Chapter 32 #2
“I wonder if he owns any clothes in another color,” Mouse said. When John did not quip back, she glanced at him. His gaze remained on the Faerie servant, particularly the gap in his coat. When John caught her looking, he coughed, his ears turning a bright shade of red.
“What?” he demanded.
“A pagan, Reverend Martin? What will the church say?”
“Oh, shut up,” he snapped around the beginning of a traitorous smile.
Mrs. Colt, the baker’s wife, arrived, pressing a muffin on Mouse with her eyes full of sorrow. John used the distraction to shuffle away toward the action and the Faerie servant.
“Everything gone in minutes, and after all your hard work this last month,” Mrs. Colt lamented. “I know you’ll stay with Reverend Martin, but should anything change, my door is always open.”
Mouse barely had time to thank her for the offer and the muffin before others came in from the innkeeper’s wife, the schoolmistress, and one of the farmers’ wives.
She thanked them all, unsure of what to do with her hands.
Eventually, John caught wind of her panic and ushered the women away to help the fire brigade.
“Sorry—I should have noticed earlier,” he said.
“They were very kind.”
“Kind, but overbearing? I think they are funneling all their guilt and curiosity into you.”
“Curiosity?” Mouse asked. “I thought you said the magic is mostly forgotten. Are they curious about the fire?”
John snorted.
“I’m afraid you will have to spell it out for me. I’m a bit exhausted, if you can believe it,” Mouse snapped.
Chastened, John nodded past Mouse’s shoulder. She turned to follow his gaze. Thornwood huddled on a bench far up the drive, separate from the villagers.
“Right,” Mouse said. “I better go and talk to him.”
“Not before you eat that damn muffin. Otherwise, all my power won’t keep the village women away from you.”
“As you command.” It was gone in three hasty bites. If asked later, Mouse would not recall if it was cranberry or poppy seed, only that it was the best muffin she had ever had. Another cup of tea followed, supplied by a patient John.
“All I seem to do lately is ladle tea into your mouth.”
“It is your religious duty,” Mouse said primly.
He chuckled. “I’m glad you are back to your old self again. You had me worried last night. You are taking this extraordinarily well.”
“Never fear; not even Faerie magic can hold me back from teasing you,” Mouse said, finishing her cup.
“I would expect nothing less from one of your ilk,” he said. “Now, hurry up and talk to Thornwood before he starts growing moss.”
Thornwood had not moved at all. His mug shook in his hand.
His eyes focused on the hills beyond Tithe.
In the distance, a shadowy train cut through the landscape.
A pillar of smoke billowed behind it, pale against the growing darkness.
He winced when Mouse sat down beside him.
Neither of them spoke until the train was long out of sight.
“I owe you an apology,” Thornwood said at last. “Although I know it does not mean much, considering my offenses.”
“I will hear it nonetheless,” Mouse said.
He nodded. “It was my intention upon first meeting you to trick you into giving me Thistlemarsh Hall.”
“To give to the Faerie King in exchange for your mother,” she interrupted. He nodded. “I see. Did you sabotage the renovations to force me into marriage?”
“No. At first, I thought I would be able to deal for it. Originally, I was going to make a deal with you for it in exchange for my help, but you were prepared by your book. Then, I thought the Faerie King would prefer a repaired house. It would put me in his good graces, and also endear me to you. Easier to make a deal when the person likes you. So I decided I would bargain for it once you owned Thistlemarsh properly. But the house started fighting back, and I was not sure what to do.”
“How were you going to convince me to give you Thistlemarsh, before you knew I’d lost?” Thornwood stared at the horizon. Mouse sighed. “Will your original plan disgust me?”
He grimaced. “I thought I would offer you a deal regarding your brother.”
Mouse jerked.
“You would use my brother as a bargaining chip, after your own mother has been used as one for years?” she asked.
Thornwood shrugged listlessly. “That was my plan. I can see now how it would seem horrible by mortal standards, but I truly thought I was being generous. My plan was to heal him. Or at least to heal the physical symptoms. Magic is not adept at healing mental ailments, but I was willing to try as well, in return for the house. Regardless, it did not happen. Thistlemarsh was lost, and the only way for it to stay with you, and therefore with me, was through marriage.”
“I know you are a Faerie, but you are also a fool. Why didn’t you just ask me for Thistlemarsh? If I knew your mother was trapped, I would want to help you. I’m sure together we could have come up with something better than your terrible plans.”
