by Shea Berkley
I choked.
“Nari?”
She looked different. Not at all like I expected.
“I see you found her,” Gordie whispered in my ear after he’d snuck up on me. The color had returned to his cheeks, and he gazed proudly over at his little sister. “Who would have thought my aunt capable of making a lady out of a lad, but she did.”
My gaze stabbed Tait in the back. “What is he doing cooing over your little sister?” I looked back at her and noticed a decided change in her demeanor. Where before she had ignored Tait, now she batted her eyelashes and made silly faces that encouraged his suit. “Will you look at her? How can she forget how much she hates him?”
“People change. You did.”
“Not Nari. She hates Tait. She always has and always will.”
“Well then,” Gordie said with a smile, “I guess you had best get over there and remind her who Tait is.”
6
I knew who Tait was. He was the one all the girls swooned over. But he was also the one who’d tormented Nari when we were young—the last to agree to let her stay, and the first to tell her to go home. How could she forget? It was embarrassing…humiliating the way she fawned over him. Worse, I wanted to be him. I wanted her to look at me with adoration. I wanted her quick touches and soft laughs. Evil as it sounded, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow Tait whole, and for me to take his place.
I still wanted Nari. More than ever. And this time I wasn’t scared to let her know it. I was, as Gordie pointed out, a changed man.
I threw the remaining carrot cake to the ground and headed toward the pair. Tait had his back to me, so it wasn’t terribly difficult to slip around him and take Nari’s hand in mine.
“Excuse us,” I said to the rogue, though I looked squarely into Nari’s cobalt blue eyes, which had widened at my touch. Without missing a beat, or waiting for Tait to agree, I pulled her behind me, and miracles of miracles, she followed without a sound of protest. I quickly led her around the side of the house, and when we were out of sight, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her.
Sugary lips, soft skin and the sweet smell of her skin assailed me. I was undone. A slave to her. My best friend. Her fingers clasped the front of my shirt, and I pulled her closer. Why had I ever sent her away from me? I’d been a brainless dolt. A child. But a child no longer. If any man were to touch her, it would be me, and only me.
Slowly we pulled apart, her name on my lips interrupted by a sharp slap to my cheek. I threw my eyes open and put a hand to my stinging skin. When I looked down, it was into Nari’s surprisingly furious features. We had experienced the most wondrous kiss and she was mad? Incomprehensible. “What did you do that for?”
Her fists pummeled my chest before I could jump out of reach. When I managed to break free, I stood apart from her, baffled by her unexpected attack. She stared at me, her body stiff and unyielding as she screamed, “What is wrong with you? Do you think, after all these years, you can just come and kiss me without even a polite greeting?”
“But…” I motioned to the front of the house like an idiot, “you came along…”
“I thought you were finally going to apologize.”
What was she talking about? “Apologize? For what? We’ve not seen each other in nearly two years.”
I quickly stepped back as the heat of a long stoked fire burst from her soft lips. “You broke my heart. You were my best friend and you ran away.”
Oh, right. That. I scrambled to explain my behavior. “I was…confused.”
“About what?” she asked, stepping closer.
I matched each of her forward steps with a backward one of my own, keeping a good distance between us. “You changed. You were a girl. I didn’t understand what had happened, or why I’d suddenly noticed when the day before I hadn’t.”
She stalked me around the back yard. “Are you telling me you forgot I was a girl, and the day you remembered, you ran?”
The blaze in her heart had turned to an inferno and her arms flailed wildly as she continued her advance.
“Are you going to hit me again?” I was a little worried about that because my cheek really hurt.
She stopped chasing me, and a look of regret flittered across her face. “No.”
I took a step closer. “Nari, must we argue? It was two years ago. Neither of us are the same person.”
“Two years,” she repeated.
I dared to hope. “That’s right. Two years.”
Her foot suddenly came out and slammed in to my shin. “And they’ve been the most awful two years of my life. I want an apology.”
