39. Kit
Kit
Thanks to the eager, energetic young gelding I bought off one of the other farmers in Eastcliff, we made the trip to Forstford in three days. We got into town not long before sunset and dropped Rosie at the house to get the kittens settled while Penny and I stopped at the market for supplies.
I had expected to be in and out quickly. Unfortunately, the townsfolk had other plans.
Everyone wanted to talk to us. Some heaped thanks on us for the warning that spared the town from our manmade inferno, while others asked if there was any truth to the rumors sweeping across the province about the fate of the Bone Men.
Running on too little sleep for nearly two weeks made the attention even more overwhelming than usual.
Thankfully, Ben came swooping out of his shop and shooed the crowds away. Though, he couldn’t subdue his own thinly-veiled concern as he looked us over, clearly recalling our bloodstained and somber state when last we’d met.
For as often as the memory of the light leaving Penny’s eyes haunted my sleep, I imagined that sight of us when he first arrived in Ashpoint had lingered for him, too.
He walked with us through the market, a shield against nosy neighbors and prying questions, while we got enough food to last us for the night. We would need to fully stock the kitchen, but that could wait until we got some sleep not on the hard ground.
In our own home. In our own bed. Far from the horrors of Ashpoint and the Bone Men. Somewhere I could be truly at ease for the first time in my life with nothing looming in the shadows, waiting for me to let down my guard.
Ben accompanied us back to the house, then took our horse and cart to board in town until a paddock could be erected in the yard.
While Penny fixed dinner, Rosie and I got to work getting the den dusted and clean enough for her to set up camp on the couch. There wasn’t much to say, so none of us spoke more than a few words through dinner or after.
The sun had barely set when we all retired to bed. Penny and I closed the door to our room and tucked ourselves into the sheets with the kittens at our feet. I pulled him into my chest and buried my face in his hair before I finally whispered, “Welcome home.”
He made a soft noise as he nestled closer. “I’ve always been home,” he murmured, already half asleep, “as long as I’ve been with you.”
“Me too,” I conceded, unsure of when that realization had hit me, but knowing he was right.
I slept through the night for the first time in weeks.
Sun snuck in between the half-open curtains the next morning and lit the backs of my eyelids a fiery orange, pulling me from a vivid nightmare about the day we died. My hand crept out in search of Penny, finding instead only cold, empty sheets.
My lungs seized in my chest when I realized I was alone and had been for some time. Still half asleep, I was sure I’d dreamt the gods returning him to me.
I tumbled out of bed, startling Ember from where she was curled on the pillow next to my head and into a wild scramble off the mattress.
She shot under the dresser on the other side of the room with her tail twice its usual size.
I should have felt bad, but there was no space for that while my breath came in panted gasps and my vision tunneled as I fought the blankets wound around my legs.
“Penny?” I croaked, using the edge of the bedside table to lever myself to my feet.
My knees shook, and I barely made it across the room before they threatened to give out.
I stumbled against the doorframe and pulled the door open, dragging myself down the hall and using the wall to keep myself upright.
Before I could call out again, I saw him standing at the stove with his back to me as he shook sausages in a pan like it was just another morning.
Because it was.
A sob caught in my throat and I staggered over, turning him around and pushing up the hem of his shirt to reveal the vivid scars across his belly and ribs.
“You’re okay,” I breathed.
“Kit, not in the kitchen!” Penny chuckled and pushed off my hands, tugging his shirt back down.
“I mean, sure in the kitchen, just not next to the hot stove, and maybe not when Rosie could wake at any moment. And at least let me finish breakfast first. Ben came by a bit ago and brought some sausage. I asked him about opening a bakery in town, and he said—”
His expression grew serious when he caught sight of my face. He gripped my shoulders and pulled me in to sag against him. “Kit, what’s wrong?”
“You were gone,” I said, fighting to get my breathing under control as my arms slipped around his waist. I dug my fingers into his back to reassure myself he was real. “I woke up, and you were gone, and I thought…”
He leaned his head against mine and clung on equally tight. “I didn’t mean to worry you; I was just in the next room.”
I hiccupped a sob and pressed impossibly close.
“You were dead,” I whispered. “I watched you die. I still…” Another sob stole my voice, but I swallowed it down before it could become anything more.
“I dreamt it, and it felt so real. You were gone, and I was alone, and... You were supposed to be safe. I was supposed to keep you safe…”
He shushed me, rubbing soothing circles over my back and easing me out of the mindless panic. He didn’t speak, but I didn’t need him to. Just hearing his heartbeat beneath my ear and feeling the warmth radiating from his skin was enough.
Slowly, my breathing calmed and my own heart slowed as the tension seeped out of me. Penny stayed in place and let me soak up all the comfort I needed.
“Better?” he asked a few minutes later.
I nodded and shifted back, trying not to let shame creep in that I needed these reassurances so often.
Penny didn’t let me go far. He cupped my face in his hands and lifted my chin so he could meet my eyes. “I’m fine, Kit. Alive, and whole, and safe.” He leaned in and pressed his forehead against mine. “Same as you.”
My hands crept up to cover his, still desperate for more contact to remind myself that he was really here. “Alive and safe,” I murmured, much quieter than I’d meant to.
He tilted his head and pushed up to steal a gentle kiss. Before I could lean in for another, he twisted his hands to capture mine.
“Come sit down.”
