Great and Precious Things

by Rebecca Yarros

  My eyes jerked to his. They were the same shade and shape Sullivan’s had been, but it didn’t hit me in the gut the way it used to.

  “I’m torn,” he admitted. “Because I love you enough to beg you to get away from him. But I love him enough to beg you not to leave him. Not to give up on him. Because I honestly think you’re the one person who can rebuild him—or break him. He’s way past ever listening to me.”

  “I’ll never give up on him, Xander. I love him. I’ve always loved Camden.” I loaded each word so he understood the full value of what I was telling him.

  His eyes squeezed shut, and he sucked in an audible breath. The way he nodded slowly told me that he got the message. When he opened his eyes, they were clear of the condemnation I’d expected. After all, he’d loved Sullivan more than Cam, and we both knew it.

  He simply squeezed my hand and pressed his lips in a thin line as he nodded again. “I’m so sorry, and selfishly, I’m so glad. He’s his own worst enemy. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” He stood and let go of my hand. “Hey, Rose, why don’t you come and sit with me for a second so my dad will take his medication? I think you might just be too smart for him to walk away from.” He held his hand out to Rose, and she came around the table to take it. “Come on. I’ll teach you how to judge some ore.”

  I sat, my eyes unfocused on the map of the mine, while May managed to coax Arthur into taking his medication. The carbon monoxide poisoning had weakened his heart, giving his sons yet another reason to worry about his health.

  Eventually, he sat next to me, his finger tracing the paths in the mine. I saw pieces of Cam in him, but only small ones. The shape of his nose. The narrowing of his eyes in focus.

  So much of Cam was his mom. Especially his heart.

  Art looked up and smiled at where Xander sat with Rose. “He’s a good one, Alexander. Always the first to help.”

  “So is Cam,” I said softly.

  Art’s eyebrows furrowed as he glanced my way and then back down to the mine.

  “Why?” The question slipped free before I could stop myself.

  Art’s hand stilled on the map, but he didn’t look my way.

  “Why couldn’t you just love him the way you love Xander? The way you loved Sullivan? He was just as worthy, even if he wasn’t perfect.”

  The shop behind us was packed with the hum of tourists, and Art was so quiet that I wondered if he’d even heard me.

  “There’s a balance,” he finally said, his voice low.

  “What?”

  “Good. Evil. Right. Wrong. Karma. It’s as old as the first brothers in the Bible. Whatever you want to call it, the universe keeps us in balance.” He trailed his finger down the oldest tunnel in the mine, searching for something I couldn’t see.

  “And you think Cam…” I shook my head. What was I even thinking, asking a man whose mind had long since quit being dependable.

  “Xander was born all sunshine and smiles. He was perfect. Lillian was so happy. And I knew that if we had another one, balance might not be on our side. It wasn’t for my parents.” He leaned over the table, following the 1880 tunnel down to the lower levels, where the tunnels wound back on each other.

  “Cal?” It was widely known that there was no love lost between the brothers.

  He nodded. “Cal. But then Camden was born. And he was beautiful. Loud and demanding and full of life. Always looking around, even as a newborn. And Lillian… She…became so unhappy. Cried all the time. Wouldn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t stand the sight of him. Of any of us. And I knew that Cam was the balance. He was the cost of the happiness Xander brought.”

  A weight settled on my chest as my stomach hit the ground. “Depression,” I whispered so softly that I knew he couldn’t have heard me.

  “She just disappeared into herself, and Cam screamed his head off. Took forever for her to come back to me, and when she did, and Sullivan was born…” He paused, narrowing his eyes again at a ventilation shaft before shaking his head and continuing to trace the 1880 tunnel. “When Sullivan was born, I knew that the balance had been tipped again. That we’d have to pay. You can’t have that much good in your life and not pay for it. That’s not how it works. Everything has a price, Hope; you know that. You’ve seen it, too.”

  I blinked rapidly. He thought I was my mother.

  “And Lillian saw it, too. The balance. The way Cam just…” He shook his head. “That’s why she loved him more than the others. Felt like she had to make it up to him.”

  “She tried to make up for you not loving him,” I argued.

  “Too much bad in that boy. Too much violence.”

  “He wasn’t.” I pleaded for his understanding in a hushed whisper. “Not as a kid. I was there.”

  “Then the balance righted itself. Took Lillian right out of my hands. But I still had those two good boys.” A tear slipped down his cheek, and guilt racked me with nausea. What kind of monster was I to bully a sick man? “So Cam took Sullivan.”

  The guilt vanished.

  “No,” I said firmly enough that he looked over at me. “Cam loved Sullivan. He protected him. He would never have hurt him. It wasn’t his fault. Cam. Loved. Sullivan.”

  He tilted his head. “I never said he didn’t. Too much love can kill someone just as easily as too little.” He turned his attention back to the map.

  “He was just a kid. Just a little boy. He wasn’t bad. He still isn’t.”

  Art followed another ventilation shaft until it bottomed out, then traced it back to another section. I reached across the table and stilled his hand.

