Honeysuckle

Chapter Fifty-Seven. Rory

Rory

Rory couldn’t sleep. Hanna’s words kept echoing in his mind.

Pet, and not a well-treated one. Or the voice of Hanna’s boyfriend saying, Bound by the words of their maker.

How the word rape was never used, yet remained present in the gap between his words.

Round and round. Hanna’s venom. Maggie’s protectiveness.

Elliott’s flustered attempts to smooth everything over.

Noah’s expression, the uncertainty there, how he couldn’t meet Rory’s eyes.

The only difference between Daye and a pet is that Rory fucks Daye.

And that a pet can run away if it wants to.

Rory squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut the words away. The night was paling into the dirty gray of city dawn, the sounds of drunks stumbling home slowly replaced with early traffic.

Pet. Rory turned over, groaning. The muscles he’d pulled while skating protested, like remnants from a different era.

Was it only a few hours ago that he and Elliott had wagered a round of drinks on who’d get the most circuits without crashing?

That he’d smiled so hard his jaw had literally hurt?

Was it only that afternoon that he’d gotten an offer to go to the fall program in Aranrhod, and the world had felt so very wide, so full of possibilities?

It seemed like a lifetime ago.

It seemed like a dream.

He turned again, but the voices kept overlapping in his mind, layering. Even if Blodeuwedds look like a person, they have to do what they’re told. Did you somehow never come across any reference to it, despite all that research you did?

Of course he’d come across it. At first he’d assumed it was simply not relevant to him, since he wasn’t the one who created Daye; his sister had.

And it wasn’t as if Wynne was in the habit of handing out commands to Daye, so it didn’t seem like something he should be concerned about.

But as the experiments grew more … complex, as most of Wynne’s original construction was replaced …

he wondered about it, from time to time.

Surely he’d know if something like that was happening, if Daye had to obey whatever he said. There was no way he’d miss it, right?

Right?

Roan’s precise voice circled through his mind again. Constructs are always bound by the words of their maker. They have no choice but to do what they’re told.

Rory got out of bed and got dressed.

The world seemed hushed and sleepy; more so once the train had chugged away, taking with it the subdued chatter of early-morning passengers. All that was left was the wind, the birds, and Rory, trudging his way home.

I just need to see her, he thought as he turned from the paved road near the station to the muddy path that twined between the fields. He just needed to hear her say it wasn’t true.

I won’t even ask her, he thought as he hitched his bag higher on his shoulder, kicking rocks to the side of the road.

How would he ask something like that, anyway?

Hey, Daye—in all the ten years we’ve known each other, have you always had to do what I tell you to?

He scoffed. He didn’t need to ask. He knew this was all bullshit.

Some belated jealous streak from Hanna, like Elliott said.

He kept walking.

He wouldn’t say anything. He didn’t even know why he’d come here.

I’ll just see her, hold her for a few hours, and go back on the afternoon train.

He opened the gate, half expecting to see Daye waiting on the front steps, hugging her knees to her chest, as she did every Friday. But of course she wouldn’t be there. It was a Saturday morning, and she wasn’t expecting him until next week.

Rory placed his bag by the door and stepped into the living room.

Then the dining room. Ran up the stairs to their room.

By the time he got to the kitchen, Rory could no longer deny his unease.

He expected the house to be cold and drafty, every heat source extinguished while he was gone.

But instead the rooms felt stuffy, the air still and slightly stale, all the windows closed and latched.

He opened the back door. The garden was empty.

The wind ruffled the leaves in the sparse bushes braving the winter chill.

The house felt … unused.

Where was she?

Well, it is winter, Rory thought. She must be at the fortress. Or the meadow. Or … somewhere around here. Where did Daye go when he wasn’t there? What did she do? Three years ago, he would have known the answer. But now …

Rory stepped out the back door, calling Daye’s name. He walked to the fortress, but there was nothing there but a constellation of starlings chattering between the branches. He cut over to the stream Daye liked to skate down in winter, then back to the meadow, calling her name all the while.

Every step pulled at his stiff muscles, reminding him just how sore he was from yesterday’s skating.

The trees seemed to multiply around him, the forest growing bigger the more he trudged through it.

It didn’t feel like the forest of his childhood, the one where he knew every nook and den.

Winter and distance had lent it a bleak foreign bareness, so uniform that he could no longer tell if he was moving forward at all.

A thin, persistent rain started falling, churning the ground into mud. It made the landscape even darker: dark gray trees under dark gray skies. The rain soaked into his shirt and jeans, slowly turning him dark, wet gray as well.

Where is she? he thought as he returned to the house for an umbrella and boots, before he’d head to check more distant places. The lake. The copse of beeches a little way north of it. Maybe the southern grove. Why isn’t she in any of the usual places? What if—

No. He wouldn’t think about that. He’d—

Rory entered their room and stopped dead in his tracks.

Daye’s shelves under the window were empty of the objects that usually littered them.

The dust there was thick and even, and when he swept it away with a finger, faint shell-shaped shadows were revealed, blurry with light exposure.

He opened her closet. Only her scarf dangled inside it.

Where were her things? Her dresses? Her skates? Her shell and rock collections?

Where was she that she didn’t hear him calling? That she hadn’t set foot in the house for who knows how long?

Rory sat heavily on the bed. It was neatly made in Mrs. Matthews’s particular way, though she only came twice a week now, on Mondays and Thursdays. The air tasted stuffy, the way it did in rooms that remained closed for too long.

