Ghosts: An Accidental Turn Novella
Page 8
Kin sits up and I shift, strike another match and tamp it in the bowl of my pipe as I wait. Another ringing skirl of string and pipe, and, one by one, the partners join hands on the broom handles, fingers twined. A third flourish of music, and they turn their backs to us, and touch the tips of the brooms to the flames. The pitch catches, the birch twigs crackle, and a flash of magic flares, containing the fire to the broomhead, sealing the flames away from the handle. A fourth and final skirl, and the partners plant the ends of the brooms into low stone pockets that hold the flame just high enough off the grass that they won’t sputter out, but not so high that when the Pairs entwine their elbows, brush back their beards, ratchet up their skirts, and leap over the flame, no one catches fire.
One of the young girls, one of the the kissing ones, shrieks in surprise as a trailing ribbon from her hair sparks up, but Mandikin is there quickly. She douses the flame with her wet hand, and the girl’s yelp trails off into embarrassed laughter before I have even really registered the cry. Mandikin scolds the girl, and then kisses first her forehead, and then her new wife’s, fond and a little sad. The ghost probably minded both girls when they were young.
Kin’s hands are on his thighs, curling and flexing in a way that says he clearly wishes there was enough light to sketch by. Instead, he swigs more mead, and I wonder if he intends to get drunk tonight. Not that a nice little festival isn’t worth celebrating, but it’s me who’ll have to haul him back to the inn, who will have to strip him out of his clothes, have to dunk his head in a cold basin and dry his hair, have to tuck him in and . . . I shift, suddenly glad that the firelight is low enough that Kin can’t sketch. Because if he had enough light to draw by, he’d also have enough light to see the tent I’m pitching.
Bloody hells.
Instead of doing anything about it—it’ll go down on it’s own, and I’m not feeling particularly inclined to handle it any other way—I tap out the ashes of my pipe on the heel of my boot, repack the bowl, and relight the herb. We watch the revelers in companionable silence.
Kin is lax in the aftermath of adventure and a few good swigs from his skin, not to mention an argument forgiven. Pliant and nonverbal, this is my favorite version of my friend. This Kin lets me touch, lets me run my fingers through gold-threaded locks, lets me rest my palm on his wide thigh, lets me wrap around him in our bedrolls, lets me bury my nose behind an ear.
I take a breath to speak, lick my lips, and then abruptly freeze, my brain tripping to a stunned halt at the question my tongue was just about to push from between my teeth.
No, I think. I can’t say that out loud. Can I? No. No. Kin wouldn’t . . . I can’t. Could I? Can I?
“What?” Kin grunts. “Just say it.”
I release my breath in a rueful chuckle, forcing my spine to un-fuse, my shoulders to lower. I should be startled that Kin knew I was building up to something, but . . . seventeen years. We know each other well.
Well enough that Kin knows when I’m biting down on words. Well enough that my request might actually go unmocked.
I’m a brave man. I’ve faced down dark elves, Bootknife’s blade, hungry sirens, and vengeful barrow wights. And yet, I can’t directly say it. Instead, I decide to take the flank, to test Kin’s shields and how drunk he is, how . . . amenable.
“Looks fun,” I venture, slipping the stem of my pipe out from between my teeth and pointing the stem at the Pairs now dancing around the Fire Flower torches.
“Mmm,” Kin grumbles, which isn’t an agreement. It’s not an evasion either, though.
I lick my lips again, tasting mead and smoke, herb and possibility. “We could do that.”
Kin swigs, seeming to be processing what I suggest. “Dance?” he asks, half in jest. “Set you on fire?”
I’m feeling loose-jointed and warm, and ever so slightly drunk myself after those few ales and the honey mead. I screw up my courage and blurt: “Jump a broom.”
The guffaw is half out of Kintyre’s mouth before he seems to realize he’s even laughing. He doesn’t even bother to raise his hand to cover his mouth.
I can feel my face going cold, all of Kin’s lovely warmth pulling away as he curls over the mead skin and giggles. Shame surges in its absence.
Stupid, I think. I’m not sure who that’s directed at. Both of us, maybe.
“Forget it,” I snap, climbing to my feet, shaking the ash out of my pipe with a hard swing that smacks against my thigh and is nowhere near as satisfying as, say, punching Kin in the nose would be.
“Aw, no, Bev!” Kin chortles and paws at my arm. “Come back, you daft bastard, come back.”
“Let go,” I snarl, feeling more embarrassed and angry with myself than I think the situation warrants. It’s not like I’d even wanted it particularly badly. It’s not like anyone else overheard my awkward, awful proposition.
“Hey now,” Kin says, sitting up and looking instantly sober. Whether or not he really is, I can’t say. Despite seventeen years of companionship, Kin can still keep things from me when he wants to. “What’s this?”
“I said forget it. It’s nothing.” I turn my face back toward the center of town, toward the Pern and the bed that’s waiting for me—probably clean, but definitely cold.
Writer, I’m a stupid, stupid fool.
Kin squints, tugs the hem of my short-robe, and says, “Bev. We don’t need to jump a broom together.”
“Yeah, right, sure,” I say and tug my robe out of his grip.
Kin scrambles to his feet. “Bev, stop, I mean it. We don’t need to jump a broom together.”
