Chapter 17
The next morning, I stumbled into the living room feeling both refreshed and energized.
“I have your coffee right here.” Auris pointed at a cup. He was on the couch, his legs up on the table, his laptop on his knees.
I sat next to him. I’d found clean sweatpants in a drawer in the bedroom and was wearing my old hoodie. The days were getting colder quickly now.
“Thanks.” I took the coffee from him, his nearness bringing back memories of last night.
“My pleasure. Are you feeling all right?”
I threw him a grin. “Awesome, actually.”
“Meaning you liked it.”
“You fucking me? Yeah, I liked it.”
“Good. I did too. I’ll ask for your permission to do it again soon, I think.”
“Let me have my coffee first.”
We exchanged a few glances, and I finished half my mug in silence.
Inevitably, I ended up looking out at the patio. “Where are the priests?”
“They left town.”
I nodded. I didn’t need to know anything else. He’d told me everything already. I didn’t want to talk about them ever again.
“How did you know when to make my coffee?” I asked in an attempt to change the topic.
He shrugged, his silver eyes catching the light. “I pay attention. I can hear when you’re waking up. It excites me when I think about seeing you again, being the first person you see after waking up.”
Heat rose to my cheeks, and I could tell I was getting flushed. “I guess. Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome. Don’t let me fluster you too much, even if it makes you twice as tempting.” He kissed my cheek.
“W-what? Come on, that’s…”
He looked at me as if he enjoyed getting me all riled up or wanted to drag me right back to bed. For the moment, I didn’t want either, so I scooted closer to him and was relieved when he put his arm around me and closed his laptop without me having to ask him to.
We spent a quiet morning being lazy together, watched the ocean churn and the wind pull the sand along the dunes.
Around noon, I decided to take a shower. The hot water on my body felt wonderful, and I turned my face into the spray.
As I soaped up, I reminded myself that I had come out here to work, no matter that I had…run into my prophesied soulmate? That sounded idiotic even if it was starting to feel like the truth. I wouldn’t call him my soulmate. Not yet, at any rate.
But I wanted to work, and while it was a cold fall day, the sun was out, creating gloriously sharp shadows where its rays met the earth. I decided I would find a café and do some editing there.
Auris was back at the kitchen counter when I came down the hallway, my camera in hand, dressed to go out.
“I think I’ll go for a walk. There’s a café near here with a deck, like the bar. I don’t remember the name, but they had all these oil paintings of the ocean inside. I went there the day we met. Can you point me toward it?”
He stopped typing for a second, then continued.
“I gather you want some alone time. It’s a shame.
I was looking forward to getting your pants off you this afternoon.
You’re talking about the Sea and Salt Café.
It’s just down the road. Go right. It’s a five-minute walk; longer if you stop to take photos. ”
“Funny. Is everything here named like that?”
“It’s a touristy town, Ethan. Before you go, what’s your phone number?” He pulled out his own phone.
I recited it for him, and he dialed, making my phone ring.
“Have some food while you’re there, my sweet,” he said as I double-checked that I had everything I needed in my bag.
I finally closed the zipper and pulled on my jacket. “I thought you found it hard to keep track of human food habits.”
“I thought so too. But just because I’m old doesn’t mean I can’t improve. You make me improve.”
I shot him a grin. “Good to know.” On a whim, I walked back to him and kissed him on the cheek like he liked to do to me. “You can get my pants off me once I get back.”
His silver eyes sparkled. “Promise?”
“Promise.” I sealed it with a kiss.
I picked an indoor table by a window this time. The café was pretty empty and very cozy, with a fireplace and lots of seashells on shelves, and blue and white cushions on all the chairs.
I liked the view from there. I almost expected to see the server who had left me her number, but either this was her day off or her shift was later in the day. Another girl brought me my latte and a bear claw.
I pulled out my laptop and synced it to the camera in my bag to download the photos from last night. While that was happening, I called my dad.
