The Wiccan Diaries (6 page)

No way.

Something about me decided not to give up hope, though. I
would see him again. Or I would see him again, in my dreams. But I
would
see him again. I knew it!

Lennox

I looked up at the white stone balcony; it was rounded,
enough for two people to stand at. I thought about ‘flying’ her up to it. If I
held her in my arms, like I was doing, I could run her up the wall.

The problem was she would notice. She had been in the throes
of something and so didn’t know I was a vampire. I made sure not to touch her
skin. It was kind of hard not to notice the heat coming through the thin cotton
top she had on. I felt her skin give way to the firm muscles of my arms and
hands. She weighed absolutely nothing. Carrying her was effortless.

What was of tremendous exertion was the discipline I had to
show not to bite her.

I wanted to devour her, body and soul, to nourish myself on
her hot, thick, wet, sticky blood. It was too much to bear. I needed to get
away, to think.

She kept speaking to me. I felt:
you can do this... take her....

I wanted to so badly. I wanted to give in to every lesser
impulse. To luxuriate in each expression of my desire for her. It would be fun.
Demented thoughts chased themselves through my brain.

You were given those
fangs to bite, to taste; to take pleasure in the kill. To feel smaller, weaker
things give way beneath you. You were
born
for such things...

I let her down from my grasp and said some business about
going to the police––and then I ran, as far and as fast away as I
could. I ran to where I found her.

I stopped running. I stood beneath the lamp. I looked into
its bright filament.

She had gashed her head.

The locket hung from the lamp. I crawled up to it, and
plucked it off. It had somehow caught and snagged when she
floated
....

The silver chain was broken. On the ground, I held the
locket in my fingertips. There was a little hinge, which I pried open.

Two faces stared out at me, one on either
side––a man and a woman... her parents... her family. I had
memorized her face, of course. I marveled at who gave her what bits. I could
see the look of self-confidence in her father’s eyes, but she had her mother’s
beauty: the round soft face, the fragility––the
terrible
fragility––the
sense of comfort and caring that seemed to radiate from her.

Halsey Rookmaaker.

Who
was
this girl?
Why was I so attracted to her? What was it about her blood that made me want to
taste her so? She would be a moment’s compromise. No one would ever have to
know. I carefully planned every detail of her murder.

It came slick and fast, like a reel of film spinning too
fast to see. But I saw it all.

The careful stalk, the swift ambush, the quick jerk as I
forced my way into her neck––the gush, the absolute, overwhelming
rush, of the thickness of her blood. Mentally drinking her sated me.

I hadn’t absolutely ruled out killing her; not yet, at
least. She was safe, for the time being. I would get to know this Halsey
Rookmaaker. I would get her to care about me, first, if I could.

I had to see where this would lead––I had the
locket and an invitation. It wasn’t enough to see me over her threshold, but
perhaps I could connive my way in. I wanted to see her behind locked doors. To
maybe have her open her heart to me so I could rip it out. Still another part
of me wanted to be her friend.

What was she doing to me? This was coming at totally the
wrong time. If I didn’t stop....

Could I do my job, and spend time with her? Or should I let
Rome perish? Certainly, whatever was out there wasn’t going away.

I would have to do my best. I went home to get on the
computer and do some research. It would be a busy day tomorrow, especially
seeing as how I would be spending half of it stalking some unknown teenage
girl.

The locket was my
in
.
I ran back to Castle Occam, to begin planning my strategy. She had to see that
I had more sides to me than just Stalker Boy. I could be caring and
considerate. I could be hers, if she’d let me. And I thought:
I don’t think she knows what she can do. I
don’t think she knows what happened. I don’t think she knows that she’s magic.
Because that way I could victimize her easier.

Tomorrow... tomorrow...
I told myself.

Chapter 5 – Halsey

The following morning, I booted up my laptop, searching for
a WiFi connection, and logged in to my e-mail account. It had all the usual
spam. However, there was a message from Becca, my best friend at school. I
clicked on it.

