Page 15

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

As promised, dinner was shepherd’s pie, roast vegetables, and strong black tea.

Madeleine hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she began to eat.

Apparently rumors of the quality of Jonathan’s flock hadn’t been exaggerated.

The lamb was savory and delicious, and he’d perfectly crisped the potato topping.

He was an engaging host, encouraging Madeleine to talk about her journey over.

That was more than Madeleine could say for his daughter.

Harry Duggan had said she was “a bit off,” but he’d understated it.

Ever since their introduction, H?ra had been withdrawn, as if she’d been floored to learn what Madeleine wasn’t instead of who she was.

She’d all but clammed up completely.

Now she was picking at her food, ignoring her tea, and staring moodily at the saltshaker.

It didn’t help that every once in a while, Madeleine glanced her way to see H?ra staring silently back at her.

The heat had fled those amber eyes, and now ice had taken its place.

But why? How could Madeleine have offended her?

One possibility had her blood freezing in her veins.

Had H?ra noticed Madeleine’s immediate attraction to her?

If so, that was unfair.

It wasn’t as if Madeleine had seen it coming.

If she had, she’d have been able to cover it.

She’d been doing that sort of thing her whole life.

Besides, did H?ra think Madeleine was going to pounce on her?

As if she could! H?ra could easily pin Madeleine to the ground beneath that long, wiry frame.

Madeleine bit her lip and tuned back in to what Jonathan was saying.

“I expect you’re wondering about H?ra,” he said, giving her a nasty jolt.

Could he read minds or something?

Whether he could or not, he didn’t seem to notice the deadly glare H?ra had just shot him.

Instead, his smile was cheerful enough, if a bit anxious, as he looked back and forth between H?ra and Madeleine.

“Wondering about her?” Madeleine asked.

There, that had sounded innocent enough.

Jonathan glanced at H?ra.

“She didn’t live here then, but she knows what happened. And she’s safe as houses. Won’t speak a word of what we say here, will you?”

H?ra snorted.

An inelegant sound for an inelegant woman.

That was her only reply.

Jonathan looked nonplussed at this.

“We just want you to know that, is all. Seeing as we’re here to talk about something a bit odd.”

A bit odd?

That wasn’t the half of it.

He was right—if they were to be honest about this “odd” thing, then it didn’t hurt to be honest about themselves.

Then, they could talk more freely about what had happened six years ago.

“Something that changed us,” Jonathan continued.

“At least, it changed me…and seems it changed you too.”

Madeleine smiled wryly.

“Even more than it looks. Much more than a change of dress.”

At that, H?ra raised her head and gave Madeleine a sharp look, although she still said nothing.

“It’s why I left the Daughters of Grace,” Madeleine continued.

At least her voice wasn’t trembling as she talked about the most painful decision of her life to two strangers.

“My experience here opened my eyes to many things I’d been trying not to see. I’ve been dying to come back here and investigate what happened, but after I left, it took me years to get back on my feet and save the money. I gave up my worldly goods when I joined the order, you see.”

Jonathan sat back in his chair and folded his arms with a sigh.

“Church was happy enough to take it all from you and not give it back, then?”

“I gave it up willingly,” Madeleine corrected.

Even with all her doubts, it was hard to hear outsiders criticize an institution she’d given so much of her life to.

“I never expected to see my money again”—what little she’d had left over after her brother’s death, anyway—“and the order gave me a generous loan when I left. I don’t bear them any ill will. That’s important for you to understand about me. ”

Jonathan nodded.

“Fair enough.”

“I loved my sisters. I loved my home.” Oh no, her eyes were smarting!

She wouldn’t cry, not here of all places.

“I just…couldn’t be there.”

“Because it was too hard?”

H?ra’s voice was sharp, and when Madeleine looked at her in surprise, her amber eyes were sharper.

“Excuse me?” she said.

H?ra looked her dead in the eye.

Her pale cheeks took on a reddened cast. “Living such a life requires great strength of character ,” she said, laying an unnatural emphasis on the last three words.

“I admired—that is, I would have admired you for that—but you left. You quit.”

Madeleine’s muscles all seemed to lock up at once at the naked contempt in her voice.

Jonathan began, “H?ra, what?—”

“And why was that?” H?ra continued.

“Because you weren’t what people thought you were?”

Madeleine should say, You don’t know anything about it, so be quiet .

