Chapter 8
Eight
“Josie, well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” Lori stood there, water pooling at her feet from the giant umbrella she had overhead that she was struggling to close.
Theo jumped to his feet. “Let me.” He took it from her and closed it without actually touching anything but the handle.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to those little mannerisms.
“It’s such a relief to see you,” I said, rushing over and hugging my grandmother. She looked the same with long gray hair pulled back into a loose braid, rings on every finger, and more necklaces than I could count. She was nearly the exact same height as me so her hugs always hit perfectly.
“Ugh, bed bugs, how awful.” She squeezed me. “I’m glad it brought you here a month early. It was a sign from the universe that you needed to be here.” She glanced at Theo. “Maybe you two were destined to meet.”
I frowned and looked at Theo who was staring at me intently. “Or sometimes bugs are just bugs.”
“Well, I suppose you’re right. The city is filthy after all.” She let me go and patted my head. “How are you and my other tenant getting along?” she asked before embracing Theo like they were the oldest of friends. I felt weirdly possessive at the gesture.
I snorted. “Yeah. About that.”
He scratched the back of his neck and stared at the floor. “I told her.”
Lori’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment before a melodic laugh bubbled to the surface. “Oh, how wonderful. I’ve always tried teaching Josie about the more mystical elements of the universe.”
I gaped at her casualness. “What, energy? Healing? That’s hardly the same thing.”
She waved her hands. “There’s an energy…a power running through all of us. Witches or warlocks or whatever you want to call them have historically figured out how to harness it better.” She looked at me with an impassioned expression. “I’ve always found my energy through crystals, you know that.”
“But you aren’t a witch.”
“I’m an energy healer.”
“That’s not a real thing.”
She frowned and shooed off my comment like the bad energy that it was. “It’s as much a real thing as anything else.”
I sighed. “I’m exhausted.”
“Why don’t you two come to the main house? I brought back new tea leaves I’m dying to try.”
Lori and I huddled under her umbrella as we walked to the giant Victorian house at the front of the property. Theo sauntered behind us. I could feel his presence as if something between us was electrically charged.
When we got to her front porch and I shook out the umbrella, I noticed for the second time that he was completely dry even though he had no protection against the storm.
We squeezed into the house.
And that’s exactly what I meant.
Squeezed.
She had the place packed floor to ceiling with stuff.
Antiques, furniture, crystals, you name it, she had it.
She’d always been a collector of sorts. She said she couldn’t bear to part with anything.
She didn’t even have a guest bedroom in the main house because the entire place was brimming with stuff.
Hence, the guest cottage out back.
“You two sit. Make yourselves comfortable while I put on the kettle.”
I went into her sitting room. The already small loveseat was stuffed with cushions. I took a seat and Theo followed causing us both to sink toward the middle. Our shoulders touched before I managed to squirm away and put a few inches of distance between us.
His breath caught. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Theo, dear, would you be a doll and help me with these cups?” Lori called from the kitchen.
He sprang to his feet and rushed to help her. She waltzed in and he followed, somehow balancing all three cups in one hand before gently setting them all on the ornate coffee table in front of us.
“How have you been getting settled in?” Lori asked me, sitting cross legged in the chair across from us.
“Uh, all right I guess. It was a bit of a shock to see this guy.”
“She thought I murdered you,” Theo added.
That made Lori holler with laughter. “Oh, wouldn’t that have been a story. Theo here is harmless.”
“If you say so,” I said. While I was still wary of him, I was starting to believe that might be true.
“In fact, he’s been a tremendous help. I don’t even know how I survived at the shop without him.
I’ve always had more people on my waiting list than I could handle.
Now, with Theo being such a natural with energy healing, I don’t have to turn as many people away. He even organized my storage closet.
“Is that right?” My voice was flat as she corroborated his entire story.
“Hopefully you two are fine cohabitating for a short while longer. Theo is here until the next full moon.”
I glanced between both of them. “Okay, what is up with everyone and the full moon?”
“That’s when the portal opens,” she said and he nodded, still staring at me—he was always staring at me.
“Oh, of course.” I sipped my tea.
“Don’t act like it’s so preposterous,” Lori continued. “There’s a lot of energy surrounding a full moon. It takes considerably less magic to keep the portal hidden and open.”
“How are you so believing in all this?” I demanded.
“I grew up in this town. I’ve always known the existence of the other realm. In fact, my stepmother was a witch. How do you think I learned about energy healing?”
My lips parted as I found myself irritated that Theo somehow knew more about my own grandmother than I did.
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious. My father met her while she was here on her sabbatical and she never left. Wonderful woman. She’s the one who opened the shop in town and I took it over from her. After I had your father I’d hope he’d follow suit but you know how that turned out?—”
“Right,” I said, cutting her off and glancing at Theo. How much did he already know? “So my father knows about everything too?” I asked tentatively, not wanting to talk about any childhood trauma in front of Theo.
She shrugged. “He did. But if you asked him, he’d say he didn’t believe in all that even though he’d seen everything with his own two eyes his whole life.
