He does, and nods.I love you, and I love all of this, and that’s what you should remember,Rhun said, before going home to collapse in bed, at peace with his own death. It’s close to what Baeddan told him ten years ago.
Elis puts his head back against Rhun’s shoulder and says, “I probably will remember this more, dinner with the forest devil.”
“Me too,” Rhun confesses, managing a smile. Out of nowhere, he thinks he’d like to see what Elis is like in seven years, or ten, or go to Elis’s wedding.
Brac is telling a story about missing boots, and Uncle Finn interrupts constantly to correct him, in a familiar pattern. They’ve told this story a hundred times before. Baeddan suddenly slams his hand down on the table and says, “But the dog was under the bed!”
Silence crushes down the Sayer table in a long wave. It was the final revelation of the story, told a minute too soon.
Baeddan breathes hard, the tips of his sharp teeth showing.
Then Brac laughs, and so does Arthur, and along down the lines of benches the rest of the family joins in.
“That’s right,” Finn drawls. “The dog was under the damn bed.”
Sayers move on to a new memory, and Rhun closes his eyes and tries to ignore the forest moaning in his head. He’ll never sleep tonight. Is this what it’s like for John Upjohn, always? Not fitting, afraid of what he’ll face in his dreams? If Rhun goes to Mairwen and the Grace house, will the hearthstone and Mair’s embrace quiet the Bone Tree?
When he opens his eyes, Gethin Couch is there, slinking out of the shadows toward his son. He says, “Arthur.”
Arthur turns, eyeing his father. Rhun braces himself.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Gethin says, “What a man you are, my boy.”
Arthur laughs meanly. It’s Rhun’s favorite laugh, though it shouldn’t be. Arthur says, “How can you tell? You’ve never been a man, Gethin. I know the difference now, between the look of a man and the truth of one.”
Shock and anger pull his father’s mouth open. “Oh, do you?”
“Someone pretending to be a man clings to the trappings. But if you are one, you don’t have to cling. You just are yourself.”
His father frowns. “If you say so.”
“I do, and that’s what matters.” He shrugs, casually turning back to the Sayers.
For a moment, Gethin remains, but nobody is paying him much heed. Rhun murmurs to Elis to reach for his beer, watching Arthur’s father with the corner of his eye. Finally, Gethin scoffs under his breath and leaves.
Rhun nudges Elis out of the way and says, “Arthur?”
He shoots Rhun a skinning look. Then grimaces. “Sorry. It’s him, not you.”
“I know.”
“Elis, you’re in my way,” Arthur says, grabbing Elis by the waist and dragging him across his chest to set him down beside Baeddan. Elis’s face tightens and his brown eyes go all wide.
Baeddan peers through the dim torchlight. “I don’t remember you.”
“I wasn’t born when you ran,” Elis whines.
The smile of delight on Baeddan’s face makes Elis—and Rhun—smile a little in return. Baeddan says, “Something new!” reaching to poke at Elis’s cheek. Arthur scoots nearer to Rhun, so their arms brush when either moves.
“Do you hear the forest?” Rhun murmurs, head tilted toward Arthur.
“No. You do?” Arthur spits a curse. He grabs Rhun’s knee, fingers biting through the wool trousers. “I won’t let you go back in.”
He studies Arthur’s face, his pressed lips and furrowed brow, the certainty in his blue eyes, and remembers—
“Stop it! I’m not letting you die here!”
“I don’t want to die, but if it’s that or you do, I’d rather die a thousand times.”
