Chapter Twenty-One #2
After roughly towel-drying his hair, David reached for a comb and scowled at the sight of himself in the mirror. Somehow he could not quite bear to look at his own reflection just now.
Well, no matter. It was the weekend. The world would hardly end if he broke from habit and skipped shaving for one day.
In the kitchen, David put the percolator on, sautéed vegetables for a frittata, and did his best to put the previous night out of his mind despite Bianca’s judgmental gaze following his every move from beneath the kitchen table.
With a lurch, David recalled the other matter that he’d put out of his mind with rather more success—the house offer he’d placed on Friday afternoon. Of course he would not derail his plans on the basis of what had happened last night. That would be rash in the extreme. But—
In the past day and a half, something had changed, something that had shifted his view of the world, a subtle alteration—a correction?
—of perspective. David was no longer certain what he wanted.
He needed time to think, to catch his breath and reassess before entering into any major commitment, on the home-buying front or otherwise.
As for the former, he’d been hesitant to begin with, and it would be equally foolhardy to rush into such a significant financial obligation if he wasn’t absolutely sure—especially when the possibility of a promotion, and the accompanying increase in salary, had begun to seem no more than a pipe dream.
Very well. He would call Leonard Flood and instruct him to withdraw his offer. There would be other houses. David took up his phone and began to swipe away the accumulation of email notifications—until he caught sight of the one from Maitland Cartier.
Hands trembling, he opened the message.
Dennis,
I know Adalynn has already thanked you, but I wanted to express my gratitude as well for the way you stepped up to host her bridal shower.
I look forward to speaking with you this week at the Corner Store’s centennial auction—I’ve taken the liberty of adding you to the VIP guest list in the hope that our paths might cross in the lounge.
Yours,
Maitland Cartier
David’s phone clattered to the countertop.
Maitland Cartier had sent him an email. Possibly he had made a small error in the name, but that was of little importance. What mattered was that Maitland Cartier had personally added him to the VIP guest list. Maitland Cartier wanted to speak with him.
Taking a deep breath, David straightened up.
Right. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary to call Mr. Flood quite yet after all.
In any case, little could be done before the start of business hours Monday, so there was no point getting ahead of himself.
He’d give it until the morning and call Flood then if he still felt the same.
The ding of the oven timer brought David back to the present. Just as he was sliding the hot pan from the oven, Meredith appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was wearing David’s borrowed shirt, open over the usual black.
They had slept together, and now he was wearing David’s shirt.
David fumbled with the pan, and only just managed to avoid dropping it on his bare feet. Of course, in all likelihood, it had been the first item at hand, worn for no more than a few hours the previous day. A simple matter of convenience, David reasoned.
Not that reason did anything to calm the multitude of butterflies that he appeared to have swallowed sometime in the past ten seconds.
The last remaining bits of the rug crumbled to ash.
—
“I think,” said Meredith a short time later as he sipped scalding coffee, “I’ve really got to go out and pick some sweet woodruff for the May wine this morning. I’ve left it far too late.”
“Not in the Midnight Wood?” It came out more of a question than David meant it to. “You know Mrs. Jupiter told you to stay away.”
“Oh, but it’d be just for a bit. I know right where it’s at, and if you go with me,” he coaxed, eyes bright and hopeful above his coffee cup, “then of course everything will be all right.”
David was not actually sure how his presence would have any effect one way or the other, but it was flattering if Meredith thought so. Perhaps that was why he hesitated instead of shooting down the idea at once.
Meredith took the opportunity to go on, “Really, straight there and back again, I swear it.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea after what happened last time?”
“But nothing even did happen last time,” Meredith protested. “And nothing’s happened since, either.”
When he put it like that, it was hard to deny that he had a point, but David was well aware that Meredith was very good at making very bad ideas sound seductively reasonable.
As David continued to wrestle with his better judgment, Meredith finished his coffee and rose from the table. “That’s all right, David, don’t worry about it. I’ll be quite all right on my own.”
That option didn’t sound any better—in fact, it sounded even worse. But if there was really no talking him out of it—
“Oh, all right,” agreed David, “but Bianca had best stay behind, just in case.”
