Page 17 of Once Upon a Dark October
Chapter Seventeen
D readmist Harbor sat upon miles of scenic coastline, the tides forever chiseling away at its rocky shore. Between the steep cliffs and the low pools that swelled with seawater, the beaches were a charcoal drawing of diluted greys and blues. Especially on autumn evenings like this. Black sand glittered on my bare toes as we walked the shore, perfectly soft and slightly damp from the waves spilling in. The cold was refreshing, sea-spray carried off the crashing surf pelting my cheeks and leaving behind the smell of salt and sand tangled in my hair.
A little ways past the second sand bar, a few rocky outcroppings towered above the sea, whittled into arches after centuries of her fierce wind and waves. Evening fog had started to wreath the sleeping stone giants as it crept ashore. Distant lamplight from a boat barely parted the dense haze.
Gwen ran ahead—the only one of us not wearing her boots slung over her shoulder with laces tied together, because she’d walked here barefoot—and chose a spot to spread out the quilt she’d brought. Josephine stared into cresting waves, whitecaps showing their teeth farther out. I could tell that her thoughts were caught somewhere between her two loves: alchemy and Clarabella.
“It’s cruel,” she sighed. “Bella trapped in the house like she is. I don’t like it…being out here. Without her.” Her shoulders hunched against the wind. “Leaving her to watch from the windows.”
“But you and Morrigan are close to a serum, aren’t you? She mentioned this morning you were getting somewhere.”
We sat down on the quilt while Gwen was scaring away seagulls. Josephine stretched out her legs, leaning back on her palms. Weak, fading daylight trickled through the murky fog and glanced off Josephine’s opal earrings and the delicate silver thread she’d woven into her intricate braided updo.
I dropped my boots into the sand next to us. “By midnight at the Blood Moon ball, you’ll have her in your arms again. You could spend every day at the beach until the snow comes.”
“I’ve been holding onto that thought,” Josephine admitted. “I just want to dance with her again. Barely had a chance once we said our vows.” She ducked her head, worrying at her bottom lip with her fangs. “That was our wedding night, when the curses fell. None of us knew what Sonia and her allies had been planning while we were picking out bouquets and crafting rings.”
“Clarabella’s wearing her wedding dress,” I realized aloud.
That earned a genuine, beaming grin from Josephine that became adoring laughter. “Pretty, isn’t she?” I nodded, joining in once Josephine turned bashful, tilting her head toward Gwen down the beach. “After all the time she’s spent in it, I don’t think she’ll ever want to look at it again.”
We lapsed into companionable quiet while Gwen squawked at sea birds tottering in the shallow surf and stomped through the foamy tide, kicking up water and charging through the waves as they came rolling into her ankles.
“Morrigan told me her heart’s been poisoned,” I said after a while. “I felt it, whatever had taken root there. But I don’t see it. ”
“That’s because she doesn’t let you,” Josephine answered. “And she doesn’t like to be reminded of it, either. She’s been poisoned by Sonia in a way you can’t see until it’s too late. Morrigan and I thought she was sick at first—she was, except it became melancholy. Then we found out the mortal she’d been courting fell dead.”
My stomach leapt with a dreadful pang. “How?”
“Gwen kissed him,” Josephine said quietly. “Loved him. Dearly, truly, completely—with her whole heart. Her poisoned heart…killed him with it. Hasn’t taken any of us so far, which is a mercy, I suppose. But there’s no cure to be had for her, either. Morrigan and I ran ourselves near ragged in that attempt.”
“Forget obliterating her,” I said. “Sonia deserves to spend eternity at the bottom of the sea tied down with stones so she can feel every waking second.”
“If only that would break curses…” Josephine rolled the tautness from her shoulders. “Don’t let Gwen’s sense of whimsy fool you. The night of the coven’s split, she ripped out the heart of Sonia’s lover while it was still beating. Crushed it to a pulp right in front of Sonia just as the sun was coming up. It was the last thing she saw before her coven had to flee.”
I rubbed at my breastbone, trying not to imagine meeting the same fate.
“She does have a certain penchant for violence, I’ve noticed.”
Josephine’s pensive expression turned affectionate. “That’s Gwen.”
Gwen, perhaps summoned by her own name on the salty breeze, ran over to us with the bottom of her dress soaking wet. She was grinning—crooked with buoyant playfulness—as she grabbed my hands and hauled me up from the quilt.
