Sweetbriar
Voice shaking, I repeated, “Harker?”
Slowly he blinked, and his face came alive again. My chest loosened, and I took in a breath.
“Are you well?” I asked.
He sat up gingerly. “He’s dead?”
I looked to where Goosevar had fallen, riddled with Jack’s strange arrows. Jack and the priest stood over him. “If my eyes aren’t playing a cruel trick.”
Harker’s hand closed over mine, and I turned back to him. He drew my palm to his mouth, pressing his lips against it. I studied him, anxious.
Finally, he said, “It’s gone, Mina.” His voice was low but charged with feeling.
“What’s gone?”
His chin lifted slightly, and his nostrils widened as the air moved through them. “I can smell you, but I can’t smell your blood.”
The others were stirring out of their shock and beginning to speak to each other—Mr. Hilliard among them—but I shut them out as I strove to understand Harker. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve lost the thirst, Mina.”
My heart leapt. “Are you sure?”
“Since the day I became a vampire, I’ve never—not for a single moment—been without it. I’m quite sure.”
“Oh, Harker.” My throat tightened, heart beating fast.
He shifted and reached for me.
“Careful,” I said, taking his hands but holding back. “I think you’ve broken a rib.”
“I think I’ve broken two,” he replied with a husky laugh. “But they’ve partly mended. Come here.”
His hands came to my waist, and he pulled me close. He rubbed his nose lightly against mine, sending a ripple of heat through me.
Behind us, Jack cleared his throat. “Mina?”
I moved to speak into Harker’s ear. “I think the others need not know all.”
“I will be guided by your wisdom,” he murmured. “In this and in all things.”
The two of us got stiffly to our feet, and Jack took a slow step toward us.
“I thought I had lost you,” I said carefully.
Studying him, I saw that his face was a picture of boyish puzzlement, lacking the resentment and fear that so often twisted his expressions these days. He looked more like the old Jack than he had since our parents died.
“Much of this I don’t understand, Mina,” he said, “but I do understand what you did to save me.” His eyes flickered to Harker, whose hand had come to the small of my back.
“I’ll be sorry all my days for what I did, and if I could take it back, I would.
It was out of worry, and hotheadedness, and too much drink, but that doesn’t make it right. ”
“Harker is not a killer, Jack,” I said, raising my voice. It was pretty clear that Jack had come to this on his own, but I felt it needed to be stated in front of the others. Father Kelly and Mr. Hilliard—even Mr. Couch in his own way—were all men whom people in the village listened to.
Jack nodded, seeming to understand my reasons. “I’m only glad my aim wasn’t better.” His brows knit as his eyes moved over Harker, and I knew he was looking for signs of the injury he’d caused. Jack’s aim couldn’t have been truer, but it seemed best to let him keep believing otherwise.
“Let there be no bad blood between us, Jack,” said Harker, drawing Jack’s eyes to his face again. “I know how much you care for your sister, and we have it in common.”
Harker put out his hand.
Jack stared at it a moment while I held my breath. “You mean to make an honest woman of her?”
“As soon as I possibly may. The banns will be read this Sunday.”
Jack grasped Harker’s hand, and once they’d shaken, I put my arms around my brother.
He squeezed me against his chest. “And now I’ll lose you. Not that I don’t deserve it.”
“You saved all our lives today,” said Harker. “You’ll always be welcome at Roche Rock.” He glanced at the monster on the ground, an eyebrow lifting. “Sweetbriar rose, was it not?”
I let Jack go, and I noticed Mr. Hilliard had joined us, though he still stood back a little.
The man was wide eyed and dripping wet. Father Kelly and Mr. Couch were bent over Dolly a short distance away.
Mr. Couch’s coat was drawn over her, but small movements of furry limbs and tail confirmed that she had survived.
Jack looked down at his hands, which were covered in small scratches. “Aye. Woody stalks, with the knobby parts carved away. Hen feathers for fletching.”
Among the four protruding arrows, three had white feathers and one was Rosie-red.
“We had hints of it,” said Harker. “We studied the painting in the bell tower. But I couldn’t see it. I had started thinking of poisons I might concoct using roses. The idea that St. Gomonda might have killed Goosevar with arrows from a literal rosebush never entered my mind.”
Jack shrugged, a sheepish grin on his lips. “Truth is I couldn’t think of any other way to understand that old painting. But I didn’t know for sure, and I worried I’d end up only making the thing angry again.”
