And then Merrilee raised her arms. She held something in her hands, and blinded by rage, Rowan grabbed it and dashed it on the floor.
There was a terrible crash, followed by weeping from Merrilee, and gasps from the onlookers. And on the floor lay broken glass and water, and flowers.
“They were for you,” Merrilee wept. “I just wanted to make you feel better.”
And then the girl ran past her, and the onlookers tuttutted. Rowan saw faces glaring at her, glaring at wicked Rowan who makes children cry. Goi Tate, and Dr. Temper, and the old lady who lived near Arlene.
“Get out!” she screamed at the lot of them.
They backed away from her and out into the hall. She slammed the door and collapsed onto her bed.
Hours later, Rowan sat at the inn, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she sipped brandy and stared into the fire. There was a hollowness inside her. She kept trying to tell herself that Emily was gone, but she couldn’t make herself believe it. Emily was always there. She always had been, and she couldn’t just be gone all of a sudden. She kept feeling her cheek, knowing Emily would never give her another kiss goodbye. Her mind slowly moving through memories of their childhood together—playing in the stream, the warmth of the summer sun on their faces as Emily scolded her about going in too deep. Emily as a child, sitting on the counter, swinging her legs while Antonia cooked beside her. Or was that only the other night? This was wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she told herself. Emily was supposed to marry Bill Holdren and have ten babies she might scold to her heart’s content. Her blond hair was supposed to fade to gray. The skin around her cat’s eyes was supposed to wither and sag. Her face was supposed to happily line, and her body shrink. They were supposed to know each other’s grandchildren. They were supposed to sit side by side as old ladies, Emily making jokes, Rowan quietly choking back her laughter.
It wasn’t exactly that she had taken Emily for granted, but now that Emily was gone, Rowan felt somehow completely alone in the world. There were many people she loved, and who loved her, but none who knew every single one of her faults and loved her despite them. And there was no one who could drive her so crazy and whom she loved quite as much as she had loved—still loved—Emily.
She watched the flames dance before her, and took another sip of the brandy that Elsbet had given her. She enjoyed the way it burned her throat and took her away from her own thoughts … her pain. She felt a hand on her shoulder—Tom’s hand, but she looked up to see Jude standing above her. He looked beautiful in the firelight, and for a moment, she forgot that she hated him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then he sat down beside her and stared at the fire. They remained there for some time, side by side, watching as the fire slowly died.
Tom awoke with a start, a strange sense that someone was in the room with him. He lay there a moment, eyes closed, willing himself dead, willing the thing in the room with him, whatever it was, to kill him. To rip his heart out as it had done to his beloved.
He felt the energy of another entity. Heat. He felt heat, and then he felt the whisper of a finger against his lips. It was not what he expected. It was soft. And there was a scent of dewy, aromatic earth. And then he heard her faint laughter, and smelled her hair, the shining blackness that always seemed to emit the slightest hint of lavender. But it couldn’t be.
He opened his eyes and flinched when he saw her crouching over him like an animal. Her eyes were wide and sparkling, a wildness in them he didn’t remember from before. The skin of her shoulders and neck looked clean and alive, and her cheeks, though stark white, seemed somehow to be lit from within. Something about her dress was different. It was white instead of red, and it was a sundress, delicate straps revealing the taut muscles of her shoulders. And there was something feral about her, something within her that meant that it couldn’t be her, not really. But then, he knew that already. There was no way it could be her because she was dead. He’d seen her lying in the snow, her heart ripped from her chest.
“Hi,” she said, her voice lower than he remembered.
“This is a dream,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows.
She shook her head and smiled, her lips wet and expectant. And then she leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth. Overcome, on the verge of tears, he lifted his hands to her face and kissed her back, knowing that none of it could be real. His hands ran along the length of her body, and he could feel that underneath the white cotton shift, she wore nothing. He caressed the slope of her hip, the softness of her belly, and the more he reached for her, the more she seemed to stay just out of reach. And then she pulled away and looked at him with those pitch-black eyes—the eyes of a beautiful animal.
“Come on,” she said, and she was off the bed and by the window. She cracked it open and a flurry of snow wafted in, coating her skin, but she didn’t seem to mind it. Her skin that had been so rosy in life, in memory, was now the color of the snow that brushed against it. She swept her unruly hair over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow at him.
“You coming?” she said, and then, gathering his boots and pants from the floor, she tossed them in his direction.
He climbed out of bed and pulled on his trousers, but when he looked back up, she was gone. He ran to the window and looked out to the woods, certain he had lost her again forever, but she was still there, leaning against a tree, standing barefoot in the snow. She motioned for him to come.
He threw on his clothes and hurried downstairs. He opened the door and took his steps slowly. He was awake now. He was sure of it, and yet she still seemed to be there. It was nearly dawn, just the beginning, and the air was colored with lavender. The snow was coming down in gentle flurries like tufts of fur, or feathers kicked up from goose down pillows. But it was cold. And she was standing there in nothing but a sundress. And she was supposed to be dead.
“Come on,” she said, hand on her hip, feigning annoyance.
The Fiona Eira he had known had been fragile and shy, but this new girl, this dream girl, was vibrant and bold, wild and free. She was warm. She looked at him like they were old friends, like she adored him, like he was worthy of being adored.
“I can’t stand here all day. Do you want someone to see me?” She grinned as if it were a joke. As if the fact of her death were nothing but a humorous anecdote.
When he reached her, she took his hand in hers and pulled him into a gentle gallop.
“Come on, will you?”
And then he was running through the morning light, through the snow and the ice-cold air, still unsure what was happening, her hand so warm in his. She laughed and looked at him with so much excitement, so much love, that his veins seemed to expand, and more oxygen seemed to reach his brain, his lungs, making everything fantastically clear. Making it sparkle. And quite suddenly he felt as if the world had color again—as if he’d lived all his life without some key element that was now granted to him, which Tom knew he could never again live without. He’d never felt so himself before. It was as if with every step he took, he became more of the person he was destined to become. And he was sure he could conquer anything. He could be anything he wanted, and for a moment, he even thought he might understand Jude. His need for freedom. Was this what it felt like to run off into the wilderness alone? And surely he must be alone. The girl who ran beside him couldn’t be there—not really. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be truly free. And for the first time in his life, he realized he could leave Nag’s End. There was nothing stopping him. He could go out and see the world. See the wonders he’d only heard about.