Witch Upon a Star (A Midnight Magic Mystery)

by Jennifer Harlow

  He had his finger on the waistband of my panties, about to pull my last line of defense away, when I heard the creak of the door opening. Before I could connect cause and effect, or even open my eyes, the weight and hands vanished. My eyes opened just in time to watch Asher slam my would-be lover into the far wall hard enough to dent it and him. Even in an unaltered state I wouldn’t have kept track of Asher. One moment he was by the bed, and the next he had traveled five feet to lift Byron from the floor to punch him repeatedly in the face, Asher’s hand coming back bloodier by the second. I was too shocked to call out. Five punches that matched the savage expression on my Asher’s face since he entered this room. Rage satiated, that snarl gravitated my way, along with the rest of its owner. Like a panther, he stalked toward me, grabbed my wrist with his bloody mangled hand, yanked me off the bed, and dragged me from the room without giving me a chance to even put on my shoes. The only time he spoke until we reached home was as we passed Alain, who earned a begrudging, “Thank you,” from Asher before we continued my march of shame.

  The five-minute cab ride home was excruciating. The anger radiating from him and my adrenaline shock finally got to be too much for me. I ordered the driver to pull over before vomiting all over Dorchester Avenue. “Sorry.” I muttered as he began driving again. My pathetic state lessened Asher’s rage. Unfortunately it was replaced with something worse. Apathy. His face was just blank. He wouldn’t touch me, wouldn’t even look at me, not even as we walked up to our flat.

  “Hello,” Clifton said as we stepped in. “How was—”

  “Clifton, please bring Anna a ginger ale. She is feeling ill.”

  My governess glanced from my grimy, shoeless feet up to my greenish face to Asher’s bloody hand and knew not to ask further questions. “Of course,” Clifton said, before departing with our coats.

  For once I dreaded being alone with Asher. I was afraid to glance at him, let alone speak. I bowed my head, waiting for the barrage of recriminations. None came. “Take a bath. You shall feel better afterward.”

  When I found the courage to raise my head, he was gone. I was alone. He’d given up on me. And it was all my fault.

  _____

  The bath helped, at least with the physical consciousness. But when I noticed the red welts on my outer thighs that Byron’s fingernails had left in their wake, I grew nauseous all over again. What I’d almost let him do … to this day it still makes me grimace. I was ashamed, so ashamed I hugged my knees to my chest and silently wept against them. I’d never be able to forgive myself, and neither would Asher. I felt it. The shift. Things had irrevocably changed between us. A boulder dropped into our tranquil pond, rippling through every facet of our lives, enough to drain the whole thing, leaving nothing but an empty hole. And it was all my fault.

  After changing into my flannel pajamas, I slid into my bed with the covers over my head. I attempted to sleep, but though I was exhausted my mind wouldn’t let oblivion take me. There was something that needed doing first. I found Asher out on the balcony peering into space with his back to me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The man I adored was so deep inside himself, he didn’t hear me approach. Startled, he spun around and stared at me as if I were a stranger. Another knife to the belly. “I’m sorry,” I said again, chin trembling. “I’m so sorry. I was so stupid. I just saw you with them, and I drank too much, and he was there and … I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. Please.”

  “Oh, Anna,” he began, face falling with sadness to match mine. “Oh, mo chuisle. There is not a thing, not an act, not a word you could utter that could ever make me hate you, have you not learned that after all these years? Tonight was my fault and mine alone. I beg your forgiveness. I sometimes forget how young you truly are.”

  “I am not that young,” I argued.

  “But you are, mo chuisle,” he said desperately, stepping toward me. “You are still a child with stardust clouding your eyes, an innocent in so many respects. And that is not something to rally against. It is a gift. What occurred tonight should never have even crossed your mind, let alone been put into practice. That was my failing, not yours. You should never have been put into that position. I swore, I swore,” he said, forcefully, “to myself all those years ago, I would provide you the best life possible. That I would guide you, teach you, set you on the right path. And for my own selfish, pitiable reasons, I have been failing.”

