by Bonnie Vanak
14
Humming under his breath, Jon grabbed a freshly-washed mug and shoved it beneath the tap. Yellow beer flowed freely as he expertly tipped the glass, creating just enough of a head. He slapped it on the wood counter before a burly man with a belly that indicated great fondness for the brew.
“One Harvest Moon, my good man. Run a tab?”
“You betcha,” the man said, lifting his glass and smacking his lips.
Jon nodded and rang up the sale at the cash register then headed to the counter’s other end to wait on two middle-aged women perusing a menu.
One week after he’d appeared, naked and cold on a riverbank in this small town, he still didn’t know who the hell he was. He’d been hired on as a bartender at The Kountry Kettle, reasoning sooner or later he’d find someone who could jog his memory. Jon had spent an entire day after his arrival here exploring the town and trying to find a way to control the powers he discovered he had.
Only one glimmer of recognition came to him—the riverbank where he’d first emerged. He headed into the storeroom to change out the beer and remembered how he returned to the riverbank the following day he’d emerged…
He had seen a small but neatly kept condo complex. Driven by instinct, Jon had approached one townhouse and touched the doorknob.
It opened.
At first, he felt queasy being in the townhouse, but the surroundings seemed so damn familiar. Everything, from the thick books on the shelves to the fifties’ music programed on an iPod, appealed to him.
Jon even found a wardrobe filled with clothing that fit him perfectly.
The place must have belonged to him. He had no memory of living there, but it felt like home—a safe haven in a very confusing world.
The king-sized bed looked lonely. He wondered if he had many lovers to share his bed with or if he always slept alone.
And as he had stared at the big, empty bed, the image of sandals with pretty, quartz crystals came to mind again.
The condo had wood-paneled walls and a living room with a gas fireplace and leather furniture, big and masculine. The surroundings had homey touches he liked, such as the whimsical painting of a fairy with blue wings and roses in her hair.
Though the furniture was masculine, the air in the condo smelled light and delicious, like crisp snowfall on a snapping cold night, wildflowers, and the most fragrant perfume of clear, mountain air. The other condos were deserted, except for a nearly blind, elderly woman who he’d seen feeding the marmots who lived among the riverbank.
He made her acquaintance, chatting about the area. Her name was Mrs. McNeil, and she was temporarily living in the complex after a friend loaned her use of the townhouse for the winter. She’d only moved in the previous week.
The air of the complex suited him. Jon had decided to live there, and if the real owner came here, he’d use his powers to convince the person he was not trespassing. But something nagged at him that he’d been here before.
Now he had a place to live, a job where he could meet locals, and confidence that, soon, he’d lose this damned amnesia.
Jon changed the beer and returned to the bar. Glancing at the clock, he realized his shift was over. After clocking out, he headed for his car, a sleek, new Nissan with an automatic transmission. He vaguely remembered how to drive, but impatient to waste time on such a trivial activity, he chose instead to direct the car with his incredible powers. So he spoke aloud to the car, telling it to stop, go, slow down, and when to turn.
The motor was sweet, purring like a cougar. Jon drove to a popular fast-food restaurant.
A cherry-red Mustang was in front of him when he pulled up to the drive-thru speaker. Admiring the sleek lines of the car, Jon ordered two cheeseburgers, fries, and a malted milkshake. For some reason, the latter made him feel sad.
The cherry-red Mustang cleared the drive-thru window and stopped, as the driver paused to throw something out the window into the trash can by the curb. Jon’s breath caught. Incredible. The girl had waves of soft, gold hair and the face of an angel with a sinfully sexy mouth. Desire flooded his body in a rush.
“Whoa,” he said softly.
Unfortunately, the car heard the order as “go” and lurched forward. Shit! He slammed on the brake but too late—his vehicle tapped the Mustang’s bumper.
Cursing, he got out of the car, ready to apologize. The driver got out as well, and suddenly her lovely face paled.
“Xavier?” she asked, backing away. “W-what are you doing here?”
