A Lesson in Thorns

by Sierra Simone

  I drop to a crouch and invite him over for pets. “Hi there, good boy,” I croon as he trots toward me, tail and ears up. He plops down to sit after a cursory snuffle around my hands and feet, and when he opens his mouth to pant, his tongue falls out of the side. I’m in love immediately, and prove it by scratching behind his ears, which earns me a lick on the face.

  Auden turns again, and when he does, both the angry vulnerability and the indifferent mask are gone. He gives me and the dog a real smile, with that damn crook in his upper lip, and I have to look quickly away or I know I’ll blush and he’ll see.

  They always see when I blush.

  “That’s Sir James Frazer,” Auden says, seeming pleased to see me and his dog getting along. “I hope you’re not allergic . . . ?”

  “Not at all. My dad has three dogs at home, and I’ve always planned on adopting one once I got my own place.”

  “Then I hope you’ll consider Sir James a surrogate while you’re staying here,” Auden says. “Not that he’ll give you any peace anyway. He gets very snuggly with everyone he meets.”

  Sir James Frazer licks me again on the face, as if to agree.

  Auden seems to come to some kind of realization and shakes his head at himself. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been keeping you occupied up here—I’m not sure what’s gotten into me.” His mouth slants ruefully. “You’re very easy to talk to, you know.”

  It’s something I’ve heard all my life, and I’m used to it, even if it sometimes makes me feel a little lonely. The person that everyone talks to, but who never gets that comfort in return.

  Oh, stop it, Poe. I’m not melancholy by nature, and I don’t intend to start, even if I’m basically on the set of the underrated 1994 adaptation of The Secret Garden, and even if I am sharing a room with an expert brooder.

  I give Auden a smile. “I promise I’m usually a bit better at keeping up my end of a conversation, I just—” another dizzying yawn interrupts my words.

  Auden holds up a hand. “Say no more. And actually, I insist you take a nap before I refresh your memory about the layout of the house. The bathroom is just down the hall—apologies for that in advance, you’ll be sharing with Rebecca when she’s staying here, but she’s here even less than me, so hopefully it won’t be too inconvenient.”

  “I don’t mind sharing,” I say foggily, going to sit on the bed. “I just . . . one moment.”

  I have a long blink. I know these blinks. It means sleep is creeping up on me too fast for me to stop it, and my head is drooping as I fade . . .

  My head snaps up and Auden is next to me, helping me lie down.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, clearly concerned.

  “Fine,” I mumble. “Just need a moment.”

  “Take as long as you need,” he says, and I feel warm, blunt fingertips brushing the hair from my forehead.

  It’s the last thing I remember before sleep closes over me like water, and I’m lost.

  Chapter 3

  My father always used to joke that I dreamed on my feet, but when I was sixteen, we discovered that I was quite literally dreaming on my feet. After a series of unspeakably boring and uncomfortable studies, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy without cataplexy—which is just fancy medical talk for saying that a part of my brain eats itself, and as a consequence, I am a very, very sleepy person.

  And also I dream too many dreams.

  When I wake up from my nap, there’s a scream balled in my throat, but I can’t remember why. Just something about the thorn chapel and Auden and there was a knife maybe, and sparks spitting from a fire.

  A fire burning against the night.

  I press the heels of my palms against my eyes and take a deep breath. I dream like this all the time and have ever since I can remember. And sometimes I have waking dreams, as I’m falling asleep or waking up, so vivid that when I claw free from them, I burst immediately into tears.

  This is nothing new, Poe.

  But it was so real, so urgent, and I can almost still smell the smoke burning my nostrils and hear Auden’s razored breaths as he stood at a door in the thorn chapel . . .

  No, that can’t be right. There’s no door in the chapel ruins.

  Just a dream thing.

  Right. Just a dream thing.

