Chapter 19

ChapterNineteen

“Well, I still think it’s rude,” Clodagh muttered, kicking the soil that Thea had just overturned. “The man kisses you and then disappears? It’s just wrong. Wrong, I tell you.”

“Clodagh,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t expect him to talk to me all the time. He’s busy! He has... school and his family, and...”

“Excuses. Those all sound like excuses.”

The sun beat down on their heads, and it was getting a little too warm for comfort. Her pale blue dress was already stuck to her back, and the hem was heavy with mud. Thea lifted her hand to the floppy hat on her head and pushed it back so she could properly glare at her friend. The gardens needed to be weeded, and this section of the earth was getting dug up for next year’s garden. She should have had an earlier start, but Thea had been up all night worrying about the things her friend was making worse.

“You know,” Thea started, then paused to think about what she wanted to say. “I think that he’s just busy.”

“You already said that.” Clodagh grabbed the hoe out of her hands. “What if you’re a bad kisser?”

“I’m not a bad kisser.” She grabbed the hoe back as the words sank barbs into her soul. What if she was horrible at kissing?

She’d never done it before. The mere idea of pressing their mouths together made little sense, but it wasn’t like she’d had any practice with the boys in the village. They were always panting after her mother or her sisters. Not a little wild Thea.

Thea looked down at the ground and told herself not to let those words wiggle like worms into her mind. He’d come here for a reason. He’d wanted to see her for a reason.

One bad kiss couldn’t ruin all that, could it?

Clodagh sighed and planted her hands on her hips. “Either way, you should forget about him. If he can’t write to you after all that happened? He doesn’t deserve to be in your life. That’s what I say.”

But Thea wanted him to be in her life. She’d see him every day if she could. Alistair lived in her mind like a ghost. Haunting her every step with whispers of romance and a life that she couldn’t live, no matter how hard she tried. Not here, at least.

A caw echoed over their heads. She looked up to see the silhouette of a crow gliding through the clouds.

No. A raven.

“Atlas!” she gasped, letting the hoe fall from her hand and promptly land on Clodagh’s toe.

As her friend let out a pained, wordless shout, she rushed toward the small landing place her mother had left out for moments like this. If Atlas was going to make the flight regularly, her mother had said, then he needed somewhere more comfortable than a window sill to land upon.

The grace with which the familiar moved was a wondrous thing to see. The thorns in his feathers didn’t bother him at all as he landed on the wooden perch and shook himself until his black plumes billowed out around him.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said quietly as she reached out to pat his head.

Atlas gave her an unimpressed look. Apparently, she’d said something that either offended him or his master. She knew that expression well.

“I’m sorry.” Thea took the letter off his leg and gave him another gentle stroke down his back. “People talk and put things into my head. I never should have questioned him. He’s been busy?”

The raven squawked again, although this time she swore it sounded... sad.

Browning hopped up next to her and let out a very loud ribbit. Thea glanced down to realize her own familiar wanted to be lifted, his arms held out to her like a child. Without hesitating, she swung him up into her arms.

His strange, croaking voice broke through the horrible sound he made, and she heard him in her head. “Atlas says sad.”

“Sad?” She looked at the bird as though it should tell her more immediately. “What do you mean, he’s sad?”

The raven looked at the letter in her hand and then took off into flight. He must not have time to entertain her when she held the answer in her hands. She supposed she didn’t blame him.

Thea ripped open the letter as Clodagh limped over to join her.

“What’s that?” her friend asked.

“A letter,” she replied impatiently.

“I’m not blind. I can see it’s a letter, Thea, but what’s it say?”

She scanned her eyes over the looping swirls and graceful lettering.

Thea,

I’m sorry I haven’t written to you sooner. A situation happened at the manor, and I haven’t been able to get away from my family in a... while.

You have no reason to trust that these words are the truth. You may not trust me at all, considering how long I’ve made you wait. But if you have any feelings for me left, I’m by the altar now. I’ll stay here all day waiting for you.

Just... come? Let me explain.

Alistair.

