She knew they had to leave. They’d discussed it over coffee the morning after Roxanne’s nightmare, the one that left her scarred. They would give themselves three more days here, just long enough for Roxanne to pack what she needed and harvest some seeds from her garden to take with them. It had been Wren’s idea, to bring some along. The garden had been born with the most beautiful, lightest of magics. It would help keep them safe in their journey, Wren was certain. And it would provide Roxanne some comfort, at the very least, to not entirely abandon the very thing she cherished most. Wren helped where she could, picking out small items and trinkets from the home the vibrated with the brightest of frequencies. They didn’t need much, she figured. Food was most important. And at least they had a car to carry them and their belongings out of the city – out of the darkness that had manifested so strongly here.
Wren had offered to sleep in Roxanne’s room again, if only to help ward off whatever shadows waited to find the blonde in her sleep. But the other witch kindly declined the offer, if for no other reason than to spare Wren the burden (Roxanne’s words, of course, as it certainly hadn’t been a burden the night before). The witch dozed lightly through the early hours of the night, which made it easy for the shifting air in the room to startle her away. Someone entered… and through the darkness, Wren made out the familiar figure. “Roxanne?” She sat up just slightly. “Is everything alright?” Her magic reached out, stroked once over the other witch, searching for any signs of darkness. “Another nightmare?”
The idea of leaving her pretty little house, the one she’d worked on and turned into a home over the last few years, was heartbreaking. But Roxanne was not foolish and she knew it had to be done. Still, it helped to have Wren there to come up with ideas for them, to harvest seeds and find little items that would act as holds to the light as they traveled. It was not an easy decision, but it was the right one and Roxanne accepted that. She spent the evening packing what things she could, then plucking the drawings off her refrigerator one by one. She stacked them together, saying each child’s name out loud with a murmured blessing. And in her yard, she buried the pile, hoping that could act as a stand-in for all the bodies they had to leave behind at the school. All of the children who would never be properly buried, properly tended to. It was an unfair world, a cruel one, but they had to find the good where they could.
She went to bed that night alone, insisting Wren sleep comfortably in her own. No need to disturb her rest with her fitful dreaming if she could help it. And in truth, it didn’t take long to fall asleep despite her worries, as the day had been long and dragging. Almost instantly she fell into a deep sleep, lost to a twilight sort of blackness. She was not aware when her body rose, slipping from her bedroom and down the hall towards Wren’s.
She slipped in almost silently, a pale figure dressed only in a white sleeping gown. Her hair tumbled freely around her shoulders and in the dark, her eyes were hard to make out. She didn’t answer Wren’s question at first, but padded with silent steps across the room to the side of her bed. “I was thinking of you,” she murmured, her voice soft, silky. She knelt on the bed, nudged a leg across Wren’s hips to straddle her in one quick, smooth motion. The silk she wore rode up high on her thighs, revealing the matching white last beneath. “I want you so badly, pretty witch.” Her head dipped, hair spilling over one shoulder as she brought her lips within millimeters of Wren’s, hovering, her hands smoothing up her sides. “You want me too, don’t you?” She ran her lower lip through her teeth, her eyes dark, almost hypnotic as they stared into Wren’s. “You can take what you want. I’m here...”
