“Well,” I sigh, trying to clear my head. It’s hard to think with her staring at me like that. Her porcelain skin glows in the darkness, just enough to see her clearly. The fucking Moon, I groan internally. What have you done this time, Alandra? Ignoring the sound of my subconscious self-deprecation, I explain B’s name. “Beelzebub, as I’m sure you know, is the name of a very specific, nasty demon. I wouldn’t name my familiar after him, in case speaking his name that often gave him a foothold in my home. Beezlebub though,” I enunciate his name carefully, focusing on the subtle difference in pronunciation. “It matched B’s personality without making my mom uncomfortable.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Luna laughs. “It’s the same name.”
“It isn’t,” I groan. “Go to bed.”
“Are you bossing me around, Little Witch?” Her voice isn’t severe but a pang of anxiety still sears my poor brain. What a damn day. I summoned the moon. The Moon is laying in my bed. And she has a smart ass mouth. Can I get an attitude with her? Will she smite me?
“Yes.” I decide it’s easier to treat her like any other annoying woman in my life. “Go to sleep. You stole the bed, you might as well use it.”
As I shimmy against my pillow again, trying to get comfortable, the bed squeaks and groans. “I’m not a thief.” Luna shifts again, sending the bed into another fit of rage.
I roll my eyes, trying to embrace the silence, but Luna’s annoyance permeates everything in the room.
“What is it like being a Celestial? Is there something specific I should call you?”
“Luna is fine. Being a Celestial is just like being a witch, I think,” she laughs. “Humans think you feel different than they do, yes?”
“I guess so.”
“But you’re not so different. What’s normal for you is just different than their normal, that’s all. It’s the same for Celestials and witches.”
I blink up at the ceiling, contemplating that. She has a point. Jess had asked me on multiple occasions what being a witch was like and I never really had an answer for her. Then again, I thought it might be due to me being the world’s worst witch.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know if I apologized before, but I am sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you here and I don’t know why you can’t get home. We’ll fix it, I promise.”
“I have no doubts, Alandra,” Luna whispers. Hearing her say my name does unseemly things to my insides. My stomach clenches, the skin tensing underneath my flat palm. She oozes power. Even I can feel it rolling off of her in waves and I’ve never been hyper-sensitive to magic before. Everything she says—even the sassy comments—seems to drip with power.
Now that the initial shock is wearing off, and the fact that a Celestial being is lying in my bedroom is sinking in, I’m faced with a healthy dose of fear. I know she could probably snap me out of existence if she wanted to.
“Your unease is unsettling me, please stop worrying over whatever it is.”
“Oh, right, sorry.” She’s an empath? Pulling the thin blanket up under my chin, I try to focus on anything other than the fact that I’ve probably pissed off the most powerful being I’ll ever meet. “What’s the Celestial realm like?”
“Well, there isn’t one Celestial realm, there’s one for each of us. We each have to manage our portion of creation. You sound really uncomfortable down there, just come up here, already.”
I blink, swallowing slowly. “What?”
“Just come lay in your bed, I promise I won’t bite.” Is that sarcasm? Even though it’s ridiculous, I cringe as thoughts of all the people sacrificed to the Celestials over the eons flash through my mind. Maybe she does bite.
“Uh, okay,” I mumble, grabbing my pillow. As I sit up, I notice that Luna is already on the opposite end of the bed, laying on her side. Everything about her exudes confidence, but I suppose if I was a Celestial, I’d be confident, too. She’s absolutely comfortable, her head lounging gracefully across the side of her arm, her other hand cupping her smooth hip where it rises away from her torso. Letting out a breath, I crawl onto the bed, placing the pillow how I want it.
“There, now,” Luna murmurs. “My home is beautiful, that’s what you wanted to know, yes?”
“What’s it like there?”
“It’s colorful but muted. The world is different than what you’re accustomed to, I think, unless Earth has changed unimaginably in the past few thousand years.” She squirms down into the bed between sentences, letting out a heavy breath. “The grass grows purple there, a beautiful light shade of lavender that compliments the night sky. Moon blossoms grow everywhere, on everything. You’d think of them like a weed, but they’re too beautiful to contemplate removing. Music from Elysium drifts in and out of ear shot, the prayers and spells of mortals do the same. It’s eternally night, but not dark. I don’t know how to explain it, really.” She sounds entranced, like she misses home already.
“It sounds beautiful.”
“It is, Alandra, truly. I’d say I’d show you, but we don’t bring mortals into the Celestial realms anymore.”
“Why not?” My nose scrunches up at her comment. Are Celestials prejudiced?
“A very long time ago, your kind betrayed mine. We still love you. We’re still linked irreparably by the magic this universe sprouted from, but we’ve never been able to recover from that betrayal.” Her face falls into a passive frown, her eyes sliding shut.
“What did we do?”
“Do they not teach you the history of your own kind?” She yawns, covering her mouth as her sleepy voice drifts between us.
“Well, I think I’d remember a story about our entire race pissing off another entire race. Our problematic history with humans hasn’t been hidden—”
“Were you a good student?” Luna asks, an amused smile quirking her lips.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
I roll over to my other side, facing away from Luna, and pull the blanket up over my shoulder. The house isn’t drafty but something about knowing it’s cold outside makes me want to snuggle into a cocoon of blankets and disappear until spring. It always has.
The sound of soft, even breaths breaks up the silence in the room and I smile to myself. The Moon sleeps, how cute. There’s a lot I don’t know about the Celestials, apparently. I wonder if other witches my age realize they’re like actual people, with bodies. Gorgeous bodies.
As my mind stumbles over that pervasive thought, a slender arm snakes around my waist and a new warmth presses against my back. I freeze, unsure of how to react.
Luna lets out a tiny sigh, the most adorable fucking sound I’ve ever heard and I close my eyes. She’s still asleep. The Moon sleeps and likes to snuggle. A smile tugs at my lips as I chase the darkness behind my lids.
My fingers graze the top of the tall, billowing, lavender grass. It tickles my thighs as I walk across an empty plain. Every few feet, a silver flower stands proud, glistening in the glowing atmosphere.
There’s no light in the sky above me. No sun. No moon. Millions of stars twinkle brighter than I’ve ever noticed before and my chest races as I reach out for them, wondering if I can touch one. What looks like glitter rains down from the sky when my fingers brush against the twinkling black night. I brush the strange substance from my shoulder and laugh.