The Witching Hour #3
Taking a risk, I extend my right hand and hold it just above the apparition, and just like last time this happened, Milo is ice cold.
I turn the seat heater up to maximum, and my wolf makes a sound somewhere between a growl and a whine.
He doesn’t like the thought that Milo might be fighting something off in his sleep with no one there to help him either.
When Milo woke yesterday, he was perfectly fine—none of the violence Delilah had predicted had been evident. One in a million, he’d said. And yet…
Exercising more patience and restraint than any of the Dogs are usually known for, I drive until I can’t tolerate that constant, nagging tug from somewhere deep inside.
I pull the truck over to the side of the road approximately half an hour from the Nest, kill the engine, and turn bodily in my seat.
My jacket has slipped a little to expose where Milo’s arms are folded loosely across his chest. Gently, I stretch out a hand and grab the collar to tug it back up and help keep him warm while I work out how best to wake him, but the change in the cabin’s climate must be enough because he stirs.
Gradually, ghostly Milo fades, and human Milo latches onto my hand.
Unlike my own, Milo’s hand is soft with long and elegant fingers. I give him a light squeeze, partly in relief that whatever that was is over, and partly to reassure my wolf that he’s okay.
Confused grey eyes, bright under the cabin’s overhead lights, open wide. Unsure what to say, I remain quiet while he orients himself. Milo looks down at where our hands are joined over my jacket that blankets him, and blushes as he races to sit up.
“S-sorry,” he mumbles, taking back his hand. “Something about car travel always makes me drowsy.”
Blowing out a breath, I drop back into my own seat while Milo taps and pushes at the various edges of his.
“Is it a witch thing?” I ask.
“Huh?”
I lean over and depress the control that brings the back of Milo’s seat to a more upright position, knowing that’s what he’s searching for. “When ye sleep, there’s this secondary Milo who forms over the top of ye. Ye seem perfectly fine, but that one, he twitches and is cold.”
“Oh. Erm, yeah.” Milo scratches his chin and jaw, wincing when his fingertips grate over the stubble there. “I hope I packed my razor.”
Not wanting to let him drift off topic like I know he can, I redirect his attention by sternly calling his name. “Milo.”
He gives a whole-body shudder and rubs his arms through his jacket.
“The ghost-sleeping… is it a witch thing?”
Milo hesitates, clearly thinking, and drags his bottom lip in between his teeth. He nods, then, “Yeah, it’s astral travel. I think.”
“Ye don’t seem certain. Is it… a problem? Do ye need me to wake ye up? Or is it more like a night terror, and as long as yer safe then yer golden?”
He tilts his head while he processes the question. “I don’t know. I don’t think this one’s a problem. But… maybe?”
“Are ye okay?”
“Yeah.” He pushes the longer strands of his hair out of his face and appears more alert.
“We’ve got about another half hour or so of travel time before we’re back at the Nest. Can ye tell me about it?” I turn over the truck’s engine.
“The astral travel?”
“Aye.” I check the mirrors and pull back onto the road.
“I was back with the Lost Colony again, on Roanoke Island. Ever since I did that spell, I can’t sleep without it happening.
It’s weird, too, because it’s always the same thing on a loop.
It’s always Sarah I see.” Milo pauses to look at my profile, then clarifies.
“The witch I met there who I told you about?”
I flick my gaze his way, and nod. I remember.
“I always arrive in the same place, in her home. She’s sitting on a stool brushing her hair.
It’s very long hair, and I get the feeling it’s important, so I pay attention…
but then she stops and puts the brush down.
So, I don’t really get what she’s trying to show me.
Anyway, then she leaves the house, and I follow her down the same trail until we reach a herb garden.
She stops at the same plant each time, and picks a couple of leaves, but when I try to copy, I can’t grab hold.
” Milo laughs in a self-deprecating way.
“I guess because I’m not really real, or it’s not really real.
” He shrugs, and my jacket falls into his lap, where he then picks at it.
“And then we walk a little inland, to a small lake. I can walk and look about all I like, but Sarah sits on the bank, and the moment I copy her, to peep over her shoulder and see what she’s looking at, it resets—and we both turn up back in her house. ”
I hum in response to everything he’s told me, but dreams and their meanings aren’t really my forte.
By now, we’ve reached the street our safe house is on, and I slow our speed as we approach the Nest. Scanning the other houses, all sat in darkness, I let my wolf forward to find any threat my human senses might have missed. Because this is my strength. This, I can do.
“So, yeah. I’m fine, I guess. And I’ll figure out what it means… eventually.”
Milo turns his head to stare out the window as I pull the truck up onto the drive, where the porch, lit up by a security light, welcomes us safely home.