by Teresa Roman
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him. It was that I didn’t want to believe him. Not like I had any other choice. Whatever he’d just done couldn’t be explained away.
“I don’t have any powers. I can’t do what you just did,” I said, hoping that Devin would take it all back about me being a witch. Ever since I’d started having my strange dreams and seeing monsters, all I wanted was a normal life, and I still did. I wanted a mother and father who were still alive, a brother or sister and a handful of cousins, too. I wanted to leave Crescent City and go to college. I didn’t want anything he’d just told me to be true. Then I flashed back to the last few dreams I’d had about the monsters killing that man in the courtyard. They’d referred to the man and his family as witches. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had that dream for a reason.
“There are all sorts of reasons for that, I imagine.” Devin scooted closer to me and took my hands in his. “You haven’t had anyone to teach you about magic and you’re technically only a half-witch, since your father wasn’t one. I suppose that’s one explanation.”
“And the other?”
“I’m afraid your mother is the only one who can answer that question, and there isn’t any way for me to reach her from here.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s a bit hard to explain, but I’ll try my best,” Devin said. He let go of my hands. “Picture the world as one of those interrogation rooms the police on TV use when they’re questioning someone. On one side are the people you’ve lived with your entire life: mortals, regular humans with no magical abilities. They’re the ones in the room with the window you can’t see through. We’re on the other side of that glass. Witches, fairies, demons and all things magical that you’ve probably read about but always assumed were make-believe. We can see through the glass, even though whoever is behind it can’t see us. We know what exists beyond our part of the world, but humans have no idea what exists outside of theirs. We are in two different worlds. If I wanted to speak to Naiara, I’d have to return to the Wilds.”
“How is any of this even possible?” I shook my head. “If I’m really a witch, why don’t I know about anything you just explained?”
“You do. You just don’t realize it. At your father’s funeral, you and I were the only ones who could see your mother. Magical beings use glamour to hide themselves when they travel through human lands and want to remain unseen. Only another magical being can see them, like you did. And the dreams you’ve been having, they’re of us. You said it yourself, you dream about witches and magic all the time. Now you know why.”
Glamour. I knew what that was from the pile of books I’d read about fairies and vampires. It was magic used to hide the true form of a person. I pulled away. Leaning back against the couch cushions, I closed my eyes, and tried to process everything Devin had just told me. Conflicting thoughts tumbled through my mind. Not only had Devin been lying to me for months and keeping secrets, but the only reason he had befriended me was to satisfy his curiosity. For months I’d been convinced the two of us were at least friends, if not something more, but if it weren’t for Devin’s ulterior motives the two of us would never have met, never became friends—never kissed. How much of what we shared was real and how much of it was a trick to get me to open up?
“What are you thinking, Lilli?” Devin said.
I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. He still had his hands clenched in his lap. “That you’re a liar and a user.”
“I swear it’s not like that, Lilli,” Devin said, his voice pleading. “I wanted to tell you the truth for a long time; I just didn’t know how.”
“That is not an excuse.” I wavered between anger and a deep ache that tore at my insides. Tears sprang from my eyes and I wiped them away before they could start rolling down my face. I had trusted Devin. I let him in and told him my deepest darkest secrets because I thought he cared for me. There were a million words that needed to come out, but none of them were able to make it to the surface. “I need to get out of here,” I finally said. I stood, grabbed my bag, and headed towards the door.
“Lilli, we have to talk about this,” Devin pleaded as I grabbed the doorknob, ready to make my escape. “You can’t just push me away.”
“Yes. I can.” I shook my head and wrapped my arms around myself again. “I don’t want to hear anymore. I just want to be alone.”
I threw the door open and ran outside. Devin followed me. I got inside my car and locked the doors. He knocked on the window, but I refused to lower it.
“This isn’t over, Lilli. Even if you don’t want to have anything else to do with me, there are more things I have to tell you. Things you need to know.”
I turned the engine on, put my car in drive, and pulled away from the curb, but not before I heard him say, “Lilli, please, your life could be in danger.”
Chapter 12
Everything Devin had told me seemed impossible. If I hadn’t seen him teleport in front of my eyes, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted things to go back to the way they were before. Back to that night when he kissed me for the first time and I felt like the luckiest girl alive.
I raced through the streets on my way home, struggling against the desire to turn around, because as angry as I was with Devin, I still wanted him. I still needed him.
When I got home, I stormed inside and slammed the door shut. I wasn’t sure what to do. Nothing became clearer as I sat on the couch, trying to sort things out in my mind, but the longer I sat doing nothing, the more frustrated I became. I climbed the stairs and burst into my bedroom. I pulled open my nightstand drawer and stared at my mother’s picture, tempted to rip it to shreds. She’d been alive this whole time. A few weeks ago she’d been standing only a few feet away from me, but instead of talking to me, she’d used her magic to disappear, not bothering to consider what that would do to me. For so long my heart had ached for her, but now I felt something different. Anger. Betrayal.
