Hex, A Witch and Angel Tale

by Ramona Wray

  This couldn’t be happening!

  “But the letter!” I argued frantically. “You said I should hate you. That you hate yourself. Wasn’t that your confession? Why … how … I mean ...”

  He came to me, pausing to brush a disobedient curl away from my face. Slowly, gently. Perfect! He was calmer than a master yogi while I was blowing my stack worse than a crazed cage fighter amped up on steroids.

  “Baby, I do hate myself,” he said quietly, “and I’d never blame you if you did, too. I am the one responsible for this mess and I deserve my fate. But to drag you along with me! The fact that I insisted on you marrying me, despite El —-”

  His mouth was still open but he could only gasp, like a fish on dry land. That wild coughing fit, which I still remembered from that day at school, hit again. I took as much of his weight as I could while his body shook and spasmed, tiny drops of blood dripping from his nose onto my skin. Eventually, we tumbled onto the floor, where I cradled him in my arms as he rode the convulsions. And as I looked at him, mounded in my lap, all kinds of things simply fell into place. So easily, in fact, I could’ve kicked myself for not seeing it earlier.

  But in the end, it changed little. Sure, I was very happy that the boy I loved had never killed me, nor was he planning on it. But our fate still was what it was. He was here, but not really. Even as I held him in my arms, it seemed as though we barely brushed against each other, in passing.

  I blew out a noisy breath. Ryder was the one for me, if ever one such person had existed for another, but we could never be. We belonged not with but only to each other. All we had were stolen moments.

  And the hex.

  He was suspended outside time, I was destined to die so he could watch it happening, and we were both hounded by a crazy halfling who was all lies and tricks and sick obsessions. All things considered, we were still doomed. Or, more precisely, hexed.

  But at least we had now.

  I leaned to kiss his forehead. His cheeks were wet with tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized raggedly.

  Eyes still closed, he stirred a little, looping his arms around my waist tighter.

  “No worries. But …”

  I wavered; could I ask? Should I?

  “I don’t understand what you’re blaming yourself for,” I finally whispered.

  Slowly, one shaky limb at a time, he sat up, leaning back on his arms for support. That sudden lack of him in my arms hit me like a road-roller. He was only inches away but, oh, wasn’t that far! I brought my legs up under my chin and hugged them close, thinking it would help me not feel so empty anymore. It didn’t work.

  “Remember when I said he can’t really lie? More like bend the truth? Play on it?” he asked, and I nodded. “What he showed you …”

  He couldn’t continue, but I saw the rest in his eyes.

  “It was the truth? That’s really how it happened?”

  Again he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even nod, which I took as confirmation.

  “But how? I did see him —”

  With his index finger, he proceeded to draw tiny, invisible circles in the air. Hmm! Guess we were playing charades now. It was positively the last thing I expected to spend my final hours of life on. But I did it, of course, because he wanted to.

  “What, circle?”

  “No.”

  “Ring … sphere … er, hoop?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, okay, let me try again. Circle, round, around —”

  “Bingo.”

  “Around?”

  I frowned, just as he pointed at the light switch behind him.

  “Switch?”

  He nodded, which only deepened the creases on my forehead. “Aroundswitch. Switch-around. Wait, switch around?”

  When he couldn’t nod, it was clear I’d hit hot.

  “He switched around? He —”

  With a loud thwack, the connection punched me right in the face, where it had been hanging all along, if only I had opened my eyes to see it.

  “He switched the two of you. He showed me the true story but with him as you!” I exploded.

  Ryder smiled, probably at my industrious arm-flapping. That sensuous lower lip curled crookedly, the way it did, and my world whirled. Like shreds of soft fabric, my arms dropped, sagging at my sides. I sighed, feeling that warmth only he could put in my stomach spreading through me like rays of sunshine.

  “I’m confused by this,” he said, while I tried my best to actually hear and not just stare at his sexy mouth. “As far as I know you’re a very gifted witch. How was he able to manipulate your mind like that? Didn’t you notice anything strange?”

