Winter Sparrow (13 page)

WHEN MARY RETURNED TO THE
place where she’d woken up, the man who had slept beside her was waiting for her, sipping a glass of wine. Fine, classical music filled the room. She entered cautiously. Her hands still trembled, and a bit of mud remained on her cheek from a fall she suffered a few miles back. Mary counted the seconds. She couldn’t catch her breath.

“Where were you?” the man asked.

Her eyes wandered then came back and met his. She still could not recall his name.

“I asked you a question.”

“I went for a run,” she said quietly.

“A run? In the middle of winter? Dressed like that and barefoot? It’s getting worse.”

Mary ignored the cruel shivers.

The man took another sip of his wine before rising to greet her. “Well, I’m just glad you made it safely back to me, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart?
She didn’t like the way his voice made that term of endearment sound. The word slithered out and carried poison with it.

He stepped toward her, and she leaned back against the door. She preferred the distance. He stroked her chin. “There, there. You look as though you’ve seen a ghost. Don’t you recognize me?”

She didn’t answer.

“I know that look. I saw that same look when I watched you in the garden this morning. Like you don’t belong. Like you don’t know who you are.”

Mary blinked, a lot. Her nostrils flared. Her hands touched the door, and she could feel a draft coming through.

“Mary, it’s me. Lucas.”

“Lucas?” she repeated, puzzled still.

“Your husband.”

“My husband,” she said, reminded once more of the ring that clothed her finger.

“My goodness. I knew I never should’ve let you leave again. All this time…I’ll have you know, it was always against my better judgment.” He paced the floor. “It’s been snowing since you left. Are you trying to get sick? The cold temperatures aren’t good for you, especially considering…your condition.”

“Condition?”

Lucas spent a moment collecting his thoughts. “The accident, Mary. You haven’t been well for some time. From your fevers to your memory loss. Amnesia. I’ve been waiting for you to regain your true self, all of you, for a long time. Only I and the best doctors have taken care of you, but they said you would heal eventually, if I let things simply play out.”

“The accident?” She now remembered the accident, a part of it. She felt a sharp pain twist through her leg, her arms, her wrist. “How long has it been?”

Lucas sighed and kissed her cheek. “Three years.”

The ground had to be shaking under her feet. In the next few blinks, this massive house would come crashing down upon them both and she’d finally wake up. The wing in her back would vanish and the wound would shut up. And this fiend would be silenced.

Lucas reached for her hand.

“Don’t touch me,” she spat.

“Why are you so hostile?”

“Lucas?” she said, the name still very much a stranger on her lips. “Is this a trick?”

He shook his head with dim eyes.

Three years?
How had so much time passed? Could seasons last like this? Could a winter endure so long? Her mind swam.

“I knew the risk when I took you as my own. I understood that your memory might come and go. You hit your head so hard in the crash, Mary. The trauma, the loss of blood. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to bear. But what I knew more deeply than that reality, what held me together, was that I was certain you would be mine. Whether you could remember me or not, my longing for you would not change.”

“It’s still a blur.”

He kissed her forehead. “You’re so very precious to me. Try to remember, won’t you?”

“Remember,” Mary murmured. “The crash. It was raining. I saw a man in the street. Then I fell. So far. I hit my head and everything went black.” She paused, waiting for her subconscious to trigger more violent flashbacks. But nothing else came.

“You don’t recall the ambulance ride?” Lucas asked. “Your sister, Jamie, panicking because she thought she’d lost you? Or the several weeks you spent in physical therapy before I demanded that you be seen by only the best, here, where you’re safe? I was here, with you, loving you through it all.” 

“We got married?” She forced herself to say it. She’d read books that told her to speak things into existence; that, if you could make yourself believe it, whatever reality you believed in would come to pass.
Just believe
, she told herself.

“Yes. Three years ago, darling.”

“But Joshua—”

“Who?”

“Joshua. I know him. I…loved him.” Mary tried to reconcile that truth with Lucas’s truth. But they could not coexist. “He owns the mansion several miles away. The one that was close to being condemned, about ready to be torn down, I imagine. But it looks…breathtaking now. I don’t know how he did it.”

Lucas smirked and turned his back. “I had hoped…Mary, I can’t believe we’re going down this road again. I can deal with you not remembering it all. I can deal with the distance between us. I can deal with your fevers and your emotional stirs. But I refuse to indulge these ridiculous illusions anymore.”

“Illusions?” she said, tense. “I was there! I was there tonight.”

“And where is
there,
exactly? Does it have a real address, or is it only in your mind? This here is the only mansion out in these woods. Other houses perhaps, but nothing like this. I don’t know where it is you go all the time, but I can be certain that it isn’t to any other fantasy mansion.”

