by Melissa Haag
I became aware that I just stood there, lightly running my fingertips over his chest, and quickly stilled my movement. The last thing I needed was a mix-up in signals.
Without removing my hand, I looked up into his strange eyes.
“Have I met my part of the deal?”
“Almost,” he said quietly, flashing me another triumphant smile as he quickly stepped away from me. “Now, I get an hour of your time.” He reached behind him and lifted a shirt off the chair. I hadn’t even noticed he had clothes there.
The shirt mussed his hair when he tugged it over his head, and I noticed his ears weren’t the only thing hidden in those waves.
He had horns. A dull, black horn adorned each side of his head. The base of each, barely hidden within his hair, started at the edge of his temple. From there, the horn arched up and then back down before tilting up once more just at the end. Channels ringed the horns and almost gave them a carved look.
Given the color of his hair and the way it fell, the horns had been easy to overlook the first time. Now that I’d spotted them, though, I couldn’t unsee their impressive lengths or how the point of each ear only reached the middle of the horn.
The worry lines returned in his forehead, and I met his gaze as I scrambled for something to say.
“What are we going to do now?”
He stepped close and tilted his head to study me, his face now carefully blank.
“Are you frightened?”
“No,” I answered quickly. And I wasn’t. Not really. I liked this version of Morik. At least, I liked it a lot more than the shadowy one and the body-snatching one. But the sight of his horns had me wondering if there were other versions of Morik I hadn’t yet seen.
He continued to study me closely.
“You touched me without fear, but this,” he reached up with his right hand and ran his fingers over a horn, “bothers you?”
As he spoke, his long teeth played peekaboo with me. He was so different. There was so much to look at that it was hard not to stare at any one thing.
“You’re just different from what I imagined.” I dropped my eyes to his shirt. Fabric was safe. It was some vintage band t-shirt, and I wondered if he got it when the band was new. He was old enough.
“I’m sorry for staring,” I added, hoping the apology would help.
“I like when you look at me, Tessa. But I don’t want you to fear me.”
Cautiously, I met his eyes. We watched each other for a few minutes as the silence grew uncomfortable. My skin started to prickle in the cool room.
Though his gaze never left my face, I still felt weird standing in front of him in only my pajamas when he was now fully dressed. Not that I wanted him to take his shirt off again. That had been worse. My attention drifted to the sweatshirt on the chair behind him as I struggled for something safe to say.
“What do you do when you’re not busy with Belinda’s line?” I asked.
“I broker deals when called,” he said softly, regaining my attention.
“People still call you? Do you always have to answer? Like a genie or something?” I glanced at the sweatshirt again, wishing I were brave enough to reach around him and grab it.
“People will always know how to call me, and no, I don’t have to answer; but I usually do. It’s the only way I can interact with your kind.”
He watched me expectantly, a slight smile on his lips. It began to make me nervous. Wrapping my arms around myself, I sat on the edge of my bed and contemplated pulling a blanket over my shoulders.
He turned and grabbed my sweatshirt. He looked at it for a moment before stepping forward to hand it to me. “Why didn’t you just ask for it?”
“Uh...”
“I saw you look at it. You’re cold. Why didn’t you ask me to hand it to you? Or, why not reach for it yourself?”
I plucked the sweatshirt from his hands and quickly tugged it over my head. My words were briefly muffled.
“Because I don’t know the rules. If I ask you for something, am I making a deal with you? I don’t want to do what Belinda did and compound an already difficult situation with bad choices.” I couldn’t bring myself to answer his last question and hoped he wouldn’t notice. The truth was that the combination of his eyes, horns, off-colored skin, and ears unnerved me.
“Difficult situation?” he asked.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that not every girl has to sleep when it’s dark out or touch a boy to figure out what kind of life she’ll have with him. My life is a difficult situation. I don’t want to make it worse.”
He nodded, sat down on the bed next to me, shoulder to shoulder, and set the light to the side. Shadow covered the side of his head facing me and hid his horn.
