20
‘Where were you?!’
As soon as I’m in the door, Rhea strides from the kitchen, shouting. The volume and the distress hit me like a slap.
‘I—’
‘How could you? Just leave like that and not come home?’
‘I am home—’
‘And staying out all night, leaving me all alone.’
‘Arlo—’
‘Disappearing with a man I don’t know. I waited all night. I didn’t sleep.’
‘Rhea—’
‘I wouldn’t have even known where to look for you, where to find your body, who to even ask—’
‘Rhea—’
‘How could you desert me like that?’ Her pitch has risen to a scream, hysteria brightly limning it. Part of me realises she’s terrified, on my behalf, but mostly on hers. A child sent forth from the only home she’s ever known, fleeing men who’ll harm her. A child who became a murderer rather than a victim – andthat’s a heavy burden, for women are taught to be victims first. A child who found a new home, yes, but will ever live beneath the uncertainty of discovery. Her imagination has run wild with every awful possibility, and the worst one for such a child is abandonment.
And I should be better. I should be the adult about the whole situation – after all, I can see the tears in her eyes, hear the distress in her voice. I should remind myself that she’s not an adult, not properly, after all. But because I know she’s right, that I was selfish and inconsiderate – how difficult would it have been to tell her where I was going and with whom? Faolan would have waited those thirty seconds – and because I know myself in the wrong after a night of such sweetness, my mood so good and so quickly taken from me, I lose my temper.
And I lunge at the girl standing in front of me.
And I make a noise that might come from an animal in pain.
And I have a hank of her golden curls twisted in my fingers for the shortest of moments before I’m lifted off my feet and flung across the sitting room, against the stone of the fireplace, ribs bruised by a strength no true man could muster even on a good day.
And all at once, there we are: Rhea crumpled by the door, me fetched up with the metal of the tongs and poker pressed hard against me, and Arlo the summer husband standing somewhere between the two of us, voiceless but able to make his feelings clearly felt.
***
When I visit Faolan in the days that come, I keep my clothes on when we mate so he can’t see the bruises, doesn’t ask difficultquestions. Our couplings are fast and fevered, hidden from prying eyes, though I’m more polite to him than I have been in years, and perhaps some note that I no longer avoid the smithy. One day, however, the buttons on my shirt are torn in some over-enthusiastic movements, and he slips the fabric down and down before I realise. He swears, asks, ‘Was this me? Did I do this? Too rough?’ and I must lie, tell him I fell, that I lost my footing and make myself sound like an unsteady old woman. He’s so tender after that I want to pull his hair, bite him, to get a rise out of him, to make him stop treating me like porcelain. Like a fragile thing. In the end I swear at him that if he doesn’t fuck me hard, I’ll never visit again. He does as bid.
***
‘Where are we going, Mehrab? It’s so cold.’
It’s three weeks after our fight. After Arlo’s attack on me. Our words have been brief and stilted; I’ve given her instructions for the summer husband each day and not much else. There have been no lessons and I’ve made my own meals as I have done while alone, left her to feed herself. Anything she needs, she must ask for as I refuse to think in her favour. And I’ve been waiting to see if she shows any sign of voluntarily doing what I told her she must all those months ago. She has not.
Autumn feels more like winter today and we’re both wrapped in jackets and scarves; warm caps would have been wise. It’s not cold enough quite yet for the fur-lined coats or the fox-fur inserts in our boots, but it feels as if the weather turned bad immediately after harvest home. Usually there are some more warm weeks at the start of autumn; not this year.The sky is very grey, almost as if threatening snow so soon. I want to be home before nightfall, but she’s moving slow and sluggish. I wonder if she’s realised why. Yet this has to be done, no matter how uncomfortable or cold. I made sure we both wore our talismans, that the sprigs of lavender and sage in our hems were refreshed, just in case.
‘Mehrab, why are we out here?’
‘We’re out here so you can see what happens when you don’t listen.’
We’re out here because this morning when I asked her outright to do what must be done, she refused.
‘Mehrab, I’m sorry about Arlo, truly I am. He didn’t mean to hurt you. How many times must I apologise?’ She’s not yet apologised to me for having screamed and yelled like a spoiled brat, though, and even now, my ribs still ache despite all the poultices and tisanes I’ve brewed. Arlo, it should be noted, isnotout here but locked in the barn, not heading towards a place I’ve avoided for so very long. Arlo, who should not be in existence still.
‘I told you his purpose. I told you why. I told you what to do.’ I shake my head and forge on. Not far now, even though I’ve not set foot in this part of the woods for almost seventeen years – I’d know the paths, the trees, anywhere. For a moment I think I hear something, a familiar moan, and my heart rabbits along, a double thump with a shot of adrenaline that makes me feel sick. But it’s just the wind.
Just the wind.
