The coldness of his body suddenly heated up as if someone had built a fire in dead embers.
Breathless from his kiss, and trying to get answers before he would do something else to make me forget, or make me angry, I said, “Tell me now. I want to know all about you and Samantha,” I said my mouth open and on his. We were comfortably exchanging breaths.
My lips close, with me breathing into his mouth and him holding me in his arms, not wanting to let me go, and I’m not wanting to go, pleading with him to tell me what I had to be fearful about.
In his arms and with his mouth on mine there was nothing I would fear now, but what about later?
Looking into his eyes, I noticed a change of color. The once hard stone green became a warm blue with only flecks of green color remained. I moved away from his arms. I moved away from his lips. And I put a barrier between us. I didn’t want to fall in love with this beautiful man because somewhere deep inside I knew that it wouldn’t last.
“Tell me now. Tell me about Samantha.”
“She’s a witch.” I broke into a loud laughter.
“A witch. How stupid do you think I am?” He didn’t answer and that furrowed brow and sour look returned to his handsome face. And he shook his head.
“It’s impossible to tell you anything if you go on like this. How can I tell you about me or my family if you think the way you do?”
“It’s only because I never believed I would hear such nonsense from someone like you. Aren’t you a doctor? Then how could you believe such a piece of garbage.” I stood and walked to find something to cover my body. I opened the closet as if searching for a robe and there was one. Surprised at how he had attended to detail, I tied the belt and slipped into a pair of slippers and then pulled the towel from my body and let it drop.
“I guess you thought about undergarments,” I said as if I was certain that he couldn’t have bought them. I pulled open the drawer and there lay panties and bras of every color scheme. Black, white, brown, green. I turned to him. “How did you know...?”
“You wore that size. That’s not hard. You are a size six. Not quite as small as I had pictured you, but close enough.” When I left the room to put on my panties, I returned to find Sebastian still sitting in the same place as if he was a statue.
I sat on the side of him. “Now tell me about that witch. Are you sure she isn’t after you?”
“She is after me.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so revealing and up front. I thought at least you would try to hide your girlfriend from me. Why would you take me away from my father and to this wilderness and have your girlfriend come here to size me up.”
“She isn’t a girlfriend. You’re right about one thing she does want to possess me, but she can’t. I won’t let her.” He placed his hand over mine. I calmed. I wanted to believe him but it was hard.
“She’s a real witch, I said, now what is her real name?” I was being playful.
“The kind that puts spells on people and kill them,” he said.
“I suppose she came to kill me.”
“Yes. She did. If you had eaten those brownies you would have died.” He finally got my attention, but I wasn’t convinced yet.
“Why are people trying to kill me?”
“These are entities that aren’t human. They are beyond anything human. There are things humans don’t understand. Like you. You have refused to recognize what I’m trying to tell you. There are witches, males and females that walk among humans and cast spells that can destroy humans or their love ones. There are powerful sorcerers and werewolves and even vampires.”
“Now you’re worrying me.”
“You should be worried. She’s a witch of the highest order. She can cast spells over you and me. She can disappear and return. There are good witches but she isn’t one.”
“It seems she has already cast a spell over you.”
“Can’t you take what I’m saying seriously? It may save your life,” he said.
He stood. “This is impossible. I knew you were too young to discuss this and that you haven’t seen enough in this world to expose you to this. It may be too late for both of us now that Samantha is bent on killing you. If she does that, then I won’t have any choice but to track her down where ever she hides and kill her.”
“Where are you going? I was just enjoying your fairytales about witches and werewolves.” I snickered and his face turned pale once more.
“Back to the hospital. I have patients to care for.”
“This time of night? Everyone should be asleep in this town.”
“We have hunters coming in who have been bitten by werewolves.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Did you say werewolves, you must have meant dogs?”
“Yes. Dogs. That’s what they want to hear. They don’t want to know that they were attacked by a werewolf just like you didn’t want to hear about Samantha being a witch.”
