First Kiss (10 page)

The master's lips make a tight crease as he stares, looking
heartbroken. Finally, he sighs, "We all want to go home. Your family’s
curse is not what you think it is. I wanted to tell you, but I knew you would
never believe me without proof.”

I can't believe what I'm hearing. I shake my head, "Why
did you trick me into coming here? Am I stuck here now too? Have you cursed me
as well? You didn’t think the curse I already had was bad enough? Am I
dead?"

“No, of course not. You are more alive than ever.” His
face lifts
, and for the first time, I really just see his
eyes. They're dark and pained. He shakes his head, "I am so sorry. I never
meant for you to be stuck here. We thought maybe you could help us, break the
curse. Just once, please, try asking the mirror how to get home or to show you
home."

I look at the mirror, “Show me the way home.” The mirror
fuzzes and shows me Mary’s bedroom. I nod, “That is my home. You may be a ghost
in a house, trapped in a bubble. But I am no one. Trust me.”

He looks upset, “I don’t understand. What room is that?”

“Mary’s house. My grandmother in Lakeland.”

He sighs, “I thought you were the key, you and this mirror.”

I nod once, letting his words sink in, "Because I am part
of the whole curse?"
His eyes narrow.
I sigh,
"My family being the Lakes, Lachlans, whatever. I am part of the cursed
family so you thought I could help you?"

He nods slowly, "Yes, indeed, but not the Lakes. That’s
what I’m trying to tell you . . . not the Lakes. You’re not a Lake."

I shake my head, still in a daze, "You’re wrong. Mary has
tried forever to say I am not her granddaughter. But I am. I am exactly like
them, cursed and doomed to live a tortured life. I can’t break your curse. I
can’t even break my own. I don’t have anything except the ability to wreck a
garden and make boys who kiss me die."

We both look around as the house starts to look decrepit
again. He flinches, "I can see that I am making this worse. You have to
remember on your own, like your sister said you would. I will leave you to mull
this over and see if you can’t find a solution to our problem. See if some
memories don’t find their way to you. I will see you at dinner." He turns
and leaves the room. I am alone and lost, more than normal. I still cannot
properly feel afraid, but my heart is pounding and my mouth is dry. My sister
told him that? He knew her? She was a baby when she died—he must be
mistaken. Of course, my mother came up here to die with them. Maybe she told
them about Rosie? No, that doesn’t even make sense.

A dark thought crosses my mind. What if they killed my mother?
What will I do? Will I be stuck here forever like them, frozen as a cursed
girl, or will they kill me too?

But even worse in my mind, what if I am not cursed? I think my
heart breaks
, but I can't be sure. Have I lived a
half-life, suffering under a curse that isn’t real?

Is it possible?

What if I am not a Lake, and I can make the mirror show me the
way home, the real way home? What if I have a home?
Typical
dreams of an orphan who has spent her life being feared and hated.
We
always try to see the magical answer that will free us and bring us the love we
crave.

No, I am a Lake monster, like all of the females in my family.
I get up, fleeing for the safety of my room. I lie there, letting the room
spin. How has it all come to be? I pick up the guitar from the corner and start
to play, singing Baylor. The song feels different when I sing it
here,
like the song was made for the house or the house was
made for me. As I sing, my room slowly becomes darker and more like it belongs
in an old haunted house.

One thing stands out more than anything else—who is he?
I swear I know him. The master is not someone I would have forgotten, and yet,
it seems I have.

I drift off to sleep
eventually,
plagued by bad dreams and the realization I have missed my birthday.
Does that make me nineteen or not?

Regardless of everything, I am leaving tomorrow.

Chapter Seven

A scream wakes me from sleep. I jump up, clutching the
blankets to my trembling body. The scream happens again. I jump from the bed,
running down the stairs in my nightgown. When I get to the bottom, I see the
front door is open. The snow glistens on the ground, but the air is warm and
smells of spring. I dash out into the snow in my slippers. Heidi is out in the
yard when I get there.

