by Tanya Milne
I groaned, remembering back to that night when he’d found me in the woods, looked after me, kissed me.
‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Noah.
‘It’s nothing, don’t worry,’ I said, my face hot.
‘It wasn’t nothing, Eva,’ said Jet, his voice low and edgy.
‘Hey, Jet, why don’t you take a hike? Eva came here with me and she already told me she’s going to dance with me,’ said Noah, another whole alpha side of him emerging before my eyes.
‘Well, that’s funny, ’cause she promised me the same. Eva?’
I inhaled a long, deep breath, ignoring the looks we were starting to attract.
‘I’m sorry, Noah, but I did promise this jerk here a dance, just one dance,’ I said, raising my voice.
‘You sure?’ Noah asked, a single crease appearing on his forehead.
‘Unfortunately, I am,’ I said.
‘Don’t be long,’ said Noah, giving Jet a long and dirty look before he left the dance floor.
‘Shall we?’ asked Jet, holding out his hand.
I placed my hand in his large, rough hand, and the memory of holding it out in the woods rushed back to me. Before I knew it, he’d pulled me in, held me tight. I tried to pull back and he let me, but still he was so close I could smell him; he smelt like the earth and leaves, and I knew he’d been out walking in the woods.
‘You didn’t have to be such a jerk,’ I said.
Jet laughed and dropped his head closer to mine. ‘It was fun, wasn’t it? Did you see his face? Like I’d taken his favourite toy away.’
‘Stop it, Jet,’ I said, my voice set.
‘Oh, come on. Lighten up. He got to bring you here and will probably get to take you home, might even score himself a little midnight kiss. I hear they’re pretty darn good.’
I dug my elbow into his ribs, hard.
He laughed low and dangerous in my ear. ‘Lucky bastard. I’m allowed to be a bit jealous, aren’t I?’
‘Noah and I are not…a thing. Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘Good, there’s still hope for me then?’ he said, half laughing in my ear as his hands edged down my back and pulled me towards him.
The crackle of electricity danced between us.
‘There’s no hope for anyone. I’m single and plan to stay that way,’ I said.
His hands inched down my back, tugging at the thin fabric. ‘That’s a shame. Particularly when you’re wearing that dress. I mean, seriously, it’s a crime.’
‘Oh, stop it,’ I said, my breath starting to desert me.
He bent down further. ‘Imagine the fun we could have in the woods. That dress wouldn’t last long.’
I pushed Jet away as far as I could, but he was everywhere, in my face, in my head, in my arms.
‘Do you remember our kiss, Eva?’ he said softly in my ear. ‘Your lips against mine…’
The memory I’d tried my hardest to suppress reformed, and I remembered his mouth on mine.
The next thing I knew his lips were on my neck. Desire grew in my belly, and the people around me faded away. Soon, I no longer heard the music or knew where I was. There was just him and me. I groaned, put my hands around his head and brought his lips to mine. It was like before, but better. This time, I was ready for him.
The lights above us flickered on and brought me back into the room, and I realised where I was, who I was with and what I was doing – in front of my whole class. I pulled back from Jet and there, standing in the doorway was Ezra, his lips parted and his eyes burning holes into mine.
I looked up at Jet and pushed him away. ‘Why do you have to keep doing things like that?’
‘What can I say, I bewitched you.’
‘You what?’ I said, remembering back to my witch’s book and reading about the bewitching spell.
Is that what just happened?
The smile on Jet’s face died. ‘I was joking, Eva. I thought you felt it too.’
I growled and looked back to Ezra, who had disappeared.
‘You thought wrong,’ I said, ignoring the pain that passed through Jet’s eyes as I left him standing there and ran after Ezra.
Outside, the cool air slapped me in the face, but I didn’t stop running in the direction Ezra was heading.
‘Ezra, wait up,’ I yelled, but he continued on as though he hadn’t heard me.
