by Nicole Marsh
This time, I interrupt Vlad, “Leif told me about a spring… he said the jealousy of a witch over a spring owned by shifters was tied to the origin of the curse.”
Vlad’s neutral expression morphs into a furious frown. “That guy that was pretending to be me?” He bellows.
“Shhh,” I respond urgently. The last thing I want is for Vlad’s parents to come running in from the kitchen thinking we’re under attack or something. “Calm down,” I tell Vlad. “Yes, that guy from earlier.”
“I don’t think we should trust anything that comes from some asshole that pretends to be your boyfriend so he can make out with you, then beat you up.”
Marc’s sharp inhale behind us interrupts the argument. Vlad must have kept a few of the details from how I became injured from everyone that came to visit. I ignore Marc to focus on convincing Vlad that Leif’s words carry some weight. “Look, I’m probably more upset with Leif than you are. But… he is an extremely knowledgeable witch. What he did was wrong and I’m not sure I fully understand what his intentions were, but without him I would not have passed my witches exams,” I defend Leif, knowing that he messed up, but still believing deep down he’s a decent guy. “Plus,” I add on, “The wolves were telling you of a spring too. It wasn’t just him.”
“Did you find any springs?” Marc tacks on.
Vlad declines with a shake of his head. “We ran for weeks, combing the woods up north trying to find it, but we were unable to locate the area it was supposed to be in. The other wolves I was running with… they were stuck. They have been for a while. We were trying to find it as much for us as anyone else.”
“What if we attempted to find it as humans?” Marc asks, excitedly. “It could be related to the cure.”
I nod along with Marc’s words. “Do you have any idea where it is, or what it’s nearby? If you do, we could look up Springs in that area to try to find it!”
Dragging his hands across his face, Vlad adopts a pensive expression. “It’s in Canada, I know that much for sure. We crossed the border a few days after my initial shift…” He trails off and the living room is silent as Marc and I hang on to Vlad’s every word. “It wouldn’t be on any maps, I’m sure. If shifters had a secret spring, they’d certainly want to keep it a secret from the humans.”
“There’s no way we could find it then?” I ask, defeated.
Vlad furrows his brow, his handsome features scrunched as he thinks over options. “I could shift back and find the pack. If I ask them to describe the landmarks that were supposed to help us find it, again, then we could use those to help us pinpoint a location on a map.”
His words cause a spike of anxiety. I’m not ready for Vlad to shift into a wolf again, yet. What if he takes off like before? Then we’re back to square one all over again.
My face must reflect my trepidation. Vlad squeezes the hand connected with his and whispers in my direction, “I’ll be okay. I’ve shifted dozens of times before this and always been able to change back.”
I nod my head while Marc says, “When will you meet with the pack?”
Vlad precedes his answer with another hand squeeze. “I think I should go now. The pack is probably nearby. I don’t want them to wander further into the woods before I get a chance to talk to them.”
Marc and I stand outside the back of the Mort’s house and watch Vlad walk into the tree line, clad in only a pair of gym shorts. Marc was prepared for the chilly evening, with a fleece coat in his car. Since I wasn’t appropriately dressed, Vlad snagged a throw blanket for me. I watch him wearing it wrapped around my shoulders like a shawl, to keep warm while I wait.
A gasp forces itself from my lips when Vlad pulls down his shorts, his tanned skin glinting in the light from the rear porch. The skin is visible for seconds before he bends over and begins to morph and grow, changing from a human man to a fur covered wolf. The second his shift is complete; Vlad raises his snout in the air and lets out a howl. I hold my breath until the answering howls of his pack sounds out in the air.
They’re still here.
Together, Marc and I watch Vlad run into the forest. Once he’s out of sight, I can sense Marc’s attention shift to me. I ignore his steady gaze, my eyes fixated on the woods. His words penetrate my thoughts as I watch the tree line with baited breath. “Mira, what happened with Leif?” His tone is concerned and cautious, like he’s nervous about my response.
