Witch (Supernatural #2)

11: Pre-Christmas Spirit

To plan, verb.

1. To make plans.
2. to arrange a method or scheme beforehand.

***

On Tuesday, there were no threats left in my locker. Neither were there any the following days. Aside from the incident on Monday, the rest of the week turned out completely normal. So normal it was almost scary. I swam in the morning, I had lunch with Ken and the others. Noah had disappeared to eat lunch at Amanda's table, which he claimed was for his own safety.

Coward.

On Thursday, Ken asked if I had plans for Saturday, thus giving me my twenty-four-hour heads up. I didn't have any plans except for Grandma's Saturday morning magic practice. And so, after a morning of practicing spells and mixing potions, the afternoon was spent hiking and throwing snow at each other. Honestly, it started out as a hike in the woods - which we could have done in our backyards, but Ken insisted on driving up way up north to a different forest. He held my hand as we slowly but surely climbed the rather impressive hill that would, according to Ken, give us an amazing view of the area.

"Oh, did you see that!" Ken explained. He pointed up at the sky where I saw nothing but clouds. "Look, there!" I did see something this time around. It was a bird, high up in the sky, circling lazily. "It's a red-tailed hawk." To me, it was a bird, but Ken loved it so I indulged him.

In all honesty, I knew plants, not animals. Ken was the opposite.

As we walked, he would frequently point out tracks in the snow, which he easily identified. Those belonged to a fox, and those were left behind by squirrels. Apparently, those belonged to a stag. Every time he told me something, I felt the urge to smile grow and grow. When he pointed out a squirrel as black as night, which wasn't all that common as he told me, he finally caught me grinning from ear to ear, watching him rather than the rodent.

"You really don't care, do you?"

"It's not that it's not interesting, because it is, but you are way more interesting," I admitted, still smiling. "You are so excited by every print you see in the snow. It's adorable."

"I'm sure you know no guy wants to be called adorable," he pointed out with a bit of a pout.

I smiled at him and wrapped my arms around his middle. Looking up at his face, the pout only made him look more adorable, especially knowing that he was faking it. His arms came around me as well, proving that he really was faking it.

"Which I don't get since it's a great compliment. Would it help if I specified it's your excitement that's adorable."

"I suppose."

"How do you even know so much?"

"I spent a lot of time tracking everything that could be a potential meal. At some point, you recognize what animal leaves what prints."

I wrinkled my nose at the thought of him hunting as a mountain lion. It wasn't the hunting part that bothered me though; it was the eating part that I couldn't quite imagine. Ken laughed at the face I made but didn't add anything else, be it to reinforce the picture or to erase it. I did it myself and pushed it far, far, far away where I wouldn't think of it again.

Despite knowing that I didn't really care about the prints, Ken continued to point them out as we made our way to the top. And I continued to watch him. It worked out fine. When we finally made it to the top of the hill, it was snowing and the wind had picked up, making me stick close to Ken for warmth. The view we had from up there was definitely impressive, and more than worth the climb. The forest was spread out at our feet, a mixture of dark wood tones and the white of the snow. I could only imagine what the view would be like in summer; the greens of the trees and the blue of the sky. It was probably even more breathtaking.