Chapter Twenty-Two
Trying to gather his thoughts, David went to wash up the breakfast dishes, but found himself instead staring at the bottle of hand lotion Meredith had left on the windowsill above the sink.
No matter how viciously David scrubbed the skillet in front of him, the images haunted his mind: misshapen shadows among the trees, the Erlking with those grasping claws and colorless leering eyes—and Meredith’s look of utter devastation.
But surely there was no way that awful creature could get to them here, was there?
As far as the Erlking was concerned, Meredith was untouchable.
He’d simply walked away, and someone who could do that was hardly drowning in despair.
Clearly the Erlking’s assessment was not to be trusted.
As for David himself—he, too, had bled in the Wood, though not upon the cursed altar of the Erlking.
So that meant he was safe, didn’t it? In any case, he grimly reminded himself once more, the Erlking had no use for him.
Abandoning the dishes, David retreated to his room, where he flung himself down onto the bed and pressed his hands over his face.
The unfathomable hopelessness he’d fallen into back in the Midnight Wood had sprung from the tiniest seeds of self-doubt, amplified by whatever evil magic was possessed by the creature in the Wood. Tiny, but not unreal. Not entirely baseless.
If there had been some truth in what the Erlking had said to Meredith, was David brushing aside his words too easily? Was he in the habit of rejecting any criticism out of hand?
You don’t understand people at all.
Perhaps that was a weakness, but it was not insurmountable.
He had friends, even if he was no social butterfly like Meredith.
He and his family got on well enough, even if they rarely met in person; it didn’t mean they cared for one another any less.
He was on good terms with his work colleagues, with the exception of Steve Corner, who didn’t count.
You know exactly what your future holds.
No. He was not going to end up like Steve Corner. He would not allow that to happen, end of discussion.
You’re nothing special. Nobody likes you best.
Well, perhaps not, but he stood by what he’d said the night before: he found nothing wrong with being ordinary.
Still, it would be nice to have a few people who thought a bit more highly of him than that.
The realization came with more of a sting than David expected, but he pushed the thought aside for later.
No wonder all your lovers have left you.
Now that, David could say with confidence, was pure nonsense.
For one, in most cases, he’d been the one to break things off himself.
David’s self-respect wouldn’t allow him to tolerate Eduardo blatantly checking out someone else right in front of him, and the way Omar had turned that contemptuous look upon Meredith—no, anyone who did that wasn’t worth his time.
David had taken pains to let Jintao down gently; he’d done nothing wrong aside from being so nice and agreeable all the time that he bored David out of his mind.
But Jean-Marc—that was where he’d really botched things.
Right now was not the time to think about Jean-Marc.
You go hurting everybody you claim to care about.
Did he? He’d had quite a nice time with Ruth and his father when he’d visited at Christmas, and had thought the feeling was mutual.
To his knowledge, there were no problems between him and Harriet; his last interaction with Mrs. Jupiter, too, had been perfectly amicable.
He’d done nothing to offend Todd, though neither had he gone out of his way to include him.
As for Meredith—
Meredith always was the problem, wasn’t he?
Leaving aside the revelation of the list, had David actually been hurting him?
Had he blamed Sylvania Holland for the consequences of his own behavior?
In reality, those unsettling off moments had preceded the appearance of the obsidian ring.
The day Genevieve had arrived to announce Florian’s wedding—the day David had forced Meredith into it despite his protests—that was when things had really started to go wrong.
You know you’ll never be happy.
David didn’t believe that, but he had to admit that at this very moment, he wasn’t happy at all—and for reasons that were nearly all his own doing.
With a groan, he turned over onto his side and caught sight of an unexpected gleam beneath the dresser. Upon closer inspection, he recognized the strand of black pearls Meredith had dropped and apparently forgotten the night he’d been in David’s room. Had that been only a week ago?
It was as good an excuse as any to go seek him out.
David retrieved the necklace, started out the door, and paused.
Though it hardly required any brilliant detective work to make a round of the likely spots, there was a more efficient option.
He returned to the dresser, dug through the bottom drawer, and located the bracelet Mrs. Jupiter had given him.
The moment he slid it onto his wrist, he felt the same faint pull as before—not uncomfortable, but nonetheless jarring.
