Chapter Sixteen #4
Silas looks to the man beside her, brow raised. A question and a challenge. A muscle in Khiran’s jaw jumps. Instead of answering, he poses another. “Why are you here?”
Silas takes a few steps forward, voice lowering and his accent changing from a low southern drawl to something smooth and ancient. “You’re worried over nothing, my friend. I am not here for her.” His gaze dips to the floor, to the people still hiding beneath it, before rising. “I am here for them.”
Slowly, the tension in Khiran’s shoulders eases. There’s an understanding there, a sudden realization. “You’re leading them to safety.”
Silas nods, his smile moon-bright against his midnight skin. “I am their shepherd through these wilds.”
Khiran offers a solemn nod. “And I trust that’s all you’re here for?”
Anna’s eyes are rimmed with questions as Silas meets her gaze, but his grin doesn’t fade as his accent returns to the one she’s familiar with. “Miss Lydia is a fine lady, but she don’t need no one to lead her nowhere.”
She shakes her head, retreating a step. “You’re—”
Like them.
Like Khiran and Eira. A god wandering the world disguised as human.
Anna thinks of how successful they’ve been—how the people that come seeking their help always seem to make it to her safely.
How he’s never been caught. She thinks about the fact that he’s never lost a single soul, despite all the dangers.
Not a single one. She thinks of all the evenings they’ve spent together, his harmonica in his hand and sewing in hers.
She thinks of the long notes that filled the cabin, the tunes he played that reminded her of times long since passed, and wonders how she missed it.
There are dimples in Silas’ answering smile, laughter lighting his dark eyes. “Like you.”
Her breath catches, the declaration sending her off balance, because no. That can’t be right. She’s immortal, but she’s no god. He’s mistaken, but she can’t find the right words to correct him.
Silas’ eyes slide to Khiran, giving her space to work out her thoughts. Anna doesn’t miss the way his expression changes, from jovial to serious. “Your secret is safe.”
Khiran releases a long breath, eyes closing briefly before he tips his chin in acknowledgement. “Thank you.”
“Secret?” Anna echoes, looking to Khiran. She knows he can read the questions in her eyes, which is why it hurts when he ignores them.
He looks away, a muscle in his jaw jumping.
Anna’s not sure she’s ever seen him look so agitated.
He gestures to the floorboards. “They’re growing restless with the silence.
You should go assure them.” Turning, he doesn’t glance her way, but she knows instinctively that the words he murmurs under his breath are for her. “I need a moment.”
He goes through the front, the door shutting achingly quiet behind him. Anna marvels at the amount of control he exhibits, when she can still see the violence darkening his eyes. He seems more rattled than she is.
Silas eyes her curiously. There’s an unwavering calmness in him that Anna envies. “It’s you, Miss,” he says, voice hushed. “You’re the secret.”
Her lips part around a small intake of breath, eyes snapping to the door Khiran just left through. She doesn’t need to ask why, doesn’t need to hear the details. The evidence was written in the flash of fear that crossed Khiran’s face the moment he recognized Silas standing in the hallway.
Anna shakes her head, other questions begging to be asked sitting on her tongue. Silas cuts them all off with a finger to his lips and a glance down. Khiran’s magic has lifted. Their conversation now audible to the six sets of ears below. She swallows them down; holds them in for another time.
He glances at the door, his smile encouraging. “Miss Lydia,” he says, voice teasing. “I don’t recall you ever mentioning a husband.”
A second of confusion, and then she understands. These are their roles, these words are their script. Her name is not Lydia and he is not Silas—not really—but those are the characters they’re playing.
She breathes a laugh. It’s absurd, and yet time has taught her how to play her role well. She slips into it as effortlessly as Silas slipped between accents. “We’re not actually married.”
He hums, a secretive little smile playing on his full lips. “Well, ya’ll are something, alright.”
There’s a truth there, a toeing of the line they’ve made between their true selves and the characters they play.
Anna doesn’t deny it—she can’t—but she isn’t willing to discuss it either.
