14: Jezebel

Aurelia

This Episode Was Proofread by Emma Rudd, who writes The Lost Girls of Lake Lunelle! She’ll be launching her story soon, so make sure you give her a follow!

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I took Ezra’s hand, and he pulled me up and led me out to the floor. Around us, people hopped and spun in some rhythm they all seemed to understand but it was all a mystery to me. My head was swimming as I looked all around me. Ezra and I were still in the middle of the organized chaos, and I found myself worried that I would get in the way or step on his toes.

“Aura, eyes on me,” Ezra said.

I met his eyes—pools of golden sap set in his beautiful face. His smile was mirthful, miraculous.

“I know you’ll pick this up as quick as you pick up everything else,” he said as he rested a hand on my waist and used his other to scoop my hand up into his. Had his hands always been so large? So strong? I could still remember when we were the same height. Now he was so tall.

 His fingers tapped the jaunty rhythm of the tune against the back of my hand and I found myself starting to bounce along with it. His smile brightened and a moment later we were spinning.

It took me a few moments to catch my bearings, but just like everything else was with him, dancing with Ezra was so easy. Easier than breathing.

Songs melded and blended, people came and went from the dance floor, but Ezra and I just danced until we were both panting and flushed.

The most recent song finished and we ceased moving, but the room continued to spin. I wobbled, feeling like a leaf bobbing down a babbling brook. Ezra stilled me, both of his hands holding fast to my waist.

“Hey now, are you alright?” He asked, his brow tense with worry.

“Mn, a bit dizzy I think,” I answered.

“I was just spinning you like a top, wasn’t I?” he asked me. “Come on, let's sit you down for a moment and I’ll get you something to eat. It doesn’t help to dance on an empty stomach.”

He walked me over to the side of the room. The wall was lined with mismatched chairs. It looked like some had been brought from people’s homes with how packed with people the little place was. I wondered if Ezra often came here like this, danced with other girls.

He sat me down and knelt down near my knees, placing his hands on my legs.

“You just sit right here, I’ll be back in two shakes. You know where Simon is, right?” he asked, nodding to the man still at the counter across the room.

I nodded.

“If you get uncomfortable or if some swaggering peacock comes to try and sweep you off your feet, you can go over there—alright?”

“Alright,” I said, smiling down at him and ruffling his hair.

He laughed, grabbing one of my hands and kissing its palm. The little bit of affection made my heart just flutter like a little baby bird on its first flight from its nest.

I was so contented, so lost in my dream of a day that I didn’t notice the stranger who sat next to me until he was speaking to me.

“Such a gentleman isn’t he?” the man asked.

He was so close that his voice was practically in my ear.

I nearly leapt out of my skin, finally breaking out of my daze to see him.

I immediately didn’t like him. The energy coming off of him was black and heavy, oozing over me in a sickly ichor.

It was like The Priestess. It was like that serpent that made me die a thousand deaths.

I made to get up, to go find Ezra—but the stranger’s hand seized my upper arm, encircling it with painful pressure. My heart lodged in my throat, and I willed my magic to crackle against his fingers, but my magic did not abide. In the village, my magic had abandoned me

Yet, I knew that this was the very kind of man that The Wilds protected us from.

“Where are you going?” he asked, baring his teeth in a false smile.

“Ezra sat me down because I was feeling dizzy, I’m feeling better now,” I said. “I’m going to go find him.”

“Let me pray over you, child.”

I didn’t want him to pray over me—I didn’t want to risk severing my connection to Mother Eterna.

“Thank you, but I don’t need your prayer,” I said.

“Do you not believe in the love of God? Were you born cleansed of the original sin? The crime of Eve against Adam? The seductress?”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but the longer he held onto me the worse I felt. His black eyes, his greasy haystack hair. He wasn’t praying love. Everything about him smelled and tasted of bitter hatred.

“Let go of me,” I said, mustering all the command that I could.

