Page 61 of Tempt

She’s never enjoyed the concept of together with someone. What is that like? Is it worth it?

Again, how can she communicate with him? Maybe it’s simple.

She uses mortal ink and paper to compose a letter. Drafting what’s supposed to be a perfectly structured declaration, she deviates into a stream of consciousness.

He has a name, one that had revealed itself when an elderly schoolmarm and her husband—who’s too old to fight in the war—had tipped their bonnet and hat to him.

But Wonder doesn’t address the young man that way. She has a lovelier moniker in mind.

Dearest Wayward Star…

Pulse thumping, she smuggles the letter from the Peaks and packs it into his saddlebag.

***

His reception is not what she hopes for.

At sunset, orange slashes through clouds. Sitting on the library stoop after closing time, he discovers the envelope in his saddlebag. Beneath a pomegranate tree, Wonder fidgets and watches him scan the contents.

A flush creeps along his throat, which should be a good sign.

It isn’t. He glances around, his normally sweet expression crinkling into a glower, as if he thinks somebody’s playing a joke on him. His irises flash, resembling scythes. “Very funny,” he calls out to the panorama. Crumbling the note, he jams it into his pocket and stomps indoors.

Wonder’s heart dries like a flower. She tries to console herself, because at least he hadn’t destroyed the note, even if he’d been tempted to.

***

Another letter. And another. And another.

She tries, and she tries, and she tries. She offers a hint of who she is, and she tells him that he’s magnificent. She adores the sound of his voice and wants to know what his favorite book is.

Why does he like pomegranates with his eggs? Why are his nails tapered?

He never answers. Rather, he studies and then stores the letters in a book.

Befuddlement crosses his features, and apprehension glazes his eyes, growing more pigmented by the day, purple pansies of sleep deprivation leaking from under his lids. He pores through hardbacks with a zealousness that disturbs the library debutantes. He interrogates the ones who’d once fancied him, as if they might be the culprits of this prank.

***

This hardly bodes well for her duties. She misses every bull’s-eye during target practice, squirms during meditation, and snaps at her peers.

It kindles suspicion from her classmates. When Love asks what Wonder thinks touching a human would be like, Wonder merely shrugs. She’s not interested in dwelling.

***

The letters consume him. When he concludes they aren’t the product of a wicked stunt, he gets vocal about it, riling up the locals by claiming there’s a female specter calling out to him.

Have they heard her, too? Do they know who she is?

One time, he shouts at thin air, calling out for her while wandering the main roads. “Who are you? What are you? Where are you from? Christ, answer me! Why won’t you answer me, huh? I said, who are you?”

Wonder cries into his ear, “I’m here! I’m right here!”

Belatedly, it occurs to her that she can write to him in real time while he’s watching. However, that would be an even greater peril, since she cannot trust herself not to get more carried away than she already is. She might reveal too much of her world.

He hunts through the prairie-scape until it’s no longer tolerable. The townsfolk convene. Fearful, they send for a regiment of physicians who drag the young man across the dust.

“It’s true!” he screams at the physicians, thrashing against them and kicking up grit. “It’s true! She’s real, she’s real, she’s real! Keep away, let me go! She’s real!”

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