The City of Crows

by Bethany Anne Lovejoy

  I nodded and, if it was possible to shrink any smaller, I did. My hands buried in my pockets, feeling the glass vials within. My only reason to see Leo, my last reason to see Leo. Once they were gone, it was all over.

  He wasn’t offended by my silence, if anything he was emboldened by it. He crept closer, skin just barely against mine as he held the umbrella above us, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath. It was easy for him to sit next to me, even easier to relax beside me. My heart was pounding a mile a minute, but Leo seemed relaxed in my presence; it was unfair. Leo was unfair.

  All I wanted was to wrap my hand around his, to apologize and say that I could do better, I would do better. God, if he let me, I would sign the contract. Just stay, just let me stay beside you. I could have cried, I wanted to cry with every fiber of my being. I wanted to let full body sobs rack through my body, I wanted to wrap my arms around Leo and beg him not to go.

  Instead, I reached into my pocket and withdrew the glass vials. “Three times a day, every single meal. Try not to drink too much water or shower too often, she allocated you extra doses but, it’s better if you don’t stretch it. In your final moments you should take whatever’s left, it’ll make it easier for you.” I nodded to myself, reassuring myself that I’d correctly repeated the instructions before dropping the vials in his hands.

  He caught them. His face fell as he watched me shrink out of his reach. Still, he reached for the vials,shoving them into his coat pocket without a moment’s hesitation. He’d take one the second he got home, I knew that. “Thank you, Lyra,” he said, his eyes boring holes into the side of my skull as he sat beside me. He was reluctant to get up, slow to allow the side of the umbrella to cover only himself. His black eyes watched me, waiting for a response.

  What could I say? “It was nice knowing you, Leo.” Anything but that.

  He nodded, not a hint of a smile visible on his face. His expression almost reflective, I couldn’t help but wonder what he must be thinking. “It was nice knowing you too, Lyra,” he said , his hand jutting out in my direction, as if a handshake was a viable way to say goodbye when one was dying.

  I couldn’t resist the urge to touch him one last time. His hand wrapped around mine as I gingerly laid my palm in his. The heat from his palm seemed to radiate into mine. It was unfair, it would always be unfair to have met him, known him, and felt this warmth only to have it taken away so suddenly. That short, simple shake was nothing more than painful to me, and it was one of the most unfulfilling moments of my life.

  With that, he got up and began to turn away. I couldn’t tear my eyes off him. A part of me, a loud and demanding part, wanted to chase after him. To do something, anything. I wanted to tell him the truth, to tell him that I loved him. But the louder, more predominant part of my brain won out; the coward.

  He’d leave. It would be over. I’d go back to my lonely, disappointing, unfulfilling life. I’d find a new job at a new bookstore, and continue living in Marlow Heights. I’d have to find a new roommate, but then, wouldn’t that make it easier? I couldn’t live with Yvie watching me, waiting for me to breathe again. She would likely move in with Gigi, begin forming the life that she deserved, begin the process of forgetting about me. Hopefully, everyone would forget about me.

  Still, despite knowing that, I couldn’t tear my eyes off Leo’s back. I could never do it; I couldn’t run after him. Nothing would change the fact that I wasn’t that type of person. I had to understand that our story ended there.

  I had to ignore the way that his steps slowed, I had to pray that the wind would keep pushing his umbrella forward, guiding him away from me, keeping us apart just as fate intended. I had to fight down the scratching in my throat, which so loudly demanded…

  “Leo,” I betrayed all sensibility with that word.

  It was impossible for all the distance that we stood apart, unimaginable with the volume of the rain pounding against the sidewalk; but he stopped. His head tilted towards the sky, umbrella lowering as he stopped.

  My mouth fell open, I was unable to contain myself as I watched him. Did he hear? Did he know? His umbrella ruffled in the insistent wind, urging him to keep moving forward.

  “Leo,” my voice grew louder, legs wobbling underneath me. I couldn’t let him go, for once I couldn’t let the world make a decision for me.

