Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Ifeel a weight fall off of my shoulders as soon as my feet touch the water. I breathe in deeply, letting the warm lake air into my lungs, and focus on the sounds around me. Like the ripple of water when a duck slides across the surface, only for another to join him from the water’s edge.
I smile as I watch them, finding myself envious of the life they lead. I doubt any worries find them, especially not here. This lake has always felt like the one place where everything else simply disappears. And right now, there are so many things I want to make disappear.
A familiar voice cuts through the silence. “How did I know I would find you here?”
A small smile tugs at my lips, because part of me hoped that he might. I tamp down my smile as I turn around. Rylan is leaning back against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest. Black marks dirty his forearms where he has his sleeves pushed up. “Hi,” I breathe.
“Hi.” His eyes soften.
“Been working today?” I ask.
He looks down at his hands. “Yeah, I’ve been making some cowbells for Mr. Nash’s farm out yonder. I need to take them out to him tomorrow, see if he’s satisfied.”
“Hmm.” I nod. I think Mr. Nash is one of the men who got riled up at Hawthorne’s name-day.
I haven’t seen Rylan since then, since we had the small funeral for Alice mere days ago. The day he carried a woman he didn’t know into the woods and dug a grave for her. The day he tangled his hand in mine, and I let him.
In that moment, there was no one else I wanted by my side. The relief that washed over me as soon as I saw him pushing through the people in the hall was overwhelming.
“Are you getting in?” he asks, nodding towards the water.
I look back at the lake instinctively. “Oh, uh, yeah. Are you?”
“Is that you asking me if I want to go swimming with you, Rosie?” The corner of his mouth kicks up.
“No,” I blurt out. “It is simply me asking if you were planning to swim in the same lake that I am planning to swim in.”
So eloquent am I around him.
His tongue is in his cheek, his eyes glittering as he looks over me. “Well, then my answer is yes.”
“Okay,” I nod.
“Okay,” he chirps back, his tone full of amusement.
I don’t know why I’ve suddenly lost my ability to converse with him in the last few days without his presence, but he doesn’t seem to mind. We fell into a sense of comfort travelling together. Now it feels as if seeing him is a rarity, one I’m not sure I like.
“All right, well, turn around.”
“This again?” He rolls his eyes.
“Yes, this again,” I chirp back. “Turn around, Smithy.” To my surprise, he doesn’t argue. He does as I ask.
I slip my skirts and bodice off and walk into the lake, the water enveloping me as I sink into it.
Unlike the last time I was in this position, I leave my shift on, and this time, I get to watch as Rylan pops open every button of his linen shirt, exposing more and more of his golden skin as he goes.
His smirk is stuck on his face, even as he looks down at what he is doing. “Careful there, Rosie,” he says. “Keep looking at me like that, and I might think you actually like me.”
I roll my eyes and do my best to force down my smile, but I fear it’s shining in my gaze as it drifts back to where he stands at the lake’s edge.
The last button breaks free, and he pulls his shirt off his shoulders and down his corded arms. Now his eyes are glued to mine, even as he drops his shirt on the ground next to my skirts.
But my eyes drop from his as his hands find the button of his pants. I turn away, instead focusing on the ducks who still sit above the surface on the other side of the lake.
I have to give him some semblance of dignity, even if he doesn’t care for it.
I hear him chuckle before the sound of his body moving through the water ripples through the space.
I feel it when he is near, like an instinct that has me turning around to see those warm eyes staring right into mine, and it's almost like they are screaming at me to open my mouth.
“I need to tell you something,” I blurt out.
“Okay.”
“That night you were drunk and Evander cut you—”
“I let him get one up on me, just so you are aware,” he cuts me off. “It was intentional.”
The grin I try so hard to fight returns to my face. “Oh, of course.”
He looks away with a sheepish expression. It’s endearing, but I don’t let it distract me from what I was going to say. I need to get this out.
“When I was looking in my medicine box, I found something—a key.” His eyes narrow, but that's the only hint of movement in his entire body. “It was hidden in a secret compartment built into the back of the box.”
He lets out a small sound of surprise but his eyes are alight with interest. “Who is building secret compartments into a medical box?”
