“It’s true! And you said it yourself, how can I know things if I’m not told them? Someone has to, why not you?”
Asher chuckled and shook his head for several seconds, the silence growing crueler the longer it lasted. The worms began wriggling as those blue pools darted back my way. I had to glance down. “What do you want from me, little one? Exactly?”
I was aware of him staring, scrutinizing every inch of my face, but I was afraid to reciprocate. I was afraid my embarrassment, fear, and confusion would be evident on my face. Really, at nine years old, I couldn’t quantify what I wanted from the man across from me except for him to simply stop looking at me.
“I am not a good man,” he began, finally breaking the silence. “I am a vampire. A soulless monster. I am not even a man. I have stolen. I have lied. I have killed more than I can account for. Without a doubt, I am destined for hell and I … welcome the upcoming journey. I welcome the eternal atonement for my multitude of sins. My reckoning is past due.” He paused. “I am not for you, Anna. I have nothing to teach but misery and nothing to offer but perpetual darkness.”
As I gazed down at my lap, the worms burrowed through my whole body. Every one of those little bastards wanted me to start crying, to run away, to give up, and for a second I almost listened. But they hadn’t reached my soul yet. My spirit forced my eyes to his as I asked, “How about what I can offer you?”
The snarl I was greeted by slowly dropped as he stared at my impassive face. Thank the universe our waitress showed up carrying a piece of chocolate cake with a candle in it. “Hope I’m not interrupting. Thought you might like this. Happy birthday, hon.” She set it right in front of me. “Blow out your candle and make a wish, sweetie.”
I gathered all my energy, all the magic I could muster, and blew the candle out.
“What did ya wish for, sweetie?” the waitress asked.
Without taking my eyes from Asher, I said, “I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”
_____
He pulled up in front of my building without even bothering to shut off the engine as I sat in his car, strangled by the oppressive silence that had followed us from the restaurant. It became worse, real the moment the car stopped. He wouldn’t speak. He wouldn’t look at me. I was wrong. Everything I believed was wrong. This was it. I would never see him again, and there was nothing I could do about it. Anything I said or did would just make matters worse. We sat in that car for a full thirty seconds before I forced my hand to the door. “Bye,” I whispered as I put one foot out of the car into the frozen night.
“Anna …” I looked over at him. “‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.’ There is nothing else in this world worth knowing.”
“Then I guess you’re right. You probably can’t teach me anything.”
I slammed the car door as hard as I could and trudged back to my apartment without a single glance back. Sven and Andie lay on the couch watching TV when I walked in. “How’d it go? You do your thing?” Sven asked.
“Yes.”
“He get fresh with you?” my father asked.
“No. He just took me out for a birthday dinner.”
Both adults peeked over the couch. “Shit. It was your birthday today? Happy birthday.”
“Thank you, Sven. I’m tired now. I’m going to bed.”
“I can’t believe you forgot your own kid’s birthday,” Andie whispered as I passed.
“She didn’t remind me,” Sven whispered back.
I shut my bedroom door, set down my bag, removed my coat, and flopped into bed. And that was that. I’d never see him again. Life would continue as it always had. There would be nothing but these four walls and the man in the next room until I could find a way to survive on my own. That is if I could survive him. I barely had so far.
That same horrendous oppression from the car followed me, all but suffocating me inside that tiny cell I called a bedroom. I threw open my curtains to gaze out the window at the full moon. I would never look at it the same … my eyes instinctively moved down to the parking lot and all my gloom evaporated. Because he was there. He was still parked down there. He didn’t leave me. He couldn’t leave me. Because he knew. He knew. How could he not? A slow smile crept across my face as I pressed my palm to the icy glass. It was only then he drove away, returning once more into the darkness. But he’d return. For me. I felt it down to my soul. He’d be back. And that was the moment I learned wishes could come true.
It would just take years for me to realize to be careful what you wish for.
