Chapter Twenty-Two
He can feel her call—feel the nerves buzzing under her skin like a hive in the heat. The relief he feels is physical, but it only takes her a handful of words for it to twist into heartbreak.
THE MEADOW
That night she stares unseeingly into the darkness, twisting the ring on her finger until the first morning light teases the horizon.
Decision made, she rises from her bed, steps around the sleeping bodies sprawled across the floor, and walks into the meadow.
Feet bare, the dry summer grass whispers against her ankles and tickles her calves.
She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
In all the centuries they’ve shared, she has never once called on him—never stopped long enough to wonder if she could. Khiran’s ring is cool on her finger, the fine etchings just catching the early light.
I need only to look for the missing part of myself.
Anna doesn’t know how much the magic translates. Does he feel the drumming of her heart? The anxious sweating of her palms? Can he tell that the thought of seeing him has her so conflicted between longing and resentment that sleep couldn’t find her? If she called him, would he hear her?
Would he come, even if he did?
She closes her eyes, releasing a frustrated sigh and shaking her head. The truth is, she isn’t ready to face him. Their argument is too fresh—her wounds too raw.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Khiran has always arrived on his own schedule. As she feels his magic breathe over the nape of her neck, feels the pressure of his gaze between her shoulder blades, Anna knows this time is no exception.
“I’m not ready to speak to you,” she says, suddenly aware of how thin her nightdress is. The morning air is a whisper over her flesh, goosebumps dotting her skin.
Khiran’s steps falter, the hand raised and ready to reach for her lowering. “Yet you called.”
Did she? She’s still not sure. “I need Silas. Can you find him?”
A pause, so weighted Anna can feel it pressing against her heart. The scoff he utters is more breath than sound, and yet it still hits her with the subtlety of a drum. “And that is all you want from me?”
No, she wants answers. Apologies that go beyond words and promises. She knows better than to hope for either.
“I need his help. Eira and I—we can’t possibly house enough children through the winter. Silas can—I’m hoping he can lead them somewhere safe.”
“I can find him,” he murmurs. Anna hears the crunching of grass beneath his boots, can feel his presence at her back. So close, he need only reach out to touch her. “We need to talk, Anna.”
“I don’t need to do anything.”
A sigh, so deep she can feel it. “Alright. I need to. Please don’t ask me to search the world without knowing where we stand.”
“How?” she whispers, turning to him. “How are we supposed to talk when you won’t tell me anything?”
His mouth pulls into a grimace. “There are some things you’re safer not knowing. I understand why that’s difficult for you, and I’m sorry, but I won’t apologize for putting your wellbeing first.”
“Then there’s nothing else for us to discuss,” she says, a stubborn tilt to her chin. “I wish you the best of luck finding Silas. The lives of many depend on it.”
She turns, her steps heavy. She only makes it a few feet before his hand finds her elbow. “How can you just walk away?”
“Because I’m angry with you!” she snaps, voice cracking. There’s a sick pleasure in the way he flinches away from her. “I feel betrayed, like I’ve been lied to from the very moment you placed that peach in my hands. What’s worse, is it took this long for me to see it.”
“Anna—”
“Aren’t you tired of keeping secrets?”
Khiran falls silent, stricken. In his eyes there’s a torment so deep, Anna knows it must span centuries. It’s enough to temper her fury—to make the heat of anger cool enough to recognize the lancing pain in her heart.
She swallows, throat tight, and eases away from his grasp. “When you are, that’s when I’ll be ready to talk.”
“Unless you have need of me,” he scoffs, lips twisting into a grimace.
“I’m not the one in need,” she reminds softly. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have called you at all.”
“As painfully honest as ever.”
“You used to like that about me.”
“I never stopped.” It sounds like the truth. “Even when it hurts.”
Twenty-three days later, when the forest is just beginning to turn more gold than green, Anna looks up from hanging the laundry and finds a tall, broad-shouldered man emerging from the trees.
It has been over a century, but Anna has spent too many evenings on her front porch watching for him to forget the shape of his silhouette.
Misha’s small hand is tangled in her skirt. Anna coaxes the four-year-old’s fingers away. Gently, in Russian, she instructs her to run and tell Eira they have a visitor.
The girl hesitates, tugging anxiously at a blonde curl.