I had no intention of letting him out of my sight anytime soon, so I let him lead me to the table. He released one hand long enough to pull out a chair and guide me into it. Then he crouched in front of me, his hands leaving faint streaks of flour behind as he slid them up my thighs.
“I’ll get you some coffee. Help you wake up a bit.”
He kissed me again and went to the stove where a kettle was already steaming, then filled a mug and pressed it into my hand.
I caught the hem of his shirt with my free hand before he could get far, and he curled his fingers around mine with a soft, understanding smile.
“You’re fine with me,” I said, my voice still smaller than I wanted it to be. “Tell me again.”
“Always, Kit.”
I let him go to rescue the pancakes and sausages that were edging closer to burnt every moment he fussed over me.
The familiarity of watching him move around the kitchen like a whirlwind did as much to soothe my lingering sleep-induced worry as his words had.
It would pass eventually, I knew, once I could shake off the nightmares that plagued me in the early morning hours.
When I was properly awake, I wouldn’t feel the need to see him to believe he was still okay.
By the time he served up breakfast and Rosie shuffled into the kitchen to join us, I felt more myself.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you what I talked to Ben about this morning,” Penny said as he slathered butter over his pancakes.
“He came by to drop off some supplies, and we got to talking about how Rosie and I want to open up a bakery. He said he thinks there’s a good place for it near his shop.
It was the tailor’s before she moved to a smaller space on the other side of the square.
It’ll need ovens, display cases, and all the trappings, but…
” He turned a blinding smile on me. “I’ll be able to see the smithy through the front windows. ”
It was impossible not to smile in return. “Going to keep an eye on me?” I asked.
“More likely to rush over to give you a taste of whatever just came out of the oven.” Rosie smirked. “He’ll need to take up leatherworking again to keep making you longer belts.”
“He’ll work it off in the smithy,” Penny replied with a dismissive wave of the butter knife.
The sunlight streaming in through the window above the sink glinted off the blade, and for a moment it was the knife I’d buried with the remains of the Vessel back in Ashpoint. The one I’d made to jokingly threaten Penny. The one that had ultimately killed us both.
My mood sobered, but Rosie and Penny were caught up in the prospect of their new venture and carried on without any further input from me.
Not that my flagging enthusiasm went unnoticed; Penny’s free hand settled on my knee and kept up a constant, gentle pressure that helped direct my thoughts away from less pleasant things.
Even after such a long journey, none of us had any interest in lingering around the house, so once breakfast was finished and the dishes cleared away, we set out for town.
Penny was all too happy to lace his fingers with mine and walk so close that our shoulders knocked with every other step.
Rosie spent the walk taking in her surroundings, much easier to make out in daylight than the middle of the night like the last time she’d been here.
I was ready to throw myself back into work at the forge.
A small taste of normalcy would be a welcome reprieve and keep my mind from things I was trying to forget.
And when Ben met us outside the canopy of the shop, I knew he’d keep Penny and Rosie busy while I took care of some things I’d been itching to do for the last two weeks.
With a nod at me, he offered Rosie his arm and took her across the square to the empty storefront. Penny was reluctant to go, but one encouraging smile from me was enough to send him scurrying to catch up.
I stalled in the doorway. Everything looked the same.
Things were largely where I left them, though it was clear someone had done some work here while I was gone.
But it was neat, like I’d just tidied up the evening before and hadn’t been gone for eight months and been through things no person should ever live through.
Stepping fully inside, I took my time rearranging what had been moved and putting everything back to rights.
My version of it, anyway. It was almost ritualistic, tweaking and adjusting and re-hanging all my tools until I’d touched everything in the shop and my mind was sufficiently settled.
The budding peace I’d felt at the house sunk deeper into my bones here, back into the place it always used to live.
But for once, it felt… unburdened. Complete. Safe.
And that was a novel feeling.
There were a handful of items on the repair rack, though none pressing enough to tempt me to light the charcoal in the firepot just yet. As eager as I was to get back to work, there was something more important that I had to do first.
I didn’t have the same assortment of leather here as we’d had in Ashpoint, but there was enough for me to cut four thin strips long enough to replace what Merrick had destroyed. I settled on the stool tucked up under the workbench and took up a carving blade.
It would take time to truly settle back into a normal life. The events in the cavern would undoubtedly haunt me for years, but I knew from experience that time dulled all things. Now that the Bone Men were gone, time was something I had an abundance of.
And Penny helped. Even if he tried to keep it from me so I wouldn’t worry, I knew he was struggling with his own memories from that day.
Still, he’d been unfailingly patient with me over the last two weeks, suffering through my near-constant need for reassurance, and never complaining about how often I woke in a panic expecting to find him dead.
And when it was his turn to wake, gasping for breath and shivering as if he had been bleeding out, I took my turn as comforter, and we made it through together.
I was thankful that we were still here to recover. We were both grateful to have a life at all left to spend building a home together. We’d very nearly lost that chance.
I was never a devout man before all of this.
But now, it felt almost second nature to ask Eeus and Paneus for their blessings while I worked, carving my prayers into the leather in the shape of tiny feathers and ivy vines.
Pouring my hopes for the future into every groove.
Knitting my life into Penny’s as I wove the strands together and fastened off both ends.
We were permanently intertwined now, he and I. Not even death could keep us apart.
And that night, when Rosie had gone to sleep and Penny and I were tucked back into bed, I offered him the new cord. It wasn’t the same as the one I’d presented to him in Stagcross, but neither was the new future that we faced together. Everything was different, and so were we.
But we’d figure it out as we were always meant to: together.