6. One For Peter, Two For Paul, Three For Him Who Made Us All
ONE FOR PETER, TWO FOR PAUL, THREE FOR HIM WHO MADE US ALL
Dear Jack,
Forgive you? How could I possibly forgive you when you disappeared at such a moment? And yet how can I possibly hate you for it after the sensations you caused?
Must you always leave me with more questions? Where did you go? Why did you leave me? What manner of man are you? Have I offended you so deeply?
Dear Jack,
Please write to me again and ease my fears. I would not end our friendship this way.
It’s not likely I’ll be able to write you after I’m wed, not unless you leave me with some other manner of speaking to you.
Please, do not make me go off to be married without even the assurance that I have your friendship.
We have only until All Soul’s Day tomorrow.
Dear Jack,
I see now our friendship was entirely my own imagination.
Whatever passed between us last night must have also been so, or else it was your attempt to send me on my way to married life with a better understanding of how to cope with my future.
I thank you for this and wish you the best health and happiness.
No, actually, I do not, I am furious with you and I never wish to see you again and should you ever awaken from whatever drunken stupor you have got yourself in, under whatever perfumed doxy or three, take care never to write me again or my husband will know of it and challenge you directly.
Beatrix told herself she had given up any hope of a response, and that her walks past the letter tree every hour or so were only day-before-her-wedding nerves. But when she caught a flash of white after the sun set, her heart shot out of her mouth and she leapt upon the letter ravenously.
It was one line, written so ferociously that there were places the pen had ripped through the paper.
YOU MUST NOT MARRY.
Crumpling the letter in a fist, Beatrix let loose a growl of rage that rolled into a roar. She winced as she looked back up the hill to her home where someone peering outside had lit a candle.
“Insufferable pompous arrogant fickle creature of the night,” she muttered under her breath, stomping back up to the house. “I hate you, hate you, hate you.”
When her mother met her in the hallway with the lit candle and a questioning look, Bea said, “Those foxes are in a fine mood again tonight!” Then shut herself away in her room, lying awake until sunrise brought a flurry of sisters and servants to prepare her for her wedding day.
“A soul, a soul, a soul-cake, please good Missus a soul-cake! Apple, pear, plum, or cherry, any good thing to make us all merry! One for Peter, two Paul, three for Him who made us all!”
Beatrix pinched up her face as if it could keep the singing out, but it only made her eldest sister flick her ear and scold her for smudging her rouge.
All Soul’s Day had always been exciting for Beatrix—the whole town, one group after another, singing door to door and gathering up cakes or apples and beer in exchange for prayers for the departed—filling her with a delight no other holiday could match.
There was a jovial mischief in it and a delightful, tingly sort of fear.
Everyone was out with lanterns after dark to walk with the souls crossing over.
It had been Bea’s favorite holiday even before she associated it with her letters to Jack. All the more reason to ask for her wedding to take place this evening.
Jack O’ the Tree had nothing to do with it. Some vain hope that he might finally come for her had nothing to do with it. These were the lines she repeated as she allowed herself to be dressed up like a doll for a wedding she had no hope of escaping.
Mrs. Ashwood looked in on her when the other girls had finished curling and plaiting her hair.
“You’ll make a fine looking bride when you’re all finished,” she said. It was the closest thing to a compliment she had ever paid her youngest daughter.
Bea looked at her mother, unable to return her smile.
“Please do not make me do this,” she finally said.
Mrs. Ashwood sighed and took a few steps closer, reaching out to pluck at one of Bea’s hanging curls.
“Time to join the rest of us in reality, my dear,” her mother said. “Marriage is not some prison. In time, you may even come to like your husband. He’s been very generous to ask for you at all.”
“I do not want to like my husband,” Bea said, flinching away from her mother’s hand. “And I do not want to be considered a burden to be pawned off!”
Mrs. Ashwood’s lips thinned and she turned back for the door.
“As I said. Time to join us in reality.”
It was a short walk to the church where the ladies would arrive together and the men already waited, but Bea had to make one small detour before they started.
Sahar was watching it all from the safety of their tree. He kept hidden when he saw her approach. He almost forgot about the letter entirely at the sight of her.
