I burst out of the closet and scan the room like she might be standing there already, having crept silently down the hall in the few moments I was in the closet.
But the room is empty.
It’s just me and the moonlight.
Meet me. I’m not done talking to you.
Decker’s voice is in my ear, as plain as if he were standing here right now with the cold on his skin, clinging to his hair and his eyelashes and his lips. At my bedroom window I press my forehead against the glass. Maybe I’m getting a fever, too. Maybe that’s why the thought of him is setting me on fire.
The yard is empty down below, with no sign of anyone except me. The wind is already blowing over my footprints in the snow. The whisper of it against the glass beckons, a more subtle call than Decker’s invitation. his order, really. The wind would cover for me. She’d sleep through the whole thing. She would never be the wiser.
And I would get something out of this, too.
Not too much, because I’m not that naive. Men like Decker don’t just want to talk. I know that. But the wild beat of my heart says that this could be different. Everything could be different, if I could just stop being so afraid.
I didn’t run for the train. But I’m not going to cower in my room. I won’t. I won’t.
I press my hands flat against the glass, letting them soak up the cold.
I won’t.
5
Persephone
My mother catches my wrist while I’m in mid-lean, trying to collect her used teacup. For a second her hand is locked around my bones, tight enough to crush, but she lets go and her arms fall back down to the blankets. Her gray eyes bore into mine, and my heart stalls. This is it. This is when she announces that she knows about my plan.
She takes an unsteady breath. “You’re distracted.”
I’ve been distracted for three days. How did I act before I had an actual secret I was trying to keep from my mother? Obviously not like this. I balance her teacup on the saucer and straighten up. “Do you think we could get some new books?”
My mother frowns, eyes still on mine like the very act of staring at me will make me crack open and reveal everything. She’s not entirely wrong. If this goes on long enough... “How do you propose I do that, Persephone?”
I bite my lip and look at the floor. “I thought you might know someone who could put them on the train.” Like every other thing that comes to us. All of our food. All of our other necessities. Everything comes on the train. There’s no doubt in my mind that my mother can order whatever she wants. “There are bookstores in the city...”
This could go wrong, and my heart knows it. Beneath my ribs it beats hard and fast. Standing this close to my mother is always a risk. A calculation, on my part as much as hers. At least the fact that I want books is the truth layered over a lie. I have not been thinking about books for three days, except so far as having something new to read would take my mind off meeting Decker. If I’d had something new to read, maybe I wouldn’t have gone back and forth on my plan every other minute. All of my old favorites weren’t enough to keep my mind off him.
I’m ready to leap out of my own skin. Only her careful breathing breaks the quiet. She must’ve found some plant, some combination of things, that makes it easier not to cough. That’s a good thing. I wasn’t hoping she’d get sicker—no, of course not. I was only hoping that she’d be more interested in her bed than in me. Stop lying, she’ll say any moment now. I know all about your plan to meet that boy. I know all about what you think you can do with him. Did you think you could hide it from me?
“I could make a call.”
My eyes snap up from the floor to read her face. “You don’t have to do that. I was only—I was only wondering. I know you don’t feel well, so—”
“Do you want the books or not?” Her voice reaches out to slap me. “You’ve been sulking for days now. Unless...” There it is, suspicion creeping into her eyes. “Unless you’re not being honest with me.”
“I do want new books.” And clearly, clearly, I have been doing a terrible job of acting. I was going for upbeat and dutiful, but obviously I missed the mark. “It’s just so cold outside.” I add on a shiver. Too much? Too late now. “I’m ready for spring.”
I hold my breath.
My mother’s face softens.
Relief spills over me, warm and clean.
She gives a soft nod. “Aren’t we all.”
We both look toward the window, where snowflakes fall in lazy spirals past the glass. Each one sparkles in the light of the waning sun, a tiny reminder that it’s cold enough to freeze.
It’s not just me waiting for spring. It’s the entire world as I know it. We are all ready for melting snow and green fields and fresh air.
Decker feels like fresh air. He is the spring, isn’t he? I could get a taste of it right now, before the winter breaks its hold.
“What can I bring for you?” I’ll bring my mother anything she asks for, just not the secret I’ve managed to keep for three days now. I only need to hold out for a few more hours. “More tea?”
“No, I’ve—” Her eyelids flutter and she closes them for a long beat. “I’m going to rest.”
She doesn’t even wait for me to leave the room before she turns over, pulling the blankets up as she goes. I stop at the threshold to gauge her breathing. Deep and even. She’s asleep, unless she’s especially good at faking it, which...she might be, for all I know. This cough, this sickness, whatever it is—nothing like this has ever happened before. Not that I can remember.
The timing is perfect.
It’s a horrible thought to have about your own mother, and guilt eats into my belly on the way down to the kitchen. She does so much for me. And here I am, thinking that it’s good for her to be sick. A familiar dread scratches down the back of my neck. Best not to remember those tarot cards or what those women said to me. I only meant that it’s good timing because I’ll be able to meet Decker tonight. It’s a sign, almost. My mother is never sick, not like this.
