Chapter 71
The wind was not especially concerned with the turning of the universe.
The infinite was now, and the wind felt everywhere and everything at once.
Infinity wasn’t something that could be pondered; it was only something that could be felt.
It was and had been and always would be, and the wind never saw any reason to wonder.
Sometimes, when it poked a human, tossing their hat in the air or ruffling their hair, it thought, Here is an eternal being.
The cruel ones, the loud ones, the jealous ones, the murderous ones, the gossiping ones, the sickly ones, the compassionate ones, the lovers, the children, and the mothers—what would they make of themselves in their eternities? Eternal heaven, or eternal hell?
The wind wasn’t concerned with the eternal turning of the universe, but it was surprised humans forgot that even the dullest, most boring of them all was an eternal being capable of the greatest love or the deepest horrors. What was boring about that?
Maybe it was easier for a being to forget. To think that nothing they did mattered. But the wind, being the wind, had seen a whisper start a war, a mosquito bite bring down a nation, a single kindness save a world.
The wind preferred small things to cosmic things. An étude to an opera. A haiku to an epic poem. A puff of air to a hurricane. Small things distilled grand things to a scale a being could comprehend.
When a being made a choice on whether to pick up a dollar bill the wind had thrown into the air and give it back to the owner or to keep it for oneself—well .
. . that seemingly inconsequential choice had more eternal significance than any being could comprehend.
All the small dramas were microcosms of the greatest drama of all, and each action reverberated through eternity.
Everything a being did mattered. Every action. Every thought. Every choice.
Every human had eternity inside of them, and the wind wondered why they forgot.
Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they knew that every choice they made had eternal significance. What did the wind know? Only secrets. Only sorrows. Only things hidden and locked in human hearts.
It didn’t want to think of grand, cosmic things today. It only wanted to follow the trail of sunshine, flutter down the constellation of pollen, and land on the satiny-soft rose petal resting next to the citrus and pearl dust scented woman’s cheek.
The woman sighed, her soft exhale tickling the wind as it circled the pink rose petal and slid into its sloping cup.
The wind curled tightly, enjoying the summer scents and the sun trickling across the boy’s bed.
The sun was as warm as the honey the boy spun in long, golden ribbons over his toasted crumpets.
Perhaps he’d make the woman breakfast. They’d enjoy it in bed.
A pot of steaming tea, a plate of crumpets with butter melting in each hole, wildflower honey dripping in sweet, glossy dollops.
“Jacob?” the woman asked, her voice the whispered quiet of an isolated sea cove.
She was curled on the crumpled sheets, the sun her only blanket.
Her cheek was cradled against the boy’s arm, and her warm breath fanned over the pale skin on the underside of his bicep.
She turned her head and pressed her coral-pink lips to his arm.
“Hmm?” The boy ran his fingers along the curve of the woman’s cheek, tracing the pink flush that rose at his gentle touch.
He grew fascinated with the seashell-pink flush, his pupils dilating as he followed a path down the woman’s delicate neck, her sharp collarbone, the soft slope of her chest. Everywhere he touched, the pink glow followed.
He flew over the sunset color, his fingers feathering, his own cheeks turning a bright red.
The woman’s limbs relaxed as she settled deeper into the mattress. Goose bumps rose on her skin, and her lips parted, her expression softening, as she watched the boy’s enraptured progress.
“You look at me like . . .”
The boy paused in his erotic explorations, lifting his pupil-blown eyes. “Like what?”
She rubbed a hand along his stubble-lined jaw, the scratch of the bristle scraping her fingertips.
She looked frightened for a moment, like a woman afraid to share a secret.
The wind ran over the pulse at her neck, fluttering on the thrumming beat.
She was warm, sweat-slicked. She still smelled like a ripe orange warming in the sun and pearl dust crashing against the seashore, but now, she also smelled like the boy.
Her citrus and pearl dust had settled in a sunny meadow, in the center of a forest glade, with the scent of pine riding on a gentle gust of wind.
