Page 58 of The Witches Catalogue of Wanderlust Essentials (Natural Magic #2)

Chapter 33

Tomorrow Will Come

G oldie had sensed Cosimo in the shadows of her garden, waiting for Burnside to leave. He’d been waiting for quite some time. But she still didn’t go outside right away once her uncle left. She had a lot on her mind and she was still angry. Burnside had provided her with a lot more context for her recovered memories, but there were still plenty of questions that only Cosimo could answer.

Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. She threw open the back door and stormed out.

He was waiting on the bench.

“The last time we talked before you erased my memory, you told me you were going to immolate yourself in the sunshine. So why aren’t you dead, Cosimo?” She didn’t even bother greeting him properly. “And why are you here now? What do you want from me?”

She wasn’t merely angry now. She was incandescent. How dare he erase her memory like that? How dare he leave her? And why was he back? Did he intend to try it again?

“I tried to do it,” he admitted, emerging from the shadows and into the moonlight. “The morning after the premiere, I traveled to the far side of the island. I stripped naked and walked out into the sun, prepared to meet my fate.”

“And yet, you’re still here,” Goldie bit out. Even as she said the bitter, sarcastic words, her own heart betrayed her. She didn’t mean it like that. She was glad he was still here. The relief she felt over the fact that he had been unsuccessful in his attempt to harm himself made her throat feel tight and her eyeballs itch. She shut her eyes and swallowed.

“It didn’t work,” he said.

“Obviously,” she said, her tone less caustic this time.

“It wasn’t the right time.” Cosimo perched on the edge of the fountain. “I failed to consider that my curse was eclipse-born. So I can only be released from it during another eclipse.”

“Ah,” she nodded. “Nostradamus’s prophecy?” Burnside had filled her in on this, amongst many other things.

“ Only love closes what ambition tore.” Cosimo quoted the last verse of the prophet’s proclamation. “I know what needs to be done and I intend to do it. Once and for all. It’s the only way to restore order.”

“And you can’t think of any other way to interpret it?” Goldie was aghast.

“I cannot.” He nodded, refusing to meet her eye.

“I see.” Goldie took a seat on Octavia’s bench and let the swing sway her gently. “And you didn’t see any point in discussing it with me first?”

Her anger was beginning to dissipate, leaving a wake of sadness. Sadness and hurt.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” He spoke in low, controlled tones, but she didn’t think that reflected how he actually felt. Beneath that facade, she heard the rumble of distant thunder, felt the hot electric crackle of fiery lightning.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth all along, Cosimo? Don’t you think I deserved to know?”

“Of course you did. There’s no excuse. Only that I was afraid of losing you. And your uncle was right, Ondalune. I was so besotted with you that I took unnecessary risks. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Exposing you would only have put us both in harm’s way. With the wars still raging in the ocean and my inability to end the curse, it would not have been safe for you to go home or remain on land.”

“And now it is?”

“It will be. When I am gone, the bloodstone will also disappear. The curse will be lifted. There won’t be anything left to fight for. You could go home.” He finally looked up, eyes somehow sad and hopeful at the same time. His expression was heartbreaking and also infuriating.

“I thank you for your intentions in making that decision for me, Cosimo, but what if I don’t want to go home? What about the home I’ve crafted for more than a century here on land? What if I don’t want to give it all up?”

Cosimo did not answer immediately. “I guess I hadn’t really considered that,” he admitted.

“I’ve lived my entire life to date here on the land. Would I like to explore my origins? Of course! But I’m not about to give everything up.” Goldie gestured at the house, the garden, the town. She thought of the other volunteers from the film institute. Of the other islanders who greeted her with warmth and a wave and remembered her order at the coffee shop. She thought of her creations—Octavia and Gary the Garibaldi and Kitty the whale. She adored Kitty, both in sculptural and real life form.

“I have a life I love here. I have responsibilities, friends, a purpose,” Goldie said.

“But look at you, Ondalune. You look fifty years younger than when you arrived here. What will people say about that?”

“I don’t care what they say. I’ll tell them I’m Goldie’s granddaughter. I’ll make something up. I’m sure you’re familiar with that sort of ruse. The point is, I love it here . I love my life here,” she argued, trying to ignore the small voice in the back of her head telling her, rather pointedly, that she wasn’t being entirely truthful with him.

She had liked her life here just fine. But she had only come to love it since Cosimo had come back to the island. Now she couldn’t imagine staying and living her life there without him.

“You know, I used to think I knew what I wanted.” Cosimo paced the perimeter of the garden. “To be a powerful sorcerer, for the world to know my name. I was so wickedly ambitious, Ondalune. I only wanted Catherine’s favor so I could achieve those goals. I went along with her diabolical plans. She wanted to use the stone to manipulate and control the future. I wanted that, too. I wanted to control fate.”

When he spun to face her, his eyes were dazzling and predatory. The unmet need in them made her soul ache. A month ago, such a look from a man in her garden would have scared her senseless. But she was not frightened. She felt her own powers rising. Something similar had awakened in her.

“How’s that battle for control working out for you?” She met his eye unflinchingly.

“I think you know how it’s working,” he growled.

