On the third day of Christmas my true friends gave to me:
The witch hunt and the unwanted trip down memory lane
15th of December
Nick crept down the stairs, avoiding all the creaky floorboards as best as he could remember. He sent out a silent thank you when he made it to the front door undetected. Unlocking it, he slipped out into the crisp dark morning. The cold slapped harshly at his fitted denim jacket as he sprinted to his van. Releasing the locks, he hopped inside and started the engine. He fired the heater up before reversing into the drive across from Aaden’s. He hoped the sound of his engine didn’t disturb the neighbours.
Nick drove out onto the dark, deserted main road. His mind flicked through the directions he’d memorised to get to Slieu Whallian.
Last night had been the final straw. He’d sat listening to a tearful Greg explain to Aaden and Max what he’d done when Brody had gone to bed. He’d kept his mouth shut, letting Greg get it all off his chest.
The one fact Greg had missed out was how they’d had to physically restrain Brad. As soon as the taxi had pulled into the cul-de-sac, Brad had lost it, threatening to throttle Max. Nick absently rubbed at his arm where Brad had managed to get in a sneaky punch before he could restrain him. He may be small, but by Christ, he was strong when he was angry.
Not that Nick could blame him. He was feeling pretty angry himself. It had been years since he’d thought about Christina and their encounters. Those turbulent times held painful memories he didn’t like to think too hard about. In fact, he tended to avoid all thoughts of her and that confusing time in his life.
Christina’s appearance had just forced the issue out into the open. Since Saturday, or if he was honest, since Brody had rocked up on Friday, it was all he could do not to think about it. Brody’s proximity was making it nigh on impossible to ignore all the messy, sticky thoughts he was used to hiding not only from himself but also from Brody and Aaden.
He was a complete hot mess, and he didn’t have a clue how to fix it, other than run back to the UK and leave Aaden in the lurch.
And oh, how that idea appealed.
Nick blew his hair out of his eyes. He swiped at the long, blond strands hanging around his face, tucking them behind his ears, and shook off the memories that wanted to drag him into his past miseries.
He diverted his attention to the information he’d read while doing an internet search about witches and their connection to the island. Most of his encounters with Christina had been in the woods by his home. He recalled asking her why she liked to spend time in the forest. And if he’d got it right, it had something to do with some of her past lives.
The hill known as the Witches Barrel was where he was headed. It was too much of a coincidence that Christina had lived not many miles from that hill and near Max in the twelfth century. Or that the story he had found about a witch that had been put in a spiked barrel and rolled down Slieu Whallian was a story she had told him about one of her past lives.
A story he was sure at the time she’d told him to create a shed load of guilt and sympathy for her. It had mixed with his confusion when she had started to pressure him about his own gender identity crisis.
“No, no, no, stop it.” Nick growled into the silent van.
His mind in overdrive, Nick attempted to get his thoughts back on track. He did not need the guilt or the sympathy clouding his judgements when he was going witch-hunting.
No, I fucking don’t.
The darkness broke as the moon slid from behind the black clouds, casting its long, silver shadow over the water on his right. The glittering darkness caught his eye as it spread. The driving winds whipped at the flat expanse, making white waves thrash towards the land. Nick slowed down, indicating and pulling his van into the curb.
After the crap night’s sleep of tossing and turning, he needed something to buoy his flagging mood. The rough beauty in front of him was far too tempting to resist. He let the thrashing waves and sounds of the wind blowing around the vehicle soothe his raw nerves. He rested his head back, watching nature’s beauty battle with her elements. The water and air seemed to want to play nicely together for a time before they went back to fighting for supremacy.
Was that like me and Aaden?
Only Nick hadn’t wanted to fight for supremacy, not really. All he’d wanted was Brody. Fuck, he was all he’d ever wanted from the moment he’d laid eyes on him at eleven years old. The problem was, his eleven-year-old self didn’t understand what he was feeling. Add in his love of all things feminine and his secret stash of his mother’s silky underwear he loved to wear when no one was around to catch him. It had made his young mind a place ripe for misperceptions and misunderstandings about who and what he was.
