The hornet was big, yellow, and covered in bristly fur. Its eyes were bulbous black orbs, blacker than night, and its stinger was dripping with green goo. But it had a human hand—maybe—and it was reaching for me like it wanted to grab me. I shuddered with the thought, and because the water was starting to turn cold. Then I stepped out to dry off and warm up again.
I’m waiting, it had said. Or at least I thought it had. Dreams are slippery, and this one was no exception.
When I heard someone walking around in my bedroom, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself.
“Amber?” It was Aaron at the door. He knocked but didn’t open the door.
“Yeah, I’m in here, having a shower.”
“Really?”
“Well, finished, actually. So don’t get any ideas.”
The door creaked open and Aaron peered through the slit. I couldn’t tell whether he was pretending to be immature or he genuinely thought I hadn’t seen him open the door. When I planted my hand on my hip and cocked my head to the side, he opened the door fully and smiled. His cheeks were flushed and I could hear his aura singing to me. Singing! But I had promised myself a long time ago I would never unlock my senses around him, so I turned away and locked my second sight back in its cage.
“Woah,” he said, “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I turned around and smiled at him through a sigh. “Where’ve you been?”
“Just out. A power line went down this morning not far from here, fell right over the road. Emergency services are everywhere right now.”
“And you went to watch?”
He shook his head. “I was awake when it went down. Thought someone could use my help.
I approached and placed a hand on his chest, another on his shoulder, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “And?”
“Nobody was hurt, but a car got it pretty bad. Don’t know whose it is, though. Anyway; I have something for you.”
“I thought I told you, no funny business.”
“As hot as you are, and as much as I’d love to rip that towel off you, what I have waiting is time sensitive.”
“Time sensitive?” He had my attention now.
“Yeah. Get changed, we’re going out.”
Aaron had left me more than a little confused, but he wasn’t spilling the beans—as much as he knew how that irritated me. Out? I thought, on a Sunday morning? Aaron and I usually went down Houston Boulevard on Saturday mornings to check out the shops, have a little lunch, and generally enjoy the sounds of humanity—commerce, service, and stuff. But Sundays were for sleeping in and not changing out of one’s pyjamas.
Sure, there was the odd weekend here and there when we woke up early and took a drive to nowhere. I enjoyed riding in Aaron’s car, and he clearly enjoyed driving it. We’d listen to music, drive around with the windows down, and then come home to at least an afternoon of doing nothing in our pyjamas.
So this was a little out of character, but I went with it.
After I had gotten changed into a long black dress, pinned my hair up, and picked out a pair of sunglasses to wear, we got into Aaron’s car and drove out.
“Where is everybody?” I asked once we were on the road.
“I’m not sure; I’ve been out of the house for hours.”
“Well, it isn’t my birthday so this isn’t some kind of surprise party.”
“Are you seriously going to start guessing?”
“Maybe,” I said, with a playful smirk on my face.
“Then guess quietly. I don’t want you throwing me off my game.”
“Game? Hmmm. Did you secretly try out for some kind of team? Is this your first game?”
Aaron was quiet and unmoving, like a statue… if a statue could drive a car. When I submitted to the fact that he wouldn’t tell me where we were going, I fell silent too. Neither of us much minded the silence, though, so neither of us broke it. Until Aaron stopped the car in a dip in the road I knew all too well.
I had been here before, many times; only never with Aaron.
“What are we doing here?” I asked when the car stopped.
There were a few single roads that connected Raven’s Glen to the freeway. One of them, due north east, was the quietest and most unused of these roads. It ran parallel to the Geordie River and was flanked on both sides by tall sycamores and pines. This was the road up to Evan’s family cabin. It was the road we had taken that night when we went into the woods—the night of Aaron’s first transformation—and it was the road I took to get to my own special part of the woods; the place where I received the vision that helped me unmask the man who was trying to kill me.
“You haven’t guessed where we’re going?”
“I know where we are, I’m just curious to know how you know where we are.”
Aaron tapped his nose in response.
That fucking sense of smell of his. “You followed me here?”
“I did, but hear me out.”
A car rolled on past us and disappeared into the morning haze. The moment gave me time to think and decide on my stance, and I decided to lean on curiosity more than anger. I had been keeping secrets my entire life; so many, in fact, that I sometimes forgot to be as… forthcoming… as other people might have been. So I hadn’t told Aaron about my sacred little space up in the woods. In another life, or had it somebody else, I may have been upset about it.
But I think his ability to track me all the way out here impressed me enough to stifle the anger, and of course there was my insatiable curiosity. What were we doing out here? What’s he got in store for me? and Oh Gods, has he built me a house up here? I already have a house!
“Alright,” I said, “I’m listening.”
“Good. Hold that thought.”
Aaron slipped out of the car. I wanted to protest, but before I knew it we had left the car behind and were making tracks along a path into the woods I knew all too well.
“So… I’m still listening,” I said.
He ducked under a low branch, pulled it up for me, and I swung under it after him.
“Today is the anniversary of the first day we properly met,” he said.
“To—day? Wait, what?”
