by Jade Alters
The worst part is that I told the guys I would have dinner with them tonight, and I can’t possibly go looking like this. I’ll have to make my excuses. I pick up my phone, intending to text them, but I get choked up just seeing their last few texts. Dylan made a joke about me being a panther and having a Cocker Spaniel and Max teased him for his joke. They’re silly things, but my heart swells with my affection for them which only makes me feel worse. I change into sweatpants and a t-shirt and collapse onto my bed, grabbing my laptop from my nightstand. I’ll text them later. For now, I should at least attempt to do some research and see if I can possibly figure out a way to reverse this spell. But I have a bad feeling about it. I research for about an hour and get nowhere. Catching myself in a mirror by my closet, I start to cry again, and I cry so long and hard, I exhaust myself and fall asleep.
Freddie
If I’m honest, I never really pictured myself as the type to fall in love, and yet, I find myself constantly thinking of Hope. I think we all are. Between the four of us, we’ve met a lot of women in our time, but there’s something so special about Hope, or there is to us anyhow. Initially, it was just that instantaneous attraction that drew us to her. It certainly can’t be denied. There’s so much tension and heat and passion whenever she’s around. I’ve never felt anything like it. I feel as if we could, all five of us, explore each other for an eternity and never ever find an end.
But beyond the sex appeal, I find Hope quite charming. She’s sweet and intelligent and funny. All of that is true, yet it can’t quite explain the connection between us. It’s as if the four of us have been a nearly completed puzzle all this time and we were just waiting for Hope to come along and add the final piece. Of course, I don’t know how she feels about a long-term, real relationship. None of us can really tell, and it’s so soon, I think we’re all a little apprehensive about finding out. We figure we’ll keep hanging out with her and hope it turns into something real. I’m rarely an optimist myself, but when I talk to Hope, I just don’t get the sense that she’s only in it for the sex. It seems as if she feels the same way we do.
I think we’re all a little riled up with anticipation on the evening we’re having Hope over to dinner. It’s been a very busy week for us. We had to create some powerful magical wards to protect a witch heiress who is afraid members of her family (some of whom are demons) are going to try to steal her fortune (which is in invisible gold coins but none of us could quite figure out how that works). There were a couple of other smaller cases too, including some from humans. We actually get a fair number of cases from seemingly regular, non-magical humans who have had some contact with the magical world. These humans tend to trust wizards, warlocks and witches more than their own people to protect and help them. I’d say humans account for about half our business. So we had to go out on some jobs that included scouting around with spells, checking houses and businesses for signs of dark magic. Some clients were even paranoid that they were the victims of some dark wizard’s vendetta. Those little cases often come to nothing, but we charge a consulting fee large enough to make it worth our time and people are willing to pay it. A lot of our time is just spent driving out to where the client is since there aren’t many businesses like us.
I’m taking much longer getting ready for dinner tonight than I usually take to get ready for anything. I want to make sure my hair is styled just right, and I want to look sexy for Hope. Dylan is apparently taking that to mean wearing the tightest t-shirt humanly possible and, honestly, it’s working for him. I start to get hard just remembering how the four of us were all together the other night. It’s not as if we’ve never fooled around with each other before. It’s happened. We’ve been really close for a long time. But it’s as if Hope has unlocked something within us. It’s thrilling, really.
I’m changing my shirt again. I can’t decide whether to go with a blue or a burgundy button up. I like the way the sleeves fit on my arms. I’m not as much of a gym rat as Jared or Max, but I’m fit enough, and I want Hope to notice me. I take a deep breath and stare into my mirror, frowning as I hold my blue shirt in front of me.
Dylan appears in my doorway. He’s smirking. Because he’s always smirking.
“You should wear the burgundy,” Dylan says. I look at him like a deer in headlights. He chuckles and comes in, taking the blue away from me. He takes the burgundy shirt from the hanger where it was dangling from my mirror and helps me put it on, which really isn’t necessary at all.
