Page 52 of The Royal Street Witch
I attempt to keep a straight face, to not give myself away, so I just shake my head, because fuck, she’s right. She’s getting more suspicious and my stomach drops.
“No, no. I’m just feeling a lot of pressure and just need to chill. I’m fine.” I lick my lips and silently beg her to not press me any further.
“Okay, you rest, because it looks like you need it.” Moving my hair from my face with a red polished finger, she looks upon me with pity, and I feel pretty pitiful. Guilt pummels my chest because I’m lying to my best friend.
Yet the moment she leaves I pull for my phone again, checking my text messages, Nightwalkers Instagram and Facebook pages as well as Nicola’s personal page. No new posts or texts since yesterday, and I don’t think I can take much more. My feet hit the floor with force and I change my clothes quickly, plotting the route I will follow for some kind of sign that Bastian is okay.
I pass Comey’s first and look up to Nightwalkers empty balcony, locked up, closed until sundown. Inside Comey’s, music plays, though it’s fairly empty which is usual for a Wednesday afternoon.
Oksana and I meet eyes, and I mask my surprise. She’s usually not on until later in the evening, and so my head falls into a tailspin. Is there a reason she’s working a different shift? I look for some kind of sign that something is amiss, but she just breaks our eye contact and walks behind the bar as if she hadn’t seen me, as if I were invisible.
The St. Charles streetcar seems hotter than usual, stuffier, too many people. Sweat drips from my ear lobe to my neck and I blot it with the collar of my shirt, my mind seeing Cassius crying blood from my dream. So much blood it spilled over onto the street, and why would Cassius be so broken? What could cause so many tears? I blink and tell myself it’s not real. That I’ve dreamt that my grandmother died and turned into a dead man’s thumb, but that didn’t happen and so I shouldn’t dissect this dream. Shouldn’t overthink the things my dark mind concocts.
Jumping off the streetcar is a relief, but only for a moment because each step toward Bastian’s house causes my heart to stammer against my chest in a fashion I’m not accustomed to. It hits me that I don’t worry much about people I care about. And that’s because I care about so few people. And what kind of person am I, really? But this worry is so heart-wrenching that not having to worry about someone sounds sublime right about now.
I round the corner of his house, not knowing what I’m looking for exactly, because I can’t just go in. Can’t just see for myself if Bastian is okay. But there’s a car in the drive that stops me, an older Alpha Romeo, jet black with the top up, its silver edges gleaming under the sun. It’s a car I’ve never seen at his house before and what could that mean? Who is there with him? The worry sickens me and feeling for him was the biggest mistake of my life because this…this is torture and witches don’t do well with torture.
My phone is wet in my sweaty hand and it’s almost three o’clock, but the night is so far away. Knowing I can’t stand and just stare at the house, I walk slowly by it, looking for some sign of whose car it could be. My feet take me outside of Lafayette Cemetery not far from Bastian’s house, and I lean against its cool cement walls and watch all the well-to-do men and women leave The Commander’s Palace, one of the oldest and most upscale restaurants in New Orleans. The suited men laugh as they tip the valet and open the car door for the women in heels, and I wonder what it’s like to have a normal life. Free of vampires and spells and the crushing demand to have a baby.
Cement scratches my back as I slide down the wall, my eyes unable to part with the show in front of me. Full bellies and day jobs and Netflix and wedding engagements. What must it all be like? Would I trade it if I could?
“You okay, my baby?” a woman with a lace umbrella over her head asks me, her ballet flats padding closer, her full skirt swishing around her.
“I’m good,” I say and struggle to my feet, my balance off kilter, and she offers a water bottle. Her umbrella reveals that she’s a tour guide and has seen plenty a fainting tourist under this Louisiana sun.
I turn from her water bottle, from my favorite cemetery, from The Commander’s Palace—where the turtle soup is the best I’ve ever tasted but have only tasted it once because for so long I’ve been a party of one and that’s how I liked it.
I can’t go home. I can’t sit there so close to Nightwalkers, wondering and waiting, so I go to The Vintage. A coffee shop with big cozy chairs. I order beignets and café au lait and I eat myself into a stupor, refreshing my social media every ten minutes, watching my messages come through, but none from Bastian. One from my mother.
Macaroons in Paris!
One from Chantal.
Type “Penis” if you’re alive.
I smile and want to reply,I’m alive, but I may have killed Bastian Delacroix. But instead, put an eggplant emoji and place my phone face down on the table. I go over the possible scenarios.
The Vampire King found out and Bastian was killed and now I’m being hunted. Nicola found out and Bastian is in big trouble and now I’m being hunted. Bastian is sick. Bastian lost too much blood. Bastian is dead.
And now I don’t feel any better, only worse, and if only I could cast a spell to make time speed by, but that’s against the rules and I’m already on a slippery slope with going against rules. So I lie my arms across the table and rest my head upon them and just breathe. Focus on breathing and that Bastian is alive and that everything is okay.
When the sun first hints at setting, I’m off the chair at The Vintage and I’m on the streetcar and I’m in front of my house, my heart hoping that he’s waiting in front for me. But it’s just some kids smoking in front of my shop, and I cast a spell so their cigarettes won’t stay lit as I unlock my door and try to decide what my next move should be. But then I hear something, a sound in the courtyard, a scraping on the brick, so I push through the back door and scan my yard, holding my breath, praying it’s Bastian, alive, and not the Vampire King, come to kill me.
UNDERNEATH THE GLOW OF THEgas lamp, Bastian lies on my lounge chair, arms folded behind his head, feet crossed at the ankles. He sees me, eyes torn from the sky onto me and he sits up, bringing his feet to the ground, straddling the lounge, so agile, so soundless.
My feet guide me in slow and deliberate steps, hands at my sides, hair blowing in my face. He doesn’t smile, nor do I; he doesn’t speak, nor do I. I just reach him, pulling my hair out of my face and straddling the lounge, sitting directly in front of him, scanning his face for any new marks or scars, the scent of his cologne filling me with need.
No new scars, only perfect skin that any woman would envy, intense eyes that still shine in the gas lamp’s orange glow. I swallow before I speak, not wanting to sound too desperate but then realizing I don’t care if I sound desperate—I only care about the man in front of me.
“I was worried.” I say it softly and his chin falls so that our foreheads touch.
“I know,” he sighs and pulls his head from mine. Tipping my face up, that need growing, his awareness of my feelings, my worry for him, my concern, all of it ignites inside of me. I press my lips against his and we’re all deep breaths and moans until he falls back on the lounge and I crawl on top of him. He pushes my hair behind my back, running a finger down the side of my face, and I have so many questions—about our future, the potion, where we go from here—but all I want is him as close to me as possible. Before questions can be answered, before discussions of what’s happened transpires, I need him right now. My hands are unbuckling his pants while his are pulling my dress up, and soon I’m riding him under the stars with the deepest sense of gratitude that he’s okay. He’s okay.
And when we finish, I lie on top of him, breathes heaving, hearts beating. My cheek against his shirt, the muscles underneath moving up and down.
“And here I thought you’d be angry,” he whispers in my hair then inhales deeply.
I lift my head, my chin resting on his chest, and he caresses my cheek with a fingertip. “I was so scared something happened to you. The Vampire King or Nicola found out, or you were really sick. I’ve been a wreck.”
