We walked up the steps and all the way down the boardwalk, avoiding tourists taking pictures of each other in front of the mighty Mississippi. Luc led me to where the levee was just shorn grass and crushed oyster shells. Still we walked on, until we were far away from anyone else. The French Quarter was at our backs, the river spread before us, almost a mile across. We sat cross-legged on the grass, not touching, not talking, and watched the afternoon pass by.
It was dusk before he spoke. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.” He pulled a long piece of grass out of the ground and started stripping it methodically.
“You knew I’d come back.”
He turned to me then, his eyes the exact color of the darkening sky. Reaching out, he took my hand, twining our fingers together. “You’re the most restful person I’ve ever known,” he said quietly. “You have a . . . serenity, an ability to just be, without wanting anything, without needing anything. It’s . . . remarkable. I actually feel almost peaceful when I’m with you.” He gave a short laugh. “If you knew me better, you’d understand how amazing that is.”
I felt the same way about him. “Luc,” I said. A question had been on my mind since the evening he’d kissed me in the garden, stunning me to the bottom of my soul. Nothing that had happened since then detracted from how deeply he’d touched me. “What is it that you want from me, and what is it that you’re offering me?”
His eyes seemed to grow darker, or maybe it just looked that way. A thick cloud cover had been moving over us, like God pulling a bedspread into place.
“I’m not mocking you,” I said. “I really want to know.”
“I know.” His fingers stroked my hand while he thought. “If you’d asked me that several days ago, I would have had one answer. Now, I don’t know.”
I smiled, curious. “What would you have answered?”
He gave me a mischievous look that was devastating on his handsome face. “I would have said I wanted to get into your pants, and I was offering you a chance to get into mine.”
I snatched my hand back. “Luc!”
He laughed, and I wanted to kiss him, hard. I blinked with surprise at that thought—not my usual kind of thing. But I felt fierce about him, as if I wanted to mark him as mine. I blushed, and Luc misunderstood.
“Have I shocked you?” he teased. “Surely you’ve lost count of how many guys have said that to you?”
I answered him seriously. “No, not really. I mean, people always knew that I’d say no, so they kind of quit asking.”
He went still, his eyes searching my face. I realized what information I had just given up, and I groaned to myself, mortified. Oh God, Thais, just tell him every embarrassing thing you can think of.
“ Thais.” He sounded deeply shocked, and there was something else in his voice that I couldn’t identify. I was smothering with embarrassment. I wanted to self-combust right there, just burst into flames and disappear into a puff of smoke.
I covered my face with my hands.
“You can’t be saying—”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Without looking, I kicked him. My flip-flops had fallen off, and now he grabbed my bare foot and held it.
“ Thais,” Luc said, a velvet determination in his voice. He waited: as patient as time, he would sit there until I answered him.
“Thais. You’re saying you’ve never said yes? To anyone?” He leaned closer, his voice as soothing as honey, his breath barely brushing my skin.
I gritted my teeth, pressing my covered face against my drawn-up knees, trying to make myself as small as possible—so small that I might disappear. Good luck.
Luc put one hand against my shoulder and one against my knee and pushed, as if I were a bear trap he was unspringing. He was much stronger than I was, and, not for the first time, I regretted not having abs of steel.
Then I was on my back on the grass, and an oddly cool, rain-scented breeze blew against my heated skin. Luc pinned my legs down with one of his so I couldn’t curl up again, and I could feel him pressed against my whole length.
“Why do you want to know?” I choked out, pointlessly stalling for time—there was no way to recover from this.
“Oh, I’m very interested, Thais,” he said against my ear. “I’m very, very interested.”
I wanted to die. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted . . .
Again Luc waited—he had all night, wasn’t going anywhere. I had no idea what time it was or when Axelle would be back—she’d left shortly after lunch and hadn’t exactly clued me in to her plans. I felt a raindrop hit my forehead. Time was running out.