It was early, 5 a.m. I didn’t know why, but I hadn’t been
sleeping well lately. In fact, I
did
know why. The thing was, my parents had been dead since before I could
remember. Why should their deaths be bothering me now?

I went into the hall in my bare feet, searching for
breakfast. The lack of any kind of appliance was my only gripe with my current
living conditions. I was willing to trade it all in for the upsides, though.
Among them, that I was no longer at St. Martley’s Academy. There was a vending
machine. It didn’t sell coffee, which is what I chiefly wanted, but I remembered
the Succo del Gatto and looked to see if the machine carried something similar.
Something bitter. I needed some kind of pick-me-up. I settled upon a
non-alcoholic campari––it gave me the kind of brain food
kick
I needed when I trawled the
interwebs, looking for information.

I ignored my landlady, whose disembodied eyes I could feel
following me back to my room, shut and locked the door, and popped the campari
open.

It tasted excellent.

A light breeze from the doorway onto the balcony felt
divine. I could hear shopkeepers opening their stores down below. I would have
to visit all of them. Before I got lost last night––I momentarily
lit upon his face––I had seen many more avenues full of interesting
places.

There were sights and sounds and tastes and purchases to
explore––now and in the future.

It took a while, but I found a service
provider––the signal was strong. I checked my e-mail.

St. Martley’s touted ‘an education most becoming of the
sensitive lady.’ That meant
taste
. As
if they could teach us posture and diction as well as the dark arts. Actually,
St. Martley’s was an opportunity to find myself in a clique, the kind that
either opened doors, or shut them forever.

I had been one of the ones who was in, which meant that I
could get away with being a bitch.

I never abused my powers––loaded
word––without
cause
.

My friend was Becca.

Becca started a clique that was elite.

I clicked on the message with the title COVEN GIRLS.

(“So she’s just a major bitch. Talk about whore of the
whorepocalypse. Forget me. No, seriously. Forget me. If I have to talk to you
while you’re out living it up while I’m
stuck
in this prison...”)

I sipped my campari. Becca being Becca. Least she was
entertaining. Couldn’t say that for all them girls. She did tend to forget
about others while she got stuck in her own little CW dramas. What was she
talking about?

(“Write to me, kid. Don’t think because you’re gone you ever
left. I intend for you to keep me up to date on all your loser guy conquests.
Slut.”
)

I sighed. If she only knew. I was tempted to reply back: “I
haven’t met
anyone
yet,” but
remembered that wasn’t true. I wanted to keep it to myself for now. She would
understand that. She was all for letting things develop. I wondered how things
were going. Her correspondence tended to be less with the hard facts, more with
the gossip.

Gossip was making
things true by saying them.
She taught me that.

(“I’m so over him. Did I tell you what he said?”)

I scrolled through the rest of it.

(“Bound to be better than this place. I
hate
that you’re not graduating with us. Have some time. Let me
know if it’s worth seeing. Becks.”)

I responded: “No losers on the horizon, sad but true. Flip
your tassel for me. I’m inspecting things. Keep you posted. Gotta go. Bye.”

It had that proper
rushed
feel, while saying nothing at all.

I missed her. I didn’t think it would be that way if she
were here. But a certain distance had brought nostalgia. I thought temporarily
of Mistress Genevieve, my headmistress, and how I wanted her to think well of
me again.

This is your world
now, Halsey.
I quoted some Latin. One of the benefits of St. Martley’s.

The one about living for the moment, not squandering
sunlight, etc. I felt my education, like a ball of energy. I could squeeze it
at will. Graduating was just a ceremony. I felt the reigns of my own life in my
hands, now. It felt nice.

Before I did anything else, I took another bath. I had so
much time. A lifetime of time. I soaked, lathered, rolled and wallowed. I
thought of him. I thought of
why
I
was thinking of him. I was hooked on his eyes.

There was something about him.

