The Amber Lee Boxed Set

  Click.

  I turned the knob, pushed, and the door groaned open. Inside, my house was quiet. What faint light remained broke past my body and threw my tall, looming shadow over the front room; but that was the most foreign thing about the place. My heart relaxed. I closed the door, and dropped my guard.

  “I should move,” I said aloud.

  But I wouldn’t.

  Where would I go? How would I afford it? And why would I want to leave a house that my parents had already paid for anyway? So the house had a few uninvited guests at times—big deal. I’m a True Witch. If an enemy wanted to find me they would manage it even if I were living in some freakishly remote part of the world that even FedEx won’t deliver to.

  I could, at the very least, take myself off the phone book. Mental note.

  But that would be another day. I kicked my shoes off and let them fall near the front door, then crossed to the kitchen, turned the kettle on, prepared a cup of green tea, and headed into my bedroom with my phone in hand.

  A few swipes of a touch screen later and I was video calling Aaron, and my stomach was tingling. The nerves were unreal! I checked myself out on the screen and pulled stray strands of copper hair from out of my face, but nothing seemed to relieve the shaking. They were good shakes, though. Excited shakes. My body was literally buzzing with joy at the thought of seeing him and speaking to him, and all he had to do to give me my release was pick up.

  Pick up, pick up.

  Connecting.

  Moments, and Aaron’s face filled the screen. I beamed him a smile—the cuteness of which I could verify on the tiny window to the right of Aaron’s face—and he returned it. It was already dark where he was so all I could see were the highlights of his chiseled face; his nose, cheeks, lips and chin; but boy if that’s all I needed to get me going.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey to you. Where are you? It’s so dark.”

  “Sorry, I’m in the den. Hold on.”

  Aaron stretched—click—and a dim yellow light glowed into full luminescence. There he was! A blond/ brown stubble had encroached upon his entire jawline, his cheeks, and the upper reaches of his neck. The hair on his head was messy, but it wasn’t much longer than he usually kept it. And his eyes—Gods—they shined bright and blue even in the harsh light coming off the desk beside him.

  “That’s better,” I said.

  “I could say the same to you,” Aaron said, shuffling around to get a better camera angle on his face. “How are you?”

  “I’m great. I have news, actually. Eliza gave birth today. A girl.”

  “That’s awesome! Did they name her?”

  “Nah, not yet. At least not that I know.”

  “Were you waiting long?”

  “Just a couple of hours. Eliza’s baby is happy and healthy,” I beamed.

  “I’m happy to hear it.”

  He said happy, but he didn’t seem it. Was he tired? Had he only just woken up?

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Aaron said, “I’m sorry, I’m just a little beat.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s fine. My arms are sore, that’s all.”

  “I wish I could rub them for you.”

  Aaron smiled. “Me too. Soon, though.”

  Soon? My heart started shot from zero to sixty in less than three seconds. How soon was soon? Tomorrow? Next week? Today? “How soon?” I asked.

  “Ummm.”

  Umm? I didn’t like umm. That meant he didn’t know, which also meant that it wouldn’t be tomorrow. But my heart continued to beat hard and fast in my neck, holding on to the shred of hope that he may say tomorrow or already be at my door or something.

  “Less than a week’s time,” Aaron said, “I’m getting ready to move out today.”

  A week. Another week. I could accept another week, couldn’t I? It had already been a while, what was another week? My heart sank, and the sinking allowed it to slow back down to a regular pace. Save the fluttering and the racing for later. A week wasn’t long.

  Only that it was when you were expecting something.

  “A week,” I said, “Okay. I can do a week.”

  “Can you?” Aaron asked, shifting around so that his back was up against the backboard.

  “I… think so? I mean, it’ll be tough. It’s been tough.”

  “How tough?”

  My cheeks were starting to flush. Just what was he trying to accomplish here with that seductive grin of his? “Very,” I said. “How tough has it been for you?”