_____
I didn’t have to keep the metaphorical candle in my window burning long. The next night, while I was lying in bed reading Wuthering Heights, the knock on the door came. We were expecting Sven’s supplier, so I stayed on the moors with Heathcliff. He’d keep me company until …
“What are you doing back here?” my father asked.
“I have returned with a proposition,” he said in that lyrical baritone.
He came. He came back for me. Never had a doubt.
I leapt from bed to the door, racing into the living room with book still in hand. Asher set eyes on me and smiled as if he’d just seen the sun rise for the first time in a millennia. I knew just how he felt.
“Look who came back,” Sven said.
Andie poked her head over the couch. “You must have done something right.”
“So what can I do you for, kemosabe?” Sven asked. “I’m getting some great hash in later or—”
“I have come for your daughter,” he said, eyes still affixed to mine.
“Groovy. Got a repeat customer.”
“No,” Asher said, once tender gaze turning monstrous as it moved to Sven. “I said I have come for your daughter. I am taking her with me this night.”
“What? I don’t …”
“You mean, like, adopt her?” Andie chimed in.
“What? I’m not giving you my kid. You’re fucking insane, man. What the hell do you even want with her?”
“As if you give a fig for her well-being,” Asher snarled. “Striking her without cause. Selling her body and talents to anyone with a bit of coin in their pocket. You are a whoremonger, a blackguard, and are not fit to breathe the same air as her, let alone guide her though this life, you piece of excrement.”
“Fuck you!” Sven cocked his fist back, but Asher grabbed it, gripped even tighter. He brought the whimpering Sven to his knees.
“Anna, please go wait down in my car,” Asher uttered softly, as if he weren’t in the process of breaking my father’s fingers.
“Don’t you—” Sven started, but Asher squeezed even tighter, strangling the words with further pain.
“What the fuck! Let him go!” Andie shouted, actually leaving the couch for once.
“Anna, please. Go,” Asher said, calm as can be. “Please.”
I took one step. Then another. Then I bolted to the door, grabbing my coat along the way. As I quickly put it on, I took one quick glance at my father, the last look I ever would. That’s how I remember him to this day. Helpless. Scared. Brought to his knees for all his considerable sins. That sight still reminds me there can be justice in this universe. I shut the door.
Over ten minutes later, Asher finally emerged from the building carrying a duffel bag filled with items from my room and blood smudged on the corner of his mouth. When I saw it as he climbed into the Porche, I was too nervous and excited to fully grasp what that smear meant. Even when I did, I did not mourn either of them. Never have and never will. Asher started the car, turned on the heat for me without me asking, and sped us off into the night just as flames ate the curtains in my former bedroom. My former self.
“I packed a few of your belongings. Whatever else you require, we shall purchase when we reach Toronto. I have friends there who will aid us in acquiring you a passport and false birth certificate. Though it may take several days.”
“Okay.”
We drov
e in silence for a few seconds. “After Toronto … if you could see anything, go anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
“Egypt. I always wanted to see the pyramids.”
“Cairo then. Excellent choice. I have not been in two centuries. My Arabic is a bit rusty though. It is a good language to learn. I shall do my best to teach it to you.”
“Okay.”
There was more silence save for the hum of the heater, before he said, “I warn you, I shall not be easy to live with. As with all of my species, I remain up all night and from sunup to sundown I am essentially dead. You will have to alter many of your habits, not simply your circadian cycle. I am an old man, quite set in my ways. Not to mention I have not cohabited with another soul in quite some time, and never one so young. I am what I am, and I enjoy what I enjoy. That will never change. I shall not change. You will have to acclimate to me, not the other way around.”
“Okay.”
“And should this experiment fail to work out for whatever reason, I shall not hesitate to drop you off at the nearest orphanage.”
“Okay.”
“I expect you to be quiet, polite, a good pupil, but first and foremost I expect obedience and loyalty.”
“Okay.”
“And stop bloody well agreeing with everything I say! You sound like a parrot.”
“I agree,” I said with a smirk.
He returned the gesture.
“Thank you.”
“No, mo chuisle … thank you.”
And that was how Anna S. Olmstead died, and Anna Asher was reborn.
