Chapter Twenty-Two
Nolan
When I was a boy, I got the notion that I could fly.
My mam tried to dissuade me, of course, cuffing me across the back of the head and telling me to sort out the washing instead. That I could fly to do that, if I was so bloody eager.
But the idea stuck with me and a week or so later I attempted to jump off one of the small cliff faces in our small fishing village. I didn’t fly, but I did manage to twist my knee into a right mess. I couldn’t walk straight for close to a month.
I haven’t thought of that memory in ages, but I’m thinking of it now, my entire body pulsing like I’ve hit every sharp edge on that outcrop once again.
I wake with a jolt, my throat tight and my eyes dry. My head is pounding like someone’s taken a shovel directly to my temple, but there’s a small, warm body nestled against mine.
Awareness drifts over me in lazy waves, ebbing closer and then further away again. Elusive.
Harriet, I think blearily, the body in front of me wiggling. The last I remember, we were spinning through time. Colors and lights and … too much sound. Another wave of pain crashes through my skull.
I tug Harriet closer, my hands flexing.
I hold on to her.
She’s here, I try to assure myself. She’s safe.
You didn’t let go.
“Whamph—” I mumble, my mouth filled with cotton balls. I lick my lips and try again. “What happened?”
Harriet shifts, the weight of her pressing in the cradle of my hips.
She stretches her legs out, then tucks them back against mine.
A gruff sound floats out of my chest. Some of my dreams have started exactly like this.
My head gives another dull throb and I moan. I’d ask if I was dead, but I already know the answer.
I rub my palm over a silk-covered hip. “Harriet?”
“I’m here,” she whispers. Her voice is sleepy and slow. Rougher than usual. It eases over my shoulders and settles somewhere low in my belly, right where her body is pressed tight. “Are you back?”
I blink open my eyes and squint. Soft morning light filters in the room through a gap in the curtains. We’re wrapped in a cocoon of soft flannel sheets with a thick mint green comforter on top. The sheets are cream colored with tiny bears on sleds all over. I stare at them in confusion.
I’m in Harriet’s bedroom. More specifically, I am spooned against Harriet in her bed, clutching her like one of the bears printed on her sheets.
“Back?”
“You’ve been in and out all night.”
I frown. In and out of … what? Consciousness? It would certainly explain the headache threatening to split my skull open.
“’M back, I think.” I try to move, but I feel like I’ve been hit by a cargo vessel. I’m weighed down with lead, marbles rolling around in my brain.
“What happened?” I burrow down farther in the blanket nest and realize I’m missing my shirt. I shift my legs. My pants, too. “Where are my clothes?”
“I assume they’re wherever mine disappeared to.
” Harriet eases away from me, sitting up with her shoulders pressed to the plush, green headboard.
It’s almost a perfect match to the pajama set she’s wearing.
Silky and slinky, mere scraps of fabric against her creamy skin.
She tosses her hair back, watching me carefully. “What do you remember?”
My attention is caught on the delicate strap of her camisole. “What?”
“What do you remember?” she asks again, her mouth moving slowly around the words. “About last night.”
Everything is thick and hazy, like trying to look through the bottom of a cloudy glass.
I turn on my back in her bed with a grunt, ridiculous sheets tangled around my torso, and dig my fists into my eyes.
“My magic was out of control. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.
” I remember the bone-deep panic when I tried wrapping my fist around that golden strand of magic and couldn’t grab ahold of it.
It grabbed ahold of me instead, curling around my arms in thick, glittering bands.
I remember spinning, flashing images. Memories from Harriet’s past and mine, twisting so quickly together that they became indiscernible. Images that mirrored one another so closely that it was almost as if they were merging, occupying the same space.
I remember landing back in the Crow’s Nest. A sharp pain at the very base of my skull. Tingling in the palms of my hands, and then—
Nothing.
I don’t remember anything.
“Did I pass out?” I ask Harriet.
She nods, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “You did.” She reaches over and brushes her fingers across my forehead. There’s a tender spot there, right above my left eyebrow. I tilt my head into her touch and her fingers shift up, dragging through my hair.
Harriet smiles. “You knocked your head pretty good against the counter. I thought I was going to have to summon some sort of spiritual healer.”
“There are no spiritual healers,” I explain, eyes closed. There are no doctors or nurses that take after ghosts, because ghosts don’t get hurt. We’re not of this world. We don’t bleed. I shouldn’t have been able to manage a bruise. “How did you get me back here?”
