CHAPTER 4
Ibroke away from Kessian so quickly, he let out a disgruntled noise of surprise.
I said, “Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I forgot. There’s something I have to— I can’t stay.”
“Oh.” Kessian flopped back against the pillows, managing to look like a painted invitation with his arms thrown over his head, one thigh cocked apart from the other. “I’ll just be here. Naked. Getting cold. What a shame.”
“Sorry,” I said again, but I could feel the shadows watching, and another firm tap on the glass had me shoving myself into my pants, yanking on my black funeral attire.
“You all right?” Kessian said.
“Yeah, good. Just forgot—” I’m being hunted. “—something at the funeral.”
“Mm-hm. Well, all right. I’ll walk you to the door.”
Kessian threw on a silk robe, tying it loosely shut. It fell off one shoulder. If life were fair, I’d have pushed him up against the wall to kiss him until the tie came undone.
Life wasn’t fair.
As we walked down the hall, Kessian walked a little stiffly.
I paused at the door. “Thank you for the sex.”
Kessian snorted a laugh. “It was really good sex.”
“Really, very good. I hope I wasn’t too … rough?”
He shook his head. “No, you were perfect. Hip gets stiff sometimes. Don’t worry your head over it.”
He didn’t elaborate further, and it wasn’t my business. Goodbye was on the tip of my tongue, but I tempted fate by lingering a second too long on the threshold.
“If you’re ever in town again, you know where to find me.” A flash of something crossed Kessian’s face but vanished before I could identify it. “In case you want to take a rain check on round two.”
I would never be back, but I could picture it.
Slipping a note under his door asking if he’d meet me at the chippy.
Buying him the sausage roll he liked and sucking the flakes of pastry off the corner of his mouth.
Falling into bed together, and everyone knowing, because it was a small town and Frankie who ran the chippy couldn’t resist gossiping.
She was more accurate than a tabloid but no less salacious.
I’d introduce him to Lunaris, who would put a kettle on to boil before I asked, and we’d take our time with each other while falling fast and hard, pretending not to.
All I had were these idle fantasies, which went away by sunrise as readily as a dream. Every bright, shining connection of mine died before it became anything more.
“I won’t be coming back,” I said, because I’d never managed the social etiquette of a polite white lie.
He seemed to understand. “Most people don’t in Shearwater.”
I had the maddening urge to kiss him goodbye, but in the end I couldn’t even say the word. I just turned and left.
I rushed back to Lunaris, watching the darkness and the trees for a moving shadow darker than the rest.
I couldn’t see one, but knew it was there. It followed me. It had ever since the night I fell into the strid.
Fell wasn’t the right word. My recollection of the night had the quality of a rained-on letter whose ink had run too much to read, but there’d been a song.
Music both strange and familiar. I’d never heard it before, yet each note seemed to have been plucked from my heartstrings, from an instrument made of my hollowed-out bones, strung with my hair.
It had drawn me out of my bed, barefoot into the woods, to the banks of the strid, where the water sang such splendid music to me. The lyrics were, Please come home.
Others had come with me, drawn by the same song. We stepped in hand in hand.
The thing about the strid is nobody who falls in comes out alive.
Farther upstream, the river cuts a broad swathe through the countryside, but in Shearwater the rocks choke it to a stream so narrow you could leap from one bank to the other.
Except, all that water needs a place to go, so it burrows deep, making a ravine of the rocks.
No matter how strong a swimmer you are, the current is stronger.
It swallows anything that falls in, and none of the song’s listeners who go in come out.
Except me.
For some reason, I floated to the surface of Shearwater Spring like a bit of flotsam caught harmlessly in the current. Every bone in my body ought to have been broken, my lungs like fishbowls. I had no right to be alive, yet I was.
But I wasn’t the same. I started seeing that thing.
The sight of Lunaris waiting in the spa’s car park was a welcome one. I didn’t need to fumble for keys; she unlocked her doors for me the moment I touched the handle. She didn’t start the engine, though, and when I did find my keys to turn them in the ignition, she stayed stubbornly quiet.
The lights dimmed warmly in welcome, and I heard someone move in the living room. I was not alone.
I maneuvered past the driver’s seat to get to the dining area, unafraid because if something meant to harm me, Lunaris would not have let me in.
Fae, tucked into the booth around the dinner table, set down a steaming teacup. “Were you really leaving already?”
“What are you doing here?”
They looked offended. “Lunaris made me tea. I wanted to talk to you.”
“We shouldn’t.”
“I’m getting married.”
It stunned me silent. No one had told me. I’d never even met their partner. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Who’s the lucky—?”
“You remember Camilla Hofstedder?”
“Your straight best friend you pined over all through high school?”
“Yeah. Turns out, not so straight.” They took a sip of tea, collecting themselves. “Lunaris makes a good pot of tea. Just have one cup with me and listen, okay?”
I glanced out the window to search for any shadows, but Lunaris pointedly drew her curtains. If we were still in danger, she wouldn’t allow us to sit around nattering over tea.
“All right. Just one cup.” I sat, trying to relax, but conversations with my estranged family caused a different sort of anxiety.
Fae waited for me to get another cup for myself, but I waved for them to drink theirs. “I only have the one mug.”
At the wake, I’d only had a brief minute to talk to them before they’d been pulled away by other friends and family. This was the first moment I got to really take them in.
They’d grown out their hair. It was the same brunette as mine, with the same untamed waves, but they’d styled half of it up into a knot at the back of their head.
