Luca put his hand on my forehead. “You’re so warm,” he said. “Are you feverish?”
“No. It’s just the heat.”
“Did you ever find out who those people were?”
“No.”
“Did you ask Jewel?”
“No.”
“They must have been guests at the inn,” he reasoned. “And Jewel must have let them have her room for the night. But they don’t sound like the kind of people anyone would want staying in their home.”
“This was never a home to Jewel,” I said, unable to keep a certain note of bitterness out of my voice. “It was a place where all wayfarers were welcomed, and we were just here to clean and cook for those wayfarers, no questions asked. I guess that’s why I always slept with one eye open.”
I felt Luca’s hand brush my cheek. “You don’t feel that way now, do you?” he said.
“No,” I lied.
“Because I never want you to be frightened of anything again. Whatever happens I will always protect you.”
Turning, I smiled at him, but it wasn’t a real smile. “It’s not always that simple, this protecting people. I learned that living with Jewel. I used to beg her to keep her door locked. She never listened, even went so far as to have the lock taken off completely. I guess that was to prove to the guests how much she trusted them, which was ridiculous since she didn’t really know any of the people who tramped through here. But I thought that maybe one day somebody wasn’t going to live up to her faith in them and maybe they’d take a notion to cut her throat. And there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do about it. So I started taking Caroline into my room at night and locking the door behind us. I got a little crazy about it, kept checking the lock again and again. But we were safe at least. Then Jolene was born, and there was somebody else to worry about, to take care of, to protect. When Jolene was an infant, Jewel kept her in a cradle beside her bed so that she could feed her during the night. Jewel would let any old vagrant that wandered by play with the baby and kiss her. I didn’t like it. Jolene was her baby, but she was my sister, too, and I had a responsibility to her. But there was so little I could do. Jolene had to be with Jewel so she could feed her. So I started staying awake nights and listening, just in case something should happen, in case somebody might try to hurt the baby or take her away. It was hard to stay always vigilant, always alert, and sometimes I’d nod off… It got to be that I wished Jolene had never been born.”
“Darcy, you’re shaking,” Luca said, putting an arm around me. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” His voice was soothing. “I’m here now. I won’t let anything bad happen, I promise.”
And I relaxed in the gentle warmth of his folded arm, and I wished he could keep his promise, and at the same time, knew it wasn’t his to keep because no one can promise you safety in a world that by its very nature is dangerous.
Time passed, and it was beautiful in the passing. In summer, we went up to the quarry to swim. There was never anybody there but us. People in Galen were too superstitious to swim in a place where a child had disappeared, no matter that it had happened years and years ago. They were still afraid of the watery world that was believed to exist in the depths of the black quarry where Jewel had taught us undines, the water spirits lived. Sometimes in the evenings, we would go to where Jewel was buried and put flowers by her headstone. Luca had fenced it in very nicely and we weeded it regularly. Now Jewel’s was the only grave but someday, I thought, Luca and I would be there with her. From my Rubaiyat, that I had memorized by heart long ago, these words came to mind: And we, that now make merry in the room they left, and summer dresses in new bloom, ourselves must we beneath the couch of earth descend ourselves to make a couch—for whom? Then we turned back for home and to cheer myself, I made myself think: Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, before we too into the dust descend.
In the fall, we picked apples from the orchard and made cider. We brought in the pumpkins we’d planted too. Neither of us liked squash all that much but pumpkins looked so cheerful both in the field and on the porchethat we couldn’t resist having a pumpkin patch. One day, Luca picked the bittersweet that grew all around the inn and he filled my arms with it. Every day at dusk, we walked down the lanes, kicking up leaves and watching geese form a black arrow against the sky. After harvest, the fields were barren and haunted, like people newly poor, with the memory of plenty lingering still. At the end of the day, we’d sit on our porch piled with pumpkins and bittersweet, in our rocking chairs, and I’d think that I couldn’t wait for us to be old together, old with all the travails of youth behind us. Then, we’d rock and rock and hold hands and fall asleep in our chairs, our hands still joined.
When winter came, we tried to seal up the cracks in the old windows, but the draft managed to get through and the house was always cold no matter how many fires were going. To keep warm, we’d get under blankets and tell ghost stories. I