  “I can’t even begin to describe it… but I’ve been dreaming about that kiss we shared before you left.”

  Beaming again. “Really?”

  “Absolutely. I can’t wait to get to you.”

  I sighed. “Me either, Aaron. It feels like it’s been forever.”

  “It won’t be long now. Then you can catch me up on everything that’s been going on.”

  “And you can tell me more about… you… the new you.”

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you.”

  “Show me? You can… do that?”

  Aaron flashed a grin. In the harsh light it was hard to make out a lot of his features, but I could swear I saw his teeth elongate in his mouth right in front of me. I swallowed hard as my heart began to race again and my body warmed.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Less than a week,” Aaron said, “I promise. I’m coming home to you.”

  I nodded and we disconnected, though I didn’t get to tell him that I missed him and would feel the absence of those words for the rest of the evening.

  Living without Aaron had been difficult, not only because of what I knew about him or because of the kiss we shared. But mostly because Raven’s Glen hadn’t felt safe ever since that first attempt on my life.

  I didn’t need Aaron to protect me. But for that brief moment when we held each other on the street at the edge of town I felt a glimmer of hope caress my cheek. For the first time since this whole thing started, I didn’t fear anything or anyone.

  What was one more week of fearing?

  Chapter Three

  By the time my alarm went off I was sitting up and watching the first hints of morning break through the shades in my room. So at nine in the morning I slipped out of bed, showered, changed into a long black dress—loose at the shoulders, long at the hem—and sat down at my kitchen table to eat a bowl of cereal and a small bunch of grapes.

  Dawn was still yawning over the trees by the time I left my place, which was unusual. The warm sunlight bouncing off the dew on the tops of cars and buildings made the world glisten around me like it was made of glass, but in the back of my mind I found the image of Lily—Damien’s sister—creeping in, muting the colors and sounds around me like clouds on a sunny day.

  Why her? Why now, after all this time, had she clawed her way out of the recesses of my mind to show me her face? She was cold and pale—much like a corpse—but her eyes were vibrant and exaggerated, alive with intelligence and passion. Was she trying to contact me from beyond the grave, or had I dreamt about her in the night and forgotten?

  I figured the latter, given that I had woken up far earlier than I normally would have this morning. Sleep had become easy in recent nights, or at least it had been before the end of Eliza’s third trimester peeked its head over the horizon. Fact is I was no stranger to nightmares, even the ones I couldn’t remember. The ones I could remember, though, were always the same:

  The sheriff’s knife through my abdomen.

  Aaron’s blood in the snow.

  The demon’s disgusting hands in my mouth.

  But of all the things that had happened to me, the demon’s intrusion into my body was the one that had left the biggest impression upon my psyche. I felt dirty for days after. Sullied and unclean. No ritual of cleansing or steaming hot shower could relieve me of what I was feeling. Of how I was feeling.

  In my recent dreams, th
e demon lingered at the corner of my perception. It laughed as the sheriff plunged his blade into my gut. Cackled as Aaron fell into the snow—lifeless—beside me. And chuckled as I walked away from the burning building believing I had defeated it. But of course, they were just dreams now.

  And dreams couldn’t hurt me.

  Houston Boulevard was still waking up as I walked through it. Men and women dressed in different variations of black and white uniforms, each belonging to a different café situated on the high street, were setting up chairs and tables on the promenade. They worked diligently to beat the morning rush, propping up boards with specials and menus written on them for walkers to see as they passed and wiping down every last available surface until they sparkled against the morning sun.

  For a tiny place, Raven’s Glen sure did have a large number of cafes and bistros one could enjoy a croissant and a coffee in. But my favorite haunt was Joe’s. His restaurant was tucked away behind Houston Boulevard, on Rosella—the street where my bookstore sat. But the location handicap wasn’t as bad as most other little shops in my area.

