Page 29 of Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel 2)
For her part, Proserpina is quieter than normal, less communicative and expressive than I’m used to, but she’s still the most fascinating thing in the world to me, and I still watch her face and lips and body language as if I’ll be made to test on it. She’s sad, she’s tired, and yet, her sadness and tiredness aren’t all of her. Every now and again, I catch glimpses of something else in her eyes—something young and fresh and determined—and I see something being born underneath all that grief. Something new.
I only hope I can be a part of it.
“Can I see your house?” Poe asks one morning.
It’s been a full week and half since the bones were found, and since the rain had finally eased back into a pale gray lid over the valley, she’d asked if I wanted to take a walk before I had to go in for my afternoon shift at the library.
We don’t go near the ruins—though the bones have been removed and placed in the custody of the pathologist, the thorn chapel is still ad
orned with flapping crime scene tape—and so we walk into the village instead. Past my ratty mess of a house.
Her request makes me defensive, shuttered. “It’s not like Thornchapel, Poe. It’s a piece of shit.”
“But it’s your piece of shit,” she replies. “And I didn’t grow up in a castle either. I want to see it because I want to know more about you.”
It’s hard resisting those green eyes, curious and searching, prettier than the chapel ruins in high summer. But I still try, valiantly, since I still have some pride left, no matter how tattered or weak.
And because I truly don’t understand why she wants to know more about me, the boy as ratty and depleted as his house. I’ve never been good at anything but reading and remembering. “It’s a mess. A real mess. I haven’t changed anything since my mother died.”
Yes, she knows all this, I’ve already admitted to her once early on that I’d put my life on hold to return to Thorncombe. I traded college for shelving books and fixing Augie’s accounts, traded friends and family for near-utter isolation. Like my mother, I’m tied to Thorncombe whether I like it or not.
But it’s one thing to admit after a drink in a dark pub, and another thing to see in the unfriendly light of a winter day; I’m embarrassed at what Poe will find inside my house, at what she’ll make of my life. A still life stiller than any bowl of fruit.
“Have you ever considered going through your mother’s things?” she asks. As though it’s as simple as going through a dresser drawer and keeping only the socks that spark joy.
“No.” I feel myself retreating, resisting, throwing up walls between her ever-present curiosity and my natural inclination to burrow into the stillness inside myself where I feel safest.
Poe doesn’t let me. She slips her fingers through mine, halting our steps and bringing her body close. She peers up at me, searching, searching, relentless and probing and sweet, like a tender shoot piercing through the cold earth.
“You don’t have to pull away,” she whispers. “Not from me.” She reaches up and traces around my piercing, and my eyes flutter closed. I’m not bothered by the cold, so I haven’t noticed how chilled my skin is until her warmth ghosts over my mouth. I haven’t noticed how starved I am for her until the mere brush of her fingertips sends blood rushing down to my cock.
Okay, that’s a lie. I’ve been very aware of how starved I am for her. Ever since Imbolc, it’s like my body has been lit on fire. Wrapped in thorns the same way Poe and Delphine were.
I ache to fuck. I keen for it.
“I can’t help pulling away sometimes,” I whisper back, forcing myself out of my dark, needful places and back into the light, with her.
“You want to be sad? Then be sad. You want to live in a shrine to loneliness and grief? I think I understand that urge more than I ever could have before. But please, Saint, please—don’t do it alone. Don’t do it without me.”
I don’t want to.
The thought surprises me, but the minute I have it, I know it’s true. I don’t want to do anything without Poe. Which is a problem, because she’s meant for someone else. She’s not meant for me.
I know that’s true too.
I lean into her, pressing my forehead to hers as we stand in the middle of this narrow country lane. Even though her skin is warm, I can feel little shivers moving through her, and sudden, visceral unhappiness fills me at the thought of her discomfort. I don’t like the thought of her being cold.
It’s that more than anything else that forces my hand.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go in.”
She leans back a little so she can meet my eyes, rewarding my bravery with a real smile, a curl of those plush, coral-colored lips that hits me like a punch to the chest. “Really?” she asks. Her cheeks are splotched red from the cold air, and her thick scarf pushes her glossy hair into a dark halo around her face. She looks like she can’t believe that I’m actually giving in, that I’m actually opening up, and it makes me miserable to think she’s been waiting for something so small from me and I haven’t given it to her. I want to give her everything, even if it ultimately means giving her the chance to be with Auden.
I, of all people, understand the brittle, icy agony of wanting Auden.
“Yes, really,” I say, and then I take her hand and lead her into my terrible house.
I’m not sure what I expect when we walk inside—disgust, maybe, or pity—but Poe’s eyes stay bright and curious as we move through the hallway to the sitting room, where the remnants of all my attempts to be interesting and valuable live. An old laptop, an even older guitar—notebooks and sketchbooks. They’re all sorted neatly enough to my mind—lined up on a shelf, propped in a designated corner—but they are clutter. Added to that are the shelves and shelves of books my mother owned, hundreds of books that she could never bear to give away and neither can I, and then scattered along those shelves are her velas and rosaries and holy cards, still organized the way they were when she died. There’s a television I don’t watch very often, an old sofa, and a fireplace I never use, and a picture of the Last Supper up on the wall. Piles of blankets, a bottle of gin, and a stack of books on the floor near the sofa attest to what I do in my spare time.