“You can ask me for anything, and I will try to do as you request. A deal isn’t necessary unless you want one. The only thing I cannot do is cancel a deal already made before a new deal replaces it.”
Averting my eyes, I changed the subject.
“So what do people usually ask you for?”
“Money.”
Involuntarily, I glanced back at him. “Where do you get the money from?”
I was curious how a being who couldn’t interact with the human world unless through a deal could get his hands on any currency. My guess was that his deals weren’t just limited to the US.
“That’s not an issue. I have existed for so long and made deals for so many different things that I can always trade what I have for what I need to meet a deal’s demands.”
“What was the first deal you ever made?”
“A boy wanted to marry a girl several steps above him. He asked for a way to become wealthy enough to marry her. I showed him how to carve combs from shells scavenged from the sea near his home. Once he mastered that, I taught him to adorn them with decorative carvings. We worked together at night for weeks. Many of his attempts broke. But, when he had three sets of hair combs, he was considered wealthier than anyone in the village.” Morik smiled at me and shrugged. “Instead of offering for the girl, he went to a bigger town to sell what he’d made.”
“How long ago was that?”
His eyes lost focus for a moment.
“More than four thousand years ago.”
“Holy crap!” I clapped a hand over my mouth and looked at the door, holding my breath. I felt him turn and look at me.
“No one heard,” he assured me. The light under the door remained unchanged as did the volume of the TV.
“What would you ask for?” he asked hesitantly.
When I focused on him again, he watched me with cautious eyes, and it took me a moment to realize why.
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ask for money. That kind of deal has done nothing but cause me problems.”
A relieved smile flashed at me, an abrupt showing of white in the darkness. Then, we both grew quiet.
I’d only asked what he usually did when not chasing us down to see what he might have planned for his hour. Brokering deals was obviously out. Since I’d pretty much used up my conversation, I had no idea what else to do. I glanced at the clock. Only fifteen minutes had passed.
“Do you want to do something?” I asked, hoping he had an idea.
“What do you have in mind?”
Deflated, I shrugged. With the TV still on, leaving the room wasn’t an option. Whoever sat out there would freak out if they saw me still awake. I looked around the dark room, searching for anything. What would a four-thousand-year-old creature want to do?
On my shelf, I had games but games required light. Then I saw a box label glowing lightly. Perfect. Old people loved puzzles.
“Want to put together a glow-in-the-dark puzzle?”
“We can do whatever you like,” he said quietly.
I moved to the shelf, pulled down the puzzle, then cleared space on my desk. Every noise made me cringe. I probably had the only mom in the world who’d be okay with finding a boy in my room after dark. Yet, when it came to finding a...whatever
he was...demon, possibly? Well, she’d act like any other mom and start screaming. Maybe worse.
Once the pieces were spread across the desktop, I turned to look at Morik. Only he wasn’t sitting on my rumpled blankets anymore. He stood just behind me, so when I turned I bumped into him.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
He reached around me and started to sift through the pieces, his arm brushing mine. I stepped to the side to give him more space. Not that there was much to give. With a long and narrow room, the bed took up most of the width between the door and the desk. The desk occupied the wall under the window. What little room remained, the chair and shelves claimed, leaving only a comfortable walkway throughout.
Looking at Morik, the chair, and the puzzle on the desk, I saw my mistake. One of us would be standing for the next half hour.
“I didn’t really think this through,” I whispered to him. A low rumbling laugh sounded from his direction, but I ignored it. “Maybe we should plan better for tomorrow. What time did you want to hang out?”
“After school.”
I hesitated to agree.
“I need some time to talk to my mom. How about you come over for dinner?” I paused. “Do you eat?”
He chuckled again but stayed focused on the puzzle.
“Yes. I eat. Are you sure your family is ready to meet me?”