Pain lanced up my leg and I hobbled back, rubbing the ache away as I shot her a heated glare. “That hurt.”
“Not as badly as you hurt me.”
“You can’t keep it against me. I was just a lad.”
“Apologize,” she yelled in a threatening voice.
I’d never seen that exact shade of purplish-red on a woman’s face before. It terrified me.
“I’m sorry,” I yelled back.
“That’s not good enough,” she raged, her beautiful face flushed even brighter with anger. “You were the only one who treated me like I mattered. When you were around, I wasn’t invisible. Don’t you get it? When you rejected me, I wanted to die.”
Her eyes grew bright with unshed tears. “Nay, I nearly did.”
If the heat coming off her could kill, I’d be roasted welldone.
I deserved no less fate.
I had abandoned her because I’d been afraid of growing up. How could she have known the fear that plagued me? She hadn’t done anything wrong. I didn’t want to think what must have gone through her mind when I’d deserted her so cruelly. Guilt washed over me as I looked into her face. “You’re right. It’s not good enough. I’m sorry I hurt you, Nari. I was young and stupid and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m asking, no, I’m begging you.” I dropped to my knees in front of her, unmindful of how I looked. “Will you forgive me?”
A crowd had gathered to watch, drawn no doubt, by our yelling. Nari cast a dubious glance at me. “So, you want me to forgive you?”
“Please,” I said in my most fervent voice. “Forgive me.”
“You were my best friend.” The whispered confession almost broke my heart.
“I still am. I promise. I’m sorry.”
She bit her lip in indecision. I’d never felt so horrible or so nervous. The sun had set and torchlight caused the highlights in her hair to dance. Her skin shone like butter and cream and I ached just looking at her. “Please, Nari. Forgive me.”
She stepped closer. “Ryne,” she said in a soft husky voice. My name sounded so sweet on her lips.
My heart lifted. “Yes?”
She took another step closer.
“Watch it, lad,” someone yelled.
Her fist shot out and the next thing I knew, I was laid flat on the ground and sporting an aching jaw. Her aim was accurate as always and stung just as much. I glanced up into Nari’s spitting cobalt blue eyes. “What did you do that for?”
“You are the stupidest boy I have ever met.”
With that, she turned and stomped away amidst the laughter of the crowd.
Gordie approached and held out his hand. Holding my sore jaw with one hand, I clasped his with the other and let him help me stand. As the crowd slowly dispersed, Gordie critiqued my performance. “Good show of regret, but I think you should’ve kissed her first.”
“I did.”
Tait appeared at Gordie’s shoulder, his ever-present grin causing my jaw to tighten. “Then you mustn’t have done it right. Poor Ryne. To be known as a bad kisser is almost as bad as being known as a sad ending to a faery tale. Speaking of tales, how’s the nix in the lake?”
“Shut up, Tait.”
Before I lost all control, I stormed away to coddle my wounded pride in peace.
And then I did a very stupid thing.
I went to the pool.
; The night was thick, but held a robust moon, which threw down silver slashes of light that cut into the pool’s murky water. I’d never seen a moon such as this, the way it lit the night like a mighty beacon, nor felt the depth of my soul so keenly. Melancholy overtook me and I stripped down to only my trews and dove into the pond, letting the water soothe my aching muscles and clear my head.
The water slid against my skin. A feeling of buoyant freedom engulfed me. I dove and swam, spanning the pool several times until I moved to the waterfall. On a previous visit, I’d found a ledge just behind the falling water. I dove beneath the churning surface and resurfaced behind the silvery veil. I shook the excess water off my hair and tried to peer through the break in the falling water.
At one point, I thought I saw someone. I waited, but the vision did not return. As my body cooled, I thought of what I must do. I had to speak with Nari. She would be leaving for her aunt’s house soon. I couldn’t leave our last moment together laden with memories of an argument.
