Chapter Seven
As David blinked slowly back into consciousness, he recognized his surroundings as the cozy interior of Mrs. Jupiter’s cottage.
Copper pots and bunches of dried herbs dangled from the rafters, and the shelves lining the walls were crammed with all manner of books and jars and boxes.
Outside the open window, wind chimes tinkled gently in the breeze, and a cauldron bubbled on the hearth, filling the room with a scent very like—but not quite—that of mulled cider.
He was laid out on the chaise longue, a cat purring at his feet. For a moment, he was almost comfortable—and then his initial fuzzy perceptions sharpened into pain. The memory of his last waking moments came flooding back, and a familiar voice faded into his awareness.
“—and I had to go and catch him. You’re quite heavy,” complained Meredith from the overstuffed armchair, where he was curled up with a cup of tea and a calico cat in his lap.
(Though he appeared to be suffering no ill effects from the latter, that proved nothing; David knew for a fact that Mrs. Jupiter put an anti-allergy enchantment on all her cats.)
Wincing, David sat up. “Not everyone can be built like a malnourished eel, you know,” he said testily. Perhaps he had gone a bit softer around the edges than he’d been a few years ago, but underneath was still solid muscle.
“Yes, well, we can’t all be rugby forwards, either, can we?” returned Meredith.
Mrs. Jupiter cleared her throat, putting an end to their squabbling. “Here you are, Mr. C, drink up.” She handed him an oversized cup patterned with large cheerful polka dots, which he instinctively distrusted.
“And this’ll fix me up, will it?”
“Oh, go on, David, she’s gone to the trouble of making it up for you,” Meredith implored. “Honestly.”
“Do you go drinking anything somebody hands you just because they say so?”
Meredith shrugged. “Yeah, usually.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t taste very nice,” said Mrs. Jupiter, rummaging among the sundry items on the far shelves, “and it will hurt. But it’ll fix your shoulder straightaway.”
After due consideration, David drank. It did hurt, nearly as much as the knowledge that he’d utterly humiliated himself in front of Maitland Cartier.
“Thanks,” he managed to choke out after his bones had finished healing.
Mrs. Jupiter returned with a green ceramic jar in hand.
“The two of you really ought to stick together. It seems you get into no end of trouble when you separate. Here, stay still.” She peeled the bandage from David’s forehead and smeared a liberal amount of strong-smelling ointment onto his various cuts and scrapes.
It seemed to David that sticking together had been the cause of the trouble to begin with, but, thinking better of contradicting a witch, he confined himself to a wordless huff of dissent.
Mrs. Jupiter’s eyebrows rose. “What did happen to you, if I might inquire?”
David shook his head, but Meredith piped up, “There was something after him! The Mice said—”
“It was nothing,” interjected David hastily. At Mrs. Jupiter’s sharp inquiring look, he went on, perhaps just as much to convince himself of it, “I, er, thought I saw something and lost my head for a moment, but it was just a trick of the light. Or darkness, rather.”
Mrs. Jupiter’s curious gaze lingered on his face for longer than he liked, but at last she applied the final bit of ointment and said, “There. You’ll want to leave that at least an hour, then you’ll be as good as new.”
With one of those unfair pleading looks, Meredith wordlessly held out his hand to display the nearly imperceptible scratch from the thornbush earlier.
Mrs. Jupiter shook her head in mock exasperation but daubed the excess salve onto his so-called injury. “And thank you both again for bringing back those herbs this morning, by the way.”
David had forgotten entirely about the herbs. He wished he could forget about everything else. Still, out of politeness, he asked, “The cat’s all right, then?”
“Tabitha has six new kittens,” said Meredith with obvious, if inexplicable pride.
“You named her,” said David flatly, “didn’t you?”
“I did! Tabitha because she’s—”
“A tabby,” David finished. “Yes. How clever.”
#52: He is terrible at naming things.
Meredith deposited the calico cat onto the armchair, moved over to perch on the arm of the chaise longue, and prodded David in the shoulder with one fingertip. “Does it still hurt?”
David stared up at him for a long moment. “Do you suppose that’d help if it did?”
“Oh.”
That was all. Just oh, just like every time one forced him to confront the logic of his own actions.
#53: Not that it ever seems to do any good.
—
On the walk back to Midnight Cottage, David fell into a state of melancholy befitting one who had experienced such an ignominious disgrace. Maitland Cartier must think him a fool, a weakling, a joke. It no longer mattered if he attended Adalynn’s wedding; nothing could repair the damage done.
