Page 68 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
Rebecca and Delphine took a guest room, as did Becket. Saint opted for a couch in the attic, and Auden dropped his and Poe’s bags in Poe’s girlhood room. David frowned at that, but said nothing. Perhaps he felt comforted by the presence of only one twin-sized bed in the room, thinking someone would sleep in a sleeping bag or end up on a couch downstairs, which was rather foolish in Saint’s opinion. Auden Guest would sleep wherever he wanted to sleep, even if that meant using Proserpina as a warm, curvy blanket.
After dinner, they ended up at a bar a few blocks away, which is where they sat now. The three Brits perched on their stools, looking inordinately out of place in their pleats and presses and Italian leather belts, while Saint and Poe fought over the beer menu and Becket checked his phone.
“Trouble at the parish?” Saint asked.
Becket shook his head. “Everything’s fine. But I’ve never taken a vacation before and it’s unnerving not to be there. A deacon is leading the Chaplet and Rosary recitations, and they’re sending in a priest from Bristol to do the Mass I’m missing, but what if he can’t find something in the sacristy? Or someone forgets to lock up and teenagers get in—” He breaks off, blowing out a breath. He’s wearing a chambray button-up, white pants, and deck shoes. He looks like he left a yacht behind, not a tiny forest church.
“I need a drink,” he mutters, and then edges off his stool to walk up to the bar.
Meanwhile, Delphine is trying and failing to find a good selfie angle. The neon beer signs and giant televisions airing baseball games are fucking with her light.
“What would you like?” Rebecca asks.
“Bubbles,” Delphine says, still tilting her head this way and that as she holds out her phone in front of her. “And a cocktail too, the cutest one they have. Not to drink—just for me to take a picture of. Okay, well, maybe to drink too.”
Rebecca sighs, but she goes without protest. After a minute, Delphine hops off her stool too to go search for a better selfie spot in the room.
Auden is squinting at a sign behind the bar, and he finally pulls out his clear-framed glasses so he can read it. “Rock Chalk Jay . . . hawk?” he pronounces carefully. Then he looks at Poe, his face as expectant as a Latin pupil’s after a recitation.
Poe’s laughing and is presumably about to explain what a jayhawk is when a woman approaches the table. She’s olive-skinned and dark-haired, with kohl-rimmed eyes and a septum piercing. She’s dressed in black boots, a black miniskirt, with a red shirt that says Fire Walk with Me.
“Little doll,” the woman says warmly.
“Mistress Emily,” Poe says, and she ducks her head in a way that makes Saint think of kneeling.
“You didn’t say you were coming back,” Emily chastises, and Saint notices a faint note of disapproval
in her tone. He remembers that this is the ex-girlfriend, the ex-Mistress. The one who gave Proserpina stripes on her ass to wear across the ocean. He looks at her more closely, suddenly aware of his own boots, the glinting metal in his own face. Poe seems to have a type.
“It’s for my mother’s funeral,” Poe says. “We found her remains in England this spring, and now she’ll be laid to rest here.” She sounds matter-of-fact as she explains it. A librarian of her own tragedy. Far away from the sobbing girl he held in his arms the morning they found her mother.
Saint thinks about how people can be like this—impersonal and efficient, even when they are also capable of screaming into the fog. Even when they have to be beaten and fucked in order to use their heart properly again.
How can you ever know a person when they are ever changing, stronger on some days, softer on others? She is like the ritual landscape described in Dr. Davidson’s book, Saint thinks. Secrets upon secrets upon secrets, buried under flowers and thorns.
Emily’s demeanor changes at Poe’s explanation, softening a little. “Oh, sweet doll. I’m so sorry.”
Auden’s hand covers Poe’s on the table, offering comfort and staking claim all at once.
Emily doesn’t fail to notice this, and a small, tight smile pulls at her mouth. “I don’t think we’ve met before,” she says, extending a hand to Auden. “I’m Emily Genovese.”
“Auden Guest,” he says, returning her handshake. His expression is polite, his mouth shaped into amiability, but something burns in the air around him. “And this is St. Sebastian Martinez.”
Saint offers his hand too, and Emily nods. “It’s nice to meet you both. Are you . . . friends of Poe’s?”
Auden’s face doesn’t change, but there’s no hesitation when he answers. “She’s mine.”
Emily has the look of someone whose suspicions are being confirmed. “Ah,” she responds.
“And she’s dating St. Sebastian too,” Auden adds, always careful to include Saint.
They’re both careful, these days. The last five weeks have been nothing but care. Tiptoeing around the past. Dancing around the future.
“Ah,” Emily says. “I see.”
“It’s good to see you,” Poe says, clearly trying to break the tension. “Are you still going to Orthia’s these days? That’s our old kink club,” she says to Saint and Auden by way of explanation.
Emily nods, her eyes scanning over where Auden’s hand is still curled possessively over Poe’s. She seems to come to a decision. “I was actually going to go tonight,” she says. “Do you want to come? I could get your group in for free.”