Standing, I dove back into the water and resurfaced just beyond the bubbling waters near the falls. The mists were rolling in from the lake. Soon they would engulf far inland like a wet blanket, and disappear when the sun touched the horizon. There was no finer sight than seeing the sun’s first finger of life touch the low mist golden white. Nari would love the sight.
As I swam toward the bank, something grazed my leg. I jerked to a stop. Treading water, I looked around me, trying to see into the pool’s murky depths. For all the times I’d gone swimming here, I’d never felt any fish so much as nibble on my baby toe.
Again something grazed my leg, and I instinctively kicked out. Without hesitating, I darted toward the bank. The sensation that something unseen and dangerous lurked in the water spurred me on. As soon as I touched the bank, I vaulted out of the water, but not before I heard the rip of my trews and felt a sharp scratch along the length of my calf as I yanked my leg out.
I whipped myself around, my skin slick, my trews slashed and sodden and molded to my lower body. I peered into the water. The silver light that had guided me was gone, leaving the pool a blackened hole that could just as easily be filled with tar as it was with water.
I stood shivering in the night as the mist edged further along the edge of the pool. The moon gave a last flicker of light, revealing the water’s surface and an old tree branch bobbing near where I’d climbed from the water. I released my breath, unaware I’d been holding it until then.
“A branch. Just a branch.” No nix had come to drag me to her underwater domain.
It disturbed me to think in some corner of my brain, I could still believed my parent’s tale. I was no better than they. I let out a ragged laugh. “I’m a fool.” A fool to believe a foolish faerytale.
I collected the rest of my clothes and walked away, feeling the bloody scratch on my calf burn as I did.
7
On my return from my swim, I was waylaid on my trek home. As a favored friend of the groom’s, I was enlisted to help clean up the commons. Empty kegs were hauled back to the pub, chairs were hefted back into their respective houses, and men were supported back to their beds. All-in-all, it was backbreaking work. While I rested from helping old man Tiller limp—though it was really a stagger—to his house, I overheard Nari’s father and the new wife.
“You must rest now, husband,” she said, patting him on the arm. “No one will mind. You have a long journey on the morrow, and I’ll need you home by week’s end.”
Nari’s father cleared his throat. “There will be no journey.”
The new wife suddenly grew tense and her eyes latched onto her husband.
He shrugged off her alarm. “Nari will not be returning to her aunt’s house. Her training is complete.”
Crickets could be heard in the silence that followed that announcement, for he was not a man conditioned toward conflict. He let his wife have what she willed so long as she saw to the house, fed him and left him in peace. But the new wife regained her voice soon enough. “Surely you realize it is unfair to assume such a conclusion this soon?”
He glanced away. “I never thought I’d miss her, but I do. She stays.”
Unused to him giving orders, she stuttered. “B-but…”
Panic covered the new wife’s face. “It is best to finish the job than to leave it half done. Even you must see the folly of trying to give away a half-trained wife.”
Nari’s father slanted an exhausted look toward her. “Stop your fretting, woman. What you could not accomplish is where my sister has excelled. Nari is all that a young woman should be, and I have every confidence she will be of great use to you.” With that, he walked away.
The new wife was rarely one to be put off. “And if your confidence is misplaced,” her displeasure railed against him, “a great burden. Left unmarried, she will drain our monies until there is none left.”
A ray of hope lightened my chest. I cared little if the new wife was pleased or not, her husband’s decision favored me, for it gave me a fighting chance to secure Nari’s forgiveness…and maybe a tiny speck of her love. Though bruised and frustrated, I was suddenly energized in my campaign to win Nari.
The day after the wedding, I rose early and set out for Nari’s home. I passed Gordie’s new house, and everyone else’s in the village, before I came to a stop outside a charming thatched cottage. I had to hand it to the new wife. Over the years, she had managed to work her magic on the dilapidated little cottage, making a pretty purse out of a sow’s ear. Morning glories draped the flowerbeds while climbing roses edged up the sides of the house, dripping red, and pink and white along the eaves. A fine, full kitchen garden had been planted out back and improvements to the overall construction to the place had been done–namely by myself and my father.