Instead, she diverts the conversation. “I think it’s safe for everyone to come up. I don’t think he’ll be back tonight.”
Silas snorts on a laugh. “After your mister’s threats? I’d reckon he’ll be thinking twice before coming back at all.”
She doesn’t bother to correct the status of who Khiran is to her. “I hope you’re right, but just in case, let’s have them sleep in my room tonight and keep the curtains closed.”
Silas nods. “Can do, Miss Lydia.”
The smile he wears is approving. She can feel it in her chest; warm and comforting.
The names they call each other by might not be real, but she gets the sense that the tentative friendship they have is.
“Thank you, Mister Silas,” she responds, smile soft.
She tips her chin towards the door. “I believe I’ll get some air as well. ”
His answering grin is warm and lined with playful skepticism, but he nods and doesn’t say anything other than a simple, “You do that.”
She fights the urge to huff, knowing full well it will only amuse him, and goes out the front door, the latch clicking behind her.
Anna finds Khiran on the porch, only steps away from the front door, leaning against the railing and looking out into the swamp.
Anna settles beside him, their shoulders brushing.
There are fireflies dancing between the trees, their reflections casting stars out onto the water.
When she first settled there, the sounds that came from the swamp made her uneasy.
Now, she finds comfort in it. Even when it sleeps, it never stops sounding alive.
“Is Silas his real name?” It’s not what she wants to ask, but it feels innocent enough to break the silence between them.
The tension he wears over his shoulders doesn’t ease, but he responds. “Is your real name Lydia?”
Anna smiles, ducking her head. “I suspected as much.”
She gives him a moment of peace before daring to break it.
“I thought you couldn’t meddle?” she asks, voice mingling with the chorus of frogs.
It’s the first of many questions she has for him tonight.
The one that presses on her the most. She doesn’t look at him; she doesn’t need to.
She can feel his irritation buzzing off his skin.
Khiran shifts, lips thin. “He left here unharmed, didn’t he?”
Anna bites back a smile. “He did.” She nudges his shoulder with her own. “I suppose it’s good he had no way of knowing you were bluffing.”
He remains quiet, staring out into the wilderness without seeing any of it.
Anna’s smile dims, her fingers twisting the ring on her finger, over and over.
The familiar repetition soothes her, but she wants more.
It’s too easy to think of what-ifs when Khiran’s voice isn’t there to distract her and, right now, she wants to think about anything but what could have happened.
His arms are crossed, leaning on the rail.
It puts his injured one closest to her. Even in the dim, with only the light seeping from the window behind them to see by, she can make out the raised red welts clawed across his skin.
She reaches for his hand, fingers following one of the longer lines wrapping from forearm to wrist. “Does it hurt?”
His eyes follow as she maps out the injuries, but doesn’t flinch away from her touch.
“We are immune to death, not to pain, unfortunately.” His wrist turns, palm up.
Anna explores the lines of his palm and wonders if they stay the same between his forms. A testament to his true self, no matter the face he wears.
“It’s just a scratch. It will be gone by morning. ”
Anna licks her lips, searching for the best words to speak, but none of them feel entirely right. “How?” she murmurs, eyes searching his own. “I don’t bleed. I don’t bruise. How is it—”
“That I do?” His fingers close around her own, turning her hand so he can explore her palm with the same diligence she did his own. “We each have our strengths.” He traces over her heart line. “And our weaknesses.”
His hand rises, fingertips brushing against where she was struck.
“Does it still hurt?” When Anna shakes her head, he presses his palm to her cheek.
“You heal faster than the pain can last. It’s why you don’t bleed.
Why you don’t burn. An outer shield.” His hand lowers, tapping her collar. “But a vulnerable center.”
She thinks of all the times she’s been ill over the centuries, thinks of the plague that would have killed her.
It’s not a mystery she has ever cared to solve, but the way he explains it makes sense.
The stinging pain of a burn has always left her as quickly as it came, but a fever will leave her feeling like she’s on fire for days.
