The Wiccan Diaries (5 page)

Halsey

Good-bye, cruel world. It’s me, Halsey. I’m signing off.
Adios. Hasta la vista. Adieu.
I know I
haven’t always been the nicest person, et cetera, et cetera, dot, dot, dot.

I felt the creature’s hands on me––
pawing
.

When you passed out, there was supposed to be this unwritten
rule.
You’ve suffered enough. You don’t
need to be a part of this. Go.

But no. I was coming back so I could experience the wonder
of it all––the wonder of being attacked. NOT.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I was sure if I opened my
eyes, it would be a hundred times worse.

Those weren’t claws.

No.
I didn’t want
to look at those red eyes. Inhuman.

I felt its fingertips––the lightest
touch––brush aside a lock of hair that always fell in my face. I
was always blowing it out of my face, looking at it askance, the lock of hair,
like I was a crazy person.

I
hated
when my
hair didn’t do what I told it to.

I waited, hoping for more. I could feel him beneath me, move
slightly. He had his hand on my leg. But it wasn’t grabby. More like, he was
holding me
to
him...
Safely
....

I felt him lean toward me. I wanted to be touched by him
again. What was he waiting for? I was just about to chide him when I noticed
what I
hadn’t
noticed.

That the
smell
was
gone.

It was like chocolate and fabric softener, this new smell.
Like a well-loved book. Like dew and roses. Like skin. Like safe-smelling skin.
I sighed, contentedly. All of the red eyes and the grrr, it was all gone. He
smelled nice; I enjoyed his scent. This was good smell. For a monster he was
very snuggly.

He caressed me gently. I opened my eyes. Maybe I had been
killed. Maybe I had been brought back and I was his bride or something.

Mr. and Mrs. Monster.

* * *

I’m dead. I’ve gone and I’ve died. It had to be. No way was
this happening.

He saw me look at him. Stare, was more like. I felt him draw
away.
No. Don’t.

His eyes made me shy. Yet I wanted more. To bask. They were
sparkling. A shade of lavender I had never seen before. I didn’t know eyes came
in that color.

He was looking at me. I couldn’t tell but it looked as
though he thought he’d hurt me. And then he spoke.

“You see what you do to me?”

My eyes widened; I could feel how much of a fool I must be
making of myself; not talking, just staring. I couldn’t help it. He was so
extraordinarily beautiful.

Looking at him... hurt. I tried to sit up.

A terrific throbbing at my temple. I reached up. He caught
me as I fell back. He was holding me in his lap, cradling me. I felt something
at my hairline.
Wetness
, was it? When
I brought my hand back down, it was covered in blood.

“Oh, no,” I said.
Oh,
no?
That was the first thing I was ever going to say to him? It was too
late to take it back. I felt his body tighten. Blood stained my fingertips.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling even more stupid.

He shook his head: “I think I better take you home,” he
said. I was so caught up, I didn’t even realize he had spoken English.

More than that, it sounded like he was American.

I had an accent:
Bahston
instead of Boston. His was perfect.

It was crisp, firm. I waited for him to speak again.

He just looked at me.

We weren’t even moving. I wasn’t going to budge.
Nuh-uh. You’re going to have to cradle me,
Mistuh. Uh-huh.
I kept the cap on my fizzing squee.

“What happened?” I asked, finally making some sense, when he
didn’t let me go.

I felt the blood continue to trickle into my hair. I didn’t
care. Even when some of it ran across my cheek and down my chin. A line of
blood. A blood line. I could feel it wanting to drip. I sensed how agitated it
made him. I decided to play it up. Maybe if I bled enough, he wouldn’t let me
go?

He seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “I shouldn’t
leave you alone,” he said.

I nodded, unsure exactly if he meant he should stay with me
forever, or until some time in the foreseeable future.... If this not leaving
me should perhaps be something permanent, like forgetting my birthdays or to
put down the lid.

“No. Don’t. Please.”

I tried to turn my head a little bit, but the blood
continued to run down my face. It was running all over my lips and chin. My
hair was soaking in it.