Todd must have returned upstairs; the living room was empty save for Bianca, who waited by the front door with a look of expectation.
“Yes, all right, you can come along,” David told her. He couldn’t help adding, “You wouldn’t have enjoyed our last walk at all, I’ll have you know.”
They slipped out the front door and hadn’t gone more than a few paces down the driveway before the magical force controlling David’s bracelet nudged him in the opposite direction.
Following the gentle pull, he and Bianca started down the hill toward Bednarek’s. Meredith soon came into view, perched atop the weather-beaten picnic table, his back to Midnight Cottage. David caught the faint song, quieter than usual:
“Ich wei? nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Da? ich so traurig bin—”
Meredith faltered, and repeated the last line, quieter still and strained:
“Da? ich so traurig bin…”
He trailed off at David’s approach but didn’t turn to face him.
“Meredith.”
For a moment, David thought he was being ignored. Then, still with his back to him, Meredith asked, “What?”
David circled around the table to stand facing him, though Meredith wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Bianca was worried about you.” Then, more truthfully: “I was worried about you.”
Bianca hopped up onto the bench to sit at Meredith’s feet, and he reached down to pet her without answering.
“Look,” began David. He hadn’t considered what he meant to say. Perhaps that was for the best—the outcome was too important to risk his usual overthinking. “Even if you never want to speak to me again, I’d like you to hear me out. Please. And then—then I’ll leave you alone, if you want.”
Meredith voiced neither objection nor encouragement, but tilted his head to one side: he was listening.
“What he said, back there in the Wood—yes, a few weeks back, the day Brian left, I was particularly annoyed with you. I started off that list in my head, and it sort of…took on a life of its own. Most of it was stupid. A little bit was true. I won’t lie to you and say you’re not difficult to live with sometimes.
” He ought to come clean all the way, to admit that he’d considered moving out, that he’d gone so far as to look at other places, but he could picture Meredith’s exact look of hurt surprise at that, and he couldn’t bear it, not now.
“A hundred reasons, David?” Meredith’s voice was faint.
Only ninety-nine, David wanted to protest, and then, ashamed of himself, let the words die unspoken.
“Yes. But,” he said significantly, “you need to know there’s a hell of a lot to outweigh all of them.
And I’m sorry for keeping all that in my head instead of telling you properly, and pushing you to talk to your brother, and—I know we give each other a hard time, but sometimes I don’t quite catch on when I’m taking it too far, and I’m sorry for that, too. That’s—er, that’s it, really.”
That wasn’t it, not nearly, but it was as far as David could go just then. As far as he could be sure of, without making things worse.
Meredith allowed David’s conclusion to hang in the air as he lifted Bianca into his lap.
As usual, David never could have anticipated his reply.
“You came to find me.”
“What—that’s what you’re—of course I did! I would’ve come sooner, but I thought you might need some time to cool down.”
“I think I did,” agreed Meredith, and finally looked up at David.
“I’m sorry, too. Went a bit mad back there, shouting at you and all.
It—” He paused, biting his lip. “It didn’t feel very nice, hearing some of that, but the way I see it, you can’t fault anybody just for what’s in their mind, only what they do with it.
Everyone’s a bit evil inside their own head, I think. I know I am.”
David frowned. “Meri, you don’t—you don’t really believe all those things the Erlking said, do you?”
“What? No, no, course not.” He lifted Bianca to press a kiss between her ears, then regarded David over the top of her head. “It was all a bunch of nonsense, just like what he said to you.”
“Oh—yes. Quite,” said David. “Of course it was.”
Lowering the Chihuahua back to his lap, Meredith took on a pensive expression. “But, David?”
“Yes?”
Very seriously, he asked, “Do you really think my coffee’s all that bad?”
David sank down to half sit, half lean at the edge of the tabletop. “Honestly?”
Meredith nodded, eyes wide and earnest and brimming with uncertainty. “Cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die honest.”
“I’ve had worse.”
That, at last, got a rueful laugh from him. “S’pose I deserved that, didn’t I?”
David extended an arm in invitation. “Still friends?”
Meredith leaned against him, into the embrace. “Course we are,” he said. “Always.”
—
Mrs. Jupiter thumped her teacup onto the table. “You went into the Midnight Wood, against my explicit instructions.” Her voice held none of its usual warmth.