We were going out on another date today, and I knew the Mages could take note if they had nothing better to do, but I didn’t really care. I hadn’t decided yet, so how could they penalize me?
Kenny opened his door in a hurry as soon as I stepped up to his ground floor flat that evening.
“I’m sorry I just got home. I thought I was going to miss you and you’d be out in the cold. Let me take a shower and we’ll go?”
“Sure,” I said, stepping into his house.
He leaned in to peck me on the lips, and I returned a kiss of my own.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said, and there was a glint of suggestion trapped inside his blue-green eyes. I had to kiss him again, and a warm haze of pink settled on the ceiling above us. I gave him a little more, and in just another moment, we were pressed against each other in the middle of his living room. I could smell the oil on his skin.
Kenny grinned as he pulled away. I wanted to be alone with him and he knew it.
I sat on his yellowish couch, but as soon as the bathroom door shut, I bolted up. Maybe I could read emotions, but I couldn’t read history, and his house had it. I knew I shouldn’t let history decide what I was going to do tonight, but I still wasn’t as naïve as I appeared.
When I heard the hiss of the water turn on, I stood in front of his second bedroom, knowing the time was now. Summoning by best Pandora, I stood in front of the door that was always shut for only a split second before I forced it open. It was completely empty, colder than the rest of the flat, and looked as if someone had just moved out. He told me that he had never had a roommate. I quietly opened the closet, still able to hear the water pipes murmuring through the wall, and what I saw made my heart fall.
There were baby toys in a box in the closet. They were still assembled and gave me the impression that they weren’t always stacked haphazardly out of the way. There were little girl’s clothes underneath that. I sighed out, shutting the closet and the second bedroom door, and then flew to the kitchen.
I knew snooping would be a bad idea.
I opened a junk drawer in the kitchen and saw a picture of a dark-haired baby, sitting on the floor of this very apartment. She had his eyes. The things in the spare room were hers, and her and her mother probably lived in London.
“Wow,” I said to myself.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I noticed a picture of a little boy on the side of the refrigerator. He was maybe seven years old, and there was a letter behind it.
“Love you, dad,” It said. It was post-marked from Ireland in the fall of last year. The photo was a wallet size. The child didn’t have his last name. I imagined the woman who had sent this over—knowing that his damn painting of the ocean above the couch was far more important than a picture of either of his kids.
I got parents who worked—in fact, I had them my whole life, but one who would pick up and move countries in the name of work? There was something else going on.
Kenny said he left Ireland eight years ago. That was the correct time frame. So the kid was clearly his. Oh, I’m sorry, both of them were.
Maybe meeting his two-year-old would have been fine, but the fact that this guy, as successful and polite as he was, had two accidental children, I wasn’t letting him anywhere near me.
I heard him blow dry his hair for about a minute, and when he stepped out of the bathroom, he was completely dressed. I pretended as if I hadn’t just been where I didn’t belong. All hope in my chest popped and deflated my hope in him, my fire energy, and my ego. My emotions were completely flat for the first time in a long while.
“So human London?”
“Yeah,” I said in a voice that was a little too high. “I haven’t said anything to anyone about the time we’ve been spending together.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
I barely listened to a word he said as we walked into the Italian restaurant, but I was a professional at making people think I was interested. Perhaps I should have told Stan because he could have told me anything about O’Callaghan that I wanted to know.
When we were seated, I order water and vegetable pasta, though he told me I could get whatever I wanted. What did the correct way to break things off really look like?
We had a great dinner on the surface, but there was no mention of his kids, and to me, they were pretty damn important: the bottom of the Kenny iceberg. What could have been a great night was just a blur of idioms and formalities. I should have known I couldn’t salvage a relationship with someone who aimed to hook up with a random stranger at Dia. I should have known that this was self-sabotage. At least he paid, and as we exited the restaurant, I knew I wasn’t going to kiss him.
“Let me walk you home.”
“I’m walking myself, Kenny. I’ll call you. Maybe.”
I didn’t even turn to see the look on his face because I felt the smoggy emotion of disappointment until I was a block away. I could have just royally messed things up for me and the Coven, and for what? Certainly not true love, and definitely not the truth.
Helaine was waiting up on the couch when I got home.
“You’re back earlier than I thought you’d be,” Helaine said.
I tried to smile, and I tried to explain what I had done, but I was caught in between feeling humble and disappointed. My eyes started to water, and I knew what was going to happen before I could stop it.
“Oh my goddess,” Helaine said out loud. She grabbed me and hugged me, not sure of what to do. “You don’t cry over boys. You’re too independent to need boys. What is it?”
“He has kids,” I said through silent sobs. “I didn’t think it would bother me as much as it does… but it does.”
“Don’t feel bad about it, love. I’m disappointed too.”
I cleared my throat and hoped my momentary freak out was over, and that I was done processing my revelation. When I didn’t know what to feel I either cried or had a panic attack, and tears in front of Helaine weren’t the worst option.
