Chapter Eighteen
They woke up as two people who’d known each other since forever.
Briar smelled blood as she approached her mother’s house.
It was faint, carried on the wind. She saw the windows were open wide, and she increased her pace while her heart increased its beating.
She threw the front door open, and it crashed into her – copper, so intense that she could taste it in the back of her throat.
The door to the bedroom was open, and through it she saw her mother on her knees, wiping the floor with a rag and wringing it out in a bucket filled with red water.
“What happened?”
She crossed the front room in long strides. Her mother raised her hand to stop her before she stepped into a puddle of thick, congealed blood. A few feet away, Rune froze in the process of stripping the sheets off the bed. He was shirtless, unharmed, but covered in dry blood from head to toe.
“What did you do?” Briar’s voice rose significantly.
“I–”
“Do not. Say. You’re sorry.”
He hung his head.
Her heart hammered so hard that she thought she’d faint. The blood that drenched the floor and was practically sprayed on the walls didn’t help. She pressed a hand to her stomach and breathed through her mouth.
Her mother dropped the rag in the bucket, rose to her feet, and took the sheets from Rune. She took the bucket and the sheets, and walked out, leaving them alone.
“I was stupid,” he said.
“Did you try to–” she stopped herself, rolling her lips. “Again? Why?”
“I don’t want to be your cross to bear,” he said.
“What?”
“You hate me. You hate that you found me, and then you had to bring me here, into your home, where you should’ve felt safe. All because I might turn out to be good for something. But I’m not.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t hate you. Where do you even get these ideas?”
She approached him with care, avoiding the worst of the blood, keeping her eyes on him like she expected him to bolt.
She reached up and brushed his cheek with her fingers.
When he didn’t flinch back, she was relieved but also pissed off.
She fought the urge to grip his jaw and squeeze.
She wanted to slap him, hit him, but history said that was not the winning strategy.
“You didn’t come back,” he murmured.
“I–” She groaned. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I left you here and disappeared for a day and a night. But it’s not because I hate you or think you’re a cross to bear. I’m not in the habit of bearing crosses.”
He sucked his lower lip in as if he were stopping himself from contradicting her. Briar cocked an eyebrow. Was that what she was doing? Bearing crosses? Ridiculous.
“I was dead tired. Destroyed. A walking corpse. I lied down for an hour and woke up twenty-four hours later. I didn’t know what to do first: pee or eat. If you really must know, I drank a whole cup of water.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
That was it. She’d been a saint so far. She hit him in the chest with her open palm.
He yelped in shock. “Don’t do that.”
“You deserve it!” She hit him again with her fist.
“No, I know, but you’ll break your hand.”
Briar cradled her throbbing knuckles.
“You’re probably right,” she winced.
She sat on the bed and pulled him down with her. She scooted closer and placed her hands on his cheeks.
“Listen to me. You must stop doing this. I’ve never seen anyone torture themselves like you do, and I’ve lived at a convent for most of my life. Do you know how much religious people like to torture themselves? You’re putting them to shame.”
A smile tugged at Rune’s lips.
“Proud of yourself, are you?” she teased.
“Not one bit.”
She chuckled. “I’m starting to understand what Seraphina saw in you.”
“Seraphina left.”
“Mhm. If you thought you got rid of her, I say think again. That one doesn’t give up easily.”
“You think I’ll see her again…”
She studied his face, the blood-stained scarf that covered his empty eye sockets.
“Something like that.”
Before they could get too emotional, she slapped her hands on her thighs and got up.
“This is a disaster. You look like you raided hell and emerged victorious. I’ll go heat water so you can take a bath.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Keep away from any knives. Too much to ask?”
He frowned. “I think your mother hid them all.”
Briar raised her eyes to the ceiling in a sign of exasperation and promptly sighed at new tracks of blood she hadn’t seen before. She walked into the other room to find her mother packing a bundle of clothes. Three pots of water were already heating on the hearth.
“Five years,” she said. “The sisters won’t believe it’s you.”
She was wearing her habit and veil. Briar had rarely seen her in them since she’d moved to the house on the hill, away from the community, on the grounds of her self-imposed penance. She only put them on when she went outside and there was a chance of someone seeing her.
“Are you sure?” Briar asked. “I can take him to the cottage.”
The woman shook her head.
Briar didn’t know what had convinced her to finally return to the convent, and she had the feeling she would never know. Her mother stepped closer, and for a moment, Briar thought she was going to hug her. She merely patted her daughter on the cheek and smiled.
Briar smiled back. “I’ll see you later.”
And then she truly was alone with Rune.
She carried buckets of water to the wooden tub in the corner of the bedroom. It was small for Rune, but they would manage.
“Take off your clothes and get in,” she said as she guided him to the tub.
He reached out, gripped the edge, and waited.
“We do, of course, have all day,” Briar said sarcastically.
“I was waiting for you to leave.”
“Not this time.” She eyed his blood-smeared chest. “You’re gorier than the Old Testament. You won’t be able to get it all out by yourself.”
A blush spread high on his cheeks. Stitches and blood aside, he was kind of endearing.
“I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to get out your drawers. Keep those on, obviously.”
“Oh. All right.”
He’d thought she wanted to see him fully naked. Briar bit her lip. Maybe she did.
No, that wasn’t right. What was she doing?
She turned away as he undid his trousers, looking around the room and making a plan for later.
She would have to clean the floor properly and lay a new set of sheets on the bed.
Scrubbing the walls and the ceiling wasn’t an emergency.
She could leave that for another day. The room was aired enough, so she closed the window. She heard Rune get into the tub.
“Not too hot?” she asked, reaching for the soap and the washcloth.
“Very hot. Intentional?”