But all of a sudden, she found herself back at Sacred Heart, in that lonely room on the night she’d faced the truth of herself.

She’d stared into the shadows and admitted that the order didn’t really know who…

or what…she was. And she’d known she had to leave.

The charade was over.

The openness had vanished from Jonathan’s face.

He scowled at his daughter.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“The matter with me ?” H?ra pointed at Madeleine as if in accusation.

“ She’s just admitted to giving up on what made her who she was, on what proved her strength. She’s not what she pretended to be!”

“Are any of us?” Jonathan’s face reddened.

“Are you ?”

So much for a nice meal.

Madeleine pushed back in her seat.

The legs scraped against the floor.

“I should leave. I?—”

H?ra beat her to it.

Without a word, she shot to her feet, and her own chair fell backward to the floor.

It was still clattering when she bolted through the back door, slamming it behind her until the frame clattered too.

Madeleine sat frozen, barely able to breathe.

She’d been part of many unpleasant conversations and witnessed more than a few shouting matches, but none of them had left her paralyzed.

There didn’t seem to be a single thing in the world to say except Goodbye , followed by another chilly bike ride.

She and Jonathan would have to meet another time, without the maddeningly attractive woman who’d inexplicably stormed out of here.

Jonathan cursed softly and then gave Madeleine an apologetic wince.

“Sorry, Sist…Madeleine. I don’t know what’s got into her. She can have a temper, but?—”

“It’s fine.” Madeleine tried to smile.

This wasn’t his fault.

Jonathan would not be interrupted.

“She’s a good lass. She just has some…er, issues.”

Obviously.

Madeleine remembered, suddenly, that Harry Duggan had said H?ra was injured when she’d arrived on Jorsay.

Maybe she’d had a lot of traumatic experiences that made her volatile.

“Will you stay here, please? I’ll talk to her.” Jonathan looked at Madeleine pleadingly.

“Let’s not leave it like this, all right?”

Madeleine remembered his brown eyes from the night they’d met: glazed with drink and anger.

Now they were bright and clear, and there wasn’t a spot of alcohol on the table.

Whatever had happened on the beach that night had changed them both.

“I’ll wait,” she said.

“But I can’t guarantee I’ll want to speak to her again.”

“Hell if I’d blame you. I’ll be back in two shakes.”

Even under the circumstances, Madeleine couldn’t resist. “Of a lamb’s tail?”

Jonathan blinked at her.

Then a grin widened his mouth.

“Just so. Sit tight, lass. I’m off to have a word with a horse’s arse.”

H?ra leaned against the fence.

The wind blew hard in her face, as if reprimanding her for her foolishness.

The foolishness of faith.

The foolishness of hope.

The foolishness of the last five years.

The clouds had cleared enough to reveal the sun.

Full dark wouldn’t fall until half past ten, and it wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet.

There was a little more time to enjoy the daylight.

H?ra could still remember the first time she’d seen the sun.

She’d been a young filly.

Her father had taken her to the surface, a secret from Beathag and Asgall.

H?ra’s eyes had adjusted quickly from darkness to the light.

Nobody on Jorsay took a sunny day for granted, but she appreciated it even more than most.

Not tonight, though.

No sunlight could reach her now.

She was dark as the deep trenches, where no light existed save phosphorescence, and whose pressures even an Each - uisge could not survive.

“Oi!”

H?ra groaned and rubbed her forehead.

Of course he couldn’t leave well enough alone.

“Bugger off,” she said when Jonathan’s footsteps were close enough for him to hear her.

“You first.” He reached the fence and leaned against it with her, breathing heavily.

Had he been moving too fast?

The doctor at the clinic had warned him about his heart, and H?ra always told him to be careful.

“The hell was that?”

“What do you think it was?” H?ra snapped.

She turned to look at him.

Jonathan’s face was creased with worry—and more than that, with open confusion.

How could he possibly not see what was the matter?

“She’s not a nun anymore!”

“Yeah, I noticed that upset you a bit.” Jonathan’s voice was as packed as full of sarcasm as if he meant to take it round the world.

“So what?”

H?ra looked at Jonathan in disbelief.

“So what ?”

“It makes sense, now I think about it. D’you think she could have come all the way out here by herself if she was still a bloody nun? If she was in that order of hers, she’d still be back in America, and you’d never have seen her again.”

H?ra turned back to the pasture, gazing at the sheep that appeared as white dots in the distance.

