Page 40 of The Witches Catalogue of Wanderlust Essentials (Natural Magic #2)

Chapter 23

Muscle Memory

S he did not need to make an effort to seek Cosimo out. He was already waiting for her when she arrived home. He was sitting in the garden, lit by starlight, rocking comfortably in Octavia’s fickle embrace. The night air ruffled the ridged edges of a neat stack of photos on the stone bench beside the swing. He’d found the folder.

“Are you looking for this?” Goldie asked. Cosimo looked up. His jaw dropped. He was clearly stunned by her suddenly youthful appearance. She took the matchbook from her pocket and threw it at him. It hit him in the chest with a soft thwack and fell to the ground.

He sucked in an unsteady breath. “What’s happened to you?” he asked. “You’ve changed.”

“Did you prefer me older?” Goldie asked. “Or are you just surprised to see me more like you remembered me?” She tilted her chin at the matchbook. “It only seems fair, don’t you think? After all, you haven’t changed one bit in the last hundred years. Why should I be any different?”

“You and I are very different.” Cosimo sighed.

Goldie set the tote bag with the reels next to the photos on the makeshift coffee table. “I received these reels as well. Do you know what’s on them?”

Cosimo shook his head, indicating he did not. Then he closed his eyes, seeming to reconsider. “Actually, I might,” he admitted.

“It’s lost footage of me, transforming into a mermaid. Footage that I don’t remember filming. I would say it was special effects, but you and I know the special effects of the 1920s were hardly photorealistic. Is this what you were hoping to find when you broke into the Casino?”

Cosimo closed his eyes for a long moment, choosing not to speak. So Goldie continued.

“I don’t have any idea who sent this box to me. The return address is for a studio that hasn’t operated in decades. I don’t think there’s even an actual building on that lot anymore. I would check it out myself, but I’ve missed the last ferry back to the mainland tonight.”

Cosimo’s eyes opened, and he stared at her now, sad eyes shining like firelight in the reflected glow of Gary the Garibaldi’s flickering solar lantern.

“That matchbook. Why don’t I remember it?” Goldie watched his gaze as it panned to the matchbook still on the concrete paver. Cosimo reached down and swept it up, only glancing at for the briefest moment before tucking it into his pocket.

“Dance with me?” He jumped to his feet with fluid grace and amazing speed. When he reached her side, he bent at the waist and performed a courtly bow. Then he held out a hand.

His dark eyes were imploring.

She wanted to ask him who he really was, what he was. Why was he here and why hadn’t he changed at all from the man in the matchbook photo? But instead she asked him about music.

“How can we possibly dance without music?”

“As you wish.” Cosimo waved his hand and her bedroom window flew open. Her antique radio turned on and the sounds of big band music filtered out into the night. Cosimo looked up at the swaying trees and snapped a finger. Instantly, the branches were lit with fireflies and fairy lights.

“How? How did you do that?” Goldie whispered.

Cosimo held out his hand again. “I will tell you, I promise. Just dance with me first.”

“Fine.” Goldie released the handles of the bag and stepped closer to the tall, handsome man in her garden. As she took his hand, she tipped up her chin, studying the sharp angle of his cheekbones and the proud set of his jaw. His eyes were enormous and his lashes thick. His lips pressed together when she threaded her fingers through his. At her waist, his other hand felt so natural. She didn’t have to think when they moved together. Her feet seemed to know how to follow him.

“I have déjà vu,” she admitted. “Or perhaps it’s muscle memory. We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”

Cosimo nodded curtly. “We have. A long, long time ago.”

“I remember.” Goldie sighed.

“You do?” Abruptly, Cosimo stopped moving, searching her eyes.

“I remember that time, but I do not remember you,” she admitted. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“I don’t want to talk about that just yet. They’re playing our song, Ondalune. Can’t we just dance?” He dipped his head and pressed his cheek to hers as the Cole Porter song “You Do Something to Me” wafted out the window. One of her all-time favorites.

“Mmm.” She made an agreeable sound. She didn’t feel like talking, either. She felt like remembering. Because even though her mind was drawing a blank where Cosimo was concerned, her body still knew him. Knew every lean line, every step, sway, and spin. When he twirled her around, and lowered her in a dip, they moved together so seamlessly, so effortlessly, it could only be because they knew the routine. It was a practiced ease.

