Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 1 (23 page)

"Don't mind us," Al
said holding up his hands in a faux peaceful gesture.

Roy buried his face in
his right hand. Aradia shrugged his left one off her shoulders. She
didn’t mean to cause him further embarrassment, but she was
irritated with his behavior.

"C'mon D," said Al,
clapping his twin on the shoulder. "Let's leave the two little love
birds alone and go find ourselves some company."

"Ok," D said
cheerfully.

"We should follow
them," Roy muttered to their retreating backs. “It’d be fun to
watch them on the prowl.”

"Why?" Aradia asked
him.

"Well, I’m sure you’ve
noticed by now, Al is the ladies’ man. It’s funny seeing them out
together. D wouldn’t recognize an interested girl if she walked
right up and flashed him."

Aradia chuckled and
said, “Actually, I do think he would recognize a woman if she did
that."

"Don't be so sure," Roy
warned.

They both burst out
laughing.

Roy again put up his
best attempt at a seductive smile. "So...now that my brothers are
gone, we're all alone. You know what that means, right?"

"There’s actually a lot
of people in the diner," Aradia replied, still chuckling, but
hoping to dissuade him subtly from his obvious course of
action.

"Really?" said Roy
softly, as he reached out to cup her chin. “I hadn’t noticed at
all."

"Uh...Roy, what are you
doing?" Aradia asked him.

His only response was
to lick his lips and bring his face forward again. Aradia
considered her options. If she pushed Roy away, he would definitely
be hurt. If she went along with what he obviously wanted to do, she
would give him a false impression.

Yet, as Roy got closer
to her and she started to feel the heat from his face and even his
lips, Aradia began to wonder if what he wanted would really be
wrong at all. She leaned a fraction of an inch toward
him.

The bell hanging from
the entry door jangled as someone entered. Aradia could feel the
atmosphere change, and she jerked her face toward the sound. Her
eyes locked with Dax Dayton’s.

He stopped as soon as
he noticed Aradia sitting with Roy and Roy's arm around her
shoulders. Dax stared at Aradia who met his gaze with fierceness
and intensity equal to his. Everything just seemed to freeze,
leaving Dax and Aradia entranced, even as Roy’s arm rested on her
shoulders.

After what seemed
forever, but was only a few seconds, Dax smiled with charming
cockiness and winked before turning to the counter. Aradia gulped
and felt blood rush to her face. She imagined that with her red
hair and flushed face her head must look like a giant
strawberry.

After that, Dax went
through his regular routine. He purchased his daily Coca-Cola
bottle and left the diner without further interaction.

By then, Roy had
finally removed his arm and was sulking. Aradia didn’t notice any
of it until after Dax was gone. She turned back to Roy and saw the
look on his face.

"What's up, Roy?" she
asked.

Roy said nothing and
did not make eye contact.

She playfully punched
his arm. "C'mon, what’s with the sad face?"

Roy grunted.

"What, you want a belly
rub?" said Aradia laughing a bit.

She had meant it as a
joke, but Roy did not seem to see the humor.

He looked at her with
narrowed eyes and said, "I’m not your puppy, Rai, and I’m certainly
not a Twilight fan!"

"What?" Aradia asked,
sounding completely confused.

“You know what I mean!”
he snapped.

“No, I really don’t,”
she stumbled, confused. “I don’t read those kinds of books.
Um…”

"Talking to you is
either the easiest thing in the world, Aradia, or completely
impossible.”

“Just tell me what you
mean,” she pleaded.

“I mean I don’t
understand the idea of a beautiful, perfectly decent girl falling
for a vampire!"

"You think I’m
beautiful?" Aradia asked playfully.

"Aradia!" cried
Roy.

"Sorry!" Aradia
exclaimed. The look Roy gave her was so serious it rivaled even her
father’s.

Her own face grew
stony. "Roy, I really am sorry that you’re upset, but I don’t know
what your deal is."

Roy opened his mouth to
argue but Aradia cut him off. "Look, you said you don’t understand?
Allow me to explain some things. We’ve been through some stuff the
last couple days, but neither of us has talked about there being
anything between us other than friendship. Until we do, it’s none
of your damn business who I date, or don’t date, or find
attractive.”

“So you do find him
attractive,” Roy muttered.

“Yeah, I do!” she
replied emphatically. “I really do. Listen Roy, I do what I want,
when I want, anytime, and anywhere I care. You can’t do a damn
thing about it.”

Aradia stood up, shoved
her books into her backpack, slammed her hand on the table, and
concluded, “So there!” She stomped out of the diner.

Chapter
Seventeen

Roy let her go without
chasing her, and for that Aradia was grateful. If he had pressed
the point, she would have admitted that she did have feelings for
Roy which went beyond friendship.

“That doesn’t matter,
Rai,” she muttered to herself as she hurried away from the
SilverMoon. She didn’t have much experience in the romantic
department, but she knew it wasn’t fair to be with somebody if you
were constantly thinking about someone else.

Roy was sweet, kind,
good looking, and fun. They had a connection, and he was obviously
crazy about her. No matter how long a list of positive attributes
she came up with for Roy, though, she could not stop thinking about
Dax.

Aradia groaned in
frustration.

She’d left the diner
far behind. She had hurried past the school, around the Olde Salem
Golf Course, and was now at the edge of the Salem woods. She had
discovered a great number of trails and paths through the woods,
but that wasn’t what she wanted today. She plunged between the
trees, making her own way.

Once she was deep
inside the forest, completely alone and isolated, she stopped and
stood straight up. She took a deep breath, tasting the clean air
and its many different fragrances like pollen, White Pine,
wildflower, and rich, fertile dirt. As she inhaled and exhaled, she
thought over what she said to Roy. She especially remembered the
part where she had said she can do what she wants, when she
wants.