  I gasped, hands covering my mouth. “Holy cow, you’re right! There was something, this … this haze-thing. His face and yours, they were blurred. Even when I watched you through J’s eyes, in her mind, your face wasn’t easy to make out.”

  “And you didn’t think that was strange?”

  “It’s not an exact science, you know,” I argued defensively.

  My mind raced back to the images of our past. Our past, mine and Ryder’s.

  “Thank God!” I exclaimed in relief.

  “What?”

  “It was you I kissed. You I danced with, and sneaked away with into the garden in the middle of that masked ball. Thank God!” I repeated. “You have no idea how it felt, living through that with Lucian as my partner.”

  His smile died and mine mirrored it soon after, as it occurred to me that, in all the excitement, I’d forgotten about the Marie Antoinette-wannabe. And in that film, Lucian’s face hadn’t been blurred. That meant … I couldn’t get myself to think about it. Was it true? Did I actually have a past with Lucian?

  Ryder looked at the mural, staring right at her. Such a straight posture, none of that shoulder-slumping I engaged in so often nowadays. Ridiculously voluminous dress to go with the hair, which looked like a grenade had exploded in it. Smallest of waists, but a face I could only describe as deadpan. Of all the four versions of me, she was the only one who didn’t smile.

  “His face would have been clear when he showed you her,” Ryder said, nodding once to the mural. His tone was strangled.

  “Was it real?” I whispered.

  My face was a furnace. I could’ve fried eggs on my cheeks.

  He turned to me, but he wasn’t mad. Not jealous, not even sad. He just looked tired.

  “Doesn’t matter. You’ll always find your way home, baby, and I’ll always be it,” was all he said. Evenly, but in a voice that signaled the subject was closed.

  Wow! So, not only did I stab my own sister in the back, but apparently I’d cheated on the boy for whom I did it, too. With my own hit man! Where were those Bosnian snipers when you really needed them?

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Ryder said softly. My emotions must have whizzed across my face like a meteor shower. “You were always blameless, in every way.”

  Back to the cryptic talk, I gathered. Did he mean what I thought he did? Yes, the film Lucian had forced me to watch was full of smooching, but that was pretty much it. And Lucian wasn’t exactly the modest type; if there had been more for him to boast about, he would have done so.

  Then again, maybe Ryder was making a point of my innocence as a means to deal with his own guilt. Wasn’t he the guy whose bedroom walls were decked out in “mea culpa”? Clearly, his guilt was something to be reckoned with.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “What exactly are you blaming yourself for? It’s obviously me who messed things up. I betrayed my sister. And it was my sister who cast the hex and summoned Lucian.” I refrained from adding, “With whom I then cheated on you.”

  An image reemerged in my mind. The halfling descending from the skies, riding the lightning bolts. His killing blow … The real angel, this time, who was nothing like one. Two-faced, devious Lucian, with whom I had a past. But hey, what’s a little lip-locking between a gunman and his victim? We all breathe the same air, don’t we?

&
nbsp; I wanted to bash my head against the wall.

  “A young girl can easily be talked into doing things she might never do without that kind of … persuasion,” he said smoothly. “And, on the other hand, when a man becomes engaged to be married to a woman, he shouldn’t even think about straying. Once that ring slips on the finger, they both enter a binding contract. Honor demands that neither one strays. Noblesse oblige, Lily. And what does a man have if not his honor?”

  Ah, the joys of being in love with a four-hundred-year-old boy, all morals and reputation and noblesse oblige! Part of me wanted to snort enthusiastically. The other part melted into his speech and in that fiery gaze, feeling just like one of Jane Austen’s heroines. Maybe the twenty-first century just wasn’t my time, after all. Then again …

  “Oh, come on! It’s easier to get a mule to do the foxtrot than make me do something I didn’t want to. Stubborn is my middle name.” I rolled my eyes. Another little something Jane Austen’s damsels couldn’t do in polite company. “It’s sweet of you to try to pin the whole thing on you, but there’s no point. I’m old enough to know it takes two to tango.”