The other night Dylan ended up with my cock in his mouth just because it seemed to turn Hope on. It’s hard not to think about that as he’s standing in front of me. I feel my cheeks burning.
Dylan raises his eyes to mine as he buttons up my shirt. “You look nervous.”
“Not nervous,” I murmur.
“Kinda cute when you’re nervous,” Dylan says.
I roll my eyes at that, but it makes me smile anyway. “Shut up.”
“I’ll be honest. I’m really hoping for a repeat of the other night.” He’s smiling a little shyly now, his thick eyelashes fluttering. “With Hope, of course. But...you too? I mean, ya know, all five of us.”
I’m glad I’m not the only one, but I’m blushing red when I say, “Yeah um...me too.”
“Good.” Dylan buttons my top button and then he leans in and kisses me once; soft but wet and hot with promise. “See ya down there.”
I watch him walk away and when he’s just outside the door I yell, “Your ass looks great in those jeans, Dylan!”
“I know!” Dylan says from the hall.
I turn back to the mirror. He’s right. I look better in the burgundy. The sleeves are nice and tight on my biceps, and when I roll them up, my forearms look good. I style my hair and that takes another ten minutes. Finally, I make my way downstairs.
I’m mildly embarrassed to discover that I took the longest to get ready.
Jared is cooking tonight. He’s making beef bourguignon which he’s never made before, and he’s not even the best cook—I am. But we are all hoping for the best. He seemed pretty fired up about cooking.
“How’s dinner coming?” I pour myself a glass of wine in the kitchen. The four of us are all just sort of hanging around, fidgeting, and waiting for Hope to show up.
“It’s good,” Jared says, sounding very grave. “I think I’m going to put horseradish in the potatoes.”
Dylan steals a mushroom and says, “You do you, man.”
Hope is supposed to come over at six, and the four of us are on pins and needles.
But six o’clock comes and goes.
The dinner is ready and our good dining room table is set. We don’t have fancy linens or anything. We have some nice furniture, but the only reason we have a nice dining table is because Max found a nice one at the Goodwill and stained it. Now it’s set with plates, napkins, and a good bottle of wine.
We put a little bit of lateness down to getting ready and think nothing of it, but at half past we get nervous. At a quarter to seven, Jared texts Hope and asks if we’re still on for dinner.
We don’t get any response, so we text a few more times.
By now, we’re all sitting around the dining room table, picking at our beef bourguignon and feeling dejected. I’m on my second glass of wine. We should have made our intentions clear, I think to myself. She thinks we’re not even interested. Another part of me thinks she must not be interested in us. Maybe she just wanted that one wild night and that was it.
But this really doesn’t feel like that.
“I’m worried,” Max says finally. “I think something’s happened.”
“Yeah…” Jared hisses. He keeps obsessively checking his phone for a new text that never comes and then putting it down again. “I’m worried too.”
I swallow the rest of my wine and slam my glass down on the table. “Well, we told her we were putting our blood in the healing balm as a protective measure, so hell, let’s use it.”
“What time is it now?”
Dylan says.
“It’s ten to eight,” I say. I feel my anxiety about Hope’s wellbeing bolt through my body, and it makes me shiver.
“Yeah.” Jared nods. “Fuck it. Let’s do it. So link hands and concentrate on Hope. We should be able to sense her whereabouts.”
The four of us link hands. We’ve done this before, a whole bunch of times in fact. We’ve even done it for each other. We’ve never done it for a fifth person who we cared so much about though. We hold each other’s hands across the table. Jared squeezes my hand and I squeeze Dylan’s. I can feel their concern for Hope like a physical presence.
I take a deep breath. It’s a little like meditation. I try to let my worries and fears go and just keep Hope clear in my mind. It’s a kind of skill to do it this quickly and takes some practice, but inside a minute, I can feel the hum of magical energy between us. We’re all connected, and just like that, I get a very strong sense of which direction we should head in. We should go southwest through the woods. I can picture it in my head.