Cosimo moved with such speed, she didn’t even see the blur of his body. One second he was across the garden and the next, he was kissing her, not tenderly, but with a ferocious hunger that betrayed the centuries of loneliness, longing, and regret that he’d endured alone.

For a moment, she kissed him back, lips recalling their long-ago trysts. But then she remembered what he intended to do to himself during the upcoming eclipse and shoved him away.

“Don’t kiss me and try to convince me you are doing me a favor with what you are planning.”

In an instant, he was standing beside the fountain again. He walked in a slow circle as he spoke, almost as if he was telling a story. Not just to her. To both of them.

“I have followed your life. Since you were a child,” Cosimo said. “I’m almost ashamed to admit it. I loved you then, too.” He shot a quick glance at her, gauging her reaction. “Though not at all as I do now, of course. I didn’t have those sorts of feelings for you until we met here, on the island.” Cosimo raked a hand through his hair. “It was a wonderful and difficult time. Do you know what it did to me, watching everyone take such care to keep you from the water? Knowing you were robbed of the experience of being your true self, reaching your full potential?”

He paused, searching her eyes for an answer, but she had none to give.

“I was happy just to be with you, Cosimo. Even after I knew what I was. I had no other great ambitions,” she admitted.

“I have always felt responsible for your plight, Ondalune. And as much as Burnside and your parents meant well, this is not the life you were born for,” he argued.

“You are not the author of my fate.” Goldie jutted out her chin.

“Well, thank goodness for that, because if I was, I probably would have written a very different, less auspicious story.” He laughed a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I seem to have a knack for messing things up. When Burnside brought you to live with his sister and brother-in-law, I was sure that you were fated to suffer for my misdeeds. I thought there was little I could do to contain the darkness my act of blood magic had unleashed. But then I began to question that.”

Cosimo turned and reversed directions. He was now pacing counter-clockwise. “The older you got, and the more successful, the more amazed I was by you. The stone’s curse didn’t seem to have any significant effect on you. I so desperately wanted to keep it that way!”

He stopped abruptly. “I couldn’t stay away from you. I needed to know that you were all right. It was entirely selfish of me. And I never expected to feel… this…” He threw his arms open wide as if he meant to embrace the entire world. She could see there were tears in his eyes. She didn’t think vampires were supposed to be able to cry. It was proof that some of his humanity remained.

“I never anticipated the strength of our connection,” he said, not even bothering to wipe the tears that spilled over. “My life is nothing but regret. I would do anything for you, Ondalune. Tell me what to do, and I will do it. I am ready to walk into the light of the eclipse and atone for my sins.”

“I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself for me, Cosimo.” Goldie spoke quietly and gently. “It isn’t necessary. Once I get the stone back, I will return it to the ocean. You don’t have to do anything. Except perhaps…” She hesitated here, because she knew what she was asking was a near-impossible task. “You need to find a way to forgive yourself.”

“And you, Ondalune? Can you find a way to forgive me?”

I already have.

Although she thought it, she didn’t feel quite ready to say it.

“Come to bed, Cosimo.” Goldie rose to her feet.

“You know I don’t sleep,” Cosimo argued.

“But I do, and I so desperately need to get some rest. I’m beyond exhausted. This has been one of the longest days of my life. You can watch me sleep if you must.”

“You would invite me to your bed?” His eyes had softened, but there was still a hint of that feral glow, that hunger.

“To sleep.” She couldn’t help but suppress a weary smile.”Tomorrow will come, no matter how much we argue and debate, and no matter what we decide.”

“And the bloodstone?” he asked.

“We will know what to do with it tomorrow,” she said. She took his hand and led him to the bed. “But I am going to go to sleep now,” she insisted. She pulled back the covers and slipped between the cool sheets. They felt almost as wonderful as the water.

Cosimo did not join her beneath the blankets. He stretched out beside her on top of the coverlet, removing only his shoes. Crossing his arms across his chest, he lay as still as a mummy. Goldie did not know what the morning eclipse would bring, but for the moment, she was happy not to face it alone. As she snuggled up beside him, she was surprised by how quickly she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The clock on Goldie’s nightstand read nine a.m. She was alone. The coverlet was rumpled on the other side of the bed, but other than that, there was no sign of Cosimo. Nor was there any sign of the young witch who her uncle had assured her would come to deliver the stone to them.

“Zani will find you,” Burnside had insisted. “And you’ll know what to do.”

But Goldie didn’t know what to do. Last night, as she drifted off to sleep, she’d felt certain: calm and patient, as if she were wrapped in the mantle of fate and could do no wrong. This morning, she felt the opposite, naked and frantic. And also alone. The eclipse was coming in less than two and a half hours, and neither Cosimo nor the cursed stone were anywhere to be found.

She switched on the radio as she hurried to dress.

“ Good Morning Catalina! The Island is hopping today with tourists in town for the film festival and to view the big eclipse. Can you believe we are only two hours away? Make sure you bring your protective eye gear, and if you’re viewing from the water, make sure to drop anchor before the event begins. Just a reminder from the Coastal commission not to disturb the marine life off the coast of our sanctuary rocks. We just got a crazy report that someone spied a man swimming out toward Bird rock early this morning. Stay safe folks, and don’t forget your sunscreen! ”

Goldie froze. He wasn’t still planning to go through with his idea to end the curse. Was he?