Chapter 9 #2
“Look,” Weaver finally bit out. “Everyone knows who your friends are. Your friends, your boyfriend. You didn’t even know who I was when we met in the woods night before last,” he said, flinging his arm out at her pile of gifts. “We aren’t all you.”
Periwinkle bit her lip. This was the second time Weaver had called Fletcher her boyfriend, and he wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to argue with him about it. Especially because—he was right about the rest of it. Because she wished she’d known who Weaver was, before. She should have known.
“Perfect Periwinkle,” he said. “Pretty Periwinkle. Popular, perpetually adored Periwinkle.” His words were bitter. His face was just bored.
Was that how he saw her?
More to the point, was perfect all she really was? And did she want better—different—more—than that?
Periwinkle stared into her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said.
She measured out the words slowly, wanting to make sure she said exactly what she meant to.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were before, and I’m surprised at myself for not knowing.
I thought I was friends with everyone, but I’m coming to realize that my definition of everyone has been kind of narrow.
It’s possible I’m a little self-centered, or just overly focused on my closest friends.
” She glanced up at Weaver. “But it’s also possible you’ve been keeping people at a distance on purpose. ”
Weaver had been watching her strangely—guardedly. But there was surprise in his expression now, and his bearing relaxed a little. “It’s not your fault that a lot of people like you,” he finally said. “They have good reason to like you.”
“Maybe. But I’m going to do better.” Periwinkle gave him a small smile. “Watch out, though. Sounds like I’m growing on you.”
Weaver scoffed. “Yeah, I think I’ll be fine.” Still, he watched her a moment more after that, sprawling back in their chair, hands toying with the book she’d given him. When their knees bumped, he pulled away, and Periwinkle curled her feet up underneath her.
“No Legs?” she asked. “Uh—the spider. Not—” She gestured vaguely at their limbs.
Weaver shook his head, still studying her. “Not tonight,” he said. Periwinkle nodded and turned away, not able to hold his gaze.
She looked out past the porch again, across the Frost Forest, out into the Winter Woods. Somewhere, out in a secret forest, the magic scissors were waiting for them. Periwinkle wished she knew where to start looking.
“What is it?” Weaver asked.
She shrugged. “Same thing I’d guess is on your mind. I’ve been thinking all afternoon where the Bobbin Wood might be, and I can’t work it out.”
“Me either.”
“Do you think it’s a misspelling?” Periwinkle asked. “Do you think it’s supposed to say bobbing wood? The Keeper doesn’t make mistakes very often, but maybe he forgot a letter when he copied it down.”
“Well, bobbin is a word. It’s a thing you wrap thread around.” Weaver shook his head. “But I don’t know. I don’t understand it either. Where is a whole other forest hiding in the Winter Woods?”
Mistletoe Terrace. The Frost Forest. Evergreen Overlook. Though Winter had plenty of trees, that was it as actual forests went. But—
Periwinkle frowned, going still. “What,” she said slowly, “about the Drift?”
Weaver straightened. “The Drift?” he demanded. “Sparkles, you want to go wandering into the Drift?”
The Drift—the largest snowdrift in the Winter Woods—was one of the last uncharted corners of their season.
Far to the northwest in Winter, it was a massive mound of snow that had built up year over year on top of…
something. No one was quite sure what. But the few fairies who’d dared to get close had described an impossibly dense thicket underneath, hidden in an even thicker fog.
Even Slush had warned Periwinkle away from it before he left, and Slush was the kind to think maybe hawks were just misunderstood.
“I mean, I don’t want to,” Periwinkle said. “Nobody knows what’s under there. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Unless the Bobbin Wood has been cut down, and I hope for Pixie Hollow’s sake it hasn’t, where else could something the size of a forest be hiding?”
“The Drift,” Weaver said again, the name almost a sigh, pressing his hands to his forehead. “I don’t want you to be right, but you might just be.”
Periwinkle bit her lip.
There was plenty to shock in Pixie Hollow, they’d agreed. Plenty to awe.
If the Drift didn’t awe Weaver, she wasn’t sure what would. The problem was that the idea of exploring it shocked her a little, too.
“You’re worrying, or pouting,” Weaver said. “Or maybe that’s just your face.”
Periwinkle couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Pouting, obviously.” She glanced over at him. “Admit it: you don’t believe I know how to worry. You think my head’s so full of party invitations, there’s not enough room.”
Weaver met her eyes, biting back a rueful smile. Like she’d caught him, and he didn’t know how to tell her so. “Party invitations and presents,” he said, cutting his eyes at her untouched pile of gifts. “Don’t forget presents.”
“How could I?” Periwinkle asked. There were enough books to keep her busy for four seasons, let alone one. Getting them inside would take forever. She yawned and rubbed her eyes.
“Read me something from the book,” she said to Weaver. “I want to think about something good before I go to sleep.” He paged through it, hmming to himself.
“Let’s start somewhere in the middle,” he said.
“Of course that’s what you want to do.” Periwinkle laughed, curling up more comfortably across from him. Weaver bopped the cotton puff on her shoe with a teasing grin, then moved to sit more casually like she had as he got started.
“‘Stella and’—ugh, the light on your porch is terrible.” Weaver twisted uselessly, trying to rotate the chair.
This time, when their knees bumped, neither of them immediately lurched away.
“‘Stella and the’—if I could turn us so the moonlight or a suncatcher would hit the page—” He put his feet down on the porch floor, still scrambling to turn them.
“Wow,” Periwinkle said. “This is relaxing.”
“Be quiet,” Weaver said, leaning over the book, trying not to get into his own light. “I’m reading ‘Stella and the Magic Drum.’”
He grinned up at her then, before he started to read. Periwinkle went still, feeling again like she’d taken a fall and lost her breath.
She didn’t get enough moonlight on her porch, it was true. But if they could’ve read by the light of Weaver’s smile just then, they wouldn’t have needed the suncatchers at all.