Page 11 of Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)

Chapter 11

Letters from the Mists

KELLAN

J ane’s townhouse smells of snakes and sadness when I return from campus.

I let myself in and shuck off my heels and coat quietly. It’s been an odd day. Getting ready to teach my first solo course at my alma mater. Facing down that firing squad. Admitting my relationship with Rhodes to Professor Dittman. Reading through the kudos and criticism from my peers in response to the papers we published before Yule.

It’s been a rollercoaster of a day.

I’m unsettled: hurt and nervous and hopeful. I need strong arms around me. I need Whitey’s purr to soothe me. I need Rhodes’ easy, uncritical caring. I need someone to listen to me as I lay down my worries for a few hours.

Instead, I’m alone. And I need to be strong. Tomorrow, Carrie’s memorial starts. If today was odd, tomorrow will be even odder. And Jane will need me through every minute of it.

Rach and Teddy and their families are here in Bevvy, probably at the ski lodge. Rachel sent me a text to ask if Jane and I want company tonight. I’ve said I’ll check with her but I doubt she’ll agree. She’s become more and more withdrawn as we’ve gotten closer to the memorial.

In the townhouse’s stillness, I hear a small sniff.

I rush through to the lounge in the back. The air perfumes with woodsmoke and fills with a soft crackle and pop from the fireplace. Jane’s sitting on the couch, looking into the fire. The aether around her shimmers with grief, a long, low, wailing cry like a wolf’s howl or a loon’s call. This is the worst it’s been since I found her right after Carrie’s death.

Rucking up my stupid skirt, I climb over the couch and sink down next to Jane. I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Jane, I’m here.”

She wipes her face with one hand and hands me two pieces of parchment with the other.

“We had mail today,” she says, her voice broken. “That was for me. The rest is for you.”

I take the pages from her with a shaking hand.

It’s a letter. Addressed to Jane. Written in Carrie’s precise copperplate.

My dearest Jane , it begins.

When I was born with a hood I couldn’t hide, my family called me cursed. When I got only Air as my Element, my clan called me unworthy.

When I met you, I knew they were wrong and the Mother blessed me above all others. She gave me the cloudsong in my heart; she gave me the foil for my soul. I have cherished every minute we have had together.

Forget none of them. Remember me. Honor my memory. Miss me. Cry for me. But live, my dearest. Live and laugh. Live and love. We will meet again, far too soon. Don’t miss a moment of your life while grieving for me. I am with you, every minute, in your heart.

The years we were together, teaching, passing our gifts and knowledge on to the bright young souls of Nerati Academy, Acacia, and Bevington, were the most fulfilling of my life. Teaching was my calling. But it may not be yours, dearest. If you find something else that makes your soul sing, seize the opportunity. Don’t stay trapped somewhere in my memory. Follow your heart.

If all’s gone according to my wishes, my memorial will begin tomorrow. Let others’ memories of me soothe you. Sing and drink in my honor. Purge your grief. Greet the day of my service with a clear heart. My clan father will come and demand to speak first. Let him. The key he holds opens the door to a better future. A future less riven with suffering, for human and magi alike. Our mist-maiden will take up the key and find the lock. If your heart leads you to help her, follow your heart.

Always, always, follow your heart, my dearest.

All my love,

Carrie

I put the pages on the coffee table and wrap my arms around Jane. “Jane, I’m so sorry.”

She cries softly for several minutes while I hold her, rub her back, rock her gently.

“Every time I think I’ve come to terms with her passing, it hits me again,” Jane says at last, sitting up straighter and wiping her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Jane. Can you see this as a kindness, warning you what to expect, so it’s not a surprise?”

She nods. “Carrie always had the best intentions. Sometimes her actions came across as cold or merciless, but her motivations were never unkind.”

I rub her back until she’s calm.

“Make dinner with me? Or would you rather go out? Teddy and her family are here.”

“Do you mind if it’s just you and me tonight?” she asks.

“Of course not.”

“Well, you, me, and your cat.” Jane turns her head to look at the French doors into the yard. Unsurprisingly, there’s a small black cat sitting outside in the snow, looking in at us.

“I’ll shut the curtains,” I say.

“No, dear. At least, not on my account. Let’s be kind tonight? To ourselves and to others. Let him in and give him something to eat.”

I get up and walk to the doors, looking down at Lawson. “You stay in your fur,” I say sternly.

I can hear him purr all the way through the glass.

“You’re not forgiven,” I tell him.

He puts a paw over his face.

“But we have fresh fish. More than enough for three. Even if you are a furry pig. You leave when I tell you to leave.”

More purring.

I open the door.

He rushes inside and winds around my ankles.

“Being cute doesn’t win you any points.”

But it does, because I’ve missed Whitey so much. Too much. I pick him up and cuddle him to my chest as I shut the door and head into the kitchen.

His purring knits together more of the ragged pieces of my heart.