  “No, you haven’t,” I insisted just as forcefully as I stepped onto the freezing balcony.

  “I have. I have compelled you to grow up far too fast. I have coddled you, praised you when I should have punished because I was afraid … you would hate me and abandon me once more to my loneliness,” he said, voice cracking. He took a second to compose himself. “What happened tonight was not acceptable. How you have been behaving toward me since Paris is not acceptable. I am beginning to believe … I and my world are not acceptable. Your youth is so special, so precious, and you only ever get the one. Yet most of yours has been tarnished by the selfishness of others. I have been no better than the man I stole you from. I may want you forever and always by my side, I truly, madly, deeply do, but that place is in the darkness. You need light to blossom into the beautiful, intelligent, astonishing woman I know you can be.”

  My knees were about to give out. “What?” I whispered. “What do you mean?”

  “Clifton was right. You need stability. You need to be around people your own age. You need to explore the world. Discover who you truly are, and what you are capable of. Boarding school would—”

  “No. No,” I said, so panicked I barely choked the words out. “Don’t send me away. Please don’t—”

  “You shall have the finest education. Meet the most influential people in the world. Children of diplomats and royalty. You could become a princess one day. Your children could rule Europe if—”

  “I don’t want to be a princess, I don’t want children, I only want you!” I screamed back. “I don’t want anything or anyone else in this whole wide world but you!”

  He stared back at me, red tears forming in the corners of his eyes, as the heartbreak spilled onto his face. “And the fact those words passed your lips simply proves just how much I have failed you.” He slowly stepped toward me, hovered for a second, then kissed the top of my head before whispering, “I shall love you until the sun rises in the west, until all the stars have burnt out and the bedrock beneath our feet is no more. And I love you enough to do this.”

  And my whole world walked away, leaving me alone out in the frozen darkness. I stared at the place where my soul mate once stood, my Asher, in total shock. He was sending me away. Discarding me like a used tissue—all in the name of doing the right thing. Didn’t he know the only pure utter certainty in this entire universe was that we were meant to be together? How did he lose faith in us? I lost him. But as I stood shivering in the arctic winter night, with the whole of London swinging below me and the Sword of Damocles above, I swore to whoever, whatever was listening I would do anything, anything to restore his faith. To prove this universal truth. To gain his love again. Even if it killed me.

  He was worth it.

  AGE 15

  ROME, ITALY

  “OH, MR. ENRICO GORGA, what a lovely birthday present you gifted me without your knowledge. Molto bene.”

  Two hundred Lira. Not bad for a few seconds work. Astrid may have been a terrible mother, but she was a damn fine pickpocket who at least taught me that one useful skill. Not that I needed the precision of a surgeon in Mr. Gorga’s case. In a crowded discotheque it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Most times I’d sneezing hex the mark then swoop in with a handkerchief and flirty smile. While he was distracted by my womanly ways, I’d swipe his billfold. Easy peasy. Purses proved more difficult, just because women weren’t as dazzled by my fluttering baby blues, so I mostly preyed on men while my partner Dario targeted the ladies. We were a match made in hell. A week and a half before, he saw me fleece a mark
at the Vatican, recognized a kindred petty criminal spirit, and suggested we team up. He was only a couple years older than me, gorgeous as sin, and immediately offered to let me stay at his place strings free. I was lonely. I didn’t have a damn friend in the world, so I followed him to his squat. To his credit, he didn’t start adding strings for a few days. Still. It beat boarding school.

  In less than a week, I had found myself in a Swiss prison masquerading as a school. Once again, based on my test scores, I was skipped two grades, which just compounded my misery. Not only was I the youngest in my grade, therefore the dorm, but the girls knew each other for years and did not like outsiders, especially an American outsider. Prisoners of war received better treatment than I did at that school. The girls stole my clothes, spread heinous yet not wholly inaccurate rumors that I was a slut, that I spent time in a sanitarium, they even attempted to frame me for cheating from the moment I arrived. Every day, every hour brought some fresh new hell. They even found ways to torment me in my sleep, making me pee my bed or putting grease in my hair. Every. Day. And the teachers were no help. No one wanted to inconvenience a Duke or Ambassador daddy. I was in such a deep depression already I barely wanted to get out of my urine-soaked bed, let alone fight back. For a whole week I refused to leave my bed or eat. Even then they wouldn’t leave me alone. One even tossed me a razor blade as she giggled, “To help things along.”

