Chapter Twenty-Four
He wasn’t there when she reached a hand out in the night. The bed was empty, aside from Popcorn somehow on the end of it, snoring faintly. And occasionally muttering to himself. No, Mother, unhand me, I am in no need of a bath , she heard as she slipped out of bed, and padded into the living room.
But he wasn’t there, either.
She only unearthed him when she saw smoke spiraling past the window, and realized where the smoke was coming from.
His cigarettes, she thought, then went to the door.
Sure enough, there he was. Leaning against the porch rail in a barely buttoned plaid shirt and definitely not buttoned at all pair of jeans. Barefoot, even though it was freezing.
The cold hit her like a slap.
She almost went back and put on the pajamas he’d made her out of thin air, instead of sticking with just one of his old shirts.
Or at least grabbing something more than socks to go on her feet.
But in the end, the way he looked won out.
He was gazing into the distance, in so mournful a way it squeezed her heart.
Lost to it, it looked to her, and to the point where he barely noticed she was there.
She had to cross the porch before he did.
And even then he seemed startled. He straightened up, pinched out his cigarette, tried to laugh. “What are you doing out here, it’s freezing,” he said. As if it wasn’t the same for him. As if it wasn’t worse for him.
“I could say the same to you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like smoking in the house anymore.”
“You know I know they’re not even real cigarettes, right?”
“That’s not the point. Good men don’t do it, poison to humans or otherwise.”
“And you still think you’re not a good man?”
He met her gaze then. So sudden and so charged it shook her a little. She’d thought he had started to at least get past that idea—of him being fundamentally horrible or unworthy. But clearly something had reaffirmed it in his mind. She just had to work out what, and she went to.
He just got there first.
“I can’t even be tender when we have sex,” he said.
As if that made any sense at all. “You were just tender then. You’ve been tender with me lots of times. You’re always tender with me, Jack. What are you talking about? Do you think that just because we got a lot rambunctious just now that it means you’re not?”
“It was a little more than rambunctious.”
“Yeah and that’s not a bad thing. I mean, you saw me enjoying it, right?”
“I saw. Don’t think I’ll ever unsee it. But that’s really not the point.
” He looked away, into the darkness. “I guess I just thought it would be different after you helped me stay in human form all the time. Once I didn’t have to be that anymore.
I thought I could be more normal, completely.
I pretended for a while. But I’m just not, I’m not.
I get someone like you in front of me, all beautiful and eager, and I always lose it. ”
“Maybe I like that. Maybe I don’t think loving tenderness means you can’t be passionate, and hot, and devilish,” she said, then realized exactly what she had said.
She’d used the word love in there, somewhere.
As if what he felt for her was that. So of course she had to hedge a little.
“And maybe she won’t, either. In fact I know she won’t.
You’ve got to believe she won’t. You’ve got to try because you are running out of time. At least go to her and see.”
Then she gave him a playful thump on the last word.
All buds here, she thought that gesture said.
Just wanting good things for each other.
No expectations, if expectations wouldn’t be welcomed.
Though a huge part of her was now hoping they would be, and she knew it.
She saw his gaze flick to her, she saw him eye her in this oddly rueful sort of way, and imagined more.
But all he said was, “You really don’t mind if I do, do you.”
Then he looked back into the darkness, leaving her behind.
Stranded in the land of trying to seem like she was fine with that.
“Of course not. I want you to be okay. I want you to be happy,” she said, in a voice that sounded cheerful on the surface. But like rusty nails down a chalkboard underneath. Of course it did. It felt like those same things were happening inside her heart. Something was splitting her in two.
Though thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.
He was too busy thinking of other things.
“I don’t know, kid, maybe I can’t be now.
Maybe I’ve messed things up. Not done enough, not been enough.
Said the wrong things, thought I could play the game and lost. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes,” he said.
Like all that mattered to him was winning her.
And now feeling like he couldn’t. Like he was just running needless risks, maybe, if his expression on seeing a hellhound by the tree line was any indication.