Nick could look back now and understand why he’d been easily lured by the witch. He was ripe for the picking. Not sure if he was a boy or a girl inside his head or his body.
“For fuck’s sake.”
Nick continued to curse and rant as he started the engine and carried on to his destination. The view no longer held his attention as his mind seemed to be adamant on revisiting his past, whether he wanted to or not. He tried to remember what the counsellor had taught him about how he could control his thoughts.
He took several deep breaths. The mixed odour of wood shavings and his Joe Malone aftershave took the edge off his urge to turn the van around and drive back to Aaden’s. He reminded himself he was a grown-up now and not a confused child who didn’t know better.
He squared his shoulders and gripped the wheel tight. He forced himself to drive on and confront his past. It was long overdue. This shit storm had been brewing since his teenage years, and if he was right, then he knew exactly where to take his angst. As far as he was concerned, his anger was going to be aimed at the one who’d helped to stir this current pot of shit: Christina.
Nick let the sounds and vibrations of the engine, along with the wind, accompany him as he drove down the deserted coast road and turned off to go along the switchback. His headlights guided him on the undulating tarmacked road. He cursed the narrowness. When he’d checked the map, he hadn’t realised it was mostly single track, with only a few passing places. He let out a relieved exhale when he got to the end without meeting any other traffic.
Grateful for his good sense of direction, he quickly found the designated car park by the pub. He parked, switched off the engine, and searched for his large flashlight. Nick stepped out of the car. The harsh breeze slapped at his bare face and hands. He shivered. He hugged the denim closer to his chest, wishing he’d thought about bringing a warmer jacket with him.
He started the steep climb into the forest. The blackness quickly surrounded him. The light of his flashlight lit up the dark path that led into a densely populated pine forest. The sound of his feet tramping on the dried leaves and pines mixed with the rustle of the wind as it attempted to penetrate the trees.
Branches formed a large dark canopy above his head, blocking the moonlight. The darkness deepened. His flashlight had barely any impact as he strode on into the damp pine-scented air. The thick canopy above kept the earthy scents trapped. He inhaled the damp air, filling his lungs with the scented earth.
His mind worked on trying to remember the words she’d given him to summon her, after their first couple of encounters. He thought he had some of it but was not convinced. He walked deeper into the woods. He huddled into his jacket, feeling a cold sweat slide down his spine into the top of his jean waistband. He prayed that he wasn’t going on some wild goose chase that ended up with him finding nothing.
The eerie darkness sent an icy chill across his skin. Nick shuddered at the feel of erupting goosebumps. His eyes searched the pitch dark. The large trees created a confusing maze, with little space for him to walk. He struggled even with the torch to find a walkable path as he continued deeper into the forest.
Disorientated, he trudged on for another few minutes. Sweat beaded on his exposed skin. His hair stuck uncomfortably to his neck and face. The damp air did little to help as he forced his tired muscles to carry on up the steep slope, trying to find a bigger gap in the tree line. His heavy boots ground against the solidly packed earth, hardly making a mark. His rasping breaths and footfall seemed to grow louder as the wind struggled to find a way past the dense branches around him.
A sudden shift in the air lifted Nick’s blond hair, making him still. His thundering heart prevented him from hearing anything. Regulating his heartbeat, he calmed his breathing before turning off the flashlight and creating utter blackness.
The creepy feeling that maybe all that was hidden in the dark was stalking him had a tiny tremble working its way up his torso. He shut out the negative thoughts. As he closed his eyes, he let his mind drift to the past, and he inhaled the familiar scents of the woods.
Words long forgotten drifted to the front of his mind. Without overthinking, he spoke. “Vilja geta einn endr sveinbarn.” He chanted the words, letting his voice grow stronger. He was convinced he had it almost right. If memory served him, he was saying “be willing, able, to be alone again.” Though he thought there might have been another word in there, he hoped she got the gist. He’d once asked her what the words meant. She’d given him the English version but not the meaning of the words. His child self had never bothered to ask. Now he wondered what their significance was to him or Christina.
