by Mary Weber
“But Vincent had the key,” I say quickly.
She slows and tilts her head. “He had a key, yes, Miss Tellur. I never said whether the actual key was physical or a characteristic. I’d expect someone of your intellectual prowess to have latched onto that by now.”
With that, she waves the pipe over herself once more and takes on a completely new appearance—that of a balding middle-aged man in suit and tie—and, giving me a nod, strides through the door to join the men.
And I am left staring at an empty space.
I frown and turn to—to do what? I don’t know, but the moment I slip back around the corner toward the party, a voice says, “I hear short hair on females could become all the rage.”
Lute.
I don’t know whether to melt or laugh or cry. I want to ask where he’s been, where we are on things, but his eyes find mine, and those questions are for later as I glance at his clothing and offer a smirk. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in nonfishing suit pants before. “You look nice.”
He swags those dimples at me and sweeps a chunk of black hair from his face. “I was just going to say the same about you.” His eyes scan my dress Da bought for me, even though it cost about every penny we’ve ever saved and I insisted he not. “Good choice.” He leans in and lowers his voice as he tips his gaze to encompass the room we’ve just walked into, even as his tone says he’d rather be anywhere right now than an Upper party. “How you doing with all this?”
I crinkle my face.
He laughs. “Thank Caldon for good food then. And your aunt and uncle seem quite proud.” His expression turns serious. “So how do you think the test went?”
“To be honest? I’ve no idea.” I swallow. “But Vincent . . .”
“My mum told me this evening as soon as I got in.” Lute’s gaze grips mine, and probes deeper—as if trying to read something or maybe tell me something, I’m not sure. Finally, his voice falters, as if laced with exhaustion. “With the weather coming in, my father’s men and I had to do a fishing trip. Left straight after I came around from the berry poison, and I only just got in.” His hand slips from his hair down to claim my palm, which he squeezes and waits for me to respond.
But I don’t because if I do I’ll probably curl into him right here. Forget the party, forget the people. This is what I want.
He must read my thoughts because he nods and pulls me into him, and holds me against his chest the same way I’ve held Mum for the last few months. I tremble and inhale his salty scent, and even with the promise that the new treatment Da’s made Mum, or the medicine I’ve been working on, might be developed in time to save her, I’m surprised by the wave of feelings that comes. I sag against him as the weight of Vincent and the test and Mum about bowl me over. Until at some point I realize he’s not just holding up my body—I think maybe he’s holding my heart in place as well.
“Can we forget this party and go?” I whisper.
He chuckles, then pulls back enough to peer down at me. “Even I have a healthy fear of your cousin. She’d skin our eyeballs, and Beryll would be appalled.” But even as he says it, I sense a change in his demeanor. In his tone. Something tenses. Tightens.
I frown and watch him pull back from me just a bit. With a nod I straighten and glance away, giving him distance. “How’s your mum and Ben?”
He shrugs. “Other than scared that I came home on a stretcher, they’re good. But the festival was about all the excitement Ben could handle for a few weeks.”
“How long are you home for?”
He doesn’t look at me. “Not long enough. I have to leave again tomorrow. The men are trying to get in as much fishing as we can in case those regulation negotiations go awry.” He starts to say more, but my aunt’s voice rings out in an incoherent exclamation, and when I look over, I see my parents. Mum is in a wheeling chair. Da is standing protectively, and uncomfortably, behind her.
Lute nods at them before he ducks to murmur in my ear. “I’d like to speak privately with you later if you have a minute.”
He excuses himself before I can respond, to allow them their space with me. And I nod because I’ve already read in his eyes what is on his mind. It’s the same as on mine. The question of whether or not we can make the complexities of our lives collide.
My breathing grows thin. I watch my aunt hug my mum and I choke down a lump of tears, because this is what we all keep coming back to, isn’t it? The pursuit of dreams and choices—my mum’s and her sister’s—their husbands and kids. Lute’s and mine. His to stay home and change the world for his mum and brother—mine to pursue university in hopes of changing the world for people like my mum.
I push those thoughts away even as the ache threatens to untether me. My mum and aunt are turning to me with eyes more full of tears than I knew either was capable of. Because Mum is home. In her first home.
I smile at the idea of that.
With a last look at Lute who’s gone to find Sam and Will, I stride over to the two women and hug my mum long and hard. Mum’s arms feel a bit stronger today. I glance up at Da. His serum seems to be holding off the disease’s progression. Maybe mine will be in time after all.
The expression on his face says he’d like to run out of here with all three of us. But he doesn’t.
He just stands there looking . . . alone.
Leaving Aunt Sara to show Mum off, I tug Da outside and over to the garden wall, where we can stand in some privacy staring at the sea, next to a newly planted rosebush with a well of dirt still freshly broken and sifted around it. I think it must look a bit like Da’s heart these days.
Without a word Da nods, as if he knows what I’m thinking about the fresh dirt and raw heart, then leans his arms on the wall. “I like your friend Lute, by the way.”
“So do I.”
“You were so busy telling me about Vincent earlier—who, by the way, I will be tearing his bloody limbs off—you forgot to say how the test went.”
