The braids were done before he was. Charlotte slipped into her bedclothes. Though they were far too old for such things, Arthur tucked her in. Her lips twitched, which was why he’d done it. By the time he finished telling her about his new book, she’d sunk into oblivion.
Even asleep, she looked exhausted. The dark crescents under her eyes seemed permanent.
Arthur’s brow creased. He kissed her forehead. She was already tired all the time; he didn’t need to pile on by making her worry about the children.
“I won’t tell Dad’s stories anymore,” he whispered. “I’ll forget all about the forest.”
In that moment, he meant it.
iii. In which Arthur is a hopeless romantic, emphasis on “hopeless”
The last day of August dawned like any other Sunday. Charlotte shook Arthur awake far too early so the family could wash, dress, and traipse the half mile downhill into Seacliff for Mass. A narrow path was worn into the heather from four decades of the Throckmorton-Prentices going back and forth between the cottage and the village. George Throckmorton had built rough wooden stairs into the steepest bits decades ago, with lumber taken from Shiftleaf back when the forest was friendlier. Now, salt and sea breezes had worn the steps smooth.
Arthur shuddered his way through a yawn. The morning was cool, but he sweated through his shirt. By the time they made it home after Mass, between the late-August warmth and the walk uphill, he’d be soaked. Behind him, Sasha straggled along, hand in hand with Jonas and even more exhausted than Arthur. She stumbled; her uncle hoisted her onto his back, and they went onward.
The grass grew longer and more golden, undulating around them. Farther downhill, the first hovels appeared: half-ruined old fishing shacks abandoned for their proximity to the cliffand the forest thereon. With the wood as dangerous as it was now, the villagers refused to live in its shadow. One of many superstitions, but one of the few not aimed at the sea.
Never whistle into the wind or you’ll whistle up a storm. Don’t wish an angler good luck or you’ll doom him to bad.
(The wishing of good luck on the part of one fisherman to another he was known to harbor some grudge against had been the start of more than one fight in Seacliff.)
No black bags on the boats. No women on the boats. Always throw back the day’s first catch. Baptize new gear with whiskey before using it.
So on and so forth, superstitions passed down through generations. Those who’d been out with Charlotte’s husband the morning he’d drowned, not long after Sasha’s birth, were convinced it was because he’d failed to throw back his first catch.
So important, these rituals. Each one was believed with perfect sincerity and observed with perfect precision (or, not having been observed, counteracted with a different ritual that existed for just such a purpose). Yet none was believed so sincerely or observed so perfectly asDon’t name the wood.
The shacks gave way to hard-packed dirt paths, then narrow cobbled streets and stone cottages. Charlotte lagged, but when Arthur suggested they rest, she declared they would be late.
Except for roaming chickens, the village square was deserted. Mist twisted over the cobbles. Back up the hill, the Throckmorton-Prentices’ whitewashed cottage looked like it was perched in the clouds. Behind it, the tips of treetops jutted darkly into the sky.
The family joined the thin stream of villagers heading toward the spindly stone church spearing upward like a dagger at the village’s southern end. The convent abutted it like a fortress. Headstones studding the churchyard looked ethereal in the mist, until Arthur smacked into one and received painfulconfirmation of its corporeality. He shifted Sasha on his back. His shin throbbed.
The churchgoers were hard and gray like the buildings, with pinched, dour faces and leathery, salt-beaten skin, but they were turned out in their Sunday best. Gaggles of them stopped around the church steps, or just inside, or clustered at the ends of pews for a few minutes of gossip before the service began.
“...wants to go to school in Port Lorne if you can believe it. I told her proper young girls study at the convent, not university, and anyway how would we come up with the money, and there’s the wood to think of besides. But she’s—”
“...see that city friend of Bess’s finally left. Her parents are relieved Bess didn’t go back with her, but I think—”
“...worried about this pregnancy. If it’s anything like the last I’m afraid what will—”
“...eldest Tierney girl was finally heard from. Did you know, she’s eloped with that no-account Cameron boy—”
At the latter comment, Arthur nearly dropped Sasha. She grumbled, rubbing her eyes as he set her down.
“Sorry, dearest,” Arthur said. “We’re here.”
He hurried after his sister and older nibling, clutching Sasha’s hand and willing no one to notice him. It was easy, at first; as a matter of course, people tended to ignore him. But as the Throckmorton-Prentices reached their pew...
“Mr. Throckmorton,” said a voice he had hoped not to hear.
Arthur squeezed Sasha’s hand.
“Mrs. Tierney,” he said with reluctance. “How do you do this morning?”
“You look at me when I’m talking to you, young man.”
With even greater reluctance, Arthur dragged his gaze from the floor to Mrs. Tierney’s forehead. Looking at a person’s forehead made them believe he was making the required eye contact without him actually having to do so.