His line of thought broke as his head pounded, ears ringing, Nick’s eyes fired open. He felt the air shift and pulse with life. The familiarity transported him back to his youth, and the fright he had felt as a child when he’d first seen the vision floating from the tree he’d been sat under, crying.
He forced his mind to remain present when it tried to drag him kicking and screaming to other painful memories.
He gritted his teeth, jaw thrusting forward. He sneered at Christina’s dramatics when she floated out of a tree and lightly perched on the lowest branch a couple of feet from him. The calm demeanour didn’t hide her slight agitation. Her swinging leg was her only outward sign of tension as she gave him a knowing smirk.
“Oh, you finally called, my darling, and it wasn’t over my dead body. How long has it been, my sweet little boy, or would that be girl?”
Her delicate chuckle had his gaze lock with her intense hazel eyes. She raked him from head to toe. He was sure she missed nothing.
Her lip curled up at his masculine clothes and filthy work boots. “I still believe you would have made a far prettier girl. You still have the opportunity, even though you turned me down all those years ago.” Her delicate brows rose. The light in her eyes illuminated her face as she shifted, leaning slightly closer to him.
Nick felt the power of her gaze beat through him. The familiar feeling had him clenching his hands. He made a concerted effort to break eye contact. As he stepped back, he bumped into the large pine trunk directly behind him.
Her little snigger forced him to hold his ground.
He quickly reminded himself she could not force him to do anything. The little voice of the child he’d been shouted at him. As long as you don’t let her brainwash you.
He gave himself a mental shake. This wasn’t his first rodeo with this witch. He hadn’t succumbed before, and he wouldn’t now. No matter what stunt she tried to pull.
“What are you up to, Christina? Will anybody do, or it is just my family, and that includes Max, you want to fuck with.” He spat the words at her, letting the control he had on his anger slip, showing he wasn’t there to be messed with.
“Now, now, Nick. You know very well I was connected to Max, well before you or your brother were even a twinkle in your mother’s and father’s eyes. Odin’s raven, I don’t know how many generations there are between us, far too many to count or mention. All you need to understand is that I will get my way. I have lived and died too many times. I want my soul to find the peace I was…”
Nick held up his hand. “Stop right there.” He drew in a breath when her eyes glittered with anger. He tempered his tone as he didn’t want to piss her off any further. He’d never been totally sure what she was capable of, other than poofing in and out of his life. Just like something out of the X-Files, she was definitely in the creep-your-head-out file.
“That’s as it may be, Christina, but we’ve got nothing to do with your promises. Fuck, after listening to the crap that happened to Max. And then this other soul stuff with Aaden and Greg, I think you should count yourself lucky and hightail it back to your king and stay there, with him.” Nick nodded, emphasising the last part as he spoke, thinking that would sort this whole mess out.
“You silly human, nothing is as simple as that. I am directly connected to Max. My life is intertwined with his. As long as he lives, then I will also, whether that is in one body for eternity or many different ones. I have tried the many different ones, and I have to say it is tedious to age and die. Only to find myself floating around, untethered, repeatedly. Taking over a guardian cat’s soul, now that would work nicely and stop the whole infernal dying thing that humans have going on. I have to say the way you all treat each other is dreadful. I still shudder at being rolled down this hill in that spiked barrel. All I was trying to do was help. It’s not my fault those silly fools wouldn’t listen to reason and they went to sea.”
Her tiny shoulders gave a nonchalant shrug as she settled back against the dark bark. Her vivid green dress glowed in the darkness. Her long, auburn tresses flowed around her small frame, somehow glowing, making her luminescent skin gleam. Nick wasn’t sure how she was doing it. She seemed to illuminate the space around them when it clearly it should have been darker than a black hole.
He forced his mind back to the problem at hand when he couldn’t argue with her logic. The question was why did it have to be Princess? The question popped out. “Why Princess? Can’t you just wait for a new little pussycat to be born and inhabit their body? I really don’t get why it has to be Princess.” He stepped closer, watching her face for any clue as to what she was thinking when she clamped her lips together.