  “He isn’t bad. He isn’t some kind of universal weight to balance out your blessings, Art. He is the blessing. He’s kind, and loyal, and protective, and smart. And he wears unicorn shirts for little girls, and rescues bigger ones from snowbanks, and takes on the only brother he has left so you can have what you want.”

  Art didn’t yank his hand away from mine as he watched me through his peripherals.

  “He carried me out of that mine—”

  “You let him,” he said with a tilt to his head.

  “Without hesitation.”

  “He didn’t break your nose,” he stated.

  “Of course not. He’s good, Mr. Daniels. He’s the best man I know, and you…” My breath shook as I exhaled. “You ruined him. And I don’t know if I can fix the parts you broke. He won’t let anyone in. And I have to get through to him, because he’s just so…” The words clogged my throat, threatening to choke me. “He’s so very lonely.”

  “All great and precious things are lonely.” Art turned and slowly brought his eyes to mine. I didn’t see Sully or Xander in those depths, even though they were identical. I didn’t even see Mr. Daniels.

  My hand fell away from his, and he went back to tracing the paths in the mine, muttering about the passages he’d sealed to keep the boys from suffocating in the bad air.

  All great and precious things are lonely.

  I’d heard those words before. Just a couple of weeks ago.

  I walked over to Xander, feeling a decade older than when I’d woken up this morning. “Hey, Rosie, you ready to go?”

  “If Mayor Daniels doesn’t need my help,” she replied.

  “I’m good to go, Rose. Thank you for helping. Oh, wait, I could definitely use another pencil if you wouldn’t mind grabbing one for me?”

  “No problem!” She scrambled from her seat beside him and headed for the bin of supplies, pausing to grab her jacket.

  “Whatever my dad said to you, don’t stress. He’s having an off day. He might be himself from forty years ago or Napoleon.” He took advantage of the lull in tourists and leaned back in his chair, obviously weary from the day.

  “Yeah, I think he just quoted a book at me.” And that wasn’t even ha
lf of it.

  Xander startled. “Really? He’s more of a TV guy. Used to make fun of Cam for always carrying books around. I think that’s why he started hanging out at Cal’s. Weird.” His brow knit together.

  “He’s definitely not himself.” At least for all the mutterings about balance, he hadn’t pointed a shotgun at me, so it could have been worse.

  “Take it with a grain of salt,” he replied with a shrug.

  “Here you go!” Rosie popped into the space between us and put a handful of pencils on the table. Among the yellow No. 2s, she’d added two of her own unicorn pencils.

  “Thanks, Rose. I really appreciate it.” Xander gave her a smile as another tourist stepped up with a handful of ore.

  I helped Rosie with her jacket, and she paused at the gate, watching Xander for a moment before we melted into the crowd. Preoccupied with my own thoughts, I didn’t notice she’d gone quiet until we reached Town Hall, where tourists examined original documents and photographs.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I asked just inside the door.

  Her lips pursed, but she eventually shook her head. “Nothing big. I did an experiment. We just learned about hypotuses last week.”

  “Hypotheses?” I asked.

  She nodded. “My experiment failed. I need a new hypothesis.” She carefully pronounced the last word.

  “Do you want to tell me what it was?” I didn’t want to pry if she was still working things out in her head. I hated when people did that to me.

  “Not yet. I’m going to try again.” Her chin rose, and she hugged me before running back to her mother.

  Dad stood with a group of fanny pack–wearing travelers, showing off his prized possession: a full wall of original pictures pieced together to show Alba from the mountain above.

  He was in his glory here, where history didn’t change and the present didn’t matter. The conversation didn’t stop as Dad lifted Rose into his arms so she could see the top picture. Then Rose jumped in, showing the group where the schoolhouse was.

  “And that’s the Rose Rowan Mine! I’m named after it, and my aunt’s boyfriend is going to have it open for tours soon! But not the bunkhouse. That burned down.”

  Dad and I locked eyes. He looked away first. He hadn’t spoken to me since the diner, when I’d chosen Cam.

  Rose tapped at Dad’s chest, and he grinned at her before nodding and putting her on her feet. She raced over to Charity, and I slipped into the space the tourists had occupied a moment ago.

  On Dad’s etched, formal name tag that labeled him a council member of the Historical Society, there was a sparkly unicorn sticker covering his title.

  He looked at it when he caught me staring and smiled in Rose’s direction. “She still thinks everything glitters.”

  “And you don’t correct her,” I noted, wondering when the first time he’d done so with me was. When was the first time I’d stepped off his approved path to follow my own?

  “Why would I? It’s a rare gift to see the hidden beauty in things. That kind of optimism is something to be treasured. You have that same spark in your soul, Willow.” He glanced to Charity and back to me, a lingering sadness in his eyes that I felt spill over into me. “At least Rose still lets me protect her.”

  “Maybe I still see the hidden beauty you stopped looking for.”

  His lips flattened, and he struggled to swallow. “I wish that were the case, sweetheart. I really do.”

