Witch Upon a Star (A Midnight Magic Mystery) (4 page)

“Thank you.”

The waitress departed again. I wasted no time in piling food into my mouth. Asher watched as I gorged myself on grease. “Is it truly your birthday?” I nodded as I chewed my eggs. “She is correct. Nine is a momentous year. When I reached your age, I was sent to the front as a messenger boy for the Plantagenet army.”

“Were you scared?” I asked with my mouth full.

“Oh, yes. Especially after being captured by the Capetians. I was their prisoner for months until I liberated myself.”

“So, how old are you now?”

“How old do I appear?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. I narrowed my eyes at him and scowled. I didn’t enjoy being treated like a fool. My ire unleashed another of his grins. “When did you deduce my secret?”

“In the car. I could see my breath but not yours. Then you used
magic with my finger, cried blood, and Jane was dressed like Thanksgiving. Astrid told me you guys existed.”

“And yet you are not frightened of me.”

“I told you. No. You promised you wouldn’t hurt me. Why would I be?”

Judging from the half-open mouth and squinted eyes trained on me, my matter-of-fact delivery confounded him. “Even still, most are.”

I shrugged. “I think it’s groovy. Never getting sick. Hypnotizing people to do whatever you want. Being superstrong so no one picks on you. Getting to live forever.”

“Never feeling the sun radiating against your face. Never tasting food or wine again. Standing by as all of those you love wither and die,” he countered. “It is possible for one to exist for so long they forget what it is to truly live.”

“Is that why you’re so sad? Everyone you love is dead? Like Jane?”

“It is one of the reasons, yes.”

My nine-year-old mind pondered his quandary. “When Astrid left, Sven was gone a lot. We’d just moved to Albany so I didn’t know anyone. They skipped me two grades, so I’m younger than everyone else. People in school were mean. Still are. They call me a freak. I always say not even my own Mommy wants to be around me. I was sad all the time. I cried a lot. Then one day there was this noise at my bus stop. A meow. It was an orange kitten, real skinny and missing an eye too. She was going to die so I brought her home. Kirsten,” I said with a sad smile. “She was my best friend. And I wasn’t sad anymore. Until …”

“Until?”

“She ate some of Sven’s pills and died a month ago when I was at school.” Remembering her soft fur, the way she curled up against my tummy at night purring away, me coming home and telling her about my day made me want to burst into tears right in that restaurant. I bit the inside of my mouth to stop the impulse. I didn’t want Asher to think me weak crying over a silly cat.

“I am sorry, Anna,” he said in a low tone.

I shrugged again. “‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’”

“Wise words.”

“They’re not mine. Dr. Seuss said it.” Asher stared at me blankly. “
Green Eggs and Ham? The Cat in the Hat?
” He shook his head.

“Don’t know many kids, huh?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Well, you don’t talk to me like I’m stupid, so yeah.”

“I would not dare,” he said playfully. “It would be a disservice to us both.”

My cheeks flared as red as his tears. I wasn’t used to people saying kind things to me, except that I was pretty. That compliment was usually followed by an inappropriate statement that sent worms wriggling in my abdomen. They never said much about my mind except they thought I was weird or too smart for my own good. Not sure what else to do, I stared down at my plate and ate more. I knew he was still watching me, making me even more uncomfortable if possible.

“You should learn to take a compliment, Anna. You shall receive more than your fair share through this life.”

“If you say so,” I said through my chewing.

“And you should not speak with your mouth full.” His eyes zeroed in on my elbows. “Or place your elbows on the table. Both are considered quite rude.”

I gulped down my food and immediately dropped my elbows. “Sorry.”

“It is not your fault. It is a failing of your upbringing. Such as it is. You cannot know if you are not taught.”

“Okay. What else?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What else do I need to know? What else can you teach me? I’m a real fast learner. I like learning new stuff.”

“And I am sure you are the most apt of pupils. However, I am an ill-suited instructor.”

“No, you aren’t. I learned more from you tonight than in a year
of school,” I insisted.

