Chapter 7
Ophelia
Damon doesn’t sleep peacefully.
I feel it each time his body pulls him from one dream and drops him into another. The bond tightens beneath my ribs, enough that I lift my head from the couch and look toward the closed bedroom door.
I don’t know what he sees behind his eyes. I don’t know whether the dreams belong to him, or to me.
I sit up, and the blanket Damon left over me slips to my lap.
I don’t remember him placing it there. The fabric is dark and heavy, holding warmth that my body can only feel in small pieces.
I press my palm against it, and wait. The sensation comes slowly, softness first, then the faint heat caught between the blanket and my skin.
I lift it to my face. It smells like his house: soap, coffee, and a trace of smoke. Something else beneath it belongs only to Damon, warm and unfamiliar. I lower the blanket before I can think too long about why I notice.
The rain begins to fall again outside the window.
I cross the room and rest my fingers against the glass. Cold presses into the living skin along my hand, though much of the sensation fades before reaching my wrist.
For one breath, the house disappears.
Warm rain soaks through a pale blue dress. Mud gathers between my toes as I run across grass, one hand gripping my skirts. Someone calls my name from behind me.
“Ophelia, come inside.”
I turn toward it, but the memory breaks apart. The room returns around me, leaving only glass beneath my fingers, and an ache I can’t place.
“I’d forgotten.” My voice barely carries over the rain.
Behind me, a floorboard creaks. Damon stands in the hallway, wearing a dark shirt and loose trousers. His hair has fallen across his forehead, and the shadows beneath his eyes make him look as though he hasn’t rested at all.
He looks toward the bedroom door, then at me.
“Did I wake you?”
“No, I’m just new to this sleeping again thing.”
“Right.” His mouth tightens slightly. He’s learning how often he forgets that I’m dead… or partly dead.
Damon moves into the room, but doesn’t come close enough to touch me.
“What did you forget?” he asks.
“The rain.”
His gaze shifts toward the window. “It rained last night.”
“I was otherwise occupied.”
A brief softness passes over his face before he looks away.
“Yes.”
The cemetery rises between us without either of us naming it. Blood on the grass, the weight of bone breaking in my hands, and Damon kneeling before me with his palms open, waiting for a judgment he didn’t deserve.
I move my hand from the glass.
“The rain was warm,” I say softly. “I think it was summer, and someone was calling me inside.”
“Do you remember who?”
“No.”
He nods, but doesn’t tell me the memory will return, or that everything will be fine. He simply comes and stands beside me, while rain slides down the window.
I look at his reflection in the glass. His attention remains on the yard, though I can feel the awareness of me through the bond. It rests beneath my breastbone like another heartbeat, borrowed but steady.
“You were dreaming,” I tell him.
His eyes find mine in the reflection.
“How do you know?”
“I felt it.”
His shoulders shift beneath his shirt. “What did you feel?”
“Unease. Then pain.”
He studies me. “It didn’t hurt.”
“It did.”
Damon looks down at his hands. He may not remember every moment of the dream, but his body does. I recognize that in the way his fingers flex once before going still.
“What did you see?” I ask.
“A black windowless room, maybe even your coffin.”
The answer comes slowly.
My breath catches in a throat that shouldn’t need air.
“I remember the darkness.” I turn fully toward him. He reaches toward me, then pauses.
“There’s something in your hair.”
I wait.
“May I?”
I nod.
Damon steps closer, and his fingers move through the ends of my hair, and lift away a small piece of dried leaf I missed in the shower. He holds it between us for a second before dropping it into his palm.
The place where his knuckles brushed my neck remains warm after he moves away.
“Graveyard souvenir,” he says quietly.
I look at the leaf.
“I brought enough of the cemetery into your home.”
He turns toward the kitchen. “Do you want breakfast?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s fair.”
I follow him. Damon fills a kettle and places it on the stove. The flame catches beneath it with a small rush of blue. He reaches for the controls and lowers the flame.
“You can stand farther back.”
“I’m not frightened.”
He glances at me.
I look away first.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
“For what?”
“This.” I gesture between us. “That you’re tied to me.”
Damon looks at me for a long moment. “You didn’t choose it.”
“Neither did you.”
