Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Etta tuts when Ethram appears back at the market. “You’ve gotten gaunt,” she says, and gives him an extra artichoke. After a moment, she adds a bundle of spinach. “Remember to eat.”
“You’re fussing,” he says, but accepts her kindness. It is easier than arguing. “I’ve been getting along fine.”
“Sure you have, lad,” she says, all gentle. “But take care of yourself.”
It’s still early in spring and the pickings are slim, but he’s never needed much when it’s just him. He buys rabbit, and some mutton, too, because perhaps Etta had been astute in her observations. He should eat more, but he’s been busy.
He hasn’t spent the winter wallowing. He’s turned around the trappings of a new paper, and he thinks it has promise.
It has nothing to do with gods or rivers, but instead is an incredibly thorough exploration on the traditions of winter ribbons.
He needs to talk to some artisans before he does any more work on it, though.
And he needs new clothes, while he’s thinking of errands to be done.
He hasn’t been diligent in his mending or gentle with his washing, and winter has worn holes in everything.
He takes his market purchases home, stepping over the weed-tangle encroaching on his front path.
He needs to do something about it, he knows, and so he finally pushes his sleeves up and makes a poor attempt at tidying the garden beds.
It barely improves anything, but he feels better for having tried.
Ada Leighton stops by that afternoon, and she doesn’t hold back about the state of the garden, nor about the bucket in the hall catching leaks from the roof.
But she’s there with news. Mountain wolves have been spotted in the farmlands around Esk, and the residents are concerned they’ll venture into the hamlet.
“I’m just concerned for you in this ramshackle place, all alone,” she says, patting his arm. “Are you truly alright?”
He thanks her for the warning, tells her to keep safe, and firmly delivers her to the door. He no longer tells people that Ky will be back, because doesn’t think he will. There were five creatures, and there is only one of Ky, and not even he can outpace them forever.
And even if he defeats them, he won’t ever be coming back to Ethram’s little cottage with its cold washroom and book-drowned parlour. He’ll be beyond such things, full of reclaimed power.
That evening, Ethram hears the howling. It’s faint, echoing through the woodland.
It falls silent for a space, and when it returns, it is closer.
He sits up in bed, the hearth embers sending low light across the floorboards, and waits in heavy silence.
There is nothing but the sharp punctuation of his heartbeat, breaking the quiet into pieces.
He waits for long, cold minutes, but no sound comes again.
By dawn, he wonders if he dreamed it. By evening, he is sure he did.
But a few nights later, he is sitting at his desk in the parlour when the window rattles. Once. Again. He freezes in his seat, pen dropping from his fingers. A rattle. A scratch. A creak, as if something is trying to pry the window open.
He could take three paces and draw the curtain back, see what is at the glass. He does not. He sits, barely breathing, until the rattling stops, and there is no sleep for him after that.
Dean Parl knocks at his door at mid-morning.
Ethram, still in last night’s clothes, opens it and recoils with a curse.
Parl is holding a fox. It’s a big, shaggy thing, dead.
Its head lolls, wet mouth open and flecked, and its throat is a gaping, bloody mess of a wound.
A few sluggish drops of blood drip onto Ethram’s doorstep.
“Saw the scratches on your sill earlier,” Parl says, nodding to the parlour window. “Thought you might want to know that we got the culprit. Was hassling Margaret’s ducks this dawn, but we got him.”
Ethram leans out the doorway to see the gouges in the windowsill. Viciously deep slices, right through the damp wood. Looks back at the fox and its small, ragged claws. “Well,” he says, faint. “I hope the ducks survived.”
“More did than didn’t,” Parl says, like that’s a victory. “Good day to ye, Hart.”
“Aye. And to you.”
He shuts the door, goes to the kitchen, and sits at the table with his head in his hands. Such a long, sleepless night, and it all turned out to be nothing more than a fox.
But…those gouges in the windowsill were too large for that poor fox’s claws, weren’t they? Parl hadn’t thought so, though, and Parl would know, wouldn’t he? Ethram’s mind is playing with him, summoning up dangers and spectres that exist only in old books and nightmares.
Enough, he thinks. Enough mourning, and enough fear. He did well enough alone before. He’ll do just fine now, too.
It gets easier after that. He polishes up his paper and asks Larsen to read it over. Taylor may be more tolerable, but Larsen has an uncanny eye for structure and form. He swiftly regrets his choice when Larsen looks like he might embrace Ethram for being given the honour.
“We’re going out tonight,” Larsen says, as Ethram tries to make his escape.
Larsen’s office is bright, with homely furniture and paintings on the walls.
It’s horrifically comfortable, and so makes Ethram an equal measure of uncomfortable.
“Callista and Phina and I. We’re going to the dance halls. Come with us.”
It takes him a lot longer than it should to connect Callista with Yates and Phina with Taylor. They haven’t invited him to any dance halls since they were all students, and Ethram had turned them down every time then, too. “No,” he says, thinking it really shouldn’t need to be said.
Larsen shrugs. “Thought so. Just thought I’d ask.”
Ethram leaves with the unpleasant feeling that he’s been disappointing.
He thinks of Parl, holding the fox up like it was worth the extra stop just to ease Ethram’s mind.
He thinks of Ky, lining jars of bramble jam up along the kitchen table.
Ada and her concerns. Etta and her artichokes.
With a sigh, he doubles back to stick his head around Larsen’s door.
“No,” he says again, and Larsen startles, looking up from the paper. “But thank you for the invite.” The words feel awkward in his mouth, but Larsen grins hard enough that his eyes crinkle at the corners, so Ethram thinks they were enough.
He feels less awful when he leaves this time.
That afternoon, the tram passes a merry crowd of townsfolk harvesting long twigs of plum blossom by the riverbanks.
It’s already Spring’s Dawn, he realises.
No wonder Larsen is going out. Everyone goes out for Spring’s Dawn.
It is the sort of festival that goes from dusk to dawn, bright with lantern light and sweet with blossom-crowns and mead.
On the other side of Polling Woods, there is no sign of such festivities. It is as quiet as always, the oak trees still bare and caging out the sky. Small green buds cling to the twigs, waiting for enough sun to unfurl them.
There are blossoms on the plum tree in the Leightons’ garden, and Ethram remembers his promise to Ky. He knocks and asks if he may take a branch. He gets permission, and also a basket packed with biscuits and a fresh loaf of bread that he didn’t ask for, but appreciates.
He doesn’t make a crown, but he puts the blossoms in water on the kitchen table. When he goes to bed that night, the winter ribbons catch his eye. He could fetch them down, he thinks, only he’d need to get the pantry stool to do so. He leaves them.
Taking them down would feel like a farewell he’s not yet ready to make.