I nearly tripped on my shoes, so I stopped and took them off, then threw them to the ground. I began running again, but he disappeared around the corner. When I started to gain ground on him, he took a left and disappeared into the depths of the junior school playground, which I’d never been in before.
I followed him, but the moment I was in the labyrinth of buildings and the playground, I stopped and listened. His footsteps could no longer be heard.
‘I know you’re here,’ I said, my voice loud as I watched the objects around me made strange and inhuman by the darkness and moonlight. ‘And I know that I’m probably the last person you feel like seeing.’
He didn’t reply or make a sound.
I cleared my throat. ‘What you just saw, well, it wasn’t what you think. Well, I guess I can’t deny it was what it looked like, but it didn’t mean anything. Jet is not my boyfriend and neither is Noah. I don’t know what happened. I just got carried away in the moment. It was stupid. I was stupid.’
I put my arms around myself, wishing I’d at least brought my wrap. My wrap that would be sitting on a chair next to Noah, who would have also seen the kiss and then me running off after Ezra. Along with Elijah, Anna and basically every single person I knew.
I groaned out loud. ‘Come on out, Ezra. Please.’
I sat down, the earth cold against me. I spoke quietly. ‘You might be thinking that our kiss meant nothing. But you would be wrong. That was my first kiss, Ezra. Ever. And it meant something to me. It meant a lot. It still does.’
I stared at the ground, a feeling of sadness growing inside me.
How had my life spiralled so out of control?
‘Eva,’ said Ezra, stepping out from behind a nearby tree.
I raised my head and there he was, a halo of moonlight surrounding him.
I stood up and all of my emotions burst out of me. Before I could stop myself, my arms were around him and I hugged him tight. For a few moments, he was still, but slowly his body started to relax against mine. Eventually, I pulled away and gazed up at him. He regarded me closely, like an animal watching a predator.
The night was still, still and cold, and I wrapped my arms around myself to try and stop myself from shaking. Ezra took off his jacket and placed it around me.
‘Thank you,’ I said, my teeth chattering.
‘You should go inside. You’re frozen.’
‘I’m not going back,’ I said, picturing the faces of everyone as I walked back inside.
Ezra laughed softly. ‘That would be worth watching.’
I nudged his arm. ‘Besides, I never get to see you.’
‘Well, that was not my choice,’ he said, his words short and clipped.
‘I know… I’m sorry… It’s just…’
Now that my brain had kicked back into gear, I knew that I should go, leave him be. But, as selfish as it was, I didn’t want to. Being with him felt exactly like the right place to be.
‘You’re not being fair to me, I know,’ he said. ‘But you know what, I don’t care. It may not be good for me and who knows, it may land both of us in trouble, but I just don’t care anymore.’
I knew his words were dangerous and could carry consequences that were far reaching, but a feeling of warmth blossomed inside me. Before I could stop myself, the word okay had left me.
He wrapped his arms around me, pulled me close. ‘It might take me a while to forget…what I just saw, but…’ he said, before the sound of footsteps, determined, seeking footsteps, could be heard walking towards us. My heart leapt to life, and Ezra put his finger against his lips and pulled me back into the shadows of
the building.
My heart thumped in my chest as the footsteps came near. Ezra pulled me closer and I rested my head against his chest.
The footsteps stopped not far from where we stood, and I could hear air enter and leave the mouth of the person who seemed to be sniffing us out like a tracker dog. My body tensed and I quietened my breath as much as I could.
‘Eva, I know you’re out here,’ said Max, his voice sending a shiver through my body. ‘One of your little friends was only too keen to tell me how you were kissing Jet, but then ran after Ezra when he saw you. Quite the little devil, aren’t you?’ he said, laughing.
Ezra’s body stiffened against mine.
‘Shame that Ezra wanted nothing to do with you. Disappearing like that. Maybe I can help make it up to you.’ He walked forward, closer to us. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do about you. Seems like there’s no keeping you out of trouble. You know what happens to girls like you, don’t you?’