  With its freshly baked doughnuts and sugared churros in the morning, their inexpensive-yet-hefty lunch and dinner menus, and impeccable personal service, Joe’s place came plenty recommended. And since I had been a loyal customer even before the hype began, Joe gave me extra special care and attention whenever I came round. It was only a free latte in the mornings, but the gesture was enough to keep me coming back every lunch time.

  So I was pretty surprised when I tried the door to Joe’s and found it locked. A delicious, warm aroma strong enough to slip through even the metal front door wafted out into the street, but I couldn’t see anybody inside. What the heck?

  “Morning, Amber,” Joe said. I caught him crossing the road toward me.

  “Hey Joe,” I said, “You closed today?”

  “No, sorry, I just closed up for a minute. Just been down your street with the police.”

  “The police? What happened?”

  “There’s a whole bunch of dead birds down there. I called the Sheriff in to have a look.”

  Dead birds. I had almost forgotten about seeing them last night along Apricot Drive. Were they there this morning? I couldn’t remember.

  “Oh… wow,” I said.

  Joe fished his keys out of his pocket and went to unlock the door to his restaurant. “Yeah,” he said, “Sheriff doesn’t know anything about it. He’s just calling up animal control now.”

  “Alright, thanks,” I said, without much thought. I had begun walking toward the crossing. Joe had tried to say something else to me, or maybe at me, but I had already crossed the road.

  Why I hadn’t paid attention on the way here? Were there dead birds on Apricot? I didn’t think so. I would have noticed. Wouldn’t I? There were so many there last night. But I also hadn’t checked the news out to see if it had been reported. I needed to start paying more attention.

  Then I saw it.

  The bird was tiny, no larger than the size of my hand, and completely stiff with rigor mortis. I stopped, knelt by it, and inspected its tiny body. Its plumes were a glossy dark blue and it had a white underside that was streaked with the same shiny blue. Its feathers seemed to shimmer depending on how you looked at it and its bill was so tiny and pointed I could have cried. The bird was beautiful, but it was also dead. And in death the colors on its body seemed somehow muted. The shimmer was fading fast and the white of its chest was turning into an ashen gray.

  The bird didn’t seem damaged or injured. It hadn’t flown into a wall or a lamp-post. It had just dropped from the sky, dead. So I picked it up and cupped it between my hands before continuing along the sidewalk toward the bookstore. I couldn’t see the sheriff’s car anywhere—maybe he had already left—but there were dead birds alright. Swallows, mostly, but many of them, scattered all over the sidewalk and the street. On top of cars and bins. It was like they had been shot out of a leaf blower in no particular order.

  It was ghoulish.

  I opened the bookstore, searched inside for an empty box—of which there were plenty in the back room—and went out into the street again to collect as many birds as I could. My heart broke for the little things. I hadn’t picked any of them up last night and I had no idea where they were now. For all I knew they had been tossed into a fire.

  These, however, I wanted to bury properly. In my garden. That was the right thing to do. It was the wiccan thing to do. From nature, to nature. So after I had picked enough of them up I took the box into the back room, stuffed the top with spare polystyrene foam and bubble paper, and sealed the whole thing up with duct tape. The back room was cold and dark. They would be fine in there until closing.

  But there wasn’t a box big enough, or duct tape strong enough, to contain my curiosity.

  I walked outside again and took a deep breath. The air was cold, but warming. The sky had gone from pale blue to sunny gold, and the breeze was gorgeous. Though, once more, something didn’t quite smell right. The bitterness came back again and bit me like it did last night, but it was heavy this time.

  Thick and cold. Like the clamor of death.

  With my eyes closed and my back against the closed door to the bookstore, I let my ethereal senses spill out of me and into my surroundings. The sounds of passing cars were muted now, as were the hushed whispers of passersby talking about the strange dead bird phenomenon and snapping shots with their phones.

