Unguarded, she laughed. This particular Henry Prince was also known for being an audacious flirt.
“That’s better. You’re irresistible when you laugh.”
But when Briar looked ahead and saw the couple again, she immediately stopped smiling. The pace they had set was torturously slow. If only she hadn’t gone into town, she would have been far ahead of them now and she wouldn’t have had to witness this budding romance. It was worse that Henry had waited to walk home with her. She didn’t need an audience for her pain.
“I can’t wait to leave Sunrise,” she said.
Henry spun around and walked backward, facing her and blocking her view of the couple. “The way you say Sunrise makes it sound like you don’t like the place. This valley has a lot to offer. Our town is booming, if you like that sort of thing. Thanks to the mills, we’re getting electric lights installed, so we’re as industrialized as anywhere you’d want to go.” He cocked his head, holding up a hand to his ear. “Don’t you hear the powerful roar of Otter Creek? Smell the fresh mountain air? And look: Solomon’s Seal is already blooming in the forest. I can see the white bells from here. What’s not to like?”
Briar refused to look. “All I hear is the echo of the spinning machines. All I smell is the cotton dust that’s stuck in my nose. And all I see is a place filled with, with…nothing for me.”
Henry didn’t answer; he simply gazed at the scenery as if it were paradise and no other place on earth could be more lovely.
Despite herself, she followed Henry’s gaze to the forest where she couldn’t see anything at all blooming. The creek roared beyond the trees as usual, but there was no breeze coming down from the mountaintop.
As if to prove her wrong, the leaves on the nearest tree rustled like a gust of wind had blown through, twirling the leaves so they flashed silver and green on one branch only. The other trees and their leaves remained still. Briar stopped. A memory stirred.
“What is it?” Henry asked.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“A cavalcade of fairies,” Briar mused, remembering what her mother had taught her. “Whenever a wind seems to come from nowhere and affects only one tree or a strip of prairie grass, Mam would tell me it was fairies passing by, and she would pause to give them a moment to all get through.”
“I didn’t see a fairy go by. Is that an Irish thing?” he asked.
Go home came a whisper drawn out on the wind. Go home.
Briar cocked her head. “Hear that?” She brushed a hair back that had fallen out of her Newport knot.
“Is hearing voices an Irish thing, too?” he teased.
With determination, Briar returned her attention to the road. “Not everything I say is an Irish thing. Besides, what do you know, Henry? You’ve never left the valley. You don’t know what’s out there.”
He laughed like she’d told the funniest joke. “Sure, I know what’s out there. Another place, just like this one. And another. And another. If you can’t be satisfied here, you won’t be satisfied anywhere else, sweet Briarly Rose Jenny.”
“Don’t call me that,” said Briar. “I wish I’d never told you my proper name.”
“I like to say it,” replied Henry. “You should go by Rose, a pretty name for a pretty girl.”
Briar snorted. “Don’t feel pretty today,” she muttered, watching Wheeler and his girl stand at the top of the lane and search for the forest path that Briar could find in her sleep. She definitely felt more briarly today.
For once, Henry was silent. Briar looked at him. He tilted his head as he examined her, his mop of sandy hair falling over his hazel eyes, but he didn’t blink those long lashes of his. She put her hands on her hips. “Stop that right now, Henry Prince. I don’t need your pity.”
“Not pity. Curiosity. I was wondering what it would take to make you see what’s right in front of you.”
Briar rolled her eyes before she huffed and stalked away, almost colliding with Wheeler, who by this time had turned the girl around, apparently having given up on finding the hidden trail. Briar’s face burned as she mumbled, “Excuse me,” and brushed past them.
A heartache was what was in front of her, that’s what. She may as well rip out her bleeding heart and hand it to Wheeler to toss in the river, all the good it would do her now.
“Hi, Briar,” said the girl brightly. “Is this where you go on the weekends? I didn’t know your family’s cottage was out this way. It’s quite a walk. No wonder you stay in town during the week.”
Briar nodded and tried to get away, but the girl kept talking.
“Wheeler was telling me about a hidden pond in the forest. You must know where it is.”