The priest joined us, and Jack continued, “I waited for Father Kelly near the church this morning, until after the two of you had gone. I had a time of it making him understand what I wanted to do. Anytime I tried to speak of the creature, my tongue knotted up. I know he thought I’d gone wrong in my head. ”
Father Kelly’s expression was bleak as he looked at Goosevar.
“I’m still questioning whether I haven’t gone wrong in my head, though I know very well there are things in this world we’ve yet to discover.
” Looking at Jack, he said, “I confess I had no clear idea of what this was about. Only that it had to do with the killings, and the old stories of a wolf on the Tregarrick estate. But I could see you were going through with it whether I helped you or not. In the end I came along with the hope I would be able to straighten out your thinking before you hurt anyone.”
Jack’s brows lifted. “I thought I’d managed to convince you when you insisted on fetching Couch and Dolly.”
Father Kelly shook his head. “I only wanted Couch for reinforcement, in case you wouldn’t listen to reason. I have never in my life been so surprised as when we walked up on that monster.”
Eyeing Jack, I said, “You dreamed all this up last night when you left us?”
He shrugged. “Those wolf stories that started up after the killing had gotten me thinking about that painting. Then when I saw the monster with my own eyes—well, I knew I’d been wrong about the killer.
” His gaze brushed Harker. “Stayed up half the night wandering the downs in the moonlight, collecting the straightest and sturdiest stalks I could find.” He glanced at his bow, on the ground next to Goosevar.
With a fond smile, he said, “Made that when I thought I was going to grow up to be Robin Hood.”
I laughed. “I almost used it for kindling a hundred times, but I remembered how hard you worked on it and couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“It’s a good bow. Jenny had gnawed one end of it some, but it really only needed restringing. Once I repaired it and finished the arrows, I spent the rest of the night practicing. Only one of those arrows would shoot straight, so I had to learn how to aim the others.”
I smiled. “You ended up a hero after all, Jack.”
He chuckled at this, but I could see by his ruddy cheeks and bright eyes that he was pleased. After a moment, he sobered. As he rubbed his jaw, I saw that his hand shook. “I’ve a lot to make up to you, Mina.”
“I think we’ve been pretty hard on each other. I know you’ve only wanted what was best for me. Even if we didn’t always agree on what that was.”
“Still, I wasn’t easy to live with, and I’m sorry for it.”
Smiling, I hooked my arm through his. “Well, make it up to me by giving me away at my wedding.”
Before Jack could reply, Mr. Hilliard stepped forward.
The look of shock on his face had not lessened, and he held his arm against his chest like maybe he’d broken it.
He had a bloody welt on his forehead, too.
His voice shook as he said, “What I’d like to know is why no one saw fit to involve the constable in any of this. ”
My brows lifted. “What would you have said if we’d come to you with a story about a wolf-tree-man monster that lived in the fog on the Tregarrick place?”
“And could only be killed with sweetbriar,” added Jack.
“Yet had already been killed by a saint centuries ago,” put in Father Kelly, shaking his head.
Mr. Hilliard drew a shuddering breath. “Fair points, all. But which of you is going to tell me what I’m to put in my report to the Police Watch Committee?”
The constable was far from finished with his questions, but we could all see he was poorly, and Harker suggested we go up to the chapel and continue our talk indoors by the fire. Which reminded me of something.
Glancing at Harker, I said, “Before we go, maybe we want to make use of that cross Father Kelly brought.”
Harker agreed, and I explained what was wanted. The priest fetched the cross, and from the moment he laid it over the monster’s chest, smoke began rising. His bark skin blackened around it, and soon flames kindled and spread.
The bonfire drew Jeremy out of the birch copse.
He combed the ground for his stick and then used it to poke at the fire.
The rest of us—except for Mr. Couch, who wouldn’t leave Dolly’s side—stood quietly watching sparks shoot into the sky.
The clouds had retreated, leaving behind a crisp autumn blue.
The sun burned off every last wisp of fog.
As the flames began to quiet, leaving a pile of smoldering ash, Harker stepped away.
With an arm around his ribs, he stooped to pick up something from the ground.
Then he came and handed it to me—Mum’s cross.
The ribbon was missing, and I quickly took his hand and turned it; the cross had left no burn marks.
Meeting his gaze, I saw his eyes shone with tears. I took his face in my hands and pulled his lips to mine. His arms folded around me, fitting our bodies together.
How warm he was.