CHAPTER NINE
I gave him a gentle hug of approval. “Good job, buddy.”
Rolling my right hand over, I called forth a bit of the water from the garden’s pond.
It floated over to where we sat, and the small swirling globe of liquid paused, hovering above Xander’s witch-fire.
With a flick of my wrist, the sphere collapsed in on itself upward and rained down.
A loud hiss sounded and the flames were out, making steam shimmer on the air.
“Hooray!” Xander clapped his hands. “Wanna see me do air, too?”
“Show me,” I said.
The boy slid down from my lap. He stood in front of me, closed his eyes and screwed up his face in concentration. Then he raised his hands, palms up, and a wind came whistling across his mother’s gardens, sending the trio of fern-filled hanging baskets swaying from the eaves of the porch.
“Nice!” I said, and my compliment had the little boy’s eyes popping open. He grinned at me.
“His first magicks all involved the elements,” Ruby explained.
“I can do more!” Xander insisted.
“Okay,” I said, rising to stand next to Xander, “show me earth.”
With a giggle he spun around, gestured to the garden, and several decorative stones from around the pond began to hover about a foot off the ground.
I could tell it was difficult for him to maintain that particular magick, and so I placed my hand on his shoulder and said, “Let them go, Xander.”
He nodded but began to tremble.
“Don’t hold your breath,” I suggested. “Blow out your air—like the candles on a birthday cake—and let the element of earth go.”
Xander did as I told him and the rocks dropped back to the ground—albeit not in their original location. “It’s hard,” he complained.
“I know it is,” I said sympathetically. “Maybe practice with the elements that come easiest to you.”
“I like fire and air best,” Xander said very seriously.
I nodded. “Can you work with water?”
“If he’s touching it,” Ruby explained.
“You wanna see?” he asked me.
“You bet I do,” I said.
“Watch me, Lorna!” Xander said. Jumping down from the porch, he raced to the edge of the pond. “Come on!” he called for me to follow him and so I joined him there.
Once I arrived, he knelt down, plunged his fingers into the liquid and water droplets began to rise up, defying gravity and hovering in the air above the pond.
“Stop holding your breath, buddy,” I reminded him, and when he didn’t exhale, I gently tickled him on his side.
Xander squeaked and exhaled on a laugh, and the water rained right back into the pond with a splash.
“You tricked me!” Xander laughed.
“You were holding your breath, again,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows at the boy. “Had to do something to make you stop.”
“You’re funny!” he said.
“I never realized he’d been holding his breath,” Ruby said, after I returned to the porch.
“I used to do the same when I was small,” I confided in her. “My grandmother used to playfully swat me across the butt with her willow broom to remind me to stop.”
Ruby threw back her head and laughed. “I may have to try that.”
Charles and Damien joined us on the porch as Xander raced around the gardens. We stayed for dinner and I enjoyed myself, catching up with Ruby. By the time Charles and I headed for the small hotel in town, it was around eight o’clock in the evening.
Charles did indeed tell me what he and Damien had spoken about on the drive to our hotel.
Seems the Ozark Council of Supernaturals were aware of the stolen grimoire and the missing Westons and all of the issues involved.
No one had seen either Sawyer or Shelby, and several council members were actively looking.
“The trouble is,” Charles said as we pulled into the parking lot of our hotel, “if no one is finding them, then the Fae might already have them.”
It had been a long day, and all I wanted to do was get to my room, take a shower, climb into bed and face plant.
Charles and I agreed that we could and would figure out a course of action first thing in the morning—preferably after breakfast. Our master plan hit a snag however, because when we went to check in much later than expected, we were informed that the hotel had accidentally given one of our rooms away, leaving us with no choice other than to share.
“It’s not a problem,” I told Charles, and we accepted our key and made our way down the line of hotel rooms and past a couple of vending machines to the final room on the end.
We shuffled along, me with a backpack and an oversized tote, and Charles with a small roller suitcase and the bag of snacks we’d picked up earlier.
“At least there are two beds,” he groused as we walked along.
“I promise you, Montgomery,” I said dryly, “I can manage to restrain myself. I won’t pounce on you in the night.”
He sent me a withering look over his shoulder. “It’s such a comfort to me knowing that my virtue will remain intact.”
That quip had me sniggering.
“Do you snore?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Not unless I’m sick. Do you?”
“I’ve had no complaints to date.”
