Chapter 34
Kit
The silence in the wake of Penny’s departure was heavy with half-revealed secrets and unasked questions. Sayla, who had been so smug when she asked Merrick about Violette, now wore a look of regret while she watched her mother crumble.
Amelina hadn’t looked away from the front door since Merrick’s departure. She was pale as a sheet, and her hands shook where they were fisted on the tabletop.
“What’s going on?” Her eyes finally darted first to Sayla, and then to me. “What was he talking about? Hemlock? And where is Ashpoint? I’ve never heard of it before.”
I had scarcely opened my mouth to speak before Sayla broke in.
“Kit, you should go after Penny. I can explain everything to Mother.” The look she fixed on me was apologetic, like she realized too late the damage the truth would cause. She was so like Penny, eager to get a dig in against the half-brother who had always been just as quick to wound them both.
I watched my hopes of winning Amelina over evaporate as her face crumpled.
“I don’t understand. You know about this, Sayla?”
Sayla flapped a hand at me. Part of me was grateful to be out of range of whatever immediate blowback might come from revealing to her mother that I’d taken her son away and initiated him into the cult that also stole her husband’s bones.
A small mercy, but I couldn’t avoid those consequences forever.
I took a moment to right my chair, then grabbed the first cloak I could get my hands on. Stepping into my damp boots, I slipped out the back door. The last thing we needed now was for Penny to foul his lungs in this weather and end up bedridden for the rest of planting.
Warren seemed eager enough to help, but he needed too much instruction yet to do more than get underfoot. And no matter how much practice I had at plowing and planting, I couldn’t do it all alone.
I shielded my eyes from the wind and rain, and it didn’t take long to spot Penny, doubled over and braced on the wall of the barn.
His body heaved as he spat on the ground, revisiting what little he’d managed to eat before everything unraveled.
It made my heart ache to see him like this and know I couldn’t make it better.
How could I hope to soothe the betrayal of finding out his own blood had murdered their father?
I hadn’t dried off much in my time inside, so I was fully soaked before I made it to Penny and dropped the cloak around his shoulders. He was trembling so hard his teeth were chattering, and even through the rain I could tell he was crying.
He didn’t say a word as I guided him toward the barn doors, and he leaned heavily against me as I heaved one side open enough for us to squeeze inside. It wasn’t much warmer in there, but at least the walls cut the wind.
I eased Penny down onto a stack of hay bales and crouched in front of him to use the dry edge of the cloak to mop his cheeks.
“That was very brave,” I said. “I’m proud of you.”
Penny sniffled and looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot and shiny with tears. A bitter chuckle eked out of him. When he spoke, his voice was small in the quiet of the barn.
“I’m tired of being brave.”
I cupped my hand to his cheek, and he tipped toward me. I met him in the middle, letting him rest his forehead against mine.
This was the kind of pain I’d said I wanted to protect him from all those months ago back in the graveyard, what I’d tried and failed to take on for him.
But I realized now that the burdens had never been mine alone; it was never just my past looming over us.
Penny brought his own baggage, and he needed to face it just like I faced mine.
No matter how hard I tried to shield him from it or soften its blows, there was no avoiding reality.
He hated the secrecy, and now there wouldn’t be any left. For better or worse.
“I’m sorry I haven’t done a better job of defending you from Merrick,” I said. “I think I’m more afraid of him than you are.”
Penny scoffed and shook his head against mine. “I find it hard to believe you’re afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid of a lot of things when it comes to you,” I admitted softly.
He sat back, his eyes searching my face for a moment before he pulled my arm to urge me up.
I complied and sat next to him on the hay bale. I’d barely settled before he was clambering into my lap.
“Pen, I’m sopping wet…”
My protest went unheeded as he folded himself in as close as he could get. His arms looped around my shoulders, and he pressed his face into my neck to mumble, “I don’t care.”
I didn't expect a second argument to be better received than the first, so I tucked the cloak around him, then bundled him up in my arms.
We sat that way in silence for several long minutes, soaking in whatever peace we could glean from each other’s presence. Eventually, Penny's fingers curled into fists against my back, and he took a chest-swelling breath.
“He killed Father,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
Sadness, anger, hurt, and shame, all in equal measure.
“I was here when he did it, and I had no idea it was happening.” He huffed another bitter laugh.
“Merrick always said I was a fool, and he’s right.
I missed everything. I was too busy in my own head, or buried in my sketchbook, or avoiding work to spend time with the animals, and maybe if I’d been doing what I was supposed to be doing, I would have noticed. Maybe I could have stopped it.”
I slid a hand up to run my fingers through his damp hair. “He’s your family,” I said. “You loved him. You trusted him.”
Penny snorted and tried to lean away from my touch, but I refused to be brushed off.
“You had no reason to assume he’d harm your father,” I insisted. “You didn’t think you had to be looking over your shoulder at someone who was supposed to be protecting you. No one should have to do that.”
He was quiet at that. For as awful as Merrick had frequently been, I knew Penny well enough to imagine that he held on tightly to the rare times he and his half-brother had gotten along.
It couldn’t have been all bad with the way he looked up to Merrick, and those rare bright moments would have felt profound enough to infer affection that was never there.
