“No, Boaz, I sit on the laps of all the men who visit me.” I spun on my heel in a huff. “You didn’t think you were special, did you?”
Boaz, being a subtle man, bum-rushed me. I got out a squeak before his arms closed around my newly healed middle from behind, and he hoisted me in the air. He whirled me in a circle until Woolly took notice of the shenanigans on her porch and put her foot down. The board under his foot warped, and he stumbled enough my feet touched planks. That leverage was all I needed to break his hold and skirt his reach.
Woolly kept the porch boiling like an angry sea until he was forced to pinwheel his arms to maintain his balance.
“Fair warning.” He pointed at me while stumbling down the steps. “I’ll be back to finish this.”
I winked saucily at him from behind the safety of the wards. “I’ll be counting down the days.”
Boaz backed toward the garage where he cranked Willie and set out for Athens after blowing me a kiss I refused to catch on principle. With no other handy distractions available, I entered the living room and went in search of Amelie.
I followed the scent of sage from Odette’s smudging up to the second floor and down the hall to Amelie’s new bedroom. I cracked open the door to peek in on her, but her back was facing me. I settled for watching her breathe, a habit learned from Maud, one she had developed after Mom died. I don’t know how long I leaned there, cast in a slice of sunlight, untangling the messy worries in my head.
“Grier?” Amelie’s muzzy voice rose from beneath a mountain of quilts. “Is that you?”
The combination of time, distance, smudging and ink was bringing her around. Sleep would only help.
“I’m here.” I straightened. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“S’alright,” she mumbled and lifted one edge of the quilt. “Get under here before my buns freeze.”
After kicking the door shut with my heel, I crawled under the covers with my clothes still on just like when we were kids. Maud always refused to let us sleep in the same room when she claimed there were plenty to spare. “Amelie…”
Gentle snores announced her descent back into sleep. Unwilling to leave just yet, I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling until her breathing smoothed into an even rhythm. The temptation to stay snuggled up in bed with her, to pretend everything was okay, that the outside world could wait, kept me breathing in the scent of detergent on the quilt and listening to the comforting sounds of sharing space with another person longer than Maud ever would have allowed.
Fear of getting punished, though there was no one left to catch me, prickled at my skin until I conceded defeat and sneaked into my room. Once there, I found Oscar waiting for me. “Do you need a glass of water before bed?” I was mostly kidding, but the boy kept wringing his hands. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m scared of sleeping in new places,” he whispered. “Woolly gave me my own room but…”
I saw where this was headed and pulled an Amelie. I was too tired to fool with stripping off my clothes or finding pajamas. I dove between the covers and lifted an edge for him. “Come on if you’re coming.”
Oscar stopped fiddling and hurled himself at me across the mattress where we snuggled until he faded to ether.
Alone in my bed, I stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep while actions and consequences tumbled through my head in a grind of shame and sadness and guilt. I was about to go in search of Eileen to get in more ward practice, though I couldn’t remember the last place I remembered seeing the grimoire, when I heard a muffled voice drifting up from the garden. “What is that?”
Woolly, whose presence had followed Oscar to my room, raised the window a crack.
“A stone for a heart and a blade for a tongue, fair beauty she slayed all her suitors but one…”
Linus may have inherited Maud’s talent, but she hadn’t passed her voice on to him, but it didn’t matter.
Within moments, the song worked its comforting magic on me, and my bones began to sag against the mattress. I should have called out to my fellow insomniac, complimented him or asked how he had known just what I needed to send me drifting, but sleep hauled me under as fair beauty lowered her gate.