“How the fuckdid you fit so much stuff into one tiny apartment?” Esme groaned as she loaded yet another cardboard box into the removal truck we’d hired for the day. Her deep sigh bounced off the walls of the vehicle, which did little to protectme from her clear annoyance. “And why do you have like seven different jars of jam in this box?”
There was simply no explaining the jam. I fought the smile tugging at the corner of my lips. “It’s just stuff I’ve collected over the years. I could get better at throwing things out, though.”
“Too fucking right,” Esme drawled as she hopped down from the truck to grab another box from the pavement. “This feels like an episode ofHoarders.”
“All this bending over is doing a number on my back.” My grandfather mused as he ambled over to the truck with a large lamp, the wires trailing behind it. “It’s not just me, is it?” he said, smiling up at my best friend as he handed her the lamp.
“Mr Sterling, are you sure this is all going to fit in your house?” she asked in mock outrage, placing her hands on her hips as she surveyed the mountain of boxes that lined the van walls, as well as the ones that still obstructed the pavement at the bottom of my building stairs.
In the war of ‘who had the most stuff?’Esme would win every time. Where I had grown attached to my absurd collection of oddities, Esme matched my belongings tenfold with dresses, shoes, and a flurry of timeless handbags. I’d told her a million times, but the girl was this decade’s Cher Horowitz, with twice the beauty and four times the brains. “Just remember how much you complained when we had to move your wardrobe of shoes,” I rolled my eyes at her.
A smile tore across her face. “What’s that age-old adage? ‘Good shoes take you to good places.’”Not with the heels she had a penchant for collecting.More like they take you to the ER with a broken ankle and a foot covered in blisters.
“Any nice plans for the summer?” my grandfather called out as he picked up another box. I loved the man—I really did—buthe moved with the grace of an overstarched pair of jeans as I moved to take the box from him.
“You know that road trip that we always talked about?” Esme started. It was a trip that Esme, Isaac and I had planned for years. We wanted to drive down to California, stopping off to see the best tourist attractions along the way. FromWailing Springs,West Virginia, toThe Lost World Cavernsin Missouri, toThe World’s Largest Ball of Twine inKansas, there was an endless list of ridiculous attractions that we had all been desperate to see. “Well, I figured I’d just go by myself.”
“I’m going to visit all the places we added to the list when we were like sixteen, and I’m taking a page right out of Quincey’s book and trying to find some creepier places to visit, too. Like theToriithan ForestinOregon…Oh, and there’s this UFO Watchtower in Colorado, I’d like to see too. I think I’ll do that instead of…”Instead of the lakehouse. Isaac’s parents’ lakehouse.
I could hear everything she wasn't saying behind her cheerful tone and well-rehearsed monologue. I don't think she was trying to convince me but more herself, that she could still have a good time on the trip we planned with Isaac so many years before. This thing, this road trip was meant to be ours, one last final hurrah before we entered adulthood. It was clear she didn't want to address the oversized elephant in the van, so I chose not to notice everything that she didn't say.
“I am trying to convince Quincey and Red, here, to come along for at least a bit of the trip. I'm counting on you to convince them, Mr. Sterling.”
I letmy fingers trace along the embossed lettering on the front cover of the leather-bound book.
The Malediction Codex.
For Everyday Curses and Hexes.
Use at your own risk.
At your own risk, indeed. I stood looking down at the book that had turned my life upside down. There had been a time, not too long ago, when I was so comfortable in the mundane. Morning spent sipping coffee, one too many weekends pouring drinks atThe Bootmaker,and evenings spent with my head between one textbook or another. But like the teal colouring, all the mundanities had faded from my life.
I placed the book at the top of an open box. At the same time, Thallor sauntered up behind me, noticing my temporary enthralment with the little book that had set us both on a collision course with each other. I knew he hated the book. I knew what it had done to his life. But I couldn't help but feel grateful that it brought us together.
“It's difficult to explain what being tethered to that book felt like before. I felt like I was always waiting, waiting to be freed as I simply existed from day to day. I felt like nothing ever really mattered in my ageless life, and yet I still felt like I was wasting away. Being summoned always felt hard because I felt trapped all over again. And as much as I hate that book, as much as I hate what my life became as a result of it, I wouldn't trade any of it, I wouldn't trade any of that suffering because at the end of it all, it brought me to you.” I silently watched him as he opened up to me. There was a vulnerability in his voice; I still wasn't quite used to hearing it. One that made him soundhuman.
I'm sorry, I wanted to say. But the words didn't come. I wasn't really sure what to say. But he smiled at me softly, tuckinga loose strand of hair behind my ear and making my heart flutter the way it always seemed to do when he was close. “And when I think of that book now, I think of slices of pineapple pizza, you falling asleep when you promised you could make it to the end of the film, and a ridiculous cock-shaped candle.”
A small laugh escaped my lips as I looked up at him.
“When I look at that book now, Sterling, I see home.” He said it so simply, as if it were the easiest thing to convey in the world. “I see us. I see you. You are woven into every good memory that I have in my life. Every beautiful memory. The centuries of being trapped were worth it when the prize was you.”
A breath caught in my throat.The centuries of being trapped were worth it when the prize was you.
I didn't even think. I just rose to my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck like I had done every time since we watched Dirty Dancing on my sofa. I memorised him and the feel of his body as my fingers curled over the strong slope of his shoulders. Our lips found each other immediately. He smelt like the bonfire smoke on the 4th of July, a scent I'd come to love like nothing else.
And when I thought about him and us, I realised that, unlike the movies had me believing, you didn’t find love in the epic declarations or grand displays of affection. It just turned up at your door when you least expected it. In a blaze of red hair and piercing eyes.
Thallor’s smile broke against my mouth, lazy and warm. “Come on,” he said softly. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can get back to my favourite pastime.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
He chuckled, low and deep, then tilted my face up, running his thumb across my cheek like I was something precious. “You.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“And we're down the last few bits of furniture,” I declared as I sauntered downstairs with the last cardboard box. I'd walked up and down those flights of stairs enough to last me the rest of my lifetime, and as much as I hated to admit it, Esme was right. I had far more things than any one sane person needed.
