Darkling (11 page)

At first I thought it was a lullaby, but then I realized it was Midsummer’s Song.

Whether in this life or the next,

Even after sunset in the west

The light will return from high above

For it is my heart and you are my love

Lady ruffled her feathers and the sounds of her fidgeting and the scent of leather and pine staining Draven were so familiar that I could’ve fallen asleep. He focused on one section of my hair for some time, and I belatedly realized he was braiding it. I lay like that for a long while. Long past when the comfort faded.

I eventually heard my mother’s panicked voice calling for me. She had just lost one daughter. Now she was looking for the second.

Sighing, I stirred and sat up. My legs had fallen asleep and I had to wait for them to tingle back to life. My hand was still resting on Draven’s hip. He pulled my curls forward and arranged my hair, positioning his braid at the front. Then he took my shawl and draped it over my head, trying it at my chin.

Linking his hand with mine at his hip, he helped me to my feet. We walked back to the village and I hugged on to his arm and leaned against him for warmth. I didn’t have the heart to say goodbye at my door, even if I’d see him the next day. So I slipped back inside without a word.

My mother had hugged me tightly. Then she fingered my braid.

“That’s pretty,” she said. I reached up to feel it as I sat on my bed. My fingers slipped over the thin bumps of his weaving, then over something soft and thin. A feather. It was one of Lady’s.

I thought of Draven differently after that day. I didn’t want to, but I did. Growing up with him like a cousin made it difficult to think of him as anything else. But when I kept the braid for days because it was his hands that had made it, I knew he was right. I had changed. There was no going back.

The fire pops, startling me. I’m tired of being alone. At the very least, being with Draven after my sister’s death, feeling his hands on my body, sparked something inside. It reminded me of how much there was to enjoy in life, how much potential we have if we can only live. How much beauty there is in adoring another.

I sigh. I think I’ve been sleeping. The fire has burnt low and my neck is aching from the angle I’ve been slumped in. I wonder how much time has passed since I cleaned her door.
Time in which she hasn’t reacted. I hear a scuff behind me and turn to spot Tristan.

He is whole again and peering at me with deer-like eyes. I’m afraid to make any sudden movements lest I startle him.

“Hello,” I say, greeting him as he has so often greeted me.

He smiles then runs his hand over the other armchair as he
approaches, his body language shy. “I like what you’ve done,” he says.

“I did it for you.”

He’s twisting up the bottom of his vest, and I realize that he’s flattered I would put out such effort for him.

I smile and pat the cushion of the other armchair. He returns my smile and takes a seat.

“How do you feel?” I ask.

“Wonderful.”

“It sounded like she hurt you badly.”

Tristan slowly slumps in his chair until the seat of his pants is half off, as if trying to hide from her. He doesn’t make any other response so I work with what I have.

“Comfortable?”

“Quite.”

To each his own. We sit like this for some time. Me curled up, him slumped in a position that doesn’t look the least relaxing. I give him several minutes of peace before I say what I must. “She’s going to use you, you know. To get to me.”

He sighs. “I know.”

“That means she’ll hurt you again.”

“She’ll hurt me anyway so it doesn’t make much difference.” He slowly looks to me, his black bangs in his eyes. “She doesn’t like me making friends with you. She doesn’t like me remembering life.”

“Wait…” I shift my position to better peer at him. “We keep talking about you as if you’re dead. Do you remember dying?”

He shakes his head no. “But I am forgetful.”

“I don’t think that’s something you’d be able to forget.”

Tristan looks down at his hands as he toys with the end of his vest again. I realize he’s missing a button. “It’s rather unfair,” he says. “I shouldn’t have to be this way if I never actually died.”

He’s right. I don’t even understand how it’s possible for him to exist as both a spirit and a body. He’s more than a body, though. He has a mind of his own. He’s a person. “I want you to live as much like me as you can.”

He looks me up and down. “I’m not sure your dress would suit me.”

I stare at him for a moment before I laugh. The sly smile on his face tells me that this wasn’t a slip up in etiquette. He was making a joke. He is definitely more human.

“Do you still have the smoked pork?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s eat it.
Only not in the room. Let’s eat it properly, in the dining room.”

Tristan sits up in his chair.
“A dinner party?”

I don’t know what that is but I nod my head.

“Excellent!” He leaps up and claps his hands. “You must forgive me for not having thought of this sooner.” He smacks his forehead. “Stupid mind, rolling around all the time.”

“It’s all right,” I say, trying to interrupt his abuse. “I wasn’t suitable for it earlier. But I’ve washed now.”

As I rise, he eyes my tattered gown then shoots me the most mischievous look I’ve ever seen him wear. I am suddenly once more aware that I am in the presence of a handsome young man who is more than just a lonesome spirit. “I think I have something that shall suit the occasion.”

A
n hour later, we are seated at the dinner table in the dining room. The white tablecloth has done wonders to spruce up the space. Tristan has pulled out several candelabras and their flickering lights cheerily illuminate the table. Goblets glisten with water and I’ve placed the dried pea blossoms from my hair in the center as decorations. A large piece of smoked pork rests on my plate and a significantly smaller portion is on Tristan’s. He has put on a black jacket, a bow around his collar, and has slicked back his hair with a wet comb. Though no matter how hard he tried, stray hairs have escaped to frame his face.