It had been like that with my father. He grew more cruel and cold the older I got, but there were still moments—few and far between though they were—that he let glimpses of the kind man he used to be bleed through.
Each time he did, he fed that tiny, flickering spark of hope inside me enough to sustain my devotion a little longer, until he no longer cared for it.
Then he ground that cinder into dust and ruled me with fear and threats because those required less effort from him.
“I’m going to have to tell Mother everything now,” Penny groaned.
“I was going to after you left, but Sayla said she’d take care of it.”
Penny made a small noise of assent. “She'll be so disappointed in me… What if she doesn't…” His breath hitched, and his next words came out strangled and edged with tears. “What if she doesn't want me to be her son anymore?”
I dipped back and brushed at his hair again. “Pen, she'd never—”
“I don’t deserve the farm any more than Merrick does,” he continued as though I hadn't spoken.
He didn't hear me. Didn't see me, either, too blinded by panic to perceive any kind of reason. “We’d barely gotten here, and I was already asking you to run things, and it was so kind of you, Kit. Truly, it was. But so wrong of me.”
He dove in to sniffle against my neck. “At this rate, Warren is more the man of this house than I am. He wants to impress Sayla. He wants to do good here, and I... I just wanted to watch you with your wet shirt and your muscles, and I’m so wrong for this, Kit. I’m wrong for all of it.”
Any other time, the comment about my muscles and soggy shirt might have warranted a smile or jest. But now he was so dejected, so defeated, that I couldn't bear to tease him.
I leaned my cheek against his head and pressed a kiss into his hair. “Warren clearly looks up to you. I don't think he has any desire to replace you. And your mother loves you too much to send you away, Pen. I’d sooner have her blame me.”
“I want her to love you,” he said miserably.
My smile strained. “I would settle for being tolerated at this point, but I’m afraid even that may be wishful thinking.”
Penny pushed back and shifted his hands to my shoulders to hold himself at arm’s length. His red eyes met mine, brows drawn. “Well, I’ll love you extra then,” he declared. “Enough for her and me.”
He already did. He loved me enough for the whole world. More than I'd ever imagined. More than I deserved.
With his anger burnt out, Penny sank back down against my chest. He dropped his head on my shoulder and snaked his arms around my waist. But he wasn’t quiet for long.
“If Mother kicks me out… If she…” He swallowed thickly. “If she disowns me, I’ll still have you, won’t I?”
“What?”
His grip on me tightened, and his voice muffled into my chest. “Even if I don’t have a farm or a family or a home, I’ll have you?”
His worry left me feeling gutted. I hated that any of this was even a concern.
“You’ll always have me,” I said, my vehemence stealing the soft edge I’d intended for those words.
“I don’t care what property you own or family ties you have.
For as long as I’m alive, you’ll always have a home and a family, sweetheart.
With me.” I eased his left arm from my waist and tugged at the cord tied around his wrist. “If you ever doubt that, this should be all the reassurance you need.”
Penny went tense in my arms. Breath shuddered out of him in short bursts that would spark a fit of coughs if he couldn’t calm himself.
“Kit?” he said. “What if they turn us in?”
I craned my neck to try to see his face, but he pressed it hard into my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
“They’ll know everything.” His words trickled out as a low whine, and he was trembling again. Not from the cold; this was from fear. “They'll know about the cult, and the bodies, and what if they turn us in?”
His fingers dug into my skin while I rubbed soothing circles on his back. He didn't seem to register my attempt at comfort as he forged on.
“We could be hanged, like Edgar and Cait, and no one…” He let out a sob. “No one would care.”
I tried to shush him to no avail.
“Wh-what if they do blame you? What if they want to p-punish you?” he stammered. “They would take you away from me.”
His chest seized a moment before he expelled a flurry of coughs and was left gasping for breath against my damp shirt. I hardly heard the words that followed.
“I can’t lose you, Kit. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I forced him back and cupped my hands to either side of his face. His green eyes were wider than ever, lashes clumped with the tears that had yet to stop flowing.
“None of that is going to happen,” I murmured while brushing my thumbs over his cheeks. “Your mother isn’t going to risk you getting arrested, and Sayla would never let them, anyway.”
At least, I didn’t think she would. Penny’s sister had seen something between us before we did, and she hadn’t missed a chance to point out my virtues to their mother since we’d returned.
She was as invested in what Penny and I were doing as we were, even if she worried about the consequences.
There was no way she’d risk her brother’s happiness when she was the one who convinced him to find me in the first place.
Penny sniffed. “But—”
“But nothing.” I shook my head. “Let’s wait out here for a bit and give you a chance to calm down. Okay?” I offered a smile, but he didn’t return it, just brought his hands up to cling to mine.
He took a few shuddering breaths. It did nothing for his shivering, but his voice came out slightly more even when he asked, “Can we stay out here until everyone else is in bed?”
I wasn’t looking forward to spending hours in the damp, cold barn in wet clothes, but if that was what it took to ease Penny’s mind, I’d manage.
I pulled him in to press a kiss to his forehead, then shifted to get comfortable.
“As long as you need, sweetheart.”