I drag my eyes away from the trees to meet Marc’s emerald gaze. “He took some potion… that made him look like Vlad. He planted himself to be seen and then waited behind Vlad’s house…” I trail off, remembering the events from earlier in the day. I’m disappointed by Leif, hurt by his actions.
“Then what?” Marc asks. I can tell he’s forcing himself to remain calm, while listening to my words.
“He kissed me. When I tried to fight him off, he flung me across the yard into a tree.”
Marc growls in his throat and the sound surprises me. I raise an eyebrow in his direction, but the sudden sound of a howl nearby has me whipping my head back towards the woods. Shortly after the noise, Vlad reappears at the edge of the woods.
I watch, wide-eyed, as he shifts back from wolf to human. He slips into his gym shorts before jogging back towards us. When he reaches the back of the house, he slings an arm around my shoulders and it feels like the most natural motion in the world.
“Well?” Marc prods.
“I think I have some good intel. I can look it up in the morning and we’ll go from there,” Vlad replies. He moves his gaze from Marc to me, his amber eyes scanning my face to ensure I’m okay. Whatever he sees must reassure him, as he pulls us forward, towards the back door of the house.
Marc follows behind us silently, as Vlad enters the house. He keeps his arm around me as we walk towards the front door. When we reach the small entryway, our group pauses.
“Do you need a ride home, Mira?” Marc asks.
I glance to Vlad. He raises a single brow, as if he’s also waiting for my response. Locking my eyes onto Vlad’s amber gaze, I reply, “I think I’m going to stay here.” Vlad nods his approval. I tear my eyes away to look at Marc. “I’ll text you in the morning after we have more information.”
“I need to go with you to the springs… I want to know what’s happening.” Marc says the words softly, while staring into my eyes. Despite the low volume of his words, they sound urgent.
The thought crosses my mind to wonder why Marc is so invested. Prior to delving too much into suspicion over someone that has only ever been kind and helpful, I remind myself that his family has expansive records of witching history. He probably wants to know what’s happening so he can continue his legacy of recording important events in witching history. Reasoning with myself helps me to feel more comfortable with Marc’s intentions and I open my mouth to respond.
Vlad chooses that moment to interject, “You can come with us. I’m going to start researching the markers they told me about--early tomorrow morning. We’ll either leave after that or wait until the next day, depending on how far it is and what travel arrangements we need to make.”
Marc gives a curt nod, then opens the door to let himself out. Once it closes firmly behind him, Vlad turns the lock and leads me back to his room. In a semi-familiar ritual, he grabs me clothes to change into and we both get ready for sleep. Within a few minutes, we slide under the covers together.
Vlad is laying on his back, staring at the ceiling and I turn towards him, propping my head on my elbow to give myself room to watch him. He mimics my motion so that we’re both laying on our sides facing one another. “I’m really kind of mad at you,” I tell him, but my words lack venom.
“I would have been here if I could. There weren’t many…human thoughts running through my mind. Most of my weeks were spent following my survival instincts and leading the pack, trying to find the spring. But I will tell you, I did think of you and truly, I did miss you. It’s one of the few human emotions that bled through during
that time.” Vlad’s tone is solemn, his expression serious.
I flick out my free hand and playfully whack him across the chest. “Just, never do that to me again,” I say to punctuate the light hit. I don’t want to hurt Vlad—well not much—I just want him to know that his absence caused me pain. I wasn’t sure that he was ever going to come back.
“If I can prevent it, I will never leave you when you need me.” His voice rumbles back.
I nod once, and scoot in until I’m close enough to tuck my head underneath his propped-up chin. I wrap my arm around his waist and respond into his chest, “Thank you.” I tack on the last part quietly, knowing he’ll be able to hear. “And I missed you too.”
Vlad nuzzles his face into my hair and slides an arm around my body to tug me closer. His grip firm as the front of our bodies mold together. Within seconds, his heat and the safety of his arms lulls me to sleep.
