Page 66 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

“Me too, actually.”

He picks me up like I’m nothing and deposits me on the couch. There’s no TV in the living room, but, adorably, he sets up his phone with Practical Magic and hands it to me to watch. He also steps away to grab a plush and my favorite blanket from my bedroom before getting us both some ice water and both plates of tortellini. He drags my heels onto his lap and sighs contentedly as he takes a bite of his food.

He seems content just to sit there while I eat slowly, drink water, and watch my favorite comfort movie. I’m grateful, because it usually takes at least an hour for me to feel normal after I seize. I want to explain everything tonight, but a little time to get back in sorts would be good.

I’m suddenly aware, as the evening air starts to drift through the windows, that I’m still only wearing a bra and the lounge shorts from earlier. I mean, I am under a blanket, but I’m a little perturbed by how completely unphased Damien appears. After so long of waiting for my mysterious ‘UTI’ to go away, and all the times he’s groaned about wanting to touch me, he seems entirely glued to his tiny phone screen.

I disappear into my room and find another comfy sweater, but before I put it on, I defeatedly remove my bra, recognizing that the fragile state I’m in after a seizure maybe isn’t the most conducive to mind-altering sex. Foiled by epilepsy once again.

Turning around as I tug the sweatshirt onto my bare torso, I see Damien leaning against the doorway with his hands tucked in his jean pockets.

I give him a tight-lipped smile and look at him sidelong. “Were you watching me change?” I ask teasingly.

He lets his split tongue do a slow roll over his lower lip as his eyes rove from the top of my head to my bare feet and back up again. “I might have been,” he says, before holding out a ringed and tattooed hand. “C’mere.”

I obey, walking over to him and leaning into him as he lets his arms wind loosely around my middle. My hands feel small perched on his chest, and he tucks some of my hair behind one of my ears. “So,” he says. “Should we talk about the magical elephant in the room?”

“Are you calling me an elephant?” I ask.

“No—I mean Gloam, obviously.”

As if on cue, the small, furry creature blurs into the room with a series of chirps, parkours off my bed and the tapestry on my wall, and then zooms out again. We both look at each other and laugh before I press my brow against his chest, taking a centering breath.

“I’m a witch,” I say, still hiding there. “A real one—like, Practical Magic style. Brooms, and love spells, spooky rituals—the whole thing. “

I still don’t look up, but I get the sense he’s nodding slowly. It feels easier to tell him these things while not looking at him. It feels easier than watching his expression change in real time.

“And... you think you’re cursed?”

“I don’t think it. I know it,” I say. “This is something I was raised knowing. And that necklace...” I finally look up at him, meeting his eyes; they flicker as they take me in. He’s listening raptly. There’s no change in his expression, no hint that he’s skeptical, even now. “You know the pearl it had in its setting?”

“Sure,” he says.

I swallow dryly. “That... that pearl was made from little bits of ashes from each of the matriarchs of the last nine generations.”

I think about it for a moment and amend, “Actually, just eight generations. My mother’s remains weren’t in it. That’s why the demon was able to break the protection it kept on me. The absence of her power in the pearl—in the city—weakened it.”

He nods again, his fingers drawing a soft line up and down the channel of my spine. “Alright. So, what does that mean?”

“It means I can’t leave the house,” I say.

“What will happen if you do?”

“I don’t know. But nothing good. And—well if you’re nearby you can get really hurt, Damien. We’ve had the protective charm for over a century, but Nan always seemed to think that if we lost it, going outside could create Final Destination-level horrific accidents.”

“And it’s different here because...”

“Because the wards are quite literally carved into the bedrock and the frame of the building,” I tell him. “And the same thing with The Buried City.”

“Hang on. The what?”

“The Buried City. That... that’s where Wren and Bastion both live. It’s a sort of liminal-trans-dimensional city that exists underground. It’s where a lot of magic folk live to avoid the persecution we faced in this realm in the seventeenth century.”

He nods again, but this time his expression shifts. Not to anything skeptical or scared but... perhaps... overwhelmed? He’s gone pallid. His hand has stopped its path up and down my back, and I can do nothing but wait as he continues to nod and not quite meet my eyes. My chest tightens. I try to just keep breathing.

This is a lot of information to take in. Whitman comes to mind again, and I try to remind myself again and again that Damien isn’t Whitman.

But my fear has me starting to spiral.