  My feet beat hard against the pavement, cold wind and pouring rain tried to stop me. And yet, I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine stopping, turning around and going home alone. The heavy rain pelted against my face and entered my lungs, but if the cold and the howl of the wind couldn’t stop me, then neither could they.

  “Leo!” A yell, an actual yell escaped my lips, swallowed by the rainstorm but not forgotten. “Leo!”

  His shoulders rose and fell, did he think he imagined it?

  “Leo, Leo Hoang!” His feet began to move again, to walk with those impossibly long strides away from me. There was no hope, not really, and yet “Leo Hoang, I love you!” My scream hit the air, scattering the crows off of electric lines and gaining the attention of those around me, but did it reach him?

  He stopped. For a moment, he did not move, he seemed to process what had happened. It was impossible that he could have heard. The wind fought harder against his umbrella, and yet…

  Eyes. Beautiful black eyes, perfect black eyes, wonderful black eyes. They stared toward me once again as he looked over his shoulder in surprise. A white cloud of steam from the cold erupted from his mouth, all the air leaving his body. He heard.

  I couldn’t move any further underneath that gaze. “Leo, please just—” I called, and yet I truly did not know what I would do next. What ifs ran through my mind, each one worse than the last, and yet, maybe if I—

  He stepped forward just the smallest step. Still the wind fought him, still it urged him away. Away from me, away from this, into the reality that he knew. But his hands loosened, another daring step in his direction while I could barely move. His eyes wide, like a man seeing the sun rise for the first time. He heard.

  His hand tightened around the umbrella as the wind gave a final push, a harsh breeze knocking the umbrella out of his grasp, attempting to take him with it. And yet he paid it no heed, nor did he give weight to the glass vials jumping within his pockets, threatening to fall out with every step, actually falling out when he did move. No, he let himself move, his thin frame covering the distance in a time frame that I could never imagine, no second thoughts of the rain not the glass that scattered down to the ground. He had his eyes trained, and his mind focused on one subject…

  “Lyra,” my name tumbled from his mouth as soon as he was in front of me, his mouth agape and a look of disbelief painted on his faces. “Lyra, what did you say?”

  A part of me feared that he didn’t hear, a hiccup ran through my body. “Since you showed up at my apartment, maybe earlier than that-- Since you helped that woman…”

  “Lyra, do you?” and there it was, all the confirmation that I needed, proof that he knew.

  My shoulders lowered, a tired, defining want in my words as I asked, “do you?” An awful question, one that opened him to saying no.

  His hand rose to my cheek. The most gobsmacked, astounded expression played upon his face as his hand cradled my face, thumb caressing my skin. He brushed the soaked hair away from my cheeks and looked into my eyes. He didn’t need to say it, not then. I could tell by the look on his face, by the softness of his touch, and by the way that his feet stepped daringly closer.

  I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I rose up onto my toes and placed a tentative kiss on his lips, my mouth brushing his, my hand knotting in the back of his hair. A small groan of surprise, his, hit the air as I hummed in content, my wanting mouth searching for more and more against his. The cold water against my lashes did nothing to stop me as my other hand reached for the neck of his sweater, pulling him down and holding him where I wanted him. Weeks and weeks of emotions crossed our lips. His teeth brushed
against my lower lip as if to respond that, however long I may have wanted him, he had wanted me far much longer.

  His hand tightened possessively around my waist as his other hand urged me forward, desperately drinking me in. There was no need to say anything, nospeeches of desire like in the movies; it was an intimately understood fact between the two of us. This was love, this was want, this was need, this was desire; this was the culmination of a month of waiting and wishing.

  This was life passing between us, and if it could have moved slower, I would have let it.

  Panting breath, Leo struggling for air as he pulled away from me. His lips nearly back against mine as he gazed longingly into my eyes, only stopping for the briefest of moments so that he could breathe. “Since I first saw you through the book shelves, but even more when you yelled outside of the Greenman. Lyra, I’ve been desperately--”

  “I lied,” I admitted against his skin, as if that would suddenly change everything, as if that would be the tipping point in this disaster. “I know how to fix this, I know--”

  “I love you,” he ignored my admission, his lips brushing against mine as he spoke, eyes closing once more as he leaned forward.