“When will you be back?”
“Before the sun rises.”
He walked to the door leading to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. Nothing rang a bell with me. I waited until I heard him open and close the front door and heard the car motor turn over, and I watched out the window as the car drove away.
This was a great time to see what he was hiding in his room. I tiptoed to the door as if I thought someone was watching or I might get caught. But how could I, when there was no way for him to get back without me hearing him.
Biting my fingernails, I opened the door to his room. A big empty room with only a piano. But there must be more. I wondered, where does he sleep. No bed. “What the fuck is this?” And then I let my mind construct an excuse. “He likes to rough it. He sleeps on the floor. He looks the type,” I said as I crept to the large double door closet. “I wish my closet was that large,” I murmured carelessly as I opened it up.
“There isn’t anything inside,” I said with a careless look. Nothing but one black suit, black pants, and black shirts. I let my fingers trail over them. “I need to go shopping and buy him something with color. He’s taking this a little too far. “Look at this. This wardrobe looks like something from the eighteenth century,” I murmured as if I would know what they wore. I almost failed history if it wasn’t for a tutor.
“Well he wants me to act like a doctor’s wife then I’ll show him.” I turned with a smile and that’s when something caught my eye. There were several drawers built inside the closet, next to it shelves, with his shoes and boots lined up neatly.
Standing in front of the drawers, “While I’m here why not?” I shrugged. Pulling open the top one, it was filled with newspaper clippings. I took a hand full and sat on the floor. The newspaper started in April of eighteen sixty one. The clipping were yellow and stained as if someone read them over and over them while drinking tea or coffee.
I had taken a class in American History and I didn’t want to relive the US Civil War again so I thumbed through that paper only taking a look at the ones that mattered. There was a headline of a dentist who had discovered anesthesia for soldiers during that war.
He was on the front page of the New York Times. The picture looked eerily like Sebastian. “Probably his great grandfather,” I mumbled. I couldn’t help thinking about that picture or the black suit and white shirt with a black tie.
What a handsome man. His hair a little longer than Sebastian, he’s smiling and has a sexy smile. There’s those Sebastian teeth. Had to be some relative. At that moment I wished I’d lived during that time and could have met his great grandfather. He appeared more likeable than Sebastian who enjoyed cultivating a dry stubborn look.
After dreaming about the great grandfather for a moment, I threw those papers aside for something closer to my time. I fingered through the papers and found one for year two thousand. I was five years old then. That thought came racing through me like a hot poker had been placed on my skin, searing it leaving only the bone.
The headlines read: There have been a rash of children who have disappeared in Seattle on their way to school. All have been found except one child, Zoey Miller, five years old, dark hair and blue eyes who was taken by someone in a van only a few feet from the school door. She disappeared into a sea of children unloading from a bus.
A classmate called out to Zoey but she didn’t turn around. The classmate said Zoey had been holding a man’s hand she thought was Zoey’s father. Apparently it wasn’t.
Ryan Cole, a young first year graduate of the police academy in his interview with us, stated that he would not rest until he brought Zoey home.
I couldn’t read any more. There were mountains of clippings of me. I forced myself to read the rest though, and then I found one recent article. I remembered that picture. I was fifteen years old when it was taken.
A young girl standing on Fleet Street near St. Bride’s Church in London, England looking frail and scared, said she hadn’t eaten in days when she asked a stranger for food. When the woman asked her name, she said Zoey Miller. The woman who didn’t want to be identified said she recognized the name if not the face because it was the name of a child believed to be taken years before and presumed dead.
This was me and why did he have all those clippings and what connection did he have to these papers, I wondered.
It took all night for me to read the rest of the papers and still I couldn’t figure out what was going on and how and why did he feel the need to help me. Sebastian’s answers were weird to say the least, and there would be no way I would believe there were werewolves, witches, and vampires.
