The Gray Prophecy, page 12
Anne approached the boat, her hands in her pockets. “Let me help you with that box,” she offered.
Cori nodded appreciatively, noting that Anne had pulled a pushcart out to the dock to meet her. “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver,” she said, smiling up at her.
“Cori,” Anne said gently. “I hope you didn’t take what Jordan said to heart this morning.”
“Oh, not at all. I knew he was just teasing.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “It was all in good fun.”
Anne pursed her lips. “I just wanted to let you know that it makes me really happy to see you making friends.”
Cori let her eyes dart to the floor. “What do you mean? I have plenty of friends.”
“Come on, Cori, I used to see you purposefully sit by yourself in the lab. Some of the other grad students would go out for drinks. They always invited you, but you never joined them.” Anne considered her with soft eyes. “The Huxleys are nice people. I’ve only been here for two years, but you get to know everyone in this town quickly. They’re a nice family.”
Guilt washed over her. A nice family that was now in danger.
“They seem nice,” she managed to say.
She and Anne pulled her belongings together before Anne got back on the boat on an expedition to collect kelp samples.
Cori made her way back to the office, pulling the cart full of her gear as large droplets of water splashed onto her head. She had just made it to the garage door when she noted a large gathering huddled around the woodstove in the corner.
In the center, David Huxley was standing among them, telling an animated story as several of his buddies laughed heartily. Some of them held frosty cans of beer, resigned to the end of their day, cut short by the burgeoning storm. Seth sat nearby, baiting hooks as he listened on, chuckling to himself as his father told a story that was probably all too familiar. She allowed herself to be a voyeur, watching the way David’s eyes sparkled as he gained another wave of laughter from his friends.
Cori scanned the crowd for Adrian, but he was notably missing. She sighed heavily, sucking in the sticky air. Good, she said to herself, vowing to avoid him at all costs for the next ninety-nine days.
Every moment that she stayed here, she was at risk, especially now that she had been discovered. Cori kicked herself for what seemed like the hundredth time for pulling Adrian into this mess. Seth nodded at her from his perch on the milk crate. She winced as she nodded back before turning on her heel and making her way toward the staircase.
She could walk away from this town right now. Anne would understand. Make up a story about another opportunity, perhaps abroad. Pack up her few items and be on a plane from Bar Harbor tomorrow. Her Eye fluttered open as she kicked the idea around in her mind.
You know that’s not what you are supposed to do. You are supposed to be here, her Eye chastised her, and she let the message swirl around behind her eyes and settle down heavily in her chest.
Jordan was bent over his laptop, a pencil dancing between his index finger and thumb as he twirled it absent-mindedly in his hand. He barely looked up as he nodded his head toward the couch and sipped the hot beverage in his mug.
“Sit, friend,” he said softly as he continued to type feverishly. A satisfied smile uncurled on his lips as he bit the eraser end of the pencil. “I owe you one, you know,” he said, finally looking up at her.
“Oh yeah?” She squinted at him dubiously, trying to decide if she forgave him for teasing her this morning.
“I finally got that data from the archives, like you suggested.” He leaned back, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. “I’ve been transferring it manually into my spreadsheet all morning, but it saved me a ton of time.” He tipped his mug at her in a toast.
She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him.
He sighed, “I’m sorry I teased you this morning, Cori.” He pursed his lips in an apologetic pout. “You made it too easy, but I’m still sorry.” She tried to hide the smile that crept onto her lips as she processed his words. “I went to the bakery and bought you a slice of pound cake.”
She sat up straight as he tossed a brown paper bag toward her. Cori dove into the bag as the sweet smell of baked sugar danced around her. “Apology accepted,” she said quickly, popping a bite of cake into her mouth.
Jordan’s smile twisted with amusement as a shadow darkened the door. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and straightened his spine. “Adrian, what brings you upstairs on this stormy afternoon?”