“I knew maybe a fourth of the material. The rest I had to wrestle with.”
He eyes me. “A full quarter, eh? That’s my girl.”
My girl.
The fear from this morning rears its head. That I am his girl, and soon maybe the only one he’s got left. If I go to university, I’m not just losing Mum. I’m losing this life with him too. And Lute. I’m losing everything I’ve known in my pursuit of something we still don’t know if we can have. And if Mum passes . . . I’m causing Da to lose too.
“Da.” My voice breaks. “What if I’m wrong? What if it’s too late for Mum, and by going to university I’ll be leaving you alone?”
He pats my hand. “You follow your dreams, not your guilt, Rhen.”
“But what if my dreams aren’t that simple?” I almost say. “Maybe that’s the problem.” What if my dreams aren’t just one thing, but instead they are everything? They are education and Mum. They’re Da and Lute. They’re finding a cure while also holding on to what I have here. Why can’t the future, past, and present all be my dreams?
I slide my hand into his and face the ocean in all its blue and orange and floating seaweed stretching on to purple sky glory, and I swallow the mouthful of fears.
“I’ll miss doing this with you when you’re at university, kid.”
I grip his hand tighter. And make the hardest and yet easiest decision I’ve ever made.
“Da. I want to delay going.”
“It’ll—what? No.” He shakes his head. “They’re going to accept you—”
“Whether they do or not, I’m going to wait.” I squeeze his hand. “Going to university will take time away—and right now you and Mum need me more than ever. We both know the reality is that if my cure doesn’t work, I won’t learn enough in time to fix Mum.” I gulp. “The cure will be either what we’re developing now or not at all.”
He pulls his hand from mine so he can turn and face me straight on. “You listen here, Rhen. You are going to that university. Of course it takes time. What did
you think you were getting into?”
“That’s not what I mean.” I look past him to the water, then inhale so my voice stays steady. I look back at this man who has been my father and friend my entire life. I’m already possibly losing Mum. I’m not ready to lose him too. Even if it’s in a different way. I’m not ready to lose him to his grief.
“I’m going to keep doing research, but we’ll do it together. I’m going to stay and care for you both because that’s what family does. And when things change, maybe I’ll attend university then.”
Rarely in my life have I ever seen him angry. Like truly shaking-in-his-skin angry. But he is now. “Rhen Tellur, you listen and you listen good. Your mum and I did not raise you to abandon family or needs. But we also didn’t raise you to sacrifice your dreams to others.”
“But what if my dreams are both?” I whisper. “What if I can do both? Just slower?”
He shakes his head as hard as he can, and his breath becomes weary. “What you did—what you’ve done through that contest—is nothing short of a miracle. And I’m old enough to know that when a miracle comes along, you look it full in the face and accept it as such. So now I’m looking you full in the face and accepting it. Whatever that looks like—whomever that ends up as—you will walk forward with your head held up.”
“And you?”
“Rhen, I’m your father, not your child.”
“True, but I’m not a child anymore either, Da.”
He chuckles and says softly, “Welcome to a part of growing up, kid.”
A squeal interrupts him as a mum hurries behind us with her daughter, who’s a mess of brown hair and skin and scrawny legs as thin as a chicken’s. I watch them shuffle toward the house when the girl glances up and, with a look of surprise then wonder, offers a shy smile.
Da’s arm slips around mine and squeezes. “We’ve gotten a solid seventeen years with you. Maybe some other people need you now. After all, what else is all the research for if not to value the people we do it for? We started our work for your mum. You’ll finish it for her and others.”
I glance over and blink at him, and ignore whatever else I was going to say. Instead, I lean in to plant a firm kiss on his cheek.
He smiles. “There’s my girl.” He tips his head toward the door through which I can see Seleni and my friends standing. “Now go finish your fun. I’ll go check on your mum. I’ll give her ten more minutes, but then I’m taking her back to rest.”
I start to argue that I will help, but the look on his face cuts me off. So I just watch him stride away before I follow him back into my aunt and uncle’s brilliantly shiny house.
Beryll and Seleni are talking with his parents. Will and Sam are chatting with Moly. And Lute . . .
Lute is quietly speaking with the woman I know as Holm. The two are laughing over something, and it suddenly occurs to me that the crowing rooster was right the day of the Labyrinth. Death was in the air, and it did come. But maybe it was the death of our more fearful selves.
I glance back to Lute and Holm, and she abruptly lifts her gaze to meet mine. Her eyes twinkle with a gentle understanding that says she knows what I’m thinking. That how we use our time is ultimately what matters.
I turn to Lute who must sense it, because he stops in the middle of their conversation and looks straight at me too. And raises a brow in question.
“How about getting out of here?” I mouth.
27
Before we’ve even reached the main road from Seleni’s house, the salt in my blood is tugging, drawing, inviting Lute and me to race for the shore of our small port town. The starlit water glints at us as we run past the fields, over the bridge, and down through the narrow winding streets. I dare Lute to keep up with me in his suit pants that are nicer than anything he’s probably ever owned.
“You sure you’re not going to rip those things?” I gasp when we reach the road to Sow’s pub.
“No promises.” He laughs. “But there’s some definite chafing.”