He frowned. “Do you know me?”
She stared as if seeing a ghoul. “You don’t know me?”
He smiled and leaned against his car. “We can correct that, if you come out for a drink with me.”
“Xavier…”
“Is that my name?” He started toward her, all charm and joking gone, the driving necessity to know his identity overcoming all else. “Who am I? Who are you?”
The girl ran back to her car and then screeched out of the drive-thru.
Bewildered, he stared after her, wondering why Beauty had bolted as if terrified.
She must know me. She called me Xavier. The name sounds familiar.
I have to find her again.
Determination filled him. During the short drive home, he ignored the tempting smells wafting from sack of food sitting on the seat beside him and opened all his senses. The girl’s scent—almond, moss and forest—had burned into his brain. But he didn’t know how to find her.
It was a small town, and he worked at the most popular bar. He felt confident he’d see her again.
But he had a name now. A real name. He tested it aloud as he drove back home.
“Xavier,” he said aloud.
Inside the condo, he dumped his cooling food on the counter and, taking the extra bag, went to see the elderly widow. He sensed she struggled to make ends meet, so he’d often grab an extra burger and fries for her, with the excuse that he could not finish the food.
It made him sad to see her in such dire straits.
Xavier knocked at the widow’s door.
“Hello, Jon. What a nice surprise!” she told him in her thick, Scottish accent.
My name is Xavier, not Jon. But he decided to keep this fact guarded.
The elderly woman wore her typical brown dress, with a darker brown apron. He’d never seen her in any other color.
Xavier handed her the food. “I’ve been meaning to come over and fix that broken bathroom pipe. Hope now is a good time. And here, they keep stuffing me full of food at the bar, and you know I hate seeing food go to waste, Mrs. McNeil. If you don’t mind, I’d sure appreciate you taking this off my hands.”
He could see the hunger in those rheumy, brown eyes as she took the sack of hamburgers from him. “Thank you, Jon. What a sweet, thoughtful young man you are!”
Young? I’m older than you by seven hundred years, though I was but twenty-five when I died to the mortal life.
Startled, he rocked back on his booted heels. Where the hell had that thought come from?
His elderly neighbor smiled at him. “Or should I say Other? You are Other, like me.”
He didn’t deny this, nor did he confirm. Instead he smiled at her and went to the downstairs bathroom to fix the broken pipe.
Perhaps with the trigger of someone calling him Xavier, his memory was returning. From henceforth, he would think of himself as Xavier. The name sounded right.
Encouraged, he opened the cabinet to see the leaking pipe. Xavier stretched out his hand. A lovely, white glow shimmered on his palms. He thought of the pipe being whole and functional again, and streams of white light shot toward it, welding the broken fixture.
After turning on the water and nodding in satisfaction that it was fixed, he gazed around the bathroom. Everything was brown in here as well. On a wall peg was a small, pointed, brown cap. Curious, he touched it, and his fingers tingled, as if the cap contained magick.
Odd. Was Mrs. O’Neil an “Other,” like
some of the people he’d seen in passing at the grocery store? They all had subtle auras swirling with colors, auras that other people lacked. None seemed to recognize him, though, and for some reason, this heightened his caution.
From testing out his powers, Xavier knew he was a powerful being who could obliterate Others with a mere flick of his hand. He did not want Others to fear him, or worse, realize his vulnerability and seize the advantage. So he avoided them when he saw the telltale flicker of an aura.
However, Mrs. O’Neil lacked such an aura.
He joined her at the dining room table, listening as she chatted about the state of the world—“Dreadful, did you see the news?”—her latest sewing project, and her favorite television show. Amused, he leaned on the table, chin on one fist, giving her his undivided attention.
When the widow came up for air, Xavier glanced outside at the gathering twilight. “It’s been nice, Mrs. O’Neil, but I have chores to do.”
As he stood, she patted his arm. “Housework? A big, powerful man like you shouldn’t have to worry about ironing his shirts. I’d be happy to help around the house.”
