Page 25 of The Curse of Indy Moore
Baxter became an anomaly. He didn’t quite fit the spaces he once filled. Now that I had his attention, I grew too full, the space packed too tightly, bursting at the seams.
Aunt Agnes squeezed my hand. “We’llwait outside.”
I wish she wouldn’t, if only to give me an escape, but she departed, and I had nowhere to go that would make my heart cease its yearning. I approached Baxter hesitantly, wondering what to say, if anything.
“Can I talk to you for a moment?” he asked.
Outside, Aunt Agnes and my cousins gawked at Ivory House, based on their craned necks. Mr. Hawthorne spoke behind us, chipper to have the spotlight. The villagers had questions, but as he said, time was of the essence. Even now, knowing it was hardly past daybreak, I worried about returning to Ivory House.
“I have to pack, so just a moment,” I replied.
“For what? What’s going on?”
“I will stay with Mr. Hawthorne for the time being until my curse is settled out.”
If it was.
Baxter forced a smile. “Is that really appropriate? How does your aunt feel about this?”
“I don’t see how it wouldn’t be appropriate, and my aunt is fine with the decision. Regardless, I am old enough to make them for myself. This is for the best.”
“But I don’t trust him.” He settled closer, whispering every word. “We know how artificers are. They’re power hungry and shouldn’t be trusted.”
“You trusted Miss Francesca.”
He stiffened at the accusation. “That was entirely different. We were in public. She was putting on a performance. You want to live with a stranger far from everyone you know. If anything went wrong, we wouldn’t know until it was too late.”
I understood where Baxter’s worries came from. He had an unpleasant run-in with an artificer in his youth. He worked for a tailor during his teenage years doing menial tasks. An artificer had their suit delivered. When they were unhappy with the product, they sewed a rune in Baxter’s coat pocket that cursed him to be late to everything. It sounded painless enough, even mildly humorous as I had laughed when he first said it, except that the tailor didn’t believe him, and he lost his job in the first week. By the fourth, he lost his loft, and that drove him to Westshire, where hefinally discovered the rune and disposed of the coat entirely. One unpleasant run-in with an artificer changed the entire trajectory of his life.
Artificers weren’t meant to enchant anyone without consent, but it was only illegal if anyone cared enough to listen. Baxter, the son of a warehouse worker, didn’t have worthwhile connections, so the artificer got away with it. As could Mr. Hawthorne.
“I am not entirely trusting of him, either, but I am more than capable of handling myself, and I won’t be alone. There is another artificer there, Mr. Thatcher. He’s a retired botany professor, and he has proven himself a kind man. They are the most capable hands, and I need that now,” I explained.
“I know, but I’m worried,” he argued between clenched teeth, giving me that same look of disbelief as that night here in the tavern. He couldn’t believe I cut our conversation short, and he couldn’t believe I wasn’t entirely on his side. I was the one in the wrong, again.
“Why? We broke up. More correctly, you broke up with me,” I said.
“Which was a mistake.”
I expected to be ecstatic. Ever since the breakup, I dreamed of Baxter returning one way or the other. He arrived at the front door with a bouquet, or he came into the tavern to apologize. We hugged and made up, and those brief moments of color shared with him bled into my dull gray days.
Instead, as he took my hands and held them against his chest, I became overwhelmed. Trapped in a crowded room, surrounded by prying eyes and overhearing ears, I couldn’t do anything but stand there and drown in his attention.
“Worrying this much about you, I’ve realized that I still care. I’d like to try again, if you would let me,” he said before kissing me. He stole the breath from my lungs like he had the first time, then settled his forehead against mine.
“When you return, let’s pick up from where he left off,” he pleaded.
“I, um… I don’t know if now is the time to be thinking about relationships,” I said, to which he kissed me again, reminding me of how good it felt to have a home in his arms.
“I would argue now is the best time.”
I had always been the forgotten garden. Day in and day out, I thirsted for my first bloom, only to be met by endless thirst. Now, an opportunity was laid at my feet to renew a relationship, to be more than the less-than-a-year girlfriend like I always wanted. The dress I was so excited to wear could be of use, even if it bore a stain, but I could mend it, as we could mend this.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He kissed my temple. “Write to me, and should that bastard try anything, let me know.”
He held me close, where I settled so easily into his arms, hoping that I hadn’t made another poor decision.
