Different Kinds of Magic

2 - Moonlight

Dear reader, you have yet to see me meddle. I save it for important events, usually.

They say that being a detective is boring, mostly desk work, mostly running through paper trails. It is never like the movies or TV or bestselling books.

It is mostly the same for magical beings.

Those with little magic spend their lives trying to fit in, to be normal in a world where normal doesn’t really exist.

Those with more magic and certain personality traits make singular dramatic events for the rest of us to deal with.

Those with the most magic, with it running through our veins, spend the most time watching, waiting for the big things, the things that can turn the balance and fight to maintain it, so that our world can last that little bit longer.

I usually only meddle in Aidan’s life when asked. I’ve been asked to keep my distance for the time being. I’ve been asked to watch, but don’t touch.

I meddled in Aidan’s life a few days ago adjusting her memory. I’ve done this a couple of times telling myself that not keeping to the letter of the promise, I’ve been helping her.

Soon, I’m leaving to take care of one of those bigger things.

In the meantime, I will help Aidan adjust to a bit of information I’ve kept from her by request.

For now, I’ll watch. But I’m not the only one…watching.

Moonlight gilds her face silver. Her lashes seem longer hidden inside their own silhouette. Her brow furrows slightly. Something passes in front of the moon. The shadow falls over her briefly then is gone. Her eyes open the moment before her brain clicks awake. That first instant, Aidan doesn’t know where she is. The moonlight caresses her face and nothing more. Darkness shrouds everything else. She sits up…not quite knowing what wakes her.

Blinking, she realizes she must have fallen asleep in the living room. She’d been doing something….Ah, yes, the history book lay open on the floor. She shakes her head. Her father must have come home, covered her and switched off the light.

Aidan lies back and wonders if the effort to go upstairs to her room is worth it.

Deciding the comfort of her bed is better than the sofa, she stands. She is already in her pajamas and her hair is still damp from her bath. It hangs heavy on her back.

She takes a couple of steps and hears the light tinkle of the wind chimes on the front porch. Her eyes go to the window.

Curtains her mother sewed during her pregnancy-nesting period hangs over the picture window. They are open just enough to allow that one sliver of moonlight. She steps to the window intending to close the curtains the rest of the way, but pauses, gazing at the stillness of the night.

Sometimes she likes to walk in that. The moon is full and everything is silver. No cars pass. No dogs bark. No lights slice through the night. Nothing moves. Sometimes she walks for a while alone with her thoughts. Occasionally she pretends she is the only one in existence, until the thought becomes unbearably lonely. Then she comes home, and feels safe and secure as she closes the door on the night and all its mystery.

Her father’s sleeping presence fills the house and comforts her.

This is not one of the nights. Something tells her that if she steps outside, she will not be alone. She sees nothing, not even a cat. She tells herself it is nerves, closes the curtains and climbs the stairs to her room.

The curtains here are open all the way, bathing the room in moon glow. She goes to the window. Without looking outside as she did downstairs, she pulls the curtain shut. She climbs into bed and tries to regain the sleep she’d left downstairs.

                                                                                 ∞

Somewhere between midnight and the hour before dawn are the quietest moments in residential areas. Frequently, he walks those streets, slipping through the shadows in silence. Most of the time, these walks are random, meant to clear his head. Tonight, he has a purpose.

Her house is the second largest on the block, one that still has a semblance of a yard all around it. Though the distance between neighbors is just shy of cramped, there is enough for a reasonable amount of privacy.

He smiles.

She lives merely three blocks from the oldest area in town, the one where the antique shops, corner bars, and coffee houses used to be covers for speakeasies. There has to be tunnels beneath.

She lives in an arts and crafts home built in the early twenties. Painted a soft blue with white trim, the porch looks inviting, half covered in vines crawling up its posts.

Without a sound on the old wood porch, he peers through the large picture window to the left of the door and sees her sleeping. He listens to her heartbeats softly pounding, speeding up. Her eyelids flutter.

Faster than a blink, he is across the street, hidden in shadows.

He sees her framed in the window just before she pulls the curtains closed.

He waits.

A few moments later, she appears in an upstairs window and closes those curtains.

Yes, he is patient.

He can wait.