Her heart tumbled in her chest. It flipped and rolled and then landed in a puddle at her feet because he hadn’t thought she was a terrible kisser. He hadn’t thought he’d gotten what he wanted from her and then forgot about the little muddy girl from Waterdown.

Alistair wanted to see her. He was waiting for her right now, and she had so many chores to do.

She looked up and met Clodagh’s gaze.

“Oh no,” her friend muttered. “I know that look. What? What do you want?”

“I have to go.” Thea already backed away from Clodagh, trying not to give her friend an opportunity to escape. “You can finish my chores, can’t you? All you have to do is finish hoeing the garden, and I know you’ve done that before, so you can’t mess it up.”

“I have places to be as well. I’m supposed to be meeting with—“

“Thank you!” Thea sprinted up the hill and away from the little cottage. Hopefully, Clodagh would do her work, or she’d be in so much trouble. But Browning was with her; maybe she could blame it all on the toad.

Besides, it was time for her to see about a boy who made her heart flutter and her stomach twist and turn in her belly.

The old boat would have to do at this time of day. Browning stood at the helm, watching the water with a keen eye. Plenty of ships were moving through the deep waters of the river Danu, but they’d see her long before they needed to turn. She paddled the boat past them, riding the waves they left behind and grinning from ear to ear. A few of the sailors waved to her with wide smiles on their own faces. They must have understood that she was heading off to follow her heart.

After all, wasn’t that a sailor’s life? They all followed a heart that called for the depths of the ocean and a life of adventure. She might not mind that when she was older, either.

In the hour it took to paddle, her arms grew heavy and aching. Sweat slicked down her back, but she didn’t care. The pretty blue dress would have to do, no matter how horrid she smelled or how disheveled she was.

Maybe she should have dunked herself in the river before she made it to him, but Thea didn’t have time for that. She wanted to see him. He wanted to see her. They’d be all right with a little mud and sweat.

Her boat hit the shore, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Soon she would see him. Soon, all of this would make sense even if it hadn’t this morning.

Thea nearly tripped getting out of the boat and almost dunked herself into the river, regardless. But she caught herself on the edge and only soaked a small portion of her skirts. Grabbing Browning in her arms, she raced through the wood with its overgrown bushes and trees until she careened into the clearing where the altar stood.

And there he was.

Alistair turned with a half smile on his face, all those freckles standing out too stark on his pale face. The boy needed to see the sun more, she resolved. Mostly because she wondered what a burnished tan would look like on his skin.

Her arms trembled, and she let Browning slide to the ground. “You’re here,” she said.

“I promised I would be.” He lifted his arms up by his sides in an awkward kind of shrug. “I had to apologize in person. The idea that you were... worried about how I felt or why I didn’t write? It was eating me up.”

Tears burned in her eyes because she had known he wouldn’t go silent on her without good reason. Her gut had said there was nothing wrong in the slightest, at least between them. But Clodagh had gotten under her skin, and now she felt horrible that she’d questioned this for even a minute.

Thea launched herself through the void of discomfort and silence between them. She ran so fast into him that he made an “oof” sound before he wrapped his arms around her as well. She didn’t care that she probably stank to the high heavens after a day of working in the garden. Nothing mattered other than her arms around his trim waist and the feeling of his breath on the top of her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said into his shoulder.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” His hand lifted behind her and then cupped the back of her head. He held her so gently as though he feared she’d disappear from his arms. “I’m the one who didn’t write to you after... after...”

Oh no. There was that awkwardness again. There was the feeling that something had happened between them that changed everything. Thea found that she hated a single kiss could make them feel so terrible.

Something had to be done. And in her opinion, the best thing to do was the exact problem which had brought them here.

Besides, she wanted to prove Clodagh wrong. Thea wasn’t a horrible kisser.

She leaned back in his arms and held onto his shoulders. She breathed in the summer scent of his breath, like mint and basil and sweet summer wine. His exhale fanned over her face even as she drew him down to touch his lips to hers once more.

This time was so much different from the first. He’d originally kissed her with the hesitation of a young man who wasn’t quite certain why she’d let him do this. And Thea hadn’t known how to react, not really. But this? This was something else.

