Page 30 of Holly & Hemlock
He shrugs. “I never wanted to be in charge. It’s too lonely at the end.”
I lean in, elbows on the table. “Did you like living here?”
He considers, then moves a rook, pinning my queen. “There are worse prisons. At least the ghosts are predictable.”
“Are your parents still around?”
He lowers his head for a moment. “Killed in a fire. Year after I was sent here.”
“I’m so sorry, Larkin.”
He shrugs. “They didn’t want me anyway.”
“And my aunt?” I prompt.
He advances, takes my rook. His voice is so low I have to lean forward to hear. “She saved me, after a fashion. Fed me, educated me, made sure I never got too comfortable.” He grins, a flash of teeth. “She had a gift for keeping people in their place. There were more people around back then. She had friends stay here too, off and on. More staff.” He waves his arm around for affect. “It wasn’t like this, so stiff and lonely.”
I sacrifice my bishop, a calculated risk. “And Lane?”
The name lands with a dull thud. Larkin’s hands go still, the bishop forgotten.
“Lane has always been here. The staff calls him a fixture.” He finally looks at me, straight on, and there is something wild in the set of his mouth. “I used to envy him. His certainty. He never doubted who he was, or what the house wanted from him.”
“And you did?” I ask.
He laughs, sharp and metallic. “I never knew what it wanted from me. Still don’t.”
I take the bishop he neglected, roll it between my own fingers. The surface is warm, the indent of his grip still fresh.
“I restore art for a living,” I say, apropos of nothing. I’mtaken by Larkin’s honesty and feel like I should share. “Old paintings, usually. Sometimes statues, icons, things that are so broken no one else will touch them.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Is that satisfying?”
I think about it, then nod. “Sometimes. It’s slow work. You learn a lot about patience when you’re repairing something that never wanted to be whole in the first place.”
He absorbs this, then says, “Is that what you’re planning to do here? Fix it?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe I just like seeing how things break.”
There is a silence, deep and mutual, filled with the sound of ice ticking down the windows. The chess match resumes, but it is more an act of mutual distraction than real competition. With each move, our hands draw closer to the center. The gap between us shrinks, and I am acutely aware of the heat radiating off his skin, the way his thumb flexes after every move, as if breaking an old habit.
At one point, he captures my queen, and the moment lands like a physical blow. He lifts the piece and turns it over, inspecting the underside as if searching for a flaw.
He says, “This one always reminded me of your mother.”
I stare at the board, then at him. “You knew her?”
He nods, once. “She visited, when she could. I remember the perfume, the voice. She was kind to me, in a way no one else bothered to be.”
I want to ask more, but something in his face stops me. He looks at the piece again, then sets it down, softer than before.
“She never let me come here.”
“Probably trying to protect you.”
I wonder what that means but decide I don’t want to know enough to ask.
“You miss her,” he says.
