Page 48

The first time Wonder sees him, she’s in the midst of breaking another rule.

Sneaking in and out of places has become a hobby, which extends to the mortal realm.

Her Guide would box her ears for this, not that Wonder plans on getting caught.

But mortal libraries exist just like the forbidden section, thus providing another temptation.

She wants to see such a repository and refuses to wait the final years until she’s assigned here.

After exploring the repository’s exterior, Wonder decides to pick a few lupines from the adjoining meadow, to bring home as a souvenir.

As she forages, gilded hair flashes from the sidelines.

Dropping the stems, Wonder drops to the ground and crawls through the underbrush.

Dirt streaks her pants as she stashes herself in the shrubbery, though she’s really too old for this.

And honestly, she doesn’t need to hide, for humans cannot see or hear deities.

However, this figure might be an immortal spy who has caught up to Wonder. She nudges the bushes aside, careful since that’s something any being can indeed detect, human or otherwise. Yet what she sees dislodges her mouth.

It’s a man.

Galloping from the shadowed boundary of a forest, he rides a dark stallion. Astride the powerful equine, he sits like a mighty being. Tall, straight, imposing. A creature spun from forbidden lore, with a sharply engraved face carved from marble.

Angelic features. Devilish gleam.

Three black hounds race along the horse’s glossy limbs, keeping pace with the momentum. The man smirks fondly at the animals, the jagged chuckle that rumbles from his chest striking Wonder like an arrow. Swift, deep, and fatal.

Stalling the horse, he swings off the creature and pats its rump with affection, whispering something low to the stallion. Squatting, he does the same with the hounds, their tails waggling. With endearing familiarity, he shows these fauna more adoration than deities have offered lovers or kindreds.

That means he’s human after all. Her heart sinks like a stone.

With a contented groan that brushes between Wonder’s thighs, the mortal reclines on the grass, in the spot where she’d been looting blossoms from his property.

Clad in black pants speckled in dust, he gazes at the night sky, unkempt waves draping around his profile.

It’s a kindly face, a human countenance pondering the heavens.

Wonder likes his speculative expression. She likes the small book he fishes from his back pocket even better. If she were capable, she’d settle beside him, relish his shock, and promptly inquire what he’s reading. She would be impolite and snatch the book to see the title.

Though, Wonder doesn’t need to. The spine reveals it’s a mythology text.

And that’s not all. This human is less interested in escapism, more preoccupied with investigation, kinship spreading like honey through Wonder’s chest.

The man thumbs through the pages, his fingernails filed longer than any mortal she has observed during her field trips.

Meanwhile, the black stallion grazes. But the hounds give sudden chase around the human, one of the animals chomping on the man’s book, clamping it between a set of jowls and darting off.

“Hey!” The mortal launches to his feet and jogs after the dog. “Get back here, you sneaky shit!”

Wonder plants a hand over her mouth to quell a laugh before remembering he cannot hear her. For some reason, disappointment weighs down her shoulders, inexplicable loss clouding her mood.

He snatches the book, then kneels to coddle the hounds who happily gather at his feet and slobber his cheeks. But it isn’t until the man hums to the fauna that Wonder’s hand falls from her lips.

His tenor is alluring. Rough and made of something buried underground.

That’s when she feels an impossible sensation. That’s when her heart changes shape. That’s when it gives a tight, permanent clench.

***

The human library is quaint.

Wonder prances behind the man, who oversees the small repository.

The library must be the center of activity in this rural landscape, considering the town’s modest size.

Their archive stands no bigger than a humble house, with shingles and a pitched roof, the vicinity surrounded by pomegranate trees.

It’s nearly closing time. Eventide starlight spangles the area, making some of the books glow like a trail.

Like a path to an answer. A revelation to an unknown inquiry.

Wonder puzzles at the sight. It could be a mere trick of illumination. Or a prediction, some type of foreshadowing.

Best guess, it’s due to her nomadic tendencies. She blinks out of the trance.

It has taken Wonder a half dozen visits to learn he’s a book connoisseur like her. And the man is good at his job.

He grins at patrons, the vision attracting fashionable women as they pass by. This mortal is gorgeous. And they know it.

