Chapter Twenty
After helping the mermaid and the merbaby down the steps to the cove, Kiela returned to the cottage to clean up from both the storm and their unexpected visitor. While the cactus mopped the floor, using its needles to hold the towel, Kiela emptied the copper tub and hauled it back behind the privy door. She rinsed the quilts and set them out to dry on a line in the garden—they had slight singe marks from the baby’s sparks but no holes. She then helped Caz return the spellbooks to the crates and covered them with the quilts that the merbaby hadn’t used. Once the bedroom was restored to order, she examined the broken jars in the shop. To her relief, many were still intact. It had looked worse than it was, which was excellent news, considering that the spilled bloodred raspberry jam made it look a bit like a murder scene.
As soon as the glass was picked up and the floor mopped, she collapsed into bed and didn’t wake until the sun poked its way into the cottage and prodded at her closed eyelids.
The instant she was awake, she thought of the merbaby, followed by the rescued woman, and she made herself get out of bed, wash, and dress, selecting a seafoam-green skirt, a clean blouse, and her favorite boots. She wondered if there were any other storm victims and if they’d been helped. How odd, she thought. Usually when she woke, her first thought was to worry about her books. This place is changing me. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Both the spider plant and the cactus were already outside in the garden, cleaning up debris. Caz was using his tendrils to pick up stray twigs, while the cactus speared stray leaves with its spikes. “I’m going to check on the mermaid, then Larran, okay?” Kiela called to them. “Do either of you want to come?”
“Lots to do here, thanks.”
“Meep,” the cactus agreed.
Kiela waved to both of them. “Okay, have fun.” She wondered if the cactus was going to learn to say more words. She had no particular feel for the developmental timescale of sentient succulents. Ooh, that would made an excellent research paper. If, of course, revealing the origin of the cactus wasn’t a disastrous idea.
On her way out, she picked up one of the undamaged jars of jam. If the rescued woman was recovered enough, maybe she’d like some? Or perhaps the merbaby would? Did merfolk like jam? Had anyone ever written a research paper about the culinary likes and dislikes of merfolk? Certainly she’d never heard of any scholar, sorcerer, or librarian finding one in their bathtub. That was new. She checked the cove, but neither the mermaid nor the merbaby was there, which she took to be a good sign—they were off in the sea, which had returned to its normal state of placid indifference.
The birds were singing cheerfully as Kiela headed through the forest. She peered between the trees, looking for any sign of the forest spirits, but she didn’t see any.
She wondered if the rescued woman had woken.
She wondered if Larran had recovered from his plunge into the stormy ocean.
She wondered if Ivor was still at Larran’s house. She wasn’t sure what she’d say if he decided to ask questions about her remedies. It would be best if she could avoid him.
Maybe she should have waited longer before she left the cottage. She could have stayed and helped Caz and the cactus clean the garden and around the cottage. She could’ve made another batch of jam to replace what broke. Or she could have studied more spell-books.
Coming out of the forest, Kiela halted. Ahead of her, across the open field, the waterfall tumbled over the cliff. Half of her wanted to flee back the way she’d come. Stop it, she told herself. The healer had no proof that she’d cast any spells, and besides, the best way to avoid suspicion was to not act suspicious. It was natural for her to check up on Larran and the rescued woman.
Resolutely not looking at the waterfall, Kiela descended the stairs. She reminded herself to watch for broken steps—there had been one a third of the way down.
At exactly a third of the way down, she realized that someone had replaced all the missing steps with fresh slats of wood. Also, the railing had been mended in spots.
It had to be because of Larran. She was certain of it. It felt like something he’d do. But when? He’d been caring for the rescued woman, yet he’d taken the time to come out here and fix the stairs— For me? There was no one else who lived up beyond the cliff, except Ivor, who’d proven he had no need of stairs. She felt herself smile.
He did this for me.
It was exactly the sort of thing he’d do, an unasked-for kindness.
She’d never met anyone so full of kindness. He’d fixed the stairs, in the midst of his own exhaustion, simply because he knew she’d return down them. No one had asked him to. No one else had even thought of it. He overflowed with kindness, perhaps to a perilous degree.
Kiela kept smiling as she reached the shore and crossed the seaweed-strewn beach toward his house. The shutters had been thrown open to let the sunlight in, and the seaweed had been swept from the porch. She knocked on the door.
As she waited, she thought, I should have kissed him. She replayed the moment in her head where they’d been so close, and she felt herself begin to blush.
He didn’t answer the door.
She knocked again. Again, no answer.
She peeked in the window and didn’t see any movement. Maybe he wasn’t home? Where else would he be? What if he was sick? What if he’d collapsed? He could’ve had his own internal injuries from the storm. He could have weakened himself fixing the stairs.
“Larran?” she called as she opened the door.
Silence.
Stepping inside, she called his name again. She peeked into the bedroom. He wasn’t there, and neither was the rescued woman. But the bed was made, the dishes were washed, and there was no sign of any disaster. Kiela set the jar of jam on the kitchen table.