“Hi, Dad.” I stirred my latte until the layers had vanished and it was all just one color.
“Ethan! Still at the beach?”
“Yup, still working. Taking an editing day today. How’s everything with you and Don?”
“We’re good. Say, were you planning on stopping by when you’re done with the job, or is Christmas the earliest we can pencil you in for?”
My eyebrows shot up. Dad didn’t usually plan Christmas in October, which led me to believe that something was afoot. I was hoping Don had finally popped the question, or that Dad had. It was high time they went to the courthouse and made it official.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to get back to you once I’m done here. Hold on, let me show you this cute little café I’m at.”
Dad oohed and aahed at the maritime design, commenting on how good my bear claw and latte looked. “You look happy too,” he said. “Must be the sea breeze after all this time spent inside.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, and I smiled, happy that my happiness showed.
Before I got to editing, it was emails. There was nothing extremely important; a few reviews my manager had collected for me, some friends checking in, that sort of thing.
The photos were far more interesting. Before I went to the church, I had taken daytime pictures of an abandoned greenhouse, and I started with those today.
Light slanted against the leaves that had reclaimed metal and glass, and the rusty frame seemed like the anchor of a dead civilization, of a time long gone. Roots had taken back paved walkways, and a bucket and shovel were almost swallowed by ivy in an embrace that had taken years.
The church though. There was something haunting in those photographs, and I saw that even more now than I had when I’d started on them earlier.
The gravestones divulged what the elements had left of the names engraved there, and the chipped walls stared up to the night sky even as earthly shadows reached in from all sides.
Windows reflected broken light, and the door… It was a lure.
These were really good. They showed more than an abandoned place, revealing an in-between realm, life and death, me before and after Auris. I couldn’t wait to share them and give others some of the magic I felt so clearly in them.
I left a few photos of the church I wasn’t sure what to do with and opened the first series of the house in the dark forest next.
Those almost took my breath away. The house itself had hidden so well and for so long in the forest that it had become part of the trees and the roots, of the little birds and fungi and all the creatures that called the woods their home.
If a forest could be made to grow a home for humans, it would be that house.
It didn’t seem like a real place, but like something a fairy tale needed as a backdrop to exist in.
It suited Auris well, and looking back, I felt privileged that he’d shared it with me.
Then there was Auris in the last picture of the house series, looking like a shimmering faerie creature with his dark eyes, dark hair, and serenely enchanting face.
I stared. My heart beat faster when I met his dark gaze, preserved in the photograph like berries fresh off the branch and turned into jam.
“That’s a really nice photograph,” said someone from behind my shoulder. I turned around and closed my laptop.
The man had a strange look about him. Or…not strange. He was out of place, his clothing not quite fitting in, the timbre of his voice telling me he wasn’t from here. I tensed immediately. He smelled of something I didn’t like—old, burned coffee and stale nicotine.
“Thanks.” I put my laptop back in my bag.
The man sat down next to me, snatched my untouched bear claw off its plate, and bit into it. “Ethan Fields, I presume? Living in Pine Rock but staying in Cromere for some photo work. Except you checked out of your hotel two days ago, isn’t that right? Where have you been staying since, Mr. Fields?”
“Look, I don’t know what you want from me, but I don’t owe you an explanation.” I shoved my phone into my bag, then zipped the bag shut.
“Please.” He smiled. “Stay.” He made sure I saw the gun. It was in a holster under his jacket. He grabbed my wrist. “You have been seduced by the demon, haven’t you? A failing of the flesh. You wouldn’t be the first.”
My heart was racing, but I froze, staring at him wide-eyed.
“Mr. Fields, you will tell me everything. And then, if you really want to, maybe you can repent.”
Everything in me told me to run, but I couldn’t. I was frozen. I stared at him, and my shock, my fear, must have shown.
The smile he gave me showed yellowed teeth, and there was a glint in his eyes that told me he didn’t want me to repent. But he would force me to try with all the cruel skill he had.