“I found it up on the mountain,” Tom answered. “But I forgot about it. I put it in my pocket and packed my coat away up in the attic. I should probably give it to my father.”
“Oh no, please,” she said, stepping away from him, eyes wide. “Must you? I’d love to have it myself. I can make it into a necklace. I had to give away all of mine.”
Tom felt himself sway beneath the power of her beauty. “Do you really like it?”
“I do. I really do.” She smiled, and her eyes seemed to glitter as she gazed at him.
Tom blushed. “Well, if your heart is set on it, I suppose you can have it.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, her lips seeming to grow more full as she spoke. He found himself suddenly dizzy from their beauty.
She pulled a red ribbon from her hair, and concentrating, she slipped it between two of the coin’s center spokes.
“Will you tie it around my neck?” she asked, and as she handed him the coin, something passed between them, and both were certain they felt a strange kind of connection—a bond. She smiled at him and then turned around. Gently lifting her hair, he laced the red ribbon around her neck and tied it with careful fingers. The deed done, she turned back around, beaming, and looked up at him with the eyes of a fawn.
“Beautiful,” he said. And it was.
Before Tom could realize what was happening, she put her lips to his cheek and quickly gave him a kiss. “Thank you,” she whispered, and then slowly walked away.
Tom felt dizzy from the lingering energy of her lips on his skin as he watched her step off the forest path and cross the village barrier. Did she know where she was going, he wondered?
“We ought to turn back,” he said, catching up to her.
“Why?” she asked, such innocence in her eyes that he wanted with all his heart to protect her. To keep her safe. Always.
“They’re saying there are wolves about,” he answered.
“Wolves?” she laughed. “I’m not afraid of wolves.”
“Well, you should be. Have you ever seen a wolf?”
“Of course not. We don’t have wolves where I’m from.”
She paused and sat down on a tree stump.
“No?” he said, relieved that she’d stopped walking. “What do you have where you’re from?”
Placing her hands behind her, she leaned back, her head tilted to the sky. “We have birds.”
“We have birds as well,” he said, and unable to keep from smiling, he took a seat beside her.
She wrinkled her nose. “No, you don’t have birds. You have great terrible flying things. Monsters. Black as soot, and mangy. We have real birds the color of lily pads, the color of sapphires. And their songs are beautiful. None of this yapping and yammering I hear from your winter birds.”
“Yapping and yammering? That’s the proper term, is it?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “That is indeed the proper term. Oh, if you could only see our birds, the way they glide out over the sea. And the sea itself. It’s a color … well, it’s a color you don’t even have here. It’s a shade of purple that is only at my sea.”
“Maybe someday I can see it,” he said, and she smiled at him, a twinkle in her eye.
“Maybe someday you can.”
And without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
Not twenty yards away, Rowan leaned against a tree. Watching them. Watching him. Watching his lips touch her cousin’s cheek as they would never touch her own. An unfamiliar sensation rising in her chest, she held a hand to her mouth as if to silence a scream, and soon hot tears streamed down her face, burning her cheeks, as if the very act of her heart breaking had turned her tears to acid. Unable to stop the flow, she backed away, suddenly aware that she was making enough noise that they ought to have noticed and seen her. But they did not. They were so absorbed in each other that she couldn’t have made them realize she was there had she wanted to. And so she turned and ran, gasping for air as if the atmosphere could soothe the rupture in her chest.
When Tom came home that evening, it was immediately apparent that something was different about him. He seemed to bounce in the door, and the color in his cheeks was a brighter red than normal.
“You look like a little girl in love,” Jude said, and his mother swatted him with a dish towel. He swerved out of her reach, ignoring her.
Tom brushed past him and moved into the kitchen to see what might need washing or chopping before supper, Jude on his heels.
“You’ve been to see her.” Jude smiled, leaning in and feigning coquettish interest, batting his eyelashes. “Was she everything you hoped—everything you dreamed she would be?”
“You joke,” Tom said, unable to contain his enthusiasm. “But she was all that and more. Once you talk to her, you’ll see. She’s amazing. Smart and funny, and … I can’t explain it. Interesting, I suppose. She’s not like girls around here.”
Jude grew serious. “Are you going to ask her father for her twine, then? Do I smell a blessing wreath?”
“It’s a bit soon for marriage, don’t you think?” Tom said, although he barely believed the words himself.
“I don’t know,” Jude said, taking a bite of bread. “Mother is keen to marry one of us off, and it isn’t going to be me.”
“True,” Tom laughed. “She wants a barmaid.”
“So better this beauty of yours than one of the local girls.”
Tom shrugged. “I’ve only just met her. I’ll not be binding her wrist anytime soon. But I can tell you this. There is not a girl for a thousand miles who is fit to touch the hem of her garment. She is special. She is somehow more than a girl ought to be. I don’t know. It’s overwhelming.”
“Well, I can’t wait to meet her. You must bring her round for supper soon.”
Tom nodded. “I will. I promise I will. As soon as it seems appropriate, I will have Father ask her family over, and we shall all break bread together.”
“I’m happy for you,” Jude said, and for once, he seemed to mean it.
“Thanks.” Tom smiled, and quiet joy flooding his veins, he picked up a knife to help his mother with the supper.
6. THE MOON
AS SOON AS Fiona walked through the door, her mouth began to water. Lareina had cooked a rabbit. She was just setting the table, and she looked up with worried eyes.
“Where have you been, my child?”
“Out,” Fiona announced, blushing. “Is supper ready?”
Fiona’s head was still swimming, and instinctively her hand went to the place on her cheek where Tom had been bold enough to kiss her. She’d found herself doing so for the entirety of the walk home, and now in the warmth of the house, she could almost still feel his lips there.
“I’ve been holding it for you,” Lareina said. “Seamus is in his workshop. Why don’t you call him, and we can start eating.”
Fiona avoided her stepmother’s eyes. She wanted to keep Tom a secret, and she knew that Lareina would know she was hiding something. Fiona moved past her stepmother quickly and skipped to the back of the house, opening the door to the workshop without a knock.
“Suppertime,” she called, and the glassblower looked up from his work. His eyes lingered on her a moment, a strange expression on his face.
“You look … different,” he said, and then he smiled at her, an unnerving kind of smile, a smile she’d only ever seen him bestow on her stepmother. She didn’t think much of it, because her head was so filled with thoughts of Tom—the way he smelled, the sensation of his skin against her wrist—that she could barely see for all her joy.