Chapter 16 #3
Cal nodded and shuffled his papers, still feeling off-center.
Before Nadine had made her request, he had been planning on inviting her to stay in this room, with him, so that they might pass the time in a way that would be pleasurable for both of them, but after hearing her speak to her aunt, that offer had crumbled like ash in his throat.
Was what he was offering her all that different than that disintegrating sparrow, trapped under its glass dome? Love was not salvation if it suffocated what it was intended to protect.
???????
Cal dressed carefully, feeling the need to impress.
After stepping out of the bath and brushing his teeth, he put on his favorite worn pair of jeans, a light jacket, and a flannel shirt that brought out the red in his eyes.
Studying himself in the mirror, he ran his fingers over his day-old beard, before dismissing the idea of a shave.
In this state, he’d likely only cut himself, and he didn’t want her associating him with blood.
She was waiting for him outside her room, wearing the dress that she had been wearing that night in the library. The subtle shifts of her body beneath the clingy fabric suggested that she had nothing on beneath: a suspicion belied by the reticence of her expression.
He looped his arm through hers and walked her out of the house, relieved that no one from his family appeared to intercept them.
It was bright and sunny, hotter than it had been in days.
People in town had already started decorating their storefronts, with vaguely pagan banners of raw cord and flowers twined around the old lamp posts.
Over the main road into town was a sign, made of wood, onto which someone had mounted a massive pair of antlers.
“They’re really looking forward to this.” Nadine sounded disbelieving as she looked at one of the RUNNING OF THE DEER banners. “You hunt them, and they like it.”
“You did,” he reminded her, for which he was sorry when she turned her face away.
Odessa had taken it upon herself to festoon the statue of the first Caledon Cullraven with flowers and pinecones taken from the woods, making him look like some fae god of the wood.
Recalling her argument with his father, he wondered if it was defiance, or art.
She generally considered it beneath her to ask permission, unless she was trying to prove a point.
Everything was still damp from the storm, which made the smell of pine that much stronger. Intoxicating, really. Every breath was spiced and sharp. Various members of the town were taking advantage of the weather to go for a stroll, a few turning their way, their expressions wary.
He tightened his grip on Nadine’s arm possessively, keeping his eyes straight ahead. They had stared before, it was no difference to him. Let them make of this what they would.
It wasn’t as if they’d be likely to go running to his father.
Deena came out of her office just as they were going in. Her face, which had lit up on seeing Nadine, dimmed when their eyes met. He slung his arm around Nadine’s waist and lifted his head in silent challenge.
Her eyes narrowed. “I, uh, hadn’t heard from you in a while,” she said to Nadine, while maintaining admirable eye contact. “I was wondering if you were all right.”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” Nadine crossed her arms over the front of her sweatshirt. “I just wanted to say hi.”
Deena gave him an unforgiving look. “Do you need more cold medicine?”
“N-no. I’m fine. Cal and I—we’re going on a picnic.”
Without looking any less accusatory, Deena somehow managed to look both shocked and appalled.
“Rael sends his regards,” Cal said deliberately.
The city manager’s cheeks flushed but she didn’t stand down, hiking her chin up even higher as if she could aspire to meet him at his own level by sheer force of will.
“I don’t need you, of all people, handling my so-called regards,” she informed him, leaning over to straighten one of the recipes pinned to the wall.
“Are you going to the festival, Deena?”
“I might, if I can find the time to get away from my desk. Your father isn’t exactly a walk in the park to deal with,” she told Cal. “In fact, he tends to piss off the people who run the parks.”
Cal smiled sharply. “That’s why we have you to run things.”
Her eyes went flinty. “Well. As unexpectedly fun as it is dealing with the Cullraven family consiglieri, I should get back to work.” She scratched the back of her neck. “You need anything, anything at all, Nadine, you just let me know. Okay? You have my number.”
And I have her phone.
“I will,” Nadine said. “Thank you.”
“Enjoy your picnic.”
Oh, he intended to.
They walked out of the civic center, his arm still around her waist. It tightened when he noticed Sheriff Crocker watching them. He should have known his father would have him running interference.
“Satisfied?”
“Are you?” she shot back.
“Not yet.”