Nick pointed his finger, knowing that look all too well. “What aren’t you telling me, Christina? You have that secret squirrel face on you.”
Nick was unable to hold back his chuckle when he heard her loud “hrumphhhh.” A grin spread across his cold cheeks as he struggled not to let out the laughter that sat in his chest, making it hard for him to breathe when her face turned puce. Outrage had her eyes spitting fire at him.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Nick held up his hands, struggling to speak and keep his humour in check. He bit the inside of his lip, drawing blood. The taste of copper coated his tongue, making him tut in disgust at his own stupid behaviour as he gagged when he swallowed.
“What aren’t you telling me, Christina? Come on, if you want my help, I’m willing to do just about anything if it gets you off my brother’s and Greg’s case. They need some time to be with each other, without the added drama you have a tendency to bring.”
He gasped when a sudden thought pricked his subconscious. Aaden had said something about Max helping Princess heal. Nick spoke, processing what he could recall. “Princess is connected to Max, isn’t she? That’s what this is about. You want that.”
Nick watched her small brow draw up. Her eyes flickered with something he couldn’t quite grasp in the dim light. His own mind continued to connect the dots.
He pointed at her. “That’s it, isn’t it? Whatever Max gave of himself to save Princess would be passed to you if you were able to inhabit her soul and take over her life. That wouldn’t be the case with a newborn guardian,” Nick felt his anger grow. “You want eternity! You just don’t care how you get it…”
Nick trailed off when he saw her hunch. Her normally radiant face lost its vibrant hue and turned pale. Her hazel eyes dimmed, but he thought he saw the light of truth she couldn’t quite hide.
“The king has decided that Max no longer needs to have me back. That the burden he carried for all those centuries means that he is now free. He can now find the happiness that has eluded him all that time.”
Her bitterness slid out from behind the mask of beauty. Nick felt his skin prickle at the hate that sprung to life in her face when she continued to speak.
“Did I not serve my king faithfully? Did I not keep quiet and endure the many lives? Lives I was forced to live? Have I not done this without complaint? And now I am being tossed away as if I were yesterday’s rubbish. Well, I will not…”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I beg to bloody differ. All you did was complain about your rotten luck to me and then try to wheedle your way into my soul. You’re greedy and not very nice when you don’t get your way. I bet you’ve lost count of how many lives your sneakiness has disrupted. Never mind how many lives you took from confused souls.” Building a head of steam, Nick ignored the dark chill that seemed to grow with every accusation he threw at her.
“You say you had no choice, but have you not picked those souls you inhabited? Have you not chosen who would be your next victim? Are you sure the king is just not fed up with you doing as you please and giving you a taste of your own medicine?” He gave her a shrewd look.
His thoughts raced along with his pulse when she slowly lowered to the ground. Her small stature did nothing to diminish the feeling of power he felt rise as she stepped closer. Her tiny fists clenched at her sides.
“I would be careful if I were you. You wouldn’t want me to turn you into an animal. I may not be able to take over your soul without permission. That does not mean I can’t or won’t turn you into a donkey or worse.”
The blood froze in his veins. His eyes bulged out of his sockets as she gave him a wicked smile that did not touch her eyes. Eyes that had darkened to pools of obsidian with each threat she issued.
Okay, this is so not going the way I’d planned.
He tried to think fast, but his mind came up blank on what he could offer to make her back off. He sighed in frustration, and he rubbed his work-roughened hands over his face. His powerful shoulders sagged under the weight of her stare.
“I don’t want you to turn me into anything. But as I said, you have to understand that you may not have picked to be pulled away from Max. You have, however, been given free rein over the lives you have chosen to be part of. So why not just continue to do that?”
Nick felt they were just going round in circles when she just kept coming back to her want for eternity in one soul.
Nick stomped his feet, not sure of the time. But the deep darkness seemed to have lifted around them as they continued to argue back and forth.
