Celtic Magic

by Amber LaShell

  She leaned down and smelled the sweet smell of the flowers and smiled to herself, she was so lucky to have found such a romantic boy friend, even if he was just a little bit corny. She started toward her bedroom, following the flower petals Tom had sprinkled on the floor, taking her time to look at all of the different vases.

  She spotted at least six bouquets on the way and as she opened the door to her bedroom, she saw that he had put flowers all over the bed. Sitting in the middle of all of the flowers on the bed was a long white box with a note attached to it that had her name on the front. She walked over and picked up the note and read it.

  “Hey sweetie, I hope you love all the flowers, put on what’s in the box and meet me on the roof terrace. Love you, Tom.”

  Abby smiled to herself as she picked the box up off of the bed and opened it, gasping as she saw what he wanted her to wear. It was the lightest dress she had ever seen, feeling as though it were made out of air, but as she looked at the tag saw that it was actually made from pure silk. She had never owned anything this soft before and she loved the color, it looked like a glass of sparkling champagne.

  She hurriedly took off her clothes and pulled the dress on, loving the way it felt on her bare skin. She pulled her hair down from the clip she had put in it earlier and left her apartment, heading for the roof.

  When she opened the door to the roof terrace she saw Tom standing next to a small table that was only big enough for two people to sit at. The table was already set up and held a plate of strawberries, a fondue pot and two glasses of champagne that practically matched her dress. Tom smiled when he saw her coming and came forward to embrace her.

  “You look great in that dress, it’s a good thing Saks still had your dress size on file” he said to her between kisses.

  She giggled, “What is all this for?” she asked.

  He shrugged, “I just wanted to do something special for you because I love you” he told her.

  She felt her heart melt as he she kissed him again, “I love you too.” He pulled her away and turned her back toward the table

  “Ready to eat?” he asked her. She nodded; she was starving after using so much magic for three hours and not having eaten since lunchtime. They sat down at the table and he picked up a short fondue fork and stabbed a strawberry with it and slowly dipped it into the fondue, which she could now see was chocolate.

  He pulled it back and blew on it for a few seconds cooling it off, then she leaned forward and he fed it to her slowly. It tasted better than any chocolate she could remember having, and after she finished eating her strawberry, she licked her lips.

  “What kind of chocolate is that? It is the best chocolate I’ve ever had before” she asked.

  Tom smiled, “its Belgian truffle chocolate that I had flown in” he said nonchalantly.

  Abby’s mouth dropped open, “I just do not understand money, I’ve never really had to worry about it much, but I have never known anyone as rich as you are. You do things with money that I would never dream of doing. The last time I ate chocolate I bought a candy bar from the grocery store” she told him as he dipped another strawberry into the chocolate.

  He laughed, “I just grew up that way, so for me it’s not a big deal, my family has always had the best, and now I want to give that to you” he said as he fed her another strawberry.

  “I’m not sure how to comprehend all of this though. You can just get some random generic chocolate and I would be happy. It’s nice just spending time with you” she told him after she finished chewing.

  “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but all I want to do is spoil you” he told her.

  She smiled and accepted another strawberry from him and while she chewed asked her, “Have you ever had lobster?”

  She shook her head, “Good, then you will love what’s next” he said as a waiter that seemingly appeared out of thin air stepped forward and took away the fondue pot and strawberries and set down two plates of lobster.

  She licked her lips and looked back up at Tom, “Why did we eat the strawberries first?” she asked him.

  He smiled and winked, “I always take my dessert first, it’s better that way.”

  ***

  That night they made love like they never had before. Instead of the wild can’t get enough of each other sex they had the weekend before, it was slow and romantic and made her feel more in love with him than she was before. After he fell asleep, she got out of bed and put the dress back on that he had bought her, rubbing it against her skin and smiling.

  She looked down at him sleeping peacefully with his arm still resting where she was just lying on top of it and she sighed. She knew she needed to speak with her mother, but it was hard leaving her warm bed after such a long day. She knew though, that when she returned, it would be like she was only gone for minutes. She closed her eyes and thought of her mother and the castle, and before she even opened her eyes knew that it had worked.

  She could smell the sweet air and grass as soon as she landed. She opened her eyes and looked around and noticed that she was back in the Southern Gardens and there were tons of people and creatures standing around and talking excitedly. She looked around at everyone until she finally saw her mother sitting on a bench in the center of the garden talking to the pixie she had seen earlier, Isabella, who was standing on the bench next to her.

  As Abby walked up to them, she noticed that everyone in the garden seemed to be looking at her and pointing, but not in a mean way, as though she was a movie star that they couldn’t believe they were getting to see in person. Abby finally reached her mother, who turned at the silence that had suddenly spread throughout the garden and saw her standing close to her. She jumped up off of the bench and grabbed her into a hug.

