Page 65 of The Midnight Frequency

“Living. You are constantly one chapter away from real life. One fictional hero away. One ending away. Meanwhile, your actual life outside of all these stories is… waiting. Waiting for your real life to match up to the stories. Then getting disappointed each time it doesn’t.”

“You want to talk about waiting? You’ve had hundreds of years, Silas. Hundreds. You’ve been waiting for longer than I’ve been alive, but I don’t think even you know what you’re waiting for. At least I do. But you… you’re just… running out the clock.”

“Um, so, I think I’m just going to… go through with the wedding,” Jamie said before her line went dead.

We got a bit off-topic there.

She had a talent for doing that to me. Running me around in circles until I wasn’t sure what direction I was supposed to be walking in anymore.

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Madison said.

“Perhaps you can write it into your next book and give it a happy ending. Since I’m sure Jamie isn’t going to get one. Next caller.”

I only managed to pay partial attention for the rest of the show. I was too busy replaying the conversation with my repeat caller. Her quick comebacks. Her ability to give me pause. And, on occasion, cut. Even if I wouldn’t ever let her see that her words could leave wounds.

She had a talent for unearthing long-buried concerns and insecurities.

Because it was impossible to live as long as I had without sometimes wondering what was the point of it all.

I’d long since leaned into the things that appeared to link all of humanity: music, literature, art, philosophy. The things that outlast the people who made them. Things that didn’t leave, didn’t diminish.

I suppose at some point, I stopped looking for relationships with people, and developed one with the things they left behind when they were gone.

I told myself that was enough.

That it had to be.

And it was.

For a very long time, it was.

Only, suddenly, it didn’t seem that way.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

[ “WE SAID ‘ATTRACT love,’ don’t summon it. There’s a difference.”

— Hex Appeal- Episode 10]

Maggie

“Um, what is this?” I asked when I walked into the office with samples of merch from the local printer.

A group of women stood in a line in the lobby wearing plum-colored robes, hoods up, and feet bare. Their arms were raised above their heads as they all sang some hypnotic song that had goosebumps rising on my arms.

“Witches,” Grum said, looking up from what seemed to be a vintage pirate romance. “They’re naked under there.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“Fronts aren’t closed.”

I tried not to judge. I knew some covens were very, uh, open with their bodies. I’d accidentally witnessed many a full moon circle—which involved many, many full ‘moons’ if you know what I’m saying.

“What are they doing here?”

“Worshipping.”

“Worshipping… what? Who?”