He stared at me with pity then, which turned my stomach. Even at that age I could withstand just about anything but pity. “You flatter me.”

“It’s true! And you said it yourself, how can I know things if I’m not told them? Someone has to, why not you?”

Asher chuckled and shook his head for several seconds, the silence growing crueler the longer it lasted. The worms began wriggling as those blue pools darted back my way. I had to glance down. “What do you want from me, little one?
Exactly
?”

I was aware of him staring, scrutinizing every inch of my face, but I was afraid to reciprocate. I was afraid my embarrassment, fear, and confusion would be evident on my face. Really, at nine years old, I couldn’t quantify what I wanted from the man across from me except for him to simply stop looking at me.

“I am not a good man,” he began, finally breaking the silence. “I am a vampire. A soulless monster. I am not even a man. I have stolen. I have lied. I have killed more than I can account for. Without a doubt, I am destined for hell and I … welcome the upcoming journey. I welcome the eternal atonement for my multitude of sins. My reckoning is past due.” He paused. “I am not for you, Anna. I have nothing to teach but misery and nothing to offer but perpetual darkness.”

As I gazed down at my lap, the worms burrowed through my whole body. Every one of those little bastards wanted me to start crying, to run away, to give up, and for a second I almost listened. But they hadn’t reached my soul yet. My spirit forced my eyes to his as I asked, “How about what I can offer you?”

The snarl I was greeted by slowly dropped as he stared at my impassive face. Thank the universe our waitress showed up carrying a piece of chocolate cake with a candle in it. “Hope I’m not interrupting. Thought you might like this. Happy birthday, hon.” She set it right in front of me. “Blow out your candle and make a wish, sweetie.”

I gathered all my energy, all the magic I could muster, and blew
the candle out.

“What did ya wish for, sweetie?” the waitress asked.

Without taking my eyes from Asher, I said, “I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”

_____

He pulled up in front of my building without even bothering to shut off the engine as I sat in his car, strangled by the oppressive silence that had followed us from the restaurant. It became worse,
real
the moment the car stopped. He wouldn’t speak. He wouldn’t look at me. I was wrong. Everything I believed was wrong. This was it. I would never see him again, and there was nothing I could do about it. Anything I said or did would just make matters worse. We sat in that car for a full thirty seconds before I forced my hand to the door. “Bye,” I whispered as I put one foot out of the car into the frozen night.

“Anna …” I looked over at him. “‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.’ There is nothing else in this world worth knowing.”

“Then I guess you’re right.
You
probably can’t teach me anything.”

I slammed the car door as hard as I could and trudged back to my apartment without a single glance back. Sven and Andie lay on the couch watching TV when I walked in. “How’d it go? You do your thing?” Sven asked.

“Yes.”

“He get fresh with you?” my father asked.

“No. He just took me out for a birthday dinner.”

Both adults peeked over the couch. “Shit. It was your birthday today? Happy birthday.”

“Thank you, Sven. I’m tired now. I’m going to bed.”

“I can’t believe you forgot your own kid’s birthday,” Andie whispered as I passed.

“She didn’t remind me,” Sven whispered back.

I shut my bedroom door, set down my bag, removed my coat, and flopped into bed. And that was that. I’d never see him again. Life would continue as it always had. There would be nothing but these four walls and the man in the next room until I could find a way to survive on my own. That is if I could survive him. I barely had so far.

That same horrendous oppression from the car followed me, all but suffocating me inside that tiny cell I called a bedroom. I threw open my curtains to gaze out the window at the full moon. I would never look at it the same … my eyes instinctively moved down to the parking lot and all my gloom evaporated. Because he was there.
He
was still parked down there. He didn’t leave me. He couldn’t leave me. Because he knew. He
knew.
How could he not? A slow smile crept across my face as I pressed my palm to the icy glass. It was only then he drove away, returning once more into the darkness. But he’d return. For me. I felt it down to my soul. He’d be back. And that was the moment I learned wishes could come true.

It would just take years for me to realize to be careful what you wish for.