Cori froze, a mouthful of cake protruding awkwardly to the side of her cheek.
Adrian stood at the doorway, leaning into the office nonchalantly. His backward hat sat lopsided on his head as a few stray hairs popped through the front. Rainwater half soaked his T-shirt, but it clung to his heavily muscled chest in a way that made her feel like jelly. He locked his gaze on to her, and she tried to regain conscious control of her mouth.
“Hey, Jordan,” he said, taking off his hat to run his hand through dampened hair. “I was just looking for Cori.”
She continued to stare at him, dumbfounded—silenced by cake.
Jordan cleared his throat. “Well, here she is,” he said expectantly, rapping his fingers on the desk.
She raised her eyebrows, swallowing down the massive lump of buttery sugar that sank in her throat like a brick.
Adrian narrowed his eyes at Jordan and sighed before turning to her. “I was wondering if you were hungry. Do you want to grab an early dinner? We had to call it a day because of the storm.”
Jordan slowly turned his head toward Cori, raising his eyebrows so high she thought his eyes might pop out of his head.
This was not part of the plan. She coughed, attempting to dislodge the heavy mound of cake that had settled under her sternum. “No, thanks. I’m all set,” she said, gesturing to the bakery bag. “Jordan bought me cake.”
Jordan brought his index finger to his brow and closed his eyes with consternation. “Do you intend to eat this cake for dinner?” he asked her as though he could not believe what was unfolding before him.
“Well, I could…” she stammered, but before she knew what was happening, Jordan’s hand reached out and grabbed the bag from her with catlike speed.
“That would not be a healthy choice,” he scolded her as if she was a toddler. He stared at her expectantly as her eyes shot angry daggers at him.
Cori sheepishly looked up at Adrian’s face, which was now adorned with an infuriatingly handsome smirk. She sighed and let out a forced smile. “Sure, I could eat something, I guess.”
Jordan shook his head heavily and took an angry sip from his mug.
“You know, too much caffeine can give you high blood pressure,” she said, standing to retrieve her pastry bag.
He shot her a dirty look. “I will have you know this is a chai.” He took another aggressive sip. “There is barely any caffeine in this beverage.” He clicked his laptop shut. “I can surmise for myself what will and will not give me high blood pressure, and it’s not a cup of spiced tea,” he muttered under his breath as he straightened the papers on his desk. “That is for certain.”
She glanced at Adrian, who was now trying with difficulty to hold in a laugh, his arms crossed across his chest.
“Let me grab my stuff.” Cori turned away from them and retreated into her office. She lingered a bit longer than she should have, putting away her gear and considering the possibility of escaping out the window. By the time she came out, Adrian and Jordan were laughing heartily together.
“She looked like a hot mess when she got home this morning.” Jordan was sitting on his desk now, leaning forward, eager for an audience. Adrian was shaking his head.
“What’s so funny?” she asked them curiously.
“Jordan and Jess are roommates. He was just telling me all kinds of things I didn’t want to hear about.”
She nodded slowly in understanding as she arranged her bags on her shoulders. Another flush rose to her cheeks when Adrian reached out automatically to grab the heaviest one, slinging it on his own back with ease.
“Make sure she eats something with vitamins in it,” Jordan called after them. “Maybe a salad.”
“Jordan, can you let Anne know I’m going to be collecting samples on the shore tomorrow morning? I need to drive a little north of here to get what I need, so I won’t be in the office until later.”
“Anne leaves for New York in the morning, and I doubt she’ll be back until Thursday at the earliest.” He stood up and started straightening his papers. “I’m leaving with her tomorrow,” he said stiffly. “The grant money was reappropriated.”
Cori watched anger rolling off Jordan’s aura. She didn’t want to consider the possibility of funds being cut from the project. As much as she hated to see Anne’s project derailed or scaled back, it might be the easy out she was looking for.
Jordan sighed. “I completely forgot to tell you. She said to let you know Geoff is coming with her, and she said something about cat food in the garage.”
