Page 29 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

29

Ellie

Ellie marveled at the way that things so impossibly odd only a few weeks ago seemed normal now. She watched Dan and Axell walk away and said, “If it’s not poison, then what?”

Prospero extended her elbow to Ellie. Her body was tense enough that Ellie could feel the muscles as firm as bone in her forearm. “I will figure that out,” Prospero said mildly. “I don’t have an answer yet, though.”

“I feel like the chief witch puts too much pressure on you,” Ellie muttered.

“He trusts me.”

“He abuses your loyalty,” Ellie countered. “Whatever you did to upset him isn’t reason enough to allow it.”

Prospero’s lips pressed together as if to bite back a retort. “I visited a witch who was not yet a witch.”

“I remember that,” Ellie said quietly. “Is it so bad that you came to my library?”

As they walked, Ellie weighed her recent discoveries and conclusions. She still was unresolved as to what she intended to say to Prospero. The attempt to talk to both Dan and Maggie had been futile, but Ellie still now knew things she’d not known yesterday.

“I don’t recall the last time I wanted something for me. Someone,” Prospero said. “Then I saw you. There was a prophecy about you… and I knew you were a witch, but you had not yet become so.”

“I kissed you,” Ellie whispered. “I knew you were mine. I didn’t know anything about magic or witches or here. I just knew that you were mine.”

“Oh, Ellie…” Prospero glanced over at her. “Why can’t any of this be simple?”

“It can.” Ellie looked back at the castle that loomed behind them like a stone guardian, and for a moment, she had the sense that she’d walked this path with someone else. Maggie. The question was whether it ultimately mattered. Sure, Ellie wanted to figure it all out still, but the important part was that if Prospero truly hadn’t wanted her to know, she could’ve erased the memories of those who did have clues.

“Do you know that Daniel Monahan and Maggie Lynch were in my Missing files?” Ellie asked.

“I did.”

“I knew that before, and I know it now.” Ellie glanced over at Prospero. “I think you expected me to figure everything out. All the things I’m forgetting. All the things that happened. It’s piecing together, and I think that’s what you wanted to have happen, isn’t it?”

Prospero was quiet until they were alongside the stretch of woods beside the path. Then she said, “I did not agree with the decision to alter your memory. I just wanted… I wanted to talk and explain and—”

“I was in the other world. I left.” Ellie felt like she’d had an espresso shot, heart racing too fast, as she was hoping she was right. Maybe Prospero could be trusted. Ellie barreled forward. “With her. Monahan boosts magic. He boosted yours, and you erased my memory.”

“I am not allowed to tell you what happened,” Prospero said after a quiet moment.

“I figured that much out by piecing things together. What I don’t know is if… did I… I don’t think Maggie is lesbian.” Ellie took a deep breath and blurted, “I kissed her.”

Prospero said nothing.

“I kissed Maggie,” Ellie repeated.

“I heard you.” Prospero’s expression was unreadable. “Do you often kiss other women?”

“No. I had memories of her, though, and—”

“Memory of kissing her?” Prospero asked, voice as calm as an undisturbed lake.

“No. I had a memory of jumping into a car with her after I caged you in what looked like a diner…?” Ellie had gone from don’t-tell-her to blurting everything out. It was less of a carefully thought-out plan and more of a secrets-are-the-problem mindset. “It’s not a dream. Those things happened. I left you, and I went with her. And you came after me.”

“Yes.” Prospero stopped and stared at her. “You were upset.”

“And you won’t tell me why—”

“ Can’t, ” Prospero corrected. “I can’t tell you.”

“Fine. You can’t answer my questions.” Ellie paused, looking toward the edge of the town. The streets were half-empty, a visual reminder of the dilemma before them. Witches were afraid, possibly of the escaped witches who had shot Lord Scylla, possibly of nonmagical intruders.

Ellie wasn’t sure she could blame them.

“Are you angry over what you’ve recalled?” Prospero glanced her way, and Ellie noticed that her jaw was clenched tightly. Her voice might not waver, but the anxiety was obviously still there.

“I was angry in one of the memories, heartbroken, too,” Ellie admitted. “ You hurt my heart, Prospero. I know it was you.”

Prospero nodded. “I made mistakes. I am sorry.”

“So this whole ‘leaving a trail so I can evade my punishment for whatever I did’ is a… what? Grand gesture? Apology?” Ellie kept her voice pitched low as they resumed walking. No one more than a hand’s width away could hear her. Even though the streets were empty, she wasn’t willing to risk being overheard.

“Amends.”

“Nothing is simple with you, is it?” Ellie muttered. She’d been weighing the situation. Thus far she had figured out that she had broken a major rule, but Prospero hadn’t known. Maggie had gone with Ellie to the nonmagical world, and Prospero had pursued them. After being returned to Crenshaw, the memory of their escapade was erased—by Prospero, with Dan’s help.

“If you only knew…” Prospero laughed. “You’re not exactly meek, love.”

“Fair.”

“That’s not a complaint.” Prospero ascended the steps to the house. “Just to be clear.”

“So I figured out most of it, but I don’t know why I was upset with you.” Ellie waited while Prospero let them into their house.

Inside, Prospero shut and locked the door. “I lied to you, omitting telling you things I knew.”

Ellie gaped at her. “That’s it?”

“They were large things,” Prospero added as she hung up her overcoat, looking fixedly at the coat hooks rather than at Ellie. “You reacted poorly, doubted my sincerity, questioned my feelings toward you.”

“I don’t doubt your feeling now.” Ellie put a hand on Prospero’s side.