He had always found her beautiful—with wild hair and muddy boots and teeth that were slightly too big, but this was Bea like he never imagined.
Dressed in a blush pink dress that cinched her in far too tightly, it fanned out at the hips with delicate white flowers wherever the fabric gathered.
Her hair was tamed into a large bun framed with curls with a hint of rose at her lips and cheeks.
She was exquisite, untouchable… Nothing like his own Bea.
A mad thought came to Sahar, that he wanted to see her true beauty when he freed her from that gown, took down her hair, and made her blush himself so there would be no need for rouge.
It wasn’t until she had passed out of his view, with the other women fussing over her veil and gown touching the ground, that he remembered the letter. He snatched it up with hunger.
I wish that I were meeting you at the altar instead.
I will miss you.
Love, Bea
For a moment, Sahar struggled to understand why the words on the paper seemed to vibrate, until he gripped his own wrist and realized he was shaking.
She said it. Well, she wrote it, but it was near enough that he felt something inside him pulling.
For hundreds of years, he had answered the wishes of foolish men, until he hid away his talisman—the only method by which a man could bind Sahar to himself—deep beneath the barren sands of his homeland.
He was happy to live selfish and idle, even after meeting this strange girl. Nothing was supposed to change.
I suppose I have some digging to do, he thought. And quickly.
Bea fought back tears as she stood with the man she was supposed to marry at the altar. She stared down at her hand inside his, pink gloves for hers and white gloves for his, trying desperately not to think about the last time a pair of gloves had touched her.
She knew she was supposed to watch the vicar as he gave a long sermon about marriage and its many virtues and pitfalls, but her eyes kept darting to the doors.
Could I run? Would anyone try to stop me? Would I be disowned by my family?
It was too late to hope for a rescue. The vicar was prompting her to repeat him.
“I, Beatrix Jane Ashwood, do this day take Bertrand Claybourn as my… as my husband, to…”
The vicar reminded her, “Honor and obey.”
Bea bit the inside of her cheek, trying to force the words out.
Honor and obey.
The church doors burst open with a bang. A roar of wind filled the room with swirls of sand and autumn leaves. After it settled, a giant man with deep purple skin and burning indigo eyes stood framed in the doorway.
“Say it again,” he boomed, ignoring the screams and scrambling of the wedding guests all around him.
Beatrix stared, mouth open, ready to run into his arms before she remembered the way he had ignored her the entire day after Halloween, only to demand she not marry with no real offer of help.
“Say what again? And excuse me, sir, but how dare you interrupt my wedding day?”
He ignored her fury and strode toward her with those glowing eyes locked on hers; Guests and ushers leapt away like frogs as he passed.
When at last he was directly before her, looking down while she craned her neck all the way back to look up, he grabbed her wrist and pressed a small object into her hand.
“Hold this,” he said, voice vibrating at so thunderous a pitch it made the boards beneath her feet tremble. “And say it again. The words you wrote me.”
Bea’s fiancé tried to clear his throat and approach, but the subtlest shift of Sahar’s gaze made him leap behind the pulpit to join the terrified vicar.
Beatrix looked down at the shabby little object in her hand. It was a clay pot, small enough to fit into the cup of her palm, with a domed lid and designs painted around its surface. Squinting at it, she thought she could make out the design of a bee. A very old honey pot.
Her eyes lifted again to his. Chaos ensued all around them.
Her family screamed, calling her name. People were running from the church.
The vicar was paging through scripture to find anything that might banish an eight foot tall purple shimmering man who did not appear to be fully clothed—in a church, no less.
“If I do, you will only leave me again,” Bea said. Tears crept into her voice as she gave a name to her sadness and fear. “You always leave me.”
“I will not, not if you do as I ask now.” He held her cheek in the palm of his hand. “For too long I’ve lived selfishly and alone, even after knowing you, I cared only to avoid responsibility and to please myself.”
“And this has changed because you’d be jealous to lose me to another?”
Sahar gripped her hand—this time it was she who wore gloves, shielding herself from the full impact of his touch.