A feral eagerness thrilled through his veins as he led her onto the path that would take them into the woods. His woods. The one place where he could be himself—not the promising young lawyer, or the spare to the heir. Just a man.
The people they had seen walking had melted away from the paths, which now stood empty under the harsh sun. It was as if, he thought wryly, they had seen him out walking, and believed enough of the old town superstitions to take their leave.
“I don’t know how you did it,” Nadine said, “growing up in a town with your name plastered on everything.”
He looked at her, surprised. “We were homeschooled. That helped.”
Once they were under the shadow of the pines, the air became several degrees cooler.
The wet earth smell grew stronger. Above them, birds called to one another, twittering in the canopy.
Clouds of pollen were carried in on the soft breezes, giving the sunlight a greenish tinge as it filtered down from the heavy fronds of the trees.
“Do you know why they call it Passer Woods?” Cal asked.
“Is it someone’s name?”
“Passer means ‘sparrow’ in Latin. It’s Sparrow Woods.”
“Because of your family?”
“No. Strangely, it was called that well before my family came here. I think Caledon Cullraven must have gotten the idea for his rituals and traditions while out here, hunting. He always said it cleared his head. You don’t like that,” he observed, looking at her face.
“I think he’s a sick fuck.”
Cal laughed, relieved that she still had spirit enough to fight back. When she had come to him to beg for her phone, she looked so broken. He’d been thinking about her conversation with her aunt all morning, the ragged way she had said, I love you.
The silence between them now was almost companionable. She was always more at ease with him when they were further away from his family. She looked thoughtful as they walked through the trees, but her silence had a bitter edge that seemed more unhappy than serene.
“What is it about me? You keep insisting that you see something in me—what did I do to make you notice me in the first place?”
“You looked sad during your sister’s wedding. That was the first thing I noticed about you.”
“I was worried.” She spoke bluntly, not bothering to sugarcoat her words as she looked up at him in reproof. “It felt like she was getting married way too fast. It felt like she didn’t even know the guy.”
“You have that same expression on your face right now.”
“Because I’m scared that you’re going to hurt me and put me in that book!”
That might be true. But if she were truly afraid of him, she never would have told him so.
“I watched you afterwards,” he said. “Not after the wedding, although I did that, too. I wanted to see you, Nadine. You were so sweet. At first, I told myself that I was looking for the lie beneath it, but by the end, I was just looking for another taste of you. And then you came here for your sister, and instead you found me. Waiting to fucking eat you up.”
Impulsively, he grabbed her by the neck, pulling her in for a rough kiss that made her stumble.
“You’re not going in that book, little sparrow.”
She touched her mouth with two fingers, seeming uncertain of what to say. Breaks in the canopy made the heat return, perspiration dotting his temples and the grooves along his back. Nadine kept pace with him effortfully, pushing back her sweat-dampened hair.
Finally—finally—they got to his spot in the woods. His beautiful forest glade, sun-drenched and still, with the ghost pipes in full flower. He put out an arm to bar Nadine’s path, to keep her from treading on them, while also directing her gaze downward.
“Look at that,” he said, pointing. “I’ve been watching it grow for months.”
“What is it?”
“They’re called ghost pipes—it’s a parasitic plant that doesn’t have any chlorophyll. Usually they’re pale pink or bone white. The red ones are rare. The pigment that makes them that color is the same one that’s found in beets—it’s called betalain.”
“Are they poisonous?”
“No. I’m told you can eat them in small quantities.” He slid off his backpack and pulled out a blanket, smoothing it over the ground. “Supposedly it tastes like cooked asparagus. Do you like it?” he asked, suddenly needing her approval.
“They’re pretty.” She had dropped to her knees, sitting at the very edge of the blanket’s edge, which she refused to look at. “But they look a little like they’ve been stained with blood.”
Cal took some sandwiches and a bottle of wine out of the backpack, arranging them in front of her. “Some people believe they house the spirits of the dead.”
“If that’s the case, there must be a lot of them here.”
“There are. Though, I never really thought about it that way. I suppose if there’s a forest that’s going to have its ghosts, it’d probably have to be this one.”
She hugged her knees, looking at the food. He nodded at it.
“I checked the ingredients myself. They’re perfectly safe.”
Nadine picked up a sandwich with a limp hand. “Because you care so much?”