Magically Bound

Chapter five

Aurora’s POV

He kept my gaze for as long as he was standing at the center of attention. Was I truly the only one noticing this? His eyes burned into mine; staring with such intensity that I felt my soul crumble before them.

“Is it just me,” Nora muttered from my side as her eyes wandered from the blood hunter to me, “Or is he looking at you?”

“I don’t think looking is the right word,” I gulped and tried to remove myself from his view by squatting down, not caring about the few wondering stares I got from the townspeople around me.

“What are you doing,” she mumbled in a high-pitched voice. “Come back up, Rory…”

I shook my head and began looking for a way out of the crowd. A way that wouldn’t bring too much attention to me, seeing as I already had plenty.

“I need to get out of here,” I told her in a hushed manner.

“Do you know this man?” she questioned, her eyes widening.

“No!” I assured her. “Where would I even have met him?”

“How should I know?” she whispered. “You are the one acting as if the end of days had come.”

She mumbled a few curses under her breath, looked around and before I knew it she lifted up her skirt and bent down.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you really think I will let you look like a lunatic all on your own? Because if so, you are utterly mistaken,” she huffed and nudged me, urging me to continue. “Now go, before more people notice us.”

I nodded and started moving to the right, hoping that it would lead us to the end of the crowd fast. A few nudges and glares were exchanged as I pushed my way through the crowd, silently begging for a quick ending. I was used to being stared at and talked about, but this time it wasn’t just me. It was Nora as well. Again.

That was the second time in one day that I had caused her trouble. First with Charlotte and now this.

“Twice,” I mumbled to myself.

“What?” she hissed from behind me, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.

Just a few more steps, I kept telling myself as I saw the silhouette of the apple stand between a few people in front of us. Once we got to that, the road, and our way out, would be right beside it.

Once we reached it, we both got back up on our feet, and took one look behind us before scrambling away.

“If he wasn’t going to hear about the other incident, he will most definitely hear about this,” Nora chuckled.

“And you find that funny?” I asked, a frown forming on my face.

“How can I not?” she shrugged. “If not funny, it would be tragic and I don’t really like to look at the downside of things.”

“Forever the optimist,” I smiled and rolled my eyes.

Yet another thing I loved about her. Despite having a reputation to uphold, a reputation that most definitely and without question took some hits today, she still managed to see the bright side of things. It was something she tried to teach me, that and biting my tongue whenever someone annoyed me.

‘It's not ladylike and just because people are already looking at you like you are insane doesn’t mean you have to give them any reason to see you as an unmannered beast too’ she would say.

“How are you?” she asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“You told me your hand was burning like a madman,” she explained. “Is it better or not?”

“Oh,” I whispered and took a look at my hand.

I hadn’t even given it a single thought before she mentioned it and I hadn’t even noticed that the burning had stopped before now.

“It’s much better.”

“Good,” she said and offered me a smile. “Weird… But… Good.”

Weird indeed. This was the second time it had happened and yet I still didn’t know why. The first time was when I was in front of my house and the second was in the town square, so I had no idea how to connect the two.

“Maybe you burned it on something,” she continued after a while. “Like a plant,” she said, her tone wondering.

“Possibly,” I shrugged.

It definitely could be a possibility. Many places in town, including my own front yard, were covered with weeds, and many of them either burned to the touch or would make your skin itch. I could have grazed one of them with my hand last night. After all, it was dark, and I could barely see anything.

That would be the reasonable explanation, an explanation I should just accept, so why couldn’t I?

I looked at Nora who was slowly sinking away further into her thoughts, and cleared my throat.

“Don’t you think the best course of action now would be to go our separate ways?” I questioned.

“What do you mean?” she asked looking rather confused.

“Go home, I mean,” I clarified before shrugging.

“If that is what you want,” she smiled. “But I need to ask, are you okay?”

“I am fine.”

“You don’t seem fine,” she sighed and went to give my hand a squeeze. “And I know why. You think you are causing me too much trouble, and maybe some people would agree with you, but I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“Not at all,” she snorted.

