Page 90 of Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel 2)
And the thought was also this: how handsome he’ll be in the mornings, blinking awake on the pillow next to me.
And the thought came with images, with sights and smells and sounds, it came with the fantasy of watching a grown-up Auden knot a tie as the morning news filtered in from another room, of watching an older Auden read the newspaper, read a book, laugh at something from across a Parisian café table. And maybe there were children too? And a dog, a big one that they could lay on and thump and wrestle with.
And the thought came with their ghost, Proserpina, there for it all, beautiful and green-eyed and tucked between their arms.
That was what came with looking at Ralph’s face, and St. Sebastian had to look away again.
Ralph sighed, and surprisingly, it wasn’t an irritated sigh or a displeased one. It sounded almost…sad. “My wife and I are preparing to move back to London, and I don’t imagine we’ll be back here until Christmas. But when we come back, I’d like to speak with your mom sometime. About your future and how I can help. Help more than I have been, at least.”
This was beyond unexpected, and St. Sebastian’s gaze snapped back to Ralph. “What?”
“I think you heard me. Now, you should go before my wife sees you.”
It was such a strange thing to say, on top of the strange thing that preceded it, that all of St. Sebastian’s footing was lost and all he could do was nod. Maybe Mrs. Guest blamed him for the attack or maybe she didn’t like knowing Auden was spending time with a boy in the first place—hundreds of maybes piled up in his head so fast he could barely squeeze out a polite goodbye as he turned to leave.
“And St. Sebastian,” Ralph called out after him. St. Sebastian turned to look at Auden’s father, who was staring at him with dark, impassive eyes.
“Yes?”
“I’m taking care of those boys, do you understand? The ones who hurt you and Auden. No one hurts Guests and escapes the price.”
St. Sebastian didn’t have an answer to that, and Ralph didn’t seem to expect one. He closed the door to Thornchapel and St. Sebastian was left alone.
Chapter 26
Proserpina
Present Day
* * *
“So the stag was a boy?”
“I think you mean a young man,” Rebecca corrects from her perch at the end of the table.
“Ugh, fine,” I say. “The stag was a young man?”
We’re all gathered around the table in the library, curving over the pictures Saint has brought from his mother’s office. Apparently she’d been leaning on her access to the Thorncombe Historical Society’s archives—archives being a stack of cardboard boxes in an old lady’s attic—to write an article about local folk customs, and she’d gathered some very, very old photographs in the process. They all seem to be of the same celebration—May Day in Thorncombe—and there’re photographs from as far back as 1899, going up until the mid-seventies.
The usual May Day props are represented: there’re several pictures of the maypole and the wreath and ribbons above it. There are pictures of young men and women a-maying, with arms full of flowers and boughs of greenery, and then portraits of young women in white dresses wearing flower crowns shyly holding hands with young men in front of the maypole.
But it’s the pictures of boys wearing antler headdresses that made Saint bring them to us, and so now here we are with the pictures spread over the table, and Dartham’s book and the Record open beside them. I’m studying them intently, marking the similarities between the boys in the pictures and my dreams about Auden’s ancestor running through the forest.
The wild god.
“I want to look,” Delphine chirps from beside me.
“Take Auden’s gloves, I think he’s done looking,” I say, my eyes glued to the pictures.
There’s a puff of protest from behind my shoulder, and I tear my eyes away from the pictures so I can properly glare at Delphine. “These pictures have been in a cardboard box that is not acid-free, sitting in a folder that is also not acid-free, in Saint’s house which is the furthest away from environmentally controlled as I can imagine.”
“Hey,” Saint protests, but I ignore him.
“We are not compromising century-old photographs a single bit more, not while they’re in our care, which means gloves, Delly. I’m serious.”
Delphine pouts at me, but she accepts gloves from an amused Auden. “We don’t have to wear gloves with the books,” she grumbles as she pulls them on.
“That’s because book paper is different than photographic paper; book paper has short fibers that—” Oh God, why am I even bothering? “Gloves,” I say instead, in the firmest voice I can manage.