He would be here tonight. He said so. What did that mean,
though? It wasn’t like he was going to knock on my door or anything, was he?

Were we just going to meet? How was it going to happen? I
hadn’t thought it through. It was probably because of how sudden it all had
been. He came out of nowhere, all at once.
Lennox....

I searched for his name on the Internet. Not enough to find
a match. If I played my cards right, I could wheedle information out of him
tonight
. The word was like magic.

I have a date.
Tonight.

I decided not to quibble over semantics––he was
probably just checking up on me, like a doctor with a patient. Wink. I finished
the thought and soaked some more. In the closet was the backpack. In the
backpack was my future. It wasn’t necessarily a good future. I decided to let
myself have this.
You deserve it
, I
said. Somehow, I didn’t think so.

In the time it took to finish toweling myself off, Becca had
already messaged me back three times. (
“Spill.
I know you’re seeing someone. You probably have a
rendezvous
.”) She was always saying things like that. They were
goat-getters hoping to get me into revealing too much. I wasn’t so enamored
with her that I didn’t think she was above talking behind
my
back, even if we were best friends, and blood sisters, and part
of the same coven. I had always suspected her of frenemishness; no one could be
so habitually indiscreet and keep your confidences. (“I bet he’s hot. Is he
hot? What’s his name?”) I blushed slightly. (“Come on! You can’t have a Roman
holiday, and not let me in on it.”)

That was so unfair.
“That is so unfair,” I wrote back. “Go to class. You know the pact. We sign off
on each other’s guys.”

* * *

Today was going to be crazy. I found a place nearby I could
park a scooter. So I rented one for the summer. It was an interesting shade of
orange. A Vespa. I was soon to learn scooters were ubiquitous, in Rome. They
were absolutely everywhere.

The gentleman who rented it to me made me wear a helmet.
“It’s the law,” he said. I got a pair of sunglasses to go with it.

So with my hair being matted, and my cheeks pinched, I
started the 10.7 horsepower engine, and was off, wobbling a bit before I got my
footing. He waved nervously. I saw him shake his head in my rearview mirror.

It was perfect. It was exactly how I wanted to travel
through Rome. I had my backpack on my back. And it was perfect.

My ensemble for today consisted of the last of my clean
laundry: a black cotton T-shirt with
ciao
written on it in purple and sparkles, a pair of jeans that were beyond loose
from having been lived in for so long, and boots.

The first stop was the police. Despite what Lennox said, I
wanted to at least let them know someone or something had attacked me last
night. Unfortunately, they didn’t really take my report seriously. A detective
who spoke English said, “You are alive, yes. Not harmed, yes.” He reminded me
of the minicab driver, just not as nice.

“But I was robbed,” I said. “He took––”

“Ah. So it is not. Ah.”

I filled out a form. “If we find anything, we will let you
know,” he said. Scratch going to the police, I thought. As I moved through the
precinct, I couldn’t help noticing a lot of detectives moving around. I saw
them go into a room, where a lot of people were, and close the door.

It was obvious that they were working on finding whoever was
killing all of those people. I couldn’t help noticing how worried they all
looked. Like they didn’t have a clue.

The sun was out. My skin, unused to so much light, was
beginning to darken before my very eyes. I was going to be bronze-colored
before long. It was amazing how beautiful everyone was. I sat on my Vespa,
waiting to turn into morning traffic, and thought about
him
again.

He felt so fragile to me. His large, liquid eyes were like
purple ink, staining parchment, drawn into the fibers. I thought he may have
worn eyeliner––it made him all the more seductive.

I had to get a grip. I promised myself to be more casual, if
we ended up bumping into each other again. No way would he just voluntarily
come to pick me up. I had a few essentials to get: new clothes, shampoo. I
wanted to drive around a bit. I liked how the Vespa cruised around almost
silently, but when it came to a steep hill, it had the ability to go up.