He groaned. I looked at him and smiled. I could feel him
shift beneath me. One of the spaghetti straps on my tank top busted. I felt for
it, then noticed something missing.

“My necklace,” I said. “It had my locket on it.” I looked at
his eyes again. They were pained, distant. “You don’t understand. I
have
to have it back,” I said. “It’s the
only thing left––I have left of my parents.” I looked at him,
pleading for him to understand. Part of me realized there was nothing he could
do about it. I felt like such a fool.

He was probably thinking of an excuse to bail on me.

I waited for him to speak, hoping he didn’t say what I
thought he would. “My girlfriend is waiting,” or something.

He didn’t. He just nodded.
Silent type.

He got to his feet with me still in his arms, and carried me
down the cobblestone street.

I
felt
––
I don’t know. Too much had happened–– Like, how did he stop that
thing from getting me?

He
smiled
. It was
an amazing smile. I hoped I wasn’t heavy. I forgot what I said. “What did I
say?” I said.

He smiled again. I would have to capture that. It got away.
I decided to reel it––
him
––back
in. “You don’t talk a lot, do you, mister?”

“I’m tired. I had to fight.”

“I knew it. I weigh too much.”

“No,” he said, “it’s not that.”

“Then what, then?”

He struggled. With his words, not me. I was still busy
stealing secret snuggles.

I looked into his eyes again. “I want to know,” I said,
wonderstruck at the beauty of him. He kept his eyes on the road, but I could
see them anyway, through long strands of dark hair.

He was thinking. I mentally photographed it, so I would know
that was what he looked like when he was thinking. I thought he looked
secretive, like he was deciding how much he should tell me. My memory of the
event was nil.

“I don’t think, whatever it was––”

“What?” I asked. Now that I had him talking, I wanted to
hear his voice some more.

He sighed. “I don’t think, whatever it was––was
human
,” he said. “There; I said it.”

That stopped us both in our tracks––our tracks
that were being made by him.

I had to marvel at his stamina.

Another time
, I
said to myself.

He looked like he was on the verge of something. A
revelation, perhaps. “Why do you think that?” I asked. I didn’t want to
frighten him if this was his first time dealing with the supernatural.

“Because of what it... did, for one thing. And there were
other... things....”

Cryptic is cryptic.
“Would you like to explain that, or should I just guess?” I said.

He laughed. Even in my advanced state of delirium, it
sounded like something I wanted to get to know a whole lot better. My heart
beat with unreserved enthusiasm.

Here was someone who had fought that thing off. I certainly
hadn’t.

My heart spiked, painfully. Who
was
this stranger?

He steered us through the late-night crowds, my only
directions the street I lived on. I realized he was going to leave me soon.
“Don’t leave me. Not yet,” I said. I didn’t care if I sounded pitiful. The
pitifuller
, the better. At least he
wouldn’t leave me. “I just got here,” I said.

“I won’t. I promise,” he said.

My heart started flopping some more.

“Now, will you at least tell me your name?” he said.

“Halsey.”

“Halsey what?” But I was still too overwhelmed by the sound
of his voice, especially when he said my name. I stared at his lips forming the
words huskily.

“Halsey Rookmaaker.” I gulped.

We walked some more. “Aren’t you going to ask me what my
name is?” he asked.

I was still too caught up in the situation to hear what he
said, exactly. “Sorry. I would love to know your name. What is your name?”

“It’s Lennox.”

Lennox... Lennox what?

My stalker tendencies perked up.
If he tells me his last name, I can google him.
Something told me
not to push my luck.
You don’t want to
scare him away.

“I wonder what your last name is?” I said. He laughed again.
It was like a bark. I marveled in spite of myself.

“Can you promise me something?” he said.

“Anything.”

“Just don’t go on any more late-night strolls, okay? I don’t
know if you know it, but there’s a killer on the loose.”

“My landlady,” I said. “She’ll kill me.” I had already begun
to think of her as my nemesis.

“I’m sure she won’t,” he said.

I just shook my head. “You don’t know her. She can’t see me
like this...
or you
.”

He thought about that. “You’re right,” he said, as we rounded
the corner, onto Condotti.