  I sit up and feel the relief only a narcoleptic can feel when I check my watch. I’ve only slept an hour or so, which sounds like a lot, but I’ve been known to lie down for a nap and wake up the next morning, so I’m calling it a win, even though I know I’ll feel a little sheepish going downstairs. That’s the thing about naps. Everyone knows what you’ve done, and there’s something that feels lazy about it, shameful, even though I don’t have a choice about my brain cannibalizing its own proteins, and really, everyone sleeps.

  I decide to take some extra time, since that hot tea waiting for me is already cold and they’ll need to make a fresh pot anyway . . . and if I have to make the nap walk of shame, I think I’ll feel better doing it with clean hair and fresh clothes. I grab new clothes and underthings, and my travel-sized toiletries—I’ll need to head into Thorncombe soon to stock up for real—and strike out for the bathroom I’ll share with Rebecca.

  The dream still clings to the corners of my mind as I find the bathroom and familiarize myself with all the light switches and shower workings. It bothers me as I scrub my skin and wash my hair. And when I finish up and stow my dirty laundry back in my room, it’s still the only thing I can think of.

  Just a dream thing, Poe. Just bad brain chemistry.

  It better be.

  In between pulling on fresh clothes, I text my ex-girlfriend that I’m here, and after a moment’s hesitation, I finally text my dad.

  Me: I made it here safely. Love you.

  He responds right away—like he’s been keeping his phone close—but the answer is short, the meaning clear.

  Dad: It’s not too late to come back.

  I don’t reply. We fought bitterly enough about me coming here when I took the job, and I don’t see how either of us can have anything new to say. I close my eyes and remind myself of how pointless it would be to fight about it again.

  “You can’t go,” he begged. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

  “Dad, they’re paying me to go. To do a job I’d do for free if I could.”

  He’d leaned over his kitchen counter then, his hands balled in fists and his posture that of a broken man. “It’s too dangerous. Your mom and I—we learned the hard way how dangerous it is. She’d want me to keep you safe now.”

  “But the note she sent—”

  “She didn’t send it, Poe, she couldn’t have!” he exploded. “She’s dead or she’s forgotten about us in some new life, and she’s not sending you notes in Latin!”

  His words stung. They stung enough that I had to sit down on a kitchen chair and stare at the floor for a minute.

  “Poe,” he said after a minute. “I’m sorry. You must know that this hurts for me too.”

  “You never had a service for her,” I whispered. “You never tried to have her declared dead, even though you could have. Why not, if you don’t still secretly hope she’s alive?”

  He took off his glasses then, wiping them on his shirt to avoid looking at me. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe it felt like Thornchapel would win if I did.”

  Thornchapel. It always came back to Thornchapel.

  “What did you do that summer?” I asked, lifting my face to his. “What had you locked up in that library for weeks and weeks?”

  He stared at me for a moment, his forehead wrinkling as if he were trying to find a way to convey, finally, why we’d all gone to Thornchapel in the first place. An explanation I’d only been brave enough to ask for a few times, and that he’d always refused to give. But maybe now with this mysterious note, maybe now with me on the verge of going there again—

  “Just don’t go,” Dad said, looking away. “Please.”

  I let out a
long, disappointed breath and stood up. “Bye, Dad,” I said. “I guess I’ll call when my plane lands.”

  I put my phone in the pocket of my skirt, determined to put my father out of my mind for the moment. We’ve always been close, we’ve never really fought, and so I promise myself he’ll come around. After all, I’ve been a model daughter—I got my grad degree before most people even get their bachelor’s, I’ve never been in trouble at school or with the law, and I always walked the dogs and helped with dishes.

  He’ll forgive this little rebellion, I’m sure, because it’s my first, and really, it’s all in the name of library science, and he should understand that, scholar that he is. Right?