A long shower helped calm me down, but as soon as I dried myself off, my mind started racing again. When I was done in the bathroom, I sat down at my desk, opened my laptop and typed the word “witch” in the search engine, even though I knew the Internet would just give me a bunch of bogus information. I tried searching for the Wilds next, the place Devin said he was from. Google seemed to think it was some safari park in Ohio, which obviously wasn’t the same place Devin referred to earlier.
Over the years, I’d read a whole stack of books with stories that took place in pretend worlds, and I still remembered most of their settings; Narnia, Avalon, Middle Earth. But those were stories, fantasy. I tried to imagine what my mother’s life in the Wilds was like. Maybe it was so amazing that she forgot all about the people she’d left behind.
As I lay in bed that night trying to sleep, I decided it didn’t matter that I was a half-witch. I had no real powers, and a part of me began to feel relieved that I wasn’t crazy after all. Seeing my mother, having crazy dreams about magic and people dying—there was a reason those things happened. I didn’t like the reason, but at least there was one.
Everything will be all right, I tried telling myself.
In the morning, after getting out of bed, I wasn’t so sure. It suddenly dawned on me that the chances were close to zero that I’d ever see my mother again. She was stuck in her part of the world and it looked like I was stuck in mine. I couldn’t help but feel sad that I’d probably never get to meet her, much less get a chance to know her.
Too angry and hurt to face Devin, I decided to call in sick to work before texting Emma and convincing her to come hang out with me. We decided to meet downtown for lunch. My phone rang every fifteen minutes as I got ready to leave the house, but I let the calls go to voicemail. I couldn’t avoid Devin forever, but I wasn’t ready to face him yet. Did he think I had more secrets to share? Was the kiss just a part of his plan to get close to me? I felt humiliated at how easily I’d been fooled.
&nb
sp; By the time I met up with Emma, the calls had stopped. My phone remained silent until right after we gave the waitress our lunch orders. I glanced at it, fairly certain it was Devin again, but this time the number that flashed on the screen belonged to the hotel. I thought about letting it go to voicemail, but what if it was Rob calling?
“Where are you?” Devin asked as soon as I pressed the phone to my ear. Of course it would be him instead of my manager.
“None of your business,” I snapped.
“Lilli, you have to give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain what? That you’re a liar who spent the last few months making a fool out of me?” I blurted out, forgetting that Emma was sitting right across the table from me.
“It’s not like that.”
“I don’t care what it’s like, and I don’t feel like talking about it either, so stop calling.”
I hung up without giving him a chance to reply.
Emma stared at me. “Who were you just talking to, and what the hell was that about?”
“Devin,” I said as I tried to come up with some sort of explanation that wouldn’t make me sound like I needed to be committed to an asylum. “He lied to me about something, and I’m still pissed about it.”
“That must have been some lie.” Emma’s gaze lingered on me as she waited for an explanation.
“After the party the other night, he kissed me.” As I said those words I felt like I could still taste him, still feel the weight of his lips on mine. I shook my head to clear those thoughts from my mind. They weren’t making anything easier.
Emma’s eyes widened. “No way! What was it like? Is he a good kisser? He has to be; no guy can be that gorgeous and not know how to kiss; that would be a total waste.”
I let her ramble on about Devin while I thought of what to tell her next. “He’s a good kisser,” I admitted, although, sadly, I didn’t have anyone to compare him to.
“Would you get to the part about him being a liar already?”
“After he kissed me, he said he had something to tell me.” I inhaled sharply before starting my own lie. “He has a girlfriend back home. It was the first time he ever mentioned her even though we’ve been friends for months. I’m pissed. He should’ve told me. It’s not right to kiss someone when you’ve been keeping secrets and lying to them since the day you met.”
“That’s messed up,” Emma said. “What are you going to do? You guys work together, so isn’t that going to be awkward?”
I stared out the window. “I don’t know. I’m sure it’ll work itself out somehow.” Devin said he’d stuck around Crescent City to get answers about who I was and what I was doing here. Now that he had them, there was no reason for him to stay. He had a family and friends in the Wilds that missed him and were waiting for him to return. I remembered the longing in his voice when he spoke about them. It didn’t matter that the last thing I wanted was for him to go. I would tell him to anyway.
After lunch, Emma wanted to check out one of thrift stores nearby. I agreed, even though I didn’t like spending any more time downtown than I had to. I was reminded why as we walked past Crescent City’s crappiest dive bar on the way to the thrift store. I froze as I watched two people walk out from the bar onto the sidewalk. One of the men looked human, but the other one definitely didn’t. Its eyes were black as pitch, sharp fang-like teeth matched its clawed fingers. I clasped my hand over my mouth and when I noticed Emma’s eyes on me I pretended to stifle a sneeze.
“Is it okay if we do this some other time?” I asked. “I’m feeling a bit queasy right now. Too much grease at lunch, I think.” I needed to be as far away from that creature as possible.