She smirked. “Yes. I’m trying to punish you any way that I can.”
He laughed.
She knelt next to the tub, soaked the cloth and soaped it up.
Rune was folded within himself, the tub too small to be comfortable.
Briar’s eyes traced the stitches on his back, her hand following the same path as she brushed the washcloth over his skin.
He shuddered. She wiped over his shoulders and ran it down one arm. He straightened to give her more space.
“It’s strange,” he said.
“What is?”
“No one has done this for me before.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Seraphina?”
“No. I didn’t let her.”
“Why not?”
“She didn’t know what I was. She couldn’t see, so I took advantage of it. I let her believe I was a man like any other. For a long while, she didn’t know about the stitches.”
“But you’re letting me.”
“You know what I look like.”
She moved to his throat, and he tipped his head back.
She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
She ran the washcloth over his clavicle, his chest, lower down his abdomen.
She was looking at him now, with wide, fascinated eyes.
At some point, she stopped seeing the stitches.
Once she accepted they were part of him, they didn’t matter.
Her eyes followed the thin line of dark hair that started at his navel and dipped below the waist of his linen drawers. She shifted on her knees.
“I won’t try again,” he said out of the blue.
“Huh?”
“To end my life. It’s not possible, and it only hurts the people around me. Makes a mess for them to clean up.”
“Oh, yes. Smart decision.”
She swallowed heavily and forced her gaze back up to his face. Linen, when soaked, wasn’t as concealing anymore.
“I’ll wash your hair now,” she declared.
She stood up and positioned herself behind the tub.
She lathered his hair and started massaging his scalp gently.
She felt him lean into her. When she brushed a certain spot behind his ears, he let out a low grunt.
Heat spread through Briar’s belly. She’d never been with a man before.
This was the first time she was seeing a man nearly naked. And touching him so intimately.
She was doing something wrong, yet she couldn’t stop herself. How many Pater Nosters and Ave Marias would the priest give her next time?
“That feels good,” Rune said.
“Does it?” She was surprised she could still talk.
When the molten heat in her belly moved lower and threatened to drip down her inner thigh, she grabbed a pot, dipped it into the bucket, and poured water onto Rune’s head to clear the soap.
She gave him a towel for his hair and leaned over him, her hands reaching for the scarf that still covered half of his face.
“I must wash this.”
His hand came up to her wrist.
“No.”
“It’s all right. Just hold the towel over your face, and I won’t see anything.”
After a moment of hesitation, he nodded and did as she said.
Briar tried to untie the scarf, but the wet knot proved to be stubborn. She leaned even closer, until their faces were inches apart. As she worked the knot, her eyes drifted to his lips. Before she knew what she was doing, she pressed her mouth to his.
It was brief, soft, more of a brush of lips than a kiss. A single exchange of breath. Rune didn’t move. It was over in a second, Briar pulling away horrified.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me… I… I didn’t mean that to happen.”
The corner of his lip lifted slightly. She wasn’t sure it was even a smile.
“You lost your balance,” he said. “Let me get the knot.”
Face burning all shades of red, Briar turned away and waited for him to untie the scarf and hand it to her. Once that was done, she grabbed the rest of his clothes and rushed out of the bedroom.
“I’ll wash these and hang them to dry,” she said but didn’t wait for his answer, slamming the door shut behind her.
She rubbed a hand over her face. He’d given her an out. She’d acted like a fool, and he chose to pretend like it didn’t even happen. To protect her honor, for sure. Her fingers stopped over her lips. Her first kiss. She’d given it to a man who hadn’t wanted it.
Briar groaned and went to get more water from the spring that ran to the side of the house.
The cold winter air cleared her head a little, but it wasn’t an improvement, since now she could better dwell on her own foolishness.
She hadn’t lied. She truly didn’t know what had come over her.
It must’ve been the proximity. She hadn’t been this close to someone since Seraphina decided to leave on her revenge quest.
It was nothing. Rune himself thought it was nothing. She’d lost her balance. And her mouth landed on his. It would torture her for a while, but they’d both forget eventually. In the grand scheme of things, it was a rather insignificant incident.
The rest of the day, Briar busied herself with washing clothes, sheets, and the floor. She threw out the bath water, made the bed, and found food for the both of them. By nightfall, she was exhausted again, which was a good thing because it slowed her spiraling thoughts.
Rune refused to sleep on the bed, so Briar gave him blankets and a pillow, and he curled up on the floor. She thought she’d sleep in the other room, but he came with a very good reason not to.
“You said I shouldn’t be out of your sight,” he said.
“I do remember saying that,” she chuckled.
“I was out of your sight for a day and a night…”
“And look what happened. Yes, I agree.”
A sensible reason.
She burrowed under the covers and listened to his steady breathing until she fell asleep.
She felt warm, safe, though mysteriously unsatisfied.
Come morning, they woke up as two people who’d known each other since forever, used to each other’s routines, functioning in a strange, yet comforting way.
They spent the day like they’d spent those three in the forester’s house, snowed in, except Briar didn’t shovel any snow, and Rune was a better conversationalist.
It was a bizarre day, dreamlike in a sense. Briar felt like she was floating. Every hour or so, her stomach would do a weird swoop. She wondered if she might be coming down with something.
They ate by the fire, talked about nothing, then she told him old fairytales she remembered from her childhood, as he lay on the floor and she stared at the ceiling in the dark.
The next morning, they slept in. The sun was up in the sky when Rune jumped to his feet so fast that he hit the bedside table and knocked over the water cup.
“What?” Briar sat up groggily. “What’s happening?”
“Screaming.”
“What?”
“Don’t you hear it?”
He fumbled with the latch on the window shutters. Once opened, Briar could hear it.
A sound that pierced the sky.
Seraphina.