Elmora: Realm Walker Series Book One

by Anna LaVerne

  “I thought you were going to take me to your apartment to talk.” and pointed to the door into the building.

  “Oh yes, sorry I forgot.”

  Chapter 2

  We entered the building that no longer smells of stale cigarettes. Instead it smells of rich soil right after it rained. The smell brought back the memory of my Mom and I planting flowers in the spring. Rain, it was also the smell of fresh rain. Nature, I smelled nature in my outdated apartment complex. I forgot the Elf-man was behind me again as my mind began to wonder. It was as if I forgot he existed when I was no longer looking at him. I suddenly found myself unlocking my apartment door. Stepping in the kitchen light is on casting a low light across the rest of the apartment. The curtains on my sliding glass door to the balcony were shut because I hate the feeling I am being watched. Hiding is my way of life. I set my phone, keys, and water bottle down on the counter and go to shut the door.

  The tall handsome Elf-man cleared his throat. Shit, I forgot about him again.

  “You need drop the wards or I can't come in. It is why I had to catch you in the gym. I feared you would have ran from me if I confronted you outside after seeing your reaction in the hallway.”

  “You are right, I absolutely would have. I want you to come in, but honestly I don't know how to drop my wards. I didn't even realize I had warded the apartment. I just thought I had warded myself.”

  “Look in your mind you will see it. Just push a hole at the door.”

  “As simple as that you say?” I let out a sarcastic laugh.

  I can still see feel and manipulate energy, that is true enough, but I didn't even realize I had warded my apartment. I am just supposed to suddenly be able to see and manipulate the ward? Yeah.. right.. okay.

  “Stop questioning yourself and just try,” His voice was gruff with annoyance, no longer melodic. It didn't wash over my body like the suggestion to bring him to my apartment. Magic, he used magic on me!

  “How dare you? You used magic on me! I wouldn't have brought you this far without it and I know it! Your voice changed! Who do you think you are to manipulate my choices? Is that how I let you drive my car? Did you manipulate me out the window?” My voice was harsh with anger. I spent my life fighting my manipulative parents I wasn't about to trust a con man elf who already used magic on me before. I wanted to listen to reason, but my curiosity began to win.

  “That jolt was magic too wasn't it? When you kissed my hand?” He just stared at me as I raged on about being taken advantage of.

  “No, that wasn't my magic” he said calmly. Too calm. His eyes dropped to his feet and he looked almost sad. Could I trust an elf? Something deep in my gut felt sorry for him. Regardless if he used the power of suggestion or whatever on me I needed to let him in. I just hope I didn't end up regretting it.

  I took a step backwards into my kitchen and closed my eyes. Taking a deep breath feeling my energy move up through my feet into my solar plexus past my heart and into my mind. I opened my eyes looking for the ward. There it was, so bright. How did I not realize I did this? It was definitely my energy I could tell by the sparkles that coursed through it twinkling in and out it. I mentally pushed at the doorway. It didn't budge. I tried again, still nothing.

  “I am trying,” I told him. “It just keeps bouncing back when I push. How did I do this?”

  I take another deep breath and gathered the energy in my hand and decided to try and actually push. My hands began to tingle. I looked down and saw white little sparks popping from one hand to the other causing me to panic again. Breathe Vera, breathe. Okay, here I go. One... Two... Three Push! I saw the ward pulsate out and start to snap back in. Instead of snapping back into place it opened up. Not the full doorway worth though. My Elf-man could enter but he was going to have to duck to get through the hole.

  A smile spread across his all too handsome face. He ducked down and took a step in looking around. My little apartment smelled of spicy apples and nag champa thanks to my need to always burn incense or candles. My galley kitchen area was small, so I walked him all the way in past the little white stove and fridge covered in magnets and little doodles I had drawn on paper. I didn't have a couch just my bed. In front of my bed was a big flat screen TV hanging on the wall. Under the TV are three book shelves full of my favorite books. The ones I could never part with and had to have in actual book form.

  His tall frame took in every detail of my tiny home. He then plopped down on my messy unmade bed. I still hadn't said anything to him and now I know I couldn't even form words. I have a gorgeous Elf-man sitting on my cheap purple sheets. I haven't had a man in my bed for at least a year. My heart starts thrumming.