“Tea time?”
“Bottle of wine Mom sent me time,” I responded.
Per usual, the others left us alone as we met in the conservatory. I was feeling better with each sip of sparkling wine, but Helaine had more to do with it.
“I found a way to better control my powers—even if it was just a little crush—but now I know I’m going to regress,” I told my best friend.
“So tell Stan about it.”
“I can’t tell Stan about it!” I yelled.
“He’s emotionally unattached but isn’t that a good thing in this case?”
“I suppose you’re right.” My fingers played against the rim of the wine glass, making it sing.
“You still have your integration to be proud of,” Helaine reminded me.
I nodded, knowing that she still wasn’t progressing on that front.
After half of the bottle was gone, we corked it and said our goodnights.
That feeling that told me I might be meant to be alone came back as I settled into my bed. My energy needed rearranging, and now that I was done being distracted, I’d decorate my room with Maddi.
Who was I kidding though? Throwing paint on a bigger problem wouldn’t fix it. I knew my powers were going to be off now, and I should have known better than to trust O’Callaghan. I knew who he was from the beginning.
Usually when I felt this way I could convince myself I was up for the challenge, but being alone was the exception. Perhaps I was the exception. I was an enigma, and being here to save the world was what I did. I had no world of my own.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Privilege
Helaine
I was calmly meditating in the garden, and not a care could be given that it was cold out. I needed to connect with the Earth so badly that I even had my socks off. I pictured the roots below and the leaves above and tried to tap into the primordial driving force that would ground my energy. I had chosen water, but it was hesitant to choose me b
ack.
“Mind, no mind,” I said out loud, reminding myself of a martial arts saying. I had to clear my mind so it was a crystal as my element.
I lethargically drew water across the courtyard in a line, looking for any sign of a change, of an indication of integration with my senses.
“Blimey fuck!” I yelled, standing up on my freezing cold feet. “Why are my powers not integrating?!”
The door to the conservatory opened behind me and Onyx came outside.
“Er… you weren’t supposed to hear that,” I told him. “I’m positively better behaved when I know people are watching, promise.”
“What’s the problem, Laurence?”
“I don’t hear anything, I don’t see anything, and I sure as hell don’t taste or feel anything. What is wrong with my powers?”
“Nothing is wrong,” Onyx said. “We knew you were advanced from day one of elemental training.”
“But Rose can see emotions as colors now, not just feel them.”
“Avereis is also a little… out of control? Don’t look at me that way Laurence, I call it as I see it, and I do want her to succeed.”
“Will my powers ever integrate? Does water want me back?”
“Some witches don’t have integrations, but that’s rare. All of your ancestors did, so you should too.”
“I needed it to happen yesterday. I need to be able to find Moon.”
“Moon Halloran? This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“There has only been one sighting and Gregory, Stan, and Maddi think it was a false report. Her family would have been safer if she had been inducted,” I told my mentor.
“If you weren’t here.”
“And maybe it’s karma paying me back.”
“Karma doesn’t work like that,” Onyx said softly. “I think we’ve been studying texts too much lately. Just back up and go back to water a moment, yeah?” I nodded. “And maybe put some shoes on.”
I sat down by my shoes and socks to pull them back over my feet. At Onyx’s request, I followed him into the living room.
“You know what I think it is? You’re not naturally intuitive.”
“But I’m Water.”
“No. You’re perceptive, logical, and even mathematical at times.”
“And a little lazy,” I admitted.
“That too. Your intuition will have to come later, but you know as well as I that a witch’s element can change her personality.”
“Did you change at all?”
“I become more germaphobic when I came to the big city,” Onyx admitted, “but I was raised as an earth witch. You were raised in a structured political system and at a tattoo shop.”
I sniggered.
“I see your point, but I do realize that I’m more disciplined now. I mean I was at martial arts, but at home, and at my internship, not so much.”
“They need your logic and balance here, everyone does, so don’t give it up for intuition. Be yourself.”
I set out to be in the Coven so I could create my own identity, but I always knew that my identity as a Laurence would never be far behind. I would embrace both, and in the long run, the affiliations I already had could help us greatly. For the first time in my life, I knew I wouldn’t be sore if the Coven flat out told me I had been picked as a witch because I was a Laurence. No one said I couldn’t be both.
“People don’t think that I have earned what it takes to help them.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“They think I can’t empathize with them because I grew up differently. They assume that I can’t relate. That I don’t care. They don’t try to understand where I’m coming from even though my energy goes into trying to make the world a better place. But you know what? No one gets to tell me what I bloody care about. No one gets to assume they know me. And no one gets to assume whether or not I should be risking my life for them on a daily basis. I’ll be out there making a difference, when they’re at home complaining about me, and how my life is so damn easy. And I know that it will get difficult, and when it does, I don’t want them to know. Being miserable and a lack of opportunities shouldn’t be a bloody contest. Life should be about where we are all going together when we can lift each other up. ‘Privilege’ doesn’t make me helpless to stand up for others who are different than me. It’s my choice to focus on the positive, and not drown and writhe in my problems. What we go through isn’t nearly as important as how we react to it.”