I should kick him out after our dinner of Tuscan grilled trout, asparagus, and Jane’s milk bread rolls. But his tummy’s so round, and his purr is so loud, and his white paws are so cute as he curls in my lap and bats at the tassels of the sweatshirt I’ve changed into. I ignore him. Kind of. If petting him counts as ignoring him. At least I don’t talk to him. Jane and I re-read Carrie’s letter and puzzle over it, line by line.

Jane tells me what she knows about Carrie’s clan father, an elderly, traditional shifter named Sheshdhar. Unfortunately, it isn’t very much. There was no love lost between them, yet Carrie kept to the laws of her clan all her life, even refusing to have the children she and Jane both wanted because same-sex couples are forbidden from reproducing by the shifter clans.

Without any idea of what the key might be, our speculation finally peters out. Jane puts the letter down on the coffee table and reaches for a leather-bound book sitting beside a potted plant with a white flower on it.

“This came for you,” she says, handing the book to me.

My cat’s purring doubles in volume.

I can guess who it’s from.

I run my hand down the embossed cover. It’s beautiful, stamped and gilded. It takes me a minute to figure out the design, which is buried in scrollwork and repeating crescents.

It’s a crow in profile.

I open the book, noting the thick, creamy paper stock. It’s full of blank pages. Not a book, then. A journal.

I flip back to the beginning. The first several pages are written on. I find the first page and read what he’s written.

You told me to ask you for a kiss every day. To remind you that we never know how much time we’ll have and not to waste a moment. To say that Teddy misses her Other Gabe every day and would give anything for one more kiss.

I know why you won’t give me your kisses. I understand your anger and disappointment in me. In all of us. I wish I could promise that we’ll never hurt you again, but I think that would be a false promise. I don’t want to be false with you again. You told me that we are Cait and Crow and our souls don’t lie to each other. I believe that and I swear to be truthful with you going forward, even if it hurts.

If we can’t give each other kisses, can we give each other our small truths? I’ve written out one of mine for you. Will you write me one of yours?

I love you. I’m sorry for hurting you.

Lawson

I wipe my eyes. I close the journal and with my claws I write The Kiss Book beneath the crow on the cover. Then I open the journal to the second page and read the story Law’s gifted me.

My great-grandfather died when Lu and I were six.

He’d been sick for months, his fur falling out, his gums pulling back from his teeth. When he came to dinner, he’d pull a tooth out and leave it with us. He told us we could keep the Tooth Fairy’s silver.

Cait hide when we feel death is coming, like our little mortal kin. We hadn’t seen our great-grandfather in days. The adults were looking for him. Luca and I didn’t understand why. Cait don’t live in each other’s pockets, particularly the old ones. They’re solitary.

We tagged after Mom through the woods near Cait House when the adults went out looking for him, but we ran off to play hide-and-seek. Luca found him. I found them. Luca had curled around our great-grandfather’s body at the base of a tree. They were both in their fur.

I shifted and spread myself over both of them. Luca and I can talk into each other’s minds when we’re in our Cait forms. I don’t know if you knew that. He told me we needed to warm our great-grandfather up. He was so cold.

We lay there for hours. The woods were cold. His body was colder. It seemed to suck all the heat out of us. As he slowly changed back into his skin, he never got any warmer.

Finally, we heard Mom calling us. We ran back to Cait House and led her to our great-grandfather’s body. She picked him up like he weighed no more than Luca or I did and carried him back to Cait House.

I thought she’d get him warm and he’d wake up.

But he never did.

The next day, Dad and the older cousins built a pyre near the Trophy House. They laid great-grandfather’s body on the pyre. In Cait tradition, we all rubbed cane oil on his arms, legs, and chest. Touching his cold skin, seeing him still and unmoving a day later, I began to understand.

He wasn’t asleep.

Dad poured the rest of the oil over the pyre. The spicy-sweet scent made me dizzy. I didn’t see Dad light the pyre. The next thing I knew, Luca was screaming, trying to snuff the flames. Mom pulled him back. His hands were burned. I licked them better while Mom held us and rocked us and explained that great-grandad was going to live with the ancestors. He didn’t want to be trapped in his cold skin anymore and we had to set him free. I thought I could see his spirit rising with the sparks of the pyre. When I pointed out the spirit-sparks to Luca, he finally calmed down. We held each other and watched the fire burn down until Mom took us inside.

Our magic came a few years later. Young. Long before puberty. I was a menace with my Element for years, until I learned to control it. No matter how many times I burned something by accident, no matter how often I was scolded or punished for losing control, I was always happy that I got Fire, because then I’d never be trapped in cold flesh when I died.

I didn’t find out until years later that great-grandfather’s soul didn’t go to live with the ancestors. It went to the Umbra Woods to writhe in agony, to feed the Erinyes, along with all the other souls of the Cait that Gwyn ap Nudd sentenced to an eternity of torment with your death and the destruction of the Crow Queens’ Courts.

Until you freed their souls and laid them to rest at Ceòfuar. Your court is the tomb of my forefathers. And I will always be grateful to you for that, Kellan.

I close the journal, wipe my eyes, bend over, and press a kiss between my purring kitty’s ears.