Her blue eyes dart to the forest and back, before giving a tentative nod.
Anna watches her run to the house, her shoes a size too big and making her gait more a bumble than a sprint.
When she makes it halfway, Anna turns toward the forest, each step a little quicker than the last until she’s sprinting across the meadow.
Silas tips his head, his voice as smooth and warm as it was back then. He would be an exact echo of her memory if it weren’t for the lack of a southern accent. He offers a hand, palm up, in open invitation. “Miss Lydia.”
No. Not Lydia. Just as he is no longer the Silas she knew. Here, in Eira’s meadow, they are only themselves. She takes his hand, lets the heat of his palm thaw the brittle edges of her heart. “Anna. My name is Anna.”
His smile is as wide and dimpled as she remembers. “A beautiful name. It fits you.” Head tilting, he regards her with a stare that sees far too much. “You look tired, my friend. Tell me, what weighs so heavily on your heart?”
Anna’s throat goes tight, words sticking.
His gaze turns soft. “Khiran wore the same look when he found me.”
She winces, the sound of his name a shot to her heart.
There’s a blatant question in Silas’ following silence; an opportunity left open for her to fill.
Anna has no intention of answering it. Not when there are more urgent matters needing to be discussed.
“Eira and I need help. The children—we don’t have room to house them over winter.
I was hoping you could guide them somewhere safe. ”
“Safe is in short supply. Always is,” he says, looking over her shoulder at the cottage.
A few of the children are helping Eira pick plums from the tree.
A few others are trying, and failing, to continue hanging the laundry she’s abandoned.
His smile is a balm for her nerves. “I doubt that will stop us anymore than it did the last time.”
Anna breathes a sigh, her relief so great it’s physical. “Thank you.”
His hand cups her shoulder. “It is my honor to aid you, Miss Anna.”
She nods, resisting the urge to offer him more thanks. Instead, she asks, “Should I still call you Silas?”
His laughter rolls over the meadow like a warm breeze. “I would be disappointed if you didn’t. I have grown very fond of that name.” His gaze is soft with his amusement, eyes crinkling in the corners with the force of his smile. “It helps to have a friend who knows me by it.”
Again, Anna feels her throat tighten and her chest ache. This time, it’s for all the right reasons. “Silas it is.”
She introduces him as Silas, her friend, but Eira has yet to call him by that name.
When she addresses him, she seems to make a point of only addressing him as Shepherd.
There is distrust hiding at the corners of her mouth, a sense of dread in the aged lines of her scowl.
Anna has always known her to be prickly at first, but the efforts she goes to distance herself seem to be rooted in more than just distrust.
Silas’ ceaseless amount of patience and understanding only seems to emphasize Eira’s lack of warmth—the contrast obvious enough that even the children seem to pick up on it.
Half of them gravitate towards him as if he’s the sun in their sky while the other half hold back, their eyes frequently gauging Eira’s demeanor for clues on how to behave around this new stranger.
With the silence that descends over dinner that night, tension stifling any hope of conversation, Anna can’t help but feel that the old woman is making a terrible impression.
The children need to trust him, at least enough to follow him to safety once winter comes.
Anna knows they only have another two months at most before they’ll be forced to leave.
Silas must realize it, too. After dinner, he pulls a harmonica from his pocket, the notes playing clear and crisp over the crackling fire. The change is subtle, but instant.
The children’s eyes go from cautious to curious.
When Silas offers them a turn, whatever reservations they held are soothed away by the vibrations of the reeds and Silas’ gentle encouragement.
Soon, they’ve moved into the meadow and are taking turns making music for the stars. Eira is not so easily swayed.
She stokes the fire, embers dancing when a log falls. “They will be fighting over it soon if you’re not careful.”
Silas raises a brow. “To take it now would be to punish them before they’ve done any wrong.” There’s more weight to the words than light conversation.
Eira’s lips purse. She hears the unsaid comparison, too. “It’s prevention, not punishment.”
“If you take a moment of joy to prevent a potential problem, does it not have the same effect?” he asks, calm but pointed. “Give them the opportunity to exceed your expectations.”
“Raised many children, have you, Shepherd?” She stands, knees creaking, and collects some of the empty bowls strewn around the fire.
“None, Miss Eira.”