I waited in the darkness of the morning, rehearsing what I would say to Nari. I waited until the sun sprang from its long night’s rest to cast the first yellow vines of light along the streets. Not long after, a light in the window flickered brightly, and I straightened from my squatting position at the corner of the house across the lane.
I couldn’t move.
I just stood there, staring at the house as the village slowly awoke. As the dairyman went house to house, leaving the morning jugs beside each door. As the women rose to make a hearty breakfast for their families. As the men left for another day of labor. A young boy came and handed a letter to the new wife. Its contents making her squeal with delight. “You see here?” she crowed. “I didn’t imagine it.” And the door shut on her excitement.
Through it all, I was a sad piece of work, standing in the shadows there like a forgotten, ill-loved dog.
I avoided Nari’s father as he left the house, hiding like a cornered rat, terrified he’d see me. I shouldn’t have worried. He was too busy to mind the idiot hunkering in the shadows.
Not so everyone.
“Ryne, is that you skulking about over there?” a crusty, thick voice shouted.
My gaze shot to old widow Jens scuffling down the alleyway. Her steps were so slow, and she so slight, it was a wonder the wind didn’t knock her over before she was able to put her foot down. Within one hand, she held a basket and in the other a stout walking stick. As she peered over at me, I could hardly deny it was not I, for everyone knew everyone here.
She answered her own question before I could. “Yes, it’s you. Strange thing last night. Why would you yell at poor Nari, and her back for only a few days? Can’t say as your mother is pleased with your manners. That’s why you’re here. Come to make things right. Well, get on with you,” she said, close enough now to swat me with her cane. “You know the way and the how to.”
With my throat too constricted to say anything, I only nodded as I endured the prod of her stick. Under the widow’s watchful stare, I stepped up to the door and gave it a quick rap. I glanced back, and she gave me a satisfied nod. At the sound of footsteps from within, I faced the door and swallowed rapidly in an effort to lubricate my dry
throat.
The door sprang open to reveal the new wife wearing a wide smile on her face and dressed in her best finery. One look at me and her smile disappeared. “What do you want?”
“I’d…I’d like to speak with Nari, if you don’t mind.” And then, in a brilliant show of afterthought, I tacked on, “Ma’am.”
Her nose twitched with disgust, completely unimpressed. “She isn’t in.”
How was that possible? I’d been staring at the house since before dawn. “May I ask where she is?”
“You may not.” She took a step forward, forcing me back as she waved her hand holding the letter that had been delivered that morning. “You hie yourself somewhere else. Nari has a suitor coming today to talk of an arrangement, and if he sees you hanging about, no telling what he’ll think of us.”
“Someone wants to marry Nari?” Word of her staying had traveled fast. Though I heard correctly, I couldn’t quite believe her.
“I’m as shocked as you, but that’s what he states. ‘As pretty a wife as I’ll likely get,’ he says. And I’m right glad to hear it. A godsend, he is.” She looked up and down the street, her gaze piercing the shadows for any sign of her prey before returning to me. “Away with you, now,” she hissed, and made to close the door, but I stopped her.
“Who?”
She looked from my hand on the door to me, and it was clear she was not pleased. “No one you would know.”
“Does her father know of your plan?”
“What impudence,” she bristled like a porcupine. “Of course he knows.”
“Does Nari?”
She blustered and gurgled and looked ready to erupt. “I’ll not say another word to you, young man. Be gone or I’ll fetch my husband to throw you away.”
With a hefty shove, she closed the door, leaving me to stare thoughtfully at the solid panel. Nari couldn’t know. But what if she did? Was that why she had been so ill-disposed toward me last night?
“No,” I said as I backed away. “She wouldn’t marry a stranger.”
“And who says he’s a stranger?” said the old widow.
