CHAPTER 9

 

 

The sturdy tree trunks holding Aisanna instantly returned to their incarnation as chair legs, ornately carved and curved like the necks of swans.

Finally free, she scrambled to her feet. “Elon? What the hell are you doing here?”

Incredibly round eyes took in the scene, blooms disintegrating and gemstones falling to the floor. “I…oh boy, I—” Elon did the only thing he knew to do. He turned to run.

“He’s your employee? The one who works in your botanical shop?” Thorvald questioned, staring sternly at the empty air Elon had occupied seconds earlier. “You better go after him right now and bring him back.” He let his head hang back, staring at the ceiling. “Dear God, there’s going to be hell to pay if he panics. Take care of it, Aisanna. Now.”

“He won’t. I’ll handle this.” Aisanna bounded toward the door to catch Elon before he left.

“If the Claddium finds out about this…well, shit on a shingle, Leo…”

Thorvald’s speech trailed off. Aisanna raced down the hallway and out the front door, left conveniently open after Elon’s flight.

“Elon?” she called after him. “Wait. I said wait! Your legs are longer than mine and I can’t keep up.”

He continued on as though he hadn’t heard her, forcing Aisanna to pick up the pace and catch him before he drove off.

“Why did you come by?” she asked, her breath rushing out in a whoosh. She reached out a hand to grab his coat and missed by millimeters. “Why didn’t you call first?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I clearly wasn’t thinking,” he mumbled. The quality of his voice had changed. It was different, softer. Panicked.

“Dammit, man, turn around and talk to me. I deserve a chance to explain. I know you’re upset by what you saw.”

He stopped in the driveway without making it to his car. Keys shook in his hands and he kept his back to her, head bowed. “Insane,” he stated firmly. “I must be completely insane. Or drunk. Can you get drunk from one beer? I swear I only had one beer earlier today. I waited a good two hours before I drove over. Shouldn’t it be out of my system?”

“Elon, calm down.”

“I’ve finally done it. I’ve gone completely over the edge!”

Her left eye began to twitch when she approached him. “You’re not insane.” She reached out to him and he jerked away.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Ooo-kay.” She drew out the vowel and dropped her hands to her sides. “Maybe you have gone completely nuts. Because the Elon I know would never tell me not to touch him.”

She was taking a chance by calling his affection into question and was rewarded the moment she saw his shoulders lose some of their stiffness.

“Take a deep breath,” she continued, “and tell me what you saw.” She kept her tone tranquil and light.

Elon turned to her, wide-eyed. “You know what I saw!” He clutched his coat against his chest, his eyes darting around. “Have I been drugged? Did someone sell me a bad six-pack of Heineken and this is what happened? I swear to God, I just saw you do magic.” He dragged in a hysterical breath. “Real live fucking magic. You materialized flowers out of thin air. Your chair was an oak tree. I-I-I’m…I’m going out of my mind. I only had one beer!”

“You’re not drunk, and you’re not drugged. This is crazy, I know. But I need you to calm down and explain to me what you think you saw.”

Instead of running away, Elon paced. He shoved his hands through his hair, mussing the dark strands. He wore a suit, probably the best one in his closet, pressed pants and neat shirt and tie.

“I saw you. I saw them! Plants whipping mashed potatoes and necklaces slapping people in the face.” Tension lined his features and a muscle convulsed in his jaw. “Vines from your mother’s fingertips. Her fingertips!” He paused for breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and hoarse. “What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t suppose I can convince you it was all an act?” she asked, stunned that she’d made any sound with the way her lips felt rubbery and thick. We are not talking about this, she thought. Because if they talked about it, it would really be happening, and it would change everything.

Everything.

Elon shot her a look, accompanied by a spurt of maniacal laughter. “I know what I saw. I have eyes, Aisanna. Working eyes.”

“Elon.” She sounded too sweet, cajoling. “Calm—”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he interrupted hotly. Gravel flew when he skidded to a stop, his breath creating large white gusts of mist. “Magic. I saw magic.”

Aisanna sighed. There would be no point in trying to tell him otherwise. That opportunity was long past. Without the presence of someone who could manipulate mind and memory, she was stuck with a hysterical Elon and the huge task of explanation. She could no more erase his memories than she could fly.

Where was Herodotos when she needed him? Oh, right. Dead.

She’d be in a world of trouble if the Claddium found out about this. It would be her head. Literally. Their laws were in place for a reason. She shook said appendage to get the unwelcome images of herself on a chopping block out of her mind.

Instead, she took a different approach. Straightening her back, she remained on the front stoop, which added several feet to her height so she was able to look down at the man. “Elon, listen to me. You saw magic. Yes. Magic is real and I am not going to apologize for the gifts of my family. Magic-users have always lived among mainstream society. Apart and unknown. You won’t tell anyone what you saw.”