“Yeah. You’ve forgotten?”
“I… haven’t…?”
“It’s okay. You were all about Kyle back then. I’m not surprised you don’t remember meeting me.”
“Was this… Marcia’s birthday? It was Abby, right? Kyle’s sister?”
Aaron nodded.
“I don’t remember much about that night,” I said, “But I do remember meeting an obnoxious, dumbass jock that really got on my nerves.”
“You don’t have to remind me of what I was like. I know I was an idiot.”
“A sexy idiot,” I said, noticing the sudden sharpness of his tone. I didn’t want to piss him off.
“Sexy?”
“Yeah, I think you were wearing a white and blue jacket then. I remember thinking you were hot, until I remembered you had been the one who had called me a freak at school all those times.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Hey,” I said, squeezing his hand, “It’s alright.”
Aaron nodded. “It’s only because I liked you and wanted your attention, and I didn’t know how to get it.”
“Wow. Talk about dropping a bomb.”
“You must have known this.”
“All I knew, from that night anyway, was that I didn’t want to be near you. I think I even begged Kyle not to hang out with you anymore. That was pretty psycho of me.”
Reminiscing about that part of my life tugged at a few strings that hadn’t been played in a while, but I held myself. I could remember the way Aaron and his friends would make fun of me for wearing black and being a ginger and my chest went cold at the thought, but it was almost like I couldn’t hear Aaron actually speaking.
He was a boy, then; and now he was a man. A different man.
“I never told you this,” he
said, “But I wanted to kiss you that night.”
“Kiss me?” I asked, “As I recall you spilt a vodka cola on my favorite Ramones shirt and then laughed.”
“I didn’t want to laugh. I spilt it on you because I was nervous; it was an accident. Kyle was right there and I knew he would get pissed, and we’d get into a fight if I kissed you, but I didn’t give a shit about what he or my friends thought, until I panicked.”
“That’s… kinda sweet.”
And it was. I could almost see it playing out in a rom-com where, at the end, the guy beats his own insecurities and gets the girl; which he had. But real life doesn’t have a three-act structure, and at the time I would have wished he hadn’t laughed.
At this point, I wasn’t sure if he was trying to make me mad by forcing me to relive the past or whether his little narrative was going somewhere; until I saw the blanket lain out on the clearing where I would usually sit. It was flannel—green, brown, and orange, and pinned down by rocks. The wind wasn’t hitting very hard so the sheet had stayed mostly in place save for one corner, which had folded across the middle of the square. On the flannel blanket there was another, warmer, woolen blanket folded neatly, and on top of it, a brown picnic basket.
“Aaron,” I said before covering my mouth.
He walked past me, fixed the wayward corner, and opened the basket. Inside there were sandwiches wrapped in cling film! My heart soared, and I started to feel lighter because of it. I floated toward the picnic, sat down, and smiled brightly at the man who had prepared this for me.
“You just made a picnic for us,” I said. “You… prepared a picnic.”
“Surprised?” he asked, producing two plastic cups and a cold bottle of soda from inside the basket.
“A little.”
Aaron was a romantic at heart. I had seen it before. It wasn’t the traditional kind of wooing he was into, of course. He didn’t like meals at fancy places or dressing up, but then again I didn’t either so we suited each other just fine. Aaron’s sense of romance, though, was more of an immediate—on the fly—kind of romance, like, for instance, grabbing the car in the middle of the morning and driving down to the beach all the way on the other side of the state just to watch the sun set.
A picnic required planning and forethought, secrecy and subterfuge. And surprising me, with all my incessant questioning and insatiable curiosity, required patience. Those traits, unfortunately, Aaron Cooper couldn’t count as part of his repertoire. And yet here I was; at a picnic, and surprised.
“You did all this to celebrate the anniversary of the day we met?” I asked when he sat down.
“I did,” he said, “I wanted you to remember me how I was and see me for who I am now.”
“You didn’t need to go through all this trouble for that. The Aaron Cooper I know is much more awesome than the Aaron Cooper from before. It’s amazing how much you’ve changed in just a year.”
“It’s been a rough year, at least in some places. For both of us.”
“Tell me about it.”
Birds were chirping around us, and a breeze was rolling in from the west picking up that wet smell of the Geordie River and floating it along to where we were sitting. This was nice. No, it was perfect. Perfect. And then it hit me like an electric jolt. A moment later, my stomach felt like it had been dipped into a bucket of ice.
“Amber,” Aaron said.
Oh Gods, I thought. My heart started to race. Is this…? No… it can’t be.
“When we first met, I… I didn’t… fuck, I mean; I didn’t know much about you except for what I knew from the things Kyle said about you.”
I didn’t know what was worse; that he was stumbling through his words, or that I couldn’t find my own.
“All I knew for myself,” he continued, “Was that looking at you made me feel something I had never felt before with anyone else, and… I mean, my father, he… he didn’t really teach me how to process that kind of feeling, you know? I know I goofed around and acted like a jerk, but I liked you. A lot. And then when Kyle… when I first found out he had cheated on you, and he was talking to me about it… we got into a fight that night.”
