First Kiss (18 page)

Chapter Fifteen

“Show me something you loved as a kid.”
Sam says in my ear.

I smile, “Uhm . . . well. My favorite
thing was . . . uh.” It’s there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t remember
it. I shake my head, “There was a . . . that’s strange. Beyond the castle and
my house and the land around our estate, I don’t remember anything. I don’t
think I went anywhere.”

The words leave me puzzled. He must
think I’m a freak, again.

He rubs my arms, “We can find new
places together. Make new memories.”

I nod, but the feeling like there
should be more doesn’t leave me.

The cabin comes into view just as I am
about to hop off the horse, throw in the towel, and die in the forest because
my butt is so sore. I look around at the woods and try to muster even an ounce
of memory of this place, but there is nothing.

I do not remember this land, not the
way I should.

I pull on the horse’s reins. Sam nudges
the horse, “We can rest later. Let’s just find it.”

I look back at him, “This is it.”

He looks around, “This crappy spot in
the forest is your aunt’s house?”

I scowl, “Dude, the cabin. You don’t
see the cabin in the woods?”

He grins, “You said dude—you’re
still here.”

I roll my eyes, “Focus. Of course I’m
still here.”

“Then no. I don’t see a cabin, you must
be using your super-power goggles.” I hop off the horse and walk towards it,
cramping and trying not to fall with my jelly legs. I point at the small little
cottage, “You cannot see this?”

He shakes his head, “No. But if you
don’t remember the way, how do you know the invisible cabin is the right one?”

I turn and look at it, feeling the
puzzled look on my face. How do I know it is the one? How did I ride us here
perfectly?

I walk to the cabin and knock on the
door, “Aunt Cecile, it’s me.”

The small wooden door feels like it’s
out of a fairy tale. Snow White walked through a similar one to see the
dwarves, I’m sure of it. I knock again. I’m about to walk around and peek in a
window, when it opens a crack. An older version of my mother, like IDENTICAL,
stares at me through the gap. “Bay?”

I smile, “How are you?”

Her mouth drops, she looks scared for a
second, and then she slams the door in my face. Guess that wasn’t the way my
sister greeted her.

I look back at Sam who is off the horse
and stretching his legs. The door opens again and she looks at me, long and
hard. I feel like I’m up for auction and she’s checking the quality, “How,
Lynnie?”

I shrug, “Made a magic mirror show me
the way home.”

She sighs, “How did you know?”

I step back, ready to cry. There is
nothing quite like the tiresome
feeling of being greeted like
you are
about to spread the apocalypse with a smile, by every family
member.

She closes her eyes, “How did you
know?”

I take a step back, “It doesn’t matter.
I can see you’re about as excited to see me as my sister and father were. Screw
you all.” I turn and walk to where Sam is. I grab the horse by the reins. Sam
scowls, “What’s the deal?”

I am so close to tears, I cannot speak.
I shake my head softy and lead the horse away. Sam screams as Cecile runs at
me. She grabs my arm, pulling me into her embrace.

She smells like my mother.

I collapse into a ball of tears. She
wraps herself around me, “Forgive me, child. We worked so hard and gave up
everything to keep you safe, and you’ve gone and walked right into the lion’s
den.”

I sob harder.

Sam grabs her, pulling her off of me. I
don’t see what he does, but she cries out. I can hear his breath as he rages on
her. “She has been beaten daily, locked in closets, tortured mercilessly, kept
as a slave and alienated by everyone in our town except the kids our age. She
hasn’t seen a single second of family love since her mother hanged herself. She
is alone in the world, and none of her family here has welcomed her back. None.
No one. This is insanity. If a member of my family was separated from us for a
decade, I would have been worried sick about them, not acting like I couldn’t
give a shit!”

I look up to see her stunned face. She
turns to me, “He defends you, like he loves you?”

I nod as he tosses her back, away from
us both, “I do love her. I’m the only one who even knows her.” He turns and
looks at me—his eyes are wild. “I do love you. Let’s leave now. Come home
with me and let me love you. Be the love of my life. You won’t ever suffer
another day. We can’t stay here. I can’t watch them treat you like this. I’ve
already watched you suffer for too long.”

My eyes are filled with tears, happy
ones. I sniffle and nod, taking his hand and standing. I look at my aunt, “Burn
in hell, all of you.” I turn away with him. He pulls me to the horse but we
both stop, as if we can’t move farther. I try to lift my leg but it stays where
it is, planted on the ground. I look back at her; she cackles perfectly like
she is Maleficent and about to turn into a dragon. She points at me, “How did
you make a regular love you?”

I look at him, “I never made him do
anything.”

“Have you never heard the legend about
us?”

“No.” I swallow hard as a cool breeze
flits across my cheeks. “No, let us go.” I shiver, realizing it’s his hands
that are freezing me. He is frozen. He is not moving or breathing. He is like a
marble statue but in color.

I pull my hand from his, grabbing his
thick arm, “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“Saved him. He can’t come inside and he
can’t stay in the woods alone. He’s safe that way. No one can see him but
me and you,
and no one can touch him. Bring your horse to my
stable in the back and come inside. We have a lot to discuss.” She turns and
leaves me there. I look down at my feet, taking a step towards Sam. I reach up,
running my hands down his
perfectly-frozen
face. His
hard cheeks are soft and cool. “I’ll be back in a minute and I’ll make her fix
you.”

I grab the horse’s reins and pull him
to the back of the cottage. The small stable holds one horse already. I put
mine in a stall with fresh water and hay. She must have seen me coming, seen
Baylor though—not realizing it was
me
.