“I got it,” Jared says.
“Me too,” I say.
“Yeah, got it,” Max says.
Dylan says, “Same.”
We all drop hands and get up from the table, leaving our dinner left half eaten. We have more important things to deal with now. All four of us hurry to the front door, grabbing our jackets on the way. Now that the bond is set, we should have a strong feeling of which way leads straight to Hope. Jared locks the door behind us. We don’t run, but we do walk quickly down the road, following that sixth sense that the bond between us and Hope as instilled. It’s similar to following a scent, except it’s more like a strong feeling.
We don’t run because it doesn’t feel like a totally legitimate emergency yet. It could just be Hope is ghosting us, in which case, it’s going to be awfully awkward when we knock on her door. Or it could be that she’s sick and couldn’t text, or who knows what. But I can still feel how much everyone is worried about her as we go off-road through the woods. At first, it worries me that we’re being directed into the woods. My first thought is that the panther caught Hope this time and that she couldn’t get away, although shifters are doubtlessly stronger. But then I worry that it’s something else. What if a hunter found Hope in her shifted form? What then? There’s no telling.
The four of us are striding quickly through Foggy’s woods, climbing over logs and under branches. We don’t talk much, but we don’t need to. We have only one thing on our minds: Hope. I keep imagining her panther bleeding somewhere in the woods, and it’s not doing great things for my state of mind right now.
When we’re directed back to the road, I breathe a little sigh of relief. Apparently, that was only a short-cut. Well, that’s something anyway. We follow our sense down the road and when we reach a quaint, little, yellow wood-sided cottage, our senses stop, and we feel a kind of buzz between us. That should mean we’ve found her. The small house is set well back from the road. It’s a really cute place with prettily overgrown grass in front and a stone pathway. There’s a red wheelbarrow with flowers growing out of it and a garden gnome that gives me a little thrill of affection for Hope.
Jared doesn’t waste any time. He clears his throat and marches down the walkway, and we follow him. He knocks on the door politely and waits a bit.
Nothing.
I take a deep breath and try to be patient. Jared knocks again and calls out, “Hope! Hope, are you home?” Jared pounds on the door a little harder and waits, and we hear Hope’s Cocker Spaniel bark from within.
We hear Hope’s voice say, “Millie, quiet!”
We all grin at each other, relieved. Well, we know she’s not dead in a ditch anyway.
The front door opens just a crack, but the screen door stays shut. Hope is wearing a big hoodie with the hood pulled down low over her face, and she’s also bowing her head. It’s as if she does not want us to see her face.
“I am so sorry,” Hope says. “I fell aslee—"
“Oh!” Jared blurts out, and we all sort of sigh, laughing at our worry. “That’s alright, sweetheart. Are you—"
“I’m not feeling well,” Hope says, interrupting him. “I’m so sorry. I feel asleep because...I’m not feeling well. I just need to stay in—"
“Oh, okay,” Jared says, leaning there in the door. Hope pulls her hoodie a little lower over her head. It strikes me as very odd, but then if she’s sick, maybe she doesn’t feel like she looks her best. Sometimes people are really sensitive about that. “Can we take care of you or do you need anything?”
“No, no!” Hope says quickly. She’s still holding onto the door, keeping it just barely ajar and peaking through it. The whole thing just gives me a bad feeling even if I’m relieved that for the most part anyway, she’s okay. “I just need to get some rest on my own. I’ll be fine in… I don’t know. Maybe a few days. Just one of those things. I’m sorry I didn’t text!”
We all wave a hand at that, and Jared makes her promise to text if she needs anything but I’m feeling like she’s not going to. Finally, we all bid her goodbye and she seems in a big rush to get the door closed on us again. It’s kind of crushing. I wonder if we’re being blatantly rejected and we’re just being idiots about it.