She looks back at me, her eyes growing fierce, "What have
you done?"

I shake my head, "What?"

She sobs, pointing at the forest. Tim is in a tree with huge
black wolves surrounding him. I run for the ax that is stuck in the chopping
block to the right.

She cries, "He is beyond the border. You can't get to
him."

I am out of breath and running, ignoring her, when I too cross
the border. I swing the ax, as if I have done it a thousand times. The wolves
see me, turning their attention from Tim. The first one lunges at me. I swing
my ax, hitting it in the jaw. It cries out and leaps to the side. The second
one comes at me but leaps away as I swing the ax again. I scream at them,
"YOU GET OUT OF HERE!"

They snarl and back away.

Suddenly Alex is there with a torch. He holds it out, waving
it at them. The wolves back away, while still giving us a deathly stare. I run
for the tree, holding my arms up, "Come down, quickly."

He cries and trembles as he makes an attempt to come down. The
wolves make a noise in the forest, stopping him in his tracks. He shakes his
head. I toss the ax at Alex's feet and climb the tree. The bark scrapes my
hands but I make my way to where he sits. I lift his chin, smiling at his teary
eyes, "You're safe. I promise."

He swallows nervously, looking about the forest. I wrap my
arms around him, kissing his forehead. He doesn’t melt into me the way Rosie
did. He is tense and awkward, like he doesn’t want me to hug him. I pull back,
"Ready to get out of the tree?"

He nods and starts climbing, I almost think as much to get
away from me. He jumps down, bolting for his mother's embrace. She drops to her
knees, hugging him and crying.

Alex gives me a glare, "The border is gone?"

I shrug, "What border? What does that even mean?”

He shakes his head, "We have never been able to leave
except on the fall equinox. The animals have never come in before."

I scowl, "What? How does the food get delivered
then?"

His eyes dart, "It doesn’t matter. Get back to working on
that curse, curse girl." He stalks off, putting the ax back on the
chopping block. I sigh and walk back to the house, glancing nervously in the
direction the wolves went. Why did Heidi ask me what had I done? What had I
done? I’d slept, hadn’t I?
I look around at the water
dripping off of the mansion and sigh
,
it is spring
.
The time moves too quickly, which if I'm honest, isn’t such a bad thing. Being
trapped in a weird house with the people and the curses for a whole year would
be death if time moved at real speed. I don’t know if it's me wishing away the
time, or if it just moves this quickly here. I watch them all walk away from me
and try hard not to hate them, or the house.

I am ready to leave this house and it’s nonsense and lies
behind. I don’t even care about the money anymore, but I do want the truth. I
need to know what he meant by my sister told him that. I don’t see how Rosie
could have told him anything.

I don’t understand anything, and I feel like an outsider for
the first time here, but I just need the truth. Then I can put this all behind
me. The money isn’t as important as my sanity.

I slip back into the house and walk to the study. I remember
the last time I felt happy, before this house. I run my fingers along the
mirror, "Show me Bash."

The mirror fuzzes out but nothing comes. There is no picture,
only my pale face and shiny red hair. Does that make him dead? My
stomach ache
is back. I sigh, "Show me Brandon."

The mirror instantly shows me what looks like a movie. Brandon
is walking down Main Street. He has his university hoodie on and he's laughing.
Sarah comes running over. She jumps into his arms, kissing him and pulling him
into the pub. Damn, they’re dating? The whole world has moved on.

"Show me Bash, please."

It has been nearly a year, even if it feels like a month to
me, and I cannot shake him. He has been there in my heart the whole time.

I frown
,
maybe
Bastion wasn’t his name
. Maybe he wasn’t Brandon's cousin. Maybe it was
a dream and he was never real. He was part of the curse, torture for my soul.
My poor damned soul.

"Show me Sam."