Ezra began moving, but I put my hand on his shoulder and shook my head.
Max started forward again, slowly, quietly now. I heard the tread of his foot against the concrete ground, so close. My skin prickled and a single bead of sweat ran down my back.
He was nearly upon us when his radio buzzed. ‘Max, false alarm. Ezra still missing, but Eva is home. Come back in.’
What does he mean, he thinks I’m at home?
‘Bitch,’ said Max to himself, spitting the word from his mouth before replying on his radio. ‘Coming back in.’ He turned and walked away, kicking the bin as he went, knocking rubbish far and wide.
We stayed as we were for some minutes, listening to the faded music that flowed from the hall.
‘You okay?’ he whispered in my ear.
Was I? Was I okay?
I pulled back from him, my legs shaking so much that Ezra grabbed hold of my arm to keep me upright.
‘I’m okay,’ I whispered, my voice sounding strange in my ears.
‘That bastard,’ he said. ‘I knew he was bad from the moment I laid eyes on him, but I had no idea he was treating you like that.’
‘I can handle him,’ I said in a voice that wouldn’t convince a soul on earth.
Ezra let out a heavy sigh. ‘The only person who can handle him is my father, and he's got no intention of curbing his ways. He would have loved what he just heard, would have egged him on.’
‘Nothing bad happened. It’s okay.’
‘Stop saying that everything is okay. It’s not okay. It’s the furthest from okay that is possible.’ As he spoke, his words got louder and angrier. ‘I hate this. I hate what my father is doing to this town, to everyone, to you.’
‘Shh.’ I put my finger against his lips, pressing gently. ‘I know that it must be hard, but it’s hardest on you.’
He took my hand away and looked down on me, his eyes glistening in the dark. ‘How can you not hate me? It’s my fault that Max is so fixed on you. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be…stalking you.’
I placed my hands against his chest. ‘Calm down. This is not your fault. Your dad may have some issues, but he loves you, of that I have no doubt.’
‘A sick and twisted love,’ he said before sighing. ‘That’s making your life hell.’
‘No one is making my life hell. I seem to be doing that all on my own.’
He laughed, but it sounded hollow and we both knew it. ‘You’ll get no arguments from me there.’
I thought back to where I grew up and how simple my life used to be, where nothing ever happened. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I was looking back at my uncomplicated childhood and it hurt.
‘Maybe we should head home, before things get any worse,’ I said, not looking forward to my dash through the streets, trying to stay unnoticed.
Ezra took my hands gently and held them as he spoke, his voice unsteady. ‘I know I said I want us to be together, and I do – more than you know. But I can see now that it’s not safe for you to be with me.’
His words hung heavily in the air between us.
‘Ezra,’ I said, my word a plea.
‘You were right all along. It’s not the right time for us, not here, not now.’
His words were the truth, but they stung me, right in the middle of my heart. For that one moment, I’d allowed myself to feel, to believe that it was possible we could be together, and I’d let him into my heart. Now he was there and it would be hard, so very hard, to remove him.
‘I understand,’ I said, taking off his jacket and passing it to him.
‘Keep it,’ he said.
I shook my head and put the jacket in his unwilling hands. I didn’t want the smell of him in my room, the reminder of him. The sooner I could block him out, the better.
‘I have to go,’ I whispered, hardly trusting my shaky legs as I started to walk away.
He let out a small sound, a guttural cry that came from deep within him. Every part of me wanted to turn towards him, fall into his arms, but that wasn’t possible, would never be possible.
And even though I could no longer feel my body, I kept walking and soon my shadow had disappeared into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The sound of something scratching my bedroom window woke me. I sat up in the darkness, my skin prickling with sweat, every inch of me straining to listen. For a few moments, all was quiet, but then the wind blew up and the scratching started again. I felt frozen with fear, but I pulled back my doona and crept across the floor, which creaked under each step, until I reached the window. Holding my breath, I yanked back the curtains.
