Black Snow (Birds of a Feather Book 4)

by Lena North

  I didn’t know what to say at all. Change into dragons? Change into watermen?

  Then it hit me. Watermen. People out on the Islands spoke to the dolphins, and we could fly there in less than an hour these days but thousands of years ago, they would have been far away. Isolated. Had they remembered how to change into water creatures, just like the people in the mountains had retained their abilities? Could they still do it?

  They had said that the Torres family interacted both with the water and the dolphins, and Joao had been with the dolphins, saving me when I almost drowned. And there was Nicholas strange expression. He’d said he’d cut off Joao’s tail with his knife.

  Did that mean that Joao was a… what? A mermaid?

  No, he couldn’t be. Or?

  “Okay,” I said. “I don’t know much about my heritage.”

  “Wilder found some old manuscripts. I’ll bring a copy,” Sven said. “You should read them, they’re quite interesting.” He paused and looked sharply at me. “You could read them out loud to Nick while he’s recovering. I think perhaps he’d be interested too.”

  “He might be,” I said evasively.

  I’d definitely have to talk to Nick.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hawker’s scout

  Nick was quiet after they left, and murmured something about needing to rest before he disappeared into the bedroom. I sat on the back porch for a while, watching the trees behind the house, and how the mountain rose sharply behind them. My parents had started teaching me to climb there. They had put up holds and secured a few anchors, and when I’d been just a small girl, they’d started showing me. I suddenly wanted to climb that path again. Wanted to remember my parents the way they had been when things were good.

  “How are you doing?” Nick asked me.

  “Good. You?” I asked back, still watching the lawn and the trees in front of me.

  He sighed as he sat down next to me and took my hand. When he didn’t say anything and just fiddled with my fingers, I turned. He was watching our hands, and his face was carefully blank.

  “Nick?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he said.

  When his eyes came to me they were so sad it hurt to watch them.

  “Nick?” I repeated uncertainly.

  “I shouldn’t have pushed you to talk about your parents. It should have been your choice, not mine. I thought –”

  “I was ready for it,” I interrupted. “I would have stalled it a while longer, but I was ready. It felt…” I thought about how I felt but couldn’t find the right words for it, so I settled for, “Good.”

  “I figured I knew what you were going through… Because of Tommy. Stupid. So damned stupid of me. Arrogant.”

  “Nicky –”

  “We’ll find someone for you to talk about this with. There are people who can help you, people who know what they’re doing.”

  What? He was going to get me a shrink all of a sudden?

  “I don’t need that,” I said. “I have my family. And I have you.” When he didn’t say anything, I added quietly, “I have you, don’t I, Nick?”

  “Always,” he said. “But, sweetie, I don’t know what I’m doing here. Sure, my cousin killed himself. But he never blamed me, not for a second, and my parents are alive. They love me even in spite of me being a huge asshole to them and leaving them for years with virtually no contact. When I was ready, they were there. Your mother –”

  He stopped speaking and shook his head. “What if I’m not enough, Snow? What if I can’t help you?”

  “Oh, Nicky,” I said and got up, only to crouch down in front of him. “I handled what happened for many years. I survived it, but I wasn’t living. Not fully. Then you came along, and slowly, I started thinking. About me, and about them. I wouldn’t have been here today if it weren’t for you. Wouldn’t have talked about them if it weren’t for you.”

  I shook his knees a little to get his attention.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, vowing that I would be. “We’ll be fine.”

  “We could –”

  “Not talking to unknown professionals, Nick. Later, maybe. Right now, I don’t need it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Totally. I’ll talk to you, my family, the people here in Norton. Hawker and Mill.”

  “You should talk to Dante,” he said.

  I nodded slowly because he was right, in a way. We’d been so close, but we’d fought, and I wasn’t sure how he’d react when he found out that I’d withheld even more things than he’d already heard about.

  “You should,” Nick pushed. “I get that he replaced the father figure you lost and that you don’t want to disappoint him, but he’s a good man. Strong. He’ll deal.”

  He thought I viewed Dante as my father? What? My cousin was eight years older than me so how –

  “You do,” he said, reading my thoughts. “You were what? Thirteen when your parents passed away? He would have been a grown man then.”

  “Almost fourteen, and I don’t consider Dante my father,” I protested.

  “Big brother then,” he said. “Male adult role model?”

  I snorted out a low chuckle at the description because it sounded stiff and formal, and not at all like the relationship I had with my cousin.

  “You should talk to him,” Nick insisted.

  “I will,” I promised.

  He was right. Not about the father figure, but I should talk to Dante.

  “I love you,” I said quietly, and felt him twitch.

  We hadn’t said the words again since that awful night when he was hurt, and I wasn’t even sure he knew he’d said them to me, or heard me say them back.

  “Snow,” he whispered.

  “I don’t need the others. I want to have them in my life, but I don’t need them,” I went on. Then I raised my head and looked at his lean face with the cut cheekbones, sharp eyes, and surprisingly soft mouth. His eyes were changing into his focused gaze, his laser view, and as usual, that changed their color into a blueish green that looked just like the ocean outside the Islands.