  Charity paused in her presentation of the original town charter, looking over at us with concern. At what point had they said the words they couldn’t come back from? Had they ever been spoken? Or was the silence the true cost of cowardice on both their parts? Of unwillingness to see the other’s point of view?

  Was I standing on that precipice with my father? Or was I already over the edge?

  Another group wandered toward us, and I took blatant advantage of his aversion to public scenes, throwing my arms around him.

  He wasn’t perfect. He was flawed and stubborn and too stuck in his ways to accept the change that was inevitable. But never once had he loved me more than Charity or vice versa. “I love you, Dad. I’m so sorry I can’t be what you want me to be. But I love you.”

  I pulled back before he had a chance to react and walked away before I could judge him for what might linger on his face.

  As I walked out the door, I heard him laugh. “Yes, I’m the head unicorn in charge around here.”

  Opening day was still in full swing when I left. Part of me felt a little guilty for ducking out early, but when push came to shove, I had somewhere more important to be, and after asking around, I realized Cam hadn’t returned.

  I took his Jeep to my house and was back in it five minutes later, headed across the ridgeline to Cam’s.

  The sun was just starting to set as I parked in the driveway. I walked into the house and called his name, but there was no answer. What was the right thing to do here? Take his Jeep to my house? Leave it here and walk home? Stay until he returned? Would it do more harm than good to shove myself into the spaces he’d clearly said he didn’t want me in?

  I hung his keys on the hook by the door and debated calling him. Maybe he’d decline, but maybe he’d pick up. My feet carried me to the library, where the dying afternoon light threw bursts of sun and shade on one of the walls and on the land outside the picture windows.

  I ran my fingers across the empty chessboard, remembering all the times Xander tried to teach Cam and me to play, lecturing us for hours about the logic of it all while Cam argued that there was zero logic—it was all about emotion, protecting one piece you valued above the others. Then I smiled, remembering the moment we decided to steal the pieces so Xander would stop nagging us.

  Something about what Art said kept tickling my brain, and I picked up Cam’s copy of East of Eden from where he’d left it on the side table when he’d finished reading it to me.

  I thumbed through the well-loved pages, hearing Cam’s voice recite the story of generations of brothers who had been shaped by their fathers’ expectations and biases. It was no wonder he loved it so much. Page after page was highlighted or annotated, the scrawling script changing from pencil to pen in places, from the penmanship of a child to that of a man.

  There it was. My finger ran down the words as I spoke aloud.

  “I said that word carried a man’s greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it.”

  “I remember Sam Hamilton felt good about it.”

  “It set him free,” said Lee. “It gave him the right to be a man, separate from every other man.”

  “That’s lonely.”

  “All great and precious things are lonely.”

  I looked up as the sun glinted on the greenhouse Cam had mentioned he was building, and the man himself stepped through the glass door, wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. His ball cap was on backward, his T-shirt as dirty and stained as his jeans, and yet he’d never looked so beautiful to me as he did in that moment, this incredible man fighting to make things grow in the most inhospitable terrain possible.

  Just like his mother had.

  I read the final part of the text, since Cam had highlighted only that portion.

  “What is the word again?”

  “Timshel—thou mayest.”

  I closed the book and held it to my chest. He’d thought that part was important enough to remember—the concept that maybe he, too, could choose to be what he wanted and not what he’d been told to be.

  But he’d skipped over the words that ripped at me as I stood there, watching him secure another panel to the building, still fighting to make his world a little better on a day when he didn’t think he deserved it.

  Maybe it was a different kind of choice—to shove everyone away—but it was also my choice to let him. Or, rather, not to let him.

 
I watched him for another few minutes, planning my course, strategizing my next steps, until I knew he’d have to come in soon from lack of sunlight. Then I walked over to the desk, took out a piece of notebook paper, and tore it in a strip.

  Then I fought.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Camden

  Gravel crunched beneath someone’s steps as I locked in another panel to the greenhouse. I didn’t need to look to know who it was, since there was only one person brave enough to come after me on a day like today.

  I secured the panel and turned around to see Willow twenty feet away, her hair rippling to the side with the mountain breeze. How the hell was I going to find the strength to let her go? She deserved so much better than the rumors and the comments—than me.

  She didn’t say a word as she walked forward to the table I was using during construction, and she came no farther after she put something on top of the plans. Then she walked back to the house.

  I stared at the small object she’d delivered like it was a bomb and waited for the damn thing to go off. She hadn’t shoved it at me or forced me into a conversation. She’d given me the choice, which was what had me reaching for it.

  I unrolled the long scroll of paper and barely caught the white onyx rook piece as it fell free from the center of its wrapping.

  It was the partner to the black one I’d given her the night Charity had announced her pregnancy. Not that I’d actually given it to her, since I hadn’t been speaking to her at the time. I’d left it on her windowsill, telling her silently that no matter what I’d said or done over that shitty summer, she could still depend on me.

  Even if no one else could.

  She wasn’t going to back down or let my words from this afternoon end what we’d barely begun. My shoulders drooped in simultaneous relief and outright despair. No matter how many times I told her that I’d eventually ruin her, she wouldn’t believe me—or worse, she didn’t care.