“Why, because we’re already Paired?” I sneer. I jam my pipe into my pouch before I end up snapping the stem in my rage—a pipe Kin had given me, sure, but not as a Pairing gift. Kin’s never, even after everything I’ve done, even thought about me like that.
Yeah, he’ll lick, and touch, and kiss—when there’s a woman with us. Sometimes he’ll even sheathe himself in me, or allow me to sheathe in him when we are out of our minds with passion. But to declare it, to even admit to it . . . no. Never. Not in front of my brothers and sisters-in-law, never in front of the children, the people of Bynnebakker. Never where Forsyth Turn, Lordling of Lysse, or Sheriff Pointe, or anyone from Turnshire could hear. Never even in front of his damned horse.
Never even when it was just the two of us, alone in a shared berth or bed, on the hundred and one nights where we were jammed together for warmth, or because the room was too small, or because we were imprisoned together, or because the make-shift lean-to or snow-hutch we’d constructed had been too narrow. Never when we were sharing breath, and spit, and tears, and blood. Never once has Kin even acknowledged the humid air between our mouths, the way the whorls of our fingertips lock together, the flutter of eyelashes, the scrape of stubble, the peaked nipples, the stained smallclothes.
Never.
Except tonight. And only then to push me away.
And that is not a Pair. That is not what it means.
Kin rocks back on his heels and goes absolutely still, absolutely silent. It takes a moment for me to register through the harsh hiss of my own breath slithering through my clenched teeth, to hear the silence for what it is. For what it isn’t.
Finally, when I have ahold of my temper, when I’ve managed to unclench my fists and wiggle my toes in my boots, I look up. Kin’s face is a well-carved expression of carefully considered blankness.
“Aren’t we?” Kin asks, and his voice is low, barely audible above the crackle of the great bonfire, the giggles and shouts of laughter, the yelling children, the cheering adults, the music on the far side of the flames. His shoulders are a straight, unreadable line against the bright aura of firelight, his arms loose at his sides—neither tense nor prepared to fight, nor actually as relaxed as he’s trying to appear.
He is so tense, so prepared to be hurt, so ready to just take this blow on his stupid, perfect cleft chin that I can’t . . . I can’t. I crumble.
“We are,” I lie, hating
myself for every syllable of it. “Of course we are.”
Kintyre relaxes, happy, oblivious, satisfied. I take the mead skin and drink heavily.
✍
As we depart Gwillfifeshire the next morning, packs weighted down with supplies enough to see us through Miliway, my heart is as heavy as my load, my feet plodding. I can’t tell if the regret I’m carrying is from what I did last night, and what I said . . . or from what I didn’t have the stones to say.
But Kin looks like he’s carrying air, the great prick. He raises his face to the sky and grins. He folds his hands on the back of his neck, mischievous. It makes him look so young again, so carefree, that my heart lurches. And my head throbs; I’ve got one troll of a hangover.
As I work to unstick my fuzzy tongue from the roof of my mouth, Kin offers me a drink—the last of the mead. It must be stale by now, and certainly warm, but the best cure for a bite is the hair of the dog that bit you, so I accept it with both a grimace and a small nod of gratitude.
There’s just one mouthful left when I pass it back.
“Do you suppose there’ll be time to find someone in Lysse?” Kin asks, eyes bright as he fists the flask. He tilts his chin up to glug, but his eyes remain on mine. It’s not a challenge, not really, so much as a silent plea to keep things as they have always been.
Change nothing, that look begs. Leave things as they are.
And I, living in terror that each day will be the one where Kintyre Turn realizes the true depth of my affection for him and departs in a cloud of offense and disgust, give him the closest thing to a nod I can muster.
“Possibly,” I answer. “We may have time. We’re headed straight there, and Bossy Forssy didn’t want us for a fortnight yet. I’d say that’s plenty of time.”
Kintyre lowers the flask, licking syrupy golden liquor from his lips, and claps me on the back. “Good lad! You’ll find me someone good, eh? Maybe this maiden in distress we’re meant to be rescuing will be grateful!”
“We can hope,” I allow. I swallow hard. It tastes like ash, but I arrange my face into a mask of pleasant blandness all the same. I check our direction by the sun, squinting to spare my eyes. And my throbbing head. I wish something could spare the agonizing squeeze of this damned seedling Dargan planted behind my ribs. I wish I could yank the weed out of my heart.
“Well, to Lysse and Turnshire, then?” Kin asks, twisting the cap of the flask back into place and running his wrist along the underside of his cleft chin to catch any fleeing droplets.
“To Turnshire,” I agree, and do as I have always done. As I will always do.
I put one foot in front of the other. I walk.
And I follow Kintyre Turn.
About the Author
J.M. is a voice actor, SF/F author, professionally trained music theatre performer, not-so-trained but nonetheless enthusiastic screenwriter and webseries-ist, and a fanthropologist and pop culture scholar. She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, radio programs, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. J.M. lives near Toronto, loves tea, scarves, and Doctor Who (all of which may or may not be related), and her epic dream is to one day sing a duet with John Barrowman.
Her debut novel Triptych was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, nominated for the CBC Bookie Award, was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2011, was on The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011 list, received an honorable mention at the London Book Festival in Science Fiction, and won the San Francisco Book Festival for Science Fiction.
www.jmfrey.net | @scifrey
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Table of Contents
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four