Page 50 of Witchlore
“Yeah, I thought you were going to shift or something.” He holds his phone out to me and I see myself, or my new form that I need to get used to, juddering and jerking in the bed, emitting a white glow that usually only comes with a shift.
“You filmed me?” I exclaim. “That’s so weird!”
“I thought you’d want to see it.” Bastian frowns.
“Well, I don’t want to see a video of my nightmares, thanks so much, Bastian!” I push the phone away and rub my hands against my cheeks. I can feel rough stubble growing there already.
“It’s not a nightmare,” Bastian says flatly. “I get nightmares. I know it’s not a nightmare.”
I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wall, trying to do the mental grounding exercise that Counselor Cooper taught me to do right after my suicide attempt to help with overwhelming thoughts.Name something you can hear.I hear Bastian shuffling, the bed dipping under his weight.Name something you can taste.I can taste my own spit, that nasty sour taste when I’ve just woken up.Name something you can smell.I can smell the dirty scent of skin still covered in salt and sand, dusty and grubby, but I can also smell something herby and clean and pleasant. I think it might be Bastian’s deodorant.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
When I open my eyes, Bastian is lying sideways on the bed ontop of the duvet, propped up on an elbow, looking at me. I suddenly appreciate the sweetness of him giving me space, of putting physical distance between us. He looks weary. I wonder if he’s been kept awake by nightmares.
“What are yours about?” I ask. He sighs and flops onto his back, staring straight up at the ceiling. For a moment, I think he won’t answer and we’ll spend the rest of the night like this, sleeping on the bed at perpendicular angles.
“Shasta.” Bastian’s voice is so small.
“How did he die?”
“Car accident.” I remember my careless comment about the car and think,I am such a stupid twat.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was two years ago.”
I don’t see how it’s possible that it is okay. I wonder if I’ll feel that way two years on from Elizabeth’s death. I can’t imagine living even two more months without Elizabeth.You’ve lived nearly five months without her,a reasonable voice in my head says, one that sounds exactly like Counselor Cooper. I push it away.
“What about your dreams?” he asks. I don’t want to tell him about the visions so I tell him the truth about my nightmares.
“They’re about Elizabeth. Her dying. In my arms.”
Don’t leave me, Orla,she whispers.
“Was there… was it quick?”
There’s something about the darkness and the sound of the ocean out the window that dares me to be honest.
“Yeah, it was quick,” I whisper down at my hands. They look so different now, wider across the backs and hairier than they were when I tried to wipe the blood out of Elizabeth’s mouth.“She’d hit her head. It was too quick for me to stop but it felt like it took forever. Those final seconds.”
I focus on my breathing, telling myself this is just one of these moments when I feel like I am holding Elizabeth in my arms. It’s not really happening. It’s just a memory.Then why does it hurt so fucking much?I wonder angrily. I think Bastian’s fallen asleep but then he speaks.
“It’s okay, you know.”
“What is?”
“If, for a millisecond, when it was happening, when she was dying, you wished it would just be over, it doesn’t mean you wanted her to die. It just means you wanted it to stop hurting. For her pain to stop. It doesn’t mean you loved her less. If anything, it means you loved her more. Trust me.”
I feel choked, like I’m drowning all over again. I don’t know why I should trust him but there’s a flatness in his voice that I recognize. It’s haunted and truthful. I suddenly know that Bastian witnessed Shasta’s death. I want to ask him about it, if he ever feels resentment toward Shasta for leaving him alone. I want to ask if he wanted to die, too, when his brother was gone, but I can’t. I sit there and swallow down my tears until I trust myself not to burst out sobbing all over him.
“Thanks for saying that,” I whisper. I reach my foot down and poke his arm with my socked toes. I’m surprised when he gently takes hold of my foot, squeezing it.
“You’re welcome,” he says. We don’t say anything else. He doesn’t move to get back in the bed and I don’t ask him to stop touching my foot. All I do is turn my head to the side and drift back to sleep.Another witch,my mother’s voice whispers inside my mind.
CHAPTERTWENTY
I wake up to an empty bed. I can hear the sound of the coffee machine in the kitchen. I sit up and check my phone. There’s no message from Beryl. I check my email. There’s one from my mother. Nothing in the subject, just a link to a Parisian hotel in the body. It’s the first time she’s ever done that. Usually, I have no idea where they’re staying; even telling me a city is more precision than I’m used to. Was it seeing me with Bastian that prompted this change? A change that, if I squint hard enough in the right direction,couldbe interpreted as some bizarre variant of parental connection? I stare at it for a long time and then glance at the painting of the selkie that they kept. I don’t know what to make of any of it.