The mirror does its fuzzy thing and suddenly I see him. He
strolls down a sidewalk that must be in Boston. He looks so proper and strong.
His throat looks normal
,
the scarring is
minimal
. He walks, looking in the windows like he is shopping. He walks
into a store, a coffee house, and buys a coffee to go. Just one. He is still
single maybe.

I wonder if I ever really loved him, if it was more than a
crush. I suspect it was more than a crush, it lasted a decade. But since
meeting Bastion, there has only been one person in my heart.

"Show me the guy I can’t stop thinking about."

The mirror goes fuzzy again and instantly I see something odd.
Like I am looking through the eyes of someone behind me. My back and my shiny
red hair are there instead of a face. But then it clears more, and in the
mirror is Bastion's face, looking down on me. I turn and there is the master,
staring at me. His jaw drops, "What have you done?"

I look back at the mirror; Bastion’s reflection in it is
exactly as I remember him. I jump up and run to him but he backs away. I grab
his ragged face and pull it down, looking into his dark eyes. There I see it,
the same grey. I gasp, "How?"

He looks terrified or confused. He pushes me away, "Stay
back."

I drop to my knees, staring at the floor as he flees from the
room, making the whole house shake as his footsteps pound the wooden floors.

Bastion is the master.

The boy who saved me is the man who bribed me to stay here?

The shock
covers me for a moment as I try to see it all. The cousin who Brandon never
knew he had was only in Lakeland for less than a single week, before he
disappeared as quickly as he had come.

My stomach
aches and my heart hurts, but I can’t reach my feelings, not properly. I get up
from the floor, ignoring the tears streaming down my face, and run up the
stairs. I imagine it’s the way he has gone, but I don’t care. I have to see
what is in that room.

I burst
through the door on the left-hand side of the
hall,
with the wind blowing so hard I can barely stand against it.

The room
beyond the door is destroyed. There is nothing but broken furniture and
scratched walls. I look out the broken windows as the cold spring rain barrels
in. On the deck, I can see his back. He's shaking, maybe crying or
angry—I can’t tell. I glance about the room, seeing something I recognize
instantly. On the wall sits a flawless painting of Bastion. No scars and no scratches.
His hair is perfectly coifed and his face is handsome. He looks regal and old
fashioned in it. I walk towards it, fingers out and shaking. I lift my hand,
brushing it against the painting.

I know the
work. I recognize it beyond the handsome face in the painting. I swear, I have
seen it before; I watched it being painted. I swear it. My thumb brushes along
the bottom lip and I can almost taste the kiss.

"WHAT ARE
YOU DOING? HAVE YOU NOT CAUSED ENOUGH PAIN?"

I jump as he
walks to me. His body shakes and trembles. I cower, not bold and cocky anymore
but scared and confused. "What is this? How am I here? Why didn’t you tell
me who you were? Why are you so weird with me now? You slept in my room at
Mary’s. You defended me to-to-to everyone. WHAT IS THIS?" The words leave
my quivering lips in sobs and shaking screams.

He drops to
his
knees,
still shaking and shivering,
"Leave."

“You knew she
stole my money? That’s how you knew I needed money for New York. You brought me
here and bribed me on purpose. Did you give Mary my money? Did you kill my mom
when she came up here?” I lean into his
face,
I want
to see the truth in his eyes. But when his face lifts, his eyes are yellow and
frightening. His face ripples as though it’s made of water, "RUN!"

I see teeth
first, sharp and jagged. The wind blasts me through the window as he screams
for me to run again. I am up and out the door before he can finish the word
run. The door slams behind me. I run to the mirror, desperate to see what I
cannot behind the door. My knees scrape along the floor, "Show me the guy
who I can’t stop thinking about.”

I do not cry.
I do not whimper. I do not make a sound as I watch his flesh stretch and rip
from his body, as he shifts into a creature so hideous, I cannot bear to take
my eyes from it.

He is a
monster and a mess.

Master
Monstreau.