After taking a few notes about some visitors they were expecting to get in the next few days, she felt confident that she could keep things running while they were gone. She reassured Jordan the best she could. If anyone could strong-arm more funding from an academic donor, it was him.
The bell on the door jingled with finality as they made their way toward the staircase.
“You don’t have to carry my bags, you know.” She followed along behind Adrian, taking two steps for every one of his easy, long strides.
“I want to carry it,” he said simply with a shrug of his shoulder.
“People are going to think you’re trying to impress me or something.”
He looked back at her with a frustratingly charming grin and a wink, as he adjusted the weight of the bag on his shoulder. “Maybe I am trying to impress you,” he said smoothly.
Her stomach turned inside out, and blood rose to her cheeks. Whatever he was trying to do was working. “I told you last night, it’s not a good idea to spend time with me. Especially now.”
The rain had stopped, and the light glowed through the lingering humidity in the hot afternoon. The salty scent of the air was accented by wet dew that clung to the grass from the storm.
He walked on toward a scratched and dented blue truck at the edge of the lot. “And I told you last night that I don’t care,” he shot back at her, a protective edge to his voice. “Is it better for you to walk around town by yourself? Or starve? Because I’m quite sure you wouldn’t make it long on a cake-only diet.”
“Maybe the cake diet is the new hot thing. Like keto.” She didn’t know what to think. As much as she worried for Adrian, having him nearby put her strangely at ease, and he seemed to fall easily into the role of her protector. She climbed into the truck next to him. “Where are we going for dinner?” she asked.
She had skipped lunch on the boat that afternoon, and her few bites of pound cake were not nearly enough to hold her over after the manual labor of her morning boat expedition.
“I’m taking you to the grocery store,” he said simply, turning over the engine.
“A grocery store?” she asked in disbelief. “I thought you were trying to impress me.” She settled back into the seat of the truck as she buckled the hot metal clip.
“I noticed you had no food at your place this morning. I had to run down the road and steal those eggs from my mom’s henhouse before I left.”
She winced with embarrassment. “That was very nice of you, but I'm afraid you’re wasting your time. I don’t know how to cook. I would have just stopped at the bakery on the way to work. No big deal.”
“Let me give you a little tip. This is not New Haven. We don’t have food establishments open at all hours of the day to cater to your every whim. The bakery isn’t even open every day. Joanna teaches her yoga classes three days a week. She can’t be in two places at once.”
“Well, shit.” She crossed her arms in anger. In San Francisco, she could have any type of food delivered to her doorstep in a matter of minutes. Her mother never cooked, but Enzo knew how to make all her favorites.
Enzo. Goddess knew he would be furious with her if he knew she was allowing an Elemental witch to drive her to an undisclosed location in his tattered pickup truck. Enzo had always been the one who looked out for her, but she needed to be honest with herself. Adrian filled that void effortlessly.
“I thought you were Italian. Isn’t cooking part of your genetic makeup or something?”
“That’s a stereotype,” she scoffed. “Although my brother, Enzo, was always an excellent cook. He just naturally knew how to do it, you know? Like what spices complement chicken, and how not to burn things.” Her heart ached for Enzo’s Sunday sauce. It had been so long since she had experienced the sweet smell of tomatoes permeating through their town house on a cool, lazy Sunday afternoon. “My dad was supposedly a great cook,” she mused.
Enzo used to memorize their dad’s recipe cards, kept in a wooden box by the stove. They were stained and creased in a million places, and Cori could still see the tight, neat, angular scrawl of his notes. Papa’s handwriting was just like Enzo’s. “Or so I’m told. I think that’s where my brother must have gotten his talent from.”
Her chest seized up with grief. Memories of her father were not even hers, but Cori knew better than anyone that it was possible to miss someone you had never even known. Even before she had left California, he rarely was mentioned in casual conversation.