I was at this huge interchange. It was massive. I had never
seen so many people and automobiles coming from so many different directions.
But I got in a pack of other motorini enthusiasts and together we formed a
large school of mopeds big enough to keep them at bay. So I scootered around
with them for a while.

It takes a Vespa to get you to see all of the other Vespas
in Rome. Who you were, or whatever, was totally a non-issue.
This must be what a motorcycle gang is like
,
I thought.

I left them, waving good-bye, and headed for a place called
Trastevere, my Vespa humming with excitement. Ballard worked there, in a
motorcycle shop, coincidentally enough. They did repairs and whatnot. I should
fit right in. Right? I gulped. This was going to be weird.

Hi. You sent me this
stuff. So I dropped out of school and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to come talk
to you. I’m staying in Rome for the summer....

Even in my head it sounded lame.

I didn’t even know how old he was or what he looked like.

You’re not dating him,
Halsey. You’ve just come to talk. No strings. You’ll just say your bit and go.
Stop making so many judgments all the time.

I knew what Becca would say, if she were here. “He sent you
that, halfway around the world? Oh my god. You better sleep with him.”

He was going to think I was crazy! “Crap,” I said to myself.
Breathe.
I had to pull over, get my
bearings.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

It’s me, Halsey.

Halsey, who?

Halsey
You-Sent-Me-A-Package-From-Italy-And-Now-I’m-Here-Three-Months-And-Four-Thousand-Miles-Later.

Freak.
I parked my
Vespa in a pack of other scooters outside a café, and took my backpack off,
putting it down on a round glass table for two. The waiter hurried over as I
unsnapped my helmet and set it down. I ordered a cappuccino and a cream-filled
brioche.

We were just off a
vicolo
––one
of those crazy alleyways Lennox had saved me from, and for which I now seemed
to harbor a hidden phobia––in an
almost
-piazza. Cars came and went within inches of our tables. I
saw the ‘scissor doors’ that went up, like in Lamborghinis, which meant their
occupants could get out in tight spaces.

According to my guidebook, Trastevere was like ‘stepping
back in time.’

I generally liked to prepare myself when traveling through
time. I dug inside my backpack, my fingers finding the spines of several books.
I recognized my notebook. The cloth on the spine had a nice tactile feel. I
took it out just as my waiter returned with my order. I tipped him and he
shooed.

My first taste of Italian coffee did not disappoint.
Yum.
It had a sprinkle of some delicious
spice or another atop creamy foam. I opened my notebook, not bothering to wipe
my fingers before turning the pages, with the brioche in my hand.

Writing things down to remember stuff should have explained
why I wrote things down. I just wanted to go over everything again.

There was an elastic band and a pocket in the back that
could hold things. Mine held the letter Ballard had sent to me. I had read it
so often, I practically had it memorized.

The ink was faded in spots. There were smudges and coffee
stains. I was a messy reader.

Anyway, I read it again. It still had the power to upset. I
felt vindicated in my choice to throw my future away.

“Dear Miss Rookmaaker,” it began. I took the opportunity to
smile over the messy penmanship.

“Please excuse the electrical tape. It’s all I had to seal
this up with. My hands are greasy from working on a bike all day. I work in my
uncle’s motorcycle shop. I clean engines and change parts and handle grease
rags and all that. My name is Ballard.
Buon
giorno!”

I sampled some more of the brioche, rubbing the powdered
sugar from my fingertips before continuing.

“I bet you’re wondering how I found you? Don’t worry. I’m
not some stalker.

“I do not often have the chance to write foreigners, and an
opportunity such as this cannot be squandered. Especially to write in English.
So I will say that the contents––this letter
aside––require every bit of care. I assume you have looked through
them? They are not to be trifled with,
missy
,
as my Uncle would say, and as I now inform you.

“This book belonged to your mother,” he wrote. “Let us just
say that if you are what I think you are––and obviously you must
be, otherwise why would you be going to St. Martley’s––you will
want to have this in your possession.