The wind tousled the boy’s messy golden hair, wondering if he smelled like the woman now too. Yes—there was the hint of oranges where the woman had kissed her way along his throat.
“My whole life,” the woman said, weaving a spell with her seaside voice, “people have been looking at me. Some of them love me. Some of them want to be me. Some of them envy me. Some of them hate me. But none of them see me. You look at me like you see me.”
The boy brushed the woman’s long black hair back from her face and looked down at her. The wind whistled softly. It knew that look. It was the look a man had right before he jumped off a cliff and threw himself to the mercy of the sea.
“I do see you.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him on top of her.
“I’m almost ready,” she said, “to ask you to take me out to sea. I’m not so afraid anymore. I only need to take care of a few things.”
The boy stared down at her, the flush in his cheeks deepening. “Do you want my help?”
The woman shook her head. “No. This is a Bard thing. If a Ward were involved . . . No . . . They wouldn’t understand.”
“What happens if Ragnor dies?”
The woman stiffened, then her arms tightened on the boy’s shoulders. He lifted himself over her and looked down, his nose nearly pressed to hers.
The wind saw the battle inside her. This was something the Bards never shared. If anyone even suspected, they were killed to keep this secret.
“Lia,” the boy whispered. “It’s all right.”
Finally, she nodded, her body relaxing. “I lose my power. It trickles away until I’m so weak I can’t even conjure a drop of water.
That takes a month. Two. After that, my organs would start to fail.
I’d have a year. Two. No one has lived longer than five without a sibling donating.
It’s why my parents had Ragnor ten months after me.
As soon as I was born, my dad knew, and for some reason, he went against everything he believed and decided to keep me alive.
I never understood that. He slaughtered dozens of his own family, and then he kept me. Hid me in plain sight.”
The wind knew why the Bard had chosen to keep the infant.
It was something his sister—the fawn-like one—had told him.
She was ten years old when she’d sleepwalked into her older brother’s bedroom and said, in a sleep-filled monotone, “If you kill your firstborn daughter, your line will end with you. Stay your hand, brother. Her death cannot come through you.”
Everyone knew the fawn-like one could see fragments of the future.
It was why every family wanted her as their own.
The Ward especially wanted her for his son.
She’d once told the Ward he’d die locked in his own asylum, and that she’d seen the man who would deliver his death.
She wouldn’t tell him who it was, though, even when he’d threatened.
Even when he’d tortured his own son. No one had ever been able to prevent what the fawn-like one saw.
So her brother, the Bard, had remembered her advice and stayed his hand.
“He’s scared of you,” the boy said to the woman. “He always has been. Even when you were a baby, he was terrified.”
The woman scoffed. “He didn’t have to be. I would’ve done anything for him. I loved him.”
“People who don’t know how to love can’t imagine anyone else being capable of love either. It doesn’t matter if you loved him. If you did what he wanted, he’d let you live. If you didn’t, then . . .”
“He’d ask my brother to kill me.”
The boy didn’t say anything.
The woman smiled up at him. “I used to think you had a weird family. But mine . . . it takes the cake.”
At the mention of cake, the woman flushed, and the boy’s mouth spread into a happy, laughing smile.
“Am I out of favors?” the boy asked.
The woman shook her head. “Never.”
The wind whistled. Never was long time. Never was an eternity.
Did the woman know what she was promising?
The wind swirled around the crystal-drop necklace the boy had given her. It rested against her chest, warmed by the beating of her heart. Little rainbow prisms slid over her skin. They reflected the sun bouncing through crystal. The wind tapped a spray of red, then orange, then indigo.
“Two things then,” the boy said, staring at the woman. “First, stay alive. Sometimes, you act like you don’t matter—”
“I do not act—”
“—but you matter to me.”
“Oh. That’s really sweet.”
“Second . . .”
The woman pressed forward and nibbled on the boy’s mouth. “Second?”
His reply was muffled beneath her seeking mouth. “Don’t forget, if you ever need me—"
“I need you.”
