Chapter 29 #2
She guessed by the slightly reluctant tone of his voice that he thought the man who’d proposed to her had also slept with her.
“No,” she said firmly. “It was Evan Zeiler at the end of twelfth grade. Only Evan Zeiler. And just the once.”
He digested this for a moment. “Is he the one who always went on about how he would leave town at the first opportunity?”
“That’s him.”
“Did he? Leave at the first opportunity, I mean?”
“Yes.”
He winced. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t like that.” She pressed closer. “I slept with him because he was leaving.”
His surprised laughter sent tingles down her spine. “Intriguing choice. Go on.”
“It makes perfect sense if you think about it,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t going to marry and I didn’t want to die a virgin, but I also couldn’t have it spread around town that I was that kind of girl.”
“At the advanced age of seventeen, you’d already decided there was no one in the world you’d ever care to marry?”
“What man would pay for Lydia’s education or let me work so I could?” She thought of being married to Garrett—losing her legal status as an individual to a man whose character she’d misjudged—and shuddered. “Besides, when you have few rights to begin with, you’re not eager to give any of them up.”
“Ah,” Peter murmured, “I see what you mean.” He ran a hand along her side, raising goosebumps, driving Garrett out of her head. “I’m surprised you’d risk pregnancy for the experience, though. Did you somehow manage to acquire a rubber?”
“No. I timed it carefully.” And waited in suspense until it turned out all right. It had indeed been a risk. “What about you? Any grand affairs?”
“Not until now,” he said, pulling her in for another slow kiss.
She broke it off with a sigh. “Peter—I don’t think I’ll feel the same way when I wake up. Or I’ll feel the same way but won’t act on it. It’s different here.” She traced the lines of his palm, gathering her thoughts. “It’s as if I’m ... not quite the same person.”
“I don’t think we are. Have you read any Freud?”
“I got to penis envy and threw the book away.”
He nuzzled her neck. “I’m thinking of his theory about the impulse-driven id and how it’s checked by the superego while we’re awake. But when we’re asleep—”
“We’re all id?” She realized with a start that her hand had migrated to the part of him she was supposed to be envious of, which seemed to prove his point. “That’s unnerving.”
“I think we’re more id than normal. I can’t seem to keep myself from telling you whatever crosses my mind. But you’ll recall I did manage to stop what we were doing last night when I thought it was physically happening.”
“Our daytime selves won’t appreciate what we’re up to here.”
The sly smile spreading across his face was almost unbearably appealing.
“What have those two ever done for us?” he said, and proceeded to the second round.
She arranged her brewing ingredients, fighting back a terrible, disorienting déjà vu. I remember walking here. I woke up, ate breakfast and cut through the woods. I’m not asleep.
She muddled through her first brew somehow, thoughts jittering. When she was satisfied by the muffled explosions that Blackwell (not Peter, Blackwell) was ensconced in the attic, she crept up the stairs in stocking feet to the second floor, tiptoed to the first door on the left and opened it.
She instantly recognized the room she had never in her waking life seen. The bed was neatly made, the scrap quilt pulled up to the pillows.
So much for the extremely slim hope that the dream had been hers alone.
She retreated, hyperaware of every part of her body he’d touched. But no—it hadn’t been her. She would never sleep with Blackwell. Not under any circumstances. She vowed it to herself, no magic involved but every bit as binding.
She got through the rest of her brews without seeing him. And without hearing him in the case of the last two, after he slipped out to make house calls. But as she shut the door behind her and turned to go, there he was. Walking up the driveway. Coat swirling behind him.
Her heart leapt and her stomach sank.
“All—all done?” he said, the first time she could recall hearing his voice catch.
She swallowed. “Yes.”
He opened his mouth, changed his mind about whatever he’d been about to say and pressed his lips closed, misery pinching his face. What made it worse was the memory of how radiantly he’d smiled at her the night before—
Not him. Not her.