I launch off a set of cobblestone steps and into another alley, and continue down it until we emerge breathless and laughing onto the long lane in front of the wharf, where Lute’s boat is moored amid a long row of others. The silvery water holds the night sky’s reflection as the waves rush up in white-foam specks that look like stars.
I slip off the wood-planked ledge as the wind frays my hair out in a hundred short pieces. Our skin catches the rush of the salt spray, splashing wildly against the dock, as Lute hops down to join me on the sand.
My shoes are the first thing to come off.
My dress is the second.
Lute gives a low laugh. “Of course you wore pants under your party dress.”
I don’t answer—just shrug the skirt up over my head, except I’m tugging and it’s not coming off. Something has caught against my neck.
Lute grabs the material and holds it to keep it from ripping. “Stop squirming. You forgot a button.” His fingers brush against my back as he untwists the loop.
I wait for him to slip it free—and then the frothy gown is peeling off in his hands and I’m slipping toward the sea in my dead-man pants and blouse from the Labyrinth. I bend down to roll them up, then strip off my stockings while the waves rush up five paces away.
Lute tosses the dress aside and drops down on the sand, then props his arms behind his head as he looks up. The night sky is in full glory tonight—showing off her constellations as if rivaling my gown.
He says nothing.
I say nothing.
We just listen as the waves rush in and the sirens pick up their calls in the distance.
I don’t know how long we stay there like that. Him lying flat on his back. Me standing nervous by the water. In the dark, with the sky stretched out like an inky canvas from one side of the world to the other—while the tide rushes in and out, in and out, like a clock or a heartpulse or the steady breathing of Lute’s lungs. Neither of us uttering a word.
Until eventually the weight becomes a pendulum swinging between us.
His breathing changes, and he sits up to rest his chin on his knees and looks out at sea.
I watch him. His face. His fingers tracing his knuckles. His eyes that won’t look at me. They give nothing away and yet their silence is deafening. He clears his throat and the sound bubbles like the foam now bursting around my toes, so when he finally does speak, his voice is equal parts salt and storm, and I don’t know what worries me more—that he still won’t look at me or that his face has become set with determination.
“Rhen, I’ve been thinking—” He rubs a hand through his hair. “I know things are getting ready to change, and . . .”
On second thought, maybe I’m not ready to hear what we’re both thinking. I stride the three paces it takes for the ocean to fully wrap around my ankles and the cold to bite at my skin. “Let’s not talk about it. Let’s just enjoy the moment before we move on.”
His eyes cloud over, like the sky just before a rainstorm. Dark. Earthy. Waiting for an explanation. When I don’t give one, he nods. “What’s going on, Rhen?”
I suddenly can’t breathe. Because I . . . I don’t know. I just know I want to run.
And I laugh because there’s the crux of everything. I constantly want to run away—even from this entire conversation.
But I don’t. I stay and redirect my gaze. And allow his question to sink in.
“I think we both understand what’s going on,” I finally say, and when I turn to look at him again, his face is blank of any readable expression, and he’s staring in silence at the water.
My chest clenches. I nod and look down. I pop a tide bubble, then another. “You have your family to take care of, and I have Mum and Da and possibly school. If I get in, I’ll be in another town, and—”
“You’ll get in.”
“You don’t know that. But if I do, then—”
“Then I was going to propose an idea—one that wouldn’t obligate you but hopefully would suppor
t you.”
I refuse the emotion to leak out on my face. The hope that maybe he has a plan . . . that while I’m willing to try balancing Mum and Da and uni, maybe he wants to try for this too—whatever this is—just as badly as me.
“I know you’re worried about your da and your mum. Worse—your da being alone if you can’t help your mum in time. And I know your scholarship will provide them an allowance, but your da also told me they plan to stay living near here. So I thought . . .” He looks up at me, and his eyes are bright and beautiful and achingly sad. “I want you to know I’ll look in on him every day. And when I’m at sea, my mum will.”
I blink. Oh.
He pushes a hand through his briny black hair. “There are no strings attached to that—no expectations. Just my offer as a friend.”
As a friend.
My heart ripples against my ribs. He’s just offered me the world and offered me himself as a friend—and I’m grateful and humbled and sideswiped all at once, and yet I don’t know what to do with that. I eye him. “And if I don’t get in?”
“You’ll get in because we both know this isn’t where you belong right now,” he says quietly. I stiffen and start to respond—but his expression says those words pained him just as much as me. He shakes his head. “Not until you can take hold of what you want and bring it back to this place.”
I choke. Because I know this is how it is. How it has to be. It’s how it’s always been. I can fit in everywhere but I will never quite belong anywhere. Even to him.
I look away. And say it out loud because I’d rather do it for both of us than hear it from him. “Thank you for the offer. I’m more grateful than you know. If I get in, I’d like to take you up on it. And I agree—I think just staying friends is the best plan. So from—”
“What?” His voice is so quiet it almost drowns in the waves. His eyes flash my way, but I can’t tell if it’s in challenge or irritation.
“Staying friends is a better plan,” I repeat. “Whether I get in or not—”
“That’s not what I said,” he whispers cautiously.
