Page 97 of Love, Magic and Misfortune
“Is everything alright?” Simone asked.
Violet looked up at her friend, and realizing the bewildered state of her own expression, she took a breath. ‘Yeah, everything is fine…” She looked over at Jasper once more. He took a bite of his tart, but he didn’t say anything at all, and he didn’t look at either of them.
* * *
That day,the minutes ticked by, slowly turning into hours. Time, that fuzzy and shifty thing, dripped slow like molasses: thick and messy as the seconds stretched on.
Jasper hardly said anything the rest of the afternoon and seemed to be in his own head. In his own world. Whenever Violet initiated conversation, his responses came short, concise or not at all. She’d asked him if he’d feel more comfortable showing her his transition in his own house, but his response was explicit.
“No. Not there.”
Violet had nodded in compliance, and so they sat—silent together on her gram’s couch and cast in dim light from the setting sun. Violet had lit the fireplace, so it was warm despite the frosty hush between them. She peeked over at her friend sitting at the opposite end of the couch. He stared forward, his shoulders gently rising and falling with concentrated breaths.
“I wish I could read your mind,” she said.
He stayed perfectly still with his hands clasped neatly in his lap. He didn’t meet her eyes. “I just… want you to know that these past four and a half months with you have been the happiest in my adult life. And much more than anything I ever could have imagined for myself, given my circumstance. Thank you, for that.”
She shifted her body, turning so that she faced him. “You’re welcome, but we’re not finished. It isn’t over.”
Jasper took a very deep breath, closing his eyes as he slowly exhaled. At that moment, the atmosphere of the room shifted in a familiar way. In the same way it always did when Jasper stayed over. He typically hid himself in Violet’s room, but the magic in the curse, the dark, vindictive power of it seeped out—crawling and rolling like a stampede of invisible spiders clambering over each other and conquering everything in their path.
The force and pull of it felt even stronger with him beside her. She looked up at the wall clock: 5:00 p.m. exactly. The time he always vanished from her sight as a man and eventually returned as a mouse. He didn’t vanish this time. Only breathed deeply. Eyes closed. She waited in the silence.
5:12 p.m. “Jas?”
Another deep breath, the cold tingles of malevolent magic radiating from him and making her shiver. He turned to look at her, and his eyes were completely blacked out—no whites at all. The beautiful, glassy heather-gray was gone and replaced with dark, inky pools. Her shoulders tensed from the eerie shock of it, but then he offered a weak smile.
“It’s time,” he said, getting up from the couch. “Can we go in your room? I prefer smaller spaces. Plus you’ve got this giant window out here.”
“Sure.” Violet nodded, shaky as she stood. Jasper walked ahead of her toward the hall, but she quickly matched his stride. Just beside him, she grasped his hand. He started, jerking slightly, but he didn’t pull away as she clasped their hands tighter. To her astonishment, his skin felt a little… fuzzy.
Inside the room, Violet moved to sit on the edge of her bed, pulling Jasper to sit beside her, but he disconnected their hands. She blinked up at him standing over her. He glanced away, avoiding looking at her face with his black eyes.
“It’s better if I’m naked when I transition.”
Violet blinked. “Wh-What?”
“I get tangled up if I wear clothes and it just makes everything worse.” He lifted the hem of his sweater as he spoke, yanking it up over his long torso and pulling it over his head. He tossed it onto the ottoman at the end of Violet’s bed, then started unbuttoning his dress shirt.
“Oh… okay.” Violet swallowed hard. She wasn’t prepared to see him transitionandcompletely naked. Not that she was truly prepared for whatever was about to happen, anyway. Her pulse raced, her throat dry, the magic hovering and making her skin prickly and cold.
Jasper removed his dress shirt and flickered his black eyes over to her, smirking. “This is the part when you usually insert a joke to lighten the mood.”
“I don’t think anything is funny at the moment.”
“Mm.” He nodded, unfastening his belt.
“But… You could havewarnedme.”
“About?”
“I didn’t know your eyes would turn black like this.”
“Does it matter?” He snaked the belt through the loops, tossing it aside and unbuttoning his pants.
“I—well… Not really, I guess. But still,communication. Just a little, please? You’ve barely said anything since lunch.”
“I can talk now?” he said, tossing his pants aside. Violet bit her bottom lip, rebuking the warm blush traveling up from her nether regions and revealing itself in her cheeks.
