Chapter Thirty-Two
Harriet
You’re stalling.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
I laugh. “Nolan. I’ve watched you debate putting your arm in that sleeve for the past four minutes. You’ve rearranged all my gingerbread men twice. You’re looking at my garland like you want to redo it.”
“It’s hanging slightly crooked.”
“No, it’s really not.” Maybe a little. In the middle. But we don’t need to redecorate right now. We need to visit my past. Or his. Wherever his magic takes us.
Nolan lets his head drop back, his eyes pinched closed and his navy peacoat hanging off one arm. He rumbles something under his breath about stubborn and more time and should have gotten another blueberry Danish.
I soften.
“I know you don’t want to go.” I loop my arms around his waist and rest my chin on his chest. He peers down at me. “I don’t want to go either, but it’s the right thing to do.”
It’s the only thing we can do. Last time we ignored his magic, it spun out of control. I’d rather not have a repeat performance.
I also need to keep a firm grasp on myself. I can’t lose sight of how this ends. It’ll hurt bad enough when I have to say goodbye. I don’t want to pretend it’s not coming.
His jaw tightens and then relaxes, the sleeve of his jacket still hanging limply at his side. His eyes search mine, his hand finally raising to tuck some wayward curls behind my ear. He sighs heavily. From the very depths of his soul.
“You’re right. We need to do it.” He swallows, eyes searching, a flash of guilt tightening his eyes. He tries for a smile and falls woefully short. “You sure I can’t convince you to spend the afternoon at the shop with me instead?”
“We can go to the shop after.” I pause, dancing my fingers across his neck, right beneath his hairline. He closes his eyes and his shoulders slump. “I don’t want to spend the rest of our time together waiting for the end of it. Okay?”
His eyes stay closed and his mouth flattens into a line, but he nods. “All right.”
“Good. Now kiss me and let’s go.”
One eye peeks open. “Look at you. Demanding little thing.”
“I learned from the best.” I pucker my lips. Nolan laughs. “I’m waiting,” I singsong.
There’s a rustle of fabric as Nolan pulls his coat on the rest of the way, then his palms trace up my arms, over my shoulders.
Slow. Firm. Steady. A reassurance that he’s here.
That he’s with me. His nose nudges mine and I’m not sure I’ve ever had a more perfect moment in my life.
“Kiss me,” I demand again, and I taste the edge of his rough laugh the moment before his mouth catches mine.
He’s slow, and careful, and deliciously thorough. He holds my face and his mouth stays patient. Slow, slow, slow. I feel lit up inside. Glowing.
I don’t realize we’ve gone back to the past until Nolan pulls away and we’re somewhere else, the remnants of his magic sparking in his palms. Stone-gray skies and open water greet us. Seagulls hovering above the horizon and choppy, uneven seas.
Nolan frowns as he looks around. “My past,” he says. “Definitely,” I agree, peering around the deck of the small ship. “Is this your boat?”
Nolan’s gaze is still fixed somewhere in the distance, his eyebrows tugged down low. Thinking. “Aye,” he says, distracted. “She’s mine.”
A laugh bubbles up my throat. “It’s a she, huh?”
“All good vessels are.” He shakes his head, then looks down at me. A wind off the water ruffles his hair. He winces. “That sounded horrible, didn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say horrible.”
“By vessel, I meant ship—”
“Uh-huh.”
“Strictly in the sense of a nautical nature, not—”
“Right. I understand.”
Nolan narrows his eyes. He’s so damn easy to tease.
“Are you done?” he asks.
I grin at him. “For now.”
He shoves his hands in the pockets of his coat, then gives me a pointed look when I try to do the same. I pulled on my pink, anklelength jacket with the too-tiny pockets before we left the house.
I hold up my mittened hands and wave them at Nolan.
“Thank you. I have no desire for you to lose access to your hands while on the deck of a ship.”
I look around the boat. If I spread my arms wide, I could touch my fingers to either end of it. There’s a white cabin at the back. A collection of nets and rope littered in neat piles.
I don’t see Nolan, though. Nothing but a discarded woolen cap, tossed over the edge of an old crate.
Another gust of wind lifts my hair.
“Do you know what memory we’re in?” I ask. There’s a thunk every now and again from beneath us. I suppose he’s belowdecks, doing … whatever it is fishermen do when they’re down there.
Battening down the hatches? Shivering his … timbers?
“Most of my time was spent on this boat. I don’t know what specific day this is or why we’re—”
The rest of his sentence cuts off abruptly as the ship rocks beneath our feet. Thick, black clouds gather in the distance, moving quickly in our direction.
Nolan reaches out to steady me, his grip firm. “What is it?” I ask. He looks spooked.
“Do you see the lighthouse?”
I turn and stare in the direction of the shoreline. I catch the barest hint of a light, flashing and dimming. Flashing and dimming. But there’s a thick fog creeping around the edges of the boat, and I lose sight of it easily enough. It’s like it was never there to begin with.
“No,” I say faintly. “I thought I could, but now I can’t.”
“Church bells,” he says to himself.
A low, eerie sound echoes out over the water. Far in the distance. The slow chime of heavy church bells splits the air before the wind carries it away.
The hair on the back of my neck rises.
“Hell,” Nolan curses. “I know this day.”
He swallows hard. “This is the day I died.”