  “I don’t need the others, I repeated. “But I need you.”

  “Fuck,” he said, and my brows went up at his unexpected response.

  “Um,” I murmured.

  “I want to take you in my arms, and carry you inside to our bed. I want to make love to you, here in the home where you were born, in a room where the mountains rise just outside. Want to watch you when I love you with everything that I am, Snow.”

  Oh, my God. My vision went blurry with tears, and I blinked furiously.

  “And I can’t. Jamie said to wait eight weeks.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “You asked Jamie when we could have sex?” I breathed.

  “Well, yeah,” he said as if my question was stupid which it in no way was.

  “But, we… He… You were? And –” I spluttered, thinking about the ugly fight and how Jamie had behaved.

  “We talked before I left the hospital. Explanations and apologies on both sides. We’ve more to talk about, but we started finding a way back to how we were when we were younger.” He was silent, and then he added quietly, “We talked about Tommy. It felt good.”

  I put a hand on his cheek, and he leaned into it. He wasn’t very elaborate about his conversation with his cousin, and it had been an emotional day already so I could understand that, and decided to change the topic.

  “We’ll get a calendar,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “To cross off the days. It’s been more than four weeks already,” I said seriously.

  His eyes lit up with laughter.

  “I love you, Snow,” he said. “Let’s go inside and find something to eat.”

  I grinned at him, and then we spent the evening at the big table in the kitchen, eating a pie that Vera had dropped off the day before. We talked about my parents and his cousin but also about the
gallery where he was having an exhibition and how I probably would be dismissed from school for missing a month. Slowly, we both relaxed.

  When we went to bed, he fell asleep immediately. I was on his good side, resting my head on his shoulder, and watching the night through the window. I wasn’t tired but the restlessness that had vibrated in me for so many years seemed to have settled, and I felt good. Mellow. Then I knew what I would do.

  Quietly, I snuck out of bed and dressed in track pants and a tank top. The night was cold, but I’d need tight clothes for where I was going so I ignored it and picked up a rope from its familiar place in the shed at the back of the garden. Then I went to the practice wall my parents had created for me and slowly made my way to the top. It was ridiculously easy, and I laughed softly. I’d thought it was so hard, but I’d been six the first time they’d taken me there so of course, it had been.

  When I got to the top, I sat down and watched the village in front of me. A few lights were lit, but the night was silent. Peaceful.

  “They loved you so much,” my bird said as she sat down next to me.

  “I know.”

  “You climbed this wall all the way to the top, and they laughed when you reached it. They were proud, Snow, and they loved you.”

  “I loved them too,” I sighed.

  “I shouldn’t have told you what eagle-eyes and salt and pepper talked about,” she said.

  “Oh, bird,” I murmured and let my fingertips slide over her feathers. “There are so many shouldn’t haves involved in what happened. Da should have been to a strip club, Mama shouldn’t have been so angry, you shouldn’t have told me, and I shouldn’t have told her. Da shouldn’t have skied… Mama shouldn’t have given up like she did… But in all of this, there’s only one thing that was really wrong. She shouldn’t have blamed me.”

  “She was wrong.”

  “Yes,” I said, and then we were silent.

  As the night passed, I thought about them, and about my life. Then, finally, I let go of that ugly black snake in my belly and felt it wither and crumble into dust. I’d always be wild, and a little bit crazy, but I wouldn’t be driven by anger anymore, I vowed to myself.

  “Oh, Mama,” I murmured. “You were so wrong. I’m sorry you couldn’t see that and I’m not ready to forgive you just yet, but I will. One day, I will.” I was silent for a little while, and then I whispered into the silence, “I miss you both.”

  Then I climbed the short distance down to my back yard and walked inside. Nick moved a little when I got back into bed.

  “You’re okay?” he murmured sleepily.

  “Yes,” I said and closed my eyes.

  “Okay,” he said and squeezed me gently. “Love you.”

  “Love you too,” I murmured as I fell asleep.

  ***

  We walked to Miller and Mary’s place to meet with the others because Nick said he needed the exercise, and since it was six houses away, I didn’t object. The living room was crowded when we got there, but we went straight to Mary. I wanted her to meet Nicky, and I wanted to look at their baby girls.

  “Hey!” she called out and started laughing when she saw my glance around the room. “No one cares about me anymore. They’re sleeping, you get to meet them later.”

  Then she caught sight of Nick and froze.

  “Oh. You’re Domenico,” she said, sounding stunned. “I didn’t realize…”

  Nick raised a brow and waited for her to collect herself.

  “I studied at the art department. It was after you left, but I saw you there a few times, and they talked about you.”

  Her normally so open and happy face was suddenly guarded, and it was clear that not everything they'd said was good. Nick didn’t say anything at first, and I felt him move a little next to me, but then he sighed silently.

  “I was probably not well liked, and if I offended you back then, I'm sorry. There are reasons for why I acted the way I did, but I shouldn't have –”

  She put a small hand on his arm to stop him from speaking. I'd always liked Mary, but right then, when I saw the kindness and acceptance in her perceptive eyes, I could easily have kissed her.

