Page 38 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Thirty-One

A Bird Uncaged

Forest approaches slowly, then stands a few feet away, hands clasped in front of himself. Waiting.

Birdie sets the papers down. “This is a list of the new incoming residents and descriptions of their abilities, as well as how much their families are paying for secret treatments. You aren’t on it.

Because you aren’t supposed to be here. And no one knows you are, do they?

” Birdie can’t think of a single time Cook or the House Wife interacted with Forest. That first morning, Cook didn’t even introduce him.

It was River. And whenever Cook has set the table, she’s been one place setting short.

Birdie chalked it up to her drinking, but it’s more than that.

Forest did something to Cook and the House Wife. They don’t realize Forest is here. They can’t see him at all.

“Who are you?” Birdie whispers.

Forest reaches into his vest pocket and retrieves a folded piece of paper. He holds it out like an offering. Birdie’s fingers tremble as she unfolds it. It’s a drawing. Not a bird, this time, but Birdie herself. Rendered with loving, precise detail.

Her friend. Forest. She didn’t leave him behind after all.

“I told you where I was going, that last night,” she says, trying not to let tears fall onto the portrait. She sets it carefully onto the bench next to the other papers. “Did you come here for me?”

Forest nods. Birdie tries to get her breathing under control, but her body is in rebellion. No. She’ll get it under control. She’s good at never showing what she feels. It’s part of her job. “To help me? Or to stop me?”

He just purses his lips. Maybe he thinks helping her and stopping her are the same thing.

The mystery of her friend on the third floor is solved.

It was Forest, being kept secret because of his ability.

Birdie can see it now that she’s made the connection.

He has the same set to his eyes, the same strong jawline as the minister of finance.

But the minister’s lips are thin and harsh, his nose aggressive, his eyes dark.

He’s only one-half of the equation of Forest. But Birdie’s seen the other half countless times.

The portrait of his dead mother always watched her as she worked to break into the minister’s study.

She had the most remarkably blue eyes and the same full lips.

“Does your father know you’re here?”

Forest shakes his head.

Birdie never once saw the minister go up to Forest’s room. Forest’s room. She trips over that new information, reordering all her memories. It was Forest behind that door, all those long lonely months. Him she talked to. Him she poured her heart out to. Him she left behind.

But he followed her. And it’s going to destroy him. “It’s not safe for you, Forest. You need to leave.”

He lifts a single, wry eyebrow.

“I mean it. You didn’t see Sky at the end. And Rabbit, she—she killed Rabbit. You need to get out of here. You all do.”

Forest shakes his head. Birdie wants to strangle him. Though Arrow already tried, and apparently that didn’t go well. Oh, no, Arrow .

“Arrow?” she asks, halfway to standing before Forest holds upa hand.

Safe , he mouths.

She doubts Arrow is happy, but she doesn’t doubt that Arrow is safe. Not now that she knows Forest is her friend. But it’s not enough. She needs more information. “Please,” she says. “You have to talk to me. You have to tell me what’s going on. Did you stop me, in the House Wife’s room?”

Forest reaches into his pocket and pulls out another paper. This one has been elaborately pasted together from words sliced out of books. It must have taken him ages.

If I say it, you have to do it. Sometimes people get hurt. If I could, I’d talk to you all day, every day. Only you.

Birdie can’t look up at him. It’s too much. “You stopped me, though. It took me so long to get through that door, and you stopped me. You had no right. I know you’re trying to protect me. But that’s not what I want. I don’t want to be protected. I want to find my sister, and I want—”

Birdie’s mouth stops short. She doesn’t know what else she wants. Her only friend, her truest, dearest friend, is here, and he’s Forest. Even before she knew that, when she looked at him, she wanted more than she can ever allow herself to.

A lifetime of doing things only for others, of shaping herself into the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect maid, has bound her to her tasks so tightly that wanting anything for herself is unthinkable. Her task is finding Magpie again. Nothing else can matter.

She loves Forest. It’s as simple as that, now that she has the full picture of who he is to her.

But he’s going to get hurt if he stays, and he’s already gotten in the way.

She has to know whether Magpie is still out there somewhere.

Even if it means breaking her heart, and Forest’s, too. Why wouldn’t Forest want her to know?

Lake’s words from the kitchen their very first morning come back to her. If Birdie goes down the stairs, she dies. That’s why Forest stopped her. She might be willing to risk everything to know what happened to Magpie, but he’s not.

“I don’t know what to do,” Birdie says, trying to hold back tears. She always has a task, and she always has a way to accomplish that task. But now she’s torn.

Forest kneels in front of her, reaching out and taking her hands. His elegantly engulf hers. They’re so soft and warm and familiar that she’s overwhelmed. But Birdie isn’t afraid when Forest opens his mouth.

“You should do what you want,” he whispers.

An iron band—around her chest for so long she stopped noticing it years ago—shatters. Birdie draws the first full breath in a lifetime of holding herself back, of making herself small and invisible, of never knowing what she wants because she can’t afford to think in those terms.

It’s not like after the House Wife’s room, with the confusion and the sensation that something was physically blocking her. It’s the opposite of that. Forest’s words have done what nothing else could have:

Birdie’s free .

And she knows exactly what she wants to do in this moment.

She throws herself forward, pressing her mouth to his, eagerly, hungrily.

He nearly loses his balance but recovers, wrapping his arms around her waist. She puts a hand against his cheek, finding the curves of his lips with her own, reveling in them.

He answers her kiss, tentative, painfully sweet and hopeful in his caution.

There is no caution in Birdie. Not anymore.

She hitches her skirts up, unable to bear any distance between her and Forest. With her legs around his waist, she holds him tighter, kissing him harder, fiercer.

If she and Forest can somehow be together when everything in the world should have kept them apart, she can find Magpie again.

If Birdie can be free, Magpie can still be alive.

After a few breathless minutes, her lips stinging in the most delicious way, her hands desperate for further exploration that will have to wait, Birdie pulls back. Forest looks at her like he’s just woken from a nightmare into a dream. He smiles, and Birdie knows what that smile tastes like.

There are no more barred doors. No more years of conditioning binding her to one life and him to another. Anything and everything are possible now.

“Let’s go get Arrow,” Birdie says. “And then let’s find my sister. Together.”