Chapter 19 #2
“Right,” he said, but he did not move or pull away.
Instead, tenderly, he wrapped the cloth tight around her arm.
Then, he lifted her handkerchief from her hand, doing the same to the other arm.
He did not move away when he finished, as Mouse expected, but kept close enough that his breath caused the curls around her face to flutter.
His eyes met hers, their sharpness cutting through her like a knife.
She could not pinpoint his expression, but she could detect notes of anguish and fury and something softer. Her lips tingled.
“What do you think—will I perish?”
He stepped away, and she fought back her unexpected disappointment.
“You should be fine,” he said. His gaze went cold, a door closing behind his eyes. “Although I would still like to take another look when my powers return.”
“I’ll allow it,” she said with a smile.
He sighed. “Forgive me for my gruffness. Being cut off from all magic sets my teeth on edge, and it seems like every one of these spells attempts to make me more irritated. Not to mention your talent for recklessness.”
“Does it hurt to be cut off from your magic?” Mouse asked, ignoring the end of his sentence.
“It doesn’t hurt, exactly. It’s more like an itch in the middle of your back.”
“In London, when you were far from the countryside, is that how you felt?”
“I felt that, but also an exhaustion that sank to my bones. It is almost the opposite here. This place feels like a line of adrenaline fed straight through my blood. I can barely focus on anything.”
Mouse’s thoughts flashed to Roger’s bedside, his hand pressed in hers. She thought of the shells falling during the war. And, lastly, she thought of waiting every day for the news to arrive, either with a letter from Roger or Bertie or the dreaded news that they were gone.
“Although I don’t know what it is to live with magic, cut off from it or not, I understand that feeling of apprehension,” Mouse said.
“After the war, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I felt as useless in the hospital as I had here at Thistlemarsh.
For a while, I considered leaving everything behind.
Perhaps America would be a good start, or Paris, or even just London.
While he was alive, Uncle’s money would continue to support Roger, and in the hospital, Roger was either indifferent to me or upset by the sight of me. ”
“How did you break from that feeling?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “One day it would be clawing at me, and the next day it would let off. I could never tell which feeling the day would bring.”
“I’ll just have to endure, then?”
“I’m afraid so. But at least you know that it won’t be permanent.”
Thornwood held out his hand toward her with his fingers turned up. She did not hesitate, taking it. A lopsided grin lit his face, and Mouse’s genuine smile—her father’s smile—rose in answer to his.
They fell into companionable silence, working their way down the path. An odd tree, bent in the middle and growing out into the forest horizontally, caught Mouse’s eye. She stopped.
“We’re going in circles,” she said.
“Perhaps it is just a similar-looking tree?”
“I know its shape exactly. I’ve walked past it since I was twelve years old. I knew it when it stood straight, when it developed its crook, and I recognize it now trying to defy the laws of physics.”
“How could we be back? The path has no deviations, adjoining trails, or forks.”
“It could be a giant circle,” Mouse said.
“Are the paths in Thistlemarsh Wood a circle?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “They branch into the town and to the vicarage. Those are just a few paths out of the forest, mind you. There are many more.”
In her mind, she conjured up a map of Thistlemarsh Wood.
She searched through all her memories of jumping over felled logs and mushroom hunting in the autumn with Roger and Bertie, baskets filled to bursting.
She remembered getting lost with them, then focusing on finding the statues Bertie named.
They were landmarks, and although they were not here in this version of the woods, perhaps Mouse’s memory of where they should be might help.
She opened her eyes. “If we were in Thistlemarsh Wood and trying to go through the forest to the village, we would want to go this way.” Mouse walked down the path again.
Thornwood sighed. “The way that we have already tried?”
“Yes, but wait,” Mouse said. She closed her eyes as she walked; then, when she felt a twinge of familiarity to her steps, she stopped and opened them. She was facing a direction off the path.
If this was a mirror of Thistlemarsh Wood, there should have been a path there.
An idea struck her with almost physical force.
She kneeled at the edge of the trail and gently cleared away the undergrowth.
Beneath it, a cobbled path sprouted outward into the trees.
The stones were opal white, and when Mouse touched them with her fingertips, they flashed brightly with magic. She grinned at Thornwood.
“See? And to think, you’d been trapped in this forest for years.”
He sniffed. “It looks very different when you are frozen in place.”
“That must be it,” Mouse allowed. “It seems that the path follows the same trajectory as the one in the woods. If it does, we should cut through the center before reaching the path to Tithe.”
They picked their way through the undergrowth, clearing it as they passed so as not to lose sight of the white stones.
“It’s too simple,” Thornwood muttered.
The path ended abruptly at the base of an old oak tree. Mouse cleared a larger circle of undergrowth around the end, but there was nothing more than dirt and leaves in either direction.
She cursed under her breath.
“It was a good idea,” Thornwood said softly. “But it looks like we will spend our whole night searching for hidden pathways.”
“Why would it lead us to a dead end?”
Thornwood shrugged. “Old magic can go bad after a time, especially when left to run wild.”
Mouse caught sight of something else in the darkness. Two circles high up on one of the trees glimmered, reflecting blue. She froze, and Thornwood bumped into her.
He followed her gaze. A piece of the shadow untangled from the darkness. Mouse could make out a striped pattern across a long feline back as it moved. Mouse gulped, her mouth going dry.
“A tiger?” Thornwood gasped.
“It’s the rug. The rug from my uncle’s office,” she croaked.