Evidence of everything she and Jonathan had worked for, and to what end now?

“Maybe that would have been better. At least then I wouldn’t have known…”

Her voice cracked.

It sounded horrible.

Weak.

Jonathan sighed gustily.

“It’s not her fault you built her up in your head. And I still don’t understand why that’s what you’re stuck on. You’ve wanted to know about her religion and that, but you never talked about her having to be a nun.”

“Because it never occurred to me to question it,” H?ra snapped.

Her throat was thick.

It was too much like her first night on land, when salt water had gathered in her eyes, snot in her nose, and saliva in her mouth.

When she’d wept. “It was just part of who she was.”

“Was, not is. She changed. People change. So do your kind, you’d know that better than anybody!”

I haven’t changed.

How she longed to say that.

H?ra couldn’t tell him why Sister…

why Madeleine’s transformation hurt so much.

How was she supposed to explain it?

I was going to eat her, and then her strength of character would help me return to my kind and transform into a Stormhorse?

Jonathan wouldn’t like that much.

“All right,” he said after a moment.

“Do as you like. I’m going back and having a proper conversation with our guest. I’d say you can join us when you feel like apologizing.”

“Would you say that?” Disappointment sharpened her edges.

“Then I’d say it’s my house too, and I’ll join you or not, as I please. Don’t forget how you came by all this. Now leave me alone.”

“Ugh,” Jonathan said, and stomped away.

H?ra returned to looking at the sky.

Apparently, it was a sky she’d never know for herself.

Her one goal, her one dream, lost. Her one hope of returning to her own kind to find welcome among them at last.

And the end of loneliness, once she and Sister Madeleine belonged to one another for all time.

That was lost too.

Unwillingly, H?ra thought of the witch of the whirlpool, looking up at her with mad, dark eyes.

You will fail, the witch had said.

Fail. Despair. Come back.

Bring me your despair .

A bargain was a bargain.

The witch had spared H?ra’s life in exchange for her promise—a promise H?ra had believed she’d never have to fulfill.

She should have known better.

Witches didn’t grant requests for free.

What now? Walk into the water, transform into her true shape, and return to the whirlpool to meet her fate?

H?ra had no idea what such a fate could be or what the witch could want from her.

Maybe just to eat her.

It seemed fitting. Better that than trapped on this island in a false human skin, aging too slowly and drawing everyone’s attention.

It was better to meet an honest end in her own shape.

And then, when the Last Current took her, H?ra would bravely face the Great Mare and apologize for her failure.

Well. That was that.

At least the last five years hadn’t been all bad.

At least H?ra had made…

a friend.

Damn. She’d have to apologize to Jonathan again before she left.

Whatever happened with the witch, she didn’t want things to end between them like this.

Maybe she really had changed.

Time passed. The sun went lower.

H?ra stayed at the fence post, looking at the sheep.

Then, after some while or another, more footsteps sounded behind her.

Softer, lighter, and slower this time.

H?ra’s ears pricked up and her nostrils flared.

The wind carried a scent to her—the smell of Sister Madeleine’s body, which had been pressed so perfectly to H?ra’s own.

And curse her for a fool, even now her heart leapt at it.

Pure instinct, that was all.

She set her jaw against her own weakness and turned around.

Madeleine, no longer Sister, was approaching her.

H?ra might have expected hesitation in her step, but there was none.

Rather, Madeleine moved with graceful dignity.

The sunlight danced over her dark hair.

Her shoulders were proudly set, and when she stopped several feet away from H?ra, she folded her hands in front of herself and lifted her chin.

She looked at H?ra without fear—or, apparently, resentment.

Beautiful, H?ra thought, irrelevantly.

“Jonathan told me the truth about you,” Madeleine said.

H?ra’s blood went cold as an ice floe.

Jonathan had what? Had she angered him so much that he’d spoken the unspeakable without H?ra’s permission?

“What did he say?” she managed.

“That he never knew he had a daughter until a few years ago,” Madeleine said.

H?ra couldn’t prevent a little exhale of relief.

Madeleine continued, “That you’ve gone through hardships you’ve worked to overcome. And that you’ve taught each other a lot about…how did he put it?”

“How did he put it?” H?ra said.

“About how to be alive,” Madeleine replied quietly.

The words gave H?ra an unpleasant jolt.

Had she or hadn’t she just been thinking about giving her life to the sea witch?

“What?”

“He didn’t elaborate, but I think I know what he means. I think you do too.”

