Howl's Twisted Castle

33: A tale of magic

A laugh escaped my lips before I could stifle it. Alex had to be joking. How could he not be human?

I took a moment to really look at him. His soft brown hair and matching brown eyes mirrored my own; the sharp angle of his jaw framed his otherwise delicate features. Apart from the thick scar on his forearm, his skin was flawless. If he wasn't human, then what was he? I wanted to make sense of it all, but my mind couldn't process the idea. To me, Alex looked very much human, through and through.

If this was his attempt to lighten the mood, I wasn't laughing.

"You need to start making sense Alex. I've had a horrible day and you're not helping the situation by making jokes."

Leaning forward, he reached for my hand and held it firmly.

"I can assure you that I am quite serious."

A chill ran up my spine. At first, I thought it was a draft and I pulled uselessly at the tattered remains of my dress to cover my bare legs. But that wasn't it. The unnerving feeling I experienced was a warning from within. Alex was dangerous.

"Just a second," Alex said quickly, holding up a finger. He dashed out of the room, returning with his arms full of an old worn blanket. Shaking it out, he draped it with a flourish over my shoulders.

"Thank you," I said quietly, pulling the edges of the blanket close. His returning smile was so genuinely sweet that I didn't want to believe he was bad. The blanket wasn't much, in fact, it was rather thin and threadbare in places, but the gesture touched me deeply. So why was I feeling so uneasy?

"Tell me, Sophie, now that your curse has been lifted temporarily, why did the Witch target you?" He cocked his head as he studied me thoughtfully.

I'd asked myself this question so many times before. Why me? Why not curse some other girl? I wasn't the prettiest girl in Market Chipping, not by a long shot. Before that fateful day, the day I walked straight into her trap, my life was simple and predictable. But on that day, my life turned upside down. Simple and predictable no longer.

"Did you anger her in some way?"

I thought about the events that transpired that day.

"I hit her over the head with a lamp," I admitted sheepishly.

A hint of a smirk played on Alex's lips.

"Remind me to hide my furniture when you're around," he quipped.

"I'll have you know I had an excellent reason for doing that," I declared.

He brushed off my statement with another sarcastic reply.

"Is there ever a good enough reason to bludgeon a person?"

I should have laughed at his remark. After all, the idea that I had the gall to take on the Witch armed with nothing but a lamp was ludicrous, but I could not. I folded my hands in my lap and looked studiously elsewhere.

"She wants Howl's heart and she expected me to get it for her."

His sigh was heavy with frustration.

"After all this time, she's still trying to get that? A shame really. She still hasn't realized he removed it a long time ago."

I turned my head and met his eye, surprised that he knew that much.

"How could you possibly know that? I only found out the other night--," my cheeks flamed red at the memory of our kiss, but I shook my head. 

Alex scratched his chin where a hint of dark stubble grew in.