Chapter Eighteen
EIGHTEEN
MAVEN
On the way back to the house, I stop by the cemetery.
I don’t know what makes me do it, but I find myself walking under the arched iron gateway and past the low stone walls of the entrance and down the narrow paved road that divides the cemetery in half.
It’s a beautiful place for most of the year, but with the trees bare and the grass brown, it feels melancholy now.
I stroll past rows of granite headstones of various sizes and shapes, some of them dating back so far, the names have been worn away by the elements, until I reach the back corner of the graveyard where the Blackthorn family plot lies behind a rusted iron gate.
Unlike the rest of the cemetery, these graves are carpeted in color.
Blooming scarlet groundnut vines creep over grave markers.
Star-shaped purple asters nod in the breeze.
Orange jewelweed grows rampant, towering over the fence supporting it, and a large belladonna shrub surrounds the base of a nearby yew tree.
It’s an overgrown garden, beautiful and wild.
In many places, wild mushrooms have sprouted.
I pick a handful of wildflowers, find my mother’s grave, and lay the bright bundle at the base of the white granite headstone inscribed with her name and the dates of her birth and death.
Then I sit on the unhallowed ground and bury my face in my hands.
“I miss you, Mom. I love you. Nothing is the same without you. I’m sorry I haven’t been back to visit you in so long.”
I sit there until I’m chilled to the bone and shivering. Then I stand, wipe my face, brush off my skirt, and turn toward the main entrance.
When I spot a red-and-black fox lying beside the freshly dug hole that was supposed to contain my grandmother’s coffin, I freeze.
The fox stares boldly at me as if I’m trespassing.
An eerie sense of being watched slowly creeps over me. The fox is looking at me, yes, but it feels as if a hundred pairs of invisible eyes are staring at me, too, from every direction.
I glance around to confirm I’m alone, but I still can’t shake the feeling I’m not. Either my mind is playing tricks on me or I’m detecting an unseen energy.
There’s a presence that feels otherworldly.
Spooked, I glance back at the fox. It rises to its feet and stares right at me.
In its piercing gold eyes, I detect a sly intelligence that’s almost like recognition.
Goose bumps erupt all over my body. Awareness tingles over my nerves. Then, with a twitch of its bushy tail, the fox bounds off into the thicket of jewelweed and disappears.
I’m frozen in place, my thoughts in a jumble and my pulse jumping. A raven caws in the distance, its throaty call like a warning. A cold wind whispers through the branches of the yew tree. Then a flat voice behind me hisses my name.
I suck in a breath and whirl around.
There’s nobody there. The graveyard is empty.
That night, Ronan stands outside the front gate, smoking and staring up at the house.
He does the same thing the next night.
On the third night, after making sure everyone is asleep, I walk out to the gate to meet him. Stopping a few safe feet away, I cross my arms over my chest. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
I look him up and down with what I hope is withering disdain. “Smoking a cigarette and plotting someone’s murder.”
“It’s not murder I’m plotting. I had something much more pleasurable in mind.”
His suggestive smile infuriates me. I step closer, dropping my arms to my sides and clenching my fists. “Go away, Ronan.”
“How many times are we going to play this ridiculous game? I know you don’t want me to leave.”
“You’re right. What I really want is to tie you to a tree, disembowel you with my bare hands, feed your guts to the wolves, and cut off your head so I can impale it on a spike and parade it around the town square in victory in the morning.”
His smile is smoldering. “Sweet talker. Keep it up, and I’ll think you’re in love with me.”
After a long moment, I break our held gazes and stare off into the night. Crossing my arms over my chest again, I exhale a hard breath.
He takes advantage of my silence to ask, “Any news on Granny?”
“No. You?”
“No. Nothing.”
I can’t tell if that’s the truth or not. I wouldn’t put it past him to dole out information like breadcrumbs, leading me further and further into a trap until I realize too late that he’s set one for me.
“How are you holding up?”
The question catches me off guard, as does the seemingly genuine tone of concern. “I’m … fine.”
“Of course you are. You always are. Except when you’re not.”
“I said I’m fine, and I am.”
Because he knows it annoys me, he blows smoke rings into my face.
“It’s amazing that you still think I know nothing about you. That I can’t read between all your lines. I know you, Maven. Maybe better than you know yourself.”
I wave a hand around to dispel the smoke. “I bet you don’t know how long I’ll dance at your funeral.”
“You don’t want me dead.”
“Sure I do. I hate you.”
“Love, hate, they’re not so different. Hate is just more complicated.”
Frustrated, I say, “I don’t know what you expect me to do here. I’ve told you to leave me alone. I’ve told you I’m engaged. I’ve told you, repeatedly, of my feelings of disgust and revulsion for you.”
He laughs at that. It makes me even angrier. I step closer and point at his chest.
“Listen to me carefully. I want nothing to do with you. I want to pretend we never happened. Most of all, I want you to get it through your thick skull that there’s nothing between us.”
He takes a long drag on the cigarette, blows out the smoke, then drops the butt on the ground. “That’s all very interesting. Would you like to know what I want?”
“Definitely not.”
He reaches through the gate, grabs the front of my coat, and yanks me to him. Staring into my eyes, he growls, “I want what’s mine.”
He crushes our mouths together.
I surrender to the kiss with an embarrassing amount of relief, kissing him back, matching his passion. We drown in each other, separated by a few slim iron bars and centuries of prejudice, until I push him away and step back, panting.
He grips the bars, pressing his chest against them. His heavy breaths cloud white in the cold night air. His voice gravelly, he says, “Don’t run away.”
I might have done as he asked, but as it was a command, not a request, I’m obligated to refuse it.
I won’t disrespect the generations of Blackthorn women who came before me by bowing to the will of a demanding man.
I walk back to the house with my arms wrapped around my body, feeling his gaze on my back the whole way. Once in my bedroom, I draw the curtains over the windows to block out the view of him still standing at the gate. I crawl under the covers and pull them over my head.
Lying there on my back, I try not to think of Ronan, concentrating instead on counting backward from one hundred in an effort to fall asleep.
I’m at twenty-five when I stop and listen into the darkness.
All sounds have ceased. There’s no rustle of tree branches outside the window, no ticking of clocks, no creak of floorboards. The silence is complete.
Until the whispering begins.