“After cake.” I took another bite, hardly even tasting it now. “Where…where is this new home?”
He beamed. “It’s a lovely little plot of land, just outside Alletois. It’s a bit rustic, I suppose. Farmland, sheep. It will be the perfect place to perfect your techniques.”
“I’ve never heard of Alletois.” It wasn’t what I wanted to say, but it was the first thing that fell from my lips.
It truly hadn’t occurred to me that I would leave the Between, though I suppose it should have. Merrick planned to make me a great healer, and there wasn’t a single patient to treat in this vast and empty liminal space.
“It’s lovely,” he assured me. “Only a few hours’ ride from the capitol. A little rustic perhaps but…”
I stabbed at my slice again, cleaving the remains in half with petulance. “You said that already.”
“I…I suppose I did.” He pressed his fork against the plate, smashing crumbs together to make a more sizeable bite.
I studied his face, trying to spot any changes that might have occurred in the year since I’d seen him. There were none. Gods wouldn’t age, I realized belatedly. “What have you been up to? Since I saw you last.”
“Work.” One slice down, he busied himself cutting another.Merrick, I would learn in the years to come, had a prodigious sweet tooth.
“What sort of work do gods do?” I asked, hacking the last of my cake into more and more sections till the cherry juice ran everywhere, making my plate look like a small massacre had taken place.
He chuckled. “Work most godly, I suppose.”
“It must take up a great deal of time,” I pressed. “It’s been an age since I’ve seen you.”
“Yes, and look how you’ve grown!” he exclaimed, ignoring my censured tone as pride filled his red and silver eyes. “Why, you’ve shot up at least five inches! And your hair looks darker now, less auburn than it used to.”
“There’s no sun here to lighten it.” I set my fork down, abandoning the pretense that I was going to finish my cake.
“That will be quite different in Alletois. Your cottage is in the center of a clearing. There are so many windows, sunlight streaming in everywhere. It will be enchanting come summer.”
“My cottage,” I said, picking up on his phrasing. “Not ours.”
His brow creased as he tried sorting through my distress. “Of course not. It’s yours. I made everything for you, exactly how you’ll want it. Oh, I can’t wait for you to see it. One slice more and then we’ll go.”
“How?” I asked, ignoring his offer for more cake. I shoved my plate toward him, and with a shrug, he began gobbling my remains.
“How what, Hazel?” His question was clipped, and there was a slight edge to his voice now, a current running through his words and charging them with warning.
“How do you know that everything will be exactly as I want? You don’t know me. You’ve never been around me long enoughtoknow me.”
“You forget who you’re speaking to, mortal.” His voice boomed with omnipotent magnitude.
I faced his anger head-on. I would not cower before him. “I am speaking to my godfather. The one who promised my parents he’d raise me and take care of me. The one who I’ve not seen in a year because he left me in this realm of immortals all by myself.”
The light in the cabin began to dim as forbidding black clouds rolled in, covering Félicité’s starlight with their menace.
I squared my shoulders, steeling my spine. I knew I was right, and I was not going to be the one to back down.
Merrick’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t realize your time here has been so trying,” he sneered. “Here, in this house, which is not a barn, where I’ve clothed and fed you with resources better than you could have ever dreamed of, given the time to expand your knowledge, learning the secrets and wonders of the mortal body. Yes. I could see what a time this must have been for you.”
“You left me alone!” I exclaimed, and though I didn’t want it to, my voice cracked as my heightened emotions made my throat swell. I angrily wiped at the tears welling in my eyes, threatening my vision. “For years I’ve been told that you would one day come for me and take me away to some grand manor, and I thought that meant that you’d be there too. That you would be there, with me, and that I’d finally have some sort of family. All those years ago, you told my parents you wanted me. And then you came, only to leave me here. For an entire year.” The sobs rose then, breaking apart my words and making it impossible to speak. I collapsed upon the counter, burying my face in my arms, unable to look him in the eye, and cried.
Oh, how I cried.
Great, hot tears fell down my face, which was scrunched red and ugly. My shoulders trembled with the force of the sobs, and mychest felt as though it might cleave in two. I struggled to breathe through a runny nose and my cries turned to gasps, wretched heaving grabs for air.
And suddenly Merrick was beside me. His skeletal hand rubbed my back, attempting to soothe and assuage my anger and hurt.
“I…I don’t know what to say,” he said, sounding honestly perplexed. “I hadn’t ever considered you’d want me here. You’re all grown up.”