  We didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing, not then. Very few things mattered between us, not in the grand scheme of things. But to me, more than any of them, more than love and the search for truth, the one thing that mattered was this.

  20

  Just Visiting

  “Again, Mr. Withers, I should not have to reiterate this. If you had read the source material, you would be passing the quizzes. Based on your interruptions in class however, and the fact that you moved to question the first of the Impossible Miracles, likely in order to make some sort of political statement; It is a fair assumption that you are not reading the material.” The woman continued, her dry, scratchy voice to carrying beyond her office doors. “To question the miracles is to question magic itself, I don’t know why you, a masters student in the history of the Dark Arts and a warlock, would dare question the existence of magic. Just because you are not experiencing a great deal of power, does not make that a universal experience.”

  A pause, I expect that Mr. Withers opened his mouth to speak. But if he did speak, then he lacked the volume of his opponent; he couldn’t hope to overwhelm the linguistic abilities of a woman who had now spent over half of her life speaking in filled lecture halls. I could tell, however, that he didn’t get to finish his brief explanation.

  “That’s what it is, politics, Mr. Withers. There’s no other reasonable explanation for challenging what you know to be truth, is there? You’ve been shown artifacts from the act itself, and now you dare to say that it’s not real, that magic is not real. Yet, you live and breathe magic. I’ve seen you charge your phone in your hand with just a few words, and yet you aim to mislead others away from that truth.” A break, her low chuckle hitting the air, “Oh rest assured, Mr. Withers, I could prove magic to you in five seconds or less; but unfortunately, I don’t feel like dealing with throngs of angry parents and board members. If you really feel so inclined to argue against the existence of magic, perhaps you should leave my class and enroll in something more catered towards your simple tastes.” A scoff. “I will not have you polluting the minds of my students. Not in my classroom, and most certainly not in my department.”

  There was a clatter followed by the disgruntled grunt of the young man and the slam of a door just around the corner. Leo and I sat huddled on the couch in the waiting room adjacent to the office, a necessity allocated to the professor due to the high volume of foot traffic to her office. A young man with dusty red hair and deep blue eyes came stomping around the corner, his textbooks in his arms rather than his half-opened bag, a look of irritation on his face.

  “Your turn,” he spat, his chin holding down the papers atop his formidable stack and his mouth moving with inaudible swears. If I had to guess, the woman in question held a few hundred names upon his lips, not a single one of them good.

  My lips tightened, but Leo’s hand on my shoulder helped me with the tension, at least I didn’t have to face her alone. A sigh, here I was again in many ways. The walk with Leo was both familiar and unfamiliar, a long hallway leading to a spacious office; the occupant having climbed her way up by her nails in order to get this room, holding tenure longer and class loads heavier than her male counterparts. She was now head of department and gifted with all of the prestige that came with the title; no doubt not trusting a single person in her department to have the role and not screw things up.

  Lydia Wynne, the golden name tag read just before you entered her office, somehow managing to capture an ominous light.

  A short, thin middle aged woman sat at a large mahogany desk. The faded blue dye on her hair had began to give way to grey and had become almost transparent over time, her red horn-rimmed glasses balanced precariously upon her crooked nose, and a large floral scarf wrapped around her neck. My mother always had this habit of looking like a cross between an old antique shop owner, a campervan woman, and a librarian. Her speech however, did not match her look. “Name,” the woman commanded, her head bowed as she studied the papers in front of her. It was the only way she got things done, grading in the short moments in-between classes; it was a blessing that she could read so fast.

  “Lyra Wynne,” I said, with not a hint of irony in my voice. “And Leo Hoang.”

