4. Emi
Orange light bathed the cottage when I blinked open bleary eyes. The fire had died to ash, and the door to the bedroom remained as firmly shut as the night before. With a sigh, I folded my blanket and returned it to the chest, pausing to watch the dark puddles of shadow below the thick fog.
The Mist had retreated past the garden walls, but beyond that, blanketing white banks of it obscured the path. I groaned. I really didn’t want to be trapped here another whole day with this ornery, unpredictable stranger.
As if summoned, Wolf emerged looking as unrested as me even though he’d had the comfortable bed. He had no right to the dark circles under his eyes or his wary expression.
The previous evening, he’d seemed warm and kind, if a little guarded. I thought we’d connected. I should have known better. I was too used to this for it to hurt the way it did.
There must be something wrong with me. All I’d ever wanted, in the whole world, was for one person to want to know me, and cherish me, and learn all the things about me. I mentally shook myself. That person was never going to be some secretive stranger in the forest. My own family didn’t even want those things. I would have settled for Grandma Ruby returning to talk to me, even in her brusque and practical way.
At least she didn’t ignore me completely. I waited for Wolf to say something…anything, but he looked right past me out the window and then turned away.
“Good morning, Emi. Did you sleep well?” I muttered to myself. “Sour-faced moldworp.” It felt good to tell the man off even if he couldn’t hear. The little huff he gave was probably just coincidence.
Of course it was mentioning Jade’s name that had made him shut down. Some sympathy crept in. What had my sister done? A fling that ended badly? Had she taken advantage of him? I knew too well how she could be.
I followed Wolf to the narrow kitchen in search of breakfast. Where last night, we’d danced around each other and every brush had been a thrill, today it was tense and awkward.
I sliced an apple and some cheese and thought back to how he’d looked at me with what I’d sworn was interest. There was even a moment when I thought he might lean forward and close the distance between us. I was a fool. With a sigh, I popped my last slice of hard sheep’s cheese into my mouth and swallowed the sharp and biting taste.
We could at least be civil. Anything to ease this tension and break the strained silence.
“It looks like we might be stuck here a while longer. Will your family be missing you?”
He shrugged one shoulder.
Okay. I tried again. “What will you do when you get home?”
This time he moved, but his whole body was tight as he flicked the frilly curtain at the kitchen window aside. A cool draft seeped through the gap in the sash while my frustration simmered.
Finally, he spoke. “Same as I always do, I guess.”
Despite the non-answer, my temper cooled. There was a note of despair in the words, some sadness I didn’t understand.
Time for a new tactic. “I’m sorry for whatever I said wrong last night. I thought we were having a nice conversation before that.”
“We were,” he mumbled with that same undercurrent of regret.
“Right, well, I didn’t mean to ruin it. If I hit a nerve or…Or if Jade did something…I’m sorry.” At his frozen stillness, all the circular thoughts I’d had last night while I lay awake cycled to the front again. “I’ve been going over and over it in my head, trying to work out what I should have said that I didn’t or what I did say that I shouldn’t have.”
His gaze slid across me. “Why?”
“Why? Because I can’t help it.”
“What’s the point?”
“I don’t know?” The itch of irritation returned, and I started pacing the living room. Beyond the window, the forest pressed in, swirling with hazy shadows while the faint light from the sky lost its fight against their darkness. I wanted to yell. I was losing the same battle in here. “My brain likes to torture me with all the things I could have done better, what I could have said to be funnier or smarter or more interesting. All the things I could have held back to be less annoying or boring, or not such a burden. It’s stupid, I know. Trust me, none of it ever makes a difference.”
It poured out of me before I could stop it. Having never shared that with anyone, I didn’t know what response to expect. More silence, probably. Showing more of myself never made people like me better.
When I looked up, Wolf was leaning back against the sink, his hands on the rim and his elbows tucked to his sides. His eyes were on me, unreadable.
Why was this man so difficult? He was infuriating.
After an interminable stretch during which my brain unhelpfully supplied a string of negative comments he could be about to grace me with, he pushed off the counter to stand upright.
“It’s not stupid.”
Then he swept out the back door without another word.
The sight of a shirtless Wolf chopping wood was not helping my overheated situation. I’d lost track of what was emotion or discomfort or attraction by this point. It all jumbled into flushed cheeks and a squirming stomach as I approached him. I’d stayed away all morning, but this couldn’t continue.
Muscles in his back clenched as he raised the ax. His biceps bunched and unfurled as he swung. Beneath his messy cinnamon hair, he had the most delectable shoulders I had ever seen, dusted with a smattering of freckles, and I could have stood watching him all day. The ax struck with a crack and two perfect halves of the log bounced off the stump. He bent to pick up another, his trousers stretching tight, and I had to look away to stymie my blush.
