Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Tempest
Manfred made a plaintive sound as I rushed up to the edge of the moat. He was rolling and splashing in the water. “I’m sorry, my sweet boy. I never meant to be this long.”
I’d planned to go talk to Roman, ask him to be my lover, then schedule a time to meet.
I hadn’t expected Fender to do what he had, or to get carried away with curiosity and excitement, and do what we had in his quarters.
I’d seen the suspicion in his eyes when I rushed off, and I refused his ride home, but there hadn’t been time.
Stripping off my skirt and shirt, I took the steps into the water and swam out to Manfred. “I’m here, Manny.”
He rolled over, giving me his belly as another baleful sound rolled from him. I rubbed his scaly stomach as I called my healing powers forward, sending them through him while I drew out the residual magic swirling inside his belly.
The magic had to go somewhere after Manny ate the evil I fed him, and he couldn’t release it on his own.
I drew on it now, pulling sections of it from him in dark, swirling ribbons that I flicked out of my hands, releasing it into the air.
It swirled above us, but locked in place, bound by my magic.
The ribbons changed to shades of red, looking more like writhing, angry snakes, some as bright as a newly ripe tomato and others dark as day-old blood.
They sparked and spun and dove furiously.
I drew from Manny again and flicked out more to the sky, watching as they spiraled up, joining with the evil I’d already removed from him.
The serpents became brighter, their movements wilder, the magic beginning to burn itself out when it had nowhere to go.
Faster and faster, frenzied, the dark magic desperately searched for a host.
Finding none, the magic continued to dissipate until there was nothing left, until the only part of that evil male that had remained was gone, never to return.
“Good boy.” I ran my hand over Manny’s scales again, soothing his tight belly. “All better now?”
He made several happy yips. Thank goodness. I let myself drift back into the water, floating beside him. The water in the moat was warm, no matter what season, and I let it seep through me now as I stared up at the stars blinking in the night sky.
My smile came unbidden, and there was no holding it back.
Today had been a very good day. I was helping Fender with his assignment, and I’d saved a young mother and her children from a male who had never deserved the family he’d been gifted.
Manny rolled lazily beside me, and I ran my hand along his side.
He made a low, soothing sound that echoed through the forest, picking up on my tension as I forced out the evil images that tried to come forward.
“I’m okay now,” I said. “Tonight ended up being a good night.” I let the warm water soothe me while I remembered the goodbye kiss Fender had given me instead. “A really good night.”
When I got out of the water, and before I got into bed, I sipped chamomile tea infused with peppermint and lemon balm.
It didn’t always work, but I told myself it helped.
Matilda business often resulted in nightmares, memories really—mine.
Matilda M had prescribed the tea after I woke up screaming the first time I went out on my own.
But after seeing what was in that male’s mind, the evil he had planned, I wasn’t sure anything would help tonight.
The screaming stopped.
Everything had stopped.
I curled into a tight ball, trying not to breathe, not to make a sound. Dripping came from somewhere close by. Something wet and thick hitting the wooden floorboards over and over again, and the scent of forbidden herbs and burned hair stung the back of my throat.
His heavy boots grew closer. “Tempest,” he called softly.
When he spoke in that soft way, I knew I was in the most danger.
I didn’t move, although my lungs screamed, desperate to release the breath I was holding.
His magic caused pain. He’d cut Mom again, he’d taken something out of her while she screamed, and now he wanted to cut me too.
He did that when he was using his magic.
He took our blood for his spells. He cut us.
“You have ten seconds to come out,” he said.
I squeezed my eyes closed. Oh no. He sounded like he had the time he tied me to a chair and dragged his knife down my arm, then cut off a hunk of my hair. Excited. Goose bumps lifted on my arms, and I wanted to rub them away, but I didn’t dare move.
Slowly, I took another breath. If I didn’t, I was afraid I’d pass out, then he’d find me for sure.
The musty scent of the heavy velvet curtain I was crouched behind filled my lungs, and tears sprung to my eyes.
Mom had been so excited when she’d found them at the thrift store.
She thought the deep teal would look amazing with the rug she’d come across the month before that.
Even living with a monster, she’d done her best to make this a home for us, for her and me.
She was dead now. I was sure of it. Mom hadn’t made a sound for at least fifteen minutes, and that dripping had slowed. I knew what that sound was. When he had her against the wall, he’d been holding his favorite hunting knife.
When I’d heard her cry out, I’d tried to be quiet, but the stairs had creaked as I’d come down.
He reached for me, and Mom had slapped him.
When he’d spun back to her, pinning her to the wall, she’d motioned to the living room with her hand behind his back, telling me it was time to use my secret place—and the real reason she’d bought the teal, floor-length, velvet curtains.
Mom had loosened one of the wooden wall panels behind the drapes. It led into the cavity below the built-in window seat. It wasn’t the kind you could open. It was just a seat with cushions. Mom liked to sit on it and read.
I hadn’t had time to climb inside, so now I had to wait until he left the room. If he heard me open the panel, I was done for. There was water and a phone in there. I just had to wait.
I released another breath, slow and easy. It sounded so loud to my own ears.
“Tempest,” he said again.
I shivered. His voice had changed again.
Dad wielded his magic like a blade if you were lucky and a battering ram if you weren’t. That’s what Mom used to say. She said when his voice changed like that, I had to hide and not come out until she came looking for me.
“You come out now, you hear me. It’ll only be worse for you if you make me find you.”
I squeezed my eyes closed tighter, trembling like someone had dumped a bucket of ice down the back of my shirt.
His footfalls echoed down the hall, slow and measured, heading away from me.
