Craved

“Hey, Micah,” I said to get his attention back on me. He turned his head to shoot me a look and I smiled. “Did you know that that a duck’s quack doesn’t echo?” Everyone in the car became silent and looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I smiled at Aiden and nodded at Fiona, she knew what I was up to.



“Micah, what did Gwen just tell you?” Fiona asked. Micah thought for a moment and with certainty opened his mouth to repeat what I had told him, only to have his lips shut and remain quiet. I had laced the information with magic and for that reason, Micah couldn’t repeat what I had told him. I smiled victoriously and Fiona laughed.



“Happy?”



He gave me a lopsided grin and nodded. For the rest of the car ride home, we discussed brew and by the time Micah pulled in front of our apartment building, I was feeling depressed. It didn’t help my mood when the happy tourists were still roaming the streets at midnight. Most sane humans wouldn’t be out this late at night, but the vampire wannabes and the men and women looking for vampire romance, like the ones they’d read in so many books, still trolled the streets.



Fiona and I got out of the car and headed for our apartment but I noticed Aiden staring at a group of women walking across the park. He had to feed every other day so today must be feeding time. It wasn’t illegal to feed on humans in Flora so long as the human was consenting and no vampire glamour was used. He noticed my glare and gave me a sly smile that I wasn’t in the mood to return. Whether dealing with a werewolf or vampire, there would always be stipulations. Maybe a nice human boy would be the smarter choice for my heart. If I dated a human guy, then we could eat together, have children together, and be on the same sleeping schedule.



I let out a heavy sigh and turned to walk up the concrete stairs with Fiona trailing. After showering and eating some leftover pizza, I headed for bed. Tomorrow was the beginning of Founders Day and I would need my sleep to deal with the bustling crowds. Fiona and I hadn’t talked much since returning home. Maybe she was realizing the severity of the situation. I drifted off to sleep, those electric blue eyes haunting my dreams.



10



The old farmhouse looked as decrepit as I remembered. I was standing in what would be the living room, surrounded by a sea of stacked newspapers. I wasn’t as scared this time, since I knew what was going on. I looked for the spirit I had seen before but I was alone at the moment.



I scanned the dates on the papers that stood in stacks all over the musty worn carpet. The first paper was from 1980 and a picture of Bridget Downing stared back at me. She was young, probably only seven. The article went on to say that this little girl had used magic in her second grade class.



The Otherworldly Revelation happened in 1983, so Bridget had been discovered three years prior to the world finding out about us non-humans. From the articles, it seemed the world was in an uproar over a seven-year-old magic user. Most didn’t believe such a thing could be real and attacked the school and media for treating Bridget like a science project.



I flipped through the other papers and discovered they were all about Bridget and the Otherworldly Revelation. I caught a dark shadow out of the corner of my eye and swiveled my head in the direction.



“Bridget?” I called to the emptiness. There was a doorway leading into the kitchen that I could see, the moonlight lending enough glow to illuminate the house. I stood up and walked toward where I had seen the silhouette. The kitchen was small and looked like it had been built in the seventies, orange countertop, cracked yellow linoleum, and dark wood cabinets. A small table sat against the wall and sitting in one of the worn chairs was Bridget’s ghost.



I froze momentarily and then remembered that she didn’t want to harm me. I’d always heard from witches with psychic abilities that ghosts just have unfinished business; maybe Bridget needed my help.



“Bridget?” I said again. She had been looking down at her hands that were folded in her lap, but looked up at the mention of her name. She was no longer just a figure of gray. I could make out the woman I had seen lying at the edge of the forest.



“Did you want to tell me what happened to you?” She watched me with confusion. Maybe she didn’t remember what happened; maybe she didn’t realize she was dead. I had no clue how to handle a ghost who seemed to pull me away from my reality and into the ghostly plain.



“He was watching me,” she said, her voice sounding garbled. Her eyes were wide with what looked like fear, so much that I actually turned around to see if someone was standing behind me. After realizing the empty living room was the only thing behind me, I turned my attention back to Bridget.



“Who was watching you?” I asked. I needed more information and I wasn’t sure if her spirit was strong enough to give it to me. It had only been a day since her death so her spirit could still be confused. When she didn’t answer, I walked a little closer to where she sat and knelt on a bended knee until I was at eye level with her.



“Bridget, who was watching you?”



“Vampire,” she responded.



“What’s his name Bridget?”



