Chapter 14 #2
Part of me still believes that the bracelet might save me from the consequences of the broken vow.
But another part of me feels like I never really deserved this peaceful life anyway, like my doom was always hanging overhead, waiting to crash down on me.
Why should I get to have love and happiness after all the terrible things I’ve done?
Sure, most of them happened before I parted ways with my family, but that doesn’t absolve me.
It doesn’t make me worthy of peace or joy.
Rick opens the rear door of the diner, and I follow him inside.
“I’m not worth your sadness,” I confess. “I’ve killed people. I’ve eaten them. Crunched their bones, pulled on the tendons, watched the skin stretch like melted cheese.”
He shuts the door and whirls around, exasperation on his face. “Gross. We’re in a kitchen, Marlowe.”
“You should know how disgusting I am. Or was.”
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
“It doesn’t matter that the person you claim to love is an actual murderer, basically a cannibal? I sort of feel like that’s an issue, like it would matter to normal people. Even your average supernatural would feel some type of way about it. And you just, what? Shrug it off? No big deal?”
“Maybe it’s a big deal. Doesn’t change how I feel about you.” He gives me a swift kiss and walks over to the kitchen counter where a few pies sit beneath glass domes. I guess they’re brought into the back every night rather than being left out on the bar.
“I think you’re a very strange man,” I say. “Very unusual.”
“Thank you.”
“I love you.”
He throws me a grin, eyes twinkling, less sorrow in them for a moment. “I love you, too.”
Rick cuts two pieces of blueberry pie, one slice of pecan, and one slice of cherry. He places them in takeout containers. “Grab a couple forks. Over there.” He nods to the canister full of utensils. “We’ve got the pie. Where do you want to eat it?”
“I know a spot.”
He puts our snack in a bag, and we head out the rear door. I count the backs of the shops we pass—one, two, three, four, five—until we come to the one with the lavender awning.
This is the back entrance of Moonstruck Needfuls and Niceties, a shop filled with crystals and candles, crocheted goods and small felted animals, magnets and notebooks.
In the back there’s a nook filled with antiques and vintage goods.
I always find something I like here, something to add to a random corner of the rambling house at Spyglass Stables.
The Moonstruck building also happens to be taller than most of the ones along the town’s main street. It features a widow’s walk, balconies, and a decently solid fire escape that runs down the back of the building.
I grab one of the rungs of the ladder. “You feeling up for a climb?”
Rick grumbles something about wounds and ill-fitting borrowed clothes, but when I start climbing, I feel the weight of him on the ladder behind me.
Briefly I wonder if he should have waited; I’m not sure if the ladder can hold both of us.
But we’re already toying with fate. Might as well push the recklessness a bit further.
When I reach the top, I transfer from the small landing outside the fourth-floor window to a narrow ledge.
Then I climb a slanting part of the roof and scramble over the railing onto the widow’s walk.
The activity pulls at the lacerations on my body and loosens a couple of my bandages, but I ignore the pain and press the gauze and the tape back down.
Rick clambers over the railing of the widow’s walk, and we make our way around to the front of the building.
He doesn’t ask if our presence here is okay with the building’s owner. He just assumes that either it is, or I don’t care, and he’s fine with both scenarios.
I advance to the railing and gaze down into the square, lit up with what seems like thousands of twinkle lights.
The stage is illuminated with pink and gold beams. People throng the square, sipping drinks, enjoying treats, and walking hand in hand with lovers or arm in arm with friends.
Some of them balance sleepy children on their hips.
The atmosphere is warm, safe, and joyful.
Kryhollow is playing a song I don’t recognize—one of their new pieces, probably. It unsettles me a little, like all change does. But I know that after a few listens, I’ll adjust. Maybe I’ll even come to love it as much as their earlier work.
Rick moves in beside me, a solid, steady presence, and I realize that I have, in fact, adjusted to his existence. He has taken his place in my heart as someone indispensable to my daily life, vital to my happiness.
“See?” I gesture to the square and the stage. “Best view in the house. Or in the town.”
“Then why are we the only ones up here?”
“Because Mrs. Brisbane doesn’t like many people. I’m one of the few she tolerates. Anyone else would be too scared to come to this spot.”
“Scared?”
“She’s a hawk shifter. A really big and powerful one.”
“Ah.” He nods pensively. “Mrs. Brisbane. Six poached eggs, double sausage. Tea, not coffee, and it’s Earl Grey or nothing. Cream, no sugar.”
“That’s the one.”
“So she likes you, but would she care that I’m here, too?”
“If she did, she’d have kicked us off her widow’s walk already. She can see through walls... and rooftops.”
“Then we’d best behave ourselves.” He winks at me and opens the bag, removing a container of pie. He pries the lid off, then passes both the container and a fork to me. “Eat up. I know how you get if you stay hungry too long.”
I stick out my tongue at him and take a big bite of blueberry pie. It’s so exquisite that my eyes roll back and drift shut. “My god, that’s good.”
“Thank you.”
“Wait, you baked it? I thought Tae was doing most of the cooking since Lou passed.”
“He does. But I make the pies.”
I take another bite, enjoying the burst of fruity flavor and the flaky crust. Rick watches me, his gaze hungry for something he won’t express aloud.
Only when I’m sure it’s true do I give him the praise he wants. “This pie is better than Lou’s. If this is the last thing I have in my mouth before I turn into a horse, I’ll have zero regrets.”
He grins, but then his expression changes, as if he was struck by a sudden thought. He glances around the widow’s walk and its high railing. “If you change into a horse up here, how are you going to get down?”
I shrug. “Magic? Or a crane? Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.
The people of Crescent Cove will figure it out.
There are plenty of storm and water witches around—maybe they can create a nice little typhoon to sweep me up and carry me down to the ground.
And if I break a leg, I won’t have to be shot, because someone can heal me.
It’s perfect, really. Everyone should live in a town like this. ”
“The town’s okay.” He opens his own serving of blueberry pie and props an arm on the railing, poking at the dessert with his fork. “You’re my favorite part of it.”
“I don’t really live in town.”
“You are part of it, though. You’re more important than you realize.”
I glance away. “I don’t know about that.”
“You would be missed. And not just by me.”
I scoot closer to him, pressing my shoulder to his.
The clock tower in the square proclaims what we already know. It’s just a few minutes until midnight.
We both go quiet, eating our pie in comfortable silence. The band starts another song, one of my favorites, and I’m supremely grateful for that. I love old favorites, songs I’ve listened to on repeat a million times. Songs that can change my mood as surely as one of Rick’s potions.
This is how I want to go—leaning against the man I love, with blueberry pie on my tongue and a song I love in my ears. It’s the perfect end to one life, and the beginning of another.