  “I am very happy to see you Abby, I have missed you so much since you left, though it doesn’t feel like long to you” her mother said. Abby kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’ve missed you too mother, and I am sorry I left so fast before, I just missed home, and of course Tom. But, I wanted you to see that I was okay, so that’s why I’m here now” she told her. As Abby and her mother let go of each other she looked over at Isabella.

  “Hello Isabella, it is good to see you again” she told her, nodding in her direction. Isabella flew up into the air so that her face was close to her own.

  “Thank you my princess, it is very lovely to see you again too” she said before flying away and joining a group of pixies that were behind her, and Abby nearly laughed as she watched them swarm her asking her questions about meeting the princess. Smiling, she turned back to her mother.

  “Can we go somewhere to talk?” she asked.

  Her mother nodded, “Yes dear, meet me in the queen’s bedroom, there is something I would like to show you” she answered.

  Abby nodded and thought of the queen’s bedroom, letting the tiny lights take her there.

  Chapter 22

  When she landed she saw her mother standing next to the mural on the wall with the throne, looking at the spot where a picture of her had appeared before she left before. She walked up to her mother and touched her shoulder.

  “Mother, I know about this picture, I saw it here before I left” she told her as she looked to see that in the painting she was still wearing the pretty pastel green dress she had seen before.

  “There is one thing though” her mother answered without taking her eyes off of the painting.

  “It doesn’t look any different to me” she said, tilting her head in confusion. Her mother finally turned and looked over at her.

  “The crown is not there yet” her mother explained.

  Abby blinked twice as she looked at her mother in a stunned silence, “What do you mean?” she asked her.

  “The Queen is supposed to be wearing a crown, but you aren’t wearing one in the mural. I’m not sure what that means yet” she answered back.

  Abby looked back at the painting and studied the picture a little harder noticing f
or the first time that there was a small crown, more like a tiara laying against the throne on what would be the floor.

  “Is that the crown there?” she asked her mother as she pointed to the tiara.

  Her mother nodded, “Yes, I don’t know why it’s on the floor though” she answered.

  Abby pondered that for a minute before finally answering back, “Maybe I haven’t earned the right to wear the crown yet, and so the mural acknowledges that I am the future queen, but knows that I should work for it first. You know, like prove myself?” she said.

  Abby’s mother looked over at her, “Abby that was actually very intuitive of you, what made you think of that?” she asked her.

  Abby shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know. Sometimes I just open my mouth and things come out, and as soon as I say it, I just know it’s the truth” she said.

  Abby’s mother smiled at her and walked over to the large window that still overlooked the Southern Gardens where they had just come from. Abby walked over next to her and smiled as she looked down at the glittering grass that she had noticed right before she left the last time.

  “I don’t remember the grass glittering like that when we were walking to the castle before. Does it do that everywhere?” she asked.

  Her mother shook her head, “No, only in the castle gardens and it’s only noticeable from a bit higher up, so that’s why you didn’t see it before when we were actually in the garden” she said.

  Suddenly she had a sharp pain in her chest, as though someone had punched her. She gasped and grabbed at her chest as the pain made it hard for her to breathe. She knew that something was wrong with Tom, but she didn’t know how she knew, or even what exactly was wrong with him. She looked at her mother who was looking at her with a curious expression.

  “What’s the matter dear?” she asked her. Abby opened her mouth and although she wanted to tell her something was wrong, another wave of intense pain hit her and all she was able to get out was a guttural scream.

  Hoping that her mother would understand, she knew she had to get to Tom and was relieved when the lights came to take her without being able to say anything else.

  When she landed back in her apartment she looked around frantically for Tom, but he was not in the bedroom where she had left him. She went running though the apartment silently looking, scared to open her mouth again. She knew if she did another scream would come rushing out of her mouth.

  Finally she felt the pain lessen a little as she got closer to the bathroom, but just as she was about to open the door to check, she heard his voice from behind the closed door.

  “Why did you call me? I told you not to ever call me again, I don’t even know how you got this number!” he screamed in a voice that was so angry it made her back up a few paces. She had never heard something that angry come out of his mouth before.

  She had a sudden guilty feeling run through her body and she knew that she should give him some privacy, so she went into the living room and sat on the couch, waiting for him to finish his call and come out of the bathroom. Back in the apartment, and knowing that he was safe, even though she wondered why he was so angry, and who he could be talking to, the pain in her chest lessened up a lot.

  After a few minutes it was just a dull throbbing pain. After what felt like hours to her, but in reality was probably only a couple of minutes, Tom finally walked out of the bathroom. She waited for him to make his way through the living room back to the bedroom and as soon as she saw him, she knew that something was horribly wrong.

  He had an angry look on his face that she had never seen before and she was almost afraid to ask him what was wrong, but he spoke before she could even get the chance.

  “I thought you were gone” he said. She nodded her head.