18
The Roadtrip
Mirabella
Vlad drives me home to pack some clothes for our trip. After he pulls up my long driveway, I ask him to wait in the car. I tell him it’s so I can communicate our plans to my parents, but it’s really so I can call Sylvia as I promised yesterday, without him overhearing my conversation.
Opening the front door, I call out a quick “Hello” but no one answers or comes to check out the entryway. I slide my cell phone out of my pocket and type up a quick text to my parents: Vlad and I are going camping. We will be back in a few days.
My mom’s reply pings back almost immediately: Camping? Have fun and tell Vlad we think he should have planned something more romantic than being bitten by bugs and eating dehydrated food! The words are accompanied with a half a dozen emojis including a wink and a tent.
I’m not sure what my mom is encouraging, but she doesn’t always use emojis correctly. Last week, she sent me several eggplant emojis accompanied with a message that said “guess what I’m doing today”. When I replied: “I’m not sure I want to know…” she became a little huffy. Her next message had a little sass as she replied: “I work so hard on growing my vegetables. I wish you and your father would at least act a little interested”. That’s when I realized she was using the eggplant emoji as a vegetable… to signify her gardening in the backyard.
Ignoring her message, I pull up Sylvia’s name next and hit the call button as I jog up the stairs to my room. She answers on the first ring, “Are you okay? Vlad told me what happened… I can’t believe Leif did that!”
I push my bedroom door closed behind me before I respond, “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Sighing I try to organize my thoughts. I’m still not over what happened with Leif. However, if I suddenly became emotional, I know it would be detrimental. Vlad is still beating himself up over what happened and we both know that there was nothing either of us could have done differently. Right now, there are bigger issues at play than Leif’s psychotic actions.
“Honestly, I’m really disappointed in Leif.” I finally say. “What he did was pretty messed up.”
Sylvia let’s out a humorless laugh, “I’d say that’s the understatement of the year.”
“I still can’t believe it.” I sigh again. “And I’m a little disappointed in myself for trusting him. But he’d done so much to help me with studying for the witches exams. I mean, I guess I knew he wasn’t exactly saintly after what happened with Kaylee. But then again, his messed-up way of defending me helped get her and her crew off my back. And he kind of redeemed himself by showing a different side of himself. He also invited me to join his coven.” Sylvia gasps dramatically at that last statement. “I declined, of course.” I add on quickly. I don’t add in that I did briefly think over the idea, playing with the thought of joining a coven with Leif.
Sylvia stays silent. We’ve been friends for years and she knows I haven’t gotten to my point. My true feelings about the situation with Leif. “I just feel like he tricked me.” My voice sounds defeated, even to my own ears. “I thought he was someone decent and trustworthy, then he turned out to be a total ass.” I don’t normally cuss, but there’s no other word to describe Leif’s behavior yesterday.
Sylvia hmms into the phone. This time, I let the silence sit between us while she thinks over my feelings on the Leif situation.
While I wait, I rummage through my closet until I find a duffle bag, then slowly start picking through my clothes and depositing a few things that I think would be good for camping. I’ve never actually been camping before, or to Canada, so I guess at the items that will be best suited to bring with me.
With my duffle bag full, I begin to tug on the zipper to close the bag. I stop immediately when Sylvia’s voice comes through the phone again. “I don’t think that any one person is all good or all bad. Every person is a gray area, like sometimes people are mostly good, but make an occasional bad decision. Or maybe a person is mostly bad and makes an occasional good decision. And it could change any day or time. A mostly good person could decide that they’re over being good and turn into a mostly bad person.”
“Okaay,” I reply, thinking over her words then. “Do you think Leif was a mostly bad person then?” I ask.
“No, Mira.” Sylvia surprises me by saying. “I think the reason you trusted Leif was because his intentions were primarily good, but some people make mistakes when they feel strongly about something. I think what Leif did was fucked up, but I also think he did it because he felt like it would help him achieve his end goal, which wasn’t anything nefarious.”
