And then it wasn’t quite as dark anymore. Even with the moon.
“It’s like. You see. There are things.”
“Gordo?” I interrupted.
“What.”
“Your tattoos are glowing.”
Because they were. The raven. The lines. The swirls and whorls. All up and down both of his arms, they glimmered and shifted like they were alive.
He said, “Yeah. That’s one of the things.”
I said, “Okay.”
He said, “I’m a witch.”
And I said, “You’re a wizard, Harry,” because I thought there was a very real chance I was caught in a dream.
He laughed, but it sounded like he was choking.
I was distracted and my shin caught something solid. The pain was bright and glassy, and it shot through the fog. It was only then that I realized I’d never felt pain in a dream before and that I’d read somewhere it was impossible to actually feel pain in a dream.
“Fuck,” I said. “You’re a what?”
“Witch.”
“For how long?”
“My whole life.”
“What?”
Another howl. Closer now. We’d gone at least half a mile into the woods. Maybe farther. There was nothing but forest that went on for thousands of acres ahead of us. I’d gotten lost in it plenty of times. “What was that?”
“Your pack,” he said, and his words were so bitter I could taste them.
“My…. I don’t.” Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. It had to be, even with the pain. My leg was sore, but maybe I’d just wished it so and therefore it was.
“I tried to keep them away from you,” he said. “I really did. I didn’t want this life for you. I didn’t want you to be a part of this. I wanted to keep you clean. To keep you whole. Because you are the only thing in my life worth that.”
“Gordo.”
He said, “Listen to me, Ox. Monsters are real. Magic is real. The world is a dark and frightening place and it’s all real.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “Don’t be afraid.”
A cloud slid over the moon and the only light was the shifting kaleidoscope that rolled up his arms. Prisms of
colors, all blues and greens and pinks and reds.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“What?”
“The colors.”