Did he realize how shortsighted he sounded? She wanted to leave this room. She needed a shower.

“You don’t believe me,” she said, defeated. “You really don’t believe me.”

He crossed his arms. “I’m sorry, but we’ve discussed your nightmares before.”

“It isn’t a nightmare. It’s real. I’d show you, but I don’t see the point.”

“You can be so defiant at times. Maybe this game feels new to
you
, but it isn’t to me. And, to be honest, all this talk of a Joshua has gotten old. If you’re trying to get my attention, you don’t need to invent mysterious men and ramble on about mansions that don’t exist!”

“Ramble on? Is that what you call it, dear husband?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Mary! I’m merely expressing my frustration at the situation. It’s been hard for me…seeing you like this, watching you deteriorate.”

“Well, I apologize if my memory loss is an inconvenience for you.” Mary shoved him aside and ran toward the stairs, but Lucas stopped her short.

“What is that?”

She knew his eyes were studying her. She turned around. “What is
what
?”

“That cut in your back. Below your shoulder blade. What happened to you?”

“I fell, that’s all.”

“It isn’t infected, is it?”

She ran upstairs. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing.”

MARY WASN’T IN THE SHOWER
long before Lucas knocked on the door. It was cracked open slightly, the steam creeping out as he moved in. “Is it too late to ask for forgiveness?” he asked.

No reply.

“I realize I shouldn’t have taken my frustration out on you. My reaction wasn’t fair.”

“No, it wasn’t.” She let the hot needles invade her body.

Lucas pulled off his shirt and unfastened his belt, letting his pants fall to the marble floor. “Mary, you mean the world to me. Don’t you know that?” Pulling off the remainder of his clothes, he put one foot in the shower to join her. “Seeing you like this is wearing on me, that’s all. I’m not a monster.”

She faced the wall, the water trickling down her spine, dripping into the cut. He shouldn’t be here. She didn’t want him here. “You’re making me uncomfortable,” she said. “Please get out.” 

“Relax,” he whispered, kissing the section where the flesh split. A wing moved underneath her skin.

“I’d like to be alone. You should go.”

“Am I so horrible? My only crime is that I want to be with you.” His hands turned her around so they could face one another. He gazed into her eyes.

“I don’t believe you. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Nothing makes sense.”

“Why would I lie to you?” He pulled her close. Their bodies collided, and the water passed between her chest and his.

“Why don’t I recognize this place? Why can’t I remember marrying you?”

“I don’t know. The universe can be cruel sometimes. But I knew this wouldn’t be easy. Romance never is.”

His words loosened her veins, turning her blood cold. She closed her eyes and rinsed the shampoo out of her hair. Then she finished washing the soap and dirt from her back as Lucas put his finger inside the tear in her shoulder. His fingers squished around. A tingling sensation stuttered through her abdomen and lower back. Her thighs moved beneath a quivering center.

“What are you doing? I’m fine,” she said, denying to herself that his hands stimulated her. “You shouldn’t touch it.”

“What is it?”

Vulnerable and unsure, Mary blinked hard, and the wing climbed out, unfurling around their bodies. Part of the shower curtain tore. What stunned her most was Lucas’s reaction to the wing. He wasn’t disgusted. He didn’t think she was a mutant. Instead, he moved inside. He stared into her eyes as if he actually loved her. Her sickly wing twisted around his back muscles. She could feel them too. It was a calming sensation. Maybe the sensation was the love she swore she had never believed in. 

They kissed passionately for a long moment.

“It’s beautiful,” Lucas whispered into her mouth.

SHE’D SPENT THE NIGHT IN
Lucas’s warm arms. The passion they experienced was the most strangely beautiful thing. Transcendent. A harmony, even, she could not get out of her mind. And she didn’t want to.

His left hand reached over her, covering her breast, the sheets doing the rest. He lay there, content in his sleep, while she simply stared at the ceiling, marveling at the intricate patterns and the way the walls and decorations came together without any effort at all. The way things never used to work.

She brushed aside her hair and glanced at Lucas. New confidence ravaged her. A trust. He moved in his sleep just then, and she noticed a vein in his hand dance above her milky skin. Flesh never looked so smooth. A smile twisted her lips. And for the first time since she’d woken up beside him early yesterday morning, she felt like her world was about to fall into place.

She didn’t care about Joshua or the mansion Lucas convinced her existed only in her dreams. She disregarded the journey, the endless running toward an unknown destination.
But I was there
, she thought.
I was there
.

It didn’t matter. The past was the past. Maybe she’d never reached the mansion she claimed was there, tucked away in the woods like this one. Maybe she’d never seen Joshua or his wretched willow tree.