I watch as he
leaps from the window, howling in the yard and sprinting off into the woods.
There are no words to explain the feelings I maintain for him, nor the
confusion I feel. I curl into a ball and watch as he runs through the dark
woods. I watch him until I cannot stay conscious.

I wake, not
realizing I have slept. My face is sticky with drool and my back aches from the
floor in front of the mirror. I know I watched him until my eyes fluttered and
my heart fully broke. He had downed a deer and eaten it like an animal might
have.

His temper and
scars make sense. His strength to carry me so many blocks from the school that
day makes sense. But what he is makes no sense at all. I cannot wrap my head
around it.

I push myself
up and am about to ask the mirror to see him, but he is there. He is staring at
me from the mirror. He is whole and normal and Bastion, the way I remember him.
When I turn, I see the dark eyes of the scarred man I have come to love in a way
I cannot understand.

Tears fill my
eyes when I see the way he looks at me. I look back at the mirror; is he in the
room for real or am I hallucinating?

"You
prefer that version of me?"

My mouth opens
and my answer surprises me, "I prefer the truth. If what you are in the
mirror is a lie, then I prefer the man with the scars."

He smiles,
"Don’t say things like that. You make all of this harder."

I turn away
from the perfect guy, choosing to see the man with the outside that matches my
inside. "What do I make harder? What are you and why am I here? What is
this house? What is your real name? Why doesn’t the mirror show me you, when I
ask for Bash? Who are you?"

“My name is
Prince Bastion.” He laughs, "I am a werewolf and a prince, you are a witch
from an evil bloodline, and this house is your sister’s spell."

I frown,
"What? My sister is dead, you ass—and she was only a few years old
when she died. She wasn’t a witch. My family’s curse isn’t my fault. Whatever
someone in my family did to you, is not my fault and it was not
me
. My mother came up here and died. Now I want the truth,
and I want it now. Start from the beginning."

He nods,
"A year ago, I came to you in hopes of winning you over and getting you to
come and help free us. I changed my mind when I saw how horrible your life was.
I realized then, you had no memories of before and were most likely unable to
help us. Your sister, in the wind, told us you wouldn’t remember but that it
would come back to you as the power of your family filled you. But then I met
you. You were sweet and nothing like them. I knew you were not the thing we
were looking for. I knew you were an innocent person, free of the evil of your
family, and less likely to find our cure.”

“My sister in
the wind? Rosie? You can feel her too?”

He nods, “If
that’s her name. She never told us her name. Just that she was your sister and
trying to help you help us. You see
,
we believe we
need the dark arts to break the dark curse. I don’t think it makes you less of
a witch. Your affect on the house proves your magic, but I believe your heart
to be pure. When I gave up and came home empty-handed, Lance came for you. He
has a wife and child he has not seen this last ten years; he was desperate.”

“One thing at
a time. You’re losing me. Who the hell is Baylor?”

“Your sister,
my brother’s fiancé, or rather wife now. We have been here ten years; I imagine
she has gotten her wicked way and is married to my brother, who is now king of
our people.”

My mouth drops
open but nothing comes out. He sighs, “I wanted you to free us, free me. Every
fall equinox, we get a week to roam from the borders.
Almost
as if the magic can’t be contained for that week.
The house changes
randomly and the borders are gone. Normally, we try to explore a bit and look
for ways to get home. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d had pizza in Bangor. I
had. But this was the first time in ten long years that as the borders randomly
dissolved in the spring—at the same time they did, so did my scars.
Usually, I stay hidden in the carriage as we travel in the fall, trying to find
our way home. People can’t see it, for whatever reason. The carriage is hidden
from the rest of the world.” He runs a hand across his face, “Anyway, when I
knew I could see you without frightening you, I fled to the town. I hoped
meeting me would spark your memory. I reached Brandon’s parents’ store first.”
A subtle smile crosses his lips, “The wind whispered a lie to me—a story.
She said, when I met Brandon, he and his family would believe it. She had
worked on it already with glamour and it would buy me the time I needed to find
you.”