Anna looks at his injuries. “And you? Have you never been sick?”
“No.” The smile touching the corners of his mouth is warm. “It seems we landed on opposite sides of that particular coin.”
His admittance means more than he could possibly understand.
It means that every injury she’s suffered, every hurt he’s run to her for, he has done knowing that it would be temporary.
A blip of a moment, gone before he could even blink into her life.
Yet he came anyway, each and every time she had need of him, just to save her from more.
“Thank you,” she says, a whisper in the dark meant only for him.
She hopes he can hear the sincerity of it, can feel how grateful she truly is.
Not just for his rescue, but for his friendship.
For caring enough to not want her to hurt, even when the pain is gone within a moment. “For always coming when I need you.”
He pulls away, a furrow in his brow and a scoff on his lips. “Of course I came. You were scared.” He shakes his head. “You haven’t been scared in a long, long time.”
Anna doesn’t deny it. She’s given up on lying to him centuries ago. Around the same time she gave up learning the secret to how he always knows where and when to find her. “Fear is for mortals,” she says, an echo of his words.
Once they would have left a bitter aftertaste on her tongue; sounded condescending to her ears. Now, they only ring with truth.
He doesn’t smile, not the way she expected him to, but something in him softens. The tension melting from his expression like wax off a wick. “Yes,” he murmurs, finally turning to her. “For mortals. Not for us.”
The way he says it—the way he looks at her—makes the words sound more like a reminder. A mantra. Something to tell themselves when it proves to be untrue.
She takes his hand, fingers folding around his and taking comfort in the way he squeezes back. Together, they listen to the hoots and chirps of the bayou and look out over the water.
Khiran’s thumb traces over her knuckles, his voice breaking the peace. “It’ll happen again, you know. Perhaps not him, but he won’t be the only one to figure it out. It may be best for you to pack things up.”
Anna shakes her head, wincing. “They’d never make it to the next stop without this one.”
They already have to battle the swamp just to get to her door. She doesn’t want to think about how many more lives would be lost if they didn’t have a place to rest before continuing the journey. Hates to think of how many would be found.
His hand tightens on hers, a grudging acceptance tightening the line of his jaw. “How long will you stay?”
She looks back at the cabin, thinks of all the people who have found refuge within its walls. It’s an easy question to answer. “As long as I can.”
Khiran’s sigh is soft. Pained. Anna suspects that he probably knew her answer before he even voiced the question. “Very well.” His eyes trace her face, a hint of a smile touching his lips and pride lighting his eyes. “Let us help them on their way.”
For the next seven years, once a week Anna wakes to find a supply of food on her porch, in the same spot where they spoke of fear and watched the fireflies dance into the night.
She never has to make a run into town for food again, never has to put herself or the safe house at risk.
She helps as many as she can find a place to rest before Silas leads them to their next stop towards freedom.
In town, a rumor is spreading.
Stories from spooked slave catchers spill over booze, their eyes haunted and their tongues loose. They tell of a young black woman, standing in the middle of the trail leading to the eastern swamplands with mist tangled at her ankles and moonlight reflecting in her dark eyes.
Watching. Waiting.
They say, when they come within a few feet of her, she disappears. The only trace, the only proof, that she was ever there at all is a pair of footprints in the mud where she stood. No tracks in. No tracks out.
Some claim she’s a ghost; the spirit of a girl hellbent of vengeance.
Others claim she’s a demon—that the road she haunts must be a road straight into Hell.
No matter what they believe, the result is the same.
The rumor spreads, and when the hounds happen to lead down that trail, the catchers turn tail more than they continue on.
Then, the Civil War starts, and the number of people seeking shelter slowly wanes. Waiting to see if freedom will come to them in a Union uniform and a flag of Stars and Stripes.
On April 29th, 1862, New Orleans is captured by the North. That evening, Anna steps out onto her front porch and finds Khiran waiting for her—hand out and palm open in invitation.
Anna takes it.