It’s odd. I know so many small things about her. Like how she doesn’t naturally gravitate toward people like I do and that she could easily be happy with her own company. I know she always gives the shiniest things in the shop an extra stroke for luck whenever she passes them. I know how she takes her tea: strong with a dash of milk and a few extra spices if there are any to spare. And how she gets antsy if she’s not able to swim for more than a couple of days. She’s handy with a needle and thread and has a steady hand under pressure.
I know it’s a major honour for her to entrust her skin to me, and for her to come to me for help. Honours I don’t take for granted.
All that, yet her past is a murky mystery.
Not that I can talk. My own isn’t something I’ve been upfront about.
I’m not used to talking about it or sharing those parts of myself. For all the time I spend talking to people, it’s rare they get more thanthe surface-level version of me. But I silently swear to myself that I’ll do better with Reva.
The day is clear and cool as we stride along the winding lane that reaches the foot of the hills where the coven house sits as Reva begins to speak.
“I was born in a place called Little Wyverton. It was a rundown place in the North.”
She goes on to tell me how she flitted from place to place, never staying in one place for longer than a few months at a time.
“My mother worked odd jobs here and there, but it wasn’t exactly a good way of making a living,” she says. “She was paranoid. Superstitious too.”
“And how about school?”
Reva shrugs. “I never got registered. One of my mother’s issues was that if we were documented anywhere, someone would discover what we were.”
“You never went to school?”
I’m usually a level-headed guy, so I’m taken aback by the visceral reaction I have to her words. It’s like I can’t quite breathe right, what with the sudden surge of irritation pumping through my veins. Not at Reva, of course. At her mother for dragging her away from any sense of stability, and at the people sick enough to hunt her kind.
“You speak eight languages and you never learned any of them formally?” I’m astounded and impressed, and more than a little turned on at the sheer size of her brain. I’ve seen her in action too, speaking to some of my customers when they’re visiting from far-flung places and struggling with the local language. The words trip off her tongue effortlessly. Unlike me, it took me two years of constant conversation before I became anything close to fluent in the local language here.
“How long have you been doing what you do?”
She tosses her head back, that magnificent mane of hair trailing down her back, catching the light and leaving me slightly tongue-tied. “I’ve always been good at finding hiding places,” she says.
“I’ve always been good at finding hiding spots. I never lived in desirable areas, so I had to be good at hiding any valuables. Then, when I was almost sixteen, I was working at a pub as a pot washer, and someone happened to mention that the big boss needed something to be kept safe. He was offering cash, and I needed the money.” She shoots me a chastising look. “Don’tgive me that look.”
“Which look?”
“The one where you’re wondering where my mother was in all this. I was on my own by this point, making my own money.” She shrugs as though it’s nothing. “Anyway, it worked out. The pub got raided one night, and even though a few of the punters got taken away, the owner had nothing on him. I got paid and then stuck around for a little while longer, did a few more jobs and then when things got uncomfortable, I moved on.”
Her shoulders have a tightness to them that wasn’t there a few minutes ago, and even though I want to ask her what happened next and on the day after that and after that, I’ll hold fire on my questions for now.
It feels like I owe her something. An equivalent truth for the hollow I just opened up inside her. My issue is, there’s a whole ocean of terrible details of my past I could tell her. But I don’t want to drown her with them. This is supposed to be a happy day.
I never expected to find a soulmate. Certainly not one whose heart I can feel beating alongside my own, who I’ve been a little bit obsessed with for months now.
“Wow, is that the house?” Reva asks.
I glance up to see that we’ve reached the long driveway that leads up to the old coven house. It’s lined with trees that are mostly bare ofleaves at this time of year, which means we have a pretty good view of the house right as we walk up to it.
Reva reaches down and squeezes my hand, causing warmth to course through me from where our flesh meets. A tingle rushes through me right the way up to the mark on my forearm. She doesn’t pull her hand away either, keeping it linked with mine until we reach the end of the driveway.
The old manor is one you can tell used to be splendid in days gone by. Now though, it’s certainly seen better days. The windows are smeared and dirty, and the steps leading up to the front door are an absolute deathtrap, broken with weeds growing through.
I head for the nearest window, peering through, but the grime is thick and impossible to see through. Not to mention, it’s dark inside.
“No one should be here, right?” Reva calls from where she’s picking her way up the steps by the front door.
“It’s been abandoned for a while,” I reply, heading over to her. “Why?”
She gives the door a nudge with her foot, and it creaks open. “It was ajar.” Without a moment’s hesitation, she steps inside before turning to me with a grin. “At least you’d be able to sense if this place was cursed.”
