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Morgana felt weight being added to her chest witch each step through the forest. She was nervous about the ghouls but she was even more nervous about facing her family. She performed dark magic in order to save the vampires that had been poisoned by a curse. A curse that was cast by one of her own family members—but who? Who could have done such a thing?
And her witch mark… it was strange, but there was no sign of darkness. Would her family members be the same? What if no one comes forward and neither she nor Mordecai will be able to tell who is lying?
“Hey,” Oz said, waving his hand in front of her face. “Where’d you go?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, tucking her hair behind her ear, not realizing she had been spacing out. “I’m just worried, is all.”
Oz held his gaze for a moment and then turned away, glancing at Mordecai who was walking on the other side of him. He looked more worried than Morgana.
“Why are you coming with us, anyway?” Mordecai asked. “We have to talk to our parents before they even think about letting you in our house—and, and why would you want to?!”
Oz watched his face contort, as if he wasn’t trying not to cry.
“If it’s true that someone in our family cursed yours,” he started again, a little muffled, “Why would you want to?”
“It is true,” Morgana affirmed sternly. “That’s why I was able to lift the curse in the first place.” She met Oz’s eyes briefly and he tried to smile. He was grateful she was able to save them but he knew it was more than disappointing finding out why.
“I just hope Mom and Dad will believe me,” she sighed, staring at her hands. “You know as well as I do I’m not good at controlling my magic. What if they try to say the vampires tricked us—that it was all trick?”
Mordecai didn’t have an answer for her. She wasn’t wrong—it would be easy for their parents to assume it was a trick played by the vampires. He shuddered. He hated the feud, or whatever it really was, between them. He still wasn’t sure if even liked Oz, let alone the rest of his clan that kidnapped him. Could they really trust him? Them?
“I’m going because I want to,” Oz answered, shunting his hands into his pockets. He was going because he was worried about Morgana. From what he saw as a cat inside their house, it didn’t seem like her family members were evil or cruel—but at least one of them used dark magic. Someone was hiding something. They needed someone with them to notice things they normally wouldn’t.
“That’s not a reason,” Mordecai muttered, feeling his distrust regain its grip.
“I made a deal with your sister,” he said, falling back on the broken promise they both had made. “She held up her end of the bargain since I’m not a cat anymore so now I’m fulfilling mine.”
“What’s that?” Mordecai asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Finding your grandfather.”
Right.
The vampires didn’t have their grandfather—or so they said.
Mordecai nodded, acknowledging Oz’s reason—although he wasn’t entirely sure if he believed it.
He wanted to, though.
“We’re here,” Morgana exhaled, pointing toward the glow of the porch light.
Oz swallowed.
Maybe Morgana could turn him back into a cat?
--
Morgana unlocked the door as quietly as she could and then stepped aside so Mordecai and Oz could enter. Aside from the porch light, it was pretty dark. Maybe they had all gone to bed? She wasn’t entirely sure how late it was.
The air felt still and she let out a sigh of relief as she locked the door behind her. The serenity, however, was immediately followed by a click, a bunch of shuffling, and a sound from a door opening upstairs. More shuffling continued and a light in the hallway flicked on. Mordecai saw shadows stretch down the staircase and then looked back at Morgana and Oz. Suddenly, it didn’t seem safe to him for everyone to know about Morgana’s return… and the vampires being cured of the curse that had been cast.
“Morgana, is that you?” he heard his uncle’s voice call out after a short yawn.
Panicking, he opened the coat closet and turned to Oz.
“Get in,” he ordered in hushed tone.
Oz stared at him, and then at Morgana.
“Mordecai, what are you—“
“Just trust me!” he shouted in a whisper, getting behind them to push them forward.
“But why—“
Mordecai shoved his sister into Oz and they both stumbled into the closet.
“Don’t say anything, okay?” he whispered through the door. “When everyone goes back to bed, I’ll let you out. I’m going to cover for you.”
Both Morgana and Oz were too startled to make any kind of response. She didn’t even know if she could move without making some kind of noise. The closet was pitch black and full of coats, shoes, and umbrellas, maybe? She couldn’t see anything but she could feel Oz’s heart beating against her.
