by H G Lynch
She whispered in my ear, “Can we…I mean, would it be okay if we went back to your house for a while?” She must have realised how that sounded or felt my body tense against hers because she added quickly, “I just don’t want to see Lyle again right now.”
I nodded. “Sure.” My voice was amazingly normal considering my heart was in my throat and my stomach was in knots. My mother was at home. I was bringing Poppy home with me, she would meet my mother, and we’d be in my house together. Maybe in my room, so we weren’t bothered by my irritating little brother. Oh, God.
Smiling, Poppy stepped back, keeping hold of my hand, and we walked along the empty street under the rapidly darkening sky. With my nerves in knots, I didn’t think at that moment of getting answers as to why Lyle apparently wanted to punch me, or why she hadn’t been in school, or who Nathan was. All I thought of was what my mother was going to say when she saw me holding hands with the new girl.
Nervously, I hesitated at my front door, trying to get up the courage to open it and walk in with a girl on my arm. I stood on the porch and watched fat, fluffy grey clouds swallowing the stars. The garden looked shabby compared to the one at Poppy’s house, some of the plants had holes in them from the slugs and snails crawling up the walls and across the walkway, and our silly little plastic windmill stuck out of a plant pot at an angle because I could never get it to sit straight.
Chewing my lip, I absently stared at a black cat slinking along the neighbour’s wall, and it stared back boldly. Oddly, it really freaked me out, so I looked away and tried to build up my nerve. To mask my hesitation, I turned to Poppy and smiled weakly. “Okay, I must warn you that you enter this house at your own risk. I have a little brother, Aaron, and he’ll probably treat you like a science experiment because that’s just the kind of thing he does. My mother’s home, but she should hopefully be in her study. If she isn’t, feel free to run for the door at any time. She…she’ll likely be kind of excited to see me, you know, with a pretty girl.”
She smiled, showing her perfect white teeth, and her hair blew forward over her shoulder to dance with my scarf. “Anson,” she said softly. “You can stop being nervous. I’m not going to run away. Now, are we going inside, or are we going to stand in the cold all evening?” Her cheeks were pink with the bite from the wind, and I touched her face briefly before nodding.
Even my goosebumps had goosebumps, and there were evil winged beasts in my stomach, but I gathered the courage to twist the door handle and push open the door. I stood back to let Poppy in first, and her eyes lit up.
I closed the door behind me, and untied my scarf, hanging it on the coat pegs on the wall. I turned to offer to take Poppy’s jacket, but she was already half-way into the living room, staring around with wonder on her face. I grinned, amused. Joining her in the living room, I ran my fingertips along her shoulder as I walked past her to the middle of the room and spread my arms wide.
“Welcome to my humble abode. Let me give you the grand tour. This is the living room, where I spend a lot of time, well, living.”
Poppy beamed, apparently delighted. Lightly, she stroked the arm of the sofa, moved to admire the painting over the blazing fireplace, and then found her way to the framed school photos sitting on either side of the television. She picked up the one of me and I reached over her shoulder to take it.
“Uh, that’s just…a really bad photo,” I muttered, embarrassed. It was at least four years old, back when I’d had braces and my hair had been long. It was an awful photo, and I hated it, but Poppy whirled under my arm and away from me before I could snatch it from her.
“You used to have braces! That’s so cute.” She giggled, gently touching the photo behind its little glass plate as if this simple, horrid picture was an incredibly fragile thing. “It’s really not a bad photo, you know. You kind of suit longer hair,” she commented quietly, and then looked up at the eighteen year old me, standing in front of her with my hands in my pockets and my hair falling into my eyes.
There was a look on her face that I thought seemed sort of sad. I realised I’d never heard her talk about her mother, or really any of her family but Lyle. She’d only mentioned that her father got a job there on a fishing trawler. I knew that, with a job like that, he was probably away quite a lot. I got the feeling she moved around a lot, so maybe mundane things like school photos had more significance to her.
She moved toward me until she was just inches away, and I felt her fingertips graze my cheek, light as a feather and cool as winter. I wondered if she was always that cold, or if it was just around me.
