Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
No Italy. No Canon. No answers. I don’t know what to plan for anymore.
Anineteen-foot larch pole flipped end over end and landed flat in the field.
Polite applause rose from the crowd around Cadenza in the bleachers while a volunteer shoveled dirt into the unexpected hole the Games Commission had found at the side of the athletics field that morning.
He patted the grass back over the dirt. Good as new, as if it had never been.
Cadenza wanted to run over and punch him.
Another pole went flying.
“Huh.” Reyna tilted her head at the burly, kilt-clad athletes on the field. “So, throwing telephone poles around is what passed for entertainment?”
“Caber,” Cyrus clarified. “It’s called a caber.”
Cadenza waited, but he didn’t add a joke. Cyrus and Ruairi hadn’t known Canon, but they mourned the lost chance at a new Crown. Even wearing his Pride kilt, with its rainbow colors sewn into the pleats, hadn’t cheered Cyrus, and Ruairi had barely spoken all morning.
She clapped with the crowd as athletes rotated through events on the field, but all she saw was Canon’s face at the club last night, unmasked and vulnerable.
He’s gone.
Ruairi’s words had haunted her all night, even with Taran’s arms around her, and his rhythm washing her soul.
Gone.
She twisted the festival program in her hands. Drostan had explained that some part of Canon lingered in the cave. People had told her the same thing about her father after he died. That part of him was “out there” in some nebulous fashion. What good did “out there” do her? He wasn’t here.
Canon’s last words to her stuck in her head like a song.
I’ll never be enough.
How much had she contributed to that belief? When she rejected his proposal, when she thought he’d betrayed them—had she helped fuel the desperation that led him to Thomas and the cave? Or did her actions have nothing to do with it? Perhaps this end had been woven for Canon by the Fates.
Both possibilities made her want to vomit.
The round of caber tossing finished, and they left the bleachers.
They’d wandered through the games all morning, unable to leave behind the grim mood of last night.
The scent of fried dough and sugar rolled over them as they passed the food trucks, the smell laying heavy and sticky on Cadenza’s skin.
Pipe bands marched on the tattoo field, and dancers leaped over swords.
She marveled at how they carried on with their day, oblivious to the crushing pain hanging over her group of friends.
The drone of the pipes buzzed along the soles of her feet, mixing with the usual hum of the ground. The music twirled up her legs and into her chest, but she kept it under control.
“At least I’m not blowing things up so much anymore.” She tried to sound encouraged.
Reyna took too long to answer. “Yeah, that’s good, right?”
Ruairi made a non-committal grunt, and Cyrus didn’t speak, leading them into a large canvas tent featuring demonstrations and informational displays on the various regions of Scotland.
The tent was bursting at the seams with people.
When a group bumped into Ruairi, a low grumble rolled through his chest.
“So sorry,” Reyna apologized on his behalf and smacked his arm. “Behave, dude. They’re just normal humans.”
Cadenza sighed, rubbing the piece of cloth from the oracle in her pocket. Everyone’s nerves were as frayed as the fabric. More threads came loose and tangled around her fingers as she thought it.
She stopped to read a poster on the Shetland Islands. Someone sniggered next to her. A guy in too-tight jeans, an oversized belt buckle, and a red baseball cap had an arm around a woman whose bangs still lived in 1992. He laugh-snorted, pointing to the poster.
“Hey, look. It’s Shitland.”
Cadenza rolled her eyes—Tuolumne County strikes again—but Ruairi stepped close behind the man.
“It’s Shetland,” he said over the joker’s shoulder.
The man turned and took a swig of his beer. He thrust out his chest belligerently. “Shetland, Shitland. Same difference.”
Cyrus smiled next to his brother, teeth glinting and too pointed to be entirely normal. “Then I suppose it doesn’t matter whether I kick your arse, or I kick your ass.”
Ruairi folded his arms across his chest and grinned. “Aye. Same difference.”
Cadenza threw a panicked look at Reyna. As much as she wanted to hit something too, a fist fight was not what they needed
The smith grabbed the Norroway brothers by the shoulders. “Boys, leave Mr. Lame-Ass alone. Those jeans are so tight he’s not going to be passing on any DNA, and eventually his kind will all die off and leave the rest of the planet in peace.”
The man grabbed his girlfriend by the hand and shoved out of the tent. “Whatever. Freaks.”
“We need to get them out of here,” Cadenza said. “They’re in no shape to deal with people right now.”
