Page 60 of Tempt

In the pasture, a piebald horse grazes, and a trio of hounds give chase around the young man. One of the animals chomps on the boy’s book, clamping it between the jowls and darting off.

“Hey!” the mortal chuckles as he lurches to his feet and races after the dog.

Wonder plants a hand over her mouth to quell a laugh before remembering he cannot hear her. Because of that, a pebble of disappointment skitters down her chest, and her shoulders collapse. An inexplicable loss consumes Wonder as she witnesses the scene.

He snatches the book, then kneels to pat the hounds who happily gather at his feet and slobber his cheeks. But it isn’t until he hums to the animals that Wonder’s palm falls from her lips.

His tenor is beautiful. It’s spectral, made of starlight and something buried underground.

That’s when she feels an impossible sensation. That’s when her heart changes shape. That’s when it gives a tight, permanent clench.

***

The human archive is so quaint!

Wonder prances behind the young man, who attends to the local library. It must be the center of activity in this prairie landscape, considering the town’s modest size. The repository stands no bigger than a humble house, with shingles and a pitched roof, the vicinity surrounded by pomegranate trees.

It’s nearly closing time, the sun dipping behind the hills. Hints of starlight sprinkle the area, making some of the green-bound books glow like a trail.

Like a trail to an answer, a revelation to an unknown inquiry.

Wonder puzzles at the sight. Is it a mere trick of illumination? Is she projecting? Or is it a prediction? Some type of foreshadowing or sign?

Best guess, it’s due to her nomadic tendencies. She blinks out of the trance.

It has taken Wonder a half dozen visits to learn that he’s a librarian, a connoisseur like her. And he’s good at his job, smiling at patrons, talking with them about the war and about enlisting, blushing at fashionable girls who flaunt their parasols and shimmy their shawls as they pass by.

He’s handsome, like a ray of sunshine, and they know it.

One of them has a nose like a peg. Wonder wants to jam it deep into the girl’s face, so that it forms a crater. But the young man doesn’t indulge the debutante beyond a cute flash of sharp teeth.

The canines startle the peg-nosed girl, and she bustles off. His face slackens, pink slicing across his jaw. And now Wonder really wants to retaliate against the female who has made him feel self-conscious.

Instead, Wonder shadows him.

Over time, she returns, making a habit of it, peeling back layers. He’s a respected local who kneels in church pews, tutors children living on the ranch where she first saw him, and rents a room beneath the library. He owns a telescope that peers out the repository’s front window. He rides that piebald horse and scratches three sets of floppy hound ears.

He loves knowing secrets, and mysteries, and loopholes. He loves books. He loves reading.

And Wonder loves him.

***

Isn’t that what this is? Isn’t it love? Isn’t it?

She may be uneducated about this emotion, and it may be nonexistent between deities, but with a human?

Surely, this is what mortals feel. Surely, this is love.

Yes, it must be. So, there. That’s that.

But wanting a human is forbidden. It’s risky and against celestial law.

Wonder is far too besotted to care. The sentiment is soft, and gentle, and dear. It’s a second skin, a private lining stitched under her flesh, insulated from the rules.

After several months of researching methods to contact him, she finds a scroll in the Chamber’s restricted section. It says that if a human and a deity fall in love, they’ll be bound to each other, and that deity will become mortal, which means they can be together.

Together.

---