I walk around the side of the cottage,
running my fingers along the wooden planks making up the siding. I know this
place, somehow. I open the wooden door and step into a place that seems much
larger than it is from the outside and considerably finer than I would have
expected.

“Deceiving house.”

She smiles from a pot over the
wood-burning stove, “I like to keep appearances up.”

I don’t know if I should sit or stand
or leave altogether.

“Have a seat.”

I walk to the chair she points to and
slowly lower myself, expecting it to be like the cartoons and grow arms,
trapping me there. Instead, it welcomes me. The chair is soft and comfortable.

“What do you know?”

I shake my head, “Not a damn thing.”

She smirks, “Baylor never told you
anything?”

“Nothing useful.”

She sighs, “Well, let’s start at the
beginning then, shall we?”

“That would be an exciting change to
the pace I’m getting used to. No one is ever straight with me. Everyone is
treating me like I could go off at any second.”

She nods, “I know that feeling. You and
I have that in common.” She sits but the large wooden spoon continues to stir
the pot, on its own.

She sits across from me in the chair
and nods, “When I was a girl, I discovered our family is cursed. Every couple
generations, a witch is born—a black-blooded witch.”

“What’s that?”

Her right
eyebrow cocks,
“A witch that can do both black and white magic. Most witches are stuck with
one or the other. But we can swing both ways. We are the only ones who ever get
caught and killed. We have limited control over our magic; it’s explosive and
destructive, and when it goes off we pay
the
 
consequences
.”

“And I am like you?”

She nods, “You are. But that’s getting
ahead of the story.”

I smile, “Sorry.”

“My mother discovered my black blood
when I was seventeen. She arranged my marriage then, quickly before anyone
found out what I was. My husband was dead within the year.”

My stomach drops, “The curse is real?”

Her eyes narrow, but she ignores my
interruption. “I was sent home to live with my family, unsuspected of killing
him. He died in his sleep at a hunting lodge in the mountains.
The young woman who was in his bed died also.
They assumed
the food at the lodge had been
bad,
both had eaten the
same meal. I was too far away to be considered and with too many witnesses to
be blamed.”

I don’t need to ask if she killed him;
I can tell she did.

“I went to live with my parents, rich
and widowed. I spent my days happily. I went to the lake to swim that summer,
and when I was underwater, I could swear something sang to me. I got up out of
the water and couldn’t hear it. But when I dunked my head again, there it was.
I asked my mother and she brought me an old journal of her aunt’s. I sat with
her and read some of it. We did not see the same things on the pages. Where I
could read one thing of great importance and desperate secrecy, Mother read
something simple and unimportant.”

I frown, “The writing was magic?”

She shakes her head, “The book. Only
ones such as you and I can read it. Baylor and your mother could never read it.
We discovered your black blood when you were ten years old. We knew you would
be a witch—all women in our family are. We never knew you would be like
me.” Her green eyes burn with excitement.

“How—when I was ten?”

She cackles again, “You cursed your
betrothed.”

“Bash?” His name leaves my lips like a
secret. I almost shake my head, but I wait it out. Perhaps there is an
explanation.

“You cursed him by bringing out an old
gene trait our family helped them be rid of hundreds of years ago. The werewolf
was a plague in their family for hundreds of generations. We saved them from
it. That’s how we got into society and protected our family. The day you did it
was awful. You overheard him discussing your sister and how beautiful she was.
He could only pray you turned out like her in looks, but that the charming
monster you were would vanish with age. You were so angry. You drew a picture
of him both ways and burned it, blowing the ashes into the western winds. I
know we never taught you that. It was then that I realized you had read it in
the book you had seen here on one of your many visits.”

I cover my face with my hands, “Oh
God.” It feels true. It doesn’t feel like a lie.

She nods, “It was a tragedy but we
saved him. Baylor used her white magic and painted a portrait of him.
One that made it so his changes would only happen when enraged.
If he could control his temper, he would be the man in the portrait. He won’t
age until she changes the portrait and ages him, but it is better than changing
every time the moon is high in the night’s sky.”

“Oh God. Baylor was saving him? He
thought she was cursing him. He thinks Bay painted the portrait and that’s why
he changed.”

She nods, “We know. It’s why we sent
him to the other world. Your mother searched time and space for a curse like
ours. She could only put you into a family like ours. She couldn’t risk your
magic being sparked by love. She needed you
raised
aware of what you were, and the terrible dangers you had lurking inside of you.
She found one, a family where the women kill the men they love and destroy the
world around them.
The poor Lochlan women of Lakeland.
The curse was nothing, not even real but the whisperings of the fools in the
town made it strong. We created the portal, and planned to take you and Bastion
and his servant there. She would settle you into a life and come back. She took
Bastion, in hopes that in a world with no real werewolves, he might not change
and would instead heal. But he did change, the night that Bay painted him. We
knew we had to move up our plans, leave before the baby was born. That was the
last I heard from her.”

My guts are burning and my heart is
throbbing in my chest, feeling the wounds I have inflicted.

“I’m dangerous?”

She nods, “Especially to men who love
you. They are always the ones who die first. Your anger and jealousy are
intense. One mistake and the man
is
dead. That’s why
we sent you away. You are dangerous. All the ladies of the Loch kill the men
who love them.”

I look down, “Is there any way to fix
it?”

She shakes her head, “I have searched long and hard, Lynnie.
The curse on the black blood comes from an old legend. The translation is
roughly, ‘There is a house at the end of an empty road, where many a man have
lost their soul. Sweetest love's first kiss is enough to guarantee the payment
to the dead. It was there in the mist and the warmth of her embrace, I met my
end. I shall never rest again. Nor shall any man who gives his heart to a lady
of the Loch.”