Chapter 22 Mysterious Conversations #2
Once Astra was well out of earshot she looked up at the chief.
"What am I to you?"
"Pardon?" His voice was controlled, low. Still calculating.
Was he so cold?
She gestured to where Astra left them and said, "You," she pointed at him, "were using me."
His stance shifted and she felt him flare. "Pardon?" he asked again, but this time the word held an edge to it.
"What am I to you? A game? Are you in on the whole covenant cult thing and Astra is your extremely tall, leggy lover that you had to pretend to hate so that you could enchant me with your," she dragged her hand up and down in the air, "freakishly tall, cowboy, stoic self?"
His eyes narrowed as she spoke but he didn't respond or interrupt. Which she was grateful for.
"I am not a pawn. I am a person. A woman.
With a lot of fucking baggage. Because men have this habit of using me and then being shocked when I don't want to be used anymore.
But I thought maybe," she lifted both hands in the air wildly, "this man is different.
With his statue-like body, and however many insane years of learned knighthood, and what is that?
Huh? Are you made of concrete? Are vampires sixty percent water and the rest is blood and concrete? "
His mouth twitched the slightest and she pointed a finger at him.
"This isn't funny. I," she paused, catching herself.
She stopped the words from coming out of her mouth.
She trusted him. She liked him. And she couldn't give him those words.
They cost too much. "I need to go," she said as she turned and started walking away, but a strong hand wrapped around her arm and she swung around, that feeling of burning catching her hard. "Let go of me."
"No," he said.
"Let. Go. Of. Me," she said slowly, her teeth bared. She was wild and she was animal. She could feel the trees root more deeply into the ground and the grass grow a few centimeters. The stars shook and she felt their white fire burn.
Finally, after a moment of his eyes boring into hers he let go, but he didn't step back.
"Are you goin' to let me speak?"
She laughed. It was brittle, the end of autumn leaves leached of life and color only to be crunched underfoot. "No."
And then she backed up a step as something landed on her shoulder. Theo's eyes looked at the black bird staring back at him. And then he nodded once.
She turned again and fled.
She ran and tried to keep the tears flooding her eyes from falling.
Portia threw little sounds as she flew, a sweet comfort.
Another sound joined Portia's, a kick kick and Tilly knew that Cleo was also flying overhead.
By the time she made it to the property line of The Lost Souls she was able to shove all of her bubbling emotions aside without spilling a single one and not a single tear fell.
But the moment that she stepped onto the front porch and Eloise looked up from where she was reading curled up in a blanket and two raccoons, Tilly's fight against the tears lost.
Sometime later, after a pot of tea and half of a box of tissues had been used and crumpled, Ursula looked at Eloie and said, "Magical bath?"
Eloise nodded repeating, "Magical bath."
Tilly looked between the two of them. "What is a magical bath?" Something like hope lifted the weight from her heart when she asked, "Will it take away this stupid heart pain?"
"Well, no," Eloise admitted. "But it doesn't hurt and it is one of the many benefits of living in this cantankerous house.
" A window behind where Eloise sat rose a few inches, the creak of old wood sliding made her laugh.
She turned and looked at the house. "I apologize.
You're not cantankerous. You're just a feeler. "
"The house decidedly did not want my sister here," Tilly added. She'd stopped crying about five minutes ago, and her face felt over-stuffed and her eyes felt itchy and dry. She could imagine the blotchy combination look of her skin. She was not a pretty crier.
"Well, your sister is a brat," Ursula mumbled against the lip of her cat mug. When both women looked at her in surprise she shrugged her shoulders. "I'm tired. Stressed. My filter is off."
But Tilly smiled wide. The ease with which she could be and spread out her emotions with these women, being able to count and take stock of each one to hopefully better understand them was incredible.
"Okay, so tell me more about this magical bath."
Ten minutes later she was standing in front of the downstairs bathroom with a fluffy maroon towel in her arms and she paused for a moment before she turned the antique door handle.
She pushed inside and her mouth dropped open as she took in the room that already was nice and cozy on regular days, but now?
The porcelain clawfoot tub that sat in the corner was canopied by a tree. A live tree was in the bathroom and she circled the trunk trying to understand how it was growing here inside. This must have been the tree that Fae saw when she used the restroom and it must have been quite befuddling.
It was growing through the wide plank herringbone floor, the white trunk of the birch tree reaching to the ceiling where the striking yellow leaves brushed and pressed their thin skins.
The bathtub, filled to the brim with iridescent bubbles that smelled like sugared lemons and an undercurrent of something darker like oud, was covered by the branches of the tree with small glowing lanterns dripping like jewels from a few of the branches creating an ethereal canopy.
She laughed, throwing a hand over her mouth to collect the sound, the bubble inside of her chest growing and knowing what it meant.
She was undressed and lowering her body into the hot water, letting the delicious warmth shiver over her and then the sounds of singing birds filled the room in a gentle melodious chorus turning this small, downstairs bathroom into a magical forest.
And that bubble inside of her chest finally popped. With her head resting back, her body submerged in the lovely water and the overhead canopy of twinkling magic, she closed her eyes as the tears fell again.
She cried for a while. With birdsong and magic covering her.
And then once the water had cooled she lay there staring up into the beautifully lit birch tree and let out a sigh.
She wasn't better.
But she wasn't worse.
And there was a kind of gentle lethargy that came with crying and letting your body feel whatever it needed to feel.
She worried she wouldn't be able to sleep that night, but a half hour later she was tucked into her large four-poster bed, the comforter perfectly hugging her body and she drifted off, thoughts of Theo kissing Astra stinging in her chest, and then without her permission, she fell asleep to the memory of him kissing her.