I plop down on the end of my bed, mulling over her words. “Are you saying I shouldn’t be upset over what happened?”
“No,” Sylvia responds firmly. “I’m saying there’s no way you could have known that Leif was going to do that and you shouldn’t beat yourself up for trusting him. He acted trustworthy; he just made a bad decision.”
“Do you think I should forgive him?” I ask, curious to hear her response.
“I think you need to give it time and see how you feel then.”
We hang up our call and I drift back downstairs lost in thought. When I near Vlad’s sport car idling in the driveway, he rolls down the window and calls out, “Have everything you need?”
“I think so,” I yell back. Holding up the small black duffle bag filled with my clothes.
Vlad jumps out of his car, and takes a few steps to meet me. He grabs my bag and then walks to my side of the car and opens the door. I watch in the side mirror as he pops the trunk and stows my duffle with some of the camping supplies he brought from his house.
“Are you ready to go meet Marc?” He asks as he hops into the car and starts to reverse down my steep driveway.
Determinedly, I push all thoughts of Leif to the back of my mind. After Sylvia’s words, I’m not sure how I feel, but for right now there are bigger things to focus on. “Let’s go find the spring.”
Marc rented a massive SUV and crammed it full of more camping gear than an outdoor supply store. At first, I thought that it was a bit excessive to have so much space, and the volume of snacks that he packed. However, I find myself appreciative of his forethought after seven hours on the road.
Vlad and Marc are in the front of the car, and I’m lounging in the second row crunching through a bag of chips. I watch the scenery passing by the windows, wishing I had brought some art supplies to paint what I see.
I must say the thought out loud. Marc’s voice penetrates the silence in the car, “It’s starting to get late. I think we should stop at the next town and find a place to stay for the night. I don’t want any of us to drive while tired. When we stop, we can check and see if they have a store with a sketchpad and some colored pencils or something.” His eyes connect with mine via the rearview mirror and I offer him a small smile of gratitude.
“She prefers paint,’ Vlad interjects.
I laugh. “I do prefer paint, but I think pencils or even charcoal would be okay for the car.”
“We’ll try to find you something,” Marc conf
irms.
When no one continues the conversation, Marc fiddles with the radio until we have some old rock softly filling in the silence. I turn back to my window, watching the blurs of close by trees and steadiness of the further ones. It doesn’t take long before we come up to a sign indicating a town is nearby.
“Hope, BC,” Vlad reads.
“Seems like a fitting place to stop on this trip,” Marc says. Although his words are light, his tone reflects the somber situation.
He turns the car to take the exit towards Hope. Soon the trees give way to suburban houses evenly spaced and nestled safely between picket fences. When we enter a downtown area, I move my face closer to the window to watch the store fronts pass by.
Downtown Hope appears similar to Florence. Stout buildings made of brick line the streets and as we drive, I see families enjoying ice cream and couples walking in and out of shops. I haven’t traveled outside of Florence very often; I’m fascinated by the small city. It makes me wonder if every small town is like where I’m from or if Hope is just the exception.
The car begins to slow as we approach the end of the connected buildings and we turn into a parking lot with a sign advertising a motel. The sun is beginning to set on the dusky town as Marc pulls the massive SUV into a parking spot.
We all clamber out, groaning and stretching. Thankful for the reprieve after a long day of sitting. The guys start to head towards the motel entrance intent on obtaining rooms for us for the night. They take a few steps, then Vlad pauses to look back at me. I glance between him and the downtown area before I call out, “While you two book rooms at the hotel, I’m going to walk down the street. I think I saw an art store.”
Vlad nods hesitantly, then turns back around and jogs towards the motel lobby.
I head back towards the town, my eyes scanning my surroundings as I exit the parking lot and start down the sidewalk. While we were driving here, I had the sudden urge to draw. My fingers itching to sketch the trees and the mountains.
