Lilly’s dreams were plagued with the vision of all her encounters with the hooded man. The first dream she had of him was when he was in the bookstore but he would slowly turn to face her and attack, talons out.
The second dream she had after waking covered in sweat and terrified was when she and Mason met him in the forest, except this time Cleo was standing beside them telling them that he’s a hunny bunny and to be nice. Once again the hooded man attacked them with his talons out, this time though he managed to sink his claws into Mason’s chest and Lilly watched helpless as the boy bled out eyes fixed on her as though she were to blame.
Lilly had bolted awake after this dream too. She looked at the clock and saw it was almost five in the morning and the sun was starting to rise. Slowly she left her bed and went into the kitchen to get a glass of water though she was tempted to see if Sean kept any alcohol in the apartment. Unlikely.
What was wrong with her? Actually many things were wrong with her. For one she was being chased by a sometimes invisible dead man. Second she was hanging out with witches and hex bags. Third she really wanted to go to Mason and talk to him. He was the only other person who had seen the hooded man.
Downing a glass of water and splashing more water into her face she slowly made her way back into Norah’s room, dropping on the bed like a stone with her face smothered into the pillows. She needed to leave soon. Norah’s funeral was later today, finally. When that was over with she was gone, never going to come back. Hopefully never see the Coven members, or the hooded man.
As the night ticked on and the sun rose higher in the sky Lilly could not get herself back to sleep. It was far too hot, too sunny and she was too afraid to close her eyes after all the dreams she had been having that night. All she wanted was her bed, her family and her cat back home.
After eight she heard Sean moving around the apartment making breakfast. With nothing else to do and no point of trying to sleep she got dressed and took her seat beside Sean, “Are you opening the store today?”
He shook his head, though he kept his eyes down on his toast. Today was going to be hard for him as Norah was the only family he had left. Now he was alone at the age of twenty-one running a bookstore in a lonely town. “Sean?”
He took a deep breath, and then another. Lilly didn’t want to push him into talking but who did he have to talk to? She had never seen him spend time with anyone outside of the Coven, and even then it was only at meetings or when a member came to the store.
“I’m fine.” He said quietly, he had barely touched his breakfast.
“Holding everything in doesn’t help.” Time to be a family member, a friend, she thought as she turned to face him. “She was your family and it’s hard. My grandmother passed away two years ago but I talked everything over with my cousin and we helped each other through it.” And here she was again, trying to comfort a cousin.
Sean shook his head and pushed away from the counted, “I don’t want to talk about it.” His tone was forceful but flat, there was nothing behind his eyes but sadness. Lilly didn’t want to pressure him more so she let him go sulking away to his room. When the door was slammed she sighed and slumped in her seat.
She was such a hypocrite telling Sean he needed to talk to someone about Norah while she was sitting there with a secret of her own. Looking quickly at the clock on her wall she did have time to dart down the road and go to Mason’s, talk to him about what she saw and what happened assuming his family would let her near him.
Grabbing her keys out of the bowl she dashed down the stairs and into her car, speeding to Mason’s lovely magazine perfect home. Sage’s car was not in the driveway but three others were along with a motorcycle, a damaged motorcycle. Something must have happened to it when she and Mason left it in the forest when running away from the hooded man.
Darting up the stairs and ringing the bell she waited for the door to be answered. Hopefully Sage’s mother didn’t answer Lilly was not in the mood for awkward conversations and second meetings. But it was not Sage’s mother coming down the stairs, it was Mason. A half naked Mason.
When he opened the door his eyes narrowed, his hair was wet and in his face and a pair of running shorts hung loosely off his waist, “What are you doing here?” There was no scorn in his voice, but the tone was a little angry.
Lilly could not take her eyes off his chest. Not only did he clearly work out but there were more tattoos than just the one on his arm. On his left and right shoulder were two black stars, the designs looked dark and menacing. Around his belly button was a tribal sun, on his bicep there was a crest most likely a family crest. Down his ribs were the words Forts dans la bataille. Lilly wondered if he spoke French.
“Uh, Lilly?”
She snapped out of her gaze at him, god his body was amazing. She looked up and smiled awkwardly, “Um hey how are...you?” At least she managed to get a sentence out.
He shrugged his shoulder, thankfully not wincing like he did the last time she had seen him. “My Aunt had to help Sage and Darcy but fine now.” He reached behind his back and touched the skin, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Lilly nodded her head, “That’s good.”
“Yup.”
They stood their awkwardly on the porch for a moment. She was fiddling with the satchel at her side while he leaned against the doorframe, his eyes darting around as he tried to look everywhere but directly at her. They had spent a night together trapped in a cabin and the spoke then, what was wrong with them now?
“I heard about how you fell.” He said breaking the awkward silence, at her nod he continued talking, “That sucks.”
“Yeah it hurt.” Way to go Lilly, she thought as she could have smacked herself in the head, obviously it hurt you have goddamn bandages over your eye. “But Hailey and Sean were awesome.” He nodded his head and went back to looking around at everywhere but her.
This was so awkward, she came here to talk to him about the attack and they were standing there like school children who were too uncomfortable with the opposite sex to say anything to each other. She was over that phase with boys, had been for years, why the hell was Mason making her awkward again? She took a deep breath before she began, “I came to talk to you about the other night.”