Her magic behaved like
a sort of nervous energy, which if she bottled up, would only make
her feel more stressed.
More stressed,
or explode
, Aradia thought to herself
with a snicker.

“To hell with it!”
Aradia cried out to the forest. The forest’s only response was the
fluttering wings of a woodpecker which was startled by her sudden
outburst. “I can show you better than that, Woody.”

She searched in all
directions to ensure she truly was alone. When her normal senses
confirmed it, she closed her eyes and extended herself into the
forest. This sensory power only worked away from civilization and
structures, and was most powerful when surrounded by life. So far
as she could feel, the only organisms in her vicinity were animals.
Eventually, she felt satisfied in her isolation.

She set her backpack
into a nook formed between two small boulders. It was a snug fit,
and she thought the stones would provide good protection for her
things. She then fished out her iPod touch and shuffled through her
music library.

“If I am going to show
off, I must have music,” Aradia spoke as she searched for the
perfect song. Finally, she found one that struck her fancy: an
Avril Lavigne song entitled “One of Those Girls.” She held her iPod
touch to her belt. After holding her hand over it and concentrating
for a minute, she managed to fuse it to her belt. She pumped up the
volume.

Mouthing along to the
words of the song, Aradia danced. She did a back flip and smiled at
the crunching of leaves and twigs when she landed. With a
mischievous smirk she did another back flip, but this time she
intentionally landed on a fallen tree, using her power to shear it
clean in two.

As the lyrics
progressed, she formed jets of fire from her hands, being careful
not to set the woods ablaze. She ran as fast as she could through
the foliage, and with each step felt deep into the earth beneath
her, sensing every living thing burrowing around in the soft soil.
Flame licked from her fingers through the swiftly swirling wind and
it seemed as if threads of golden silk were being spun from her
fingertips.

She waved her hands in
circles to alternately form small voids of darkness or balls of
light. When Avril Lavigne mentioned being high, Aradia saw a huge
tree and grinned. She ran towards it and jumped as high as she
could, grabbing hold of a branch at least fifteen feet off the
ground. In just a few seconds she climbed to the tree’s apex. The
day was clear, and from that height she could easily make out the
smokestacks of the Salem Harbor Power Station, and beyond that, the
Atlantic.

When the song got to
the word die, Aradia turned and held out her arms. Pushing off with
her feet, she fell backwards. As she neared the ground, she
actually slowed her descent, flipped, and landed on her feet as
swift and satisfied as a cat.

Then she turned and
darted off in the direction of Quiet Lake. She ran and launched
herself off the ground as if to dive into the lake, fully clothed,
in the middle of October. Once she reached the water, however, she
somersaulted along its surface and ran atop the softly lapping
waves. With every step the water underneath her feet froze into
thick, solid ice, creating any icy trail behind her.

Aradia managed to
maintain her balance. She even kept her shoes from getting wet. Her
iPod was now playing “Fighter” by Christina Aguilera. As the song
reached the chorus, Aradia stopped and stood on her ice plank. She
still stood on the ice, but waving her arms in a rhythmic motion,
she made the water around her rise and swirl. Using not only her
hands and arms, but her entire body, she danced, and the water
obeyed her every motion.

As the song reached its
climax, Aradia raced back towards land dragging a soaring tail of
water behind her. The wind ripped ferociously at the living waves,
and fire erupted from their crests as she ran faster and
faster.

The song was ending,
and Aradia truly cut herself loose. When her feet touched solid
land, the water and flames crashed about her, intermingling, and
she rode a wave of sand, dirt, and stone as a surfer would ride an
ocean wave on her board. The earth itself seemed to obey her will
in a way it never had before.

She wanted her finale
to be as grandiose as possible, and so she shot bolts of light and
darkness into the sky like ethereal fireworks.

Invigorated from her
workout, Aradia went back to get her stuff. She was feeling
energized, exuberant, and cheerful.

She had no idea that
only a few dozen feet away stood Dax Dayton, with his wavy blonde
hair as perfect as always, a completely mystified look on his face,
and an iPhone in his hand.

“Well now,” he murmured
to himself as he ended the video recording. He continued following
Aradia. He watched as she trotted off happily towards the road and
dialed her mother on her cell phone. “This just got a whole lot
more interesting.”

Chapter
Eighteen

That night, Mr. Dayton
watched the recording on his PC. Dax had burned it to a DVD for his
father. Both vampires’ faces remained impassive together they
watched Aradia shoot fire from her hands and not just walk, but
dance on water.

“You are quite certain
of this recording’s veracity?” Mr. Dayton asked when the screen
went blank.

Dax nodded. “I
am.”

Mr. Dayton knew Dax’s
loyalty, and decided he was in earnest.

He said, “It is a
difficult story to believe.”

In exasperation Dax
said, “You don’t believe me. You suspect I’ve altered the
recording. I guess I’ll just be on my bloody way.”

He turned to go, but
his father clasped him on his shoulder. “I did not say I don’t
believe you, son. No matter how difficult, I do believe your
story.”

Dax smiled. “To be
honest, I’m not sure I’d believe it if I had not seen it myself,
even with the video.”

“You have no idea what
this girl is?” his father asked. “Not even a suspicion?”

Dax shook his head.
“No. Nobody does. Not even her closest friends.”

“What about her
family?”

Dax shrugged his
shoulders. “My guess is they know about her powers, yes, but I
doubt even she knows what she truly is.”

“Hmmm,” is all Mr.
Dayton said in response.

Mr. Dayton showed very
little emotion, but Dax was able to note and read what little did
show through. His adopted father knew something, Dax was sure of
it. He was also sure that if his father wanted to share his
suspicions, he would.