Finally, the music ended. Cosimo was still holding her tight. Goldie shivered, and he pulled away.

“I’m sorry, I’m making you cold, aren’t I?”

“No, it’s not you.” Goldie shivered again and pulled his hands back to her waist. “Your touch is cold. Yet it warms me. Just another thing I cannot explain.”

“I’m cold because of my nature,” Cosimo said. “My heart no longer beats and my lifeblood doesn’t flow. I am a creature of darkness.”

“Nonsense,” Goldie argued. But she recalled his words from the beach the night before. If he told her what he was, she would only hate him.

She didn’t believe that was possible.

“You can tell me. I’m not going to hate you.” Goldie placed a hand on his cheek. He let it linger there for a moment before pulling away.

“Don’t be so sure,” he rumbled, baring his teeth. Moonlight glinted from his sharp canines. “I am not human, Goldie. I look like an ordinary man, but I am, in fact, something else entirely. Something cold-blooded and chilling.” Cosimo’s face reflected his disgust for himself. He broke away and paced the perimeter of her garden.

“As am I, no?” Goldie gestured to the film reels. “I saw it for myself. I felt it last night on the beach. I’m not allergic to the ocean, am I?” She held her breath as she waited for confirmation from him.

Cosimo stopped by the statue of the sea turtle and shook his head once more. “No, you are not allergic. That was just a fiction your mother constructed to keep you safe.”

“And your solar sensitivity?”

“Part of my curse. For the last four centuries, the sun has been my enemy. I cannot expose myself to it without sustaining painful damage. But it cannot destroy me. If only it could. My curse is that I must go on like this.”

His anguish was palpable. He stared at his own reflection in the fountain with horror and revulsion, finally groaning as he slammed the water with his fist to dispel the vision that so displeased him.

“Stop it.” Goldie laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me why I cannot remember you with my mind, Cosimo.”

He spun around. “What do you mean, your mind?”

“Your touch is familiar. You don’t frighten me. I wanted to touch your hair from the first moment I met you. My body knows you, even if my memory cannot corroborate the evidence.” Goldie felt tears of frustration gathering. “Tell me why this is?”

Cosimo sighed heavily. “Your memories of me were erased. By me, Ondalune. I used my magic to steal them from you.” His gaze held a lifetime of longing and regret. It was the sort of raw emotion that one could never quite capture on film. His suffering collected around him, expanding and contracting like a ghostly being of breath and smoke. She recognized it for what it was. His humanity. He saw her watching him and sucked his emotions in. A second later, his face was an impassive mask. “We thought it was for the best.”

“And who is we?”

“Myself, your uncle…”

“My uncle Burnie?” Goldie thought of her uncle. Long gone, but not forgotten, like Cosimo. “I haven’t heard his name mentioned for almost a hundred years. He vanished after I made The Mermaid’s Whisper .”

“Burnside is alive and well.” Cosimo frowned. “And I suspect he’s the one who sent you these things.” He gestured to the folder of clippings and the two reels. “He was always sentimental. Looks like he kept every last clipping and photo of yours.”

“I don’t understand.” Goldie’s tears spilled over now, leaving hot and cold trails of light on her cheeks, much like the ocean water had left on her legs.

“I will leave Burnside to explain his part in the tale to you. But for now, what you should know is that I am sorry. I have no right to love you, but I do. I always have. And I only want to make things right.”

“What things ? Why are you telling me this now?” She wanted to beat her fists against his chest. She wanted to make him, make her understand. “Can’t you put my memories back?”

“Your memories are the least of what I took from you, Ondalune.” He took another step back from her.

“Why are you telling me this now? Why are you even here? What do you want from me?” Goldie felt a new emotion beginning to bloom from the seeds of her frustration. Anger. She was angry. “You say that you loved me, and I assumed I loved you as well, but then you left me to live alone for the last century? And you took my memories? You didn’t even leave me with the understanding of what I truly am? How could someone who loves me do such a thing?”

The water in the fountain swirled as her anger took hold. It rose in a funnel, a tiny tempest that she only half understood was her doing, and she wasn’t sure how to control. It was all too new.

