Bespelled

Chapter 6

"I can't believe it!"

My gaze tore away reluctantly from the clear blue skies ahead to face the incredulous look in a similar bur brighter shade of cyan. Ebony looked on at me with shocked bemusement as I lay on my back twirling a strand of hay between my lips. A bee fluttered by. And a fly followed in pursuit. But those distractions were  as always momentary. Not much could pull my attention away from Ebony's widen gaze as she took in the impressive sales my book earned me.

I watched her shake her head helplessly as she tried to make sense of it and grinned wider at her continued bafflement.

I turned to the side to prop my head up on my hand as I continued to lay stretched out on the lawn. The Blackthorn farmhouse was anything but. On fourty acres of mixed forest, meadow, brooks and what not, laying on the back yard lawn here literally meant laying out on a remote country field. 

Only we were hardly remote, not with the entire Blackthorn family gathered enmasse only a few feet away in the great house itself.

I grinned lazily up at Ebony noting how the sun played with the red highlights in her hair. 

" You won't be needing anything from us anymore, " said Ebony,  somewhat sadly. " You're free to not give a damn about us."

I dropped my head back and groaned out loud at that. When was she going to realise that will never happen.  Her family was all I had. Money meant nothing more than an ability to not have to turn to the Blackthorns for it.

"Did you really doubt my book would do that well?" I asked instead,  choosing to deliberately ignore her unkind sentiments of how success affected me. "I mean I have this face,  this body," I said flexing my abs visible in my unbuttoned shirt and showcasing my muscular upper arms by making a fist. "All this and a writer too. A bespelling one at that. How could I possibly not succeed."

Ebony's groan was audible if deflated.  She tossed the paper aside and slumped to the ground beside me.  Propping her head on folded arms, she stared out at the skies above. 

I held myself back all of two seconds before propelled by a greater force, I shuffled closer to draw her reluctant body into my arms.  Her thoughts were far wide and way out of line but I couldn't stand her anxiety over losing me. It was obvious she thought I would do just that.  Pack my bags and leave. For some reason Ebony believe d being soulless left me heartless too.

But I had a heart. I felt her pain. I felt it as if it were my own. We were inseparable, she and I.

The sooner she understood that fact, the better it would be.  On all counts.  For all of us.