“Good to know,” I said. “And I call dibs on first shower.”
He simply nodded in agreement and unlocked the door. The room was small, yet it was scrupulously clean. I tossed my backpack on the closest bed and carried my tote straight into the bathroom.
A short time later I emerged with my hair wrapped in a towel, wearing my sleeveless violet night shirt that hit me mid-thigh. “Your turn,” I said cheerfully as I carted my tote back to the bed I had claimed.
While Charles took his shower, I reorganized my bag, pulled out some clothes for tomorrow, and helped myself to one of the bottled waters I’d purchased earlier in the day.
By the time he had finished in the bathroom, I had combed out my damp hair, rolled it up and into a sock bun, and was propped up in my bed, checking the local weather on my cell phone.
I glanced over and almost dropped my phone.
Charles was wearing a pair of thin sweatpants…
and nothing else. Hastily I averted my eyes.
There was a whole lot of lean muscle on display at the moment, and after running my mouth about how I wasn’t nervous to share a room with him, I suddenly found that in fact, I was.
“There’s a diner in town,” he said. “They open at seven. We could go there for breakfast in the morning.”
Carefully, I plugged in my phone to recharge and placed my glasses in their case—as if it were the most important task in the world. “The Baneberry Diner. I’ve had lunch there before,” I said, silently congratulating myself on keeping my tone casual and friendly. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll set the alarm on my phone,” he said, climbing into his own bed.
I switched off the light that was between us. “Night, Charles,” I said, rearranging my pillows in the dark.
“Goodnight, Lorna.”
Despite being tired, I struggled to get comfortable, which was proving difficult in a hotel bed. With a sigh I rolled over onto my side, hoping to get myself situated.
“You were great with Xander, today,” Charles said.
“He’s a cutie,” I said.
“You are a natural teacher, and it’s clear to see that you are wonderful with children.”
“Er...thanks.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have children of your own.”
“Never found the right person to start a family with,” I told him around a yawn.
“Get some sleep, Lorna,” was the last thing I heard before I zonked out.
As a roommate, Charles Montgomery was surprisingly easy to get along with. The next morning, he ducked into the bathroom to change and brush his teeth and while he was in there, I used the main area of the room to slip on my own clothes.
By the time he came out, I was dressed and had my toothbrush and makeup case in hand. After brushing my teeth, I discovered that I would have to lean pretty far over the sink to try and do my face, and so I decided to just use the full-length mirror in the main room to finish getting ready.
I strolled out with my glasses on top of my head, walked over to the mirror, and set my bag of cosmetics down on a nearby dresser.
Selecting my under-eye concealer and foundation, I moved in as close as I could get to the mirror and started to dot it on.
Reaching back into the bag for my foundation brush, I stepped close to the mirror again, and began to blend it all in.
“What are you doing?” Charles asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Putting on a face,” I said, keeping my eyes on the mirror.
“You don’t need makeup,” he said.
“Ha!” I laughed. “Spoken like a man whose only ever had a quick peep at my face without any.”
“There’s no need—” he began.
“I enjoy wearing cosmetics,” I informed him. “Sugar, trust me. I’m doing this for me. Not for you.”
He got up to stand beside me. “Can I ask why you’re standing so close to the mirror?”
I slanted my eyes over to his. “Because I can’t get a good look at my face in the bathroom mirror. It’s too far away.” I started to step over to reach for the bag again, and to my surprise he picked it up.
“Allow me.” He held it out for me.
“Thanks,” I said and selected my blush and a brush.
He stood, watching silently as I added some contour next.
“Can you hand me the blending brush?” I asked him. “It’s big and silver.”
“Sure.” He plucked it out of the bag and passed it over. “Ah,” he said a moment later in understanding, as I blended in the contour and the blush.
It probably should have been weird, having him standing there passing me my makeup and observing, but he was so easy-going about the whole thing that it sort of tickled me.
Moving onto my eyes, I brushed on some soft taupe eye shadow and a darker stone color for the crease. After blending it, I snapped the lid closed on the palette and leaned in even closer to the mirror to add some charcoal eyeliner. Quickly I smudged it a bit, blending it with the shadow.
“Good,” I said to my reflection and then before I could ask, Charles was holding out my mascara for me.
“I assumed this was next,” he said with a smile.
“It’s good practice for you, when Chloe decides to start wearing makeup in a few years,” I told him.
He shuddered. “That’s a long way away.”