His hand flexed in her hair, his other hand curled into a fist in her dress at the base of her spine. They discovered a new rhythm, slow and languid, as they discovered what it meant to enjoy a kiss. Or perhaps, considering the way butterflies had awoken into flight in her belly, how a kiss was endured.

It was wonderful. And horrible. And exciting. And life changing as he seemed to sink into her skin, inch by inch, until she didn’t know where she ended and where he began. When he drew away for breath, his lips were red as wine.

Thea traced a finger over the thin line of red and smiled. “I don’t know why you were gone,” she whispered. “But I’m glad you’re back.”

His brows drew down as though her words made him very sad. Saying nothing, he linked their fingers and drew her away from the altar. They walked through the woods into a small clearing she’d never seen before. The trees were sparse. Grass grew so deep and thick it was like moss around them. And tiny flowers sprinkled the ground with every color.

“Here,” he finally said, drawing her to the thickest part of the grass. “Would you spend an afternoon with me? Just you and I?”

How could she say no? Thea let him draw her down into the grass and spent the afternoon listening to him.

Alistair explained everything that had happened to his family. How another powerful visitor had nearly killed his father and then how their guest had remained and been tortured in their basement for days until the young man relented. He explained his house grew so cold after so much of his father’s magic that he’d not slept for two days. Every word seemed wrenched out of him as though he were pulling the story out like nails that had been hammered into his soul.

She listened because she was good at that. But also because it sounded like he needed to purge himself of the story. And when he was done, Thea found herself with her head on his chest while he’d stretched his arms behind his head to stare up at the sky.

It was strange to lie with a person like this. She’d snuggled with her sisters in bed but never a young man. Never someone so... so...

His heart beat steadily under her head, and the warmth of his skin heated her from head to toe. It felt so natural to rest her head on him, and it shouldn’t.

But it did.

She pressed her hand against the drum of his heart and sighed. “It’s hard to imagine you as part of that family when you tell me stories like this. Your magic seems nothing like your father’s or your brother’s.”

“Oh, but it is.” He lifted a hand and gestured with his fingers above them.

The slightest wiggle of his finger and she could see the magic above them. The web that sparkled with diamonds and hid the faerie world from their gaze. She tried to touch it but couldn’t.

“If you had your whistle I made you, then you’d be able to touch it,” he said.

But she always had it with her. Thea reached underneath her bodice and drew out the whistle. Lifting it to her lips, she blew as she reached out her hand and touched the glistening web.

She could feel him smile. Alistair grabbed her hand with his and guided her fingers to pluck certain glistening strings. “This is how I see the world. So you have to know, it’s all spider magic. The veil I can draw back at will is like a web that separates our world from theirs. And when I wish, I can manipulate that web so that myself or others can see the fae as they are.”

“My mother says that your power is dangerous in the wrong hands.” She let the whistle slip from her lips. “She says that you should keep it secret.”

“I do.” Alistair swallowed hard. “My father knows what I can do, but not to the extent of it. He calls it a small gift, just as he called yours. But they never know how powerful our gifts are until we’re tested. If I wanted to, I could rip open this web and let out a thousand faerie creatures into our world. It would be an unstoppable army, by my guess. The last time that happened was when the Wild Hunt devoured half of all humanity.”

She’d heard the story before but had never believed it was real.

Shivering, she tucked herself closer against him. “My magic is a small gift. I cannot affect the lives of others with my power. All I can do is eat plants. Some of them are poisonous, some of them aren’t. Most give me a little boost of magic or power, but not for long. Chewing lavender to scare away my fears isn’t exactly powerful.”

He squeezed her shoulders with an arm. “I think you haven’t found the right plants to experiment with yet, then. You’re as powerful as I am, Thea, even though you question that every day. Until you realize your worth, I’ll believe it for you.”

Tucking her face into his chest, she hid herself from the world and all those scary thoughts. And he let her. She discovered that Alistair was a wonderful shield against all the things she didn’t want to think about.

Their afternoon passed slowly like they were taking their time flipping through the pages of a book. They let go of all the dark thoughts and terrifying explanations. Instead, they experienced life in a meadow together. Quietly.