Shockingly, he shot her a smile. “What will you do? Kill me?”

“If it comes to that, yes.”

Her answer took him by surprise and stilled his movement. He regarded her with a question behind his blue eyes. More likely it was a thousand questions vying for supremacy and none of them making it past his lips.

Elon took his time speaking, formulating his statement and running it through his head before letting it loose. “Your family can use magic. Not just card tricks.”

“Yes.” She pursed her lips stubbornly. “We’re not the only ones. There are hundreds of thousands of normal people like me who happen to have incredible abilities. It’s genetic, passed down through our DNA.”

He’d never seen such a thing, having grown up all his life as a simple Midwestern boy believing in little beyond the white picket fence. In his childhood, there was love and laughter, chicken dinners and picnics by the river. There were vacations and boat rides and cartoons on Saturday morning.

Aside from fiction, no one had ever bothered to tell him there was anything else out there. It was outside of their reckoning. College had expanded his horizons enough to give him a keen head and an open mind. This, however…this pushed the boundaries.

“Your magic. Explain it to me. Like…what can you do? Turn me into a toad?”

“I’m an earth elemental. Plants, flowers, trees. I don’t harm anyone,” she assured him, standing still under his scrutiny. “I can use my gift to heal. In fact, that’s one of my sister’s specialties.”

He missed nothing. “Your flower shop and those special orders?”

“Okay, yes, I use my power for special orders. It’s stupid, but convenient.” She bit the inside of her lip. “There’s not much else I can say to you.”

Elon had spent his years wisely, developing an acute sense of logic and order that helped him see through the surface and into a person’s heart. He guessed their true intentions, empathized with them on a cell-deep level.

Aisanna would not have been able to lie to him without him cutting through it. He could not stop his hands from shaking, his mind from circling again and again on what he saw. The impossible.

“Show me,” he demanded. “Show me again what you can do.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Show me.” His gaze hardened. An afterthought: “Please.”

She did the only thing she could think of, ignoring the cold and her own unsettled emotions. With a deep breath, she drew on her magic, producing a large red poinsettia from the ground near Elon’s feet. Beautiful verdant green leaves unfurled and reached out, several feet larger than a normal plant.

He made no sound, watching the flower blossom and turn its lovely face toward him. White and green leaves covered the ground.

“It’s a small thing, what I do. Or maybe it’s not.” Aisanna moved down the steps and crouched before Elon, before the organic life of her own making. “I’m not sure. I’ve never done anything more than this, beyond some high-wattage healing for myself and my family. Even though our magic is passed down along gender lines—so technically I have my mother’s powers—it manifests for each person in slightly different ways. I can relay messages using flowers as meanings, or draw on their strength when I need it.”

He failed to respond and she continued to speak, to cover her anxiety. “Genetics, like I said. You get the picture. Most power stems from the four elements. Earth, air, fire, water.”

She waited for the reprimand. For his distaste and scorn, for negative words she’d lived her whole life in fear of hearing. She rose on shaky limbs and regarded him, making sure to keep direct eye contact despite the disparity in their height.

“Say something,” she demanded when he remained silent.

“Keep talking to me.” He used his hands to accentuate the statement. “I’m still feeling a little uneasy.” And when he looked away, her lungs swelled up like balloons and the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

Aisanna continued her explanation of the situation by rote. Like a used-car salesman trying to demonstrate the staying power of his latest junker. “Magic manifests pure, and it’s up to the individual how they choose to use it. My family and I are Light. We don’t harm anyone with what we do.”

“Where did it come from, this magic? Has magic always been here? Some kind of secret you can unlock if you work hard enough?”

“There’s…ah…there’s another plane of existence on top of ours. I’m not sure of its name. We call it the world of ancient magicks. It’s full of raw, uncontrolled power. It’s where all of this comes from, separated by a veil of energy. Kind of like a wall.” She pointed to the poinsettia and thought it best not to tell Elon about the big problem with the whole picture. The veil wouldn’t hold for much longer, and when it went? Chaos. “Our heredities let us access the energy crossing through the wall.”

Elon took her hand and drew her back to crouch on the ground. Together they hovered over the flower, frost decorating the ground with icy lace. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected but it certainly wasn’t the delicate exquisiteness before him. She’d created something filled with detail and richness, almost more than the real thing.

He couldn’t think about the implications of what she’d told him. It was purposely choosing to look behind the curtain. It might take time before he was ready for that. Then he looked at Aisanna, at the same face he’d seen almost every day for the last two years, the same face he’d come to love. And he couldn’t find it in him to see anything different.

“It’s too cold.” The night air was biting, with a cross-breeze frosting over the ground and wind-whisked clouds shifting across the sky. “I don’t want to see the chill destroy this beauty. Can you return it to…?”

