Witch Hunt the Wicked Wild

09 - Alice

Alice

This is irrational. How is it that I can not walk away? How did this become unhinged?

My experience with men is limited. I had one boyfriend in High School. He did not kiss me like this. If he had, I doubt I would still be a virgin. *How is it that I can crave what I have never known?*

He has my back against the trunk of the apple tree. His hands are massaging my ass, and driving me wild. I took my blouse off, pulling it up and off over my head. Now I'm leaning back against the apple tree, wearing a plaid green skirt and a white bra. *Most of a bra.* It is unhooked in the back.

His hands feel so much better than I imagined. My throat is making stifled moans. I'm deep into the experience of him. He smells of cured leather and spice and sandalwood. When he pulls my nipples between his thumb and forefinger, and rolls the nipple rough and rustic, I gasp into his kissing mouth. The experience is *like pain,* except I need it to happen again.

Davey, my High School boyfriend, I realize now, was a boy. And there was nothing wrong with him being one back then. Henrik is not a boy. Henrik is a man — a man of solid flesh and bone, who is not over stimulated or nervous or in doubt of what to touch or how.

He pulls back from me, and searches my eyes, "Are you good? This is going kinda fast."

*Fast? I still had clothes on*. "No," I tell him, my voice is less than a gasping whisper, "I'm good. You?"

His smile is lupine. "Let's take this back inside. You're sure your mom isn't going to come through the door?"

I shake my head, "She's in the Amazon rainforest."

"What about the rest of your coven?" he asks.

Again I shake my head, "Nothing scheduled for a week."

"Then it's certain," he agreed.

"What is certain?"

"That we're going to be caught in the most cringe worthy fashion."

"No, no don't say that," I plead weakly. I don't want anything to mar this moment.

"Before we go back in, I want to look for what I came out here for."

He starts to look around at the ground and the trunk of the tree again. Another difference between Henrik and Davy, nothing was more important than getting a chance to go inside and touch my breasts. Men, I see, have more than breasts as an interest.

"It might have been nothing. Even if it was, it wasn't more than a ghost."

He stopped, "What did you say?"

"What I mean is that it could have been an apparition that my mind thought it saw inside the detonation of chaos. Just like we see horses and faces in the clouds."

Henrik stepped around to the other side of the tree, "Maybe, but the clouds in my world don't have claws."

I stepped around and inspected what he was on the other side of the tree. "Ours don't have them like that," I admitted.

The marks on the tree were fresh and formidable. If they were indeed made by some creature's claws then that creature had long arms, longer than mine, to reach around the tree like this, and a sizeable resource of strength. I've seen bear claw marks on trees all my life. Even the large grizzlies up north don't rend the trees so deep.

"Looks like only two claws on the right," Henrik points out with his left index finger.

I put back on my bra. Someone might drive down the road today. Not likely but it could happen.

"You're thinking something with claws like that came through with you?"

He didn't answer right away, just continued to search around the ground, until he found a print that was not a bear. Certainly not a bear.

"Why would you think that?" I asked him, after noting the shape of the track he found. "Do creatures with claws like that exist where you are from?"

He found another track and then glanced at me. "Smell that?"

"What?" I asked then paid attention to what I was sniffing. "Ozone?"

"Yep," he said and stood, putting his hands on his hips, he looked east, the direction the tracks suggested the creature from the detonation traveled.

My groove was leaving me. My mood altered its rhythm. The creature appeared to be sizeable, and dangerous — or it could be with claws like that. Strong, obviously. And tough — I saw no blood or other sign of injury after being blown through a stone wall, and into the trunk of a old apple tree.

And it was heading east.

I picked up my blouse, and started to put it on. "The city of Pine Valley is in that direction. A few thousand people," I tell him. "Coming?"

He turned and sized me up, "Possibly dangerous," he tells me.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to die a virgin."

He blinks, "Well, do we ride or fly or what do we do?" he asks, and then coughs into his fist.

I finish buttoning my blouse, "We drive."

"Drive?"

"What should I bring?" I ask him. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Ah," he says, with a hint of regret in his voice. "I really don't want to talk about this. Not now."

"About what? Ghosts that go boom?"

"About where I'm from. I'm going to say 'yes' on the 'seen them before' question — but I don't know anything about them that might be useful if we come across one and it attacks."

"What do people normally do?" I ask him.

"Well, they die."

"Die?"

"Fast too."

"Oh." I grunt, "And you got nothing helpful?"

"I might be helpful."

"But you're not going to tell me how."

"Nope. Not right now. Apologies but there is too much at risk."

"Well, at least you tell me you're going to be less than truthful. The coven never allows the enemy to know their secrets — or what they call their secrets. Or that they are going to create secrets."

He glanced away, "A lot to unpack in that statement, can we go?"

"I'll get my keys," I agree, and begin to walk to the front door.

"Hey," he calls after me. "Pick up where we left off later?"

I give him a grin, "Depends on how helpful you are," I tell him, and continue inside.