Mason didn’t look shocked but his eyes darted around one last time before he stepped aside and let her into the house. She followed him to a living room at the side, large windows facing the forest and the sun pouring in. She took a seat on the comfortable couch while he remained standing, “What about the other night did you want to talk about?”
“Well firstly we were attacked by some sort of man in a hood who tried to roast you alive.” Mason shuddered probably thinking back to when the hooded man emerged from the forest. Lilly thought back to the look of terror on Mason’s face and shuddered herself. “That wasn’t the first time I have seen him.”
If Mason was holding something at that moment Lilly was sure he would have dropped it, or if he was drinking he would have spat the liquid out of his mouth. Instead his eyes opened wide and he looked at her, fear evident in his face. “You had seen him before? Where? When?”
“Promise not to tell anyone?” At the nod of his head she took a deep breath before jumping into the story about how she saw the hooded man enter Sean’s store and go straight to where she had hid the Book of Souls. She then told him about the shower and how she had seen him in the mirror, touched him when he was holding her down but when the other’s came in they couldn’t see him and he disappeared.
When she was done Mason was sitting on a chair and looking across the room. He obviously had no idea what to do or say. His mouth kept opening like he had a thought or comment but he would quickly close it and shake his head.
And she hadn’t even told him about what happened to her in the shower before the attack with the water she was moulding and playing with and how it was defying gravity and climbing her body. Lilly didn’t want to give him a heart attack, one bombshell a day would have to do.
“I, I, I don’t understand.” He said finally as he ran his hands through his hair over and over again. Thankfully it was still wet from his shower so it wouldn’t be messy for the rest of the day. “You were sleeping when you saw it for the first time?” Lilly nodded her head and he continued, “And you saw it when no one else did?” She nodded again, maybe this was too much to tell him in one day? “That’s not possible...you’re not...”
“I’m not what?” He didn’t finish his sentence, he shook his head and wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Lilly heard the cracking of a can and when he returned he had two beers in his hands. He tossed one to her before sitting down on the chair again. “I’m not thirsty.” She placed the beer on the table beside her.
Mason must not have heard her because he was drinking his quickly. When he pulled the can away he wiped his mouth with his arm and sighed, “I needed that.”He put his beer down too, Lilly noticed on a coaster. She picked her up and did the same. “I was going to say you don’t have powers, at least not developed...”
“Developed?”
He nodded taking another drink before continuing, “It’s like any other form of development you have to work on the skills before they are mastered. All of us in the Coven have been using powers since childhood. You have never used them, you should not be able to dream about...whatever it is you saw.”
But she did. She had dreamt about what was happening in the store below her, she had seen he hooded man with his talons stealing the Book of Souls while she and Sean slept upstairs. Why hadn’t he come to kill her then? Why only after?
“What does that mean then?” She asked quietly. God she hoped it didn’t mean she had powers, or that she had to be part of the Coven. The thought made her shudder having to stay in Willow Creek because of some predetermined path she was lead down at birth.
Mason sighed and looked directly into her eyes. Lilly could not help but stare back into his. “It means there’s something in you that needs to be unlocked.”
Something in her that needs to be unlocked? What did that mean? What could possibly be inside her that she wouldn’t know about? It couldn’t be something physical or else someone would have noticed it long before now. Maybe it was something in her blood that run through the veins of family members that possess powers. Whatever it was inside of her, right now she wished Norah Essex was alive to explain it to her. Maybe be a mother to her for the first time.
Mason took out his phone and swore under his breath, “The funeral starts in twenty minutes.” He got up the chair and headed out of the room, stopping to look at Lilly. “Are you going to Norah’s funeral?”
She nodded her head softly, there was something inside of her... “I was suppose to go with Sean but I don’t know where to go.” Her voice was soft, Lilly was trying her best to hold back the tears she felt building behind her eyes.
Mason sat down on the couch next to her, he put his arm around her shoulder. Almost immediately Lilly felt comfort she had not felt since arriving in Willow Creek. The touch of someone important, someone you cared about. A touch that could never be emulated. “Come with me.”
Mason dressed quickly, he was wearing a tieless black suit, the first several buttons undone at the top of his dress shirt. Lilly held onto him tightly as he weaved on his motorcycle on the streets. She wondered if her tight grip was hurting him, but she liked holding him his closely.
At the store she dashed up the stairs and changed into the black and white dress she brought from home, applied some mascara and black sandals, thankfully her hair was cooperating with the heat. Mason had them at the cemetery with moments to spare before the service started.
Lilly wondered if she was to stand beside Sean who was in the first row of people, but she stayed with Mason at the back. In the crowd she spotted Hailey standing with Jake and people she assumed to be their family. Jake saw her first and smiled warmly, Hailey waved.
Ahead of them was Darcy and her family, her father was dressed in a police uniform. Lilly thought he must be the sheriff of the town. Sage was standing between two people closer to the front. One of them Lilly recognized as her mother, the second must have been her father who was also the mayor. He was a tall man with dark hair like the rest of his family, standing tall and proud as he walked to the front of the crowd to start the service.