  “Yes, I went to see my mother, but I couldn’t have been gone but a few minutes to you” she said.

  He sighed and came to sit next to her on the couch.

  “We need to talk” he told her looking down at his feet instead of up at her face. Her heart sank; it was never a good thing when you heard those words. She was silent, mostly waiting for him to tell her what he wanted to talk about, and also partly because she was afraid that if she opened her mouth she would start to cry.

  She just knew he was about to break up with her for some reason, but she couldn’t figure out why. Finally he started to talk.

  “There is someone from my past that you should probably know about. There was a girl I met in high school, her name was Nicole and we hung out in the same groups. Eventually we started dating when we were probably fifteen or so, and everything was good for the three years we were together while still in high school, but then we decided to go to the same college together” he explained.

  “She didn’t really fit in at the college we went to, but because I was on the baseball team, I was pretty popular, I even ended up joining a fraternity” he continued.

  “Anyway, she ended up dropping out after our freshman year and transferred to a local community college and expected that I would give up my scholarships and join her, but of course I didn’t, that would have been crazy, and my dad would have killed me” he told her.

  Abby shuffled on the couch to get a better position, trying not to make him stop his story.

  “That was when things went very wrong. She became this jealous, sneaky, practically unstable person. She constantly thought I was cheating on her and would drive all the way to my school just to try and catch me in the act. She never did though, because I spent the entire time just trying to keep up with all of my school work, there was no way I had time to see other women” he told her.

  “But, she was making my life miserable, so eventually I broke up with her. After we split she started to stalk me, and I ended up having to put a restraining order on her and I even changed my phone number” he said.

  “What happened after that?” she asked him.

  “Well, she went to jail a few times for coming around me after that, but once I graduated and moved back to Dallas, it seemed she finally went away, since she had no idea where I lived or what my new number was. Well, until now it seems” he said.

  Abby put her hand on his arm, “Was that who you were talking to on the phone?” she asked him.

  He nodded, “Yes, I’m not sure how she found my number, but she says she has been watching the hotel, to see me come in and out” he explained.

  Abby gasped, “She sits in your hotel and watches for you? Do you think she knows where you live? Does she know about me? Does she know where I live?” she asked in a frantic voice.

  Tom shrugged his shoulders, “I’m not sure if she knows where you live, but she does know about you. She saw me bring you to the party to meet my parents. She was apparently so pissed that she somehow did some digging until she found my phone number” he said, lowering his head.

  Abby scooted over and lifted herself onto Tom’s lap and put her head on his shoulder, she smiled when he wrapped his arms around her.

  “So what do we do now?” she asked him.

  He gripped her tighter, “I’m not sure, but I know I can’t let her hurt you” he practically whispered in her ear, sending shivers down her spine.

  She looked up at him, “There is one thing you seem to be forgetting here” she told him. He looked at her with a confused look on his face that almost made her laugh.

  “Hello, I’m a Demi-Goddess with super magical powers remember? How is she going to hurt me?” she asked.

  Tom shook his head, “I do keep forgetting that, but she is crazy, don’t underestimate her” he said.

  They sat there on the couch, both thinking about what it would mean to have a crazy stalker trying to mess with their relationship when Tom started to yawn. Abby stood up and grabbed Tom’s hand.

  “Come on, let’s go back to bed and deal with this in the morning.” Tom nodded and they headed back to the bedroom.

  Chapter 23

  The next morning as Abby woke up, she started to p
anic that she had forgotten to set her alarm and jumped up out of bed, but as she looked over at the clock, noticed that it was actually about an hour before her alarm was even set to go off. She looked over at Tom lying in her bed, sleeping as soundly as a baby, although babies usually get up all through the night, so she didn’t know why people used that saying.

  She shrugged her shoulders and continued to watch him sleep. Something inside of her had been awakened the night he told her that he loved her, and she couldn’t seem to turn it off.

  It was like she wanted him every minute of the day, but didn’t know how to be aggressive and tell him that she wanted him. She usually let him take that initiative, but something about how he was so protective of her the night before made her feel a little more secure about him.

  She finally decided what she wanted to do with the extra hour and so she slowly took her nightgown off and stood there naked for a minute. Finally she got up her nerve and slid back under the covers and snuggled her cold body up next to his hot one and started to kiss his neck and nibble on his ear.

  She rubbed her hands over his bare chest and stomach while never taking her eyes off of his face. After just a couple of minutes she noticed that he started to move his head around a little bit until his face was right in front of hers.

  She gently grabbed his face with both of her hands and kissed him. Finally he opened his eyes and looked at her, she pulled away just slightly and she felt his hands come up and he rubbed them against her body, feeling her naked lying next to him. After that, it seemed he understood exactly what she was doing and pulled her closer and kissed her with more force, while his hands continued to caress her naked body.