  “They hurt you in that program like they hurt Jinx,” she said.

  “Not the same, but yeah, they did,” he replied.

  “It wasn't bad, what they said. You weren't hated. People were mostly afraid of you and in awe of what you did. I admire your photographs, Domenico, always have. They're pieces of art.”

  “Nick, and thanks.”

  “Nick. I'm sure you don't remember me, I'm –”

  “Mary Parker, specializing in art restoration. Thinks she'll be a conservator, but she won't. Good with acrylics, and water colors, less so with pencils.”

  Mary stared at him, and his eyes made a quick sweep of the room before he continued.

  “I admire your pretty pillow cases, and I see you still prefer green. Love the painting with the red flowers, but the other one looks like a first try... And you've branched out and started with clay. They're good, I like the small bowls over there and the kite on the windowsill.”

  Mary promptly burst out laughing.

  “Mary Keeghan these days and goddamn you, and your sharp eyes. Yes, it was a first attempt, and I don't like it either, but no one else noticed, and they looked good together.”

  “Do another one, and they'll look better. You could try...”

  They walked off to the side and started to trace their fingers up and down a gorgeous painting of water lilies that neither of them apparently were satisfied with.

  “How the hell did he know which of the gazillion pieces of art in this house that was hers?” Jiminella muttered.

  Mary had changed the rather impersonal and formal house I remembered into an explosion of colors and impressions. It was skillfully done and what so easily could have been cluttered and overworked was instead warm and inviting. There were lots of art, so Jiminella had a point, although I didn't like her tone.

  “He was in the same program as you for a reason, Jiminella,” I said, quietly but firmly.

  “Did I sound condescending?” she asked wearily. “I didn't mean to.”

  “You did, but we know,” Miller interrupted. “Relax, Snow. No one will put another boo-boo in your dude.”

  Another what?

  “I'll just...” Jiminella murmured and walked over to Mary and Nick, who were laughing about something.

  They had such looks of complete understanding on their faces, and warmth spread inside me again. It was good to see Nicky so happy, and since we'd spend time in Norton, it'd be good for him to have someone to work with. When Jiminella joined them, Mary put her hand on Nick's arm and said something that made him bark out loud, astonished laughter.

  “Jinx didn’t mean anything with her comment,” Miller said. When I didn’t respond to him, he added in a voice that suddenly sounded defensive. “Mary is just friendly."

  I turned in surprise because I knew that. Then I remembered what my aunt and uncle had told me about Mama. Miller was younger than my father, but he would still have seen it up close, so it wasn't surprising that he felt the need to clarify.

  “I'm not my mama,” I said. “I thought it was good to see Nick so happy.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled a little, and his face softened.

  “We loved her, you know. For who she was, but she made your da so happy, and we loved her for that too.”

  Jiminella and Nicky had walked out on the porch and were leaning on the porch rail. He looked relaxed.

  “She was lost without him,” Mill continued.

  “Yeah,” I sighed.

  On the porch, Nick started talking, and Jiminella watched him intently. I thought she looked pale and was about to find Dante when he suddenly appeared behind her, pulling her close to his chest.

  “I talked to Uncle Sven, about Da and who he was. What he was,” I murmured, still watching Nick. Jiminel
la slowly wiped her cheeks with one hand and leaned back on Dante. “I think I need to talk to Hawker.”

  “You wanna be my scout, Snow?”

  Hawkers deep rumble surprised me, and I wondered how long he'd been standing behind me.

  “Yes.”

  “You have things to learn.”

  “I know.”

  “I can be an asshole.”

  “I know.”

  Boy, did I know.

  “You'll have to give me news I won't like, sometimes. Can't be afraid of me.”

  “Okay,” I said calmly, suddenly trying desperately to hold back surprised laughter.

  The thought that I’d be afraid of him was ridiculous. He was a hard man when he had to be, but he was a good one too, and most of his alleged badassness was just noise. I suspected that he was hiding a big, soft heart beneath all his considerable attitude.

  I thought I managed to look reasonably serene, but he must have noticed the glitter in my eyes because he frowned.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Yes,” I said, but when his brows lowered, I added calmly, “Only a little, though.”

  Mill burst out laughing, and Hawker tried his best to scowl credibly, but I saw the humor in his eyes and grinned at them.

  “How could you think I'd be afraid of you?”

  He didn’t answer my question, which had been rhetorical anyway, and said instead, “I'll talk to Wilder. Miller will go through things with you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he echoed and turned away, but I stopped him.

  “Hawker,” I said and added when he raised a brow, “You can be as much of a dick as you need, but you can't play me, not ever. No lies.”

  He'd done that once, and I wouldn't accept it again.

  “No lies,” he agreed, hesitated, and took the two steps needed to put him right at my side. Then he murmured into my ear, “Bad decision on my part, sending you in like that. Almost got you both killed. I'm sorry, Snow.”

  “Apology accepted,” I said, and he nodded, once, and walked away.