“But your fiancé…”

“Will have to get over it,” she interrupted. “You are my best friend and nothing in the entire world would ever change that. Not even him. Now, if you still want to go home, I will understand, but I still think we should make something out of the day.”

I watched as her eyes twinkled with a slight hope, a hope that would usually make me give in to whatever she was suggesting, but today… Today I had to suffocate that hope.

“I would still like to go home,” I sighed but gave her a small smile for reassurance. “You can come with me so you can get the dress back?” I offered.

She started laughing before she took a few steps toward the path that led to her house.

“That dress is not coming with me,” she said and turned her back to me as she started walking. “And don’t even try to discuss it with me. It is yours,” she yelled back at me while waving her hand in the air. “See you tomorrow, Rory.”

I shook my head at her and looked down at myself while slowly and gently letting my hands glide over the fabric. This reminded me not only of the better days but also about my mother and to think that I was allowed to keep this… Under normal circumstances, this would have been enough to bring tears to my eyes or make the rest of the day perfect, drunken father or not, but in this very moment, all I could think about was him. The strange man whom I had never seen before, but in a way felt like I had known for a while. The way he looked at me, the way he nearly swallowed my entire being, even from such a distance… It was nothing like anything I had ever experienced before and just thinking about it made a shiver run down my spine and the hairs on my arms stand.

I continued walking on the little path that led me through the woods. I didn’t exactly have the biggest need to go home since Mrs. Clemons wouldn’t be there yet, so it would only be me and my father, but I had nowhere else to go. I knew I could have just walked with Nora, but I wasn’t really feeling being around her overwhelming optimism after what happened at the town square.

Every time something like this happened, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Nora was and had always been well-liked amongst everyone in town. She had her life together, a perfect family, a respected and successful fiancé waiting for the moment he would finally be able to make her his wife and then there was me. The troubled best friend who somehow always dragged her down.

I wasn’t jealous of her, I never had been, but knowing that I caused someone so much trouble… It was the same with my father. After my mother died, I somehow became the root to all the evil that happened to our family and my father warned me that I would end up ruining Nora’s life as well.

Had he been right all this time? I knew he was nothing but a drunken, sad old man but could he somehow…

“You!” a dark voice rumbled from behind me echoing through the woods stopping every single track of thoughts that my mind had set in motion. Under normal circumstances I would have blamed the coldness of the wind for the shivers that ran through my body so intensely that it made me squeeze my eyes shut, but not this time. This time it was a voice. One I had never heard before. I turned my head slowly to the side to look over my shoulder. I searched the path behind me, the path I had just walked on, but I didn’t see anything.

I took a deep breath trying to calm myself down before I began walking again, this time a bit faster than before.

“It is rather rude to ignore people when spoken to,” the voice growled again suddenly sounding as if it came from right behind me. It was almost as if I could feel a hot breath creeping down my neck as the words had been spoken and this time my body didn’t freeze. I didn’t stop walking, no, I started running as fast as I could. Despite not being able to hear any footsteps behind me, I didn’t ignore my body when it told me not to stop.

Just a bit further, I thought to myself as I saw the clearing in the distance. Once I got there, I wouldn’t be far from home and at least a bit closer to civilization should anything happen. I could feel my legs getting slightly numb and hear my heart in my ears so loud that it sounded like it was outside of my body.

Just a few more steps, I repeated. Just a few more…

I counted in my head as the trees flew by me, and once I passed the last one, my foot meeting the soft grass below me, the sun finally lighting up my surroundings, I spun around ready for whatever was chasing me.

I tried to breathe and calm down my heart as my eyes searched the darkened path and the bushes which were covered by shadows from the tightness of the treetops. Again, nothing. No one was there.

“That is it… I must be losing my mind,” I mumbled to myself.

I let my eyes roam across the path one last time before I turned around to make my way home, but instead of being met with the open field that I had previously run towards, I was met with a hard surface that made me involuntarily fumble a few steps back. I rubbed my forehead as I slowly looked up and once, I finally knew what the unpleasant obstacle that had been right behind me was, I wished I hadn’t stopped running at all.