Snap. I found my thoughts again, and my voice came back to me. “You got into a fight?” I managed to say.
“He was acting tough,” he said, “I hated it, but I wasn’t good at showing it. Anyway so we went out into the parking lot later, the whole group, and we were hanging out, talking. It had been raining while we were eating, so the hood of the car was wet and slippery, but Kyle didn’t notice and when he went to sit on it like he always did he slid right off and hit the ground.”
My belly wanted to laugh, but my mind rebelled. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. We all laughed. But then I said something about how Karma had bitten him in the ass for cheating on you, and he got real defensive. And guys, well… we don’t talk about stuff for very long.”
“You hit him…”
“He came for me first; I just defended myself. Of course, I was stronger than him, so I cracked one of his ribs and busted his lip without meaning to.”
What you send out comes back times three, I thought. That must have been the first-time something bad happened to Kyle for having cheated on a witch. I’ve had mine, obviously, but Karma had my back too. The sword that cuts both ways.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because,” he said, “I’m trying to tell you that I’ve been in love with you for a very long time.”
A catch caught in my throat, stealing my ability to speak again.
“I didn’t know it then,” he continued, “Or maybe I did, but I just couldn’t process it—not until the night you were attacked and I looked after you. But I know now. I’m in love with you, and I always have been.”
My chin was starting to quake, and my eyesight was blurring a little. I wasn’t good to him when we were fooling around. I was using him. Gods, I thought Damien was better than him for a time. But I couldn’t see beyond Aaron’s thick skin, couldn’t see the guy beneath it trapped behind an inability to articulate feeling.
Aaron reached for his interior jacket pocket, and my heart started to pound. He put the plastic cup down on the mat, shuffled around to one knee, and produced a tiny box from his breast. When he opened the box and the brilliance of the gem inside came spilling out, I felt like I could have fainted. The world started to spin. My heart was beating hard enough to dull all sounds around me, my skin was so warm even the cool touch of this October morning breeze was making me tremble.
“Amber Lee,” he said, “My witch with red hair. Will you—?”
CHAPTER 6
The child of witch and wolf, touched by the hand of a demon…
The words came barreling at me like a freight train, and I was caught on the tracks; tied up and helpless like the damsel in so many Westerns. Engagement. Marriage. Children. With Aaron? I felt faint. The world was still spinning, darkness was creeping in all around, and I was sure I was swaying like a tall tree caught in a strong gust of wind.
“A—A—” The words wouldn’t come. It was like having a stutter; I wanted to let the words out, but instead they chose to hold onto my tongue as if for dear life.
Aaron’s face twisted, although I couldn’t tell whether it was concern or disappointment melting into his expression. Didn’t I want to marry him? That was the big question. Screw whatever prophecy I had been given. This wasn’t about a prophecy. This was about… shit, why aren’t I answering?
“Are you okay?” Aaron asked.
That must have been hard for him, I thought, aware about the fact that he was waiting; waiting like a man about to be delivered a fatal prognosis or be given the all clear. How long had passed? One second? Ten? A minute? How long would Aaron wait for my answer? And why the heck wasn’t I giving him one.
Didn’t I want to marry him? The question surfaced in my mind again like a swimmer coming up for air a second time. Think, Amber, I thought, bring yourself back.
br /> I took in a deep breath of air, exhaled, and my vision returned. Aaron was still waiting, the birds were still chirping—I could hear them again, so that was some kind of process—and the browning leaves of the pines and sycamores all around us were still rustling and swaying. Some, even, were falling. This would have been the perfect place for a yes. The most romantic, most beautiful place.
“Amber,” Aaron finally said, “What is it?”
“I… I’m sorry,” I managed to say, “I didn’t… I wasn’t expecting this. It’s hit me kinda suddenly, that’s all.”
“It’s okay,” he said, “Take your time.”
“I feel like an idiot.”
“Why do you say that?” He lowered the box, and when it closed the snap it made ripped out like a gunshot.
I was about to tell him not to close it, but my mouth still wasn’t working.
Aaron looked at the box, pressed his lips into a thin line, and then looked up at me. “I sprung this on you,” he said. “I know how you feel about surprises but I did it anyway. That was stupid.”
His hair is really long, I thought, randomly. It was true. His blonde locks were shoulder length now, and the breeze had them firmly in its grasp, tugging and pulling at them gently… away from me. Come with us, it would have told him if the breeze had a voice, spare yourself. But it didn’t, and here he was, waiting for me to get over whatever was blocking me from saying those simple words I knew he wanted to hear and yet couldn’t say.
Didn’t I… want… to get married?
A chirping sound, alien to the forest, snapped me out of the spell. Aaron too, by the sudden jerking of his head. At first I thought some exotic bird had flown in from some faraway place and landed nearby to sing its song, it was only my phone. My phone! I reached for it—lightning quick—and answered like my life depended on it. That was stupid, I knew. And rude, too. But it was my way out, so I took it.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Ma cherie,” said the voice on the other end. Collette. “I must see you at once.”
I mouthed the word Collette to Aaron and said, into the phone, “Is everything alright?”