“England.”



I arched a brow in confusion. “What’s his name?” I tried again. She began to waver like a heat mirage and I knew that she’d soon disappear. I wasn’t sure if I’d see her again and I needed to know who killed her.



“Who killed you?” I said louder. She held out a faltering hand and I grabbed it without hesitation this time. White noise filled my head and I tried to discern anything useful.



A scene played within my memory, of a warehouse, just like the one I’d seen with Amy Harper. A man in jeans and a dark, zip-up hoodie was standing at the end of a cot and I could just make out his voice when he spoke to someone behind him. His accent was English.



My eyes shot open and I stared at my bedroom ceiling. Aura was lying on my chest staring at me as if she knew what I’d just witnessed and, most likely, she did. The man I’d seen from Amy Harper’s memory was the same man Bridget had shown me. Whoever this vampire was, he had a strong English accent. You might think that would be an easy thing to track but most vampires were older than the United States so most have accents to begin with. Aiden was born in Florence, Italy but had been in the United States for so long that he’d learned to speak without an accent, making him sound American. I had a feeling, though, that if I were around this specific vampire, I’d be able to recognize him



My alarm clock rang out loudly, making me jump. I slapped it so that it would shut off and reluctantly got out of bed. I was abnormally tired, as if I hadn’t slept all night. I went through the motions of showering and dressing, but still couldn’t wake up.



At the shop, I lazily watched customers buzz around the glass shelves as they looked at all of the otherworldly goods. Penny had been talking to me about some new band and I caught myself saying a lot of “uh-huhs” and “yeahs”. I felt completely drained and even coffee from Espresso Self couldn’t get me out of my funk. I rang and bagged sales in a fog, not thanking or smiling at my customers.



“Gwen?” I heard my name called. I turned to see that Penny was watching me with worried eyes. I sluggishly turned my head to see if the threat was behind me but saw nothing menacing there, just customers.



“Gwen, are you feeling okay?” Penny asked.



“Just tired.” I shrugged my shoulders.



“Were you up late?”



“Not really. I got to bed around one in the morning but I still got seven hours of sleep,” I told her. My normal sleep pattern was six hours so I had actually gotten an extra hour in. I usually had a lot of energy, even with only four hours of sleep. I had no clue why I was so tired today.



“Why don’t you take your lunch and go see Ms. Ozland; maybe she’ll have a remedy for your sleepiness?”



I looked around the store; we still had a lot of customers. Penny must have seen the wheels turning in my head because she said, “I can handle the store.” I nodded my head and grabbed my purse that I stowed under the front counter.



“I’ll be back within forty minutes.”



I bumped into a few patrons on my way up the block to Ms. Ozland’s house. She lived in a small cottage-style home with a weathered picket fence outlining her property. Worn wood shutters decorated her windows, and brightly colored flowers filled her front yard. She had a handful of pixies that lived in her garden that kept her flowers in bloom all year long.



I pushed open the wooden gate and walked up the stone walkway. I knocked twice on her rounded door and waited for an answer. It had been rainy and cold all day so I wrapped my arms around myself to preserve any warmth I retained. The front door opened to reveal Ms. Ozland’s petite frame. She was only five-foot-one with long salt and pepper hair. Her eyes were the bluest I’d ever seen and her skin was almost too young for her age of sixty-eight years.



“Gwen, please come in,” she said in a melodic voice. I smiled at her and stepped inside her home. If you’ve ever seen a fairytale cottage in movies, then you have a good idea what Ms. Ozland’s home looked like. Worn wooden floors, exposed beams on the ceiling, very rustic and charming.



“Did you get the inventory I sent you?” she asked, motioning for me to sit while she poured tea.



I nodded my head. “Yes, thank you. I love the compacts and I have your payment.” I had written the check out the other day and forgot to drop it by, so I handed her the check and lifted my teacup. I didn’t know much about Ms. Ozland, besides her talent for spell casting. As far as I knew, she didn’t have any family in Flora and hardly ever came out of her house.



“What did you need, my dear?” she asked with knowing eyes; maybe she held a little psychic ability? I set the teacup back on the floral saucer and clasped my hands in my lap.



“I was hoping you might have something for exhaustion. I slept last night but I’m still tired,” I told her.



“Did you have a visitor last night?” She looked at me through her eyelashes as if she already knew the answer. I thought for a moment, not quite getting what she was saying. I shook my head,