Alchemy (Book 4)

Chapter 1

Eve's Youngest Son

Jeffery

The room started to pick up the blue hue of dawn. Charlotte was still asleep. Her skin was still tanned from our trip to Florida. Hurricane Season she had said, worried. It was unlike her. I knew something had been bothering her by the way she'd packed for the trip. She'd nervously pulled shirts and shorts from the dresser drawers, hurriedly stuffed them into her suitcase. More like a hospital visit than a vacation.

It was a road trip.

Once everything was in her suitcase, I had walked over to her and put my arms around her. "It's what people like us do."

"People like you maybe." She had half teased. It was true. We both knew it. Despite what I'd like to have believed was humility, I was lucky. I knew I was.

Waking next to her was like everything else I did with her, it was remarkable. Even seeing her tanned arm, over the sheet her hand resting just next to the pillow. I wanted to touch her smooth skin. I always wanted to. I noticed the faded rope bracelet around her wrist; it was weathered and worn and it reminded me of sailing with her the summer before. Charlotte. Pretty Charlotte. I was in love with her. She most certainly was the only girl I'd ever loved. It's a predicament, I thought. It escapes explanation.

I eased myself out of bed without disrupting the blankets or making a sound. Once I was up, I picked my faded jeans up off the floor and slipped them on. It was cold in the cottage, hardly winterized. I turned back to Charlotte then I walked to the closet and pulled a heavy wool blanket from the shelf. It was one of those coarse and thick plaid ones you find in every summer house on Cape Cod. I walked back over to the bed and unfolded it. It was bulky, cumbersome. I spread it over the bed and she stirred a little. She turned to me and when she did I saw the whiteness of her skin where her bathing suit straps had been. She was half awake, "what are you doing?" she shook her head a little to jostle some loose strands of hair out of her face. When it didn't work she tucked her hair back behind her ear. Her green eyes were fixed on me, but I could see she was still sleepy.

"I thought maybe you were cold." I whispered. I walked over and sat next to her.

"Come back in here with me." Her face was so pretty. She had a slight overbite and it made her both cute and sexy.

I bent over and kissed her. "I can't. I have to work. You're tired. Go back to sleep. I'll bring you coffee in an hour."

"You're just going to write for an hour?"

I nodded. I bent over and kissed her. "I'm in love with you," I said. I hadn't planned it. Certainly it was overdue. We'd been together since June and it was already November. I should have told her months before.

She blushed. "Really?"

I nodded.

"I'm in love with you too." She said. "I've been in love with you for a long time."

"I'll come back in an hour ok?"

She nodded and nestled herself under the covers in the warm bed.

It was really freezing in the cottage. When I walked into the front room, the floor felt like ice under my bare feet. There wasn't much of a heating system because the place was meant to be closed up during the winter. It had been built in the 1930s and the clapboard exterior didn't offer much protection from heavy winds or cold; it was meant to be a place of leisure not a refuge. For that reason, it was a different place all together in the summer and that was how I'd convinced my father to loan me the money to buy it. A small summer cottage would be a good investment. It didn't cost that much, really, but it was more than most 25 year olds could afford. It was nothing extravagant but something privileged nonetheless. I loved being there. Even when it was freezing. Even with the beach arctic cold and difficult to traverse. I preferred when the town was near empty and all the summer guests had boarded up their cottages and gone home. That was when real life picked up; that was when I felt like a writer. Having a beer with a couple of locals beside me at the bar in a mostly shut down restaurant. The well worn oak floors visible with the chairs and tables pushed to one side of the room. I loved the nights when I walked alone down the sandy road back to my place, navigating the path through the dunes in darkness. The roar then din of the ocean's sound. I had never intended to stay all winter. The plan had been for me to spend the summer on the Cape, working on a novel and then close the cottage up until the next summer. I had planned to move back to Boston in August, but I never did.