To prove I was fine.
“Arthur.” It wasn’t a question that fell from Jack’s lips, rather a confirmation. The monster cemented our feet where we stood, preventing me from acting on the impulse to run. Jack stepped from the shadows of the workshop into view.
I froze, my mouth parting in shock. The sight of him stole my breath.
What was I looking at?
A tangle of branches fluttered with leaves. Atree.A tree in his—No, that… that wasn’t possible.
But denying it did nothing to change what I saw. Where there once had been only a seed, now a whole sapling was lodged in the honeyman’s chest.
I gaped, aware of my rudeness but unable to stop.
The monster’s wonderment filled our mind.“Is that an aspen?”
The question nauseated me. We’d left the farm before weunderstood what we’d seen growing inside of Jack. For years, I’d tried to forget and move past that night, but the monster’s curiosity had festered deep inside me.
“I know, Fairy. First time’s a shocker.” Izzy took a step toward me and plucked her shoes from the grass. “You’re welcome to come in—”
“No.” Eva’s stout refusal drew all our attention to where she stood, ramrod straight and twisting the end of her shirt around her finger. Waterweeds spilled from beneath her shoes. “He’s not.”
“Honeybee,” Jack intoned softly, reaching for his younger daughter. Eva stepped back. “Wait!”
But Eva didn’t wait. She ripped her gaze away from me and bolted down the path. Jack grimaced.
“That could have gone better,” I said weakly.
Izzy shrugged. “Could have gone a lot worse, honestly.”
I’d expected a fight. Eva had never shied away from conflict before. Even angry, she had always been warmth. A burn or a balm. She had never frozen me out.
“Is that Lottie?” Jack quietly asked.
I nodded. “Yes, sir.” Guilt washed over me as I took in the shattered blue urn.
Jack winced.
I’d imagined this moment many times during my drive, but none of my mental rehearsals had featured me spilling my dead mother’s ashes onto the honeyman’s sacred soil. Maybe that was a sign. I was stupid to think the monster would give a damn about her last request. Stupid to think coming here would stop it from donning me like a fucking glove.
Stupid to hope for relief.
Silence heavied the air with awkwardness, until Izzy cleared her throat. “Tea?”
I swallowed hard, searching for a protest. They didn’t have to do that. Play the host. Pretend. We didn’t have to befine.
“Tea,” Jack agreed with a nod.
It made the hollow in my belly twist. I couldn’t help it. Everything in this family circled back to honey and tea, tea and honey. Jack told me once that healing started with a simmering pot and a spoonful of gold. In this house, tea was a love language all its own, and it spoke when words and other medicines failed.
I crossed on stiff legs to the cottage’s front door, stealing glances back to the winding aspen lodged in Jack Moreau’s chest. My hands still cupped the ashes I’d scooped off the stepping stones, the breeze teasing away a wisp of the dark cremains.
Our approach startled a trio of gray-and-white kittens out from beneath the bushes. They dashed across the yard and out of sight.
After all this time, coming back should’ve felt like an intrusion. Instead, the second I stepped into the mudroom, the knot between my shoulders eased. The creaks of the floorboards were a song I didn’t expect to recall, the nicks in the wallpaper worn into my memory. I hesitated on the trick step a moment before I realized I still knew it was there.
I didn’t expect that, for the house to be so deeply ingrained. But I guess time couldn’t steal everything. I’d first found the Moreaus the way a cocklebur found the knit of a sock, too eager to stick where I didn’t belong. A weed like that—like me—was hard to pluck out, no matter how long I’d been away from home.
This wasn’t home.
