Winter Rose (3 page)

PART THREE

Fingers graze my leg and I lurch. Sleep lingers at the edge of my vision. I release a muffled scream, still feeling the effects of the nightmare I was in.

...
Hunt hovers over me, head cracked, blood dripping onto my face. The copper taste of death fills my mouth
…

I fall over, out of the chair, onto the wood floor. My elbow stings. My hip throbs. And green eyes look back at me from above.

The young man is sitting up on the pallet, staring down at me with confusion pressing deep lines into his brow.

I clamber to my feet and brush off my skirt, trying to get my bearings. The moon’s high, casting silver beams through the small window behind me. The fire, now only orange embers, pulses in the hearth. Becca sleeps, curled on her pallet across the room. A small sigh escapes her lips and she rolls over.

The young man shifts closer to the wall behind him, gaping at me, like he’s looking at something terrifying. “Where am I?”

I put more wood on the fire and stoke it before I say anything. His awareness is daunting, his masculine spirit an unwelcome presence in this house of female ghosts. “You were caught in one of my traps. You need to get warm. Rest.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” he says. He pushes back the blankets and tries to rise. He makes it onto his feet, then cringes in pain, crumbling to the floor.

I rush to him as he falls. “You’ve lost too much blood. You need to rest.” What a fool. Now I’ll have to get him back on the pallet.

He lurches back when I reach out, and my frustration mounts.

“Stop being childish. I’m not going to eat you,” I say, waving my hands at the plate of food left on the table. Then I glare at him. “Unless you don’t cooperate.”

He swallows and goes still.

I roll my eyes and point at the pallet he stumbled out of. “Get back in bed before you mess up my bandaging.”

He crawls back to the pile of blankets and lies back down, keeping me in view the whole time.

I go to sit across the room on my own pallet, beside Becca, who’s missed the whole thing, still safe in dream.

“I need to leave,” he says, his voice rough and dry. “They might need me.”

“Whatever you want. As soon as you’re well, you can go. So much the better.” I curl in my quilt, trying to still my heart. The more he looks in my direction the more I want him gone.

“I’m Luke,” he says as he lays back down and slowly closes his eyes, like he’s trying to keep them open, but can’t. And after another few seconds I hear his breathing even out as he falls asleep again.

But no matter how I try, I can’t find rest. The night turns to day, and sunlight climbs up the wall. And that ice in my heart starts to crack from the pressure.

*

Luke stays quiet over the next few days. His strength grows, but he’s still not able to walk. He starts sitting in the chair by the fire instead of the pallet, and watches us work and go about our day without a sound. He looks anxious, but I think it’s because he can’t stand being idle. At one point he tries to help stoke the fire and almost falls in. That earns a smile from Becca.

I’m too busy hoping he’ll get caught up by flames to be amused.

I’m not sure what troubles me so much about him. He seems like a gentleman in every way I know a man can be. He nods thank you, never asks for anything, and turns away when Becca and I speak to each other. I can tell he’s trying as best as he can not to be a nuisance. And now it seems he’s no longer afraid of us. He even gives Becca a nod of deference now and then. Apparently he’s noticed our lack of magic, or at least our consistent lack of excitement.

But he’s a man. His hands alone frighten me, their roughened palms and obvious strength a sure sign of what he’s capable of. His broad shoulders make my insides shake, reminding me of Hunt’s shadow over me. It hurts to look at him, and yet I can’t look away.

He caught me staring last night—his hair was turning gold and orange in the firelight and I couldn’t seem to stop watching the flames dance over the dark curls, I couldn’t seem to keep from being fascinated by the way he talked to Becca, all quiet and soft, like he might hurt her with his words. He glanced at me and I turned away, saying, “I better get more wood for the fire,” and then walked out into the cold air.

I sat beside the pile of wood for a while, just breathing, and trying to get the image of his eyes out of my head. Trying to keep the heat of the fire from building in my skin.

*

“Rose! Rose, get up!”

I open my eyes to Becca leaning over me, rocking me by the shoulder.

“He’s gone,” she says, wide-eyed.

I sit up and look at Luke’s pallet. It’s empty. Twelve days of his form filling the shack and suddenly he’s gone. I’m confused for a second, not sure what I’m supposed to do.

“Rose.”

“What?” I ask, turning my attention to her again.

“We need to go look for him.”

“What? Why? I’m sure he wanted to go.” We should be relieved. Right?

“No, Rose, we need to go make sure he’s okay. He might’ve stumbled. Fallen off a cliff. What if he’s hurt? He was getting better, but he wasn’t fully recovered. He might still be unwell!”

I look at her, stumped. Why’s she so worried about this miner? Are we his keepers now?

“Rose,” Becca insists, her voice low and full of her seventeen years. “Get up.”

I comply, for no other reason than to get her to stop saying my name. Why should I chase after a man who wants to go, whose very presence is a dark shadow over my world? We’re better off on our own. Without him there, always there, to look at.

Becca hurries me into my coat and shoves my hat on my head, then pulls me out the door. The sky is a clear light blue, the air crisp and solid with cold. Light shimmers off the snow and I have to squint as she drags me through the yard and down the hill.

“I think we should try the south path first,” she says, absently. “The cliffs are that way.” She points down the ridge and renews her vigor.

I let her pull me for a few more feet and then jerk from her grasp. If I’m going, it’ll be because I mean to. “We’re never going to find him,” I say. “He’s probably—”

But no sooner do I start to decide to turn back than a familiar figure appears out of the trees. He raises a brace of furry prizes in the air. “Mornin’,” he greets us with a smile. I’ve never seen a face shine in quite that way. “I found supper.”