But what was a powerless witch against a man backed by the power of his god.

He put his other hand on my head, fingertips squeezing against my scalp, nails digging in. I fought and thrashed against him, but he only held firmer. No one seemed to notice me, notice this stranger touching me as if he were ordained to do so. As if he felt entitled to touch anyone he wanted. 

“Oh Lord God,” he started, “Send your holy warrior, Archangel Michael—”

He was interrupted by a rough grapple. A hand pried the stranger’s grasp from me and then lifted him up by the yellowing, dingy fabric of his shirt.

It was Ezra. And once he had the greasy stranger on his feet, he shoved him back.

“Atticus, you keep your filthy hands off of her,” he spat.

“Who are you to stand between God and his divine purpose?”

“You can take your god and his purpose and shove it up your ass, Atticus. Even god can’t grant you the right to touch a girl when she doesn’t want to be touched.”

The man—this Atticus—chuckled low and foreboding.  

“I always knew you were a filthy boy. I’m out here, a foot soldier for God, and you would try to cloud my mind—distract me with impure thoughts.”

Ezra’s hands balled into fists. I had never seen him so furious before.

“If you were having impure thoughts about my Aurelia, you came to them all on your own. Like hell I’d invite you to think of her in any way, least of all like that, you pig.”

His Aurelia.

His.

“Aurelia…what a strange name that is,” he said, and then he looked at me, those black eyes piercing the very depths of me. The fingers of that gaze probed and prodded uninvited, I could only look away to evade it. 

Ezra lost control, grabbing Atticus again and lifting a balled fist.

But he was stopped before he could land a blow.

Behind him stood Simon, towering over Ezra even with how tall he was.

“Alright. None of this in my place. Time to head home,” Simon said.

Ezra balked, looking back up at him offended and hurt.

“He put his hands on Aura! He should have to go!”

“He’s going too,” Simon said, glaring at the man, “But, I don’t do fights in my place. So, go on, Ez. Bring her back another night when things aren’t so heated.”

Ezra pressed his lips and gave Atticus one more proper shove for good measure before running a hand back through his hair and looking down at me.

“I’m sorry Aura, let’s head back,” he said glumly.

I stood and clung to his arm squeezing it. “Don’t worry. It’s getting hot in here, anyway,” I assured him. “I bet the night is nice outside.”

Ezra deflated and nodded, still not smiling but I hoped I’d be able to change that soon enough. We walked past Atticus. I met his eyes one more time.

“Jezebel,” he hissed, too quiet for anyone but me to hear.

Once we were outside, I sensed a lingering frustration coming off of him. I released his arm and started to get some distance between us, worried that I’d maybe flustered him by clinging to his arm. He’d always had certain rules about propriety that I couldn’t fully understand. But before I could fully step away, he grabbed my hand.

The touch was, at first, a little firm and clumsy—a grasp of desperation. But it softened, and he twined his fingers with mine. His thumb brushed over my knuckles. 

“I’m so sorry, Aura,” he said, his voice tight and worried. “I told you I wouldn’t let anyone touch you, and I didn’t keep my word.”

“It’s fine, he didn’t hurt me,” I said.

“What did he say to you?”

He squeezed my hand.

“He didn’t say much,” I said. “Something about a holy warrior, I think he was praying to your god. And then…” I trailed off.

I felt him stiffen, like a stag getting ready to bolt—or getting ready to charge. “And then what?”

“Does the word…Jezebel mean something to you?”

He stopped dead in his tracks and I almost tripped with the sudden drop in momentum.

“Did he call you a Jezebel?!” Ezra shouted, furious. “Did that… raving lunatic call you that?”

His fury frightened me. It had been so long since I’d seen him like this—long before he was this tall, before his voice was this deep. Before he could shout this loud.

“It’s fine, Ezra.”

“No, it’s not.”