It went dark and flat. Determined, almost. Then he added, “I think you had the right idea when you said we should break it.”
Even though that seemed deranged.
“But you don’t even know if it’ll work. You haven’t even tried,” she said.
And in answer he laughed, mirthlessly. He shook his head.
“Believe me, I have. I have. You don’t know it, but I have.
And I just can’t let it go on any longer.
Everything is getting worse. If I stop now they won’t go, but there’ll be fewer of them.
There will be less, and you will be able to deal with them, I can see that you will be able to, and everything will be as it should be.
Things will get better. Things will be fine. ”
For who, though , she thought.
And couldn’t help protesting.
“But will they be better and fine for you ?”
“Of course they will, kid. I’ll be free,” he said, his gaze so frank and open for a moment that she struggled to disbelieve him.
Plus, there was that word in there. Kid again.
Instead of honey . Like maybe he’d just had enough.
Maybe he just wanted to let go. Not get the girl he wanted, not have to learn from her.
Be his own man for once.
A good thing, she told herself. And she felt it, too. She truly did.
She didn’t know what made her hesitate. “You promise me. On my soul,” she said, instead of the yes she’d intended to give. And he held her gaze as he answered.
“Sure. Of course,” he said.
So she nodded, she nodded.
She smiled when he told her, “Good girl, you know it makes sense.”
Though she didn’t know that, really. In fact, all she felt was unsettled as they walked back into the cabin.
And it wasn’t just her—Popcorn seemed to feel it, too.
He was just standing in the middle of the living room when they got there, instead of being in his bed in the kitchen. Ready to say something, she thought.
Only he didn’t speak.
He barked.
He barked furiously, even though he hadn’t done that in weeks now. “Hey, use your words,” she told him, but he wouldn’t. Jack had to pick him up and shut him in the bathroom, all while muttering something about dogs not liking big spells and sensing these things.
And he was quiet now.
So maybe Jack was right.
It just didn’t feel like he was. It felt like he didn’t want to look at her.
You better be telling me everything , she thought at him.
But honestly she couldn’t imagine what it was that he hadn’t said.
Whenever she tried to think, it was like groping in the dark.
Like grabbing at something that looked like a thread, but turned out to be only a cobweb.
Nebulous, already breaking apart in her hands.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
“You ready?” he asked.
No , she went to say.
“Yes,” she said instead. Then he handed her a pen—not her pen, not any of her pens, but a darker color, heavier and cold to the touch.
And when she held it up, poised to write on the air, it seemed to tingle against her skin.
It made her think of something in one of the books Cassie had given her: Sometimes a talisman will speak to you more clearly and channel your magic more effectively .
Though if that was so, why hadn’t he given her this before?
It didn’t seem to be true anyway.
She wrote let him be free , and got the honk of disapproval.
She wrote unbind him from this pact , and still nothing but clown sounds.
She even attempted to write his true name, in a way that made the world seem to blur and bile rise up her throat.
The word was clear to the witch part of her, but unfathomable to her human self.
And she knew it didn’t matter, anyway.
Intention was the important part. Belief and emotion and intention. If she knew in her bones that this spell would be for Jack, it would be. She saw his true self, and that was what mattered.
Yet somehow, it just wouldn’t come together.
She couldn’t make it spark, despite how right she felt it was, and how much magic there was now in the air.
It crackled around them. It made her hair lift away from her head.
Plus, now there was a kind of humming happening, a weird humming that seemed to get under her skin and drown everything else out.
Popcorn was barking again, but she could hardly hear him.
He seemed very far away, very distant.
Jack, I’m scared , she wanted to say. But god, he was looking at her with such hope in his eyes. Such longing. “You can do this,” he said, so of course she couldn’t stop now, she just couldn’t.
She wouldn’t. She went to try again.
Only this time, he stepped in. “Don’t cut yourself out of whatever you write. Do it as though the original spell was yours,” he said—and he had to be loud now. He had to be fierce, because the hum was unhinged . She could hear it in her teeth. It was making her eyes water.
And was that something clawing at the cabin?