since he came back into town. He’s still my Caleb.
He looks different. Of course he does. I do too. Silver in his beard. Silver in his hair. Those glasses that somehow make him look even more adorable than ever. Bigger, broader. He’s a man now.
I bite my lip and I try to make sense of the advice Nonna gave me and the emotions inside of me that are just as tumultuous as the storm raging outside.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice. And it quavers. I clear my throat again.
“You should sit,” Caleb says, clearly sensing how distraught I am in this moment, how suddenly I’ve switched from pretending I’m fine to feeling utterly broken and confused.
“I don’t want to sit,” I tell him. “I don’t want to make myself at home.”
Hurt flashes across his face, and he doesn’t try to disguise it.
“You said you only came back to automate the lighthouse, to make Watchmere Light different, and then you’ll be gone again.” It almost sounds like an accusation, and maybe it is. But I don’t want him to think I’m attacking him. Not angry at him, not really.
I shake my head, try to rethink what I’m going to say, but it doesn’t seem to matter how hard I think about what I’m going to say. The words I’ve tried to bottle up for decades now are spilling out regardless.
“I missed you.”
“Ivy,” he says again. The light glints off his glasses, and I look away.
This time my name is a plea, and I close my eyes like that can protect me against it.
“You broke up with me,” he says. “What are you trying to say?”
The urge to cry hits me out of nowhere, but I choke it back because there’s already enough water on the floor. On me. On Gunner. Splashing around outside.
“What if I didn’t want you to leave again?” My voice is so small it’s a wonder he can hear me at all over the noise of the storm.
Gunner’s gone still. His face resting on his paws, staring up at me with his huge chocolate eyes.
I look back at Caleb. He seems as shocked as I feel by my sudden announcement.
“I—” He starts shaking his head and staring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, shaking my head, coming back to my senses, trying to regain some of my dignity. It’s going to be a long night if I can’t regain some of my dignity. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Please don’t. Just forget it.”
Caleb crosses the room, stands directly in front of me, places both of his hands gently on my elbows.
“I didn’t just come back for the lighthouse,” he says. “Or to deal with my uncle’s things.”
Lightning lights up the entire living room. Thunder follows shortly, like the whole world is rocked by that statement.
I certainly am.
“There’s never been anyone but you, Ivy,” he says. “Never. I thought that you didn’t want to be with me.”
“It wasn’t that.” My voice cracks, then softer: “I don’t want to be hurt again. Or hurt you again, Caleb.” It’s almost too much to process how fast this is happening.
I hold on to the whale mug like it’s a life raft. Well, chocolate’s always been my life raft.
A little giggle comes out, awkward and soggy, like I’m close to tears. Caleb’s gaze darts from eye to eye as he tries to take in what I’m telling him, his expression grim.
I don’t know what I’m telling him either. Maybe I’ve lost my mind.
“I’m sorry, I apologize. Just forget that. Forget I said anything at all.”
He steps closer, his fingertips pressing harder on them at the top of my arms.
“Ivy. I couldn’t forget what you just told me, even if a thousand years had passed and this lighthouse was nothing but a crumbling ruin. I came back because you’re here." His eyes darken, gaze darting between mine. God, he smells so good.
I want to just breathe him in, pull him close as I can and revel in it.
"Because all my life you’ve been an unanswered question that I wake up wondering what the answer is.” His throat bobs, thumbs stroking a firm line across my arm. "You’re the last thing I think about before I go to sleep at night and always have been.”
I can’t breathe, can’t look away.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my entire life of what’s happening between us in this moment. Thunder rolls again, wind whipping up against the lighthouse, but none of it seems as important as the stormy eyes that are staring into mine. Quiet, calm, and somehow still full of emotion.
And still, I can’t find the words that I need to say.
How am I supposed to explain that the reason I left things the way they are is because he has no idea who I really am?
He has no idea that magic guides nearly every facet of my life, that Gunner can speak, that the sugar and chocolate treats I make aren’t just ingredients you can find at any grocery store.
How am I supposed to tell him?
So I don’t.
I stand there and I stare at him, and finally he sighs, his hands loosening on my arms.
“I can’t do this again, Ivy.” His mouth forms a thin line, lips pressed together. “I need to either close this chapter of my life, or I need to know why I should try again, because I can’t stop thinking about you. And it’s at the point where I’m afraid that it’s not healthy anymore.”
Suddenly I don’t care about the curse that supposedly hangs over us. I don’t care about the fact that telling him my biggest secret might be the thing that finally makes me lose him. Because at least then I’ll know.
“Caleb,” I start.
He looks at me. My hands are shaking slightly, so I press them against my chest to stop it.
“I am afraid to tell you this.” The words come out slowly, so quiet that I can hardly hear them myself.
I swallow hard.
“Maybe we should sit,” I say.
“It’s that serious?” Caleb asks, and he goes from looking concerned and hopeful and determined to heartbroken and terrified. And I know that I have absolutely put my foot in it now.
“Is it cancer?” he asks.
“No, no, nothing like that,” I say, setting the hot chocolate down on the table and sinking into a seat. I cradle my face in my hands, trying to summon the courage, as if courage is something easily summoned, like a spell. Well, if there is a spell for it, I certainly don’t have the ingredients.
“You’re not going to believe what I tell you.”
“Try,” Caleb says. “You used to trust me. You used to tell me everything.”
That hurts, and I stare at him for a long moment between my fingers.
“I never told you everything.”
“Tell me,” Caleb says. “I can take it, whatever it is.”
“I’m a witch.” The words blurt out fast, as if they come from a fire hose to put out a burning building.
