Page 40 of How (Not) to Conjure a Boyfriend
“Isn’t everyone’s up here?” he smirks.
“Fair,” I agree. Except the rest of ours are set within view of other houses, or power lines, or some state road. Here it’s like you’ve stepped out of the world into a wholly separate universe. “Yours is cooler though.”
“Eh.” He shrugs, and his eyes dip toward my chest.
A tingle rises in my throat and I clamp my teeth together. What are you…
“I really like your necklace,” Zachary says. “Are those amethysts inside it?”
“Huh?” I blurt. His eyes are back up again, and his smile is soft and kind. “Thank you. And, yeah. Just little tiny stones.”
I’m about to tell him how it’s my anxiety necklace. How the amethyst is packed inside with cedarwood, horsetail, and lavender, and how it gives me calming energy when I need it, but I stop. He doesn’t care about all that.
“My Aunt Eliza wears a lot of jewelry like that. I love the crescent moon stuff,” Zachary tells me.
Maybe he would know some about the metaphysical. His aunt is a witch too. He might have grown up learning about it, unless Mary-Anne and Randall didn’t let him, but I don’t know how all that works here.
“I have a bunch like these. With different crystals and herbs in them, but I usually wear this one,” I admit. It’s become a habit. I’m not sure if it’s because it works or because it’s my prettiest one, but I do love it.
“Wait.” Zachary angles his cheek toward me and pooches his lips. “Are you a witch? Wiccan?”
“I am, but not Wiccan. Just a witch, well, a Norse witch, a Norse Kitchen Witch.” I keep adding to it, hoping that he’s good with it. Please be good with it.
“That’s cool! Aunt Eliza is too. Except she’s Wiccan, I think, and maybe a Green Witch…” Zachary seems excited. “I’ve never met a Norse witch though. Who are your gods?”
Did he just ask who my gods were? It wasn’t,Oh my God that’s weird, orNorse, really?Or,A witch?It was who are your gods. I might be in lo— No! Nope. Stop right there!
“Odin, Freyja, Heimdall, Odr, and others.” I reel myself in. No one usually cares. “I pray mainly to Freyja though.”
“That’s so neat. Freyja’s Thor’s mom, right?” Zachary asks.
“No,” I say. It’s a common misconception. Thanks to Marvel everyone knows Thor and Odin, and the rest just getthrown around. “That’s Frigg, Odin’s wife. Freyja’s the daughter of Njörðr—not sure I’m saying that right—and rules over Fólkvangr. She’s the goddess of love, and beauty, and war, and future magic.”
Zachary seems surprised. He did ask, so I feel no remorse for unloading it on him. I could go on. All about how Freyja’s part of the Vanir, and she can use her cloak of falcon feathers to become a bird sometimes, and is charged with the Valkyries. Oh, and how half the dead go to Odin in Valhalla, while the other half go to the field of Fólkvangr where Freyja reigns, and not only Valhalla. I find it all fascinating. I love how she was venerated by all and equal to men in a time in Christendom when women weren’t.
“You’re really into it, aren’t you?” he asks.
“Yeah, it’s my faith,” I tell him. Shouldn’t I be?
“Of course! I didn’t mean to belittle.” Zachary waves his hands, palms out, horror written all over his face.
It’s hard to bury the laugh building in my throat with the way his entire body is fidgeting and jumping. I manage it though.
“I know!” I grin.
“I’m sorry. I really think it’s cool, I do!” Zachary says again and again.
“It’s okay! Promise,” I assure him, or at least attempt.
“Okay. Good. I didn’t think how it sounded. Moving on though,” he says, and just as quickly his eyes shoot to the other end of the room. “You’re not afraid of spiders, are you?”
“Imostdefinitely am,” I say promptly. Bugs in general freak me out, but spiders are next level.
“Hmmm…” Zachary purses his lips and considers me a moment before turning and heading toward a large glass aquarium…with no water in it.
No. Don’t you dare tell me I’m in the same room with a freaking pet spider! No!
His hand plunges over the aquarium’s open top and fishes around a second. When he comes back up, he walks backward…toward me. My throat tightens. My arms pull back and I gulp. Please no, Zachary! But do I say it? No!