This was ridiculous. I could just talk to him. I’d given him plenty of time to cool off.
Fine, I’d given myself time to cool off. Not that it mattered. All the heat was back, except now it was pooled in my belly.
Making sure he could see my approach so I didn’t startle the strong man holding a deadly weapon, I held my hands out in a gesture of peace and tried for an amiable smile. “I see you have an ax now. Should I be worried?”
His tight huff of a laugh sounded like victory.
He placed the new wood on the stump. “That depends. Will I need it?”
“Why would you need it?” I thought we could lighten the mood, but he seemed determined to remain guarded.
His jaw knotted as he swung again, and another two halves of wood skittered from the platform. This time he let the ax-head bury deep into the stump and left it there. “You tell me. Who are you, Emi?” He stood to his full height and faced me. For the first time, he felt distinctly dangerous and had me rethinking the ax joke.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, who are you…Really?” The muscle beside his jaw ticked. “Because I can only think of one answer. One reason that you came here, to this cottage. One explanation for how you walked through the Mist unscathed.”
“I—I don’t understand.” I stepped back.
His body tensed as if debating whether to pounce or run. But why? Why was he acting so aggressively suspicious?
“What is your mother”s name?” His question was tight and angry, and completely unexpected.
“My mother?” Utterly confused, and with mounting concern for my safety, I took another step toward the trees. He didn’t know it was a touchy subject. “My mother isn”t around,” I told him curtly. “She left when I was little.”
His face clouded. As if realizing he was being a mop-headed jerk, he backed off a touch. “But your sister”s name is Jade.”
“Yes. So?” Why was it always about Jade? I didn’t want him to see the hurt in my face so I turned to blink back the prickly heat in my eyes.
His presence behind me sent a tingle up my neck. I was so aware of Wolf. When he spoke, it came out as growly as his namesake. “Who is the Ruby Witch to you, Emi?”
I whirled. “Don”t call her that.”
“What? Her name?”
“Don”t call my grandmother a witch. It’s rude. She’s a strong, independent woman who lives alone. So what? She likes it here, and people don”t have to be such sun-forsaken jerks about it!” I bristled as he met my glare with one of silvered hostility.
“Your grandmother? Your grandmother!”
I took another hasty step back from his threatening figure. My hand grasped at rough bark behind me, ready to put one of the trees at the edge of the clearing between us. Maybe I”d have to chance the actual wolves in the forest after all. If only Grandma Ruby was here. Where was she?
Wolf was sweating despite the cold. “The Ruby Witch is your grandmother?” With a curse, he looked skyward. “Your sister is named Jade, and you…Your name must be, what? Emi…Em…Emma…Emerald? Oh sunny skies, that’s it, isn’t it? It’s Emerald.” He unclenched one fist to drag a hand down his stricken face. When it fell, he was looking at me like I was something foul he’d scraped from his shoe, then he dropped a half-whispered accusation. “Emerald Witch.”
I slapped him.
It happened so fast, my hand stung with righteous anger. “Watch your tongue.”
“Me? I can”t believe this. You’re a gemstone witch. This can’t be happening.” Wolf turned away, muttering and rubbing his face with one hand where I hit him.
Shimmering sunbeams, I hit him!
I’d seen him wielding a heavy ax like it was nothing, let him intimidate me back to the forest’s edge, and then I went and provoked him by slapping him. What was I doing?
Wolf withdrew, watching me like I might leap over and chant a curse at him. I was so sick of people accusing Grandma of being a witch, let alone when they did it to me. He was annoyingly silent and impervious to my trying to burn holes in his head with my gaze, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I don’t need to listen to this,” I shouted. “I don’t care how bad the Mist is. I’ve had enough of this. Enough of you!”
“Emi, stop.”
“No. I’m going to find my grandma.” The drum of my furious heartbeat drowned out any fear, and I picked up my skirts to stride into the forest.
“Stop.”
I paid Wolf’s snarled command no heed. Shut me out and call me names and now you want to talk?I think not. I didn’t stop when he yelled again, or when a far off growl set my hair on end.
I didn’t stop when Mist clouded my vision either, wrapping its clammy arms around me, but I did come to an abrupt stop a heartbeat later at a large pile of overturned dirt. The mound of fresh brown soil stretched between two alder trunks, ivy ripped up messily by what looked like claw marks beside one long edge. Even in the low light under shrouding Mist, it was impossible to mistake the shape of a grave.