Tilly felt her friend's worry, her sadness, a pinch of anger. It washed over the space between them and circled Tilly. The combination felt like looking forward to something only to have it taken away, that sharp and then lingering disappointment of feeling let down.
Tilly reached toward Jen and put her hand on Jen's cheek, looking up into her friend's eyes, those feelings pulsing and strong.
"Hey, you don't need to worry. I promise."
A moment passed, tense and calculating. But then she nodded, an ease now finding its way to ebb around the fear and sadness. "If he finds another way to hurt you, I'm hexing him."
Tilly laughed, feeling Jen's smile under her palm. She felt lighter having this out there with her protective friend. Too many weights had been laid on their shoulders lately.
"That seems only fair. How would you hex him?"
"I'd go for his hairline."
Her smile stretched. "He loves his hair."
Another hour passed easily until yawns and stretches took over the circle, and lazy goodbyes started going around.
Tilly felt overwhelmed with energy, whether from the magical night or her friends, or maybe from the drastic pivots and turns her life had suddenly taken.
She left The Lost Souls graveyard with the rest of them, but as she was leaving the wooded path about to make the walk to her lonely apartment, she veered off into the woods.
All women know the danger here, going into a thick patch of trees alone, suddenly putting themselves in the seat of prey.
It was an unfair part of life that bathing alone in nature was a danger to one's life. But tonight she felt full of power, and perhaps a smidgeon of rebellion against a world that would keep her hidden.
She wound through the woods, humming a song stuck in her head, thinking about everything but nothing sticking. She liked singing and imagined the moon gathering the notes in her skirts to sprinkle across the sky in melodious stars.
There was something about the forest that made her glad. There wasn't a rush to become anything here or to unbecome.The trees did not spend their years looking for ways not to age and she felt that in their roots and the magic the ground soaked up from it and she thought it must be contentment.
She closed her eyes and pulled in that loamy breath, and she wondered what Eloise would smell, how it would fill her lungs and her soul. But for her, right now, she felt the trees themselves lend their sturdiness, their discernment and simplicity.
She wondered if she could hold onto it for a spell. But she knew that once she left this place, she would have to return it like a borrowed cape.
It must be around two in the morning but her blood felt alive.
The whisper of black wings pulled her attention up into the trees. The bird was there, following her. It had yet to cause her any trouble or become a nuisance, and she was too in her element of breathing in the possibilities to mind her new friend.
"You know, you're not very stealthy," she said to the bird. "If you're going to follow me, you might want to learn the art of the ghost. I have some friends that can help," she offered with a smile.
But then something fell over her body stopping her where she stood, not a thing or an object. Nothing physical. But a sudden feeling of ice cubes melting over her shoulders and down her back.
She felt the tickling fear drip drip drip and her brazenness vanished.
And then a hand wrapped around her mouth, large and assertive. Panic filled her and...something else. Something she couldn't name in this moment of frozen fear.
A warm whisper pressed against her ear then.
"Regardless of your fear of me, I will not harm you. I am going to let go of you and I am going to step away putting space between us and then we are going to talk."
She knew that voice. She'd heard it when she least expected in her mind over the last couple of months. The depth, the slight bending of words reminding her he was not from here.
And then she was released. Her breath came out in a burst as her heart pumped it fiercely through her chest. And in front of her, to his credit with ample space, stood Chief Theodore Landry. He wore an army green shirt and black pants helping him blend into the forested night.
His skin soaked up what little moonlight made her way through the thick canopy. She drank him in as her body pumped fear and something that felt a little too close to excitement through her.
"What are you doing here?"
His dark head tilted a notch, barely noticeable and his face gave nothing away.