Even the one about Samantha being a witch was laughable. I can see a disgruntled woman trying to get rid of her rival, but poisoning me was a little over the top. If she wants that handsome bitter cold man then she can have him, I thought. I’ll gladly turn him over to her, as if I’ve ever had him.
But I couldn’t deny what I saw with my own eyes. My best friend Terry mauled and torn apart by something. Before I could see or know what he was, I had been knocked unconscious by the fight between Sebastian and his brother. Even that was a little unbelievable. Brothers fighting like two animals intent on killing each other.
Then I heard someone enter the house. My heart fell to the floor. We’re going to need an alarm system. With all the talk about witches, werewolves and vampires, how does Sebastian expect me to function? I’m a fucking nervous wreck.
Looking around I found something I could use to defend myself. It was a small statue, but what could that do? I tiptoed out of the room and made my way to the kitchen without seeing anyone. When I opened the kitchen door there stood Sebastian looking tired. He still wore his white doctor’s coat.
“You look like you could be a real doctor.” His eyes caught the statue of an old man in my hand.
“What are you going to do with that?” He said breaking into a small smile.
“I was going to defend myself.”
“From who? There’s no way to defend yourself from a witch or a vampire.”
“Then why not give myself up to him or her and stop all this running and hiding.” I set the statue down on the kitchen isle and leaned close to Sebastian, pushed the collar of my sweater down and leaned my neck to the side.
Looking up at him, “Are you one of them? A vampire?” I said in jest, “Then take me and make me an undead. Do whatever you want with me. I give in.” I snickered.
Turning away in horror, his eyes shining like polished jade, he inhaled as if the air was taken from the room and he couldn’t breathe, and he exhaled and said, “You don’t know what you’re saying or doing, don’t do that again.” His voice cold as ice.
“I thought you would stay at the hospital until morning? Give me some time to myself.”
“I took off early to bring you a bottle of wine.” His voice softened. “And to make sure you were alright. I can’t be too careful with Samantha running around.”
“Your girlfriend. Thanks, but I can handle Samantha.”
“How many times do I have to tell you she will kill you?” He reached for my shoulders and brought me close to him.
“But you won’t let her. Will you?” I smiled.
“I could kill you myself,” he said looking at me with a long erotic tortured gaze. The sound of his voice, a broken whisper, a sensual rasp of excitement, which made me tremble with anticipation in his arms.
Staring back at him I had to admit to the attraction I felt for him, and his for me. I didn’t want to acknowledge that this man thrilled me and filled me with desire.
“Go ahead. It would be better than dying of boredom in this fucking place,” I said and turned my back on him to reach for the wine. I needed to get some space between us. He placed his hands over my hand and looked at me as he turned me around.
“Say you don’t want me to kill you.”
“I don’t want you to kill me. Does that make you happy?” He let my hand go. We stood looking at each other.
“What now?” I said.
“Nothing,” he said. And he turned to walk away, and then he turned back as if he had a second thought, to meet my eyes.
“What?” I said.
“Marry me.”
“Are you out of your mind? I don’t want to marry anyone. Well not yet. But I do know this handsome guy in school I might want to fuck.” His hands tightened on me. “You’re hurting me,” I said. He released me quickly and looked at me as if he had injured me. I walked around to get the wine opener.
Turning to him I said with a smirk, “Are you jealous?”
“You have to be in love to be jealous,” he said. And I threw the opener at him. He caught it. Some reflex, I thought. His gaze never left mine and he walked around and held me again. “Why are you angry? Did you want me to be jealous when you made that remark? Why do you have to say those things to me? One day you will go too far,” he said his voice heated, and simmering with unrestrained passion as his eyes met mine.
I couldn’t control my heartbeat. I couldn’t control my need to be held. I couldn’t control my attraction to him.
His body close to mine where I could feel his coldness because we were meld together and I gave him my heat. He leaned giving me a heart stopping kiss. The kind that made my body shudder. I lay my head to the side and before I knew anything he lifted me in his arms, and was climbing the stairs two or three steps at a time.