“No.” His voice stays quiet. “But I chose to bring you here.”
“Because you would’ve died otherwise.”
“At first.”
He turns back to the cupboard before I can ask what he means. Inside are small paper packets printed with pictures of leaves and flowers. He moves two aside, then stills when he finds one covered in purple blossoms.
Lavender.
Even through the paper, I know it.
“Open it,” I say.
Damon looks at me. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
The paper tears softly, and the scent reaches me.
Sunlight fills a room I haven’t seen in centuries. Long tables stand beneath open windows. Women sit together with baskets of herbs between them, some sew torn sleeves, others write in worn ledgers, and a little girl beside me frowns at a bundle of lavender she’s tied too tightly.
“It keeps breaking,” she pouts.
“Then loosen your hand.”
“It’ll fall apart.”
“Not if you give it room.”
She watches my fingers rearrange the stems.
A warm hand settles on my shoulder.
I know that touch.
The kitchen rushes back so quickly that my knees nearly give out. Damon reaches me before I fall. His hand closes around my forearm. The other rests lightly at my waist, steadying without pulling me against him. Golden light moves beneath the cracks in my skin.
He says my name once.
“Ophelia.”
I hold his sleeve.
The little girl’s face lingers behind my eyes. Dark curls, and a space between her front teeth.
“I knew her.”
Damon doesn’t release me. “The girl?”
I nod.
“What was her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
His thumb shifts against my arm, no more than an inch. “You remembered her face.”
“But not enough.”
“It’s more than you had yesterday.”
I look down at where his hand circles my forearm, and he loosens his grip immediately.
“Sorry.”
“No.” The word leaves too quickly.
Damon’s eyes lift to mine.
“I mean, you don’t need to move.”
His hand remains where it is.
The bond settles between us; however, there’s no violent pull this time. No pain. Only the clear awareness of his palm against damaged skin.
“She was safe with me,” I whisper.
“How do you know?”
“I felt it.”
His gaze stays on my face. “Then she probably was.”
“You don’t know what, or who, I was.”
“No.”
Damon’s other hand has left my waist. He keeps only the touch I asked him to keep, nothing more.
“But I know what you did for the women Maeve told us about,” he continues. “I know what those men were. I know you asked before touching me, even when you could’ve done anything you wanted.”
My fingers tighten in the fabric at his wrist.
“I frightened you.”
“You still do a little bit,” he admits.
I look away.
“So does everything else that happened,” he continues. “You’re not the only thing I’m afraid of.”
The kettle begins to whistle. Damon reaches back and turns off the flame.
His body remains between me and the stove, while the metal settles into silence.
He releases my arm slowly. The absence of his touch feels colder than it should.
He makes the tea without speaking. When he slides the mug toward me, his fingers remain around the handle until I take it.
“It’ll be hot,” he warns.
“I can feel heat now.”
“That’s good.”
His shoulders ease after I wrap both hands around the mug. Damon takes his own mug into the living room. I follow, carrying mine carefully. Steam touches my face, scented with lavender and something sweet.
He stops beside the shelf of framed photographs. I stand near enough that our sleeves almost brush. The first photograph shows him as a child, with untidy hair and a wide, careless smile. A woman stands behind him, her hands resting on his shoulders. She has his eyes.
“Your mother?”
“Yeah.”
“She loved you.”
His mouth curves, though he doesn’t look at me. “She still does.”
“Where is she?”
“Two towns over.”
“Why aren’t you with her?”
“I have my own life.” The answer comes quickly.
I look at the two empty rocking chairs through the front window. Damon follows my gaze.
“She bought those?” I ask.
“She did.”
“You don’t use them.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He rubs his thumb along the rim of his mug. “Never had anyone to sit with.”
Something inside me moves at the quietness of the admission.
I look at the picture again. “You were happy here.”
“I was seven. Life wasn’t complicated yet.” He doesn’t explain further.
I understand the boundary in his voice, and leave it untouched. Damon sets the photograph back on the shelf with more care than it needs.
I take a sip of tea. The flavor is soft, nothing like the bitter coffee he drinks. Lavender spreads across my tongue. My eyes close before I decide to let them.
“Is it alright?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He watches the steam rise from his cup. “Good.”