Now Madeleine’s gaze was shrewd and penetrating, cutting past H?ra’s surfaces, putting her somewhat on the back foot, as Jonathan sometimes said.

She’d looked at Madeleine when she’d first arrived at the farm, looked her up and down, voraciously.

This was different. Madeleine wasn’t looking, but seeing.

There was a great deal that H?ra wasn’t ready for Madeleine to see.

“There are many ways to be alive,” Madeleine said.

“One of them is by being in relationship with other people. In leaving the Daughters of Grace, I gave up the only family I had so I could strike out on my own and discover the truth. Yes, living as a nun is difficult and requires resolve. So does changing your life and starting all over.” She tilted her head to the side, still watching H?ra closely.

“You understand what that’s like too, don’t you?”

Apparently she’d recovered from dinner, when H?ra had flustered her.

Now she showed no anger or resentment.

In those well-remembered eyes, H?ra saw only compassion.

She’d never seen such an expression on any Each-uisge , or another human, for that matter.

It differed from Jonathan’s kindness; it was more self-possessed and assured.

Was Madeleine right?

She thought H?ra’s presence here was a sign of strength.

She didn’t know that H?ra had been running away, choosing exile and a demeaning transformation over death.

Few would call that courageous, even if it was the hardest thing H?ra had ever done.

It was her turn to see something.

She focused her gaze squarely on Madeleine’s face.

“Can you truly say you weren’t running away from anything?”

Madeleine pursed her lips and turned away.

Ha! In human body language, H?ra had learned, that signaled either fear or guilt.

“I’d prefer to think of it as running toward something,” Madeleine said eventually.

She kept her gaze focused on the pasture beyond.

“I just don’t know what yet.”

Me.

The thought struck H?ra with the force of a tidal wave.

At Madeleine’s words, she was tossed back into the horrible night Calder, Beathag, and Asgall had attempted to kill her.

She’d curled up into a ball, awaiting her fate, when across the miles, Sister Madeleine had called out to her.

“Guide me now,” Sister Madeleine had pleaded.

“Protect me. I’ll return to you, I swear it . ”

In that moment, H?ra had vowed to live—for Madeleine’s sake.

Running toward Madeleine had saved her life.

And now her woman was saying the same thing?

Stricken, H?ra looked at Madeleine, feeling as tossed about as she had in the witch’s whirlpool.

Everything she’d just been thinking was incorrect.

Madeleine was no coward who’d fled a hard life.

She’d had to do that—to get here.

To reach H?ra after all those years.

Me, H?ra thought again.

You were running toward me.

You left your life, your family, for me .

And you don’t even know it .

The witch would have to wait.

In a moment, H?ra’s despair had vanished, replaced by confusion and wonder.

“What about you?” Madeleine asked, dragging her back into the present.

“Were you running away, or toward? It only seems fair to ask.”

“I didn’t run,” H?ra heard herself say.

“I swam.” Oh, that had sounded so silly she could kick herself.

With a horse’s hoof, no less.

Madeleine raised her eyebrows.

In amusement? This was almost as bad as when she’d found H?ra trapped under the dock.

“Jonathan said you nearly drowned on the night you came to him. Said you had some silly idea about swimming in the North Sea for good luck.”

That was the same story Jonathan had told everyone after H?ra’s arrival.

Of course it made her sound like a nitwit.

“Ah…er…yes.” H?ra looked at the beautiful woman with green eyes and delicious blood who had forsaken everything to chase what H?ra had shown her.

However, Madeleine was mistaken in what that was.

She was chasing life, not death, and she wouldn’t understand that H?ra offered both.

Madeleine waited, as if for H?ra to elaborate.

When no such elaboration was forthcoming, she exhaled through her nose.

“Anyway, I wanted to set things straight. It’s my greatest weakness—my pride. I won’t have it said by anyone that I’m a coward or a weakling. Even if Christ’s teachings tell me not to care about that.”

H?ra frowned.

She’d read all of Madeleine’s Bible and she didn’t remember that Jesus fellow saying such a thing specifically.

Well, Madeleine would know better than she did.

In the meantime, some truth was called for.

“I see you are neither thing.”

“Thanks,” Madeleine said dryly.

“Now, am I wasting my time if I ask for an apology?”

“Did Christ say you should?” It was an honest question.

H?ra couldn’t remember anything about that either.

