At home, Damien started a fire in the hearth. Josanna grabbed the white, down quilt off the bed and brought it to the couch. They sat on the couch all night, just talking.
"I threatened to wipe them from existence." Damien shook his head.
"Could you if you wanted to?"
"In theory..."
"But, if you were going to, wouldn't it have to be fated?"
"Yeah, you're right. That's what I'm worried about. I just-" Damien glared down at his hands. "...am having some inner conflicts. I should just enjoy the good things while they last. Bad things happen. But, I'm just so tired. It never ends. The bombardment is constant, and I just can't-" Damien clenched his hands in frustration, and Josanna put her hands on his.
Her hands were freezing. "Then don't. End the bombardment." She shrugged. "Make good on your threat. What's fated will happen. So, it doesn't matter what you do."
He tried to not to take her words as literal commands, but it was a subconscious, knee-jerk reaction. He didn't realize he had internalized them.
She slipped her hands away.
"But if what's fated is going to happen, no matter how I try to stop it, then what's the point? That's what I've been trying to figure out, and no one has an answer. Not Dad, not Loki, or Eros, or Hypnos. I don't get why they are fighting the inevitable. There's no way out. There's no hope for any of us." He laughed, feeling the weight of what he had just said.
Josanna offered, "I'm sure they have their reasons, but... What would be your reason to kill the Fates?"
Damien took her in. He thought of her smile glowing in the sun, her eyes twinkling from the fairy lights, her laugh bubbling up over the babbling of the creek. He looked at their house. And even as he did so, he thought, but nothing gold can stay. He might fight Fate, and she might still die anyway. Everything has a death date. Universes, gods, friends, pretty girls... they all die.
Damien kept losing people to the fickleness of time, but he couldn't stand to lose Josanna. He refused to lose Josanna. Not her. Not this time. He was going to save her.
***
Damien dreamt about a girl dying in the sand, and it caused him to bolt upright in bed. Cold sweat dripped down his back, and it only grew colder as a gust of night wind came through the open window above the headboard. He brought his knees up to his chest as he tried to catch his breath. He glanced over in the dark and saw Josanna wasn't lying next to him. Just to make sure his tired eyes were not deceiving him in the dark, he moved his hand to her spot and felt the empty bed.
He kicked the sheet off his legs and shuffled into the hall. The rest of the house was dark, but he went to the kitchen and turned on the light. She wasn't there. His eyes glanced up to the big picture window, and he wandered out the front door.
Josanna stood on the front porch, staring off into the woods. Her white nightgown flowed around her in the breeze. She didn't look at him as he approached.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked.
She tucked a lock of her black hair behind her ear. "Just thinking. Watching the fairies. They remind me of the fireflies back home."
Damien pressed his lips together. "Do you want to go home?"
She laughed. "How many times do I have to tell you, silly?" She finally turned to him with her big dark eyes. "I'm happy here."
His eyes shot to his feet, feeling scolded. "Sorry," he said. "I mean. I apologize. I-"
"Damien," she said.
He looked up.
She was kind and lighthearted when she said, "You don't have to fix everything. I can be nostalgic and want for things without having to have them."
"But... if you miss it..." he prodded, unconvinced.
She pondered, a finger tapping her lip. "I am the past, never in the future. I don't exist, but have existed. I saw what you saw, and this is what I will ever see. What am I?"
Damien thought, but the answer came quickly this time. He nodded and joined her at the porch railing. "Memories."
She smiled. "And you can't fix those."
Damien gave a bitter laugh, "And I have certainly tried." He vaguely remembered the witch in the woods. They had tried to lock away his memories, but they inevitably hunted him down and forced themselves upon him without warning.
Josanna said, "If I go back home, it won't be the same as the way I left it. We've both changed."
Damien almost offered to make it exactly as the way she left it, but he knew better. He focused on her words. We've both changed. So, even if he made her home just like she left it, it still wouldn't be the same, because she, herself, had changed. He supposed if he went through his mental flipbook of good moments, there wouldn't be any he would want to go back to like the way he was offering to her. Now, he felt stupid and naive for asking. "Forgive me. It's an impulse to try to fix everything."
"I know," she said, and she looked at him. "We both have our ticks."
They each smiled and peered out into the shadows of the trees. The air was damp, and it made the breeze heavy. It was the type of breeze that evokes the call to adventure deep in your chest, the kind that promises change is coming. It was the kind of breeze that leaves you with a sense of longing, because despite this pull, you find your feet firmly planted, and deep in your heart, you expect this change to manifest before you, but it doesn't.
Josanna took this feeling and said, "May I see your hand?"
Damien held out his hand to her. He waited patiently and smiled down at her as she read his palm.
"Do you see this?" She began to trace a crease with delicate fingers. "It means you come from a long line of witches," she giggled.
"Really?" he laughed.
She nodded. "And this one here is your heart line. It looks like you'll have a rough start, but in the end might find true love."
"Not bad."
"This one here says you'll be independently wealthy."
Damien scoffed. "Okay."
"But, this one here is your fate line."
He nodded and waited for her to explain. It took a minute for the explanation to come, and in that quiet moment the atmosphere darkened. "This one here says... you are strongly controlled by Fate." She peered up at him.
They locked eyes for a moment before he removed his hand from hers and used it to push a strand of hair from her eyes.
She took in a sharp breath, but it seemed like it hitched in her chest. "I have to go," she said.
Damien was shocked. "Go? Go where?"
But, in a gust of wind, she was gone at vampire-speed. He foolishly looked off into the trees as if he'd be able to see where she was headed.
