Page 51 of The Witching Hours

After Thanksgiving Mr. Caras and I agreed to meet after school at the back of the auditorium where the drama department was rehearsing another groan-worthy play. Sitting in the back row with the lights dimmed, Mr. Caras told me he’d consulted with a family member who had extraordinary gifts. She’d said involving Spades would be unnecessarily messy and might even spill over into our reality in ways that couldn’t be explained away. Her alternative was something drinkable that she’d created and sent in a small blue glass bottle. He didn’t know if it would rightly be called charm, potion, or magic concoction, but he did seem to have faith that it would work.

Instructions were simple. Drink down to the last drop. There’d be no effects other than desired outcome. The characters might or might not disappear from our reality, but they would leave me alone for at least a decade. Maybe longer.

At fifteen, decade is a synonym for eternity. I took the bottle and drank it all despite the unpleasant taste.

“Ugh!” I said.

Mr. Caras smiled. “Good for you, Miss Campbell. Now you and I can both get back to our real jobs without worrying about dimension jumpers.”

That piqued my curiosity. “Dimension jumpers? Is that what you call them?”

He shrugged. “It’s one way of describing this phenomenon. I sincerely hope you’ll be free and unmolested to live your life without pesky intruders.”

When a month passed without a single sighting, the constant tension I’d learned to live with began to ease and I gradually made the adjustment to feeling and acting ‘normal’. My thanks to Mr. Caras were profuse and profoundly sincere.

I was free. And young enough to forget there’d been a caveat regarding an expiration date.

My love story resembles a blockbuster romance novel. I met my husband on the Greek island of Santorini. We were both traveling alone to get over bad breakups. We did that thing that everybody says not to do. We rushed into a reckless rebound, embraced it, and what do you know? It worked out. At least we think so.Knock on wood.We were two years into the honeymoon period, which is purported to last only one year, and I’m old enough to be conscious about savoring every minute of good times. Because, as we all know, the only constant in life is change.

Greek tourism marketing had done its job on me. I’d been sucked in by the posters of a mountainside fairytale town of white buildings and dome roofs the same blue as the Aegean Sea below. Fuchsia bougainvillea in full bloom appeared in the foreground of breathtaking photos, so that the impression was one potential version of heaven.

After due diligence, I concluded that the optimal time to go was the end of September on the cusp of October. Few tourists. Little rain. Locals who were glad to have you there.

I’d accumulated enough travel miles to claim a first-class ticket to Athens. I took a chance that the flight on a 787 Dreamliner really would decrease jetlag like the pros say and looked forward to sleeping peacefully in my own roomy stretch-out pod while flying high across the Atlantic Ocean in pitch darkness. Arriving refreshed in Athens at 9:30 AM meant I could catch a ferry to Santorini, spend the day relaxing in a lounge chair imagining Odysseus or Jason and the Argonauts sailing the same ancient route. If all went according to plan, I’d be checking into my hotel before dark.

Though I wasn’t a novice at solo traveling, I didn’t do it often, and I was feeling a slight twinge of nerves. In a weird way my anxiety transformed my journey into an adventure.

The day I met Nick Angelopoulos I was wearing a shin-length white gauze dress I’d bought for the specific occasion of being off work and in Santorini. That is not to say that work is a bane on my existence. The fact is that I love my work. I design covers for a publisher of genre fiction. I’ll never get rich from it, but I will look forward to going to work every day and that’s a kind of wealth. It’s a perfect hybrid mix of in office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and remote Monday and Friday. The old adage that goes ‘if you love your job, you’ll never have to work’ is absolutely true for me. I know I’m lucky. But even peoplewho love their work need a change of scenery now and then. Especially when the most promising relationship of one’s life ends in an unforgettable mess.

Back to the dress. It was the sort of thing you wear to a resort or vacation spot like Santorini and nowhere else I can think of. Flattering with the right touch of femininity and modesty. It was just thin enough to see the outline of my legs through the fabric if the sun hit me at just the right angle. My legs might be my best feature so that was okay with me. There were large decorative teak buttons on the seam that ran up the side. I left the last three undone so that I teased a glimpse of leg as the skirt moved easily around me.

I’d been walking around town in sandals that were cushioned but flat because the cobblestones were sprained ankles waiting to happen to the unwary traveler who was inexperienced enough to wear shoes with heel. I was comfortable enough to enjoy the moment.

Every corner brought a new visual that was photograph-worthy. Arched doorways. Bougainvillea in full bloom trailing from pots on second story terraces. It hung down around doorways, climbed walls, and transformed the town into a garden. I was told by locals that it blooms all summer until cold visits in late fall.

I came upon a small open-air bar high above the Aegean with stunning panoramic views of the water, the caldera, and sailboats. After a morning of ascent, I was “glowing” and ready for a seated respite. It would be an understatement to say walking up the side of a mountain was not my usual workout. At home there wasn’t much roll to the terrain, and I never put the treadmill on incline.

Since there weren’t many people, I was able to choose a table by the half-balcony. While in a mental tug of war betweenGreek salad and a waffle piled high with fresh fruit and granola, I ordered a glass of local white wine.

I smiled at the waiter when he left and, as my eyes lowered, I spotted Nick sitting fifteen feet away at the bar. He’d seen me first and was staring. I wanted to do that thing we all learned in middle school, look away quickly when you catch a person of interest staring. Too late for that. His eyes had locked on mine like a tractor beam and there was no looking away. If I’d ever had such a gorgeous person stare at me with such intensity, I would remember it.

His hair was collar length with some slight curl and black enough to be Asian which made his blue eyes stand out like they were lit from within. That was undoubtedly helped along by the blue tee he wore. The planes of his face were hard, masculine, and sexy. And his skin had the kind of tan people get from being on the water.

After a couple of seconds of not looking away, he grabbed his drink, ambled over with a smile I wish I could bottle and said, “If you’re alone for lunch, I’d love to join you.”

American. Indistinguishable accent.

I took in a deep breath which made my chest rise. His gaze flicked downward to the bare suggestion of cleavage showing at the top of my sundress bodice then came back to meet my eyes with a tiny hint of smolder.Uh oh.

“Um.” I looked around trying to think of a reason why not. When nothing came to me, I said, “Sure,” and gestured to the chair across from me.

As he pulled the chair out, he said simply, “Nick. Angelopoulus.” He set his glass of something amber colored on the table and sat. “It’s Nico on my birth certificate, but I go by Nick. Not sure why I told you that. I guess beautiful women make me nervous.”

I’m pretty sure I blushed. I just wasn’t used to compliments from guys who could be Abercrombie models. “I’m Catherine Campbell and I have a small aversion to nicknames.”

He chuckled. “Scot.”

“No. American,” I said.

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