Closing my eyes, I burrowed my nose into the pillow and inhaled, letting scent threads of mint, sunshine, and ripening apples anchor me to the memories of the man I desperately missed.
When I awoke around five, all I could see were rumpled folds of breath-warmed bedding in front of my face. My ears tuned into a distant disturbance. Through a process of deduction, I figured out the knocking was coming from the front door.
I flipped to my other side and pushed upright. My toes curled off the cool floor, and the floorboards stayed silent as I crept to my closet and pulled on a camisole top and a pair of pajama bottoms. Tiptoeing across the hall, I peeked into my office. Rowan’s curvy body was a quiet landscape of hills and dales, her breathing steady and deep. I backed out and released the knob.
As soon as I reached the end of the hall, I balked.
Tanner stood on the other side of the closed kitchen doors, one elbow pressed against the screen to prop himself upright. Behind him, the morning’s tangerine sky burned into blue.
“Tanner?” I stepped closer, unlocked and opened the door, and gasped. The skin on his arms and chest was streaked with dried mud and other substances, and the look in his eyes told me he wasn’t altogether there.
“Calliope, I—”
“Shower first. Talk later,” I whispered, tugging at his arm. “Can you walk?”
He nodded and followed behind me, his footfalls slurring like he was coming off a bender. I sat him on the toilet seat, pushed the stiff rubber plug into the bathtub drain, and opened the taps.
“Don’t move,” I said. “I’m getting you something to drink.”
A cursory glance around the downstairs showed an untouched stack of bedding on one end of the couch and an empty living room. The sliding glass door to the back porch was closed. Either the druidic duo were in the woods, or they’d chosen to sleep outside with Christoph and whatever other wild critters roamed the property at night.
Hurrying to the bathroom, I opened the door as Tanner was inches away from face-planting against the side of the sink. I grabbed the front of his rumpled button-down shirt and got him to lean into me. Exhaustion dug creases into the corners of his eyes and dulled their usual topaz glow.
“Drink,” I said, coaxing him to lean back.
He drained the glass of orange juice and stared at the empty container as if willing it to refill. Or maybe he was mystified by its appearance. Tanner’s skin was cool, almost cold, where it touched mine. The druid needed to get in the water, fast. Keeping one hand securely wrapped above his elbow, I tested the temperature of the bath.
“Help me get this off,” he said, picking at his shirt. I unfastened the only three buttons attached to the placket and sniffed.
Dirt, crushed plant matter, and honey? “Where the heck have you been?”
Tanner didn’t acknowledge my question, didn’t seem inclined to answer. He stood, silent and swaying, and fumbled with the button of his once-white, now-trashed jeans. I gave him room to unzip, noticed he wasn’t wearing underwear, and tugged the muddied and ripped pants down his legs when he couldn’t seem to manage getting them past his thighs.
“C’mon, big guy, we can do this,” I said, wiggling the waistband to his knees then lower. I grabbed one of his calves and lifted. Tanner wobbled against the edge of the sink and grunted.
I had never seen him fully naked. His entire body—torso, arms, and legs—was marked with scratches of differing depths and widths. His tattoo, a sepia-toned tree which began on the right side of his sacrum and continued down the back of his thigh, knee, and calf, looked intact, as did the seed-shaped nubs scattered throughout the tree’s leaves and branches.
What confused me were the patches of unblemished skin on his shoulders and arms and elsewhere. The patches mirrored one another, as though placed deliberately, like armor a warrior would put on ahead of attack.
And Tanner’s body showed signs of having been attacked.
I blew out a hard breath. He fumbled for a handhold as he entered the tub and lowered himself to sitting.
“What happened to you?” I asked, afraid to touch the raw spots.
He rested his elbows on his knees and cupped his face in his hands. “I found her,” he muttered. “I found her, and she took me.”
“She” was probably the Apple Witch, and if she could travel through trees to speak to me, it wasn’t a big leap to imagine she could take others with her. “She took you where?”
Tanner shook his head, kept his hands on his face. “She took me, Calli.”
Chapter 3
Last night’s anger at the Apple Witch reignited into rage. She’d done something to hurt Tanner, but me threatening her bodily harm was no help to him. I honed in on the flecks of bark and pale green lichen scattered through his hair. His breathing wasn’t steady, and every few breaths his entire body shook. Bumps pebbled the surface of the arm closest to me.
“Let me heat this up.” I turned the faucet and used my free hand to stir the incoming hot water around his legs and the backside of his body. “Is that better?”
Tanner slid his fingers from his temples over the back of his skull, squeezed, and murmured a barely audible mm-hmm.
“May I touch you?” I didn’t want to assume anything. I had an idea what he meant when he’d emphasized the Apple Witch had taken him. It seemed only right to ask his permission before continuing.
“Yes. Please.” Tanner began to relax out of his hunched over position. I handed him a washcloth, offering him the option of covering up. He stared then dropped it into the water. The gray-and-white-striped square expanded as the cloth became saturated. “It wasn’t as bad as you’re thinking, Calli.” Settling his back against the curved porcelain, he groaned, gripped the edges of the tub, and shifted his head so I