He moved away and went to college the moment he could.
Got some career in finance and wanted nothing to do with me. ” A hint of sadness tinged her voice.
It was funny, my father. He grew up with a hippy, free spirit, powerhouse of a mother, and got away as fast as he could.
Only to be attracted to my mother of all people.
While not hippy in the slightest, she was a free spirit in her own right.
Hated corporations and “the man.” My sparse memories of them together were of arguments.
They didn’t make it past my fourth birthday.
“Have you been to the other realm?” I asked.
She laughed. “Certainly not. It’s against their laws for us to travel there. It would have been nice, though.” She sighed dreamily. “I would have loved to go with Eliot. He always talked about the places he wished he could show me.”
“Theo’s grandfather?” I clarified, glancing at him. He’d gone stiff.
“Yes. What a wonderful man.”
“Warlock.”
“We don’t really call ourselves that,” Theo reminded me.
Lori smiled at him and leaned over to squeeze his hand. “Eliot would love that you’re spending some time here.”
Theo nodded. “He probably would.” Maybe it was my imagination, but he sounded slightly bitter about that fact.
“Okay, so the portal opens every full moon? And it’s right outside Mystic, which is literally crawling with tourists looking for it? I can’t believe they don’t have humans wandering in all the time.”
Lori sipped her tea. “Aside from it being hidden, we also aren’t able to on our own. We’d need help since we don’t have enough magic.”
“We don’t have any magic.”
“Josie,” she scoffed. “Again with the closed-mindedness. We all possess dormant magic. We have the same ancestors if you go back enough centuries. But us outsiders have lost it. It’s like a recessive gene. But think about hearing and sight, that’s magic in a way.”
I snorted. “That’s science. Literally biology.”
“What’s the difference?”
I shook my head and sighed, grabbing my tea and slumping back into the couch in defeat. I was done arguing. Who was I being a science defender? I knew jack shit about science. I’d gotten terrible grades and had spent all my time drawing or painting.
Theo just sat there, silent and stoic. Every so often taking a small sip of his tea that he kept perched unnaturally on his knee.
“Anything to add?” I asked.
“No.”
Lori chuckled. “He’s not much of a talker. Just like his grandfather.” She sighed fondly, her eyes glazing over as if recalling a memory.
I felt sad for her. I remembered her mentioning a male friend a few times. It seemed like she’d been really fond of him.
Companionship was a comfort. At least, that’s what I’d been told. I’d never experienced much of it first hand.
I glanced at Theo and wondered how much the loss of his grandfather had impacted him.
“What are you planning to do while you’re in town?” Lori asked.
“Um. Nothing.”
“Nothing? Well that won’t do.”
“I mean, I’ve been drawing.”
“Drawing? You’re a painter.”
“I like drawing too,” I insisted.
She leaned in. “Is this about money? I know those paints are expensive.”
“It’s fine,” I snapped. Angling my head toward Theo and widening my eyes at her, hoping she’d get the hint.
She did not.
“What? You can say anything in front of Theo. He’s practically family.”
“No. He’s practically a stranger.”
She smiled knowingly. “You’ll get to know him soon enough.”
“Not at the rate he’s opening up.”
I looked over at him as he shifted uncomfortably in the loveseat. He clearly didn’t enjoy the conversation being redirected toward him.
“Can I stay in the main house?” I asked.
Lori laughed. “Where? I have no room. Why would you want to leave a perfectly comfortable guest room?”
“Because I’m not alone.”
Quarters were feeling smaller and smaller by the second with Theo always around every corner I turned. It was like I couldn’t escape him. As much as I thought I didn’t believe in the whole energy healer thing, the energy when Theo was in my vicinity was palpable. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Why don’t you two get back?” Lori said, completely ignoring my discomfort. “Get some rest and we can all go into town tomorrow.”
Without any additional room to protest, I said goodnight.
We headed out, sans umbrella since the one I’d walked over here under was technically Lori’s. The rain wasn’t coming down too heavily now anyway.
Once outside I was ready to sprint back to the guest cottage when I noticed that I didn’t feel even a single drop of rain on my skin. The droplets were splattering away from me.
“Are you doing this?” I asked Theo.
He nodded.
“So this is how you’re never wet?”
He didn’t answer as we sloshed through the puddles and the muddy garden.
Once inside the cottage with the door closed, I peeled off my shoes, ready to head straight to bed.
“Sorry.” Theo’s deep voice sounded from right behind me.
“Huh?” I turned, still at the bottom of the stairs.
He shrugged, looking hapless for someone with such an intense aura. “That you’re stuck with me.”
My heart tugged with guilt.
Was he hurt?
“No, it’s not like that. This whole thing is overwhelming. I didn’t even know people like you existed and now I’m living with one.” I winced at how that came out.
People like you. I sounded like a close-minded bitch. “Also, living with a stranger is already overwhelming in general for me,” I added.
“I’ll try to stay out of your hair more.”
“No,” I said quickly. “That’s not necessary.”
We stared at each other for a minute.
“Goodnight,” I finally said before sprinting up the stairs.