Rory couldn’t breathe. He could feel his lungs working, the air moving past his wind-chapped lips, but still, he couldn’t seem to get enough air. A faint ringing was sounding in his ears, high and far away.

She’s gone. The thought dragged through his mind, slow and excruciating, blotting out everything else.

She’s gone. She’s gone, and it’s all my fault.

He shouldn’t have left her alone for weeks at a time, not even with the self-transition.

He knew how tenuous a solution could be, how, last time, Daye had seemed fine up until the moment her skin started cracking.

Ohgodohgodohgod, the litany continued in his head.

Gone. Gone, gone, gone. A pile of leaf dust in the meadow, a collection of sticks and dried vines in the back garden, if anything survived at all.

His lungs wouldn’t work, the taste of stale air heavy on his tongue. Gone, like she was never here at all.

It was a punishment. It had to be. The day before, he’d almost decided to go away for four months—not for Daye, but just because he wanted to—and today she was gone, taken, disappeared like she was never here.

He knew he wasn’t making sense, but it was hard to find the fault in the logic while the empty shelves stared at him, as if she weren’t merely gone but her very existence had been erased.

The empty shelves.

He looked at the bare stretch of shelves.

If Daye was … gone, he thought cautiously, as if probing a wound, if she’d fallen apart while he was away, there was no reason for her things to have disappeared as well.

They wouldn’t automatically dissolve the moment she did.

Which meant she wasn’t gone gone. Not that way.

Instead, she must have simply … gone. Went away. Left.

Left him.

Something tickled his wrist. A lone ladybug traveled up his arm toward his elbow.

Rory looked at it blankly for a moment, then got up and opened the window, gently placing the beetle on the windowsill.

He leaned on the glass, grateful for the smell of rain and damp, growing things.

A bird outside cawed twice and took flight.

Gone. Left.

It was almost comforting. After the horror of imagining Daye falling into pieces while calling his name, the image of Daye taking her things off the shelves, packing a bag, and heading away had a dull kind of solace.

Instead of the ever-spreading grief and guilt and anguish of a minute ago, there was only a jagged pain, lightning bolt sudden, and numbness in its wake.

She’d gotten tired of waiting. Or gotten tired of Rory. Or maybe she’d never wanted him in the first place. Maybe every kiss, every “I love you,” was born of fear and necessity. Maybe she had been waiting for the right moment all along. For the moment she’d finally be free of him.

She could leave him now. So she had.

There was something akin to relief in that. The release of a dread realized, of knowing: I was right to fear. That thing I never allowed myself to say out loud? I was right all along.

The glass burned cold against his forehead. Raindrops landed on his face, skidding down his cheeks like tears. He focused on breathing: in, out. Gone. In, out. Gone, gone, gone. In, out. She never loved me at all.

A bird cawed again. And then the creak of hinges, the squelch of steps on muddy earth. Daye’s voice calling his name.

He opened his eyes.

“Rory!” Daye called again. She was closing the back gate behind her, only a few feet away; waving up, cheeks flushed.

“When did you come back? What are you doing back home? I thought you weren’t coming for six more days.

” She was smiling up at him, wide, surprised, delighted.

A large raven settled on a branch behind her.

“I’m coming up!” she called, and disappeared from sight without waiting for an answer.

He could hear the back door opening and closing, Daye’s light step coming nearer and nearer. Rory closed his eyes, leaned his forehead on the glass, and, for a moment, just let himself breathe.

“Daye,” Rory whispered later. His hand was trailing up and down her bare shoulder, as it always did. He couldn’t help but touch her when she was like this—drowsy and bare and near. To be honest, he was always incapable of keeping his hands away from her.

“Hmm?”

“Where are all your things?”

“Oh, they’re in the fortress.” She rolled over. “It’s more comfortable like that. Even without heating, it’s hard being in the house in winter. And … it’s hard being here without you during the week. It feels too empty.”

“I’m sorry.” Relief and guilt twined inside him. There was an explanation, a simple one, one that had nothing to do with leaving or falling apart. She was here, she was staying.

“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “I’m used to it by now. Did you just notice it now? It’s been like this for months.”

“Yeah.” The guilt deepened, like a fruit ripening under the sun. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. But for a minute there, I thought something had happened to you. Something like … last winter.”

“Oh. Was that why you were leaning on the window like that?” Her hand was on his cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m fine, Rory, I promise. I really am.”

They stayed quiet for a minute, the rasp of Rory’s fingers on her skin the only sound in the room.

“Daye? Can I ask you something?” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Rory regretted them.

“What?”

“Do you … If I tell you to do something, do you—” He couldn’t ask it. It was too ridiculous, too far-fetched, with Daye curled here beside him, her hands folded against his chest. “You know what? Never mind.”

“Rory? What is it?” She looked at him with a slight crease between her brows, like she was worried for him.

“Nothing. It’s just something that someone—Hanna—said yesterday. She said … she said that you wouldn’t be able to say no to me because you’re a Blodeuwedd. Which is ridiculous, right? Like, we would know if it was true.”

A moment of silence. “Is … is that why you came back today?”

Rory half shrugged, sheepish. “Sorry. I know it’s nonsense. I don’t even know why I brought it up. You know what? Forget I ever said anything.”

It was only when Rory was sitting on the train back that he realized—he’d never actually asked if Hanna was right.

And Daye had never actually said that she wasn’t.

He shook his head. Let it go. That’s just grasping at straws.

For the rest of the ride, he leaned against the window and tried to let the thrum of wheels lull him into sleep.

He never quite managed to doze off.