I have stuck up my curls with a few hairpins I found in a drawer, and I feel extravagant in my gown. I don’t know where he got it from, but Tristan presented me with the most beautiful dress I have ever seen. Its fabric is a deep, burgundy red that appears to have shadows when it catches the light. It is covered in little black beads stitched into patterns of swirling roses. It’s a little long and the shoulders are a little too wide, so I am wearing the sleeves on my biceps, like I did with my mother’s dress.

I feel like a girl in one of Scarlet’s stories.

Tristan holds up his napkin to show me what to do with it. He unfolds it and places it on his lap, and I do the same. He has such an impish expression on his face that I can’t stop smiling. Picking up our knives and forks, we each survey our meals. My piece of meat is so big that I am tempted to save it to bring home to my family. But I am so hungry and this food will give me the strength to ensure that they have much more meat in the years to come.

He holds up his fork in his left hand and sticks it into his meat then saws off a small bite with the knife in his right. Placing the bite in his mouth, he never switches hands, and I have to focus to mimic him. I’ve never paid any attention to the way I eat. No one in my village does. We use our hands half the time.

As Tristan takes another refined bite, I chuckle. “Where did you learn to eat like that?”

“My mother,” he says then ungracefully shoves the rest of the meat into his mouth and swallows it whole, making me giggle again. “Manners were very important to her.”

I’m grinning. “Tristan, you remember your mother. That’s wonderful.”

He arches a brow. “Wonderful? The woman was more focused on etiquette than affection. She’d slap the table whenever I didn’t eat properly.”

“I can only imagine what she’d think of you now.”

He stares at me for a moment then barks out in laughter. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him make the sound and it is so sudden that I jump a little. Which makes me laugh.

The fires are roaring, the hearths all aglow. Tristan’s understanding is growing in leaps and bounds. I can’t think of anything more powerful against the Bringer than filling the house with laughter, so I let mine come freely.

Taking another bite, I try to mimic Tristan’s manners then give up and eat the way I am used to. “Where are you from that has such customs?” I ask after I swallow.

“Southeast,” he says.
“A city, not a village. There are homes like this on every street. Well, not quite like this, but more like this than the houses in your village.”

Though I try, I can’t imagine what such a lavish place must look like. I didn’t even know one existed. But my wonder at the image fades as the idea of so many fine homes makes me feel sick inside. Like they’ve forgotten something important and are unhappy. I like our little home where we feel the seasons, not that we have seasons anymore. “Why did you move here?”

He furrows his brow, focusing. “It had something to do with trade… I wanted to bring something...”

Even before the darkness,
Morrot had very little contact with other villages. In part because we’re so high in the mountains, but also because we were self-sufficient. We didn’t need to trade.

My father is a merchant and if he has never met Tristan, then I wonder when Tristan first arrived here. He isn’t old enough to have been here long, but then again, he has been trapped in-between. For all I know, he could be one hundred. But the house doesn’t look decrepit enough to have survived a century.

“Medicine,” he says. The line between his brows is deeper than I’ve ever seen it as he focuses. “I was trying to trade medicine for something. That was it. I wanted…” He looks up at me, the concentration gone as it becomes clear in his mind. “I wanted to help someone. We were going to live in the woods, away from those who thought ill of us. But then I wanted to stay. To bring your people medicine.”

I study Tristan for a long while. He keeps trying to tuck his stray strands of hair away, but I like them there. It is little imperfections like that which make a person beautiful. He is beautiful.

While it would be hard for many to believe a wealthy man would be so generous, I know he is telling the truth. When we die, we become the most important parts of ourselves. Tristan has shown me such kindness and generosity as a half-spirit that I know such traits were integral to who he was in life.
Who he is
, I correct myself.

My cheeks flush a little when I realize I’m staring, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He might not have noticed my reaction in the past, but I know he’s capable of understanding it now. He looks down at his empty plate and bites his lip. “Guess
it’s rats from now on.”

I smile. I wind up only eating half the pork for fear it’ll make me sick to eat so much at once. The rest will make another meal.

The corpse has yet to make a move. For a brief moment, I wonder if I’m winning. But then I remind myself of what she did to Tristan earlier. It’s not over yet. “What else happens at dinner parties?” I ask.

He raises his brows as he thinks, dabbing the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Well, we’ve already eaten. We’ve conversed. That leaves only one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Tristan scoots his chair back and strides over to me. Tucking his left hand behind his back, he bows and holds out his right. “May I have this dance?”

I laugh and feel like I’m going to blush again but I don’t. I rest my hand in his and hold up the hem of my dress as I rise, and he escorts me to the parlor where there is more floor space.

“What could be more living than a dance?” he whispers, resting a hand on my waist and twining his other in mine, and his skin and is warmer than before. There is a subtlety to the glint in his eyes. He’s thinking more than one thing at a time. The problem now is that I don’t know what. But I’ll take the trade off if it means victory.

Tristan takes a step back, and I follow. Then one to the side, forward, and to the other side. At first I have to watch our feet to make sure I’m not stepping on his toes. I see how grimy my slippers have become and toss them aside. Barefoot, I can feel the smooth surface of the boards as they shift and creak beneath us. We repeat the moves and I realize we’re performing a box step.