In love.
AGE 11
PARIS, FRANCE
“AGAIN!”
I attempted to get en pointe, but with the shooting pain from my big toe up to my hip, not to mention the pain I woke with in my stomach and lower back, the act was next to impossible. I groaned in frustration. “I can’t,” I shouted in French. “It hurts!”
“Then you may as well quit now, little one,” my instructor Collette responded with a sneer. “Your form is terrible anyway.”
“It is not,” I spewed back. “Maybe you’re a terrible teacher.”
“Or you’re not practicing enough because you’re a spoilt, lazy, bratty child.”
Oh, how I wished to hex her right then, mostly for that last word. I was no child. Child. I was a world traveler. I spoke Arabic, Spanish, and French. I was the most advanced pupil my magic tutor had ever encountered, or so she told Asher. I had a season pass to both the opera and the ballet, for goodness sake. How many eleven-year-olds could claim that? How many adults? And how dare she insult me, and on my birthday no less?
“Better a child than a past my prime has-been like you.”
Collette’s pouty mouth dropped open, but no sound escaped. It was an easy jab, too easy but it completed the job. Oh, I loathed that woman. I loathed her gorgeous full lips, her decade on me, her talent, but especially her effortless flirting directed at my Asher. Every time I watched her demure smiles and the light touches of his chest whenever they spoke, I cringed. It was a dagger to my heart, especially when he matched her smile for smile, touch for saccharine touch. I could almost tolerate that, almost, but her quick temper, her cruel words whenever I failed, and the chip on her shoulder about my seeming wealth and privileged upbringing gave me a sense she had similar roots to mine. I’d thought of getting her fired, but with Asher’s concerns of letting too many people into our inner circle and her credentials, I knew it’d be an all but impossible sell. The only other option was ceasing the lessons, and I just couldn’t. Ballet was my favorite activity even before fencing and magic lessons. I loved how my body stretched, how I could interpret music into a physical entity with my body, how graceful I felt not only while dancing, but even as I walked.
I just hated Mademoiselle Collette. The only blight in my otherwise picture perfect new life. The only threat.
“You …” Her mouth shut and for a moment I believed I’d won the round, that is until a cruel grin formed. “Well, your Papa does not think me past my prime or pathetic. He proved as much last night. In my bed.”
“He’s not my—” I caught myself. I was under strict orders not to dispel the misconception Asher was my father. Fewer questions and prying eyes that way. I almost forgot in my anger. “You lie.”
But I knew she hadn’t. It was as plain as the bruise on her neck barely concealed by make-up. After our fencing lesson, Asher claimed he had to call on an old friend, which was odd, because Asher went out of his way to avoid his own kind those early years. It was dangerous for us both. I had to learn vampiric law in those first days in Toronto. While there was no law expressly against children, save for not turning them before age thirteen, I lacked the protection afforded consorts and familiars. The mere fact I even knew about the existence of vampires could result in a death sentence for us both in some territories. I was fair game. So if we ever did run into an old friend at the opera or theater, I’d be introduced as my governess Clifton’s granddaughter. He’d been with us since Cairo when it was decided I needed a daytime guardian. I was expecting Sherlock’s Mrs. Hudson or even an older Jane Eyre, and instead got a portly, dandy, fifty-something Englishman. Asher knew Clifton during his tenure with some vampire Lord, wrote the dandy, and a week later I had a new male governess. Not only did Clifton run the household, he instructed me in Latin and English, did all our shopping, escorted me around town, and taught Asher to cook. Having lived almost eight hundred years, Asher had mastered almost every skill imaginable but never cooking. It took almost a month before he created something edible, but by Paris he’d surpassed his tutor. If not for the dancing and fencing I’d have weighed two hundred pounds. As I stared at the usurper of my Asher’s attention and love, I wondered if he cooked for her as well.