There was nothing and no one there, except the moonlit branches stripped bare of their leaves. The wind came again, sneaking its cool air through the cracks in my window and pushing one of the long and twisted branches against the glass, making the eerie scratching noise that had woken me.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm my pulsing body. I was about to turn and crawl back into bed when I noticed the police car that was so often parked across the street was not there. My body, so used to being tense, instantly relaxed and cool relief flooded through my veins.
What had happened? Why had they left?
The answer came to me immediately. I was no longer a person of interest because Ezra had no interest in me. He’d made his intentions crystal clear to me and everyone else last night at the dance. Everyone thought he’d taken off and left me chasing after him, which was pretty close to the truth.
I put my hand against my chest, which suddenly hurt. I knew Ezra and I couldn’t be together, that it was best for everyone that we weren’t, but hearing him say it was something else entirely. We had never been a couple, yet we were the exact right fit for each other. And now I’d have to learn to live with knowing I would never be his girlfriend.
I wiped away a tear that left mascara on my hand. Mascara and a face full of make-up that I couldn’t be stuffed removing after the night from hell. All of a sudden, the events from the night before resurfaced and I put my hands against the windowsill. I hadn’t thought my night could get any worse when I left Ezra, but apparently it could – and had.
I’d snuck in the back door, hoping for everyone to be in bed, but no such luck. Sitting, waiting for me on the couch was my family, and even Anna. It had immediately made sense to me why the police thought I’d come home with Elijah, but my relief at the thought was replaced with dread when she looked at me, her brown eyes so like her brother’s – her twin brother who I’d left standing there, watching me kiss the school bad boy and then race off after Orpheus’s son.
My face must have been the colour of a beetroot because she took pity on me and came and hugged me, telling me it was all going to be okay before she gathered her things, kissed my brother and left out the back door to meet her dad, who was waiting for her beside the park.
That left my family, who didn’t seem so keen to hug me and tell me everything was going to be okay. They asked me to sit and began a series of questions, not
just about the dreaded night but about other things too, ground we’d already been over before, like the night I went into the woods.
It took me a while to figure out what they were doing, but when I did, I felt as though I’d stepped in front of a train. None of them believed what I said anymore, and they all knew I was lying; their only problem was they didn’t know what I was lying about.
It had taken my breath away and I’d stood, unsteady on my legs, and made my way upstairs to my attic, where I’d locked my door, blocked out first my mum’s and then Elijah’s attempts to talk to me and cried myself to sleep.
I looked down at the red dress that I still wore; the red dress that had inadvertently landed me in so much trouble with Jet. It was crumpled and stained, just like me. My hands found the zipper at the back and I slid out of the dress, letting it slink down to the ground. The nippy autumn air took hold of me, and I quickly put up my hair and slipped into my black tracksuit.
The moment I had it on, I was reminded of the last time I’d worn it, the evening I went into the woods. It seemed like a lifetime ago, yet it was only just over a week ago. My mind immediately returned to the question of my satchel, which I’d left on the altar in the woods. Leaving it there and risking it being discovered had gnawed away at me every day and every night. The fear within Melas was growing like cancer, and thanks to Orpheus, we’d slipped back centuries to a time where witches were feared and detested.
My breath became short in my chest. I had to go back to the woods; the only question was when. The answer whispered itself into my ear: why not now? Outside, the darkness was inky, and the thought of being in the woods alone was terrifying, yet when would be the right time? It was Saturday and no one would be expecting me to get up early. There wouldn’t be a soul on the streets at this hour or in the woods, surely. I swallowed. From now on, my family would not let me out of their sight, and although the police were no longer stationed outside my house, Max would not be going anywhere.
My mind exploded with resistance, but I took a steadying breath and quietened my thoughts. I’d done it before and I could do it again. The only problem was getting outside. Walking down the stairs would surely wake my family, or at the very least Elijah, who was tuned in to me like a radio station.
