bagboy (open)
THE STARGAZER.
The manâs voice was like warm, sun-cooked gravel; there was an undeniable grit to it â earned over the years of a life hard lived, she imagined â and yet, underneath she still heard a careful, tentative layer of welcome. Another smile rounded the apples of her cheeks, and her shoulders lifted lightly to the response he gave with easy acceptance. Her life was a series of vague answers, after all; vague answers to obscure questions, neither with any true beginning or end, and very little direction in between.
Heâd moved then from the counter, the motion pulling her mind back from its momentary, wayward wanderings, to the present once again. Had she been staring too long? She did that, sometimes without realizing how much time had passed â even among her sisters, Zoe never quite ever felt here nor there. Not really. She was always somewhere in between, floating like an apparition through the thin veil that separated what is, and that which connects it all in the beyond. It was something sheâd gotten used to, that uncomfortable aversion she caused in others. Though, something about his retreat and the darting away of his dual-colored eyes that made her feel farther away than she normally did.
Zoe subdued the odd feeling that caused in the pit of her stomach, and she went ahead and approached the counter anyway as he busied himself with his work. His back turned, she watched the way he moved, the smooth siding of his shoulders as long arms reached to place the cigarettes up where they belonged, and listened as he traced the likely destinations surrounding them aloud, trying to be helpful. âItâs not really directions that I need, Iâm not looking for a place on a map,â she admitted as his voice trailed, her fingers brushing mindlessly across a small display of keychains, making the cheap silver clink and rattle against one another, âIâm trying to find where Iâm supposed to be.â
Her eyes fluttered upwards to his as he turned to face her, and again a smile settled gently against the curve of her lips. Zoe found ice in his gaze, saw mounds of deep white snow beneath the ghosted hues of his left eye, mangled with scar tissue whose fibers wove tales of a history violence and pain. Images of soft, blood spattered snowdrifts reflected as if from the broken edges of shattered glass. And as if an echo, plucked from the passing of quiet breeze, heard the footfalls of giant, padded feet against the landscape, the howling of a cold wind, and the low growing from behind a fortress of ivory fangs.
Ah, she thought, as those whose voices still whispered from the ancient bloodline coursing through her veins clarified for her the vision, a wolf. Zoe had only read of them in her covens Book of Shadows. Salem, over through the generations, had become a town protected by her circle; their influence and power, borne from the ashen bones of the first to be taken by the flames, served to create an impenetrable boundary against any who many threaten the sanctuary theyâd created for their kind there. Sheâd been warned, before she left, to guard herself from the monsters â that she was still but a child, naĂŻve and ill prepared for the task before her â Â from those whose nature and bloodlust pulse stronger than thought or reason. But Zoe stood, knowing, and remained undeterred â he didnât seem so bad.
âAnd so are you, it seems. For a long time now â Â and yet, youâre still not where you belong either, are you?â
Glacial eyes followed him; he felt them, the way one feels cold air coming in from a busted window pane, or the way a shaft of sunlight warms the skin when everything else is cossetted in shadow. Wyatt lived in a world that made it hard to appreciate such sensations. The cold would have made him sick, and the sunlight would have blinded him in most instances. But her gaze (the piercing colour of her eyes aside) was somehow gentle, and only suggestive. As if she was seeing him through the frosted lenses of an apparatus. He didnât feel judged which was a new sensation, one he rarely experienced. Like kindness.Â
The werewolf had learned the hard way that kindness was often a carefully concealed dagger. He no longer trusted it, never accepted it, and had a tendency to meet it with aggression. A fault of his, he assumed, but heâd never known goodness without condition, without a heavy price. He preferred to be treated as though he was worthless or stupid, because at least that felt honest. At least it felt deserved. At the fight rings he visited, at the bars that had become his mainstays, within the grim community of near-do-wells that made the same circles as he did â he knew his place. He knew what he was, what he was capable of, and never let his mind leave that lane. It kept him alive, and kept him from getting hurt again.
Wyatt could remember the rusty gleam of his motherâs knife as it came toward his eye, and he could remember the savage beatings and endless torment he endured from the members of his very own pack. These images flashed in his mind as if on an old, malfunctioning projector. He could see them flickering, and knew that they happened, but he could not remember the pain. Without it, he felt hollow and numb. He preferred it that way.
After tucking away the last pack of American Spirits, he leaned back on the counter and focused on her mouth as she spoke. This woman had a way about her that was hypnotic. Her voice struck him like leaves dancing on a forest trail, or wind moving through the trees. The delicate music of a wind chime (the one that hung on the back porch of the half-way house he lived in for years. Heâd sit and listen to that thing for hours, and it would whisper to him of coming storms). She didnât belong in a place like this. First of all, the gas station was a front for a drug smuggling operation, and the likelihood of strung out types showing up with guns and a murderous tint to their eyes was all too real. Second of all, it was filthy, and she looked to Wyatt like a river-washed stone, clean and polished â the earthâs tesserae.Â
His eyes shied away from hers, ducking down as if trying to keep her from seeing within, seeing his scarred, faded iris. âI can tell you with certainty, miss, you sure donât belong here.â No one belonged here. This place was a prison, a trap. This place was a haven for spirits that had sunken low. He busied himself with lighting a cigarette, something to keep his hands busy, something to keep from looking in her eyes â but he did anyway, and he knew that she saw the frost in him, his soot coloured pelt slick with blood, his paws dug deep in a rift of snow. How did she know? Was he just being paranoid again? When she spoke, it felt as if her words dripped off of his frame like rain water, and he stifled a shiver.Â
âI donât belong anywhere,â he answered without thinking.Â


