Reyna glowered after the man. “I’ll take them,” she said. “I don’t want to deal with people right now either.” Heat rippled out from her, scorching along Cadenza’s arm.
“Ok, maybe they’ll cool off in the cottage.” She eyed Ruairi, still flexing his fists.
“What about you?” Reyna asked.
“I’m gonna look around a bit more. I need to think.”
“Ok. Call me if you need us.” Reyna led the brothers out.
Cadenza wandered through a line of posters and touchable artifacts in the tent. She stopped to watch a demo booth where a half dozen people in period dress acted out a scene. A “vicar” read vows to a couple and then tied their wrists together with a strip of cloth.
“Oh,” she murmured. “It’s a wedding ceremony.”
“Yes,” an elderly woman breathed dreamily next to her. “Have you never seen a handfasting, dear? I thought them terribly romantic as a young girl.” Her accent fell like a softer version of the Norroways’.
“Elspeth Grier.” She held out a hand. “I’m here with the textile demonstrations.”
“Cadenza Cavalieri, I work for Drostan Norroway.” She shook Elspeth's hand.
Elspeth smiled. “Oh, Drostan’s a right good man.
Our weaving group has been coming to his Games for years now, and he’s always treated us right.
Easy on these old eyes, too.” She winked impishly.
“But he was never interested in tying the knot again.” She gestured to the handfasting demonstration.
“His heart’s still tied to his boys’ mam, more’s the pity. ”
Cadenza coughed in surprise at the idea of someone having a crush on Drostan. Awkward. Change the subject. “You said you’re here with a weaving group?”
“Oh, yes.” Elspeth’s face brightened at her interest. “Not only weaving though. We do demonstrations on all stages of traditional textile crafts. Here.” She beckoned Cadenza to follow her to a corner of the tent.
Cadenza almost laughed out loud when she reached Elspeth’s group. Spinning wheels.
Real ones. Two more women Elspeth’s age sang while they spun, the hum of the wheels melding with their voices.
“Have you ever spun?” Elspeth asked.
Cadenza tried not to snort at the irony. “I’ve been trying to learn, actually, but I’m not very good at it.” She ran her fingers over the curve of a wheel. The wood sang like roses.
The older woman nodded sagely. “It can take a while to get the trick of it.”
“You have no idea,” Cadenza said under her breath.
“Fortunately for you, teaching is what we do.” Elspeth indicated her friends. “Sit. I’ll help you.”
Cadenza bit her lip. The kind of Spinning she needed help with was not done on a wheel.
“Sit, lassie,” another of the women commanded. “Elspeth will never be content if she can’t teach you.”
“Aye,” the other spinner laughed. “Once she starts blethering to someone about spinning, she’ll not rest till she sees it through.”
“Oh, shut it, you two.” Elspeth laughed with her friends but pulled a stool up next to Cadenza’s spinning wheel.
She demonstrated how to work the pedal and how to pinch the end of the yarn that was already set up on the wheel.
“Once you’ve got that in your hand, all you have to do is to keep feeding the raw fibers from your fleece onto the end of the yarn. ”
The spokes of the wheel blurred into motion as Cadenza worked the pedal.
The yarn scratched her fingers as it twisted.
The earth hummed from the grass floor. A warm breeze whistled through the opening of the tent, and guitar notes rushed through her chest, catching her off guard.
She gasped, and the clump of fleece slipped from her grip, clogging up the machine.
“Oops.” Elspeth caught the wheel to stop it.
Cadenza winced and pulled the tangle back out. “Sorry.”
“Never mind. Let’s try that again.” Elspeth regathered the yarn.
“This time, concentrate on feeding the fibers through at a steady, even rate. If it helps, try listening to the spinning wheel. It makes its own sort of music, you could say, with the pedal going and the wheel turning—gives you a rhythm to anchor your hand motions to so you can feed in the fleece at that nice, steady rate.”
Cadenza snapped her head up. “What was that last part?”
Elspeth raised an eyebrow. “About a rhythm to anchor to? Or a nice steady, rate?”
Cadenza sucked in a breath, heart thumping. “Both.” The earthsong—she’d always released it as one big tangle, one big explosion, because it drowned her like Taran’s drumsong ocean had done before she’d learned to anchor to his heartbeat.
“Are you alright, hen?” Elspeth laid a hand on her shoulder. “You seem to be taking this very seriously. My friends tease, but you don’t have to do this.”
“No.” Cadenza grabbed the end of the yarn. “I want to try again. Please. And maybe, with that song you were singing before?”
Elspeth shook her head and chuckled. “Alright.”