Page 23 of Holly & Hemlock
He nods, slow and grave, but I can see the calculation already beginning behind his eyes.
I leave the room, the hem of my sweater snagging briefly on a brass door handle. I don’t look back, but I can feel the library’s gaze all the way down the corridor.
In the Blue Room, I stand with my back against the door and listen to my own heart beating, loud and arrhythmic. I touch my lips, half-expecting to find them bleeding. Instead, they are numb, kissed raw.
I tell myself I am not here for him. I tell myself a lot of things, but tonight, none of them stick.
7
Kindling
It’s colder now than it’s ever been. The electricity has been coming and going as it pleases—currently gone—and earlier I overheard Mrs. Whitby speaking with Lane about frozen pipes and how their usual repairman is blocked by the snow.
The Blue Room has ceased being my warm oasis and is now frigid. I’m sitting on the rug by the fire, hands cupped around the dying candle between my knees. The air is so dry that the flame shivers with every draft. Other candles flicker throughout the room, giving what would be a beautiful ambience if not for the ice in my veins.
Outside, the blizzard has become a siege, battering the old glass with pellets of ice and the occasional frozen branch that sounds like the strike of a drum. The radiator hisses and knocks in the corner, an invalid laboring through its last hours. I’m not entirely sure it’s working at all. It doesn’t seem to make a difference.
The wind finds a new weakness in the window frame, a whistle so high and keening it makes my molars ache. I press my hands to my ears, almost laughing. My pulse is fast,probably from the brandy Whitby brought me, or maybe from the memory of Larkin’s hands, or maybe just from the deep genetic knowledge that I am not meant to outlast a house like this.
I sit for a while longer, as if I might grow roots through the boards and out into the frost. Then, with a breath that fogs the air in front of my mouth, I force myself upright. The fire is dead, of course, a grave of gray ash and one or two sullen red eyes buried at the bottom. The logs are in the hall. I make a plan, as if the act of scheming can warm me: match, wood, kindle, flame.
I have not yet made it halfway across the room when a knock comes at the door.
I freeze, unsure whether I should answer, hide, or simply allow the house to absorb me into the wainscot. I’ve been alone most of the day and feel the house is turning me into a paranoid recluse.
“Come in,” I say, my voice creaking like an old rocking chair.
The door opens. Lane fills the frame.
He is bigger than I remembered, or perhaps the cold has made him bulkier: his coat is dusted white at the seams, his beard rimed with crystals, his hands bare but loaded with a pyramid of split wood. His breath makes ghosts in the light from the corridor. There is a wet, evergreen smell that I associate with childhood holidays and less with him, but tonight the association feels right.
God, he’s beautiful.
He stares at me, not speaking, the set of his jaw suggesting that this is a mission and not a social call.
He stands there, boots leaking small puddles onto the rug, and I see that his eyes are not merely gray, but flecked with blue and something almost green. For the first time since Iarrived, I am embarrassed of my own appearance—sweater stretched and pilled at the elbows, hair unwashed, dark circles under both eyes. I wrap my arms tighter around myself, as if to ward off a judgment that isn’t coming.
“Room’s cold,” he says, voice gravelly from the night air.
“It’s not the room,” I reply. “It’s the universe.”
He almost smiles, the beard hiding most of the attempt. He moves to the fireplace and sets the pile of wood down next to it. When he attempts to start rebuilding the fire, I stop him, not wanting to look completely helpless.
“Don’t worry about building the fire. I can do it.”
He turns to look at me, and I know he wants to question that, but instead just shrugs.
“Thank you for the wood.” I want to facepalm at the double entendre.
No one says anything for a moment. Lane leaves the wood stacked neatly next to the hearth, and then stands.
He breaks the silence. “You should sleep by the fire tonight. Power’s been out for an hour now. House’ll go subzero before dawn.”
I nod, rubbing my hands together, then holding them out to the warmth. The first wave of heat is almost painful, a sting on the backs of my fingers.
Lane turns, surveys the room. “Blue Room’s the coldest when the weather turns,” he says, almost to himself. “Always has been. Some flaw in the walls.”
“I believe it,” I say, then add, “Thank you.” The words sound weak in my own ears.
