“Is there anything you can’t do?” he asked.
“Needlepoint,” she said, smiling. She put the fox into his hand. “I can only carve foxes. Everything else I try ends up looking like a lumpy dog.”
Together they gazed down at the little wooden fox. “It’s nice,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I only have one more question, then,” he said.
She nodded. “Ask it.”
“If the English killed your family, forced you from your home, hunted you, hurt you at every turn, then why did you help me? And don’t give me that rot about being a friend to the pathetic creatures of the world. Tell me why.”
It was the first time he’d ever seen her look embarrassed. She gave a little sigh. “The truth?”
“The truth.”
“I liked the look of you.”
He sat back, amazed. He thought (although he wasn’t entirely sure) that she meant that she’d found him good-looking. “You liked—”
“You had kind eyes. A nice smile.” She was blushing.
This was wonderful, wonderful news. “Have you seen your own eyes?” he said impulsively. “Green like . . . forest moss.”
“Moss?”
“Like pools of . . .” He cursed himself that he was not more of a poet.
“Yes?” Her lips twitched as she clearly tried not to laugh at him.
“Beautiful eyes,” he stumbled on.
“Pools of beautiful eyes?”
“Yes. Exactly. And your hair. And your smile, as well, is so . . . And you’re funny and clever. And brave. I’ve never met a girl like you.”
“Oh, I’m not so very brave.” She was looking at him. That way. He could smell her, the lavender soap from Gran’s bathtub mixed with a woodsy smell that never seemed to leave her.
He glanced down at her mouth. He couldn’t help it.
And (miracle of all miracles) she looked down at his.
He wet his lips nervously. What if he didn’t do it correctly? What if their noses bumped? What if she found his lips chapped? What if his breath was foul?
“Gracie,” he murmured, her name a kind of music on his lips. “Grace.” Their faces were close. Almost close enough.
His heart started to beat like a war drum. He inched even closer.
“Sire,” she breathed. “I—”
“Please call me Edward,” he said. “Things don’t have to be so formal between us.”
Before he lost his nerve he reached out and tucked one of her wild curls behind her ear.
He leaned in. This was it. His first kiss. His first k—
“BOY!” yelled a distant voice. “WHERE ARE YOU, BOY!”
Grace drew back abruptly. “Your granny is calling you.”
“She can wait,” he said.
“IT’S TIME FOR YOUR MEDICINE!” Gran called out.
Gracie jumped to her feet. “You should go in.”
“BOY!”
She hastily brushed off her trousers. “Besides, I just remembered some chores your sister wanted me to get done. Some very important chores. Full of . . . tasks.”
“Tasks?” Edward said, doubtful.
“Yes, tasks. Lots of them.”
“Gracie,” he started as she backed away from him. “Wait.”
“GET IN HERE, BOY!”
He watched helplessly as Gracie set off toward the keep, almost at a run.
“BOY!”
At that moment we should confess that Edward briefly considered murdering his dear sweet grandmother. And he might have gotten away with it, too, on account of the rest of the world thinking the old lady was already dead.
When he entered the keep, Gran was waiting for him with one of her nasty potions.
“Ah, there you are, boy. Drink up.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me boy,” he muttered.
“And what would you have me call you?”
“I’m a man,” he said.
She threw back her grizzled head and laughed heartily. “That’s cute. Tell me another one.”
She handed him a steaming goblet. He protested—How much of this stuff are you going to make me drink, anyway? The poison is gone, isn’t it? This tastes like rotten apples—but she made him choke it down. Gran had made him suffer through many terrible things in the name of ridding his body of the poison. The first day, in addition to the rotten apple brew she made him guzzle by the jugful, she’d forced him to stand for twenty minutes under the spray of an icy waterfall, then bathe in a tub of boiled milk. On the second day she’d wrapped a chicken gizzard around his neck, stuck a lump of charcoal under his tongue, and made him say the alphabet backward.
“What was the alphabet part for?” he’d asked after he finally reached a.
“Nothing,” Gran had chortled. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
Gran delighted in torturing him.
“And when you’re done with that, go see your sister. If you’re not feeling too manly to speak with a woman,” Gran chortled now as he gulped down the last of the potion.