I shrank away from him, and his demeanor immediately shifted. His eyes met mine and he bent at the waist, dropping my hand to scoop both of his into my hair. His gaze danced and flitted, searching for something.

“I’m sorry, Aura. I scared you,” he said soft as a spell, “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t raising my voice at you, I just—just…wanted to show you that we could have a good time out here. And I already ruined the night, and I’m just… so damned vexed with myself.”

I’d be remiss to say that I wasn’t relieved by him calming back down. I placed my hands over his, wondering when they had gotten so much larger than my own.

“I don’t need to be at a…whatever that place was to have a good time with you, Ezra. I don’t care where I am as long as I’m somewhere with—with you.”

I don’t know what brought me to stumbling over my own words, but whatever it was felt heavy in my chest. My heart raced so quickly that I could hear it in my ears. There was a long silence then, Ezra’s eyes still dancing like he was studying me for a drawing. I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to so badly.

And then a low, lilting whistle sounded from a couple of people walking by and Ezra stood straight as a pine tree, dropping his hands from me.

“Who’s the pretty girl, Ez?” one of the boys called—he had umber skin and short, cropped hair. “Never seen you take a shining to anyone before!”

“It ain’t like that, watch your mouth around a lady,” Ezra called back.

“You mean the same way she was watching yours?”

Then I stiffened, my face heating to the point of fever. I’d never felt this way around Ezra, when it was just him and me. But for some reason hearing other people talk about us—talk about these moments that were so private and personal–made me feel uncomfortable, embarrassed.

“Well shit, Ez! Looks like you made her blush!” The other boy, a lanky young man with a long black braid said as he pointed at me.

At that, Ezra looked down at me and I felt about as tall as a pixie. I felt the need to hide my face, hide the signs they’d pointed out. Somehow it felt like they were sharing secrets I was hiding. Even though I would never hide anything from Ezra, it felt like I had been exposed. Like I’d been caught in a lie.

“Aura, are you alright?” Ezra asked.

The boys cackled a chorus of laughter and it only worsened the feeling, my stomach twisted into knots.

And then I was running away.

The laughter picked up in volume and in pitch and then faded away behind me. I heard Ezra shout something as I ran down a small path and dipped into a tree line behind the houses, seeking the comfort of familiarity, the sanctuary of the forest. It felt all wrong while wearing shoes, it felt like I couldn’t quite catch my bearings, like I was navigating in the dark.

I felt slow and clumsy.

“Aura!!” I heard Ezra shout behind me. “Aura, wait!!”

But I didn’t want Ezra to see me, I didn’t want him to look at my flushed face or see the truth there.

I turned off the path and ran into the woods. But I didn’t get too far before I collided with something solid and nearly stumbled backward.

Ezra’s hands braced me with ease, setting me back to rights.

“Hey, hey, hey. You’re alright. You’re fine!” he said frantically. “Don’t worry about Tim and River—they’re always like that, sour because none of the girls in town pay them any mind.”

I looked up at him and knew I must have been flushed scarlet.

He breathed a little huff of a laugh and smiled down at me, brows playing up in kind concern.

“Don’t laugh at me,” I found myself saying.

“I’m sorry. I’m not,” Ezra said, smoothing a hand over my hair. “I’ve just never seen you blush before and…”

If possible, my face heated even more.

“Why are you blushing, Aura?” he asked.

I dropped my eyes to the ground. I wanted to run again, to climb into a foxes’ den and curl up into a ball and sleep for the rest of the year. Ezra cupped my cheek with his hand and drew my gaze back up to his.

“Don’t hide from me, Aura. I hate it when you hide from me.” 

“I just… didn’t know if I’d done something wrong,” I lied.

“You didn’t,” he said. “I promise. They were just being little degenerates, that’s all. Had nothing to do with you at all.”

I couldn’t stop staring at his lips.

“Aura?” he asked.

“Let’s go somewhere,” I finally said, forcing myself to smile and meet his gaze. “Show me more of the village!”