“Well, if you must know,” I said in a muffled, ill-tempered voice. “ Then no, I haven’t said yes. There, are you happy?”
I could feel him smile. He pressed his lips against my hands where they covered my face, kissing each finger.
“Not yet,” he said teasingly, and I groaned and took my hands away to glare at him.
But his face, when he looked down at me, turned serious. “Why are you ashamed? It’s a beautiful thing to save yourself. To not squander your beauty, your gifts, on pimple-faced, stupid boys who won’t value you.”
He sounded positively medieval, and I looked at him, puzzled.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he said, smoothing my hair away. The one drop I’d felt had presaged a fine, warm rain as gentle as a breeze—hardly more than a mist. It formed tiny, tiny diamonds on Luc’s hair and gave his skin a beautiful sheen in the darkness. “I’m just surprised. It’s hard to believe that someone as beautiful as you has escaped the pressure of giving yourself away.”
“I got pressured,” I said wryly, remembering a night when Chad’s predecessor, Travis Gammel, had actually kicked me out of his car and made me walk home at night because I wouldn’t have sex with him. Bastard. I was still mad about it.
“What stopped you?” Luc asked softly. “And don’t tell me you never wanted to. I can feel passion flowing under your skin. You’re made of desire.”
Luc had a way of saying flowery things that sounded completely natural and sincere, even though out of anyone else’s mouth they would have sounded stupid or artificial. And he was right. I had wanted to. Sometimes so much that I had felt almost crazy. But never enough to actually go ahead and do it. Now I shrugged. “Never met the right guy,” I said.
One dark eyebrow rose, giving me a perfect opportunity to say, “Until you.” But I didn’t—couldn’t. After a moment, Luc leaned over and brushed light kisses along my jawbone, making my eyes drift shut and my bones go limp.
“I guess you’ve said yes to millions of girls,” I said, and then swallowed as an unexpected shaft of poisonous jealousy pierced me so sharply I almost gasped. The thought of him with anyone else made me feel like crying. For a long moment he looked into my eyes, and then he sat up, leaving me cold.
I realized our clothes were soaking wet from the light rain and felt many tiny drops come together to roll as one down my neck. Luc’s shirt was translucent, sticking to his skin. I felt humiliated, gauche, like some stupid high-school girl. Which I was, of course.
He turned back to me, a look of gentle regret on his face.
“Not millions,” he said, sounding almost sad. “But— a lot. And until now, I never wished it were different. But you, Thais—” He leaned back down on one elbow next to me. “For the first time, I wish that I could have no memory of anyone but you.”
I burst into tears, in that suave, woman-of-the-world way I have. In that moment I knew I loved him, and even more frightening, I felt he loved me. Then he was kissing me, kissing the tears in my eyes, my rain-washed face, my mouth. I smoothed my hands over his wet shirt, feeling the heat of his skin through the cloth. Our legs were tangled together, and for the first time in my life, no alarms went off in my head, no warnings told me to get myself out of there. In my mind, there was a peaceful silence, an acceptance. The warm, gentle rain drifted down on us, making me feel invisible, private, elemental.
&nbs
p; A line from an old song floated into my consciousness, and if I had been a real witch, I would have let it float over to Luc, all raw emotion and timeless melody. It went: I’m all for you, body and soul.
Clio
I yawned and stretched, smiling as I relived some of last night’s dreams. I had dreamed about Andre, how he looked as he came down to kiss me. I could practically feel him in my arms, feel his weight and his strength. He was perfection. It had killed me to have to leave him Friday night. Maybe today I could get away, and we could take up where we’d left off.
But first, breakfast. I could smell coffee—excellent. I rolled out of bed and headed out onto the landing. Nan’s bedroom was separated from mine by a short hall that led to the one upstairs bathroom. Our house is called a camelback shotgun: you could stand in the front door and shoot a gun, and the bullet could go out the back door without hitting anything in the four rooms in between. And it was a camelback because we had only two rooms upstairs to the four rooms below. The only-two-bedrooms factor was one of the main reasons I hated the idea of Thais coming to live here.