Gingerly, she twisted a lock of my hair around her finger and whispered, her mouth just barely touching mine, “I like your hair better like this.”
Little tiny electric shocks were sparkling inside me, fizzy and bright. We weren’t kissing, not quite, but I could feel her lips brushing mine. Her breath was cool and sweet on my tongue. I raised my hand to cup the back of her neck, stroking the tender skin there. She shivered, her breath hitching.
Our moment was interrupted as Aaron came bouncing down the stairs and nearly smacked right into the back of the sofa, his eyes widening behind his glasses. Poppy and I jerked apart, but she kept a hold of my hand. She recovered herself and smiled kindly at Aaron, while I glared at my little brother with enough force that it should have been choking him like Darth Vader.
Aaron stared back at Poppy as if she were an alien, his mouth falling open.
She waved at him. “Hi, there. You must be Aaron.”
For a second, he just stood there awkwardly. Then he heard our mother’s footsteps on the staircase and spun around. “Mum, Anson was kissing the new girl in the living room!”
He pointed to us, though I was pretty sure Mum would see us right away when she got down the stairs. I groaned, heat flooding my face. Poppy giggled behind her hand, and I saw that her cheeks were pink too.
My mother reached the bottom of the staircase, and her eyes fixed immediately on Poppy and me, standing in the middle of the living room, hand in hand. She blinked twice, as if she thought she was seeing things, and Aaron turned to me with a smug look on his face. I silently vowed to beat him over the head with a pillow later, or maybe smother him in his sleep.
Dressed in her work clothes, the outfit she wore whenever she went to the University, my mother finally composed herself enough to wander into the living room and say hello. She was taller in her fancy black shoes, and the pinstripe suit made her look like a business woman, instead of a slightly disorganised historical nut.
But her smile was warm and genuine as she greeted Poppy. “Hello. So you’re the new girl everyone keeps talking about. Poppy, isn’t it? Anson forgot to tell me you were so pretty.”
Oh God. I could feel the colour in my face all the way to the roots of my hair.
My mother shook Poppy’s hand and shivered. “Oh, you’re awfully cold, sweetie. Here, take a seat and warm up.”
She hustled Poppy onto the sofa, and Poppy refused to let go of my hand so I sat with her. It was clear by her smile that my mother was utterly delighted.
In a polite voice, Poppy replied, “Thank you. It’s very nice to meet you...”
“Call me Lilith.”
Poppy nodded shyly, looking surprised. Then my mother turned to me and winked. I glowered up at her for making me feel absurdly embarrassed.
“Don’t you scowl at me, mister. Well, I’ve got to pop into the University for a while—apparently Professor Arthur found an old tome from the seventeen hundreds and wants me to do a column on it for the magazine. I won’t be too late, I don’t think, but in the meantime…” She cut her gaze toward Poppy and away again quickly, “You two behave, okay? You know what I mean. Aaron, let them have some peace. Go upstairs and finish that model you were building.”
Aaron made a sound awfully like a scoff and leaned over the back of the sofa to mutter to me, “You were right. She is hot.”
Judging by the way she bit her lip and blushed, I guessed
Poppy had heard him. Damn that brat and his big mouth. I am definitely going to smother him while he sleeps tonight, I thought, wondering distantly if I looked like a tomato yet. Even my ears were burning.
I arched a brow at him. “You’re twelve. You’re not supposed to think like that,” I said.
He just shrugged and threw himself off the back of the sofa. The stairs thumped as he ran up them, and I heard his bedroom door click as it closed. Hopefully, he’d stay there for the rest of the evening, or I was going to consider putting a muzzle on him.
Mum looked as if she was trying not to laugh, so I guessed she’d probably heard my stupid little brother’s comment too. I was dying of humiliation, and my mother was laughing at me, charming woman that she was. Desperate to end the horrifying session, I untangled my fingers from Poppy’s and stood up to push my mother toward the door.
“Okay, I think we’ve got the introductions out of the way now. You should probably be leaving, or Professor Arthur will get all flustered and lose his wig. Go, just go,” I insisted.