Honest or not, it seemed to strike Madeleine as funny, since she laughed and shook her head.

“I guess he didn’t. So much for that, then. Goodbye.” She turned to go.

“Will you return?” H?ra blurted.

Madeleine glanced back, seeming surprised by the question too.

“Jonathan’s invited me back tomorrow. He said he’ll give me a tour of the farm.”

“And—and you’ll come?”

“I think so. I want to talk to him more about what happened when he’s not making excuses for your rudeness.”

H?ra could manage only a sputtering sound.

“There won’t be any need for our paths to cross again, I think,” Madeleine continued.

“That’ll be for the best. For various reasons.”

Various reasons?

The only one she’d named was H?ra’s rudeness which, admittedly, was justified.

“What are the other reasons?” H?ra demanded.

If Madeleine thought she could so easily walk away after all this time, she was mistaken.

Madeleine looked taken aback.

She turned pink. “Um…well…none. Never mind that.”

“I won’t be rude again,” H?ra assured her.

“And if Christ tells you to ask for an apology, I’ll give you one.”

Madeleine opened her mouth.

Closed it again. She looked what Jonathan called “gobsmacked,” though H?ra had no idea why that should be.

Of course it was only right to offer an apology after she’d been so wrong in her assumptions.

Since Madeleine seemed to have nothing to say, H?ra added, “I assume that settles things. I’ll see you tomorrow. You’ll arrive in the morning?”

“I…uh…” Madeleine still looked thrown, for some reason.

“I don’t know? I’d like to go on a walk on the beach first. Where it happened. Just to see?—”

Yet again, H?ra’s human body acted beyond her control.

Her hands went around Madeleine’s biceps.

They tugged Madeleine close to her body, almost as close as they’d been on the shore that night, except H?ra was wearing clothes this time.

Her heart raced, and her lips curled back, baring her teeth.

Madeleine gasped, “What?—”

“The shore is dangerous,” H?ra snarled.

“The waters are treacherous. There are things in there you can’t imagine.” Asgall, Beathag, teeth and tails…

“Stay away!”

“Good Lord !” Madeleine’s hands were curled against H?ra’s chest, but she wasn’t pushing away.

Her face was much pinker now.

“What’s the matter with you? Of course I wouldn’t go swimming. It’s not dangerous just to walk on the beach!”

“No?” H?ra pulled her in even more.

“What happened the last time you did?”

Madeleine stared up at her, apparently unable to think of a response to that.

Her face was extremely close to H?ra’s.

So close that H?ra could feel her breath, unsteady and warm, against her own mouth.

Her lips had been soft that night.

They’d opened for H?ra, who’d found a warm place inside.

They were opening now, in much the same way, as if…

as if…

Madeleine turned her head away with a gasp.

Had she realized what H?ra was thinking?

Was she remembering?—?

“I-I understand why you must feel that way.” Madeleine’s voice shook.

“After what happened to you. But I won’t swim. I’ll be careful. Now I need to go. Oh goodness, let me go?—”

If she wanted to be let go, why wasn’t she pushing H?ra away?

Was that a human thing too?

H?ra wasn’t experienced in holding people.

She took a deep breath and forced her grip to loosen, making her human limbs obey her again.

How strange, that Madeleine’s presence should wrench H?ra’s own body from her control so easily.

It was even stranger that their separation should cause a sense of loss that made H?ra feel as cold, as if the sun had never come out after all.

Just in case it was called for: “I’d apologize for that, too,” H?ra said, “if you asked.”

Madeleine stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself, not looking at H?ra.

“Just don’t grab me again. Don’t go around grabbing people in general. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

Jonathan had never taught H?ra that.

He probably hadn’t realized he’d need to.

“Oh. Then I won’t.”

Without a word, Madeleine turned and walked away.

H?ra judged it best to wait behind, since she couldn’t trust herself to say sensible things, and the Great Mare forbid she slip in front of Jonathan.

Besides, standing here gave her a chance to watch Madeleine walk—she hadn’t realized what a pleasing sight that would be.

It would be even more pleasing to watch her approach tomorrow.

H?ra had learned from her experience tonight.

She’d be ready to have a proper conversation, the sort she’d spent years studying for, ready to stand within reach of Madeleine once more.

Not reach , though. Not again.

She’d just promised not to do that anymore.

As she watched Madeleine return to the house, with steps less measured than they’d been during her approach, H?ra hoped that was a promise she could keep.