The rain lightens as morning moves over the house, leaving the sky gray and the windows covered in thin drops. Damon tells me the clouds are thick enough that the sunlight shouldn’t harm me, though he stays close as I open the front door.
Cool air moves over my face. The porch boards are wet at the edges. The two rockers wait beneath the roof, angled toward the yard. Beyond them, small purple plants grow beside the steps.
I leave my mug on the railing, and move toward them.
“Ophelia.”
I glance back. Damon stands in the doorway, holding a pair of thick socks.
“You could step on something, and it’s cold,” he mutters.
“I don’t know if they can hurt me.”
“I don’t know, either.”
He steps onto the porch, and places the socks on the chair, rather than bringing them to me.
The choice remains mine.
I pick them up; they’re soft and warm.
“I don’t know how to wear these,” I admit.
Damon crouches, then looks up before touching me. “May I?”
I sit on the edge of the chair and extend one foot. His hand supports my ankle lightly, while he works the sock over my toes. He doesn’t stare at the places where the green skin splits near my heel. He only adjusts the fabric so it doesn’t catch.
No one has knelt before me with kindness, in the memories I carry.
He pulls on the second sock.
“There.”
“Thank you.”
Damon’s hand lingers around my ankle for half a second, before he lets go and stands.
I step into the yard. Rain darkens the wool almost immediately, but the ground feels softer beneath my feet. Damon follows without telling me to come back.
The lavender grows in a narrow bed beside the porch. I kneel and run my fingertips over the wet leaves.
A memory arrives gently.
The same little girl kneels beside me, dirt on her nose. Thin roots rest in my palm.
“It’ll die,” she says sadly.
“Perhaps.”
“You said it would grow.”
“I said we would give it a chance.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No,” I tell her. “It’s all anyone can promise.”
The memory fades.
My hand remains against the plant.
“I planted these,” I proclaim.
Damon lowers himself beside me. His knee sinks into the wet soil, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“At your home?”
“I think so.”
“With the girl?”
“Yes.”
He rests his hand in the dirt between us. Not touching me, just close enough that I can choose. I look at his fingers, stained with soil now. His hands are large and rough, marked with ink that continues beneath his sleeves. They’re capable hands. Strong enough to restrain me if he tried.
I place my palm over his. Damon turns his hand carefully until our fingers meet. The bond unfolds beneath my skin. Warmth spreads from my palm across my wrist. It doesn’t rush. It moves slowly through the damaged flesh, tracing every place where death still holds me.
Damon’s gaze drops.
“Your arm.”
The green-gray color recedes in an uneven line, drawing away from my hand, and climbing past my wrist. The cracks close behind it. Pale living skin appears beneath the rain, smooth and flushed where his palm rests against mine.
I stop breathing.
Sensation floods the new flesh. The cold rain against my forearm, the rough skin of Damon’s fingers, even the faint pressure of his thumb near my wrist.
He begins to pull away, but I tighten my grip.
“Please.”
Damon lifts my arm with his free hand, supporting it beneath the elbow. His touch remains careful, as though becoming alive has made me easier to break.
“Can you feel me?” he asks.
I look at where his thumb rests against my skin.
“Yes.”
A pulse begins beneath it.
One hard beat.
Damon’s eyes lift to mine.
Another follows.
The rhythm is stronger than the first life that returned to my fingers. This one travels into my palm, up my arm, toward a heart that still doesn’t know how to answer.
“You’re warm,” he rasps.
His voice barely carries.
I turn my hand inside his, and press my palm fully against his. The bond is there, but the warmth isn’t only magic.
It’s him.
“I don’t remember what it was like to be touched without being hurt,” I disclose to him.
Damon goes still.
Rain gathers in his hair and runs along his temple. He doesn’t reach for me with his other hand. He doesn’t promise he’ll never hurt me. He only loosens his fingers enough that I can leave whenever I want.
“You don’t have to remember yet,” he says.
The ache beneath my ribs changes. I move closer until our shoulders touch. Damon breathes in slowly, then lets it out. We stay beside the lavender while rain dampens our clothes and living warmth climbs farther along my arm. Neither of us looks away from our joined hands.
For the first time since I opened my eyes beneath the earth, I don’t feel as though I’m waiting to be buried again.