  I’ve never felt more like an underpaid academic librarian than I do when I walk downstairs and find the others—minus St. Sebastian of course—curled into armchairs in front of a fire and arguing about something over the din of hammers and saws. My hair is still wet, because I don’t have a blow-dryer that works with English outlets—and if I’m very honest, and why not be, I never blow-dry my hair anyway. It’s always seemed like a waste of time when I can be doing so many other things—reading or studying or sleeping—and so I usually just braid it into a wet rope and deal with it later. Which is what I’ve done now, but one glimpse of Delphine’s flaxen blowout and Rebecca’s artful updo make me regret it. Along with my suitcase-wrinkled blouse and skirt, both of which were bought on clearance, I’m sure I don’t present a very compelling picture.

  But they all pop up and exclaim over me, and I fight through my nap-shame and my irritation with my father and smile back at them.

  Everything is possible.

  Those were the last words my mother ever spoke to me, and I planted them in my heart like seeds and made them grow.

  Everything is possible.

  Even making friends with people while I’m all wet hair and sleep-flushed cheeks. While I have to constantly smooth my skirt behind me because I forgot to pack another pair of tights and my welts are one too-quick turn away from revealing themselves to the world.

  “Now, how was your flight?” Delphine asks in this I insist you tell me everything because we’re the very best of friends voice that nice popular girls have.

  “Exhausting, obviously,” Rebecca says, rolling her eyes and giving me a what are we going to do about her look. Becket bustles off to get the tea, and Auden gets up from his chair and gestures toward the door.

  “Let’s show you around a bit so you’re not lost in your own home,” he says, and then Rebecca and Delphine erupt in protests.

  “She hasn’t told us about her journey!”

  “Becky just left for tea—”

  Auden heaves a giant, exaggerated sigh. “Poe came all this way to work in the damn library, and I’m guessing she’s eager to see it again, aren’t you?” He says this last bit to me.

  I give the others a sheepish look. “I really do want to see it.”

  Delphine makes a pout and then flops into her chair in a very adorable way. “It hasn’t changed a bit, you know. It’s still a big old room full of books.”

  “She hasn’t seen it in twelve years,” Rebecca points out, although I notice there’s the hint of an involuntary smile about the corners of her mouth, as if she can’t help but find Delphine the tiniest bit adorable too. “And you aren’t going to have to spend the next year digging around in there and she is.”

  Delphine huffs.

  “Goodbye,” Auden sings at them, taking my elbow before I can get caught in any more pouts or protests and leading me out of the sitting room and into the main hall. Which, because this is the medieval part of the house, is literally a fucking hall, with a lofty ceiling and a massive fireplace and flagstone floors that must have seen hundreds and hundreds of feasts and revels.

  No revels now though. Only piles of construction supplies and a random metal folding chair. Auden leads me past it all, his arm still on my elbow, and I feel like my elbow is now all of my body, it’s the only part that exists. His hand is warm through my blouse and it’s the style of authoritative contact that makes me melt.

  He really shouldn’t be holding me like this, he shouldn’t be touching me at all, because aren’t engaged men supposed to keep their hands to themselves?

  Do not fall in love, Proserpina Markham. You are not stupid.

  But I’m so susceptible to this kind of touch; I bloom like a rose when I’m handled like a weed, and I’m going to have to put a stop to this right now. His stride is eager and energetic, and so I slow down just enough that he has to pull his hand from my elbow to avoid yanking me ahead. He doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I promise to show you everything else soon,” he’s saying as we walk. “But if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to see the work first. And there’s so much to be done, and I still can’t believe that we’ve found you to do it. The odds of that are . . . well, they’re staggering.”

  It is strange. It’s been one of those things I haven’t looked too closely at since Auden’s lawyer called to offer me the job. To tell me that the estate wished to hire a specialist to archive their family library, and that I’d come personally recommended. That it would be at least a year of cataloging, scanning, annotating, and arranging for the repair and stabilization of any damaged or decaying volumes. It could possibly be many more years, since no formal survey had ever been undertaken of Thornchapel’s library and no one could say for certain exactly how many books were in there.

  And of all the lengths I’ve gone to in order to try to come back to Thornchapel—even going so far as to book a plane ticket once during my sophomore year in college until I confessed to my father and he convinced me not to go—I have to say that concentrating my master’s in the digital preservation of rare books was not one of them.