“Now? No. But they will be by tomorrow night. If not, we can go somewhere else and grab something to eat.” Whether dinner here or dinner somewhere else, it was an easy hour. Much better than doing a puzzle with him in a dark bedroom.
The book light, still on the bed, created a sphere of light that didn’t quite reach where he stood. I wondered how much of the puzzle Morik really saw. He continued moving puzzle pieces around on the desk. Even standing beside him, I couldn’t see much of what he did. Was he just trying to look like he had something to do? Wasting time?
I remembered what he said when I was cold and decided to see how honest he’d been. “Would it be okay if we cut tonight short and make up the time tomorrow?”
That got his full attention. He turned to look at me, frowning slightly.
“You’re nervous.”
“No, I’m uncomfortable. There’s a difference.” He didn’t move or say anything.
“Look, we’re standing in my dark bedroom, whispering because I don’t want to get caught before I have a chance to break...well, you...to my mom. It’s like sneaking, and I don’t like it. It makes me uncomfortable.” And it did. Just not as much as those swirling multi-colored eyes or his horns or the lower canines that made surprise appearances. I needed time to adjust.
After a moment of silence, he nodded, and I relaxed slightly. However, with everything that happened, I doubted I would ever fall asleep tonight. Again, I tested his word to help me however he could without needing a deal.
“Hey, Morik? Would you chant me to sleep before you go? I don’t want Mom to know about our deal until I get a chance to talk to her.”
He walked toward me and gently nudged me toward the bed. As soon as the backs of my legs bumped the mattress, he stopped moving and started the chant. The rhythm matched what my family had spoken over me for years. Before he even touched me, I felt the tug of sleep. He helped me lay back and pulled the blankets over me.
When he bent down and leaned close to my face, my heart stuttered in fear. For a moment, I thought he would kiss me. Instead, he whispered in my ear.
“Tomorrow, I’ll give you a ride to school.”
Wait, what? I fell completely under the spell before I could say a word.
Chapter Eight
The moment I woke, I tossed off the covers and sprang to my feet. My mom’s eyes rounded, and the toast almost fell off the plate she held as she stumbled back, but I didn’t slow down. I had no idea what time Morik would arrive to take me to school, and I wanted to be out the door before he had a chance to knock on it.
I hurried to the clothes that were on the chair, thanks to my prep the night before.
“Mom, can you come home an hour early tonight? It’s important.”
As I tugged on my jeans, I glanced at my desk. More than half the puzzle lay pieced together. I paused with one leg in and one leg out, staring.
“Do you need me to stay home?” Mom asked, her voice laced with concern.
I tore my eyes from the puzzle and glanced at her while hopping around to get my other leg in. “No, I’m fine. I just want to talk to all of you, and there’s not much time before dark lately.”
“Okay. Today wouldn’t be a bad idea for it anyway. The weather’s going to turn. I think it’s supposed to snow by lunch.”
I grabbed the plate from her hand and kissed her cheek as I rushed by.
“Good. I’ll see you later, then.” As I headed toward the bathroom, I devoured the toast in four bites.
By the time I finished, Mom and Aunt Grace had already left. Coming home early meant they needed to get to the office early. Gran sat at the table, going through a cookbook, when I stepped into the kitchen.
“What’s for dinner tonight?” I asked.
“I’m thinking something bigger since everyone will be home earlier. How about roasted chicken?” She thumbed through a few more pages while she spoke.
“Sounds good to me. Do we have a chicken?” I walked toward the door and grabbed my jacket.
“Nope. I’ll walk to the store.” She closed the book with a decisive snap and stood.
I handed her coat and scarf to her. We both bundled up. Gran moved to the door but laughed when I followed.
“I think you’re forgetting something. Give me a kiss, then go get your books.”