Maybe it’s because of you.
“Oh, come on.” I fill the sink with water as hot as I can stand it and tip the teacup and saucer in, then add the teapot I used to boil the water and my own plate from dinner. The heat bites into my skin—too hot, too hot—but it calms me, too. The act of tolerating a little bit of pain clears my head. And in that clarity, excitement barrels in.
I’m almost there. If I can keep it together for a few more hours, and if my mother sleeps, then I’ll be out there with Decker again. All the hot water in the sink can’t keep away the memory of the cold air between us. Winter isn’t usually my season—it makes me too sad and introspective. It fills me with too much longing for things I can’t have. But a part of me is already transformed just because he’s here. A part of me is a little braver.
A little more reckless.
My eyes skip over the glass containers with tea ingredients. My mother prefers to mix her own blends. It’s hard to live in the same house without picking up some of this knowledge. If you really want to rest—and I mean really—then skip the chamomile. You want something stronger. My hands tremble in the water and the saucer knocks against the teacup. Not much stronger, and the timing has to be right. Is right? I don’t know.
I shake out my hands and whip out a dishcloth. I have to get it together. I can’t just stand here at the sink, shaking like a leaf. If she wakes up and comes downstairs now, she’ll know what I’ve been planning. How could she not?
“I’m going to meet him,” I whisper to my reflection, only half-visible in the kitchen window. “Nothing is going to stop me.”
So while the warmth from the water works its way up over my wrists and to my elbows and spreads from there over my skin like a new blush, I picture it.
Drawing my coat tight around my shoulders and pulling up the hood to cover my hair. The first shock of cold outside the warm house. The dark coming down to put its arms around me and pull me toward the edge of
the forest. Seeing him there, standing tall and thin like one of the trees—only he’s not dormant and frigid. He’s warm and alive and waiting for me.
Has anyone ever waited for me like this?
No.
But he’ll be waiting soon.
I snap my eyes open, half-expecting to see Decker standing in the middle of the yard. A shock goes through me, a burst of adrenaline like he actually is—but the yard is empty. For the moment, nobody is watching.
6
Persephone
He’s not here.
This is not what I pictured at the kitchen sink—not what I pictured by far. For one thing, the dark is not my friend outside the house. It’s more than cold, it’s freezing, and standing here doesn’t keep me as warm as running for the train. My teeth chatter so loud that the sound nearly drowns out the clatter of the wind in the branches. A bitter wind, unsoftened by the moonlight.
The forest is empty. He’s not here. Shame twists at the pit of my gut. How could I have been this stupid? How could I have been this naive? He only wanted to play a trick. See if I would fall for it. Well, I did. And now I’m out here shivering in the dark. I’ve been so foolish. Too foolish to even bring a flashlight with me, or anything else. I just trusted him. And why? Because he said he wanted to talk to me.
The gate isn’t even open.
There’s no way to get to him, and he did say to meet me here. I was the one who assumed he’d have a way to open. I assumed he wanted anything to do with me. My cheeks go hot. But why would he? He could have any girl that he wanted. He can get on the train anytime and meet anyone. Why freeze his ass off in the middle of a deserted forest owned by my mother for me? I’m nothing special.
Obviously.
Obviously.
Why did I ever think I was?
The hopeful feeling is the most embarrassing part. It just won’t give up, even though there’s nobody at the fence. Or anywhere else. I have to leave. I can’t stand here and listen to the branches breaking above me, because if I stand here for a minute longer, I’ll stand here all night. Hope is hard to kill. Hopefully it will freeze to death soon.
But before it can—and me along with it—I turn on my heel and stalk back toward home.
I make it one step before a hand wraps around my wrist and tugs.
Fear crashes into me like a lightning bolt, and then another hand claps over my mouth. My own bloodcurdling scream dies against someone’s big palm. Oh my god, oh my god.
“It’s just me.” The hands drop away, except for a light touch at my shoulders that turns me in place. And there Decker is, a grin on his face like he hasn’t nearly ended my life just now. My heart races, painfully out of control, and I put a hand to my ribs to try and get it to settle. “You think I’d stand you up?”
My breath twists and catches, pounding at the door of my throat before it finally breaks free and escapes. “I didn’t see you. I was looking, but I didn’t see you.”
Decker slips his hands into his pockets and steps closer. “I couldn’t help but see you. You’re brighter than the moon in all those white clothes. How do you do it?” He lifts one hand from his pocket and traces it along the edge of my hood. Decker’s fingertips are perilously close to my skin, but not touching. Not yet.
“Do what?”
“Absorb all the light and reflect it back.” He frowns. “Even your skin does it. You’re practically glowing.” Now he does brush one of his knuckles against my cheeks, and a shiver of shock moves over my skin at the heat coming off his hands. How can he be so warm when it’s so cold outside. “Tell me your secrets, pretty girl.”
“I don’t have any secrets.” Did I say it too quickly? Will he know?
“I don’t believe that for a second.” Decker’s eyes meet mine, and somehow they catch every bit of the available moonlight. I can’t look away from that green. “You can flutter your eyelashes and say you’re not hiding anything, but we both know that’s not true.”