  “I’m damned lucky Ryan Belvedere recommended you,” Auden says as we walk down a narrow walkway lined with arched windows. It leads from the main hall to the Jacobean portion of the house where the library is.

  Ryan who? “I don’t know who that is.”

  Auden pauses and looks back at me. “You don’t?”

  I shake my head.

  “How curious,” he murmurs. “He came here looking for a book last month, for a someone named Merlin. We had someone else in at the time to put together a catalog for an auction house—all the old art, you know—and he mentioned the state of the library was appalling. Which it is, you’ll see soon enough for yourself. And that’s when Ryan said we should call you. And obviously when I realized it was you—well, it just had to be you.”

  “I’m glad it’s me,” I say.

  “So am I,” he says and then he takes my elbow again.

  I let him. There’s something electrifying about having him touch me like this, in this sort of peremptory, possessive way. Half like he’s a gracious host and half like I’m getting hauled off to be punished. I adore being hauled off and punished, and the bruises on my thighs and ass sing to me again, ready for Auden to add to their number.

  This time my blush actually burns my cheeks. I use my free hand to tug at the hem of my skirt again, keeping all those singing spots on my body hidden.

  Stop. It. Poe. You. Pervert.

  He has to let go and turn away as we approach the library’s double doors. It’s the first chance I’ve had to study his body without the fog of exhaustion clouding my eyes, and it’s doing nothing to help my blush.

  He’s taller than me—well, everyone is taller than me—but he’s objectively tall, at least six feet. He’s that heady combination of lean but muscled, with the curves of his biceps and shoulders swelling under his sweater, and the flat of his stomach leading into narrow hips hugged by expensive trousers and an equally expensive leather belt that would hurt like hell on someone’s backside. His trousers cling to firm thighs and an equally firm and tantalizingly pert ass. The kind of ass that would have dents in the sides when he stood still.

  But even all of that isn’t enough to explain the pull of Auden Guest—
even the hazel eyes and crooked grin and sad, rich-boy disposition aren’t enough.

  I can’t say what it is that makes Auden so . . . so Auden, and that’s professionally irritating. I’m a librarian. I like to catalog things. How can I annotate his metadata on my mental card catalog if I don’t know what to annotate? If I don’t know how to describe him or his effect on me?

  Looking like something out of a men’s fashion magazine, Auden gives me a smile over his shoulder and pushes open the doors. And then all my other thoughts fade away as I take in the room I’ve flown across an ocean to see.

  Northerly light, pale and diffuse, fills the room from the dark wooden floor to the delicately plastered ceilings above. The center of the room is open all the way to the top, a full two stories, and the sides are flanked by rows of bookshelves like marching soldiers, both on the bottom level and the top, with ladders studded at intervals to assist in getting things from the highest shelves. The top level is ringed by narrow galleries and accessed by small but elaborately carved staircases near the stretch of multi-paned windows at the end of the room.

  A massive fireplace yawns against one side, disrupting the otherwise symmetrical layout of bookshelves, and several chairs and a couple sofas have been arranged cozily around it. A drinks bar and random spills of throw blanket finish off the inviting space, and I lose myself to a momentary dream of curling up and reading while the fire and the window-glass keep the winter at bay outside.

  The narcoleptic in me can’t help but think of all the lovely naps to be had here. The librarian in me notes the generous stone hearth and the healthy distance between it and all the books.

  There are two long tables stretching down the length of the room, a massive Victorian globe, and a few glass cases with motley collections of Roman coins and artifacts of metal and bone. And other than the ornate ceiling—all white, but molded in what appear to be geometric patterns of roses and branching thorns—the only real decoration is the books themselves. Leather spines of claret, cinnabar, and citrine, clothbound tomes of sapphire and sage . . . and the requisite scatterings of umber and filemot and terra-cotta, which are the very picture of Serious Books with their sepia colors and peeling lettering.