Sighing, my mother took the not-so-subtle hint and gave me a coded look before she left, waving goodbye to Poppy on the sofa.
Once the door closed behind her, I let out a heavy sigh and hung my head. I felt Poppy’s hand slide into mine and raised my head. The dim light from the crackling fire turned her hair to brass and her eyes were flecked with chips of gold and silver.
“So,” she said softly, a mischievous quirk to her lips. “Do I get to see your room?”
Around thirty seconds after allowing Poppy into my bedroom, I really, really wished I hadn’t. I felt incredibly vulnerable and sickeningly nervous as she looked around, running her fingertips over the spines of my books and examining the random knickknacks sitting on my dresser.
A new book was lying on my bed with a bookmark sticking out of it, my weights sat moodily in their corner, and my notepad rested on my desk next to my computer where I’d left it the night before. Glass bottles of untouched aftershave and spray cans of deodorant mingled with scattered pens and pencils on the dresser, and my sketchpad and the shiny wooden box that held my art set peered cautiously out from under my hastily made up bed. The band poster over my bed had a rip in it, and one of my hoodies hugged the back of my desk chair.
I leaned against the doorframe and watched her. She seemed fascinated by my things, stroking her fingers over my computer keyboard, counting the books on my bookcase, admiring the charcoal drawing I’d begun working on a couple of days before and had pinned to the wall over my desk so I’d remember to finish it. Then the phone rang downstairs, and we both jumped at the sharp, intrusive noise. I sighed, shaking my head.
“I’d better get that. I’ll be back in a minute.” I left her in my room, looking over my personal things, to go and answer the phone. I made my way down the stairs in a hurry. As soon as I was out of her presence, I was able to think clearly again and questions crowded my mind. I grasped onto them, determined to remember to get answers from Poppy when I returned to her—I particularly wanted to know who Nathan was.
** Poppy **
Once Anson was out of the room, I continued perusing his personal things, committing every detail to memory. I hadn’t been able to take my school photos, my shell collection, or my posters with me to the Academy. It had all been destroyed in a deliberate fire, for my protection, so that the Wolves wouldn’t be able to track down my family and so the human police wouldn’t look for me for long. When they couldn’t find me, they thought I’d died in the fire. Not even my family knew I was alive, because I wasn’t allowed to tell them. They’d come looking for me, call the police in again, and think I’d been kidnapped or something. It made no sense to tell them anyway—I’d never see them again. It was forbidden.
But so was having a relationship with a human, especially a target like Anson. I’d already broken that rule, and at least four others in trying to protect him from Lyle and not Turning him. I shuddered to think what I was going to go home to later. Lyle would be furious. I’d be surprised if he hadn’t already called Oryn to get him to pull me from the operation, which was all the more reason to make the most of every moment I had left with Anson before I was returned to the Academy.
Curiously, I picked up the notepad sitting by his computer, wondering what kinds of notes he’d been taking, wanting to know if he doodled in the margins like I did. I thought he probably did. Someone who impulsively drew on walls and painted asphalt was sure to scribble on whatever paper he got his hands on. I flipped open the blue cover of the notepad and was surprised to find no doodles at all. Just his neat, sharp handwriting. But it wasn’t notes he’d been taking. He’d been writing poetry. I skimmed the pages, amazed at the beauty of some of the lines he used, until one caught my eye.
Silver river, charcoal sky,
Through the night, the bats do fly,
Piercing darkness, treetops sway high.
Just three lines, but I could almost imagine the place he was describing. I wanted to see it. I wanted to see this place through his eyes. Anxious to read more, I kept flipping pages, retreating to sit on his bed. As the pages went on and the poems became more recent, I noticed a change. In the most recent ones, on the last few pages, his poems weren’t about places or feelings as much as people. Technically, one person, from what I could tell. And it wasn’t until I saw one poem titled “Pretty Poppy” that I realised he was talking about me.
He was writing poetry about me.
I raised my hand to my mouth, feeling my eyes sting with stupid tears. I wasn’t upset, but just the opposite. It was so sweet. It was…I felt…indescribable. To know that this boy, this amazing guy, thought those things about me, was more flattering and more beautiful than anything I could have imagined. It made me want more than ever to keep him safe, to be able to hold is hand and kiss him, and to have his arms around me. I’d never been in love so I didn’t know what it felt like. If it was anything like how I was feeling at that moment, it was surely bliss.
