“This has been quite the day,” Colette remarked as we walked. “How late is it now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t have a watch.”
Colette said, “Won’t my parents be wondering where I am by now? Won’t yours?”
“I wished that no one would be concerned you are missing,” I said. I looked at her and she had a frown on her
face. “What’s wrong?”
“That…doesn’t seem enough,” she said. “I mean, there’s school and my job. I’d feel better if my parents knew
—“
“Knew that you were a vampire?” I cut her off.
“No,” she said. “Not at all what I was going to say, smarty pants. I’d feel better that they knew I was
safe…or something.”
“How’s this?” I asked. “I wish that you were on a leave from your job, so that you could go back to it
whenever you want with no problems. For school, I wish that your grades would be maintained and it would be
as if you were always there doing what you needed to in order to get good grades. I wish that your parents
would know that you are perfectly safe and that you frequently spend time at…your boyfriend’s house.”
“Oh, so you’re just my boyfriend?” Colette said with a laugh.
“Call me whatever you want,” I said. Colette squeezed my arm and put her head on my shoulder. I kissed the
top of her head.
We decided to go back to the castle. It had been a long day. Even though we could have just wished ourselves
back to the castle, we decided to walk. I saw that this could be a frequent occurrence, so I made a blanket
wish that we would never be noticed either entering or exiting the woods at any time.
I made some more wishes when we reached the woods. Considering the potential dangers of the woods at night, I
wished that we would be ignored by all animals if we were in human form. I figured this way we could shape
shift and have animals recognize us if we wanted it that way. I also wished that we would know how to reach
the castle instinctively, so that it was second nature. Essentially I wished for us to have homing abilities.
Colette joked that it was pretty animalistic.
If we thought our night was over, we were quite wrong. We had traveled about half of our distance through the
woods when we both caught site of an unnatural light source. “What is that?” asked Colette.
“It might be a fire,” I said.
“Holy shit! A forest fire?” she asked with great concern.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “From here it looks small and controlled.” I decided to be cautious and
wished that we wouldn’t make any noise as we got closer to the fire. I did this both so we could discover
what this was, and, more importantly, so that we wouldn’t be detected. “Keep your voice down,” I whispered to
Colette.
We slowly and cautiously approached the fire. As we got closer I realized that the fire was nothing more than
a camp fire. Who the hell would be camping out here? These weren’t exactly woods that were meant for
camping. I looked for other signs of camping, specifically a tent. I didn’t see one. I heard noises. I
couldn’t figure out what it was, though.
“Oh my god,” said Colette. “It’s two people having sex.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Oh, yea,” she said. “Positive.”
We concealed ourselves behind a rather thick tree. We peeked from behind either side of the tree. I was
finally able to make out the figures of a couple having sex. I couldn’t tell but I guessed they were on some
kind of large blanket. I thought I saw a small pile of clothes. Just then a very loud moan echoed through
the trees.
“There she goes,” said Colette with a soft giggle.
“Hey,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”