  As if he could read my thoughts, “Calm down Vera. I am not here for that........ yet”

  I felt the heat rise from my throat to my face causing me to flush. Talk Vera, Talk. Don't just sit there like a silly love smitten schoolgirl. You are a thirty year old woman. My pep talk cycling through my head. Finally, I feel my mouth forming words.

  “ I remember you, I think. It is like a dream only bits and pieces of you when I was so much younger. I had forgotten your eyes, and I most definitely didn't remember you ears. Part of me always wondered what or who you were. Your name is on the tip of my tongue it just won't form.”

  “Garrik, my name is Garrik, and that wasn't our first night together. I had been visiting you since you came into your gifts at around fourteen. I needed you to remember me that last night, because I was going to come back for you.”

  “Garrik,” I said feeling his name on my lips. That is right. That feels right, “My gifts? You mean my curse? I don't deal with the spirits anymore. They are gone from my sight.”

  “I know, and it has made it so hard for me to find you. I had looked everywhere that I knew you had been before. I couldn't find you anywhere.”

  Hot Elf-man had been looking for me. My heart skipped a beat. Why would hot Elf-man, Garrik, want to find a troubled young woman? Once again I am unable to form words.

  “I know you have had it rough. It is why I always visited. I just couldn't help you. You had to grow on your own. I never expected you to choose this half-life though. I never expected you to turn your back on your destiny. When I saw you at nineteen, on that one sober night of your week, I spent all night with you. We drove down the highway, on country roads, talked and sang along to music. All night. We even sat by the river in the dark and talked about your fears. I wanted you to remember all of that. It seems you have forgotten most of it” He was looking off into space. His teal eyes had darkened with reflection of the past moments we spent together.

  Garrik took a deep breath and continued, “ I begged you to stop numbing yourself with the drink. I told you I would be back, but when I returned a few months later you were gone. Your roommate, what was her name? Kelly? She was still there, but I couldn't show myself to her. I felt in my heart you were okay and that I would find you soon enough. I went back to my home to give you some more time to grow on your own. When I came back I still couldn't find you.”

  His mouth was drawn into a deep line. I felt the sorrow flow off of him. Who am I to this Elf-man and what kind of destiny could he be talking about? I am not a spiritual person any more. I don't believe in destiny.

  “I did get sober, but I couldn't take the constant barrage of thoughts and spirits. I couldn't handle seeing the spirits or whatever they were stand in the corner of my eyes following me everywhere I went. I had to hide. I didn't know what to do with what I was seeing and feeling. I don't remember long talks with you at all. I know what you say is true. I can feel it, but I don't remember it .” I take a deep breath. His smell was intoxicating. I wonder if I had ever slept with him. I sure hope I had slept with him.

  Garrik lets out a deep roaring laugh. “No, no we never… we never slept together.”

  The heat rises up through my cheeks and my eyes widened.

  “Did you hear me?!” A sly grin spread across his face.

  “I ca
n always hear bits and pieces of your thoughts when we are near each other. It is part of the connection we have.”

  He moved his big yet graceful looking hand and set it on my thigh. Another strong jolt of electricity shot through me. I jumped up shaking and walked across the room to the glass door that opened to my balcony. I turned my back to him, not being able to face what this is. What ever this is I didn't want any part of it especially if it had anything to do with my long boxed up so called “gifts”.

  I reached up and opened the curtains. The morning light lit up my little apartment. My little balcony was full of plants that I still had outside. I knew eventually I would have to bring them in before it starts to frost at night, but I estimated I still had a couple weeks before that happens. I had a giant aloe vera plant that took up half of my balcony. It always produced beautiful little baby aloes that I would pot and take to the swap meet during the summer to sell for extra cash. I always did side jobs to make extra money. I am a survivor and finding ways to make the most of what you are given is part of that.