  She took her time looking up from her papers, basking in the silence. If I left in that time, to her it was all the better. Still, her eyes traveled up, her lips pursed, and a single eyebrow raised. “And to what do I owe the absolute honor of seeing my daughter?” Her voice suggested that it was anything but an honor, and she dismissed me easily, “the answering machine stated that I was far too busy for any personal meetings. Showing up in person was unfortunately, unnecessary and unproductive, Lyra. Now, you can leave and write a nice letter, just as you have before, and patiently await my response.”

  “Mother.”

  “As you can see,” she gestured to the formidable stack of papers in front of her, not even bothering to acknowledge Leo who stood beside me, “I am quite busy, Lyra, and your visitation is an interruption to me.” She tapped her pen against the stack. “Now, leave.”

  An impossible woman as always. “Mother, I—” I grimaced, knowing that there was only one way to convince her to allow us to stay. “I’m the one who broke that lamp, the everlasting light, you called it. It wasn’t dad, he lied for me. You were right, it was me.”

  Finally, she looked up from her papers.

  “You’ve been to the crossroads and back, and you’ve consulted with Dalia,” My mother said with a hint of amusement, sipping on the strong black coffee she’d poured from coffee maker in the corner of her office. The door was securely shut behind us as she sat at her desk, still keeping a formidable distance between us. I’d recovered from her ear full and demands that I reimburse her for a lamp I’d broken at the age of six. Now she’d finally begun to listen and was unable to hold back her amusement. “And Rowan, that stupid boy, signed a piece of paper and gave his soul away, expecting you to do the very same?” Her spoon clinked against the sides of her ceramic cup, though what she was stirring I did not know; my mother drank her coffee black, no sugar. “I almost regret not answering your family’s letters, Mr. Hoang.”

  Leo opened his mouth to speak but was once again cut off.

  “Almost,” my mother clarified with a hum. The sparkle in her eye hinted at more than she would say. We had not clarified the status of our relationship to my mother, but I didn’t think we needed to or that she’d care either way. All she did care about was the fact that Rowan was gone, a feat worth celebrating in her mind. She’d probably pop open a bottle of wine after we left.

  “So, you’ll help us?” Leo asked, desperate to get a word in and have the confirmation that he so desperately needed. I didn’t fault him for it, I was getting antsy too. We’d wasted practically a whole day
driving six hours to the university and we’d waste six more driving back.

  “I’m afraid not,” my mother said, no air of remorse to her words. First and foremost, I can not begin to service every single soul who comes my way that needs help. I have piles and piles of letters, people with spiteful, hateful curses; and I do not have the time. More, just from looking at you, I can tell that it would be a difficult curse to break. No, the woman at the crossroads was right, as Dalia always is. A last-minute reversal in a case such as yours is difficult, if not downright impossible.” She sighed, likely taking in the way that my jaw tightened. “Witches got their power from pacts made with demons, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. In exchange, they became the demons familiars, representatives of them on earth. Naturally, with every generation the expectation to fulfill that role becomes less and less, therefore power wanes. The demons these days may look different, some cultures may not fear them, and perhaps they are even kindly; but that doesn’t change their identity or the fact that they only bestow powers upon their familiars. My blood is far removed from the pact our ancestor made, as is Lyra’s. To renew the pact would strengthen the bond, but it would only lead to heartbreak later on as everything comes with a price. Unless you know of an extraordinarily old witch, I do not see any way out of this.”

  “But you’ve signed the book,” I began.

  “I signed the book when I was young and stupid,” my mother informed me, “and the things that I wanted fell out of my grasp.” She played with the band of iron around her ring finger, twisting and turning it. She refused to remove it, despite her divorce. I’d once tried to ask her about it, about if she knew how dad was doing, where he was; she always shut me down. It was as if he was still with us, still in favor, and yet he was so far away that we didn’t know what happened to him. “I was only freed from my union with the devil when I learned a harsh lesson, that the world is not mine to have. I refuse to let my daughter learn that same lesson, just as I refuse to let her make the same mistake I did.” She glared, her eyes taking me in in entirety, her mouth moving quickly to state, “I will admit, you are not everything that I have desired, but you are mine, and I will not let you do as I have done.”