Page 41 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
The words echo in the empty room.
Chapter Fourteen
Over the next few days, Helena and I take to spending long hours together, chatting amicably about nothing and everything.
It’s a novel experience, because, for most of my life, female friendship has escaped me. Not out of choice. More because the one close friend I had in childhood, Holly Hendricks, turned out to not be my friend at all. When I was twelve, I overheard her confessing to our classmates that she didn’t care for me all that much. She just loved how lucky she became when we were together.
I was fortunate, of course, to have found out. But the experience altered something in me. Like a broken bone that never set quite right, my faith in friendship was bent askew that day. Which was probably why I delved so enthusiastically into books, afterward.
Helena is no Holly, though. She doesn’twantanything from me. I can’t pinpoint which quality of hers makes me so certain—maybe it’s her no-nonsense attitude, or her quiet aura of self-assuredness. Maybe it’s both of those things.
Either way, when I’m with her, I sometimes forget I’m a Charm.
It’s remarkably freeing.
I ask Helena every question I can think of. I learn that she has no children and lives in Hearthsgill, a three-day carriage journey from Pine’s End. It’s the same place Weston is from. The same place his whole family still lives.
The place he left when he was fifteen.
Helena asks me about my family, too, which prompts me to wonder, probably much too late, what my brother must think of my disappearance.
Does Brendan know I’m okay? That Weston is with me? Or...not with me, really, but lurking around the fringes of my life, more savior than jailer?
He must, because Weston and I vanished at the same time.
There aren’t many potential explanations for that, except the truth, and the realization grips me in cold claws. But Brendan must not know about this place. If he did, he’d have shown up already, demanding I do my duty and marry Alverton.
My gut sours. I can’t imagine how this all will end. At some point, I’ll have to return to Pine’s End, but when I do, I’ll need to ensure Brendan doesn’t blame his best friend for this.
Weston has taken such enormous risks for my sake. Even if he won’t talk to me.
On the day Helena departs, she wraps me in a hug. She looks hale and healthy, now. The shadows beneath her eyes have faded, and no rasp taints her breathing, even when she gathers a lungful of autumn air.
She holds me close and murmurs in my ear. “Don’t let him shut you out, okay?”
I cling to her, wishing she would stay. “I don’t exactly have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.” She pulls back and taps my Mark with a bare forefinger. I nearly lose my breath at how casually she does it. Given that she shares blood with Weston, such a cavalier touch seems almost illicit, somehow. “This thing only dictates your life if you let it.”
I swallow, the sentiment rendering me mute for a moment, and nod.
Helena winks. “Bold as brass, remember?”
Heat prickles at my eyes. I do remember.
“And see if you can convince him to visit us, all right?” She grins and backs away. “Or me, at least. Once he’s able.”
My brows pull together. “What do you mean, once he’s able?”
She laughs and spins on a heel, then heads for the forest, waving once without turning around. A loaded pack weights her shoulders, and I imagine Weston must be somewhere out of view, waiting to see her off.
“Once he’s able,” I murmur to myself. “Once he’s able?”
I sigh. Apparently, Helena has more faith in me than I do.
But I can’t shake her words, even when night falls and I install myself in the armchair, where I stare into the crackling fire.
Once he’s able.