To his surprise, Meredith offered no argument to that, and before long, the two of them made their way down the hill toward the edge of the Midnight Wood.
As they passed between two leafy maples and crossed the border, the overcast sky shifted to an expanse of opaque black.
All around them hung the scent of dank vegetation.
The oppressive humidity had drawn a blanket of silence over the Wood, broken only by the occasional unanswered birdcall from above and worrying skitterings in the underbrush.
As David walked along just behind Meredith, he fought the urge to rest a hand at the small of his back. He was not certain of where things stood between them, of what he wanted—what either of them wanted—and his own feelings were all a chaotic jumble.
With a start, he realized that Meredith had been speaking to him while he was lost in his own thoughts.
“—tried making it with woodruff syrup one year, but that turned out much too sweet. He never did write down the recipe, you see, and I’ve never managed to get it quite the same.
” Meredith slipped one arm through David’s and rested his head against his shoulder.
“But it’ll turn out right this year, I’m sure of it. ”
“Oh, get off,” grumbled David, shrugging him away.
“It’s warm enough in here already without your incessant clinging.
” It was, but he didn’t really mind any more than usual.
In fact, he found that he was rather anticipating Meredith’s familiar protest, and his own inevitable surrender.
After all, it was, as Meredith had pointed out, one of the little games they played.
But the protest didn’t come. Instead, Meredith murmured, “Sorry,” and let go of David, moving ahead of him to sidestep a fallen branch leaning against a tree trunk and partially obstructing the path.
A forlorn wind swept through the trees with a most unsettling wail, and the sky grew darker—drifting clouds, or the canopy of treetops drawing in to block out the light and make them lose their way?
Unable to banish his nerves entirely, David inquired, as they reached a dense copse of pines, “Where exactly are we going?”
“Down by the sycamores,” said Meredith. “We’re nearly there. Once we get back home, I’ll get it started infusing, and—oh!” Emerging from the trees, he stopped short, causing David to crash into him and nearly bowl him over.
Before them on the other side of the clearing stood the man in the crimson cloak.
In the bony fingers—talons?—of one hand, he held aloft a struggling white mouse, dangling by its tail; in the other, a tiny cordial glass that seemed to fill of its own accord with a cloudy lavender liquid. At that instant, the mouse went limp.
The figure threw back its head and drank, tossing away the lifeless creature to land with a sad, soft thump among the underbrush. With a gesture of his other hand that David could not quite follow, the glass vanished into thin air.
“Oh! How could you!”
At Meredith’s outburst, the man turned toward them. At long last, he lowered the hood of his cloak, and at the sight, David’s forgotten dream came rushing back.
Above a gaunt face, a crown of alder twigs rested upon his head, surrounding a pair of short, spiked antlers. His silver hair and beard shone in the light of the stars, his skin held a livid tint, and his pale, pale eyes were no color David knew the name for.
“Can’t abide Mice,” he said in a papery whisper as he started toward them across the clearing, paying no heed to the surrounding firs as their needles caught at his cloak.
“Always sneaking up in the night to gnaw at one’s toes, and you can’t get but a thimbleful of despair out of the wretched little things before they expire. ”
“Meredith,” hissed David. “We ought to go.” Easier said than done, as he found himself frozen to the spot, ice creeping down his spine.
Meredith stood his ground. “No. I’m sick to death of the whole business. We may as well find out what he wants.”
“Yes indeed,” agreed the apparition, “now that we find ourselves face-to-face once more.”
“Yeah, and who are you, exactly?” asked Meredith.
“Who am I?” said the man in mock disbelief. “Why, don’t you know me? I am the Erlking!”
Though the words individually registered, David could not make sense of them in any meaningful way, not seized by terror as he was. Perhaps that was why he found himself stammering, “But—but you’re not real.”
“I am the Erlking,” repeated the man, “he who sustains himself by man’s destruction of man, who imbibes the delicacy of utter hopelessness. This is my domain, and he who dares enter, who dares come riding so late in the night and wind—”
“Yes, yes,” said Meredith dismissively. “Erlking with your crown and train, et cetera. We can recite poetry at one another all night, but where’s that going to get us?”