Oh.
They were quite close.
Her cheeks suddenly felt very warm.
Oz was not the strongest vampire but he was still a vampire. Mordecai pushed Morgana into him—he could have just remained standing like a wall of stone and Morgana would have bounced back—yet, somehow, he didn’t. Somehow, he stumbled backwards with his head against a bunch of coats and his face so close to her he could smell her.
He felt her jolt at the sound of the multiple voices talking over one another beyond the door.
“Um—“
“Shh,” Oz said, trying to focus his hearing on Mordecai.
“Your arms,” she whispered by his ear, and Oz squeezed tighter in response but then let go immediately. He had no idea he had been holding her.
“Sorry,” he said, under his breath, feeling unable to face her.
Not that he would have been able to see her, anyway—it was so dark even he couldn’t see.
“It’s okay, I didn’t mind,” she replied, still right by his ear. “It was just getting a little tight.”
Oz felt his face flush, but he forced himself to look up. Neither of them could see so it couldn’t hurt to pretend to look, right? He wondered what kind of expression she had on her face at this very moment.
“I don’t know what Mordecai is up to,” she whispered again, “but it sounds like he’s getting himself into trouble. I think we should—“
Oz wrapped his arms around her again after feeling she was inching toward the door.
“We should just wait a little bit longer,” he suggested, biting his lip. “He asked us to trust him.”
Morgana nodded stiffly, feeling her check brush against his temple.
“Maybe you should turn me into a cat again,” Oz thought out loud, almost laughing to himself. “It might be safer for—“
“Safer for who—“ Morgana asked, her voicing raising, but unable to finish her sentence.
“What was that?” a stern voice asked, awfully close to the closet door.
“What do you mean?” Mordecai, said nervously.
Mordecai guided his family members away from the entryway and into the kitchen. He just needed a little bit more time.
After the entryway felt empty of voices, Oz felt Morgana’s hands tightly gripping around his arms.
“What was that?” she asked in a harsh whisper, feeling the heat in her cheeks rise even higher.
Morgana’s near-outburst caused somebody to notice and Oz did something in a moment of panic. It wasn’t the voice outside that had interrupted her—it was his lips on hers.
--
The minutes that went by they were waiting for Mordecai to come back turned into hours.
“How is your family still up talking?”
The voices were faint but still boisterous, but Morgana didn’t respond. She still couldn’t believe Oz had—
“You didn’t have to kiss me back,” he said, filling the silence again. “I told you, I did it instinctively—I wasn’t trying to do anything weird.”
He did kiss her, yes. He stood on his toes and cut her off—and after the initial surprise, she leaned into him. There was no mistaking it—she did kiss him back.
He didn’t want to apologize but she wasn’t saying anything. He couldn’t tell if she was angry with him or with herself. Oz sighed, resting his head against her shoulder. Morgana remained unmoved.
Morgana had never kissed anyone before until now and she didn’t know what to do with that information. Her family had raised her on the belief that vampires evil and cruel beings—and while she had always been a little skeptical for their prejudice, she couldn’t even imagine what they would think of her if they had opened the closet right in that moment.
Oz’s arms remained loosely around her waist and he was now resting his head against her. He was warm, which was something she did not expect, and it felt nice. She wondered if they kissed again, would they feel even warmer?
“Are you upset with me?”
“No!” Morgana jumped, “I-I’m sorry if I made you think that. There’s just a lot on my mind right now.”
“So you didn’t mind?” he asked, his breath right by her neck.
“Didn’t mind what?” she blanked, staring down at him. She wished she could see his face.
“T-that I kissed you,” Oz stammered, a little frustrated by her spacing out and embarrassed that he had to say it out loud.
Morgana drew a small smile, thinking how very opposite Oz was to her parents’ descriptions of vampires. He even believed her, more than they ever had. She really hoped they could find peace between her family and his clan.
She leaned down again to whisper in his ear, not sure how she gained the courage.
“I’d like you to do it again.”