He laughed. “Thanks, but I’m capable. And I’m not so powerful.”
Mrs. O’Neil went preternaturally still, her eyes round behind her spectacles. “Yes, you are. You are one of the most powerful among us, and yet you are lost and wandering. In the end, your magick will not save you, but your courage and your heart will.”
Xavier stared at her. She blinked and seemed confused. “Oh dear, was I rambling?”
“It’s fine.” He stooped down to study her face. “You are not human.”
She looked around furtively and nodded. “I am Other, same as you. But your magick is far more powerful. I’m a Brownie, an Other who can only perform simple magick with my powers.”
“What magick of mine are you talking about?”
She squinted at him, and he had the uncomfortable sensation she knew far more than he thought. “I can’t see what you are, Jon. Haven’t seen well in more than a year. But you emit a very strong life force and tremendous power. It’s like being next to a live electrical line. You crave recognition, and you are a deliverer of justice. And yet you are hiding away here. Why are you hiding? Is someone after you?”
I don’t know.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he reeled them back. Xavier settled for a half truth.
“Mrs. O’Neil, I am here for a reason. And the fewer who know about my presence, the better. In time, all will be revealed.”
Damn, could he sound any more like a cheap fortune teller? All he needed was a crystal ball.
But it must have worked, for she smiled.
“I won’t tell a soul, dark or otherwise. It will be our little secret.” She winked and patted his arm.
When he returned to his townhouse, he wondered about the widow. For such a seemingly helpless creature, she had a depth of wisdom.
Xavier headed to the oak bookshelves built into the wall by the fireplace and selected a thick tome. The leather binding smelled ancient. He sat at the dining table and sifted through the pages.
He stopped at an engraving of a nude woman resting on her stomach beneath the shade of a tree. Xavier traced the curves of her full figure, rubbing her plump bottom. His sex stirred as he stared at the woman, stirring a quiet pool of water.
He imagined dipping his finger deep into her sex, testing her readiness before he took her, hard and fast. Xavier shook his head in pure exasperation. He’d watched a late night cable television movie, and the naked woman hadn’t affected him. But give him an ancient etching of a Nymph, and suddenly he was all turned on and panting.
Why was he sexually attracted to this image? Xavier read the caption.
“Nymph,” he read aloud. “Very enchanting, prefers living in forests or near water. With their deeply sexual nature, they are enticing lovers and ensnare the unwary male but seldom mate for life. When in heat, their alluring scent entices a virile male closer. They will mate with him in a sexual frenzy until he impregnates her, and then the Nymph will vanish into her secret kingdom to raise her baby with her fellow sisters.”
Mrs. O’Neil certainly wasn’t a Nymph. The grandmotherly widow was as cozy as a warm fire and wool socks.
But the girl at the drive-thru—her scent had seized him by the cock, made him rigid as stone.
Was she a Nymph?
And if she was, why did he have the nagging feeling he had known her intimately yet did not dare to be her lover again?
15
Concentrate. You’ll get nowhere if you let your thoughts go willy nilly.
Thick oak and fir trees peppered the steep hillside behind Xavier’s townhouse. Holding a magick wand in one hand, along with the feather from a hawk, Ciara crouched upon a tree branch, watching the complex. She’d walked in these woods for a while, acquainting herself with both the trees and the forest creatures until they whispered their secrets. One advantage of being a half-breed Nymph was she not only protected the woodlands and waterways, but she could communicate with small creatures that normally would fear her cougar shifter half.
The green grounds around the townhouse lit up with a pulsing, white glow only her eyes could see. If anyone touched the grass, their steps would leave prints she could decipher.
Even the witch Viola could not combat this magick, for she could not see it. Having been tasked with stealing a lock of Xavier’s hair, Ciara felt compelled to ring the wizard’s home with a protective spell.
For the past hour, she’d sat here, watching his townhouse, feeling like an obsessed stalker. It was clear Xavier had lost his memory.
