“Oh Gosh!”

“I can explain,” he tried to assure her.

“What do you mean you can explain?” Marina panicked. “Most people can’t do that! Normal people can’t do that! What are you?” she pause and gasped. “You’re not a?vampire are you?”

He laughed hysterically.

“No-no,” she started to run. “Get away from me.”

He ran after her still laughing. “No wait. Marina wait!” He grabbed her by the arm. “I’m not a vampire.” He stopped laughing.

“You’re not?” She asked hesitantly.

“No,” he was serious now.

“Then how did you do it?”

“I’m a wizard,” he confessed. She was silent and he let her arm go. She looked down at the ground carefully thinking of how to react; he became anxious. “And when I say wizard I don’t want you to think Harry Potter because it’s nothing like that. You’ve obviously seen too many movies.”

“Us?” She was looking him in the eyes now.

“People like me.”

“So,” she said slowly. “How did you do it, all of it? How did you know that the glass clock was going to fall? And how do you know the answer to every question that the teacher asks you? And how come the one person that you don’t like seems to drop his lunch at least three times a week? How do you make it happen?”

Eden rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, and then explained. “I’m not psychic?exactly, but sometimes I just get these feelings and my instincts tell me what to do. My intuition is a lot more powerful than the average person. And with Jared it’s just my negative feelings towards him. I guess you can say that since I don’t like him, neither does my magic; so some pretty unlucky things happen to him every now and then. I can’t really help it. I’m still learning how to control it; but I promise that it won’t get any worse than that.”

“Wait, then you are psychic.” she said anxiously.

“Not like you think. I can’t read minds. But I can sense positive and negative energy,” he said, “amongst other things,” he murmured.

“So you can’t read my mind?”

“No,” he said sternly.

“But you can tell how I’m feeling right now.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

They were silent again. Marina couldn’t think of anymore questions she just wanted Eden to continue to explain. She was also glad that he couldn’t read her mind; but since he could sense her feelings she wondered if he really know how much she liked him. She also wondered if he could sense her real feelings toward people too. She wondered if she would have to explain some of her views on others; she didn’t want him to think that she was fake or just a bitter person.

“Say something,” he said. She shook her head; she tried to think of something.

“What else can you do?”

“Well…I don’t know…a lot. Ask me some more questions.”

“Can you… disappear?”

He looked at her like she was joking and answered, “No.”

“Can you fly?”

“No.”

“Can you talk to animals?”

“Oh my gosh! No!!!” He yelled in disbelief.

“Sorry you don’t have to yell. You told me to ask you questions!” She hollered back.

“It’s just that you have it all wrong. I can’t do things like that. No one can. Maybe I should explain this on another day.” Eden began walking back to the road.

“Hey wait you can’t just leave me here!” Marina ran after him. She had made Eden mad; she could see it in his face when she caught up with him. “Look I’m sorry; I just don’t know much about these things.”

“It’s not your fault. Hollywood has made a mockery of us,” he said angrily. They continued to walk at a fast pace.

“So tell me more. You don’t seem like a bad wizard. So tell me about all the great things that you can do.”

Eden looked at her and smiled smugly. She smiled back hopefully. “Another day,” he told her

“No, but I want to know now,” she pleaded.

Eden found some satisfaction in making her beg. “I can’t it’s getting late and you have to go home.”

“Are you kidding? It’s not even dark yet.”

“Yes but I’m sure that your mother would want you out here all alone with a bloodsucker from the undead.”

“But you’re not even dead,” she replied trying to keep up with is pace. “You’re not even a vampire.”

“Yeah I know that, but you probably wouldn’t even care if I was. I think you’d love it. You’d probably beg me to turn you right now.” He said mockingly.

Marina grabbed him by the arm and pushed him against a tree. His shock turned to anger and he got very close to her face. Marina wasn’t scared she was ready and waiting if he wanted to challenge her.

“Don’t ever touch me again,” he told her coldly.

“What are you going to do about it?” she responded in the same tone.

Eden’s eyes squinted and then he looked up at the sky. Marina didn’t take her eyes off of him for a second. He looked back at her and watched as she blanked. A large drop of water had hit her eyelid but she kept looking at him while he bit his lip trying to fight back a smile.
Feeling almost vulnerable Marina looked up at the sky and it began to rain. “Argh!” She forcefully moved her now wet hair out of her face.

“Now you have to go home Marina Middleton.” Eden backed away from her now smiling. “You wouldn’t want to catch a cold!” He yelled now further away from her.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Marina said furiously and began running after him.

Eden caught the look of rage on her face and ran too. Marina chased him through the park. She almost caught up to him but he dogged beneath the bridge by the creek. She was out of breath and had lost him. She put her hand behind her head and as she gasped for air.

“Punk,” Marina said while kicking a rock.

She walked back home in the rain by herself.


Marina spent most of the night thinking about Eden. She lay in her bed thinking about all of the things he had told her he could do. She had read plenty of fantasy books and had spent the last two hours in her room contemplating what could be reality and what could be fiction. Of course she had read the Twilight Saga but she liked the Harry Potter series a lot better. She had loved stories about witches when she was younger; Sabrina was her favorite along with The Witches, and that really old movie Teen Witch. But now that she was older vampire stories did seem more appealing to her; like Interview with a Vampire, True Blood, and that new show on television calledThe Vampire Dairies.

She did her best to keep in mind that Eden had said he was nothing like those stories. She thought that to be apparent since he actually ran from her this afternoon. But she still wondered what he could do. She though more about the books she had read…She turned over in her bed and looked at her window. She wondered if Eden had ever followed her into her house, or been in her bedroom, or even watched her undress. She was paranoid now; she got off of her bed and went to open her window.

She looked outside and there was no one out there; just a small tree and the house next door. “Eden,” she whispered… No answer. ‘Of course he’s not here,’ she thought, ‘he’s no Edward Cullen’. She locked her window and shut the curtains.
That night she dreamed of Romeo and Juliet.