“They’re different people,” she murmured. “They’ll do whatever they’ll do, and it will have no bearing on us.”
He raised his eyebrows, as if words couldn’t properly express his skepticism.
“Come inside for a moment,” he said, and she realized they were talking where anyone—especially an invisible someone—could hear.
She walked in before him, waited until he shut the door and pressed on. “That’s how we must think of it. I don’t see an alternative, unless you want to destroy the contracts and remake them on different days.”
“No.” He looked away. “I think each time we try again, it’s only forging a stronger connection. It’s as if the original links were never really broken.”
“Well”—she breathed in and out, striving for elusive calm—“we’ll simply have to compartmentalize.”
He sighed. The silence stretched out, painfully, until he raised his eyes to hers. “Do you need me to cast a protection spell for the walk home?”
She shook her head. She’d cast it already.
“Be careful.” He looked at her one moment longer before opening the door.
It wasn’t until she crossed into the woods that she realized he hadn’t asked to check her hair. Perhaps he thought the spell he’d worked into it wouldn’t be easily overcome. Perhaps he simply didn’t trust himself to get so close.
She spent a distressing amount of time on the walk home thinking of him touching her. She jumped fallen branches, fed her chickens and fetched the mail in a thoroughly distracted state.
Then she opened the one letter that didn’t appear to be a bill, and that was enough to drive Blackwell out of her head.
My dearest Beatrix, it began. It ended, Yours always, Theo.
In between was an outpouring that alternately exasperated her (“I know how bitterly you must regret how you spoke to me on Saturday”), angered her (“I hope you see now, in the light of day, that my advice about your sister was correct”) and flabbergasted her (“I appreciate your desire to become a well-educated mother for our darling children”).
Her first thought was that the letter represented one last try at manipulating her to do what the magiocracy wanted. But then she remembered what Blackwell had said—that Garrett really did love her.
If so, she had no idea whom Garrett thought he’d fallen in love with. This woman he was writing to did not resemble her in anything but name. Her vexation sharpened, then gave way, leaving pity in its place.
She sat down in the study to write a reply.
If there can be no way to deliver unwanted news without pain, I hope there is at least some kindness in delivering it clearly, so the intention cannot be mistaken.
I do not love you, and, in truth, you do not love me.
Both of us fell prey to imagining in the other all that we thought we wanted, but neither of us understood the flesh-and-blood person we were papering over with our daydreams. Your idea of happiness is not mine.
My idea of a just world is not yours. And you must understand I cannot trust you after what occurred on Saturday.
May you find the woman you’re picturing. For both our sakes, please do not contact me again.
Sincerely,
B. Harper
She took her letter to the mailbox, Peter Blackwell once again insinuating himself into her thoughts.
The warmth of his hands. The taste of his skin.
The sound of her name on his lips. Oh God, they were locked in the same temporary insanity that had caught her and Garrett, attraction overmastering rational objections.
She faltered on the way back to the house as it struck her that it wasn’t the same. There was no papering over of reality with Blackwell, dreamworld notwithstanding. He knew her. Better than her own sister did, better in some ways than her best friend could.
She took a steadying breath. His knowledge was gleaned from being in her head and feeling what she felt. He understood so much about her because he’d forced the Vows on her.
She would not fall in love with this man who knew her too well. She would not.
This had to be what going mad felt like.
At night—dreamside—she wanted him. She touched him with a fervor that matched his own. She talked and listened to him with the same level of intense interest. She said, “I love you, too.”
Dayside, she averted her eyes. She pretended she didn’t know exactly how he felt. She behaved with impeccable professionalism and broke his heart.
It didn’t matter what their shared dreaming said about her desires. Peter wanted her, all of her, the real Beatrix, and she was absolutely determined to not let that happen.
“Why?” he asked her shade one chilly November night. “The Vow—the original Vow?”
“Of course.”
“Is there any way I could earn forgiveness?”
She gazed at him, regret in her eyes and the twist of her lips. “No,” she said.