A light laugh escaped Artemis. “You make it sound like a person.”
“I suppose I came to see it that way. That a sky could reflect the character of the people beneath.”
“And the African sky?” she asked. “How does it reflect its people?”
Bran supposed he should have seen the question coming. “The sky of Africa is open and warm, its blue pure and untouched.”
“Like its people?” Artemis’s voice had gone soft with sensitivity.
He nodded. “Aye, like its people. Though …” It was with great difficulty that he continued. “That is changing. It isn’t only their lands the Xhosa are losing, but their openness.” From a chasm that yet yawned deep and black inside him, he said. “Their magic, too. How I wish our bulletshadturned to water that day.”
On they walked.
Within her silence at his side, he sensed understanding.
“I would like to see some of the skies and people you’ve seen. To test your theory, of course.” She turned a smile on him, her sunshine ever illuminating his darkness. “Have you been to Cornwall by chance?”
“I have.”
“What is the Cornish sky like?” she asked. “What makes it unique to any other sky?”
They’d entered a copse of woods that grew to either side of a lively, bubbling stream. Without missing a step, Artemis turned so they walked alongside it against the current.
Though Bran could answer the question in some detail, he sensed something beneath her words and he asked, “What is your interest in Cornwall? Is there a litter of kittens in need of rescue?”
Her mouth twitched with humor. “I have family there. I’d like to visit, if they’ll have me.”
His head cocked. “Why wouldn’t they have you, Artemis?”
“They might think I’m like—” She shook her head, as if to clear it of whatever the next word had been. “The thing is they’re my mother’s family, and they don’t know me.”
The right words assembled within Bran—words he couldn’t not speak. “They will love you, Artemis.”
Who wouldn’t, he didn’t say.
All around them was the rustling of autumn leaves, almost ready for their earthward descent in the coming weeks … birdsong in the trees … Bathsheba running free and chasingsquirrels … the mutedclip-clopof the hunter … But between them, silence.
The words he’d spoken veered close to a confession of love—but not quite.
He couldn’t speak those words yet.
Artemis was holding something back.
He could sense it.
And until she revealed it, no matter how he felt, he must wait.
Of a sudden, she lifted her arm and pointed. “There.”
Ahead, the source of the stream appeared—a small, translucent pool.
“It’s fed by an underground spring,” she said. “So it’s always the same temperature year-round.”
And Bran understood.
This was a gift.
It touched him in those deep, dark places that in his entire lifetime only this woman had been able to reach.