The two of us headed back toward where our cars were parked and said our goodbyes. I went home and tried to take a nap, but the creature’s image lingered in my mind. Devin had explained why I could see my mother at the funeral when others could not, and he’d explained about my dreams, but I hadn’t given him a chance to tell me anything about the monsters, even though I was sure he knew what they were and why I kept seeing them.
Soon after five o’clock my doorbell rang. I froze, worried about who it could be. Devin had warned me that I was in danger, yet I’d managed to make it through life unscathed so far. Perhaps he’d been going for drama, hoping that it would keep me from running off. No. Devin didn’t seem like the type of person who would scare me just to get what he wanted, although I was now starting to question how well I really knew him.
I refused to give in to fear, so I got up to answer the door.
“We need to talk,” Devin said.
My stomach lurched at the sight of him. I tried telling myself it was from anger, but I knew better. This boy who knew how to make me smile and laugh stood in front of me, holding my heart in his hands despite the fact that he’d been lying to me since the day we met.
“What are you doing here?”
His tired eyes looked stormy. “You won’t speak to me on the phone, so I didn’t have a choice.”
I crossed my arms. “I want you to leave.”
“Give me a chance to explain first. Please.”
“Explain what? That while I trusted you, while I thought we were friends, you were just pretending so you could get all your stupid questions answered?”
Devin’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is that really what you think?”
I turned my back on him without answering. It was impossibly hard to look at him.
“Did you know that by the time I offered to help you get a job I felt like I already knew you? The reason I spoke to you that day was because I needed you in my life. Yes, I had questions. But more than that, I wanted to hear the way your voice sounded when you spoke to me. I wanted to see what your eyes were like when you looked at me. You’d begun to consume my thoughts. I couldn’t erase the image of you from my mind. You’re so beautiful and strong, but at the same time fragile, too. I knew I should’ve found a way to walk away from you, a way to leave Crescent City and you behind, but I couldn’t. By following you, by watching you, I’d begun to have feelings I knew I had no right to have.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and bowed my head, staring at my feet. “Why did you wait so long to tell me the truth?”
“Naiara left you here to keep you safe. But that wasn’t the only reason—I think your mother wanted a normal life for you. I love the Wilds and I love magic, but a life there comes with burdens and danger that humans have been shielded from. You’ve seen it in your dreams, and you know what I’m talking about. Once I realized why Naiara left you here, I didn’t think it was fair for me to tell you what I knew. I kept trying to convince myself that I needed to leave, but I never could bring myself to do it. With every day that passed, you wrapped yourself tighter and tighter around my heart. I couldn’t figure out how to walk away from that. The other night, when we kissed, I fought with myself the whole night. Do I tell you everything and take the chance you’ll forgive me, maybe even agree to be with me, or do I walk away and let you live the life your mother intended you to have?”
His confession made my head spin. “It would’ve destroyed me if you’d left,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
Devin laid his hand gently on my shoulder. “Then I’m glad I didn’t.”
A tear rolled down my cheek as I turned to face him. I took in a deep breath and tried to ignore the fluttering of my heart that came from my assortment of crazy emotions.
He wiped my cheek with the tip of his thumb. “Will I see you at work tomorrow?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m off.”
“Then when?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I need a little more time to think.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Then Devin said, “I’ll wait until you’re ready.” He pressed his lips to my forehead, and I wondered if he felt the same surge run through him that I did. “No matter how long it takes.”
Chapter 13
After Devin le
ft, I went into the kitchen, poured myself a bowl of cereal, and sat down at the table. Breakfast for dinner usually made me feel better, but instead of eating, I stared out the window. Dad had loved gardening. Less than a month had gone by since he passed, and the yard already looked wild and untended.
It was hard for me to imagine someone with a soul as gentle as my father’s being dragged into my mother’s drama. I wondered how much of her story my dad knew. Every time I spoke of my mother, my dad changed the subject without answering my questions. And now that he was gone, there was no way I’d get anything answered. My cereal turned to mush while my mind wandered, so I chucked it down the garbage disposal and headed upstairs. I picked up a book but found myself re-reading the same paragraph over and over and finally gave up.
The brief glimpse I had of my mother’s face at Dad’s funeral had lasted long enough for me to know that her tears had been real. If she grieved for him, that meant a part of her still cared, but if that were true, how could she walk away without a word? Did she know that she’d changed my life and my father’s forever by doing that?
I rolled over on my back, groaning with frustration and opened my book again. Somehow I made it through a few chapters before my eyelids grew heavy, and I fell asleep.
A call from Katy woke me the next morning. She asked me the usual questions—how was I doing, did I need anything, and was I eating and sleeping enough? I reassured her, and when she asked me what was new, I left out the part about my mother being a witch, and still alive in a world that human beings didn’t know existed. I was about to hang up when a question popped into my head.
“Katy, before my mother disappeared, did she say anything to Dad?”
“Anything like what?”
“Like that she might be in danger, or that someone might be after her?”
She paused before asking, “What brought this on?”
“Nothing. I just wondered, that’s all.”
