CALDER
OCTOBER 1, 1886
LATE EVENING
T he floor along the front wall of the entrance hall has developed a new squeak. I think the boards have grown tired of my pacing and are voicing their dismay in the only way they can. My feet throb, expressing a similar sentiment—but I turn on my heel and continue to tread upon the petulant planks.
How could it be possible that Robbie and Cleona left here to visit Sabella only this morning? It feels like I have been waiting weeks for their return.
I stop to stare hard and hatefully out the window at the darkening clouds. The heavens fling down rain in silver-gray ribbons that endlessly unspool and unspool. I can smell mud without lifting the pane.
When I finally see Robbie and Cleona dashing through ankle-deep puddles to reach the front door, I rush out to meet them. My shoes fill with water, but I don’t care. They have been in Sabella’s company. If anything of her clings to them, a vague scent or a single thread of her clothing, I want it. I want proof she still exists in this world.
Robbie slips his arm through mine and we run back to the house, to take cover from the rain on the wide porch. “Barely made it here. Every stream is overflowing, and the mud almost tore the horse’s shoes clean off, it’s that thick.”
“Is she…?” I start to ask.
Cleona smiles knowingly—which makes me half sick with giddy excitement. She says, “I’m going to dry off and make tea. You two can stand here and drip if you like.”
Once the door shuts, Robbie reaches into his vest pocket and pulls out something gray. He offers it to me with all the reverence of a holy man handling a sacred relic. It’s paper. A note. A very wet note. Robbie leaves me, but I hardly notice.
I unfold the sodden message with fingers that refuse to stop shaking.
The ink is smeared to near illegibility. There are only two words, but they are enough. They are beautiful in their simplicity yet full of fathomless possibilities. My heart leaps in my chest at the sight of them.
Come soon.
These eight letters form a command I would not dream of disobeying.
I jam the note into the pocket of my trousers and fumble with the buttons of my shirt. I curse them and all buttons. Who invented buttons, anyway? Such a device of deviltry! A few fly off as my frustration escalates. I shrug so my shirt falls onto the porch and then I run across the gravel lane and into the grass.
My wings unfold behind me as I gulp the air. A sudden gust of wind almost knocks me off my feet. Raindrops, hard as hailstones, pelt my naked shoulders. I spread my arms to steady myself and call upon the muscles in my back to move the wings. Cold seeps through my wet skin and makes me shiver. I think every warm thought I can—sunbeams, bonfires, kissing Sabella—but it’s no use. My body is too cold to allow for full and proper movement of the wings. I cannot get off the ground.
Water made us what we are, Sabella and me, and now it’s water holding us apart. Water and miles of mud and trees and rocks, blast them all to oblivion.
I throw my head back. Rain runs into my mouth and ears to spite me. I utter a sound between a groan and a shout—in case anyone in the heavenly realms gives a fig about the actual, physical pain in my chest I have from perpetually longing for Sabella.
Someone tugs at the waistband of my trousers. It’s Rhys. His two foster brothers stand alongside him looking serious as a bishop’s funeral. “Cleona says you are to come inside right away or she’ll come out for you and make you sorry for it,” Rhys says.
“It’s getting dark, besides,” Tiberius says.
Fabian squints at me as he steps closer. “Are you crying?”
“Not at the moment,” I reply. But if this rain does not soon cease, I have no doubt I will weep enough to fill jars, tureens, buckets, and troughs. I am miserable and happy to such an extraordinary degree that it surely must leak out of me somehow.
The boys take hold of my arms and tug me into the house. There, Cleona shoves a mug of tea into my hand and Robbie shrouds me in blankets. But I am still chilled through and I swear I will never be warm again until I find myself in Sabella’s embrace.
There is no version of soon that will be soon enough.