“I wish Stan could have heard your speech two years ago,” Onyx told me.
“I heard it now,” came Stan’s voice from the stairs.
“Do you listen in often?” I watched him come down the stairs to join us.
“Not usually. Your speech was long enough that I had to catch some part of it. I agree with everything you said. My first two years were terrible and petrifying.”
“How so?” I asked him.
“Well, the thing I heard constantly was that I wasn’t autistic enough.”
“You’re bloody kidding.”
“I don’t kid,” he said flatly. “Because I’m a savant, everyone always said I had it easy—that I was verbal so I was fine and it wasn’t a big deal. In truth, it was difficult trying to figure out what other people wanted, or why they thought the things I did were strange. It’s not easy having a brain that functions differently than everyone else’s. You will never be good enough, and you will never be damaged enough, so just be what you are.”
He knew exactly what I was going through. I thought that maybe we should hug, but I also knew Stan by now.
“When I help Moon, I’ll prove myself to the rest of the Coven. They’re the only ones I need approval from.”
“You’ll always have approval from me, Laurence,” Onyx said with a smile. “It’s great you learned this in your first year.”’
“It should be an attainment,” I said. “It’s a bloody trial alright.”
“Maybe someday when you become a Mage you can start a petition to add it.”
“It’s not likely that Laurence would choose that path,” Stan reminded our mentor.
“There will always be President’s daughters, Princes, and rich families. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have the right to do good because of who you were born to.”
Onyx and Stan were both right, and I had no doubts since coming here that this is where I belonged. Sometimes, these feelings meant it was only the calm before a billowing storm, but as cheesy as it was, I had people to ride out the bad weather with. My father always told me that you were lucky to have one close friend in this life, but I knew now that I’d leave the Coven with lifelong friends by my side.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Imbolc Seduction
Rose
Maybe I was still feeling a little off from ending things so abruptly with O’Callaghan, but it didn’t let it interfere with my training too much. I wasn’t agitated or uneasy, it was just over with, but I didn’t mean that I still didn’t think about him. I also thought about my destiny, the one that pigeon-holed me as a lone flame in a candelabra of solitude. My control over fire was worsening, but Stan just thought I was having a bad week.
Did I really need to be with a man who had to ask if he could kiss me?
I sunk into the wicker chair in the conservatory. Dating was hard. Coven life was even more difficult than that, and I could really use a moment to prove that I was at least progressing at one of the two.
Stan walked into the kitchen just then, and I had a feeling he wouldn’t help me progress at either.
“Any lessons for today?” I asked him.
“No, because tonight, we’re going out,” Stan informed me. “The whole Coven is going to Seven’s to keep up appearances.”
“And I am not getting drunk,” I said, “no matter how many drinks people order me.”
“You understand, which is good because tonight you have an assignment,” he said.
“Which is?”
�
�You find out when you get there.”
Typical Stan.
When will you realize that I can hear you?
I can’t commit to that, I thought back.
I sure hoped this outing wouldn’t end up like winter solstice when Helaine was accosted and attacked, but because of that event, we really needed to go out and prove we were united.
I left the house dressed normally, in a fitted band t-shirt and jeans, trying my best not to overcompensate from feeling very much like a girl who had just broken up with her boyfriend who was never actually her boyfriend. As I walked into Seven’s with my other four coworkers I figured O’Callaghan wouldn’t be here tonight.
I drank slowly at Seven’s, mostly chatting with Helaine. I waited two hours for my assignment, and suddenly, Stan appeared next to me out of nowhere.
“You can see energy as colors now,” he confirmed. “Only a few colors are showing up, but we’ll work with what we have. How does everyone here feel about you?”
“They mostly like me,” I said, sipping on my “last drink” of the night. “Some find me…” I smiled crookedly, “alluring.”
“Alluring?”
“Sexy,” I expanded, looking him straight in his green eyes. “That seems to be a word that isn’t so ambiguous for you. I’m an athletic eighteen-year-old, if you haven’t noticed.”
“It is a clear word,” he agreed. “And do those feelings show up a color?”
“Pink,” I said, not wanting to sound so cliché. I had some control over warm colors, but my cool ones weren’t showing up yet. I expected them to be sadness and loss: All the things I didn’t want to think about, and the emotions I had manipulated myself out of feeling my entire life.
“I want you to deflect and take those feeling from them, and light this candle with them.”
Stan pointed to a white pillar candle on the bar.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “You mean take the feelings from everyone in this bar who thinks I’m… sexy?”
“I believe that’s what I said,” Stan echoed.
“I’m a witch now and there could be serious consequences. What if their feelings never return after I take them?”
Death's Primordial Kiss (The Silvered Moon Diaries Book 1) Page 26