I had others.
Glancing into Nan’s bedroom, I saw her standing at the foot of her bed. She was completely dressed, which was unusual: Sunday was our traditional laze-around, get-a-slow-start day. I wandered in, then stopped in surprise.
Nan was packing a suitcase that lay open on her bed. Q-Tip was trying to climb into it—prime napping territory—and Nan lifted him out.
“Good morning, dear,” she said briskly, barely glancing at me.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing. There’s coffee made downstairs, but you’re on your own for breakfast.”
“Why are you packing? Are we going somewhere?” A nervous flutter started in the pit of my stomach. Nan had been acting oddly since right before we’d found out about Thais.
“Not you—just me,” she said, folding an Indian cotton top. She lifted Q-Tip out of the suitcase again and packed it.
“What’s going on?”
Nan’s calm, blue-gray eyes regarded me. “I need to go away for a while. I’m not sure how long. While I’m gone, you need to be extra careful, completely on guard. Don’t trust anything or anyone. If anyone gives you a message they say came from me, don’t believe them. If I need to contact you, I’ll do it directly.”
My mouth dropped open. “Where are you going? What’s happening?”
“I need to take care of some things,” she said. I saw that she had gathered some spellcraft supplies—crystals, small candles, essential oils, her copper bracelets. These she now put into a purple velvet bag and pulled the drawstring.
“ Tomorrow is Monday,” she said. “I expect you to go to school this week, complete the metal-study course we began, and go to your tutoring session with Melysa Hawkcraft on Tuesday.”
“You won’t be back by Tuesday?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I hope so, but I’m not sure. However, if I’m not back by Wednesday, I’ve left a letter for you in the cupboard in the workroom.” She gave me a wry, knowing smile. “Don’t bother trying to open it before Wednesday. It’s spelled—you won’t be able to. But come Wednesday, if I’m not back, you’ll read it and follow the instructions inside. Understand?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said uncertainly. I hadn’t told Nan about getting a knife pulled on me the other night—I didn’t want her to say I couldn’t go out at night with my friends or something. But now the fear of that night rushed back with all Nan’s cryptic warnings and instructions. I didn’t want her to go like this.
Except. I would have the house to myself.
Andre could come over. Scared was one thing I wouldn’t be feeling if he were here.
Nan came over and put her hands on my shoulders. Looking deeply into my eyes, she said, “You’ll be okay, Clio. You’re seventeen, and the house is spelled with layers of protection. Just watch yourself, refresh the spells every night before you go to bed, and everything will be fine.” She put her head to one side, considering. “Do you want me to ask Racey’s parents if you can stay over there for a few days?”
“Let me try staying on my own,” I said. “If I get too freaked out, I’ll go to Racey’s.”
“Okay.” Nan hefted Q-Tip out one last time and closed her suitcase. I followed her downstairs, still in my nightgown, feeling a rising excitement. I would have the whole house to myself! The situation was clouded by worry about what Nan was going to “take care of,” but still.
At the front door, Nan put down her suitcase and we hugged. I had a sudden, unreasonable fear that this would be the last time I saw her or hugged her; that from this moment on I was on my own. Sappy tears sprang to my eyes, and I blinked them back. Everything was fine—Nan said so. I would be fine, she would come back. I would have a fun little free holiday, and then she would return and our lives would go on as they had before.
I was sure of it.
“Well, that’s bizarre,” Racey said, frowning. She’d met me at Botanika after lunch. The morning, after Nan had left, had stretched out surprisingly long and quiet. I’d called Racey and left a message for Andre. He never answered his phone, it seemed. “And she didn’t tell you where she was going or for what?”
“Nope. She was going out of town, not just off to a job or something.” In Nan’s work as a midwife, she had been gone overnight before, but just in the city. “It was weird, a bit alarming, yet—not without possibilities.” I gave Racey a meaningful look.
