“Hold on there. I never said I didn’t want to meet your sister and you know it.” I leaned back, crossing my arms. “All I said was that I was nervous. Don’t you dare put words in my mouth.”
“All right, all right. But you act—”
I leaned forward, almost accidentally sticking my boob in my lasagna. “Stop right there. I am acting like what I am: A woman nervous about meeting her boyfriend’s family because she’s worried they won’t like her. Did it ever occur to you that the reason I’m nervous is because our relationship matters to me? Because you matter to me? Because I don’t want to disappoint them when I meet them?” I glared at him.
Killian froze, then slowly deflated from the puffy stance he had adopted. “I didn’t think of it like that.”
“Well, I’d appreciate it if you would start looking at it from my perspective.” I sighed and picked up my fork. “I just don’t want to feel like a failure or like I’ve let you down.”
“Love, I’m sorry,” he said, wincing as he reached across the table for my hand. “I would never look at you like a failure. Even if my family didn’t like you, I wouldn’t blame you—unless you came out and called them names, or acted like an ass, and I know you too well to think you’d do that.”
“Oh, for…eat your dinner,” I said, gently disengaging my hand. “I’m too tired to argue over a misunderstanding.” A thought occurred to me and I checked my phone. “Well, sure enough, we entered Mercury retrograde a couple days ago. Misunderstandings, miscommunications, don’t sign contracts unless you read them carefully, watch appliances because they go on the fritz…all sorts of good stuff like that.”
Killian nodded, shoveling a forkful of lasagna in his mouth. He was a Taurus, born on May 8, and stubborn as the bull that was his sign, but he also had a good head on his shoulders and he was reasonable when someone pointed out his flawed thinking.
“Ah, that explains it,” he said. “My sister always has problems with misunderstandings and electronics during Mercury retrograde.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I really am sorry, January. I didn’t intentionally misunderstand what you said.”
“I suppose I could have been a little clearer, too. I really am looking forward to meeting Tally. I just hope she likes me.” I perked up again, feeling like we had just solved another minor roadblock on the path to what I hoped would be true love.
“She will,” Killian said, perking up. “My sister and I have always tended to like each other’s friends. Okay, so what are we doing tonight?”
“I’m taking a long bubble bath and then…” I paused. I loved having sex with Killian, but tonight I felt too tired, yet wired at the same time. I kept glancing over at Great-Grandma’s book of shadows. “I kind of just want to read her diary, if you don’t mind. It’s been a long day.”
Killian sighed, but it sounded like a sigh of relief. “Not a problem. I’m actually beat, too. Do you mind if I spend the night at my house? I want to do some laundry and I’ve got a bunch of email to answer and—”
I laughed, serving myself another helping of lasagna. “It’s okay. We don’t have to spend every moment together—really. I love our time together. I really like being with you. But we’re not glued at the hip, and we don’t have to do everything together. Life would be boring if all we wanted to do were the same things. I’m not a clingy woman.”
He smiled then, broad and wide, and it made me rethink whether I was too tired for sex, but once again, I felt weary so I shook my head, beaming at him, and we finished our dinner in comfortable silence.
After Killian helped me rinse the dishes and stack them in the dishwasher, he again made certain the attic was closed up before he headed home. I watched him go, grateful that he had moved in next door. I not only enjoyed dating him, but I liked having him for a friend.
I shrugged into a jacket and headed out to my backyard. As usual, the Mystic Wood was lit up like a tree on fire—or a hundred trees on fire. The golden-green aura of the magical woodland was brilliant tonight. Not everyone could see it, but most of us who were witchblood could.
I slowly crossed the lawn to where I was standing about twenty yards from the tree line. I scanned the border where my property met the forest, looking for anything that might be lurking in the shadows. There was some sort of imp in there—her name was Rebecca, or rather, that’s the name she had given me when I was a child and she tried to lure me away from my mother. I had seen her once since I had been back in Moonshadow Bay, but I had promised that if she left me alone, I’d leave her alone. I didn’t like that she was in the wood, but I had the feeling I could do more damage to her at this point than she could to me.
I stared up at the tops of the trees. They were budding out, the green tips swelling. Soon they’d burgeon out into leaves, and the conifers would be interspersed with the spring green of birch and alder and cottonwood leaves. My yard was fenced, half an acre that was surrounded by trees on both sides and the Mystic Wood at the back. The trees that bordered the fencing on either side of the house and yard included two massive cedar trees and a number of fir, one sequoia that jutted its way far into the sky, and a weeping sequoia that reminded me of some lurching long-haired creature from out of an enchanted fairytale. I also had a number of rowan and lilac trees, a holly tree, and several maple trees. They, too, were budding, and I looked forward to the heady scent of lilacs in two or three months.
All in all, the yard was beautiful and the house well-kept, and the only thing that kept me from truly loving it was that I now owned it, which meant my parents were dead. But I wasn’t about to sell it to some stranger who might cut down my mother’s row of hydrangeas that lined the right side of the house, or who might sell to a developer who would parcel it out into tiny lots with mega-mansions on it. We were lucky in Moonshadow Bay, because there were some strict ordinances in place to ensure that developers wouldn’t tear the town to pieces in search of the holy grail filled with dollars. So throughout the years, the town’s quirky charm remained intact.
As I stood by the edge of the wood, I felt a gentle pulse from the pentacle I wore around my neck. It had a faceted obsidian cabochon in the center, and it had belonged to my mother. I wore it because it felt right, and because Esmara had told me to. I reached up and closed my hand around it, shutting my eyes, feeling the chill breeze sweep over me. I could smell the bay on the wind—the scent of seaweed and salt, of brine and decay. Even here, the incoming tides brought the smell of the Salish Sea inland, and seagulls flew overhead, a constant in the town, singing their melancholy songs.
I crouched, pressing my hands to the ground, feeling the slow beat of the earth through my fingers. I had recently found out that my aunt had pledged me to Druantia, an earth goddess, when I was little. She had done so in order to protect me from the shadow man who tried to steal away my life while I was in her care. In a recent meditation, Druantia had offered me the chance to break that pledge if I wanted, but I let it stand. I wasn’t sure what being pledged to her meant, but the connection felt right. She was part of the earth’s heartbeat, and through her, I felt linked to the natural world around me.