  I lasted all of a month before I ran away the first time. I found my way back to London, to him, but my pleas, my literal begging on my hands and knees fell on deaf ears. The next morning, Clifton escorted me back to school. I lost all privileges and couldn’t even leave the grounds. Of course that didn’t stop escapes two through five. My Houdini routine continued four more times, each with the same result. That last escape Asher refused to even see me. A week after my final return to hell, I received a letter with no return address, simply a short paragraph with a telephone number for emergencies and a heartfelt request for me to make the best of things. To try. He may as well have plunged a literal blade into my heart.

  Then nothing.

  Not a single word, not a single visit, from him in almost a year. Not even at Christmas. Asher arranged for me to spend summers and holidays with the High Priestess of Athens to continue my neglected magical tutoring. My Greek oasis. YaYa was sweet, and her grandson Costas even sweeter if not clumsy those first few times, but after Christmas instead of returning to school, I made my final disappearing act. I had saved about two hundred marks from my allowance and selling some jewelry, so I hopped a boat to Italy and worked my way up to Rome. Two days in the city and the money ran out. Hence my life of crime.

  After fleecing Mr. Gorga, I spotted Dario chatting up a middle-aged woman at the bar. Judging from the sloppy caresses he tried on his mark, in the hour I’d been on the hunt, my partner apparently had drunk his weight in liquor. The mark scowled and tried to leave, but he grabbed her wrist to stop her. I hated when he drank. The night before not only were we bounced from a club, I had to practically carry him home. So unprofessional.

  Before the woman could slap him, I threw my arm over his shoulders and sighed. “I’m bored. Can we go now?” I asked in broken Italian. I was nowhere near fluent but the language was close enough to Spanish, I got the gist of what people were saying.

  “Scusi,” the woman said before hustling away.

  “No wait,” Dario called after her. His face contorted into a snarl as he turned to me. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

  “Sorry. Come on. We made five hundred. Time to go.”

  “We just got here.”

  “Well, I’m leaving. See you later.”

  As I meandered the few blocks to the squat be it the frigid air, the strolling lovebirds I passed with their inside jokes and eyes for one another, or the fact that all that waited at me at the end of the frozen trek were four water-stained walls and dirty furniture, the depression I’d attempted to keep at bay wheedled through the mortar. It was my birthday and the only gift I received was a canoli and a kiss from Dario. Dario. I thought moving in with him would alleviate my loneliness, not compound it. Another in a long line of bad choices. I’d believed it’d be an adventure breaking out on my own, tramping around Italy and surviving by my wits. Finding out who I truly was, and what I was capable of just as he’d wanted for me. Well, Asher achieved his objective, just not with the results he anticipated. Apparently I was a thief capable of nickel and dime crimes. Sven and Astrid would be proud I was carrying on the Olmstead family tradition at least. My real family would be ashamed. Or worse, as I believed that night, he wouldn’t care.

  There were a few moments through those lonely two years of exile where I hated that man. I begged, got down on my hands and knees with pleas and tears more than twice, but to no avail. Asher offered to send me to another school, but never to let me come home. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea of my attending a school in London. No matter what spin he attempted to give it, the fact was that sending me away had precious little to do with education. It was all about banishing me from his side. “For my own good.” He refused to tell me where he moved “for my own good.” He even stopped taking my phone calls on the emergency line “for my own good.” One envelope a month stuffed with cash, that was all I meant to him. He kicked me to the curb so he could play with his old friends. Left me alone to be picked on and terrorized by creatures worse than even vampires, miserable privileged teenage girls.