Cartier would find some other replacement to bring into his inner circle, someone more competent, more confident, practically perfect and unquestionably better than David in every way.
Perhaps Rick Pangolin, the charismatic new head of HR, or, worse yet, Steve Corner himself—no matter whether either one had any qualifications for a finance position.
(Fleetingly, David recalled the final argument he’d had with Charles, his college boyfriend, who’d once told him with a kind of contemptuous pity that David was the most unremarkable man he’d ever met. He’d laughed it off at the time, but perhaps there was a grain of truth to it.)
Now the visions turned to Corner moving into Cartier’s headquarters, standing in a spacious office with floor-to-ceiling windows and a distinguished-looking desk of dark polished wood.
Cartier joining Corner for weekly business lunches, chuckling over finance in-jokes with him, giving him the occasional fatherly advice.
Cartier inviting Corner for a round of golf and introducing him to his very handsome and less-imaginary-by-the-minute nephew who’d just happened to tag along.
Meredith, of course, remained blissfully unaware of David’s dismal ruminations. He’d acquired a blue glass bottle from somewhere—presumably Mrs. Jupiter—and, quite enamored of his new possession, occupied himself turning it this way and that in the sunlight, until at last he lost interest. “David?”
David didn’t reply, too deep in visions of his future crumbling.
“David.” Meredith stopped, and after another couple of steps on autopilot, David did as well, turning to face him.
“What?”
Meredith dropped his gaze to the ground, to his mismatched bootlaces. “I’m sorry about earlier. That was going too far.” He looked up to meet David’s eyes, and his own were brimming with sincere contrition. “I didn’t mean what I said about your moustache.”
#54: This is his idea of an apology.
“It doesn’t matter now,” murmured David hollowly. “It’s all over.” He turned and continued to trudge up the hill toward home.
Meredith, hurrying to catch up with him, said, with a touch of desperation, “I’ll go to the wedding.”
“All right,” said David. “That’s nice.” Cartier was probably laughing at him right now, or scrubbing his hands in disgust at having had contact with such a base creature as himself.
“Did you hear me? I said I’ll go to the wedding. And you’ll come with me.”
This time, the words registered, but they brought him none of the triumph they would have an hour ago. David shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he repeated. “There’s no coming back from this. He’s lost all respect for me.”
Meredith frowned. “I don’t think it’s as bad as all that.”
As much as David dreaded knowing, he had to ask. “What did happen, when I, er—”
“Fainted? Nothing really. I caught you somehow, and then me and Bednarek dragged you into Mrs. J’s.”
David pressed his hands to his face and steeled himself for the worst. “And Mr. Cartier? What did he say?”
“Not a word,” Meredith reassured him. “Just stood there looking a bit awkward about the whole thing, and then Bednarek hustled him off as soon as he could.”
David couldn’t stop a groan escaping his throat. “Why couldn’t you have just let things be?”
“I was trying to help. I—I’m sorry,” Meredith faltered.
Linking his arm through David’s, he leaned in to rest his head against his newly healed shoulder as they proceeded up the hill.
“I’ll make it up to you, I mean it. We’ll go to Florian’s wedding, and I’ll see you get to talk to Cartier like you wanted.
It might not be my idea of a good time, but I’ll live. ”
David gave a grudging hum of acknowledgment.
It might not be enough to repair the disastrous first impression he’d made, but it could be a start.
He ought, he supposed, to apologize for his own remarks as well.
Granted, they were mostly true, but he had gone a bit far in the way he’d said it.
Perhaps there was something in all those rumors about the effects of the Midnight Wood.
David considered himself a clearheaded and rational man, but that had not been, he had to admit, the behavior of one.
Before he could, however, Meredith jumped to a new topic. Brightening up considerably, he asked, “Did you see what Mrs. J gave me? Look!” He held up the blue bottle—upon closer inspection, in fact an old-fashioned vinegar cruet.
“Wonderful,” said David. “One more bit of sparkling junk to collect dust.”
“Oh! That’s unkind,” said Meredith. “Mrs. J doesn’t give out junk. And it’s magic, too.”
“Is it.”
“Yeah! She says if you fill it up and leave it sit for a fortnight, it’ll make pipe-cleaning solution, I think. Or was it grenadine? Or a potion for disintegrating…spheres?” he said uncertainly. “Well, anyway, suppose I didn’t quite catch that part, but it is a pretty bottle, isn’t it?”