Perhaps Ivor had taken his patient back to his house and Larran had accompanied them? If so, perhaps that was why he’d fixed the stairs. Not for Kiela, but for her. It still shows his kindness, no matter who it’s for.
Oh good grief, I’m not jealous of a nearly drowned woman, am I?
That would be absurd.
For one thing, Larran was just a neighbor who was very devoted to being neighborly. Despite the almost-kiss . . . which could have been entirely in her head anyway . . . they had no sort of relationship that would justify feeling jealous of anyone. For another, the woman was unconscious. It would make more sense for Kiela to be jealous of Sian.
She closed the door behind her as she left his house and considered what to do next. Visit Ivor behind his waterfall? Much too risky. Return home? That seemed silly, considering she’d already climbed down the cliff stairs.
She’d visit Bryn, she decided. Make sure her friend and the bakery had made it through the storm okay. And then she’d return home to help Caz and the cactus in the garden.
Decided, Kiela marched across the beach, or she tried to. It was still covered in so much driftwood that she had to climb over half of it and weave between the rest. Reaching the town, she saw the streets were not much better. Everything had been tossed around by the storm: carts, barrels, laundry, papers . . . but the worst was the fish. Dead fish had been flung into the streets and onto the roofs. On the streets, folk ran with baskets, gathering up the carcasses for either bait or stew. On the roofs, the winged cats were feasting. Everyone else was cleaning—more people than Kiela had seen on any of her visits to town—and she began to wish she’d chosen to simply slink back home.
Most ignored her, busy with their own tasks. A few waved. Others watched her with curious eyes as she dodged the chaos in the streets. She walked quicker and quicker, hoping her pace would be mistaken for purpose, not panic, until at last she saw the dry fountain and then beyond it, Bryn’s bakery.
Bryn weaved between the tables, dispensing pastries and beverages to very tired, very hungry people who’d come for a break from the hard work of storm cleanup. So far as Kiela could see, the bakery looked intact, mostly. The sign had been knocked off and now leaned against the wall. A few shingles had been ripped off, but the shutters had preserved the windows. Aside from blotches of seaweed spattered on the walls, it looked undamaged. She breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the only casualty was the rescued woman’s boat.
“Kiela!” Bryn called. “How’d you like your first island storm?”
“I didn’t love it,” she admitted. “But the town seems okay.”
“Yeah, we build our homes strong on Caltrey.” Bryn slapped the wall, and a loose shingle tumbled off the roof. It landed with a smack, cracking in half.
Both of them stared at the shingle.
“Strong-ish,” Bryn clarified.
“Can I help you with anything?” she offered.
Bryn shook her head. “Oh no, you have your own—”
From inside, a boy shrieked, “Bryn! It’s smoking! What do I do?” The boy—her nephew, Tobin—stuck his head outside. “Never mind. I dumped water on it. All good now.”
Closing her eyes, Bryn visibly counted to ten before she opened them again. “Actually, yes, if you wouldn’t mind . . . If you could pour tea for everyone, I can make sure that Tobin stops flooding my oven. I’ll pay you for your time.”
“No need to pay me,” she said, and then thought of Caz. He wouldn’t have approved of her not valuing her time, but there was a storm, and Bryn was a friend. “Or you can pay me in cinnamon buns.” She’d lost track of what had happened to the soggy rolls she’d carried to Larran’s. I must have left them there.
“Deal,” Bryn said, before sprinting inside.
Kiela followed her inside the bakery to the counter. She set a row of cups onto saucers on the counter, added tea leaves to a strainer for each, and then filled them with hot water from the carafe. As she poured, she heard a familiar laugh through the open window.
Larran.
She hadn’t realized that she knew what his laugh sounded like, especially to recognize it instantly, but she didn’t even have to look to know it was him. She did look, though, and she saw him position a chair for the fire-red-haired woman to sit. Kiela couldn’t see the woman’s face from this angle, but she did see his as he smiled at the woman.
A few seconds later, her view was obscured as other townspeople clustered around the new arrival, clamoring for her story, and Kiela listened as the tea steeped.
Her name was Radane, and she was from Alyssium.
She’d fled for her own safety, because of the violence in the city.
What violence? the townspeople asked.
“Have you not heard about the revolution?” Radane said. In her polished accent, she told them everything: the riots, the coup, the murder of the emperor, the burning of the palace and the government building . . . When the revolutionaries lost control of the revolution and the carefully constructed coup exploded into chaos, they even burned the library.
Kiela couldn’t listen anymore. All she could hear was screams of people dying in the streets, the clash of weapons within the stacks, and all she could smell was the stench of smoke. As Bryn bustled out of the back room with a tray full of slightly soggy muffins, Kiela said, “I’m so sorry. I can’t—I have to go.”
Abandoning the half-steeped tea, Kiela bolted out of the bakery and past the customers clustering around Larran and the new arrival. She half heard Larran call her name, or perhaps she imagined it. She didn’t linger to see which it was. Driven by the memory of screams and flames, she fled back to the beach, up the stairs, and into the green.