Tattoos dotted and formed fern patterns on their thumbs, index, and ring fingers.
The left ring finger had a particularly elaborate design, perhaps in place of an engagement ring.
It was otherwise difficult to recognize them or any family resemblance between us. They had a soft, forgiving face. Their eyes were warm brown instead of green. Their smile came more easily than mine.
But we’d been close, once.
“The wedding’s in a month. I want— It would be nice if you could come.”
“You know I can’t.”
They glanced at the curtained window. “It’s been years. Is it really still out there?”
“I saw it. Tonight.”
Fae’s jaw firmed, but I couldn’t tell if that was from determination or fear, and I needed to convince them to feel the latter.
“It’s never stopped. I see it on the road from time to time, whenever I pause anywhere for a day or two too many, but it never shows up this fast. I’ve been here less than a day. It’s too risky.”
“You can’t just live your life on the road forever.”
“It’s what works.”
“Barely.” Fae swallowed and spoke with cultivated assertiveness. “I’d really like to have my brother at my wedding.”
I didn’t think after so long away that my family would hold much power over my heart. It had been nine years, and they were all but strangers to me. But there was something about family, and something about Shearwater, that never failed to jab my tenderest bruises.
We’d been a normal family, once, but after I’d nearly died in the strid, things changed. Nightmares of a shadowy figure with dripping antlers haunted my sleep. Eventually, it followed me into the daylight, too.
Everyone assured me it was normal after a traumatic experience, and with time and healing, the nightmares would go away. I wasn’t convinced they were nightmares.
Until that nightmare killed my twin sister … Then they believed me.
“It’s not a good idea,” I said.
“You won’t even try?”
“After what happened to Laurelie? No.”
Fae looked undeterred. They took a measured sip of their tea—making it last, so I couldn’t kick them out when they’d finished—and leveled me with their best big-sibling expression.
“There’s a new healer in town.”
“No healer can fix what’s wrong with me. We tried.”
“He’s not your usual healer. His abilities are … particular. Strange. He got them quite suddenly after moving to Shearwater, and I always wondered if he could help you.”
“Uncle Marlowe tried.”
They raised their voice. “Nine years ago, and he didn’t try hard enough!”
Lunaris turned the radio on, playing an acoustic song I hadn’t heard since our childhood.
Fae cracked a wistful smile. “Lunaris agrees with me. Won’t you try?”
“Fae—”
“For me.”
I leaned back and picked at my cuticles. Eventually, I had to meet their eyes, though I knew my resolve would crumble.
“Fine.”
Fae’s expression brightened, but only a little. “Good! Great. I’ll make you an appointment with the healer.”
“If it doesn’t work, I have to go.”
“Camilla will be so happy you said yes.”
“If that thing comes after you—”
“There’s a fitting at Witches and Stitches for the groomsmen and bridesmaids in a few days. You’ll be in my wedding party, won’t you?”
“Fae.”
“I hear you!” They set their mug down a bit too aggressively, making the ceramic rattle.
I winced. I really did only have the one cup. I could make another, but I’d grown attached to that one. We’d been through a lot together. I was attached to all my meager possessions like that. The stand-ins for proper, healthy emotional attachments.
Fae said, “Look, I understand the risk. I know she was your twin. She was my sister, too. But there’s a way to fix this.
There has to be, and running away hasn’t fixed anything.
So come to the fitting. And we’re reading out Grandad’s will the day after tomorrow, so come for that, too.
I’ll book you in with the healer tomorrow. Nine a.m.?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I guess you’ve got it all figured out.”
“I always do. See you tomorrow, then.”
They stood up, setting their mug in the sink, which Lunaris had already filled with soapy water.
They grabbed their coat from the hook by the door, and paused before leaving. “I know the others may seem off with you right now, but we’re all really happy to see you again. Truly.”
That was wishful thinking, but I nodded all the same.
As they departed, I scanned the trees for shadows, and I didn’t close my door until Fae got safely into their car and drove away.
When they had, I locked up, went down the tiny hall to my bedroom, and paused.
The door to my bedroom had always been the same color from the day Lunaris had first transformed: a neutral, inoffensive beige.
It was now the color of baked cherries.
Despite the fact I slept in the spa’s car park, I ran late to my appointment with the healer the next morning.
It wasn’t deliberate—I’d run out of clean washing. Working from out of a caravan meant my uniform mostly consisted of joggers and hoodies, but I didn’t want to show up to this appointment looking unwashed. I feared there might be a physio or massage element, so I was extra thorough in the shower.
All said, I was only ten minutes late, but it was enough that Fae greeted me with a scowl.
“I’ve filled out your forms for you. Please check them over and make sure I didn’t forget anything,” they said, shoving the papers into my hands.
I skimmed over them while following Fae past the circular stairs to a hallway of doors for separate treatment rooms. A disconcerting sense of déjà vu overwhelmed me. Each door had been painted a different color. Fae stopped outside one with a ginkgo leaf stenciled on.
“Wait here and I’ll get him,” they said.
Disappearing inside, I heard them say, “Hey, he’s ready for y— Is that a hickey? I didn’t see that when you came in. Did you get that at the funeral?”
A familiar voice replied, “We all grieve in our own ways.”
I nearly bolted for the stairs, but there wasn’t time. Already, the door opened. Already, Fae led out the new healer to introduce me.
We needed no introduction. We’d already met rather intimately.
Fae said, “Kessian, meet my brother, Taliesin. Tal, meet Kessian.”
In unison, Kessian and I looked at one another and said, “Oh, shit.”