“Truly?” Prospero was motionless.

“You are rather obviously in love with me,” Ellie said.

Prospero looked back at her.

“I know you lied,” Ellie continued. “But I also know you left a trail for me to figure it out because you want truth between us… and you refused me because you were afraid of my reaction when I remembered.”

Prospero turned the rest of the way back to face her. “You remember most of it. The majority of the worst parts.”

“Do you suppose that’s enough to move on?” Ellie asked hopefully. When Prospero didn’t reply after several moments, Ellie felt her shoulders sag. “Go bathe. I’ll fix tea.”

“Wine?” Prospero asked quietly. “I don’t have the answers you want, love. I feel like there are still big gaps in between us, but if I could hold you and… be near you to rest, I would very much like that. And maybe other things?”

Ellie’s smile felt wide enough to be awkward. “That sounds perfect.”

Prospero left, and Ellie gave a little spin in the foyer. She wasn’t frightfully giddy by nature, but this felt like something to celebrate. Massive progress of the romantic sort. The world was still under attack, and dangerous witches had still declared war on Crenshaw. Ellie still had some holes in her recollection. The rift was better but not fixed. Things were far from perfect.

But she admits that she wants me in her arms.

Sometimes Ellie wondered how anything could feel significant when there was a hole in a person’s heart. A hole in her memories? She could manage. A hole in her heart? She obsessed over it.

Romantic date with my wife coming right up.

Ellie felt like a thief in the kitchen. This was Bernice’s territory, but the fastidious hob was absent right now. For that Ellie was grateful. Ellie pulled open the old-fashioned refrigerator. It didn’t hum with electricity but with magic.

“I forgive you,” she murmured aloud, testing the words for their truthfulness. The tendency to fixate on truth pre-witch was apparently a sliver of magic insisting on notice. Now, Ellie understood what it was. Magic. Plain and simple.

The words Ellie spoke ran true. She had forgiven Prospero. Now, she needed her wife to understand that.

Ellie walked up to their once-shared bedroom. Prospero stood in the room, staring into her wardrobe. She wore a purple dressing gown with embroidered edges. Water dripped from her hair. Beside her was a small table and chair where Ellie remembered sitting and brushing her hair, thinking about the way her wife avoided her.

Right now, Prospero was present and looked a bit desperate.

“I figured almost all of it out, and I forgive you.” Ellie stared at her, not closing the distance. “Tell me why I can’t love you fully, Prospero. Because right now, you have no arguments left… unless you simply don’t want me. Is that it?”

“No.” Prospero untied the belt holding her dressing gown closed. “I wanted you to remember because we’d fought. I didn’t want to take advantage of you, love. I was trying to be a good person.”

“Thank you.” Ellie stepped closer. “And now?”

“Now, I just want you to touch me, let me touch you, whatever you want. I hoped… I wanted that the whole time. I was never trying to reject you.” Prospero’s hands folded into fists at her side. “I didn’t want you to forget our quarrels—or the quarrels we’ll have over the years in front of us. I like that my magic doesn’t work on you.”

“Me too. So can we never do that again? Never fight? Never turn me out of bed?” Ellie removed her shirt, dropping it on the floor. Her bra followed.

Prospero’s gaze was fixed on her. “Yes.”

“To which thing?” Ellie asked.

“Never again.”

“Not to the fact that I’m half-naked?” Ellie teased. “Can I get a yes for that, too?”

“Always that.” Prospero’s voice was low and veered toward desperate. “I thought of you like this.”

“When you touched yourself?” Ellie asked as she was a hand’s length away from her wife.

“I didn’t… do that.” Prospero caught her eyes this time. “Not at all. If you didn’t know what I did, you couldn’t consent, and I needed to…”

“Suffer?” Ellie finished breathlessly. She dropped to her knees and parted Prospero’s dressing gown. “My poor love.”

Ellie kissed Prospero’s thighs, and then she pushed her backward, so she was leaning against the wardrobe.

Prospero didn’t resist as Ellie took her ankle and directed her to brace one foot on the chair beside the wardrobe. “Ellie…”

“Hush.” Ellie let the warm breath of her word out in a sigh, gratified to feel the tension in Prospero’s thigh. “Let me taste you.”

Prospero made a sound that was somewhere between a whimper and a moan, and Ellie set her mouth to reminding Prospero what she’d been missing in their separation. After several moments of attention, Prospero was trembling. Her hands gripped Ellie’s hair as if afraid she’d vanish.

“There. Please. There. ”

Instead, Ellie paused and stared up at her. “Never lie to me again. Swear it.”

“I swear. I’d swear it even if you never touched me again,” Prospero promised.

Ellie grinned at her. “Such a good girl.”

The sound Prospero made was the exact one that Ellie had imagined when she was alone in her bed, but tonight she wasn’t alone at all. She slowly licked Prospero’s folds before teasing, “Maybe we should pause. I gave you no foreplay, no kissing, no admiring looks. Maybe I was too hast—”

“Ellie,” Prospero whined. “ Please. ”

Ellie chuckled. “I like the way you say that.” She held tightly to Prospero’s trembling hips and applied her lips and tongue to the gloriously wet juncture of her wife’s thighs.

“God, Ellie. Yes. ” Prospero’s voice was raw with need. “Please please please… oh god, love. Love you, Ellie. I love you so very much.”

Between one “please” and the next, Ellie’s tongue sped up, and everything was suddenly right in her world. Her wife was begging and writhing, crying out Ellie’s name, and the rest was all minutiae they could figure out later.