_____

I didn’t have to keep the metaphorical candle in my window burning long. The next night, while I was lying in bed reading
Wuthering Heights,
the knock on the door came. We were expecting Sven’s supplier, so I stayed on the moors with Heathcliff. He’d keep me company until …

“What are you doing back here?” my father asked.

“I have returned with a proposition,”
he
said in that lyrical baritone.

He came. He came back for me. Never had a doubt.

I leapt from bed to the door, racing into the living room with book still in hand. Asher set eyes on me and smiled as if he’d just seen the sun rise for the first time in a millennia. I knew just how he felt.

“Look who came back,” Sven said.

Andie poked her head over the couch. “You must have done
something
right.”

“So what can I do you for, kemosabe?” Sven asked. “I’m getting some great hash in later or—”

“I have come for your daughter,” he said, eyes still affixed to mine.

“Groovy. Got a repeat customer.”

“
No
,” Asher said, once tender gaze turning monstrous as it moved to Sven. “I said I have
come
for your daughter. I am taking her with me this night.”

“What? I don’t …”

“You mean, like, adopt her?” Andie chimed in.

“What? I’m not giving you my kid. You’re fucking insane, man. What the hell do you even want with her?”

“As if you give a fig for her well-being,” Asher snarled. “Striking her without cause. Selling her body and talents to anyone with a bit of coin in their pocket. You are a whoremonger, a blackguard, and are not fit to breathe the same air as her, let alone guide her though this life, you piece of excrement.”

“Fuck you!” Sven cocked his fist back, but Asher grabbed it, gripped even tighter. He brought the whimpering Sven to his knees.

“Anna, please go wait down in my car,” Asher uttered softly, as if he weren’t in the process of breaking my father’s fingers.

“Don’t you—” Sven started, but Asher squeezed even tighter, strangling the words with further pain.

“What the fuck! Let him go!” Andie shouted, actually leaving the couch for once.

“Anna, please. Go,” Asher said, calm as can be. “
Please
.”

I took one step. Then another. Then I bolted to the door, grabbing my coat along the way. As I quickly put it on, I took one quick glance at my father, the last look I ever would. That’s how I remember him to this day. Helpless. Scared. Brought to his knees for all his considerable sins. That sight still reminds me there can be justice in this universe. I shut the door.

Over ten minutes later, Asher finally emerged from the building carrying a duffel bag filled with items from my room and blood smudged on the corner of his mouth. When I saw it as he climbed into the Porche, I was too nervous and excited to fully grasp what
that smear meant. Even when I did, I did not mourn either of them.
Never have and never will. Asher started the car, turned on the heat for me without me asking, and sped us off into the night just as flames ate the curtains in my former bedroom. My former self.

“I packed a few of your belongings. Whatever else you require, we shall purchase when we reach Toronto. I have friends there who will aid us in acquiring you a passport and false birth certificate. Though it may take several days.”

“Okay.”

We drove in silence for a few seconds. “After Toronto … if you could see anything, go anywhere in the world, where would it be?”

“Egypt. I always wanted to see the pyramids.”

“Cairo then. Excellent choice. I have not been in two centuries. My Arabic is a bit rusty though. It is a good language to learn. I shall do my best to teach it to you.”

“Okay.”

There was more silence save for the hum of the heater, before he said, “I warn you, I shall not be easy to live with. As with all of my species, I remain up all night and from sunup to sundown I am essentially dead. You will have to alter many of your habits, not simply your circadian cycle. I am an old man, quite set in my ways. Not to mention I have not cohabited with another soul in quite some time, and never one so young. I am what I am, and I enjoy what I enjoy. That will never change.
I
shall not change. You will have to acclimate to me, not the other way around.”

“Okay.”

“And should this experiment fail to work out for whatever reason, I shall not hesitate to drop you off at the nearest orphanage.”

“Okay.”

“I expect you to be quiet, polite, a good pupil, but first and foremost I expect obedience and loyalty.”

“Okay.”

“And stop bloody well agreeing with everything I say! You sound like a parrot.”

“I agree,” I said with a smirk.