Page 79 of Hazard a Guest
Joe breathed in the relief of the warmth, still smelling the sea and sand a bit on his hair and clothes. It had been difficult, he acknowledged, being down on the ground while Ember was up here, executing her confrontation.
It had been difficult, not because he wished to do it for her or because he worried it would go wrong, but simply because being away from her was difficult. Sacrificing even the handful of seconds that may have passed between the conclusion of her business and a reunion with him, where she could tell him all about it, was unfathomable to him now, unnatural.
He used to battle between the urge to flee and the urge to collapse when she was in a room. He used to think she’d never see him, much less speak to him. He knew that those things were true once. It was just hard to remember what it had felt like to live in them.
He could not truly consider a version of himself that would hesitate to speak to her, to touch her, to expect her to see him and be pleased to do so. He kissed her head, tightening his grip on her, and breathed in this better version of reality, the correct one.
It smelled like anise.
“You’re going to miss Christmas,” Hannah continued. “You’ll have to celebrate on the road.”
“What do you care for Christmas?” Ember returned, amused.
“I don’t, I suppose,” Hannah replied with a dramatic little sigh, “but it always does motivate everyone else. Besides, I don’t mind the presents.”
“No one minds the presents,” Freddy agreed with a sage nod. “Everyone loves a present.”
“I’ve got all the gifts I need already,” Ember told them, winning annoyance from both as she wound her fingers through Joe’s. “Don’t give in to avarice on a high holy day, now.”
“It isn’t Christmas yet,” Freddy grumbled. “And this whole house is a temple to avarice.”
The piskies on the fireplace grinned.
“Papa frets over the presents every year, but he never turns them away,” Hannah said with a confiding little smirk. “He’s going to lose his mind if he sees that cross I made with you the other night. Christian corruption everywhere, and what’s a girl to do?”
“Ah, then don’t call it a cross,” Ember replied, raising her brows. “Call it a wheel. And if he frets, assure him it’s more pagan than Christian anyhow.”
“Oh, all right,” Hannah said, giggling. “That will surely soothe him.”
“Pagans and Christians,” Freddy reflected, “all gentiles at the end of the day, hm? Might as well choose the fun ones.”
It made everyone pause and look at him, oblivious and still focused on the fire.
“Did you know,” Joe whispered to Ember later, as they walked back to their rooms, “that Freddy is a bit of a naturalist? He spent half the morning naming cockles and such in the sand.”
“Is he?” she replied, clearly not aware of the fact. “Well, that’s not terrible, is it? Bottom-feeders at the beach are better than the ones in the gambling rooms.”
“They often taste better as well,” Freddy announced loudly from in front of them, the grin apparent in his voice at having caught them discussing him. “I’ll make a dinner when we get back to the city.”
“He’ll make a dinner, he says,” Ember marveled, those golden eyes wide.
“He’s not a bad cook,” Joe told her quietly.
“That’s true,” Freddy agreed, still a little too loud. “A good one, even. You’ll see.”
They would, Joe thought with a feeling in his heart that was something between contentment and a daze.
They would see.
There was nothing but the future now.
Ember stopped at her room, bidding them to wait a moment as she stole inside, the door still cracked open and her shadow moving back and forth against the rug in the hall.
“I think I will pack before anything else,” Freddy told him, sinking his fingertips into his waistcoat pockets. “I’m so ready to be off from here. Penrose offered to buy my dice, you know.”
“Did he?” Joe asked, surprised he had missed this exchange. “And what did you say?”
“I haven’t said anything yet. I want to be rid of them, of course, but I had pictured something far more dramatic and final, like a last shooting roll off the cliff and into the ocean.” Freddy gave a wistful little half-smile. “What do you think I should do?”