Her eyebrows rose. “Like what?” she asked, her tone hopeful.
“A party, for starters,” I said. “Muchas fiestas. All manner of merriment.” I waved my hand expansively. “Blender drinks. Fun magick, depending on who we invite. Unbridled teenage mayhem.”
Racey’s face lit as various possibilities bloomed in her mind. “Sweet! How many people do you want to invite?”
“Enough to make it fun. Not so many that the neighbors will call the cops.”
“Okay. Let’s make a list,” said Racey, pulling a pen out of her purse. I grinned. Racey was always very big on lists.
“The usual suspects, I assume,” she said, busily writing. “And guys. I’ll ask Della and Kris and Eugenie for ideas.”
“Good. And let’s make margaritas,” I said. “And oh! Get this! I’ll do a dampening spell around the house so people outside can’t hear the noise from inside! Then we can have loud music!”
“Brilliant,” Racey said admiringly, writing it down. “And food?”
Just then my macramé purse started wriggling on the table. Racey glanced up. “Your purse is ringing,” she said briefly while I dug for my phone.
Its small screen said unlisted number. I clicked the answer button.
“Hello?”
“Hey, babe.” Andre’s voice made my skin tingle. “I got your message. What’s up? Do you think you can see me today?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said with feeling. Smiling hugely, I leaned back in my chair and tried to ignore how Racey’s face had assumed a look of careful neutrality. “I can see a lot of you. In fact, I’m giving a party tonight—just you, me, and forty of my closest friends. Can you come?”
“At your house?” Andre sounded surprised—I’d never invited him over before.
“Yep.” I gave him the address and directions on how to get there. Uptown isn’t built on a grid—the streets follow the curve of the river. “Like, at nine? And—maybe you can stay and help after everyone else has gone.” I was practically quivering with anticipation.
“Help with what?” Andre sounded wary.
I shrugged. “Anything that needs doing. After all, with my grandmother out of town, I’ll be on my own. I’ll need all the help I can get.”
I could almost feel his interest quickening over the phone. “Your grandmother’s out of town?” he asked. “Since when?”
“Since this morning. I didn’t even know about it till I saw her packing. She’ll be gone a couple days at least.” For right now, I put away all my
unease about when she was coming back. I would deal with it when the time came.
Andre was silent for a minute. “So you’re saying that your grandmother is out of town, leaving you alone in the house.”
“Uh-huh.” I took a sip of my drink, careful not to make slurping noises into the phone.
“And you, being the good granddaughter who gets home on time because you promised, are immediately seizing this opportunity to raise hell.”
I considered. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“And, tell me if I’m getting your meaning correctly, little Clio,” said Andre’s dark, delicious voice, “but are you suggesting that I stay with you after everyone has left, to, um, help you with . . . something?”
I could hardly breathe. The minute the front door closed after the last person, I was going to rip his clothes off. “ That’s right,” I managed to get out.
“Well, well, well,” he said, his tone making my heart beat faster. “That sounds like a very good idea. I would love to stay later and help you—with anything you want.”
With great self-control I avoided whimpering. “ Terrific,” I said, trying to sound together. “Anytime after nine.”
“Can I bring anything? Besides myself ?”
“Um, let’s see.” I thought quickly, glancing at Racey’s list. “Can you bring some tequila? For the margaritas?”
“It will be my pleasure.”
My eyes shut slowly and I swallowed. “Okay,” I said, barely able to speak. “See you then.” I clicked off my phone and took some deep breaths, as if recovering from running.
Racey was watching me shrewdly from across the table. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “Let me guess. He is, by some miracle, going to take you up on your offer.”
I regarded my best friend. “How come you don’t like him?” There, it was out in the open.
Racey looked taken aback. “I never said I didn’t like him. It’s just . . . you’re moving awful fast. You don’t really know him.”