Page 53 of Song of the Hell Witch

Twenty-Seven

A Leoran man was expected to master three things in his lifetime: his emotions, the Epistle of Light, and his household. Puck had never been one for rules, so he didn’t much care for meeting society’s expectations. In fact, he enjoyed finding ways to purposefully turn them on their head.

Except when it came to emotions. He felt things, no problem. Love, hate, rage, admiration; he knew how to recognize them, how his body reacted whenever one feeling took him over.

But he never knew what to do with those feelings. He never knew what to say. To people with problems he could solve, sure. But to his daughter, after a year of complete silence that may or may not have been entirely his fault?

What do I do with that?

“You’ve gotta like having your own room.

” That was all he could come up with. The room itself wasn’t much, about the size of a large closet and made up of butter-gold walls that smelled of pine.

There was just enough room for a bed, a nightstand, and a lantern that hung next to the door.

A single window peeked out over the cliffside, where the Marrow Sea’s waves crashed against the rocks below.

“That’s more than you ever had at home.”

He sat at the end of the bed, legs spread wide over the edge of the mattress, hands resting on his all-too-anxious knees.

Bea sat perfectly crisscross, her back pressed into the pillows against her headboard.

She stared at him with a look he couldn’t read, and the crawling sensation under his skin intensified.

“Please, Bumble, you’ve gotta give me somewhere to start. You wanna yell at me, yell at me. If you’ve got questions—”

His memory tried to drag him back into that room—the stink of blood, bile, and vomit, the haggard sounds of Jocelyn trying to draw breath—and in desperation, he sank into the pain in his shoulder. The pain’s all you can feel. And the pain didn’t exist then, so you’re not there. You can’t be there.

“Did it hurt?” she asked.

“Did it …” He stopped, not entirely sure what she meant. “Did what hurt?”

“Getting stabbed.” She pointed at his arm, still bandaged and stiff. “I’ve always wondered about it. We’ve read about it in books, but no one really talks about what it feels like. So … did it hurt?”

He let out a laugh. Still very much Bea, then. “Yeah. Yeah, it really fucking hurt.”

“D’you give the other guy a good whopping for it?”

His nose scrunched up in embarrassment. “Afraid not. He slithered off before I could pummel him. But to be fair, a succubus tried to kill me, and then my daughter, some kind of powerful banshee woman, nearly screamed my brains into mush, so. Wasn’t at my best.”

His heart fluttered watching her nose scrunch too. “Sorry. About the screaming. And the brains.”

He shook his head. “I survived your toddler years, I can take a banshee shriek.”

She looked down at her hands, kneading them like she was nervous.

He loved watching her hair slant in front of her face, loved how she pushed it behind her ear.

There were so many little pieces of Jocelyn tucked away inside her, and when he saw them peeking out, it was like seeing his wife smile all over again, if only for a second.

“I didn’t tell them everything, exactly,” she mumbled, and he had to lean in to hear her clearly. “About Mom. I think Naomi was just trying to scare you.”

It was the first time she’d ever come close to talking about it. The shard that had wedged itself in his chest the night Jocelyn died twisted that much deeper.

Not yet, he begged the universe. Please, not yet.

“What did you tell them?”

She still didn’t look up. “That I missed her so much it opened a hole inside me. That sometimes I got mad at you and I didn’t know why. And sometimes I got mad and I did know why. But I couldn’t say any of it to you, so the hole just got bigger until it almost swallowed me.”

The old stone pushed its way into his throat. “Are you mad at me now?”

Finally, her chin tilted up, and to his absolute surprise, she was smiling, looking at him with a light in her eyes he hadn’t seen in months.

“No. ’Cause you came and found me. And ’cause you’re my dad, and everything Pru said about you’s true. So the mad comes and goes, but it never stays too long. I love you too much for that.”

He reached out, cupping her face in his hand. Sometimes it scared him how big she’d become. Other times—like this moment—he remembered she was still his little girl. “I love you too, Bumblebee. And I’m so glad—”

He couldn’t finish the rest. His voice cracked, and he pinched his eyes shut to keep the tears from coming, but there was no help for it.

They dribbled down his cheeks, and he let them flow without a care in the world.

Because he had his little girl back. Maybe not all of her, not the part who still needed to talk about the night her mother died, but still.

Part of her was more than enough. Pulling her into his chest, he kissed the top of her head, wanting to hold her forever. “Promise me one thing?”