“We are not going to resolve this.” Nick yanked his hair from his face and tucked it back behind his ears. “I’m asking you for old times’ sake to please leave my family alone.” His frustrated plea seemed to fall on deaf ears as she poofed into thin air. “Oh for fuck’s sake, why do you do that when you can’t get your own way?”
Nick growled to thin air, stomping back the way he came. He muttered and cursed all the way back to his van. The grey-lightened sky had him swearing when he saw how late it now was as he climbed back into his van.
Making a detour, he drove to Tynwald sawmills to get more wood. He needed the excuse as he knew couldn’t turn up empty-handed. It was only a matter of time before Aaden or Nick’s own fight club started asking questions, and he still didn’t know how he was going to answer.
He gave himself a mental shake, knowing his morning trip had fucked things up even more. An angry Christina was so not going to help their cause. He groaned as he pulled into the drive, and he braced himself. He was unsure what he was dreading more: facing Brody’s deliciousness and not being able to touch or explaining to Aaden about his connection to Christina.
He shook his head as he got out of the van. Nope, he couldn’t decide. It was a close call between both of them, and neither was his idea of fun.
Christina allowed her body to fade, fed up with the angry circles they were going around in. Nick had been one of her greatest failures, and she was loath to be reminded. It had been a shock to see him in Aaden and Max’s home. Oh, she knew he was Aaden’s brother. She just hadn’t been prepared to see him there larger than life, after all these years. His gorgeous face reminded her of what she could have had if he’d only succumbed to her will.
He hadn’t been wrong of what he’d accused her of tonight. The king had given her free rein to come and go as she pleased. She’d got bored over the years, and to entertain herself she had started finding souls she could take over and live their lives. But she had grown weary of this and had requested to speak to the king. She’d been shocked by the outcome. His release of the ties binding her to Max were broken. Yet at what cost? As she was no longer tethered to his long life, she would find this would be her last cycle of life.
She had hidden her anger, knowing all too well the king would not tolerate it and would, if feeling vengeful, have cut her current life cycle short. So she’d kept quiet and instead figured out a plan when she realised that Max was now tied irrevocably to Princess. His past affections for her now worked in her favour, yet he still dithered, unsure of what he wanted to do.
His shout last evening had driven up her hopes, only to have them dashed.
She allowed her body to form when she heard Max’s shout. Her body thrummed with eagerness that he had finally come to a decision that would end her torment.
“Christina, thank Odin’s raven. Greg has let the cat out of the bag and told Brad about your offer.” She watched Max’s small brow furrow his whiskers as they twitched in the sharp evening breeze.
“And this would be a problem, why?” She let her delight show, now that things were finally out in the open. “We can now move to the next stage, my lover. You and me, eternally together. Is this not what you always dreamed of?” She whispered slyly in his ear. She let her breath cover his face as she ran her hands down his warm fur. Her strokes elicited loud, rumbling purrs.
Christina kept her smile hidden behind the curtain of her hair as Max pushed into her hand. She felt her triumph turn into satisfaction.
Her smile died when Max spoke, dashing her hopes.
“I’m sorry, Christina, it is not that simple. Princess…” His words died.
Her mind searched for a way to make him see only her.
She spoke seductively, encouraging Max. “Princess is nothing compared to me. You know this. I’m yours and always have been. What we feel for each other is eternal, my love.”
Christina paused when his unwavering gaze latched on to her face.
“Stop, please. You know I had feelings for you, but that was a long time ago. I need to sort through what I feel for Princess before I make a decision. And you’re clouding my mind. Though it would have worked many centuries ago, it doesn’t hold the same sway now.”
At Max’s growled response, Christina clenched her small white teeth together to keep the spiteful words inside, knowing that was not how to win this battle. Giving Max a small wave, she’d left quickly.
Christina shook off her worrisome thoughts. She watched Nick tramp back to his vehicle. She considered what her next plan of action would be. While she twirled her long strands of hair around her fingers, her mind played with several ideas. She needed to consider her deeds carefully if she wanted to win.