Chapter Twenty-Three #2
They didn’t say much as they walked through the first stretch of the forest. Arthur had offered to take Maggie’s bag, but she had leveled a withering glare his way, and he’d just smirked and walked on.
They were on a small path that curved through the wild growth, but it was narrow and often overgrown, and the mist made it difficult to see far beyond the few feet around them.
Maggie jumped at every sound, whether it was the far-off, ghastly cry of a banshee echoing through the trees or the crunch of a leaf, but Arthur moved with a practiced ease, and Maggie admired his confidence from behind.
When Maggie couldn’t stand the silence between them anymore, she called out, “You really…um…seem to know what you’re doing out here.” Above and below, what is wrong with me.
Arthur turned to look at her long enough for her to see his crooked grin. “I told you I was familiar with the Wilds.”
“I kind of assumed that was a theoretical familiarity.”
They came upon an overgrown blueberry bush blocking the path, and Arthur held the branches to the side so she could pass.
“You know how my dad is a park ranger? Well, instead of letting me stay home and watch cartoons all summer, he would take me and Rory to work with him. We mostly stayed in the ranger cabin, but sometimes he’d take us scouting with him. ”
Maggie’s eyes went wide. “Two little kids in the Wilds?”
Arthur laughed. “It wasn’t necessarily the best idea my dad has ever had. My mom was apoplectic when she first found out, but I loved it. So did Rory—he grew up to be a ranger, too, but he works over in Atlantia in the coastal park.”
“What about you?” Maggie asked as she held some branches aside for Arthur.
“What about me?”
“If you loved it, did you ever think about becoming a ranger?”
Arthur shrugged, a strange look on his face.
“I was never going to be a park ranger. My future was always in the other family business.” Maggie wasn’t quite sure how to read the tone of his voice.
It wasn’t anger, precisely, but there was a bitter edge to it.
The silence dragged on for a moment. She hated how their easy conversations had become awkward again after her memories had returned.
Maggie thought about Arthur’s words in Bean There, Done That, that no one asked him many questions, assuming they knew about him. “What was it like? Growing up with Rowena?”
“You know, my mom always thought she was so different from my dad, but I went straight to her alchemy lab every day after school, and I loved that as much as my summers in the Wilds.”
Maggie couldn’t help but smile when she imagined him sitting on a too-tall stool in front of a bubbling alembic, his curious eyes magnified by his glasses, dark hair unruly.
When Arthur spoke again, he sounded thoughtful and a little sad.
“My mom was brilliant. She was funny, too. Her jokes always had a bite to them, and we laughed all the time, even when things got hard at the end.” He glanced back at her and said, “But she demanded perfection. I felt like two different people for a long time. There was the kid I was when I was with my mom, and the one I was here. I don’t know.
I sometimes wonder what I would have done with my life if I had been allowed to make mistakes. To take risks.”
“Is that why you studied alchemy? Because it was what she wanted?”
He huffed. “I’m not sure I could untangle that if I wanted to. I thought about doing something different, but how could I when she spent my whole life making me love alchemy?”
“What do you love about it?”
He paused for a moment. As they had walked and warmed up, he had tugged his beanie off his head, leaving his hair mussed.
She wanted to smooth it back down, if only for an excuse to run her fingers through it.
When he finally spoke, he was tentative, as if he was working out the answer for the first time.
“I think I like that it’s never one thing.
You need to master arcania, runes, incantations—it’s everything and it’s in everything.
” As he went on, he grew more confident in his answer.
“My mom always talked about the inherent power in transformation, and I feel that, too. But I think I also liked it because I was good at it, even when it was hard. Because when I think about an alchemical transformation, the path is clear, even if every turn is not.” He shook his head.
“I don’t know if any of that made sense. ”
“It did.” She understood. “Sometimes, when an incantation translation is just out of reach, I can feel the pull toward it. It’s a knot that I just need to unravel.”
They had started walking again as they talked, a clear stretch of path ahead of them, and Maggie hardly noticed the banshee screeches or growls of ghouls.
Instead, she watched Arthur as he told her more about alchemy, watched as his eyes truly lit up when he talked about teaching, about helping his students understand the complicated topics he taught.
There was a strange feeling in her chest.
“What about you? Were you always going to be a linguist?”
“Oh, I don’t think I knew what a linguist was until halfway through college. I just loved words. And old Diadhan romances.”
“Is romance the right word for stories about humans seduced into the wilderness by otherworldly faeries?” She nearly forgot how tenderly she’d thought of him as her head shot up to glare at him, but he had a teasing smile on his face.
“Yes,” she said with a dreamy sigh. “I found an old book of translated Diadhan myths on my grandmother’s shelf when I was eight. It was over for me. Every man since has been compared to Branagh and his midnight hair full of stars.”
“The same Branagh who kidnapped an unsuspecting woman while she hung her laundry to dry.”
She smacked his arm lightly. “Don’t you dare reduce Niamh to that! She was the heroine of that story.”
“She fell in love with her captor.”
“Shhhh,” Maggie said. “It’s an enemies-to-lovers story, Arthur.
” He stopped walking and turned, an incredulous look on his face.
She looked around but didn’t see what he could be looking at.
When he didn’t say anything, just continued to stare, she went on.
“The enemies have to do bad things to each other! Or then it’s just sorta grumpy-to-lovers…
” She trailed off. “What?” she finally asked, worried. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No. Not at all.” His voice was breathy, and he continued to look at Maggie with an intensity that made her squirm. “I just…You’ve never called me Arthur before.”
“Oh. I must have…” she started to say, but she knew he was right. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped thinking of him as Taliesin. Now he was Arthur. Her Arthur. Like he was truly her friend. “I guess I’ve gotten used to you.”
“Hmm,” was all he said in return, resuming his trek through the dense woods.