  Right before Christmas vacation some of the girls started a rumor that I was a Satanist, that I recruited several boys in town into my coven with sexual favors, and the whole school ran with it. They drew pentagrams and goats inside all my books and clothes. Whenever I passed someone in the hall they’d whisper “Hail Satan” or ask if I’d sacrificed any babies or virgins. It was constant from the moment I woke to even while I slept. Finally when the entire school began calling me Rosemary’s Baby and the local priest came to interrogate me, I made the decision never to return. Of course I left a few parting gifts with the ringleaders, boils and warts medicine could not cure. Far less than they deserved.

  Did he even search for me in that past month? Had he simply moved on? Forgotten me? I’d tortured myself with every heinous scenario for a year, but once I struck out on my own, my self-inflicted misery was almost constant. If he were missing I’d scour the world until I drew my last breath. For all he knew I had drawn my last breath. Did he even care? With hindsight, I realize now the reason for my liberation was so he would chase after me, and every day he didn’t ride up on a white horse to save me from myself, my depression grew. The night of my fifteenth birthday, my internal crisis reached its apex. I flopped down on Dario’s mildew covered couch, stared at the black stain on the ceiling, and immediately burst into tears. What the hell had I done? Was this the life I wanted for myself? To be like my parents? To take advantage of people for a little bit of money? To all but prostitute myself just for companionship and a roof over my head? I couldn’t continue. I didn’t have another month left in me, but what choice did I have? Boarding school was worse than prison; I wouldn’t go back. YaYa would just send me back to school. I was trapped. Completely, utterly alone. Why had he stopped loving me?

  Dario stumbled into my pity party, and though I tried to quell the tears, the dike was demolished, and there was no reassembling it. Through my tears, I could still see the disgust written on his face.

  “What the hell is the matter with you? Stop crying,” he ordered. “Stop it.”

  I just sobbed harder, coming close to hyperventilating, and actually curling into a ball. About ten seconds later, the couch shifted as Dario sat beside me. “It … it’s okay,” he said, lifting me so he could hug me. I rested my head on his shoulder. He reeked of tobacco and sweat, but I didn’t care. “It’ll be okay.”

  It was lovely having someone just hold me. The sobs lessened as he kissed the top of my head, then down my forehead. He lifted my head to kiss my lips. He tasted of liquor and cigarettes,
neither of which were appetizing. Neither was the tongue he shoved in my mouth. I pulled away.

  “Stop.”

  He kissed me again. I tried to squirm away, but he held on tight. “I said stop!”

  “Come on,” he muttered.

  “No!” I said as I pinched his side.

  “Ow!”

  He released me enough so I could literally shove him down on the couch and spring up. “I said no!”

  “Bitch!”

  “I may be a bitch, but at least I’m not a shitty thief like you. I’m outta here.” I started collecting my meager belongings, mostly clothes strewn around.

  “Good. Saves me the trouble of kicking you out. Just leave me the money from tonight, and get the fuck out.”

  I scoffed. “Hell no. I earned this money while you were drinking your weight in booze and getting turned down by someone’s grandmother. It’s mine.”

  He leapt up, face contorting in fury. “Give me that money, Anna.”

  “No way. I need it, I earned it, it’s mine.” I zipped up my suitcase and hoisted it from the kitchen table. “Nice knowing you.”

  I made it one step past him before his hand clamped on my forearm, and he spun me around. “Give me the damn money, Anna,” he growled.

  “Go to h—”

  Merde. I’d asked him not to bring the switchblade to the club, but of course he had. The moment that blade popped in his hand, my blood ran cold. Not good. Not good not at all. “Give me the money, putana.”

  My first instinct was to hand him the cash and run. But aside from the fact that without it I’d have to sleep on the street that night, I just didn’t want to. The scared little boy bullying me had no right to it. He had no right to threaten me. Who the hell did this bastard think he was? I glanced down at his hand, then at his angered expression. Mine went deeper. “You have three seconds to let go of my arm, or you’ll lose yours.”