“I was able to rouse you enough to get you up off the floor, but you were—largely unaware.”
Her attention drifts to her bedspread as she plucks at a loose thread. My eyes narrow in suspicion. It’s not like Harriet to censor her thoughts. Not with me, anyway.
I root around for my patience, limited though it may be. “What does largely unaware mean?”
“You were … saying things.”
“What sort of things?”
“You talked about my hair a lot,” she says. The hair in question spills over her shoulder. “You said I had universes in my hair, whatever that means. That you wished you could wrap yourself in it like a blanket.”
Okay, well. At least now I understand her hesitation.
“That’s, uh …” Tragic. Embarrassing. Wildly accurate. I scratch behind my ear. “Did I say anything else?”
“You said some things about your dad. People I didn’t know and places I didn’t understand.
Flying? Cliffs? There was a whole speech about peppermint that somehow morphed into how tired you are.
” Her mouth twists down in a frown and her hand finds my forearm over the blanket.
She traces an absent shape there. “You asked if I had any more lemon drops and you were … very affectionate.”
“Affectionate,” I repeat.
Amber eyes meet mine and then drift away again. Her cheeks flush pink. “Yes.”
“I didn’t—” I tell myself to settle. “I didn’t do anything inappropriate, did I? I didn’t … make you uncomfortable?”
I am almost painfully aware of my bare skin beneath the blankets. Did I strip down? Did I force myself into her bed? I think of the way I was clinging to her when I woke up. Did I force myself on her?
Harriet must recognize my panic because the tension in her face eases, her touch against my forearm becoming more intentional. “No, Nolan. Whatever you’re thinking, no.” She shimmies down in the bed, her knee knocking against mine beneath the blankets. “You didn’t do anything.”
A smile brightens her face. “It was nice, actually. You were like— like a big, cuddly bear. You kept saying how much you liked my hugs. And once I got you back here and wrestled you into bed, I was too afraid to let you sleep by yourself. You seemed … drunk, almost? Magic drunk. I tried to help you change into something more comfortable, but you—you just sort of whooshed all your clothes right off.” I groan as she laughs.
“Except your briefs. You’re still wearing those. ”
“Small miracles,” I manage. My eyes catch on her shiny green pajamas. “And you?”
“Me?”
I nod at her top. “You said your clothes met a similar fate, but you seem to be wearing them.”
“Oh.” She looks down at herself and laughs. “Barely. You, ah, whooshed my clothes away, too, and you gave me these instead?” She plucks at the material of her top. “You said you dreamed about it.”
Christ. I press my lips together and look at the ceiling. “Ah.”
Harriet huffs a laugh. “I tried to take the floor, but you insisted upon sharing the bed, and well. Here we are.” She pokes at my bare shoulder. “You’re very clingy in your sleep, you know.”
I don’t know. I haven’t shared my bed with anyone in quite a while besides Builín, and she’s not exactly forthcoming with details.
Harriet presses the back of her hand against a yawn, one arm stretched above her head.
Her tiny green shirt rises and I get a glimpse of creamy, pale skin.
My little episode last night got something right, at least. She looks deliciously sleep rumpled.
A pillow line on her cheek and her body loose. Lazy smiles and warm skin.
I watch her face carefully. “If I made you uncomfortable, I—”
“Nolan, stop,” she cuts me off. “I already told you that you didn’t.
You were fine.” She tucks her knees to her chest and rolls to her side. “Are you feeling better?”
I mirror her position and shove an arm under a pillow, nudging my leg forward so I’m tucked against her beneath the covers. I’ll blame my episode if I have to. I still feel vaguely fuzzy, but my headache is receding to something manageable. “I am.”
“Good. I was worried.” She pushes her hair away from her face, then tucks her hand beneath her cheek. She looks impossibly soft here in her bed. In her ridiculous sheets and ridiculous pajamas. “Why do you think your magic—” She makes a vague gesture and puffs out her cheeks. Like an explosion.
I huff a laugh.
She smiles. “Why do you think your magic went wild?” she asks.
“I don’t know. This is the longest I’ve ever been on assignment.
” The word feels clumsy on my tongue. I haven’t thought of Harriet as an assignment for a while now.
It’s an improper label, though I wouldn’t know the proper one if it slapped me across the face.
She’s in a category all her own, and I’m not entirely sure what to do with that.
“Maybe my magic is rebelling. Forcing my hand. It’s shoving everything at us at once because of the delay.”
“How many memories do you usually visit?”