I let out a long breath. “My father.”
His expression falls. “I thought Hazel gave you the medicine box?”
”She did,” I reply, swimming through the water and letting it lift some of the weight away from my limbs. “She told me she got it in Sunridge.”
“From your father?”
I shake my head as I face Rylan once more. “No. She never even knew he built it, not until she found it for me last week.”
I can see Rylan’s mind working behind his eyes as he treads water. “Okay…and this key?”
I shrug. “I’ve never seen it before, but Rylan…” I bite on the inside of my cheek. “It has a pattern on it. Vines.”
His brows pull together. “Like the dagger?”
“Almost exactly like it.”
His gaze skates across the surface of the water. “You think it was made in Arizaya too?”
“It had to have been,” I say. “It looks crafted by the same hand. But perhaps you could tell better than I.”
“I’ll swing by tomorrow after I finish up at Nash’s and take a look.”
I nod, holding my tongue. There's something else, I want to say, but I don’t. I can’t. Part of me aches to tell him about the vials, but Imogen’s warning rings through my mind.
“Do you believe in the gods?” I ask instead.
The corner of his mouth picks up. “Do you?”
I roll my eyes at his entirely predictable response, but I don’t shy away. “Maybe,” I say. “Sometimes I like to think that there is something more than…all of this.”
He knows exactly what I mean. All the hurt, the pain, the loss. There has to be more than this. If my mother’s fable reads true, then there used to be a lot more than this, but somehow it was lost along the way.
“You know what I do when I need to clear my mind?” he asks, avoiding the question entirely.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Sharpen some knives.”
He lets out a laugh—a true laugh—and it forces a smile onto my face. “No,” he says. “I float.”
“Oh.” I shake my head. “I can’t float.”
His brows draw together. “What do you mean, you can’t float?”
I shrug. “I can’t float.”
“Everyone can float.”
“Not me,” I laugh.
“Yes, you can,” he says with a nod, moving closer to me. “I’ll show you.”
His hand finds the hollow of my back, and I suck in a breath. “Do you trust me, Rosie?”
I turn my head, my face inches from his. He knows the answer. I told him before, but I don’t hesitate to remind him. “Yes,” I breathe.
“Good,” he says. “I won’t let you drown.”
I just nod before leaning back. Rylan keeps one hand on my back, and another underneath my legs to hold me up.
“This is your position, all right? All you need to do is hold it.” Rylan’s voice is blurry as my ears fill with water.
“Wonderful advice,” I mutter, and I catch the smile he tries to hide.
“Close your eyes,” he says, and I do. “You need to trust the water around you. The nature won’t harm you.”
I take slow breaths, trying to regulate my system and keep the water out of my eyes.
“Imagine the water gathering beneath you,” he says. “Imagine it holding you up—you and the water working together to keep you there.”
I try to visualise it, to see the lake within my mind. I see myself, and I see Rylan beside me, like I’m a sparrow flying overhead. I see the water moving beneath my body, like it is holding me up with invisible hands.
I can feel Rylan’s hands slip away, but I don’t move. I don’t fall. I simply stay here, floating.
Seconds go by and I stay like this, in this wonderful place where I feel lighter than a feather, like I could be blown across the lake with a simple breath.
“Atta girl.” My ears must be flooded with water because Rylan’s voice sounds as if it’s coming from a faraway place.
I open my eyes, letting my bottom sink down. I catch a glint of gold in the dark water surrounding me, but it quickly fades away, as if it was never even there at all.
My imagination has run away from me—the water isn’t gold, just like the forest floor wasn’t gold that day I landed in the clearing.
It is clearly stress—my mind playing tricks on me as a distraction.
A good night's sleep will do me well, though I haven’t been able to find comfort in the darkness since we got back to Sylvan.
Rylan doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t even look down at the water. He just looks at me. “See, I told you. Everyone can float.”
I push myself through the water, slipping away from him, but I don’t drag my gaze from those compelling eyes. “I’m not going to tell you that you were right,” I say. “I fear that would only stroke your ego.”
That painfully beautiful smirk lights up his face. “Stroke it anytime, Rosie.”