The boy laughed as his mouth was crushed. Then he stopped laughing. And he stopped talking.
Instead, he concentrated on saying as many things as possible without speaking at all.
The wind knew the words. He was the longing rush of the cool, salty ocean leaning toward the distant shore. He was the wind blowing across scalding gypsum deserts, seeking a curling wisp of shade. He was the dark, lonely night, sighing at the comforting brush of dawn.
The boy was alone like the night was alone. But here was the sun, spreading its loving fingers into the dark, reaching for his hand. The boy held the woman’s hands in his and remembered what it was like to be whole.
Later, after breakfast and tea, and coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar and no cream, the citrus and pearl dust scented woman left the boy’s apartment.
She was a Bard, so she left hidden in the guise of a middle-aged man with a large neck and eyebrows as fuzzy as woolly caterpillars.
The wind left with her, riding on the edge of her smile.
She smiled in the taxi. She smiled as she hurried through the din of the narrow street leading to her apartment building. She smiled as the toothless old woman called her over to inspect her waving plastic cats.
“A good-looking man like you,” the old woman said, baring a toothless grin, “needs a pretty fan like this!”
The old woman held out a pink and gold paper fan.
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman smiled. “No, thank you.”
The wind sniffed the fan. It smelled like glue, bamboo, and jasmine.
The woman was still smiling when she slipped by the table, headed toward her apartment and the musician. But the old woman snapped her arm out and caught the citrus and pearl dust scented woman’s fat, hairy wrist.
“It’s going to be hot today,” the toothless woman said. “You’ll need a fan.”
Finally, the citrus and pearl dust scented woman’s smile faded.
“One dollar,” the old woman wheedled. “You wouldn’t rob an honest old woman of her living, would you? A body has to eat. A body has to live.”
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman narrowed her eyes, her caterpillar brows pulling down in an angry V. “I said no.” She pulled her wrist free.
“One dollar for a pretty fan. It’s a bargain. In this heat, a fan is a lifesaver.”
The wind sniffed the toothless old woman, sneezing at the mothball scent of her heavy clothes.
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman turned to the side and, hiding her motions, twisted her hand. “Fine. Here,” she said, handing over a conjured dollar. “I’ll take the fan.”
The toothless woman grinned, opening her mouth in a wide, happy, gum-filled smile. “That’s the spirit. I knew you loved a bargain! You just open it up and wave it about when it gets hot. That’s the way.”
The old woman flicked her wrist, snapping the bamboo sticks open so the pink and gold fan spread wide. The wind was shoved back by a quick gust, then the old woman snapped the fan shut again.
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman frowned and tucked the fan into her pocket.
“Would you like a lucky cat?” the old woman asked, gesturing to her table. “You might need one. You remind me of my mother. She could’ve used a lucky cat.”
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman frowned. She was a man with large caterpillar eyebrows, not a woman who looked like anyone’s mother.
“Um . . . no, thanks.” She cast a final glance at the toothless woman and hurried to her apartment building’s door. It closed after her, but the wind stayed where it was, bobbing on a plastic cat’s head.
The old woman smiled, licking her pink tongue over her protruding gums. “Well . . .” she said finally, “nobody who goes in ever comes out. Except that one.”
She laughed, and the wind shrieked. It knew that laugh. What was he doing here?
“What a cheapskate. Conjured dollar, my foot. You know,” the Merchant said, looking directly at the plastic cat the wind was perched on, “there was once a time when people appreciated a good bargain. When they bartered. When they paid real money. For instance, yesterday. Someone paid me real money yesterday. Not conjured crap.” He wadded up the dollar bill and tossed it over his shoulder.
“Well, it’s done now. The joke’s on her.
Or him. Will the Ward find it funny? Hmm.
I’ll have to think about that. Are you coming, little spy, or are you going to tattle on me? ”
The wind shrieked and sped across the street. All the same, it could still hear the Merchant’s laugh as he wheeled away in a sleek metal chair, leaving behind the table full of plastic waving cats.