  He stared at me like I’d just dropped a piano on his head; totally, cartoonishly dazed. For a while I thought it was me; did I grow a third eye, maybe? But then the relief crept into his eyes, changing the silver into ripples of honey again, and I got it.

  “You don’t hate me?” he asked. So stunned, so blown away.

  A nervous laugh shook me. “Hate you? Ryder, I couldn’t even hate you when I thought you put J in a coma. When I was sure that you had killed me three times and were just preparing to do it again.”

  I started picking at my fingernails. “I feel a lot for you, but hate?” I shook my head. “Definitely not that. I’m honestly thankful. For you. For our time together.” I shrugged. “Beats the alternative. Losing you for good is what I couldn’t bear.”

  He crawled those few inches of distance between us and gathered me in his lap. “I take comfort in that thought, too,” he whispered, hot breath blowing goose bumps all over my neck. “Helps me hang on to sanity. It’s how I can bear the wait.”

  We stayed like that, entwined around each other like vines of English ivy, until my mind was quiet again and my body ached no more. Until my soul was patched up and I felt unbroken one more time. In his arms, I was ever so whole. Exceptional in my lack of exceptionality.

  “Will you please wear my ring now?” he asked me quietly. Even his voice raised goose bumps on my skin.

  We disentangled, and he reached for the velvet box.

  Nervous as I was, understanding now that this was all real, that he had truly married me, I tried cracking a joke. Hiding behind sarcasm had always been my best strategy in covering up fear. Not kosher, but it got the job done.

  “What’s the rush? Afraid someone will smite us for being in your bedroom without it?”

  He didn’t smile. His eyes swirled and coiled, amber again, just like a wolf ’s.

  “No, baby, that’s not it. Fear can only carry you so far. Generally speaking, doing the right thing works better if you believe in it.”

  I smiled weakly, fumbling with the box. The stone was mounted in a handcrafted setting. It was delicate, yet detailed, revealing a web of laurel leaves. The stone gleamed with a light bluish tone; maybe it wasn’t a diamond after all, how would I know? I was only seventeen and not supposed to take an interest in a “rock” for at least another ten years.

  My pulse was back to doing the samba. I eyed the mural musingly. “That’s the church where we were …” I couldn’t say the word.

  He smiled. “Yes. It wasn’t much of a ceremony, unfortunately. I guess today you’d say we eloped.”

  My mouth fell open. “You can talk about it?”

  Before Ryder, I’d had no idea that laughter came in colors. But in his eyes, right at the center of the dark iris, just before his lips arched, there was laughter. And it was never dark, but bluish-gray when the laughter was true and joyful. Honey, when his heart was sad or longing. Muddy lavender, when the laughter came out more bitter than anything else.

  His irises turned murky lavender now and, just as I knew they would, his lips followed suit, curving ever so slightly.

  “I can talk about a lot of things, haven’t you noticed? I can tell you that we belong together. That we were married in the autumn. I could even get MK to pitch in and fill some of the gaps I can’t.”

  “Like the fact that you don’t die?”

  He didn’t answer, which, as I’d worked out, in hex-impaired speech meant yes. “You wore a white satin dress with a bodice so tight I was afraid to clasp your waist, it was so slight.” He smiled a honey smile. “Venetian Gros Point lace for your veil. We had to travel to a small village in the middle of nowhere because it was the only place I could find a priest who didn’t know your father and who agreed to marry us. It was all done in one night, the travel, back and forth, and the ceremony. When the priest joined our hands together, we were both crying like children.” He paused, glancing at the mural. “Like the children we were. I was eighteen and you barely sixteen.”

  I tried imagining it: the dress, the church, riding in a carriage that flew like the wind, parting the darkness of the night. The horses neighing, puffing, and panting. Were we happy? Was it hard to still find happiness while hiding in the darkness with our hearts booming in our throats?