He was listening hard. He opened the kitchen door at the other end of the house.
I remained frozen in place. Move, you need to move.
I had to do it now. Carefully, trying hard not to whimper, I slid the panel aside and slowly, so slowly, crawled inside the dark space.
“Tempest,” he roared.
I jumped, but I didn’t scream. Only stupid people screamed when they got a fright.
That’s how you got caught, that’s how you made the people hurting you even angrier.
I jolted, but I didn’t scream. His footsteps were coming back up the hall, faster now, and he was bellowing my name over and over again.
He was back in the living room with me. I forced myself to move slow, when everything inside screamed at me to hurl myself into my hiding place and slam the panel.
I didn’t.
Mom and I had practiced this, over and over again.
I was fully inside now, and I turned carefully, inch by inch, then quietly slid the panel back into place, slow and steady, even as his footsteps moved closer.
He was almost at the window. The panel slid closed the last inch just as he reached the window seat.
The sound of the curtains being torn off came next, his roars loud but muffled now that I was inside my hideout.
He began to break things, storming around the house, tearing things apart, looking for me.
When the vibration of his terrifying magic filled the room, the fear got the better of me.
I hadn’t wet myself since I was a baby, but there was no controlling my bladder when he let it wash through our house.
“I know you’re in here somewhere, Tempest. I can feel you.”
I reached through the darkness and found the phone Mom had put in here for me. It was already on silent, the brightness already turned down to its lowest setting. Opening the messages, I read the one Mom had pre-typed.
I need you now, Matilda. Please help us.
There was no phone number, we didn’t need one. Magic would ensure it reached its destination. I hit send and gripped the phone tightly in my hand, squeezing my eyes closed against the darkness.
I don’t know how long I lay there, how long I listened while he smashed things and roared for me to show myself. All I knew was one moment he was screaming my name, then next he wasn’t.
Pushing myself up, I listened, hard—
The wood panel in front of me exploded into kindling.
I scrambled back, but it was too late. He’d found me.
Grabbing me by the throat, he hauled me out of my hiding place.
My feet dangled high in the air as he shoved me against the wall.
His eyes were black with rage. It hurt, and I couldn’t breathe.
Mom had sewn a little pocket in all my pajamas, and I frantically searched for it now.
My fingers finally found it as dark clouds gathered at the edges of my eyes.
“You’re just like her, aren’t you?” he yelled in my face. “You’re nothing. Nobody wants you. You’re lucky I allowed you to live in my home as long as I did. Your mother never wanted you either. Why would anyone want such an ugly, pathetic little thing like you?”
I could feel the magic building around him.
He was going to hurt me, with the darkness inside him, the way he’d hurt Mom.
I wouldn’t let him. Mom made me promise not to let him.
Gripping the small handle, I pressed the tiny button on the side, releasing the blade…
and thrust it as hard as I could into the side of his throat.
Mom said it would make him bleed a lot and, as soon as he was bleeding, to use my magic.
Blood sprayed from around my knife, and his eyes bugged out.
He released me, and I fell to the floor.
Pain shot through my leg. I ignored it and focused on my magic, and on the blood.
I was still learning how to use my powers.
Mom and I had kept that a secret as well.
He pulled the knife free, his hand trying to cover the wound.
I latched on to his blood and called it to me, drawing it from him as hard as I could.
The blood burst from him faster, pouring from his eyes, nose, and mouth as well, showering me so very fast. My fire followed, licking at the blood.
That’s what Mom and me called it, because the magic burned white hot, racing along veins, destroying them until there was nothing left.
He stumbled around, then tripped, hitting the floor hard.
I struggled to my feet, wiping my hands on my pajama top as I ran to the kitchen.
I didn’t look too hard at the bloody gore on the kitchen floor that used to be my mother, or at the symbols carved into the table, the skulls, and clumps that were scattered on top that looked like meat, or any of the other awful things that had me biting my lip to stop my scream.
Instead, I opened the gas stove like she taught me to when she was too sore to cook and turned on the gas.
The smell was strong, and I quickly unlatched the kitchen window but didn’t open it.
Grabbing the matches from the top drawer, I walked out, closing the door tightly behind me.
I waited a few minutes, then lit a match, and setting the whole box of matches alight, I shoved the kitchen window open and threw it inside. The explosion threw me back, and I hit the ground so hard, the air was forced from my lungs.
I couldn’t move, but I fought the darkness trying to make me go to sleep. Mom said if you got hurt, it was best not to go to sleep.
Footsteps. They were light. I froze.
“Come now,” a soft female voice called. “You’re safe now, child.”
My eyes snapped open, and I shot up in bed, breathing hard. I didn’t think about that day if I could help it. Letting myself go there hurt too much, but the children last night, seeing the fear in their eyes, I’d known this was coming, it always did.
My hand automatically went to my forearm, seeking the rows of ragged scars that had once been there.
My father had given them to me, and Matilda W had taken them away.
After she brought me here, she kept catching me looking at them, or touching them, and witnessing my mood shift instantly when I did.
She’d found a way to take that horror from me.
Shoving back the covers, I got out of bed and jerked the bedroom curtains open.
Sun poured in, warming my face. Pushing the window open, I sucked in the fresh forest air, clearing away the nightmare.
The thud of Glinda jumping off the bed came a moment before she ran her body along the side of my leg and smooched my foot.
I took another steadying breath. A splash came from the moat as Manfred rolled and played in the water, making his contented yipping noises, and the last of the tension left me.
Today was a new day. A better day. “Let’s have breakfast,” I said to Glinda.
Maybe I’d get to see Fender again.