I quickly kissed Gran’s warm cheek and said good-bye before running back to my room. My eyes once again fell on the puzzle. Although it’d been a glow-in-the-dark puzzle, the pieces hadn’t glowed enough for me to see them. And the book light hadn’t been bright enough to charge them. Not only were Morik’s eyes abnormally—yet beautifully—colored, but he could also see in the dark. The differences between us amazed and troubled me. He wasn’t human, and he’d never answered my question about what he was.
Shouldering my bag, I headed back toward the door and called good-bye to Aunt Danielle. She made a sound of acknowledgment from her chair but said nothing.
When I opened the door, I smiled wide. Gone was the dead brown grass of fall. A crisp, clean blanket of snow covered everything and muted the usual sounds of morning traffic. The world looked fresh and new. Peaceful. And the overcast sky promised more snow than the sample it’d already provided.
Clavin’s car idled at the curb. After last night, I’d thought Morik would show up as himself. I’d made my opinion clear enough in regard to his body-snatching, but maybe he didn’t have his own car. It made sense if he hardly interacted with humans. At least it was Clavin and not some random person.
I waved, gave him the universal just-a-minute sign, and moved toward the garage. With a ride, there was enough time for some snow removal. Three trails of footprints led away from the front door. Two veered toward the garage and the other toward the sidewalk.
I grabbed our cheap shovel and quickly cleaned the inch of snow from the path leading from the sidewalk to the front door. Gran would appreciate the effort when she returned laden with a chicken for dinner. Leaving the rest for later, I went to put away the shovel and paused at the garage door to stomp the snow from my feet.
Behind me, I heard the crunch of snow as someone approached. I hurried to the back of the garage, replaced the shovel, and turned with a smile on my face.
“Morning,” I called.
Clavin paused mid-step but quickly recovered and continued through the door.
He didn't look well. Even darker circles haloed his bloodshot eyes, and his limp appeared more pronounced. But, more concerning was how he'd dressed himself today. His pale blue t-shirt peeked out through his unzipped jacket, and the fly of his jeans gaped open. The extremely slicked look of his neatly combed hai
r in contrast to the rest of him definitely gave off an “I’m crazy” vibe.
Before I could comment on Morik’s poor choice of a host, Clavin spoke.
“I tried staying away.” A hint of a whine came through with his words, but there was no echo.
It wasn’t Morik; it was Clavin.
“The last five days have been hell. I can’t sleep. I tried. I even took pills. Every time I close my eyes, I see him. His horns, his eyes. They won’t leave me alone!”
He shuffled closer to me, and I backed a step farther into the dark recess of the garage.
“The only time they leave me alone is when I’m with you. I did what you said. I forgave myself. It doesn’t matter. They won’t forgive me. Come with me.” He held out his hand. “Please. I just want it to stop.”
I didn’t want to touch him, fearing what I’d see. Instead, I stalled, hoping Morik would appear.
“Where would we go, Clavin?”
He must have taken my words as my consent because his face lit with anticipation, and he moved closer. “It doesn’t matter as long as we’re together.”
I stood my ground. The light from the bay door didn’t reach any farther back into the garage. No one would see us.
“Clavin, you’re scaring me. You need help.” He stopped moving forward. “Have you talked to your parents or Brian about this?”
Hurt and something else replaced the anticipation on his face.
“Talk? What good is talking going to do? I wake up and find notes I’ve written while asleep, saying things I wouldn’t write. Do you know what would happen if I told someone I was being haunted by horned demons?”
“Yes, you’d get the help you need,” I answered calmly.
“You are the help I need.”
He lunged for me. My pity for Clavin no longer outweighed my fear of him. I shrank back from his wild grab a moment before Morik appeared between us, a barrier dressed in denim and a leather jacket. My nose hovered an inch from his back.
I put my hands out, bracing myself on the soft leather, dizzy from his abrupt arrival. On contact, I felt Morik’s muscles tense and quickly glanced around him. His odd eyes remained focused on Clavin, who stood before him with a gaping mouth. Morik felt me move and gently nudged me back behind him. Given Clavin’s scary instability, I willingly hid.