“I’ll write you one of my truths in the morning. I’m tired. It’s been a long day. I’ll give the journal to Luca when I see him. I’d like stories from all of you, if Luca and Rhodes are willing to share. Time for you to go, Law.”

He tips his little triangular head back and licks the underside of my chin. Then he wriggles off my lap and pads to the back door.

I let him out and stand at the door, waiting for him to leave so I can draw the curtains. He swishes his tail, looking back at me.

I shake my head. “Go home to Cait House. Sleep.”

He plonks his furry butt in the snow and curls his tail around his paws.

“You’re a pain in my ass, Law.”

He yawns, showing me his sharp, white teeth. If he could speak, I think he’d say, “Cait.”

I leave the curtains open. If he’s determined to sit in the snow all night to watch over me, the least I can do is let him.

When I return to the couch, Jane’s brought out a bottle of pink wine and two glasses. She pours me a glass. “Shall we drink our feelings?”

“Benighted Mother, yes.”

We finish the bottle, and I fetch another from Carrie’s wine fridge, which is far fancier than my favorite rosé deserves, before I’m ready to talk.

“Am I being unkind?” I ask after my third glass.

“Unkind? No,” Jane answers. “What they did to you was unkind. You’re protecting your heart, which is understandable after heartbreak like that. You’re standing your ground, which you have to do, or these boys will run rough-shod over you. You’re teaching them a moral lesson, which is important if you have any hope of a future together. I don’t think you’re being unkind. It might be a greater unkindness to reconcile too quickly without actually forgiving them. It will only come back to bite you later with greater venom.”

I drink the rest of my glass, staring into the fire, thinking through the day with the muzzy insight of four glasses of wine. I flip open the journal to Law’s message on the first page and push it in front of Jane.

“He’s not wrong.”

“No,” Jane agrees. “He’s not wrong.”

“I think I spent time with him ... with all three of them ... after I left Teddy’s party.”

“You were gone for two days. It’s reasonable to conclude you spent time with them, given Lawson’s persistent stalking.”

“What he’s written makes it sound like I’ve forgiven him, them , when I’m, what does he keep calling it, my ‘awakened self’.”

“Also a reasonable conclusion.”

“My awakened self is a floozy.”

Jane laughs. “I doubt that.”

“What am I doing, Jane?”

“Finding your Path. The same as everyone else.”

“Why is my Path so twisty? Other people get Highway 46. I get Mother-blighted Going-to-the-Sun Road.”

Jane takes my wine glass from me and pulls me under her arm as she settles into the couch cushions. “No more wine. It’s making you maudlin. I’ve never been to Colorado, you know.”

“Colorado?”

“Isn’t that where Going-to-the-Sun Road is?”

“Close,” I say. “Montana.”

“I haven’t been there, either.”

“Would you like to go?”

“I think so,” Jane says softly. “Carrie’s letter got me thinking. There are many places I haven’t seen. When she was alive, travel had little appeal. I just wanted to be with her. The setting of our togetherness didn’t matter. Without her, there are places I’d like to see. And perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to get away from Bevington for a while. This place is rich with reminders of her.”

“Do they sting or soothe?” I ask.

Jane sighs. “At the moment, they still sting.”

“Then travel sounds like a great idea. Do you want company?”

Jane hums. “For some of it. Some places, I’d like to explore on my own.”

“Well, I have a bag that’s already packed, so whenever you’re ready, just give me the nod.”

“Don’t you have a class to teach?”

“Don’t you?”

“Carrie would be alarmed hearing us plan to shirk our responsibilities to run off to Colorado.”

“Or Montana. I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. My class is only twice a week. So’s yours. Plenty of time to teach and still run off to explore.”

“Good.” Jane pats my shoulder. “We will. I have a sense you travel differently than I would. I’d like to see the world through your eyes a few times.”

“I like out of the way places. There are plenty in Montana. And Colorado.”

Jane laughs. There’s still a lot of grief in her laugh, but at least she’s laughing again. She didn’t for days after Carrie died.

“I’ll look forward to seeing them.” She pats my shoulder again. “I’m going to say goodnight. I know it’s early. Tomorrow will be hard. Good, but hard. And the day after harder. I don’t want to be tired and overwrought.”

A sound plan.

“Agreed. I’ll wash the glasses. See you in the morning.”

Jane kisses my cheek. “I’ve invited Teddy and her family over for breakfast. I’ll cook and I won’t be offended if you want to sleep in.”

“No, no, I’d like to see them. And of course I’ll help, even if it’s just setting the table and keeping the twins out of the kitchen. What time are they coming?”

“I said nine to give me a little time to prepare.”

“No problem. I’ll be down by eight.”

“See you then. Sweet dreams.”

“You too, Jane.”

She smiles sadly. She hasn’t been sleeping well. I can’t imagine sleeping alone after sleeping beside someone else for seventy years. The thought makes my chest ache with the need to have strong arms around me, the scent of musk, fur, and chlorine carrying me off to sleep.

I sigh and push myself up out of the couch that’s warm and deep and comfortable but not nearly as warm and deep and comfortable as everything in Cait House. Give it to the cat fae, they have cozy down to a fine art.