One of the females has a nose like a peg. Wonder wants to jam it deep into the human’s face, so that it forms a crater. But the man doesn’t indulge the woman beyond a flash of sharp teeth.

Over time, Wonder returns, making a habit of shadowing him. He’s a respected local who tutors children and lives in a room beneath the library. He owns a telescope that peers out the repository’s front window. He rides that stallion and scratches three sets of floppy hound ears.

He loves unraveling secrets, unlocking mysteries, and exposing loopholes. He loves books and reading.

And Wonder loves him.

***

Isn’t that what this is? Isn’t it love?

She may be uneducated about the emotion, and it may be nonexistent between deities, but with a human?

Surely, this is what mortals feel. Surely, this is love.

Coveting a human is deadly and against celestial law. Yet Wonder is too besotted to care. The emotion is soft, gentle, and dear. It’s a second skin, a private lining stitched under her flesh, protected from the rules.

After several months of researching methods to contact him, she finds a scroll in the Chamber’s restricted section. It says if a human and a deity fall in love, they’ll be bound to each other, and that deity will become mortal, which means they can be together.

Together.

Wonder uses mortal ink and paper to compose a letter. Drafting what’s supposed to be a perfectly structured narrative, she deviates into a stream of consciousness.

The man has a name, one that revealed itself when an elder had greeted him. But Wonder doesn’t address the object of her desire that way. She has a lovelier endearment in mind.

Dearest Wayward Star

Pulse thumping, she smuggles the letter from The Dark Fates and stashes it in his mailbox like a proper human courtship.

***

His reception is not what she hopes for.

At sunset, orange slashes through clouds. Sitting on the library stoop after closing time, he unravels the envelope. Beneath a pomegranate tree, Wonder fidgets and watches him scan the contents.

A flush creeps along his throat, which should be a good sign.

But it isn’t. He glances around, his expression tightening into a glower, as if he thinks somebody’s playing a joke on him. His irises flash, resembling scythes.

“Very fucking funny,” he calls out to the panorama. Crumbling the note, he jams it into his pocket and stalks indoors.

Wonder’s heart wilts like a flower. She tries to console herself, because at least he hadn’t destroyed the note, even if he’d been tempted to.

***

Another letter. And another. And another.

She tries, and she tries, and she tries. She offers a hint of who she is, and she tells him he’s magnificent. She adores the sound of his voice and wants to know his favorite book.

Why does he like pomegranate trees? Why are his nails tapered?

He never answers. Rather, he stuffs the letters in a book.

Circumspection glazes his pupils, which become glassier by the day.

Purple crescents stain the flesh beneath his lower eyelids.

He pores through hardbacks with a zealousness that disturbs the library patrons.

He interrogates the women who once fancied him, as if they might be the culprits of this prank.

***

This hardly bodes well for Wonder’s duties. She misses every bull’s-eye during target practice, squirms through meditation, and snaps in frustration at her crewmates.

When Love asks what Wonder thinks touching a human would be like, Wonder merely shrugs. She’s not interested in dwelling.

***

The letters consume him. When he concludes they aren’t the product of a wicked stunt, he gets vocal about it, riling up the townsfolk by claiming there’s a specter calling out to him.

Have they heard her too? Do they know who the fuck she is?

One time, he shouts at thin air while stalking down the main roads. “Who are you? What are you? Where are you from? Christ, answer me! Why won’t you answer me, huh? I said, who the fuck are you!”

Wonder cries into his ear, “I’m here! I’m right here!”

Belatedly, it occurs to her that she can write to him while he’s watching. However, that would be an even greater peril. She can’t trust herself not to get more carried away than she already is. She might reveal too much of her world.

He hunts through the forests and scours the meadow until it’s no longer tolerable. The townsfolk convene. Fearful, they send for a regiment of physicians who drag the man across the dust.

“It’s true!” he screams, thrashing against them and kicking up dirt. “It’s true! She’s real, she’s real, she’s real! Keep away, let me go! She’s fucking real!”

Wonder has read many words in her lifetime. Asylum is one of them.

His possessions, including the letters, burn in a pyre. Smoke puffs from the fire as they hustle Wonder’s love into a barred wagon. Meanwhile, a councilman bolts the library doors.

Wonder begs for them to stop, stop, stop.

“Stop!” she wails, rushing forward. “Release him!”