Maybe, just maybe, I was falling in love with Anson. And I was pretty sure he felt the same way about me, whether he realised it or not.
“Oh.”
The sudden, soft noise from the doorway made me flinch and I looked up. Anson was standing in the doorway, chewing his lip anxiously. His cheeks had turned pink when he saw what I was holding. I’d been so absorbed in the poetry and my thoughts that I hadn’t even heard him coming back up the stairs.
Now he was there, with his red hair falling into his cobalt eyes, and his shoulders hunched as if he’d been struck with a blow to the stomach. He wouldn’t quite meet my eyes as he spoke. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said quietly, adorably shy all of a sudden. He came into the room and sat down next to me on the bed, his gaze on the notepad and not me.
With the words of my new realisation playing in my head—I think I’m falling in love with him—I slid my hand onto his, feeling the warmth that spread through my palm and up my wrist. Goosebumps rose on his arm, and I smiled. He looked at me sideways, through locks of his hair, his eyes very bright and very blue.
“It’s lovely,” I said gently, smiling.
Anson smiled hesitantly back at me, all bashful and sweet, and he shrugged as if it were nothing.
When he turned his head to say something to me, I leaned forward swiftly and kissed him. Instantly, that brilliant warm feeling burst behind my breastbone and swam through my veins, bright and wonderful as sunlight. His lips were soft and hesitant, tasting of mint and desire. His fingers laced into my hair, and I gasped, pulling him closer. My hands knotted in the back of his shirt, and he laid me out on the bed, kissing me hungrily, all his cautiousness and shyness gone. Even my teeth tingled with longing, and it occurred to me then, as I felt the tickling in my canines, that this was a bad idea. I didn’t want it to end, but if it didn’t, Anson was going to find out what I was very soon.
Thankfully, as if he’d sensed my unease, Anson’s mouth stilled on mine. For a moment, we just la
y there, our breaths mingling on each other’s tongues. Then Anson raised himself off me and sat up. I felt the loss of his body pressing on mine like an almost tangible ache, the delicious heat seeping out of my limbs.
Sitting up, I opened my eyes, not sure when I’d closed them, and my vision was met with Anson’s blue eyes, ruffled hair, and darkened lips. His chest rose and fell quickly, and his heart was bouncing erratically, slowing beat by beat.
Briefly, he closed his eyes and a smile curved his lips. His shoulders moved as he laughed silently. Then he took a deep, shaky breath and opened his eyes, running his hand through his hair. He sucked on his lower lip for a second, and I wondered if he could still taste my mouth like I could taste his.
“Well,” he said, breaking into a grin. “That was unexpected.”
I laughed, brushing my hair out of my face. He laughed, too, and I thought I could listen to him laugh forever and never get tired of the sound.
In retrospect, I possibly should have taken the chance to tell him, right then and there, everything about me and about the Academy. Maybe he would have done the smart thing and gotten himself out of the way of the danger that I should have known would come down on him like a steam engine. However, I would have lost him, and I don’t think I would have been able to stand it, even then.
Suddenly, he turned to me with questions in his eyes. I knew what was coming, and I’d kind of been hoping he’d just let it go, but that wasn’t how Anson’s mind worked—he didn’t just let things go. He was curious, craving answers, and I was going to have to give him answers. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be the truth, and I hated to lie to him more than I already had. But it was a necessary evil, and I hoped that, when the time came to tell him the truth, he’d understand. I really needed him to understand.
“So,” he said, his brows rising into his red hair, “Would you care to tell me why your brother tried to kill me?”
** Anson **
At last, I got my head back in order and managed to form a question. After the brain-melting kissing, I’d thought for a moment I might be completely scrambled for the rest of my life. I had just four words: Out of this world. I could still feel the shock of liquid euphoria singing in my veins from the sound she’d made when I’d slid my fingers into her hair. For that, I had only two words: Oh God.