  My mind had began to wonder again. I could feel Garrik's eyes on my back, but I couldn't stay focused on the conversation. I didn't want to hear it and although he feels like he is a piece of me I don't want to accept anything that will change my comfy albeit lonely life, or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe, I was hoping he would take me from my protective life. I have felt so empty. Fear of the unknown often keeps people complacent in their lives. It is easier to stay where you feel safe. I am so confused by all the mixed feelings that are roaring through my heart and mind.

  “Vera, I need you to talk to me.” He says to my back.

  I was still in my leggings and sports bra. My hair pulled tight into a messy bun. I could feel a headache starting. I wasn't ready to deal with whatever the fuck I was dealing with in that moment. I pulled on my hair tie letting my hair fall loose in messy tangled waves. It landed and bounced at the middle of my back. I hear Garrik take a sharp breath in.

  “ Your hair is the same as I remember.” He says.

  “Yours is shorter, I would have thought Elf-men would have had long hair” He chuckled. “Goddess, Vera how I had missed hearing you call me Elf-man”

  I finally turned around to face him. He was no longer sitting on the bed, but standing staring at me like no man had ever looked at me before. It was a look of longing, a look of sadness, and a look of something else, love? I shook my head. No way, as the butterflies fluttered in my belly. I need coffee. I may not drink booze anymore but I do still drink copious amounts of coffee. I rush past him to my little kitchenette to start brewing a pot.

  “ Do you drink coffee?” I asked.

  Garret just looked at me with his ridiculously teal eyes and shook his head no. Of course not. Elf-men wouldn't drink coffee. They probably drink shit like honey mead, if that is even a thing. Garrik stifled another laugh. Ugh, he heard my thoughts again. I closed my eyes and checked my barriers all were up and still in place. It made no sense.

  The smell of brewing coffee drifted to my nose. I have to get to the point, I honestly don't think I can handle such a handsome Elf-man standing in my apartment in such closer proximity to my bed a moment longer than I have to.

  “Why are you interested in me?” I blurted out.

  No beating around the bush. Straight to the point. You are not some nineteen year old girl with big dreams and a drinking problem any more. You are put together and you get answers. You are awesome!

  “ Can you please stop with the internal pep talks. Although, I agree you are quite awesome and I am very proud of you for overcoming your drinking problem. I want you to know that.” Garrik smiles at me.

  “Why can you hear my thoughts and I can not hear yours?” I ask a with a little bit of a bite.

  “I have more practice guarding my thoughts. I am a bit older than you”

  “Of course you are oh great wise Elf-man” I felt my younger self peek through my bleak thirty year old mind with sarcasm.

  “There is the Vera I remember. To answer your question, I have been interested in you since the first time I saw you. You were just a kid, fourteen years old. Although, you looked more like twelve. It was obvious you were so much older. I was at my home looking out across my garden, then there you were. You were floating like a ghost on your back a few inches from the ground. You see my world and yours overlap. We exist in the same time and space. My home is just two feet of the ground from yours and the farm you grew up on. The land even mimics the land here. Although, my home is how your land would look untouched by humans.” Garrik paused and gave me this look that made me feel like he thought humans were pigs. It made me react internally with a smidge of anger. He must have took notice as he walked over and tipped my chin up to look at him. Another jolt of electricity shot through me causing me to jump again.

  “You have got to stop touching me. I am not used to that feeling”

  “Vera, I could never stop touching you. The shock will always be there, however the intensity will fade a bit over time. Right now it is so strong because we have been apart for so long” He took a step back looking at me up and down.

  “You have so much potential and so much beauty it is just all blocked and hidden away.” His teal eyes once again drilling into my soul. I lift my arm to shoo his words away. I can't even comprehend what he is saying.

  “As I was saying, you were fourteen. It was obvious you were a human coming into a great power. I hadn't ever seen another human or elf pierce the veil like that. It is a talent unique to you and I. It is called realm walking. You didn't even know you had done it as you were immersed in the book you were reading. A human child appeared in my land floating on her back, reading a book, with wild crazy hair barely contained in a pony tail.

  I will never forget how I was drawn to a child. It wasn't sexual at all. I just had to be near you. I walked over to where you floated about a foot off the ground. I bent over and whispered ‘Hello’ into your ear. You stood up in a hurry and fell! Right, on your face back into your own realm!” Garrik's face had brightened with the story. His eyes were sparkling teal now. They are the kind of eyes I would have pictured on something like a faerie not an Elf-man.