“I’m not,” I insist. “What would I be hiding?” My secrets burst from the soil where I’ve buried them, popping up side by side like plants I never intended to bloom. How much does he know?
Decker leans in close, his breath hot and minty on the side of my face, and whispers: “Me.”
A laugh bubbles up from between my lips, half relief and half delicious anticipation. “You’re—you’re right about that.”
He leans against a nearby tree. The sharp, clear chill in the air doesn’t seem to bother him at all. He might as well be standing here at midsummer, with the gentle humidity caressing his skin. I ball up my hands into fists and shove them into the pockets of my coat so I don’t do something truly foolish, like reach up and touch him. God knows what would happen if I did.
Decker considers me. “You don’t have to stand so far away, you know. It’s cold out here.”
The wind whips up again, curving through the trees and gliding between my coat and my dress. “I don’t think we’ll be any warmer cuddling with a tree.” It’s perfect, the perfect nonchalant thing to say, but of course I can’t just leave it. “Will we?”
“Only one way to find out.” Decker holds out his arm to me with a wink. I’m too old to be taken with how familiar a gesture it is. I’m too old for the swoop and dive my stomach does when he beckons with one finger.
I take a deep breath and step closer.
He folds me into his arms like he’s done this a thousand times, and my entire body lights up with it. It doesn’t matter that we’re separated by several layers of fabric. This is as close as I’ve ever been to a man. Can I breathe? I don’t know if I can breathe. But when I finally do, because I have no other choice, it doesn’t make it easier to think. It makes it harder.
Because Decker smells...good. Not sweaty, not overworked, but good. His green coat is surprisingly soft, like it’s been washed lots of times, and I have the strangest urge to press my forehead into it and curl up for the rest of the winter. Underneath the bite of the cold and the cotton scent of his clothes is something soapy and clean with a hint of what must be cologne. I don’t know why I thought he’d come here fresh from the fields in high summer. It must have been his eyes that made me think of that. But it’s winter, and even so, he wouldn’t have been working the fields at midnight anyway.
“You’re so clean,” I blurt out, because I have to say something—I can’t just stand here in his arms, up against a tree.
He laughs as easily as he might if we were doing this outside one of the movie theaters in the city. “So are you.” He takes a deep breath and I freeze. It’s not until this very moment that I considered what I might smell like to him. Of course I washed my hair. Of course I let it dry, running my fingers through it as often as I dared without drawing my mother’s attention. But I don’t have any fancy perfumes, other than a small bottle of scent my mother had made from some of her flowers. “What is that?” He leans his head down and inhales, and all of the hairs on the backs of my arms stand straight up. “Do you bathe in flowers, too?”
Talking about bathing with Decker is too much. The act of it—getting naked, slipping underneath the water in the tub, standing in the shower—it makes the frigid winter night feel hotter than the sun. My face burns.
“I—I thought you wanted to talk.” I flash him a smile that I hope comes off as knowing and completely comfortable and disengage myself from him. “And not about baths.”
Decker pretends to be shocked. “You don’t want to talk about baths?” He stretches his arms above his head. “But don’t you love the feeling of the water on your skin? I bet you’re like me. I bet you like a cold shower with a little nip to it.”
“Hot.” Sentences. What are sentences? Words that you put together in a neat string, not like a person who just says one thing and trails off. My brain struggles to get going. It’s not fair, what he did, because now all I can picture is what he might look like in the shower. Working for my mother’s business isn’t easy labor, so I bet he’s...muscular. But not
too muscular, because he’s still tall and lean. Tall and lean enough, maybe, to leap over the fence. Is that what happened? Is that how he’s here? “I like hot water. Hot as I can stand it.”
Another full-body shiver makes it impossible to stand still, and Decker notices. “You’ve been out here too long, haven’t you? Probably frozen down to the bone. Here.” He shrugs off his coat and throws it over me. Even with my own winter coat on, it’s still enormous. “Does that buy me a few more minutes?”
I should take the coat off and give it back to him, but I can’t. My hands burrow into the coat and pull it tighter in spite of myself. I was right about the muscles. It’s clear, even though he’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, that they...exist. They more than exist. They perform. My mouth waters. This is wild. I don’t know what I expected when I came out here, but it wasn’t looking at him like this. Out in the snow, like he doesn’t feel the cold.
“You don’t have to—to buy them.” I work to unclench my fingers, to open the coat. “We can just walk. Moving will warm us up. You can take this—”
His hands come down on mine, separated only by the fabric of the coat. “Keep it on.” Decker looks into my eyes for a lingering moment, like he needs to convince me that it’s freezing out here. Let me save you, those eyes say. A smile plays at the corner of his lips, a teasing, familiar thing. “If you want to walk, we’ll walk. Lead the way.”
7
Persephone
The world must agree with my plan, because the instant we turn back toward my mother’s fields the wind dies down. Or maybe I just can’t feel it because we’re moving. Either way, the tense knot in the middle of my lungs releases a little. I can breathe again.
Prince of Chaos Page 3
