The Red Witch (Amber Lee Mysteries Book 6) (5 page)

The storm was choking me, and all I could think about was how helpless I was.

Then I heard another noise; a kind of buzzing sound. I fought hard to open my eyes against the wind, turning my head just enough so that the blast wasn’t hitting me squarely in the face, and then I saw where the buzzing was coming from. Outside, hovering inches away from the window, was a hornet; a man-sized, ugly, hairy hornet.

My heart jumped into my throat and started to beat so hard I could feel it on the sides of my head.
Aaron!
I wanted to say,
get it quick, its right there!
In my mind Aaron would have easily been able to grab hold of a swatter to smack the hornet away, despite its huge size; such was the nonsensical nature of dreams. Because, of course, that’s what it was.
I was having a dream. Just a dream. Don’t be stupid, Amber, it’s only a dream. The wind, the roar, the inability to move and speak; I’ve been here before plenty of times, and I can totally wake myself up if I want to.

I shook my head violently as I had done many times before when held tightly in the grips of a nightmare, rocking and shaking and thinking
no, no now!
But it didn’t work. The roar was still there, the buzzing still present—even if I wasn’t looking right at it.

“Amberrr,” said a voice like a fork scraping on a plate, “I’m waiting.”

It was the hornet. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, approaching, reaching for me with its insect-like talons. And then I woke up, cold, clammy, sweaty, with an iron shriek locked in the back of my throat. I went to shake Aaron, to wake him up and make sure I wasn’t dreaming again, but the bed was empty and before I had a chance to question where he had gone I was running to the bathroom.

There, holding onto the toilet bowl as if for dear life, I retched until my throat went raw.

CHAPTER 5

Hornets are assholes.
I had never liked flying insects, but of all of them, hornets were the worst. They’re the worst because they serve no purpose other than to predate on other insects, often larger ones than themselves, and because sometimes you can’t tell them apart from their wasp cousins. And yet, spiritually speaking, wasps and hornets in dreams tended to mean good things.

The wasp in particular, as a spirit guide, represented courage, the bond of sisterhood, and essence of the female warrior. Hornets, so similar to wasps, also stood for those same things when seen in dreams so, generally, dreaming about them was considered a good thing among people who believed such things. But I was hard-pressed to believe that what I had just experienced was anything good.

The hornet was big, yellow, and covered in bristly fur. Its eyes were bulbous black orbs, blacker than night, and its stinger was dripping with green goo. But it had a human hand—maybe—and it was reaching for me like it wanted to grab me. I shuddered with the thought, and because the water was starting to turn cold. Then I stepped out to dry off and warm up again.

I’m waiting,
it had said. Or at least I thought it had. Dreams are slippery, and this one was no exception.

When I heard someone walking around in my bedroom, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself.

“Amber?” It was Aaron at the door. He knocked but didn’t open the door.

“Yeah, I’m in here, having a shower.”

“Really?”

“Well, finished, actually. So don’t get any ideas.”

The door creaked open and Aaron peered through the slit. I couldn’t tell whether he was pretending to be immature or he genuinely thought I hadn’t seen him open the door. When I planted my hand on my hip and cocked my head to the side, he opened the door fully and smiled. His cheeks were flushed and I could hear his aura singing to me.
Singing!
But I had promised myself a long time ago I would never unlock my senses around him, so I turned away and locked my second sight back in its cage.

“Woah,” he said, “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I turned around and smiled at him through a sigh. “Where’ve you been?”

“Just out. A power line went down this morning not far from here, fell right over the road. Emergency services are everywhere right now.”

“And you went to watch?”

He shook his head. “I was awake when it went down. Thought someone could use my help.

I approached and placed a hand on his chest, another on his shoulder, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “And?”

“Nobody was hurt, but a car got it pretty bad. Don’t know whose it is, though. Anyway; I have something for you.”

“I thought I told you, no funny business.”

“As hot as you are, and as much as I’d love to rip that towel off you, what I have waiting is time sensitive.”

“Time sensitive?” He had my attention now.

“Yeah. Get changed, we’re going out.”

Aaron had left me more than a little confused, but he wasn’t spilling the beans—as much as he knew how that irritated me.
Out?
I thought,
on a Sunday morning?
Aaron and I usually went down Houston Boulevard on Saturday mornings to check out the shops, have a little lunch, and generally enjoy the sounds of humanity—commerce, service, and stuff. But Sundays were for sleeping in and not changing out of one’s pyjamas.

Sure, there was the odd weekend here and there when we woke up early and took a drive to nowhere. I enjoyed riding in Aaron’s car, and he clearly enjoyed driving it. We’d listen to music, drive around with the windows down, and then come home to at least an
afternoon
of doing nothing in our pyjamas.

So this was a little out of character, but I went with it.

After I had gotten changed into a long black dress, pinned my hair up, and picked out a pair of sunglasses to wear, we got into Aaron’s car and drove out.

“Where is everybody?” I asked once we were on the road.

“I’m not sure; I’ve been out of the house for hours.”

“Well, it isn’t my birthday so this isn’t some kind of surprise party.”

“Are you seriously going to start guessing?”

“Maybe,” I said, with a playful smirk on my face.

“Then guess quietly. I don’t want you throwing me off my game.”

“Game? Hmmm. Did you secretly try out for some kind of team? Is this your first game?”

Aaron was quiet and unmoving, like a statue… if a statue could drive a car. When I submitted to the fact that he wouldn’t tell me where we were going, I fell silent too. Neither of us much minded the silence, though, so neither of us broke it. Until Aaron stopped the car in a dip in the road I knew all too well.