  I want to believe it is a trick, but at fourteen I would often sneak away into the pastures lounge in the round hay bales reading my books. The horses would eat around me like I was nothing special. The sun was always warm and my body loved it. Sometimes, I would forget my book close my eyes and just bask in the smell of hay, horses, and warm sun. I missed those days. I started hearing voices frequently at that age. I don't remember Garrik's ‘Hello’ at all. How would I have separated an Elf-mans voice to that of any other voice I heard? Hell, I had a hard time discerning which voices in my head were actually my own during that time. Fourteen, it was the age my Mom was convinced I had gone crazy, and my Dad thought he could work the crazy out of me. They were divorced so how I was dealt with depended on which home I was at at the time.

  “That is when I started watching over you. I began to visit your farm and watch you when you went out and rode your horses. I knew you were special. One time you when were out walking on a small island of land between two small creeks when two fawns appeared and stood just feet away from you eating off the tops of the waist high grass. That is the day I started spending more time with you one on one. My little human girl.”

  I suck in a deep breath in my excitement of a memory I actually remembered, “I remember that morning! I was so excited to be near the babies! I don't remember you being there, but I do remember that I swore on that day I would never hunt another deer again unless it was a necessary kill for survival.” The memory replayed in my head. It was foggy, I decided I wanted to go for an early morning ride with my horse. She was still out in the pasture and did not come when I called her to, so I grabbed my halter and took off walking. One of the more beautiful memories I held. I can not believe that Garrik had actually been there with me. I stared at my Elf-man. He watched me grow th
rough the hardest moments of my life.

  Garrik nodded, “I always worried about you. You did not have it easy, but there are laws. I couldn't let you remember me. Elves are not all friendly, and the Elven Council has rules in regards to the kind of interactions we can have. I would only visit every few weeks. I waited until I saw you walking through the woods hunting mushrooms or laying in your favorite bale of hay. Then you would forget about me until you saw me again. It became easier for you to accept my presence each time. Even though you didn't remember you stopped asking me tons of questions each time. Instead your soul recognized mine and you would unload all of your worries. I would give you tips on protecting yourself and tell you about crystals and how you could use them. I wanted to do so much more. I wanted to take you away from your parents and bring you to my home to grow and learn, but it was not the way things were done. When you left home for college there was a few months that I had lost you. I knew you had turned eighteen and knew there was a chance your gifts would have amplified some more.”

  Garrik shook his head as if the memory hurt him. He took a deep breath as a tear rolled down his cheek, “My little girl had grown up. She was a beautiful young broken woman. Such a perfect soul that had been tortured. No one ever was able to help you develop as you should have. You were on your own and it was obvious you couldn't handle it. The night I finally found you you were drunk with two guys one on top and one next to you. At first I didn't realize you weren't mentally there, but then I recognized what was happening”

  I sucked in my breath. I never told anyone about that night. A knife had shot through my stomach as an old wound had burst open. It wasn't just any night he is re-telling. It is the night I had my virginity stolen from me. I felt worthless the next day. So worthless. I told one “friend” about the incident and she told me ‘Don't say anything, you could ruin their life by using the word rape. Now, I recognize it for exactly what it was. I was too wasted to consent and even if I could have consented I am confident I would never have consented to two men at the same time. Tears welled up in my eyes. It took me years to overcome the emotional turmoil that event set in me. I didn’t get an aversion to sex after that. Instead I felt worthless and did not care for my body. I went from bed after bed. It was not the typical response of a victim. My alcohol addiction played a big part in it all. I turned around and faced the coffee pot I had completely forgotten about. My hand shook as I opened my cabinet to grab a coffee mug from the shelf. Garrick stepped behind me. I could feel the warmth of his body pressed so close to mine as he took the coffee mug from my hand. He then moved to the side and filled it with coffee from the pot, went to my refrigerator and pulled out the milk. He remembered how I liked my coffee. This Elf-man really does know me.