  And above all the hushed noise, I could hear swallows chirping. In my mind’s eye I could see them flying around. Phantom lights in the shape of birds, darting out from the tops of buildings and circling back in again in a crazy dance only they understood. They were ghosts, of course. The echo of a thing that was once there and now wasn’t. The swallows still flew and sang in the Nether and that, at least, was comforting.

  But then the swallow song hit a sharp note, and they stopped singing. It was as if a cello had been plucked the wrong way, or a violin’s bow had skidded across the strings too hard. I winced from the noise and looked up to find them, but they were gone. Every last one of their lights, extinguished. Their crazy dance replaced by stillness. Their cheerful song drowned by silence.

  And as I stood, staring with my mind’s eye into the empty space where the birds had once been, a figure came into view. It was dark and left a trail of shadows as it went. Solid shadows, like a mantle. The creature flew down from the heavens, into the street, and directly into my line of sight. It wanted me to see it. And when it got close, I saw it for what it was.

  A large bird.

  Only this wasn’t an ordinary bird. It landed on the roof of a car mere few feet away from me and hopped around to face me. I couldn’t tell its breed. The animal was too small to be a raven, so it could have been a crow. But the thing was wreathed in a mantle of living, writhing shadow and its eyes—radiant yellow orbs—weren’t placed on the sides of its head; but on the front.

  And it was staring right at me.

  “Hey, Miss,” said a woman, snapping me out of my trance. I blinked and opened my eyes.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Uh, yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  “Sorry, it’s just that you were… breathing really heavily and just kinda standing there.”

  “Yeah. I think I haven’t woken up properly yet. Thank you, though.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, and she walked along to where ever the heck she was going. But when she passed I saw the bird sitting on the roof of the car across from me. No writhing shadow. No yellow eyes. It was a regular crow. I had never seen something in the Nether before that had a physical counterpart like this.

  The animal was fascina—CAW.

  I jerked away from the sound and backed into the store door causing the door to rattle. Then the bird flew away, but I got the distinct impression that the sound hadn’t fazed it one bit. It chose to fly off, and that thought suggested a kind of intelligence existing behind the cro
w’s silver mirror eyes.

  Or maybe I was making it up in my head.

  “Fuck,” I said, cursing under my breath. “What is it with the birds around here?”

  I shook my head, turned toward the store, and opened up. Today was already shaping up to be a weird day and I couldn’t wait for it to pass. After all, it would be one less day until I get to be with Aaron.

  And that day couldn’t come soon enough.

  Chapter Four

  Despite the morning’s strangeness, the entirety of the work day sailed by. Customers trickled in and out. Books were bought and sold. Obscure tomes were located and ordered. I even picked up some of James’—the owner of the bookstore—mail from the PO Box down the street. He never got anything interesting, but I had permission to open them and see what they were.

  Sometimes I would get official papers to sign and check out before faxing them to James’ accountant for him to deal with. We never spoke in person, me and James’ accountant, only via email. And I liked it that way. I enjoyed running the store with Eliza, even if her contribution had somewhat diminished as the bump started to get too big for her to manage.

  She insisted she could work, but I didn’t want to risk hurting her or the baby. And, truth be told, without the distraction that was Eliza, I was able to get a lot of things done around the store; chores which we had decided upon doing many moons ago but never actually got around to doing.

  Closing time came, and as the sun began its descent to the west and the sky began to return to the pale blue of the morning, I closed up—box of dead birds in hand. Animal control had shown up to clean the street earlier on, but I didn’t let them have the birds I had held on to. I decided never to tell anyone what I had done seeing as though to the average person I was probably crazy. Freak! But I didn’t care.

  I had a higher calling, and those birds deserved to be buried with love.

  So I walked home as the air cooled and made mental notes of where my shovel was and how deep each grave had to be. I also considered making tiny headstones or marking the grave with a pentagram made up of any number of rocks I might find along the way home, but the box I had chosen to carry the birds in was cumbersome and I wouldn’t be able to pick rocks without putting it down.