“I know I am,” I said. My brain filter didn’t work tonight.

“I can’t let her see me.”

“I see you,” I said.

“I know you do.” He smiled at me. I looked into his eyes and
felt my will die inside of me. It just rolled over and exposed itself. I hoped
he wouldn’t be too rough. It was whatever he wanted.

“Don’t you think that’s rather sudden?”

“What?” I said, prepared to defend my feelings for him.

“You just got here. She’s going to kill you?”

“Oh, that.” But I said, “I think she’s capable of it. I
don’t know why. I think she may be a little protective of me.” The moment I
said it, I knew it was true. “She reminds me of someone else, actually.”

“Who?”

It looked like it was going to be a night for revelations.
“My old headmistress at my school,” I said. “She used to tell me... stuff. I
get the feeling, now, that she really did care about me.”

He nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “I have someone
like that, too,” he said. We were almost there. “Maybe she told you stuff that
was for your own good.”

“I’m never going to see you again, am I?” I said, voicing
for the first time a fear I had. I didn’t know I was even capable of such
feelings. I had never had a sense of losing anyone before. Not even my parents.
They were already lost, by the time I had any sense in me.

“I don’t know about that,” he said, charming to the last.

“If I ask you, will you see me again?” My blood did strange
things. Why had I been so bald in my affection for him?

“I don’t know about that, either. Why don’t you ask me, and
we’ll see?”

I gulped. “Will you see me again tomorrow?” I asked; hope,
hope.

“I’m busy tomorrow.”

It felt like being crushed. Not by his arms, which were
nice. He was lean and wiry. But it was like being stabbed in my guts. He didn’t
want to see me anymore. I was inconvenient. This silly girl who needed to be
rescued all the time. I felt every prick of his condemnation.

“Oh.”

He stopped. We were there. This was
it
.

“You can put me down now,” I said, defeated. He kept holding
on tight.

Something in me perked up.

“I have things to do tomorrow,” he said, “but––”
and my mind got excited. “Of course I can see you again,
Halsey
.” He looked up at my balcony. When he said my name, I almost
died. “After all, I know where you live, now.”

Part of me that never would have, smiled. Did he want to
come up? Part of me that never thought that, did. I had never had a boy in my
room before,
ever
.

He put me down. It felt like anticlimax. A gentle no.
“Tomorrow,” he said.

I noticed that he was my height. A little taller, perhaps.
Five ten, five eleven. I was five four. I expected him to be seven feet tall.
He felt like that, in my imagination. All dependable and rescue-y.

“Just make sure you clear it with your landlady, or else
I’ll have to fly up to your window to visit you, okay?”

I smiled, stupidly. Whatever he wanted. I was all for it.
“Well, I’ll see you,” I said; I decided I would allow him to escape. If he
wanted to, I would leave him an out. It was the least I could do, for all the
saving of my life he had done. But he said, “I’ll keep an eye out for
the––”

I looked down at my tank top. The part with the broken strap
was coming down. I could see part of my bra peeking out. I had left a finger
trail of blood where I had reached for my locket and not found it. I didn’t
know what I was going to do. I started crying.

I mean, here was this guy, and I started crying on him,
after everything he had done. Full-on waterworks. My lip even half-blubbered.
But he just reassured me that he would see what he could do. He suggested I
file a report, much good it would do. “The Questura is
swamped––with the murders,” he said.

I just teared up even worse. “I will,” I said. I turned,
hitting the button, waiting for my landlady to buzz me in. When I turned to
thank him one last time, he was gone. Out of my life. Forever.

“Halsey, you stupid twit,” I said to myself. My landlady
gave me worse. She was convinced I was going to be murdered within a fortnight,
she said, making sure to give me extra fresh jabs with her not-real hand
masquerading as a butcher’s knife.

“You’re probably right,” I said, nodding my bloodstained
head. When I got to my bathroom, I saw my face in the mirror. I was wearing the
biggest grin you ever saw. Which just goes to show how crazy I really was. Why
would he ever feel that way about me? I couldn’t imagine it. No way.