Becca doesn’t even scold him for taking off without a word. She bounds up to him, clapping her mittens together. “Oh, goodness, Luke. We’ll eat like queens!”

My mouth waters at the site of the limp, soft bodies of the two hares. I forget that I’m afraid of him and allow him to look in my eyes as he smiles. It’s very contagious. I can’t help tilting my lips in response. 

I also can’t help saying: “What are you doing up? It’s not safe. I didn’t spend all that time fixing you, losing sleep, so you could just take off and fall from a cliff.” I know I’m being ridiculous. Even Becca looks at me funny. 

He stops in front of me and cocks his head. His mouth twists in an amused smirk, his eyes searching mine. My pulse speeds up but I can’t look away, like he’s locked me to him and I’m stuck.

“You miss me, Little One?” he asks.

The sound of his voice, sure and familiar, using that name,
Little One
, makes me feel about two feet tall. What, am I a child?

I snatch the brace of hare from his hands and paint a smile on my face. “Thanks for the payment. You can leave now.”

“Rose!” Becca says, shock plain in her voice.

“What?” I say, swinging around to look at her. “He’s well enough to hunt. He can go. Unless you still want to give him something?” I challenge her with my eyes and ignore the hurt that grows into her features.

She doesn’t look at Luke; she walks past us and up the rise, back to the shack.

“That wasn’t nice,” Luke says. He frowns at me, like he’s disappointed.

“I’m not nice.”

“You could try sometime. Might like it.”

I bark out a bitter laugh.

He shrugs and starts to reach out—maybe to grab me, maybe just to brush the snow from my shoulder—but I jerk back and whack his hand away.

He stands there for what feels like forever, studying me, then finally asks, “Why do you do that?”

I look away, to my hands, to my feet, shame filling me, and I don’t even know why. No one touches me. No one. “Do what?”

“Why do you push people away?”

I look at him then, anger rising in my gut. He doesn’t get to judge me. “So, you want to pretend to know me now? You want to be my friend, Luke?” I dare to step closer, even though he towers over me. I want to prove I’m not afraid of these men anymore. I’m in control now. “Don’t you know about the Ice Witch? Don’t you know what she
does
?”

He doesn’t move. “Yes. She bites. She pushes. She tries to keep herself safe.” He raises his brow at me, daring me to argue. “But we’re not all Hunt, you know.”

I suck in a breath, ready to lash out, ask him what the hell gives him the right?—how in God’s name does he know?—but he turns away and starts walking back toward the shack before I can find the words.

*

Later that night I leave several times to get wood from the side of the house for the fire. The stack I’m building fills half the hearth now. It isn’t needed but I can’t sit there and watch the two of them—Luke and Becca, huddled together by the fire, talking softly.

If it wasn’t freezing out there, I’d sleep in the barn. As it is, I’m stuck, six feet away, biting my tongue so hard I taste blood.

There’s a strange feeling overtaking me. It started when I saw Luke come from the trees this morning with his catch—or maybe it started that day in the woods, the first second I saw his eyes open, greener than spring hills...

I’m not sure what it is, or why, but it’s a burning in my gut. It’s rage and urgency all twisted together into a lump of pulsing hot coal in my chest.

I want to pull Becca’s hair out.

I want to kick Luke in the shin.

...
to touch his forehead, right above his eyebrow
...

I can’t be rid of it.

But they’re just talking. I’m ridiculous.

I go outside again, sit for as long as I can, and come back in, carrying a larger log—it cuts nicely into my arm, masking some of the strangeness under my skin. This time the two of them turn and Luke jumps up, coming forward. “Here, let me help you.”

But the feelings in me are too strong. I jerk back. “I got it!”

He holds his hands up in surrender. “All right.”

Why hasn’t he left yet? It’s obvious he has no wish to. And Becca isn’t in any hurry to get rid of him. There’s a link forming. I sense it locking into place, like a door latching shut, and panic stirs inside me. There has to be a way to rid myself of his presence and how it makes me feel.

I study him from my pallet as he sleeps. His smooth features, his soft brow, dark eyelashes resting on his cheek. There’s little freckles across the bridge of his nose and a small crescent scar at his hairline. His strong jaw is speckled with beard stubble, his arms lean and firm. He...

He needs to leave.

*

The next several days I’m the first to wake. Becca’s suddenly tired all the time now.

All the time.

She tells me it’s like walking in quicksand and I ask her how she knows what quicksand walking feels like. She just rolls her eyes and sighs and lays back down. I watch her, though. I try to remember how Mamma’s sickness started.

I try not to remember.

She leaves her food untouched and groans whenever I put meat in front of her for supper.

“You’ll never shake this thing if you don’t eat,” I scold her.

She scrunches up her nose at a chunk of onion I try to give her. “I can’t bear the smell of it.” Then she turns a strange shade of yellow and runs off to the yard to spill her empty stomach into the snow.

The incidents of vomiting increase as the days pass. She can’t seem to keep anything down, mostly just nibbling on bowls of snow. I start to worry when I see her shoulder blades poke at the back of her dress, like bird bones. When the bumps of her spine turn sharp and wicked-looking I berate her, and take my fear out on her a little. I’m ashamed, but I can’t pretend anymore like it’s all fine. She won’t leave me here like Mamma did. She just can’t.

Luke makes it his job to find food, and trade some of the rabbit skins for supplies down at the shrinking miner camp. When I protest his dealings with the dark mountain men, he says, “Becca needs grain for bread, Rose. She’s gonna whither away to nothing, if she doesn’t eat.”