He blanched, looking as though he might be sick. “You would have helped me?”
“Yes, I think I would have. But I suppose now we will never know.”
Thornwood stared into his cup. Mouse hummed, bile biting at the back of her tongue. She thought she had prepared herself for disappointment after the last month, but knowing she was a strategic factor in his plan struck her like another house falling around her head.
His fingers flexed against the mug. Black stained his fingertips and palms, reaching up along his forearms. Mouse charted the darkness up the gashes in his clothes. He was still shaking.
“Here,” she said, shrugging off her wool blanket. He glared at it as if she had offered him a damp rag. She rolled her eyes before forcing it over his shoulders. “Don’t be a stubborn ass.”
He took the blanket without further fuss, tucking the corners around him. Some of his stiffness faded into tired resignation.
“I ran into Carlyle in the woods, by the way. You did not do the best job hiding your handiwork,” she said. She was proud that the sticky heartache in her throat worked to clip her words rather than shake them.
“I did not intend to hide it,” Thornwood said, cold as winter frost. “That is one of the few things I do not regret about this debacle.”
“It was such a charming wedding gift for your new bride to stumble upon while running for her life,” Mouse said.
He winced again. She let the words hover between them for a few moments before continuing.
“I would ask you to change him back, but he does make a rather charming ornament. He has what he wants—he will be a permanent fixture at Thistlemarsh, at least until he’s learned his lesson. ”
Thornwood’s fingers clinked against the mug in an erratic pattern. He was nervous. He had not expected her matter-of-fact manner and did not know how to handle her reasonable, detached quips.
Good, she thought. He should know how it feels to be on the back foot for once.
“You are not as angry as I was expecting,” he said.
“Oh, I am angry,” Mouse said, lifting the cup from his hands and emptying the contents onto the lawn. She tucked the mug behind her heel. Without his ceramic shield, Thornwood’s hands retreated into the blanket. “I was foolish enough to think you cared for me.”
“I do!” he said, leaning toward her. She raised her eyebrow at him in her best imitation of Mickelwaithe, and he flinched. “I know I ruined it, but I do.”
Mouse stopped herself from comforting him. She did not trust herself at that moment. There were too many emotions fighting in her chest, and she needed at least a full night’s sleep and an egg sandwich before she could begin to untangle them.
“Self-pity is a very unattractive trait, especially for those groveling for forgiveness,” Mouse said, pushing herself up off the bench. “We both need to go in for observation overnight at the village hospital.”
“I’m not interested in being watched like an animal in a zoo.”
“Stop overdramatizing. Besides, the town will ask fewer questions the more cooperative we are. I prefer to move forward without an inquiry into your origins, if we can help it.”
Thornwood shrank down further under the blanket.
“Think of it as part of your penance,” Mouse said.
He blinked at her in confusion. “Penance?”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about for the past few minutes?
” She sighed. Her eyes started to ache as well.
She smoothed her fingers over the bridge of her nose, reveling in momentary relief.
“Never mind all that. I can barely understand what I’m saying.
I’m going to the clinic, and you should as well. ”
When he did not respond, she took a deep, steadying breath and marched back to the circle of villagers.
“He’s definitely more stubborn than you,” Mouse said as she reached John.
“Perhaps not,” he whispered back. Mouse looked over her shoulder. Thornwood stood on the edge of the group, a moon on the outer orbit of the villagers’ circle. “Best to meet him halfway.”
John strode toward the Faerie, his hand outstretched. Under the scar and the black eye, Thornwood took in John’s proffered handshake.
The tension brewing among the villagers broke like a thunderstorm as soon as the reverend and the Faerie clasped hands.
Smoke from Thistlemarsh’s ruins hovered low over the woods like a fog rolling out into the rest of the valley.
The villagers accompanied them to the hospital, and a parade formed as they walked through town.
Those few who had not come down to the Hall soon gathered outside on the street.
Mouse heard ever-more-embellished tales of the fire and subsequent collapse of the manor house until late in the night.
Eventually, the doctor was satisfied that her concussion was not fatal and permitted her to sleep.
On his cot, Thornwood curled in a ball under the wool blanket.
His eyelashes fluttered in his sleep. Mouse made herself look away when she felt her disappointment rising again.
He does not owe you anything, and you do not owe him anything, she thought, forcing her mind to drift. That is best for both of us.