Unfortunately, it’s as if I’ve poured gasoline on the entire conversation.
“Ivy, be serious,” Caleb says, more exasperated than I’ve ever seen him. “It’s not funny. I… I don’t want to do this again. I want our ending to be different this time. Whatever it is, just tell me, I can handle it. Even if it’s just to tell me it’s over and it never will be.”
His voice cracks on the last word, and for a second I consider lying to him, telling him that something is wrong with me, with the house, with my family. The timing is wrong. The shop’s too much work, give an excuse.
But I can’t. I can’t do that to Caleb. He’s a real person, and he never stopped being a real person even when he moved away and moved out of my life.
And now he’s a real person and a real place that meant something real to me, and still does and might always in the future. And I want that future with him.
So I take my hands off my face and I look him in the eye. And I make sure that my expression is as no-nonsense as it’s ever been.
“Not making a joke, Caleb. I’m a witch. I use magic. And it’s a secret that I am trusting you with. It’s my whole life and it’s not a joke. And I know it sounds crazy and that’s why I’ve never told you, because I never wanted you to look at me like you are right now.”
Because he is. He is looking at me with a slight smile, hint of frustration, and eyebrows shot through with silver that are arched nearly all the way to his hairline.
“Do you mean like a Wiccan and you like crystals and tarot cards? I can work with that,” he says. His eyes glint with amusement now.
And for a second I think, okay, maybe him thinking that is enough. But in my heart I know it would still feel like I was lying to him.
I take a deep breath and I blow it out.
“No, not like that. Crystals are useful sometimes. But I mean real magic, Caleb.”
He gives me a quizzical look and I can practically see the gears turning in his head as he sorts through this new information in the same cold, calculating engineering man way he always used to.
And the way that makes him an excellent coastal conservation officer, in a way that I loved when we were growing up and he could always find the solution to a problem no matter how impossible it seemed.
“Okay, so you think you can do magic?” he says, expression no-nonsense, tone slightly patronizing. Which honestly is better than I expected it to go, but he clearly still doesn’t believe me.
“Caleb, I know what you’re thinking and I appreciate you trying to deal with this.”
I pause because I’m floundering for words. It all sounds absurd, but I need him to understand that it’s real.
I look at Gunner.
Gunner puts his paws over his eyes where he sits on the floor.
“Gunner, you know I didn’t want to do this and I didn’t plan for this.”
Gunner lets out a long whine and Caleb looks between me and the dog suspiciously.
“Gunner, speak.”
Gunner barks and Caleb laughs.
“If that’s how you prove that you’re magical to me, then frankly that’s all I need.”
I hold up a hand.
“Caleb, stop talking. Gunner, it’s time, buddy. I know. I know how you feel about this, trust me. But you miss Caleb. I know you miss Caleb, and I miss Caleb. And he needs to know. He needs to know.”
Gunner stands up, comes over slowly, and puts his chin on Caleb, who still looks completely mystified but indulgent, as though I’m a small child who’s trying to show him a card trick and simply cannot pull the right ace of spades.
“Gunner,” I say softly. “You know my magic isn’t showy. It’s not like Posey’s. It’s not like Rose’s. It’s something that happens quietly.”
I look at Caleb, very serious, even though the absurdity of the situation is making me want to laugh out loud. My heart’s beating a mile per minute and my palms are sweating in spite of the fact that I’ve long since left my hot cocoa mug sitting by itself, steaming on the table.
I rub my palms against my dress and look back at Gunner.
“Gunner, you’re gonna have to show him.”
Caleb’s petting his soft head slowly the way he always has, because Gunner has just about the most velvet heist ears in the entire world.
And Gunner looks up at him with his chocolate brown eyes and says, “Yeah, she’s right, Caleb.
She’s magical. I can talk. It’s a secret.
You said I looked good for my age. Well, I’m always going to look good for my age.
So now you’re going to have to figure out how to lie to the whole town so that they don’t know that I’m Ivy’s familiar and not some regular dog. ”
I put my hand over my mouth because the little monologue is just so typically Gunner, so matter of fact, that I can’t think of a better way to have told Caleb than to have Gunner lay it out for him like it’s some kind of a math problem.
Caleb looks between us, his mouth open. I don’t say anything. I wait.
I’ve never told anybody that I’m magical. My sisters and I, there was no reason to. We had each other. We had my grandmother. And the only other people that we needed to explain it to left us.
So I wait.
I wait for the moment that he flips out.
And I stare at him, then I look at Gunner.
And I don’t wish the words back into my mouth.
I don’t regret it. In fact I feel relieved, relaxed.
I don’t remember the last time I felt so certain that I’d done the right thing, even if it might have the most extreme, terrible consequence, which would be Caleb telling me that I was crazy and making me leave in the middle of this storm.
“How did you do that?” he asks me, his eyes wide. “Is it some kind of ventriloquist act?”
I shake my head.
“Caleb,” Gunner says, his tone chiding, “you’re smarter than that. Ivy tells you she’s a witch. She tells me to speak to you, and I speak to you. I tell you I’m her familiar. Familiars are like magical batteries for witches. We help them. I’ve been in her life as soon as she came of age.”
“But I’ve never heard you talk,” Caleb says.
“Well, yeah,” Gunner says, giving him that poochy smile where his tongue rolls out. “I couldn’t exactly speak to you if you didn’t know that Ivy was magical.”
“Okay. Okay.” Caleb nods his head. “I…” He pauses. “This is a lot to process. But mostly I can’t believe that you kept this a secret from me for so long.”
Out of all the things Caleb could have said, that’s probably the last thing I expected.
I burst into tears.