How and why, she did not know. When she had seen him at the drive-thru, she had been so startled by his lack of memory that she’d driven off, too scared to even think about trying to draw near to him.
If her mother’s Nymph colony knew her mother’s secret, they might expel her—and her mother.
For Carlina wasn’t a full-blooded Nymph. She had witch blood as well, thus her reasons for seeking out the spells and the potions of the witch Viola.
Ciara had only found out about this particular talent after moving to the Nymph colony and growing closer to her mother. Carlina told her that she had passed down this ability to her only daughter. Since the discovery, Ciara coaxed her mother into teaching her how to harness witch magick. Her mother had opened an ancient, wooden chest and pulled out a wand, about the same size as the one Xavier had shown her after they’d made love.
A witch’s magick could be enhanced, just as a wizard’s could, with the use of a wand. The twelve-inch stick, made of polished mahogany, directed power and amplified it.
The wand came in handy today. She’d seen a friendly hawk shifter in the parking lot and compelled him to assume his Skin shape and knock on Xavier’s door.
Finally Xavier answered and let the man enter his townhouse. Ciara pointed the wand at herself and chanted a possession spell.
Her sense of self faded and fogged over, and as her head pounded with a throbbing headache, Ciara focused on the feather of the hawk shifter she held.
I am you. I am you. I am you.
As if sucked away by a fierce wind, she felt her spirit whoosh away, spiraling in a vortex into Xavier’s townhouse, penetrating the hawk shifter’s mind.
Gasping, she focused to keep herself quiet and undetected, like a tiny blot on the shifter’s mind. She could now see all he saw, hear all the hawk shifter did.
“I didn’t know the complex had a groundskeeper,” Xavier said, gesturing to the sofa. “Please sit. What do you need me to do?”
Ciara concentrated harder, the throbbing in her own mind becoming almost unbearable. One thing to invade another mind and another thing to compel that mind to speak and believe the lies it told were true.
“You don’t know you hired me last year to trim the bushes, pick up the autumn leaves, and feed the Trolls under the bridge?” the hawk shifter asked Xavier.
The wizard
frowned, the facial gesture not marring his handsome face, but she could see the confusion in his gray-blue eyes. “I hired you? I don’t remember.”
The shifter sat straighter. “Xavier, you don’t remember last year when I was here and you had to leave to punish a group of Trolls? And you had that emergency meeting with the Brehon that kept you away for two days?”
Xavier’s frown deepened. “What is the Brehon? And Trolls… Are you talking about internet Trolls? Why would I care about them?”
Oh no…
Inside the hawk shifter’s mind, she felt his confusion and hesitation. The shifter shook his head, like a swimmer trying to clear water from his ears.
“Something wrong?” Xavier asked.
“My head…feels weird,” the shifter muttered. “Like I’m not myself.”
The wizard’s gaze sharpened. “As if someone is inside you?”
Perhaps he’d lost his memory, but his formidable powers surely could detect a simple possession spell. Ciara compelled the shifter to thank Xavier, assure him he was fine, and leave.
Once the shifter was outside, she fled his mind, her spirit hovering in the parking lot as she watched the shifter turn back into a red-tailed hawk once more. Xavier had followed the shifter outside. The wizard inhaled sharply at the transforming hawk and then looked upward as the bird flew off.
Then his sharp gaze roved around the parking lot. She felt him study her, and his expression turned suspicious.
He might not see her, but he sensed her. She wanted to flee back into herself, but his mesmerizing gaze held her spirit captive.
Such pain in those eyes, such ancient weariness. Reaching out with a ghostly hand to caress him, she felt her heart break. Xavier, wizard who held the power to command many but who dared not love one.
Can you dare to love me, Crystal Wizard?
Her ghostly hand hovered in the air, longing to stroke his brow and ease his pain. Let him know he did not walk alone…
With a tender caress, her spirit hand brushed against his cheek. Oh Xavier, she whispered.