“No more going quiet on you, I swear, swear, swear.” She pushed back from him, and her smile actually reached her eyes. “So. We gonna talk about Pru?”

His heartbeat, on its way to slowing down, spiked right back up again. “What about her?”

Her eyes bulged out of her head. “Did you not hear what she said? About the wanting to come back and the bargembo …”

“Embargo.” He chuckled, mainly to offset the sweat beading on his palms. “That’s when ships can’t get through a blockade set up by another country.”

“Whatever. What I heard was she loves you.”

He scoffed. “Bea, that’s not … that was a long time ago.”

“So why tell you, then?” She shrugged. “The Ladies didn’t need all that for you to stay. Part of it would’ve worked, but she wanted you to know the rest. Why?”

“I …” How did an eight-year-old know more about love than he did? “How does an eight-year-old know more about love than I do?”

“You raised me smart.” She elbowed him in the ribs. “Mommy would want you to be happy. I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy. I’ve got you back and talking. I’ve got everything I need.” He shook his head. “Pru and I, we … we had our chance, I think.”

“Unless this is another chance and you miss it.”

He huffed. “And what about you?”

Her brows creased. “What about me? I’m fine. I’m a banshee! And, did you know, I’m pretty good at it?”

He grinned. “I mean, ’course you are, you’re a Reed. What does being good at it mean, exactly?”

“Well, Naomi says that a lot of banshees, all they can do is scream. And screaming’s good, don’t get me wrong, ’cause it can pack a punch when you need it to.

But talented banshees? They can sing. They sing these songs, and they put men in these trances, right?

And then you can get ’em to do whatever you want.

You can make ’em dance, you can make ’em leap off a cliff … ”

Puck swallowed, a bit put off by how easily his little girl spoke of murder. Then again, she’d always been a bit morbid, a bit dark.

“And you can sing, can you?” he asked.

She nodded. “Not well, not yet. But I started a sort of lullaby down in the town one night, when one of them boy kids was fussing a lot with his mom. And he quieted right down … for a few minutes, anyway.” Her smile was the most precious thing he’d ever seen.

“ And I’m making friends, real friends, for the first time ever. ”

“Well, that is impressive. You asked them their favorite and least favorite ways to die yet?”

“What I’m saying is, I’m okay. More than okay.” Her eyes flicked toward his stab wound. “You’re the one who’s a mess.”

“All right, I said it hurt getting stabbed. It’s feeling better, actually.” It was mostly the truth. The pain was starting to dull a little, more like a deep bruise than a knot of shredded muscle and skin. “Back to Pru?”

“You changed the subject, not me!”

Right you are, little bit. “You’re the most important person in my world. You are my world. And I don’t ever want you thinking you’re not.”

“Dad.” Her eyes got big as she pulled her chin down, giving him a serious look. “Mom told me stories about how you grew up. No parents, always thieving, never safe.”

“That’s not—”

Her hand found his. “I never had to do that. You and Mom always made sure I had a full belly and a place to sleep and all the books and bedtime stories I could want.” His throat narrowed as she took a breath. “But at some point, you’re gonna have to let your Bumblebee fly on her own.”

It broke his heart to think so.

“Maybe,” he said, once he found his voice again. He scooted closer to her, slinging his arm around her shoulder. He really was feeling much better. “How about we try this? How about for now, we just sit here, and you tell me all about the last few days, hmm?”

She nestled even closer. “Only if you promise to go see Pru after.”

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head again. This was it. The start of something new between them. And it made him dizzy with happiness.

“Dad?” Her voice was stern, scolding.

He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll think about it, how’s that?”

All Pru wanted was a hot bath, a hotter meal, and the comfort of a clean bed.

The thought of talking to anyone outside of maybe Puck and Mari absolutely exhausted her.

Yet somehow she ended up with Rita—Marguerite Leon, as she formally introduced herself—leading her up to the dormitory.

The Belacans gorgon carried a towel, clean cloth and ointment for her bruises and wounds, and handmade sweetbriar soap courtesy of the apothecary down in the hamlet.

Pru followed her up one of the front tower’s spiral staircases, keeping her eyes focused on Rita’s delicate curves. The sway of her hips helped distract her from the never-ending climb and the arches of her feet, which threatened to snap flat in her boots from the pressure of the stones.