Cori had learned from a young age that every time her father’s memory was conjured up, her mother’s countenance would twist into tormented sorrow. Cori could feel the grief roll off her as if he had just died. Some wounds never heal.
“You never met him, did you?” Adrian asked softly.
She shook her head, the taste of her grief still lingering on her tongue.
“He died in a plane crash before I was born,” she responded heavily. A breeze drifted past her cheek, and she wondered for a moment if her father was watching her, guiding her. Telling Adrian about him seemed natural and right. “He was Celestial, like me. My brother is a Charms witch, just like my mom.”
After years of bottling up the truth of who she was, letting him in on the secrets of her past felt like a relief, despite the inner struggle between her rational brain and her Eye.
His knuckles had tightened on the steering wheel, and the muscle in his jaw flickered. His aura had turned a bruised purple with waves of iridescent green. She recognized the emotion immediately—pity.
“How far away is this grocery store, anyway?” she asked, to lighten the mood and change the conversation.
“Ayuh, should be to Hannaford’s in about thirty minutes,” he replied in his thickest Mainer accent.
“Thirty minutes?!”
“Yassah, I keep forgettin’ yer from away. Don’t worry, Hannaford’s the finest kinda store there is in the county.”
She laughed as she sank deeper into her seat, her mind wandering to a mental grocery list as she gazed out the window.
The store was surprisingly large and well equipped, despite the remote town they had to drive to. Cori stocked up on instant ramen, snacks, and bagels. Adrian advised her not to bother buying any of the produce, not when they had anything she could need at the farm.
An hour later, they were sitting in the back of his truck bed, watching the sunset as they shared pasta salad from a plastic container.
“Is this the romantic dinner you were hoping for when I asked you out earlier?” he asked teasingly.
Romantic. She shoved a forkful of pasta into her mouth, her skin heating. “Yep,” she teased back. “For the record, I did not expect you to take me to some fancy restaurant. I also didn’t consider the possibility that we would be eating dinner on the back of your truck.”
Cori sipped the blueberry wine they had bought and passed it to him. She had been amazed at the sheer number of blueberry-themed foods and drinks she had encountered in the store, and had no idea until today that you could even make a blueberry wine.
“It is a pretty nice view, though, you must admit.”
“I’ll give you that,” she agreed. She tilted her head back, drinking in the light of the first stars in the sky.
“So, do you know the names of all of those stars?”
She nodded. “Most of what you see in the early night sky are planets. They’re the brightest in the sky before the sun sets. That’s Jupiter.” She pointed up. “See how it almost looks blue? That smaller, dimmer light is Saturn. It’s part of Capricorn if you trace it up and to the right.”
“Did you have to study any of this stuff when you were a kid?”
She shrugged. “Yes and no. I never had to study which stars were which. I was born knowing them. And they talk to me. The moon is passing through the horn of Capricorn.” She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “That means there will be a fulfillment of something that has been long anticipated,” she said in an ethereal voice.
He scanned her face as she leaned her head back. “You just know that?”
She smirked. “Kind of like how you just know when it’s going to rain, or when the tide is coming in,” she quipped at him. “It’s just something that comes naturally to me. When I lived in San Francisco, or even in New Haven, there was so much light pollution, I couldn’t see them. I could always feel them spinning up there, but I couldn’t see. Moving up here, it’s been intense. Like an awakening.”
Her stomach clenched, wondering how much of that awakening had to do with him. She retreated deep in thought, absent-mindedly twirling between her fingers the dark brown hair that had fallen from her braid as she continued to look up at the sky, questions in her eyes.
He looked up again expectantly, too, as though the sky was inclined to answer her back.
Cori
She woke naturally at dawn the next morning after another restless night. Adrian had dropped her off after the trip to the grocery store before nine, his eyes lingering on her mouth as she unclipped her seat belt. Despite her temptation to kiss him again, she had jumped out of the car and practically ran into the cottage.