“Why would you do that to me? Erase my memories and leave me alone? Please don’t tell me again that it was ‘for my own good.’” She spat out the words.

“I was afraid,” Cosimo admitted, watching the water gather and rise. He stared with wonder at the jewel-like droplets as they swirled around him.

“You were afraid of me?” Goldie rested a hand on the seahorse sculpture’s back.

“I was afraid you would leave. You wanted nothing more than to find your people, to return to the sea. You wouldn’t listen to us when we warned you of the war that still raged beneath the ocean. I couldn’t risk losing you, too. Not like that.”

“So you decided for me?”

“Yes.” Cosimo nodded. “I did. We did.”

The water from the fountain continued to expand, now surrounding all of him. It formed chains that knit themselves together. When he ran a hand over them, they stretched to accommodate the movement, but did not yield. He studied his hand, which was still dry.

“I haven’t seen you do this sort of water weaving before. It’s amazing.” He gazed in awe.

“Why are you here now?” Ondalune swept the photos back into the folder and tucked it into the tote with the film reels. “What do you want from me?”

“I wanted to apologize. And I wanted to say goodbye.” Cosimo stood still, staring at her through the wall of water. “In a few days’ time, it won’t matter anymore. I will have put an end to the curse and to my wretched existence. And you will be free. Free to live the life you choose. You are not old, Ondalune. In your native world, you are still a young woman. Living on land took a toll on you, but once I am gone, you will be free to choose where you want to go, and what you want to do.”

“You’ll have to do a little better than that,” Goldie said. “Do you even know how ridiculous this all sounds to me? A couple of weeks ago, I was afraid of getting wet because I might get a painful rash. And now I’m supposed to believe that I have a family that lives beneath the sea?”

“You’ve seen it with your own eyes. And you can feel it. You don’t need me to tell you that part is true. Your body remembers it, doesn’t it?”

Suddenly, she saw herself as a vision played out on the screen of water surrounding him. It was almost as if the film reel were playing again. She was swimming away, toward the depths of the ocean. She could feel the cool water rushing like silk against her skin as she used her tail to propel herself forward, powerfully, effortlessly. And then she saw herself as a child, delighted with the tub her uncle Burnie had provided. A safe place for her to play. She saw her mother’s look of horror and revulsion when she emerged.

And lastly, she saw herself as an infant. A man emerged from the sea, carrying her, bundled in a basket of woven seagrass. It was dark outside, just before dawn. There was snow on the beach and the wind whipped the frozen dunes. He set her beneath the boardwalk, where the wind was less fierce. Then he sat down beside her on the sand, waiting and watching for something. Someone? When he spied the arguing couple coming toward them, he leaned in to kiss her cheek, and then he took something from the basket. A deep red stone, set into a pendant on a chain. It glowed ominously, casting a red light from which tiny blue bolts of lightning showered sparks on her. They dotted her skin and her blankets with tiny stars. The man held the chain suspended. Then wrapped it up in a cloth. He stuffed the cloth into his breast pocket and stepped away from the basket. He barely looked back before running back into the sea, leaving her alone on the beach.

She sensed a theme.

“What is it, Ondalune? Is it a vision? What do you see?” Cosimo asked from within his watery prison.

“I saw my uncle,” she admitted. “He abandoned me on the beach.”

Suddenly, she felt old again. The surge of energy she had felt with her anger was gone. Her hands were shaking, and she longed to sit down. The tunnel of water surrounding Cosimo crashed to the ground, splashing the tiles and flooding the patio. It coursed in a stream toward the tote bag full of her photos. She lunged to retrieve it before it was destroyed, but Cosimo was faster. His mouth formed an “o” shape, and he turned slowly, blowing gently at the ground. The water immediately evaporated into steam.

She had no idea what he was, but of one thing, she was sure. He wasn’t a threat to her. He had not hesitated before using his magic to save something that she cared about. She suspected it wasn’t the first time. He might have lied to her, and her feelings might be muddled, but her body knew better. She had nothing to fear from this man.

But getting reacquainted might prove difficult. When Goldie looked up again, Cosimo was gone. It was just her and her beloved sea creatures, standing alone in the night.