  “I know how it sounds.” His voice brought me back to the present. “In a time famous for the formality of courtship, for love letters, and exchanging soul oaths, all we had was —”

  “Adrenaline rush?” I interrupted jokingly. But his expression broke my heart; it was as if even now, four hundred years after, he was almost ashamed somehow for not being able to offer me more. This, in turn, made me ashamed of having doubted we were happy. Of course we were happy! Because we were together and I got to keep him, however briefly.

  He smiled, nodding. “That, too. You were supposed to finally move into my home, a week after the wedding. Your father would’ve been away on business, which made things easier. We never got to it, though. All that time, we feared your father more than anything, when in fact it was your sister that …”

  He paused. “Still, as short as it may have been, our time together … we had moments, Lily, beautiful moments. Precious few, but we were happy, I promise you.”

  “I know,” I answered, blushing, wondering if he was reading my mind. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

  “The hex is very smart, Lily. You see, I can tell you a lot, but nothing that could prove it. No names, no places, no dates. Sure, walking up to you and saying, Oh, by the way, you’re really my wife would have been easy to do, but without being able to explain myself, you would have thought I was mad.”

  He was right.

  “I can’t say anything about the curse. Or about how we met, how we came to be together. No details about my identity from back then, yours, or your sister’s. And especially nothing of what has happened since.”

  “Clever Elizabeth,” I muttered ruefully.

  “Yes, clever.”

  He sounded tired, his eyes fixed on the ring with which our long journey together had first started. The velvet box was still waiting in my palm, the stone gleaming softly inside it. Why was I having such a hard time putting it on?

  “It’s not the ring, baby,” he said quietly.

  “Huh?”

  “The ring. It only comes from the past, it’s not really it. The past we carry with us, all the time, and wearing the ring won’t make it more real. It won’t change anything. The ring is just for my own peace of mind. No booby-trap, no catch, I promise.”

  I rolled my eyes to stop the tears from leaking out. “Am I really that transparent?”

  He smiled. “Nah! I’m just really, really old.”

  Grinning, I reached for the golden hoop at long last, but he stopped me.

  “Allow me.”

  I did.

  It fit perfectly.
My finger, my skin tone, my hand, us. A current passed through me, our fingers laced into each other’s, and my eyes closed. And for a moment, just as the Universe seemed to breathe in and out, flexing its boundaries behind my eyelids, the heavy fabric of the hex failed.

  It was wrapped around us and in between like a soiled, oily rag. A thick barrier, keeping me from seeing into his mind. But when the ring settled on my finger, everything changed. For one blessed, agonizing second, the oily weave of the hex fell away.

  Four centuries of suffering, of hopeless wait and despair, of a loneliness that couldn’t be described by any words, all of it poured into me. Ryder’s existence, everything he couldn’t say to me, his deepest fears and consolation, and his love for me, I saw and tasted and felt it all.

  And it was like being born and dying, all at once. His love for me was the stuff of legends, not only timeless, but untouchable. Absolute. I was deliriously drunk with it, and yet I fell to pieces and the pieces turned to ash in the face of so much pain. Four hundred years of purgatory. Four hundred years of waiting for me. Every time I died, everything died with me. He couldn’t even see colors while I was gone; the world was a wasteland of gray. It wasn’t until after I was reborn that color started returning, and only when he was close to me, physically, that he could see the world as it was. Poor, lonely, doomed Ryder. So lost and tired and alone.

  I cried in agony. I cried with him, for him, for us. I cried and off ered him the only comfort I could. His arms were my only safe haven, his body always kept me from pain and all things bad; was it not possible for me to be the same to him? Was it not right, symmetrical, comme il faut, that I should be his sanctuary, too?

  I offered him myself. All of me.

  But once my intentions became clear, because it turns out there’s only so long you can fumble with someone’s belt buckle before raising a flag, he took my ridiculously shaky hands in his.

  “Baby … no,” he said gently.

  And stopped me.

  I stared at him, into that face still washed by tears, and I didn’t get it. His eyes blazed wildly, more lavender than silver, a wordless but plain testimony to how much he wanted to. Yet he didn’t.