xvi. In which Arthur fixes a watch #3
“I don’t . . . fit in here, the way everything else does. It doesn’t matter what form I take—the beasts, the plants, they
all know I’m not one of them. But I’ve never fit in with humans, either, because I’m not human. I’m always the Lord of the
Wood. I’m never just Ira.”
He’d gone pink.
Arthur hesitated. Their situations weren’t the same, but his way of being a person had always seemed wrong, somehow.
“Well,” he said lightly, “now I’ve seen you wake up in your chair with your neck sore and your eyes crusty, I can’t say I
see you much as Lord of the Wood myself.”
Ira let out a huff of laughter.
“Anyway,” Arthur continued, “I’ve never fit in, either. The villagers think I’m odd.”
“Why?”
Arthur smiled ruefully. “I’ve never quite known. Because I like the wrong things, I suppose, and because I’m bad at everything, and . . .”
Because of everything about me, because that was the case as far as he could tell.
He buried the thought without voicing it. “Well, I appreciate that you had to ask, anyway.”
Ira huffed another laugh. Arthur’s smile turned into the real thing.
“Here,” Ira said, “let’s see whether this shirt fits.”
He tried to stand but dropped right back into his chair because Calyx was wound around his feet. He kicked it away with a
beleaguered sigh, stood, handed Arthur the altered shirt, and turned away so Arthur could change.
Arthur did the toggles, thinking of his parents talking about him in their bedroom before George’s last trip to Port Lorne.
He’s so . . . You know what he’s like.
To this day, Arthur didn’t know what his father had meant.
He hadn’t quite finished doing up his toggles, but he said, “Ira?”
Ira turned around, his gaze dipping over the sliver of Arthur’s chest where the shirt was open. “How is it?”
“The shirt’s fine. I just wanted . . . What did Dad tell you about me? Did he ever . . . ?”
He wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask. Whether he wanted to ask. He could go on believing his father had loved him as he’d
been, would’ve loved him as he was, and never thought him strange.
“Did he what?”
Arthur squeezed his eyes shut.
“Nothing. Never mind.” His cheek throbbed. He cleared his throat. “How does my scratch look? It feels . . .”
Ira stepped closer, Calyx trailing him like a shadow, and touched Arthur’s cheek. Arthur winced.
Ira’s hand dropped to his side. “You’ll have a scar, I expect, but it’s healing well.”
Arthur nodded. When he’d finished with the toggles, Ira had him move his arms to check his range of motion.
“He never said you were odd,” Ira said suddenly. “George. If that’s what you were wondering.” He fiddled with the collar of
the shirt, his fingers brushing against Arthur’s skin. “He worried you were lonely.”
Arthur avoided his gaze. He certainly had been lonely, as a boy. If he thought about it, he might realize he was lonely still,
so it was better left unthought about. He had Charlotte and the children. They were all he needed.
Not that he had them now. Nor would he, unless he managed to escape the vale.
Ira stepped back, releasing Arthur’s collar. “I have a salve that will help with your scratch. Use it whenever you need.”
Arthur touched his cheek gingerly. The scratch didn’t feel any bigger, but it hurt like a much worse injury. Something about
the brambles, no doubt. Something magical and terrible to keep Ira in the vale by making any injury incurred in attempted
escape worse than it ought to be, which now kept Arthur in the vale, too.
“For what it’s worth,” Ira said, “I think—I think you’re lovely. I’m sorry you can’t leave, but . . . I like your company.”
Arthur’s chest bloomed with faint warmth, like the first spring flower poking through the snow. He still wanted to leave,
if he could—but if he couldn’t, at least he was stuck forever with someone who didn’t think he was odd. Someone who understood
loneliness probably better than he did, since Ira lived alone—unless one counted a sentient tangle of greenery—and had, it
seemed, for decades.
“It’s a small consolation,” Arthur said, “but thanks for saying it all the same. I’ve— Of course I want to go home, and I’m, er, well—” with a glance at Calyx, whose fronds turned in his direction “—I’d feel better if your guardian weren’t always glaring at me—not glaring, it doesn’t have eyes, but—”
Ira’s lips twitched.
“The point is—” Arthur wasn’t sure how to express what Ira’s words meant to him. “Well, I’m glad we’re friends.”
He blanched; maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Were they friends, when he’d been here barely more than two days and spent much of it doing chores in companionable silence? So
little of the silence in his life had been companionable that it felt like more than enough to him, but he suspected most
people would’ve disagreed. Regardless, he wasn’t sure one was supposed to announce one was friends with someone.
But Ira gave a small smile—a real one, not slanted or sidewise or wolfish—and said, “So am I,” and Arthur relaxed. Smiling
that way, he thought, Ira was really quite striking.
Ira turned away.
“I’ll do a couple more shirts tomorrow. Then I’ll start on some trousers for you.”