Aisanna snapped her fingers and the poinsettia dissipated in a shower of green sparks. “You have a caring heart.”

“So I’ve been told.” Elon dropped her hand and rubbed his eyes. “This is certainly not what I expected. Pretty much the opposite, in fact.”

“Hard to imagine something like this.”

“You know, I always thought magic would be like something you read about in books. There’s an old man with a beard waving his magic wand and shouting the right words to the heavens. Some kind of incantation to get the forces of the beyond to do your bidding.”

“It’s…complicated,” she said finally. “Not especially hard to do if you have the right blood, but there are herbs and potions and spells to help focus your energy. The magic might not come from us originally but it’s part of our makeup now. Wielding power means working with enormous resources from a world on top of our own. We only learn how to become one with it. Not conquer or possess it.”

He could imagine how she must feel having him there. Barging in on her family, on her secret. He’d forced her hand. From the look on her face, she hadn’t intended to let him in.

Instead of feeling upset or bitter, he tried to picture how it would be if the roles were reversed. He would not have been able to handle it with the grace and decorum she possessed.

Elon couldn’t help but regard her with a strange sort of displacement. He no longer felt like the fuck-up he’d been the day before, her employee and inconvenient, unwanted suitor. When he looked at her now, he didn’t feel the innate deference he used to feel. Somehow, her revelation made her more human, when it should have done the opposite.

It had evened their playing field.

Her gift—her magic—was outside the box of normal in which he lived. He was not sure how to react. Anger at her having lied to him? Fear? What other otherworldly power did she wield with those small hands?

Betrayal also came to mind, but he told himself not to go there.

He held out his hand once more and she clumsily took it, allowing him to draw her up. “I need time to think about this,” he said.

Her stomach clenched. “How much time?”

“As long as it takes to come to terms with it.”

“Elon, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you not to tell anyone about this. Our lives would end if this ever got out. People can’t know that magic exists. They’d freak, and we’d be hunted to extinction. We have sot of a governmental system in place to police ourselves. If they find out what you saw, you’d be deemed a threat. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

He stopped her with a touch. “Don’t. I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not that person. Freaked out and a little insecure, yes, but never that kind of man. This flower was beautiful.” He glanced down to the pristine ground, no hint of her power evident. “You are beautiful. But I need time to think. Okay?”

Aisanna swallowed hard. Nodded. Elon drew her nearer with the smallest touch on her shoulders. She couldn’t ask him to wait, couldn’t force him to speak to her and reveal what he truly felt about the discovery.

Hell, she wouldn’t if she could.

“If you can, try to act like this never happened tonight,” she told him. “That way we can pretend to have a happy Imbolc. I mean, Groundhog’s Day.”

“You know I can’t pretend.” Nor could he stop himself from placing a kiss on her forehead, a simple touch which spoke volumes.

They said nothing else to each other as he moved down the drive to his car. Elon started the engine, spinning out of the driveway and onto the darkened street.

Aisanna remained outside until she lost sight of his lights. What a mess she’d made. And make no mistake, she blamed herself. Most witches like her only went into business with other magic users. But oh no, she thought she could handle it all.

Her father was going to kill her when she went back inside. If the Claddium didn’t get to her first. Leo had better not say anything.

Only when she turned back to the house did she notice the discarded spray of flowers lying near the last step of the front stoop.

That made her blame ten times larger.

“Well, shit.” She bent to lift them up and draw the scent of them into her nose. Pink camellias, flowers that bloomed only in winter. Elon may not know the meaning behind them, but she did.

I long for you.

“Dammit!”

She wanted to hate the flowers, already pictured herself tossing them into the bushes and forgetting they existed. Frost would form on the delicate pink petals, wilting them, curling them into the center until everything withered and died. She could not do it, though, and instead cradled them to her bosom, heart warmed.

“Elon Fayer,” she murmured, “you exasperating man, I could strangle you.”

He would not manage to crawl into her soft spot and reside there. She refused to allow it.

In shades of navy and dark-blue bordering on midnight, the deep tints of night grew deeper, and only then did Aisanna come to grips with how cold she felt. She told herself to stop worrying. There was nothing to be done now except wait and trust. There had never been an occasion to mistrust Elon before this. She didn’t often have faith in people, but she’d try.

Aisanna turned to go back inside when the pain began in her abdomen. She dropped the flowers, hunching forward. It was unexpected. Devastating.

She grunted and clutched at her stomach, at the ache spreading through her organs and along her limbs. Despite the discomfort, she scrambled to climb the steps, reaching out for the knob. Her fingertips grazed the metal before she plummeted to the ground. Darkness swallowed her and she screamed when it flowed down her throat, inky and sour. It seeped into her pores, took over her vision, her pulse quickening until she felt her chest would burst.

You’re mine tonight. What a happy occasion, indeed.