I had been here before, many times; only never with Aaron.

“What are we doing here?” I asked when the car stopped.

There were a few single roads that connected Raven’s Glen to the freeway. One of them, due north east, was the quietest and most unused of these roads. It ran parallel to the Geordie River and was flanked on both sides by tall sycamores and pines. This was the road up to Evan’s family cabin. It was the road we had taken that night when we went into the woods—the night of Aaron’s first transformation—and it was the road I took to get to my own special part of the woods; the place where I received the vision that helped me unmask the man who was trying to kill me.

“You haven’t guessed where we’re going?”

“I know where we
are
, I’m just curious to know how
you
know where we are.”

Aaron tapped his nose in response.

That fucking sense of smell of his.
“You followed me here?”

“I did, but hear me out.”

A car rolled on past us and disappeared into the morning haze. The moment gave me time to think and decide on my stance, and I decided to lean on curiosity more than anger. I had been keeping secrets my entire life; so many, in fact, that I sometimes forgot to be as… forthcoming… as other people might have been. So I hadn’t told Aaron about my sacred little space up in the woods. In another life, or had it somebody else, I may have been upset about it.

But I think his ability to track me all the way out here impressed me enough to stifle the anger, and of course there was my insatiable curiosity.
What were we doing out here? What’s he got in store for me?
and
Oh Gods, has he built me a house up here? I already have a house!

“Alright,” I said, “I’m listening.”

“Good. Hold that thought.”

Aaron slipped out of the car. I wanted to protest, but before I knew it we had left the car behind and were making tracks along a path into the woods I knew all too well.

“So… I’m still listening,” I said.

He ducked under a low branch, pulled it up for me, and I swung under it after him.

“Today is the anniversary of the first day we properly met,” he said.

“To—day? Wait, what?”

“Yeah. You’ve forgotten?”

“I… haven’t…?”

“It’s okay. You were all about Kyle back then. I’m not surprised you don’t remember meeting me.”

“Was this… Marcia’s birthday? It was Abby, right? Kyle’s sister?”

Aaron nodded.

“I don’t remember much about that night,” I said, “But I do remember meeting an obnoxious, dumbass jock that really got on my nerves.”

“You don’t have to remind me of what I was like. I know I was an idiot.”

“A sexy idiot,” I said, noticing the sudden sharpness of his tone. I didn’t want to piss him off.

“Sexy?”

“Yeah, I think you were wearing a white and blue jacket then. I remember thinking you were hot, until I remembered you had been the one who had called me a freak at school all those times.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Hey,” I said, squeezing his hand, “It’s alright.”

Aaron nodded. “It’s only because I liked you and wanted your attention, and I didn’t know how to get it.”

“Wow. Talk about dropping a bomb.”

“You must have known this.”

“All I knew, from that night anyway, was that I didn’t want to be near you. I think I even begged Kyle not to hang out with you anymore. That was pretty psycho of me.”

Reminiscing about that part of my life tugged at a few strings that hadn’t been played in a while, but I held myself. I could remember the way Aaron and his friends would make fun of me for wearing black and being a ginger and my chest went cold at the thought, but it was almost like I couldn’t hear Aaron actually speaking.

He was a boy, then; and now he was a man. A different man.

“I never told you this,” he said, “But I wanted to kiss you that night.”

“Kiss me?” I asked, “As I recall you spilt a vodka cola on my favorite Ramones shirt and then laughed.”

“I didn’t want to laugh. I spilt it on you because I was nervous; it was an accident. Kyle was right there and I knew he would get pissed, and we’d get into a fight if I kissed you, but I didn’t give a shit about what he or my friends thought, until I panicked.”

“That’s… kinda sweet.”

And it was. I could almost see it playing out in a rom-com where, at the end, the guy beats his own insecurities and gets the girl; which he had. But real life doesn’t have a three-act structure, and at the time I would have wished he hadn’t laughed.

At this point, I wasn’t sure if he was trying to make me mad by forcing me to relive the past or whether his little narrative was going somewhere; until I saw the blanket lain out on the clearing where I would usually sit. It was flannel—green, brown, and orange, and pinned down by rocks. The wind wasn’t hitting very hard so the sheet had stayed mostly in place save for one corner, which had folded across the middle of the square. On the flannel blanket there was another, warmer, woolen blanket folded neatly, and on top of it, a brown picnic basket.

“Aaron,” I said before covering my mouth.

He walked past me, fixed the wayward corner, and opened the basket. Inside there were sandwiches wrapped in cling film! My heart soared, and I started to feel lighter because of it. I floated toward the picnic, sat down, and smiled brightly at the man who had prepared this for me.

“You just made a picnic for us,” I said. “You… prepared a picnic.”

“Surprised?” he asked, producing two plastic cups and a cold bottle of soda from inside the basket.

“A little.”

Aaron was a romantic at heart. I had seen it before. It wasn’t the traditional kind of wooing he was into, of course. He didn’t like meals at fancy places or dressing up, but then again I didn’t either so we suited each other just fine. Aaron’s sense of romance, though, was more of an immediate—on the fly—kind of romance, like, for instance, grabbing the car in the middle of the morning and driving down to the beach all the way on the other side of the state just to watch the sun set.

A picnic required planning and forethought, secrecy and subterfuge. And surprising
me
, with all my incessant questioning and insatiable curiosity, required patience. Those traits, unfortunately, Aaron Cooper couldn’t count as part of his repertoire. And yet here I was; at a picnic, and surprised.