We walk back out to the road, but then Jared just stops, frowning at the cottage, chewing on his lip. We all stand there in a line on the road, looking at Hope’s house and feeling like something is off. Or, anyway, I certainly am.
Max says, “Would it be weird if we kept an eye on her house for a bit? Make sure she’s okay?”
“Yes,” Jared says, nodding. “That would be weird.”
“Do you care?” Dylan cracks.
“No,” Jared says.
That’s settled then. I guess “Operation Hope Watch” has officially begun.
Hope
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I have to think I’ll eventually get used to this or that perhaps I can come up with a convincing story to explain it. But in the short-term anyway...I don’t know what I’m going to do.
When I heard Jared pounding on my door, I was actually happy for a minute. It was so moving to me that they came over to check on me. For a second, I even forgot about the scars. The boys I liked came to check on me! How sweet is that? I almost rushed to open the door, and then I remembered how my face looked and almost started sobbing all over again. It’s a little pathetic, I know. Instead, I grabbed my hoodie and tried not to let them see me.
I’ve been ridiculous about this whole thing. It’s not like I’m not aware of it. There must be a way out of this. I just haven’t seen it yet. I spent most of the day asleep.
Now, after the guys leave, I collapse on my couch and give myself just a few short minutes of wallowing in my self-pity. Millie, at least, isn’t horrified by my appearance. But she definitely knows something is wrong. She keeps licking my knee, so I pet her head and tell her everything is fine.
“Alright, Mille…” I heave a sigh and wince as I brush my fingers along the thick, rough ridges of the scars disfiguring my face. “We’re either going to fix this or we’re going to have to get used to it. But...let’s try to fix it first. Yes?” Mille wags her tail and I take that as agreement.
It’s only a little after eight. I put on a podcast and camp out with my laptop, trying to find a solution to this spell. I think I remember the name of the spell book, and I use that too. I go to all the forums I know where spells are discussed. I can’t find anything. Or at least, nothing about doing a reversal or a miscast beautification spell. I even create a few new accounts for the forums under different emails asking about it. I don’t use my regular usernames. I don’t let anyone know I’m the one who’s asking. Just in case.
I can’t find anything, and I look for hours. I even order a few books about the magic mechanics, hoping that might be useful. It probably won’t be, but if they’re not, at least I can sell them back.
At two in the morning after endless and fruitless searc
hing, I finally throw in the towel.
I haven’t found anything. Again, I start to wonder about the dark wizard…
God, I’m seriously considering finding that guy and asking him for help. Maybe he won’t know I’m the shifter who messed up his spell? So he was going to do some weird ritual where he killed a panther…So what? Everybody’s into some kind of weird shit, right?
“Oh my God,” I mutter to myself. I’m getting drowsy and I feel awful. Now, I’m considering asking for help from a most likely very disreputable source.
I keep it in mind as a last resort.
I start getting ready for bed and in the bathroom, as I brush my teeth, I can’t stand to look at myself, so I cover the mirror with a towel. Not a great sense of self-image, I know. But that problem will just have to be fixed on a different day.
That’s when my phone buzzes. When I see who it is, I almost choke on my toothbrush.
It’s Alex.
“Shit,” I say. My voice echoes in the bathroom. I spit out toothpaste and rinse my mouth. “Shit! shit!”
My ex-boyfriend, Alex, has been wanting to hang out again for a while. We didn’t end on terrible terms or anything. We just figured out that we didn’t have much in common and that our feelings for each other weren’t very strong. We were mostly in it for the sex.
He’s been texting me every once in a while, and I’ve half-heartedly answered, intending only to maybe catch up. To be completely honest, I wasn’t even very interested in that. Alex is just kind of a boring dude. He’s also a mountain shifter. I feel like that was the main reason for our relationship, but it just wasn’t meant to be. But then I ran into him at a party at Jacklyne’s house about two months ago, and I was buzzed enough to swear on my dead grandmother’s grave that I would definitely agree to hang out. I’ve already put him off twice.
