Chapter 7: Cross My Heart.
Sons of the CullHanbin’s gone. Poof! Then we saw him, now we don’t. He who runs fastest should run first, so Junhoe and I were left to pick up our scraps of vampiric dignity before sailing to the New World; it isn't easy for the fires of war to cross entire oceans.
“Migratory season should slow their advance,” Jinny the former Genie sprinkles comfort over sore wounds, “but springtime bliss always draws the birdbrains back.” His age-old sympathetic ineptitude caused a reevaluation of his chosen profession. Genie to witch; five years later and the whimsy sets in.
“Leaving us three months to disappear,” I count aloud. “Aren’t you a lucky witch?” It’s four months ’til earthly retribution rains down upon us, but Junhoe can’t be bothered to correct my pessimism.
“How much more time will you waste covering his tracks?” Jinhwan asks Junhoe, taking back the sentiment as he scolds: “Don’t tap the glass; he’s adjusting to a bursting reality.”
Right eye engorged, dilated pupil cracking brown irises, Donghyuk the rattlesnake is already seeing a better day within the confines of his enclosure. His red tongue swipes at pooling tears. Junhoe hisses in coordination with the budding member of our species—how precious.
“Did this great and all-powerful human invite you in?” Jinhwan boasts boundless bias against the gentlest of us—namely, me.
“If you are, then what am I?” I retort with one foot over the threshold.
Witchy whimsy: magic is all fun and games ’til someone sprouts a conscience. The Pledge of Neutrality excuses selfish subsistence. Genies, ghosts, fair folk, and witches plead the fifth in every language. Blame our Genie’s grace on shoddy human memory: does the right or left hand swear to God?
“Alone,” Jinny answers the rhetorical; witchy whimsy already has him in its tendrils.
“I’m here,” Junhoe offers himself up as my consolation prize.
“How utterly comforting to have a playmate in the afterlife.” I cheer to the obscured heavens above the clouds, “Promise to Hell and back, my prince!”
Hanbin’s never been gone this long. Picky eating renders loneliness unconquerable; Junhoe has it pickled pixie wings would put a bounce in my flee. Humans devour everything—when’s their Culling? Hanbin always comes back for me. This afterlife’s a disjointed mess to rival Junhoe’s insides spewing out.
“Make a wish,” Jinhwan tosses a molar-shaped pearl out the window, insinuating, “and don’t waste it.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I pledge, ceremoniously signing the cross.
Chanwoo zips by, ghastly form phasing through half-packed shelves. “Stick a needle in my eye,” he sings with a quiver. Head snapping round, Yunhyeong mocks surprise beside Jinhwan: the closest witch to the torched Wychwood Forest was across the Atlantic. “Wait a moment; I spoke a lie!”
I never really wanted to die.
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