“We’ve been lovers for a week now,” she said with a triumphant smirk. Asher was in love with her? This? He deserved better. So much better. I was so angered my stomach and lower back ached harder. “Once we made love in this very room. He took me against the barre you touch now.” My hand involuntarily jerked from the abomination. “And we have no intention of stopping.” The bitch took a step toward me. The agony in my back ratcheted up another notch. “And wouldn’t it be wonderful if I became your new Mama? Of course we’d require some time alone to truly get to know one another. Years perhaps. A Catholic boarding school might be just what you need. They’d whip the brat right out of you. God how I wished to do it myself, but—”
My pain momentarily vanished as I sucked the magic into me, releasing it into the air like shrapnel. A gust of gale force wind knocked my tutor flat on her nonexistent derriére. She skidded on the hardwood floor for five feet until thwacking into the far wall hard enough to leave a dent. I watched all this, mouth agape, afraid to move or even blink in case it happened again. I knew I’d done it but didn’t know how. I hadn’t meant to. Truly. I always had to focus on the magic, the words, what I hoped to accomplish while casting. Control. I had control. But with Collette …
We stared across the room at one another with equally wide eyes, both sets growing with shock and fear. Neither of us moved or spoke for several seconds with the only sound coming from our panting. “What—ow!” she shrieked as she gripped her right wrist. The knot in my stomach tightened with her every howl of pain.
“What is going on?” Clifton asked before he opened the door.
“W … we don’t know. She … she just fell,” I managed to get out as he walked in.
“My wrist. I think it’s broken,” Collette sobbed.
“I’ll take you to hospital,” Clifton said as he helped her rise. “Anna, collect her things.”
As I gathered her coat and purse, Clifton escorted her through our pied-à-terre. Asher purchased the whole building eons before my grandmother’s grandmother was born and rented out the flats save for the one we inhabited, which on occasion a vampire friend might arrange to use. I discovered this was a standard arrangement in almost every major cit
y worldwide. A port in every storm. So far I’d spent three months in his Cairo flat, nine in a Gaudi building he purchased in Barcelona before we laid down roots in France. The Paris flat was by far my favorite, with bay windows that overlooked the Champs de Lyses, antique furniture upholstered in real French silk, and a library of books no longer in print. The dance studio was the newest addition, something he built just before we moved in. The man fulfilled my wishes even before I knew I had them.
“I … I don’t know what happened,” Collette whimpered as Clifton helped her with her coat. “There was this gust of wind and … and …”
“Ghosts,” I blurted out. “Maybe it was a ghost. This place is really old.”
Clifton’s small brown eyes narrowed at me, but Collette nodded. “Maybe.”
“Let’s go,” Clifton barked. He all but pushed Collette out the door, kicking it closed behind them. I jerked when it slammed. He knew. He knew it was my fault, which meant when Asher rose, he would as well. I’d broken the cardinal rule: never use magic around non-supernaturals. It wouldn’t matter if the act was intentional or not. If word got out, the infraction could be punishable by death. Potentially both our deaths. Not that this fact scared me that much. No, I was petrified I’d be cast out for maiming his lover. That he’d hate me forever. That he’d finally realize I wasn’t worth his effort. That I was damaged goods and no amount of love or guidance would ever change that. The anger, the melancholy, the anxiety that had been gnawing almost literally inside me for two days reached its climax.
I burst into tears, which shocked me further. I never cried, especially not these hard, wracking sobs I feared would never stop. I had to leave. I could not breathe in the flat. Still dressed in my pink leotard and ballet shoes, I simply threw on my pea coat and scarf before fleeing onto the streets of Paris. Away froom my crime.
The bitter cold wind sliced over my skin like razor blades as I ran down the Champs. I worried my tears would freeze to my cheeks. I had no plan, but after five minutes, I knew I had to get inside somewhere before hypothermia set in. With the one Franc in my pocket, I purchased a ticket to a double feature of Harold & Maude and The Owl and The Pussycat. Not that I could concentrate on the screen. My intestines still felt as if someone were twisting them in their fists, and ever-increasing anxiety kept me wound up like a clock. Or a time bomb.
Witch Upon a Star (A Midnight Magic Mystery) Page 4