“The water’s not too cold.” She held out her hand to Josephine, who was content to lounge on the beach. “Come on, Jo. At least get your feet wet.”
“No, I’m not—” But, glancing down at her ruined lace blouse and skirts, Josephine pushed herself to stand, her mind changed swiftly. “I suppose a little saltwater couldn’t make this any worse.”
I lifted the hem of my dress to run into the crashing tide, wading ankle-deep into the water. Sea foam broke over my bare feet, cool and bracing, but not enough to chill my fledgling blood so soon after I’d fed. I would’ve been reluctant to do this as a mortal. Sunset walks along the beach during autumn were lovely—there was a spot past the wharf where red-leafed trees grew at the edge of the water and I always loved their striking color dancing on the surface. But braving the frozen embrace of the sea with winter on the horizon would’ve had me confined to my bed for a week at least.
The three of us chased each other in the shallows, splashing and kicking sprays of water as the tide cascaded into us, around us, pushing toward the darkening shore. Soon we would be overcome with harbor fog, the night gathering with haste. But I didn’t think about any of that, not when my toes were dug deep into the smooth sand, when I couldn’t feel anything but the gentling sway of the sea.
We ran around screaming and hollering like children, dissolving into laughter that made my stomach muscles ache. I hadn’t had a beach day like this since I was young, when my friends and cousins and I wouldn’t come home until after sunset. We’d swim out to the sleeping giants and etch our names before seeing how high we could climb the jagged rock. The heights I’d jumped from as a child made me wonder how I’d made it past adolescence. After we had exhausted ourselves swimming and climbing and daring all day—our bodies still rocking with the motion of the waves—we would scour the beach for interesting shells and tiny creatures. I’d collected pieces of colorful glass, their sharp edges rounded from tumbling beneath the ocean.
Nightfall couldn’t halt my searching now. The sea had calmed a little, and so had we once our burst of energy had run its course. I bent over to peer below the surface, skipping over coastal rock—of which a starfish had attached itself—and smoothed stones. Translucent green, perhaps a fragment of a wine bottle in its former life, caught my attention from under a layer of ink-black silt. Scooping it into my palm, I held it aloft to inspect its unnatural color.
“Clarabella said you’d all be down here,” came Morrigan’s voice from the shore behind me. I turned to see her shielding her face from the onslaught of wind coming up over the beach. “Imagine my surprise.”
I waded back onto the beach, my drenched skirts clinging to my legs. Morrigan waited on the dry sand, her trousers rolled above her ankles, ocean wind making a beautiful mess of her hair.
“I found something for you. Hold out your hand.” She obliged, and I dropped the treasure in her palm, a rare jewel plucked from the sea.
Morrigan smiled, thanking me with a kiss. Excitement glowed in the pomegranate-red of her eyes. “As it so happens, I have a gift for you, too.” I opened my mouth, but she pressed her finger to my lips, silencing me. “Before you protest, let me show you first.”
Reaching into the inside pocket of her waistcoat, she had something bundled in a soft, dark red cloth. I took it carefully with both hands. I couldn’t figure out what it was from touches alone, but as I peeled back the cloth’s edge, I saw a glimpse of silver, shining and delicate and finely crafted.
I gasped. “Oh, Morrigan…”
It was a new chatelaine. The silver had been worked into elegant detail, the clasp and chains finished with little bats in different poses. She had purchased new tools as well—embroidery scissors and all.
“I know there isn’t any replacing an heirloom like yours,” she said. “But you’ll need it.” She tapped the crystal-cut vial hanging from one of the chains. “I had Josephine transmute my blood into silver. Alchemy renders a blood-scent untraceable, so you needn’t worry.”
Wrapping my arms around her waist, I pulled Morrigan into a kiss that wasn’t chaste enough for the beach even if it was almost deserted. Gwen, who had come ashore with Josephine, crowed suggestively behind my back. That only made Morrigan draw me into her mouth deeper, sucking at the salt on my lips. I barely held back my moaning.
“You’ve given me too much already,” I said, trying to recover my breath.
“Well,” she sang, drawing out the single syllable hushed to a whisper, her nose skirting mine, “if you really feel the need to reciprocate, I suppose we can think of something when we get back home…”
“Hate to interrupt,” Josephine said, directing our attention to the estate’s cliffside perch. “But someone’s carriage just pulled up our front drive.”