“What do you mean?”
“The spindle was still poisoned. The handsome prince, as they like to call my long-ago grandfather, tried to hack it to pieces with an ax, but it wouldn’t bust. Aurora tried to burn it in the hottest fire, but it barely singed.”
Briar thought of the spindle and the burn mark she had noticed.
“They tried to bury it in the ground, but the earth would shift and spit it back up again. They could not be rid of the thing. It was terrible. They tried for years, and nothing they did would destroy it. They lived in fear of someone in their household pricking their finger. It tempts people to touch it.”
“The girls at the mill said it smelled like apple pie.”
“Apple pie? I suppose. I always thought it smelled a bit rotten.”
Briar wrinkled her nose, thinking of the smell. “Me, too. I didn’t know why the girls liked the smell so much. Anyway, I’ll tell you about that later. Please continue.” Briar put her hand to her throat. It was starting to hurt again.
“Aurora was convinced that the spindle would get its revenge on her daughter. She was scared to have children, but fortunately for her, all her children were boys. Mama thinks the fairies had something to do with that. Even though the family is prone to boys, there has not been a girl born into the Prince family since Aurora.”
“That is unusual.”
Henry took Briar’s hand from her throat and held it, stroking his thumb in circles, taking her mind off the pain. Why did she have to find out now, when it was too late, how good it felt to be in Henry’s arms?
He cleared his throat. “Fear grew and spread. The servants gossiped about what was going on at the castle and it began to affect the kingdom. Normally parents push their daughters at princes, hoping to make a match, but no one who knew the story was willing to part with a daughter, even if it meant she would become royalty. The family was shunned, blamed for the problem.
“Many generations later, and many attempts to rid themselves of the spindle, they finally decided to do something drastic. They sent a youngest son to take the spindle to the new land, America, to hide in a remote valley and guard the spindle to his dying days. The legacy of protection would pass to each generation. No one leaving the valley. No one calling attention to themselves. No one tipping off Isodora to the spindle’s current location. They would live in poverty and seclusion, the opposite of royalty so as to keep the secret. He was the one who named the area Sunrise Valley in memory of Aurora. She had long passed, and they thought it would be a fitting tribute, since her name means sunrise.”
“So your family has been guarding the spindle all this time? At least until Isodora found it.” A shiver ran down Briar’s body as she remembered speaking with the fairy who wanted her dead.
He shifted, pulling her in tighter. “Cold?” He wrapped his other arm protectively around her, and rested his chin on the top of her head.
Briar nestled in deeper.
“This is the part that’s going to be hard to confess,” he said. “Know how deeply sorry I am, Briar. I thought I was doing the right thing. My parents tried to talk me out of it, but finally relented after I was so persistent. Perhaps they were as hopeful as I was to rid ourselves of the responsibility. When I saw Fanny here in place of Prudence, I thought you were in danger. Something had changed. We had been protecting you, just in case, for so long, and I panicked. They told me they didn’t know where Isodora was, so I wanted to get the spindle as far away from here as possible. As far away from you as possible.” His hand squeezed tighter. “The irony is, if I had continued on with my regular life, going to the mill as if nothing was wrong, acting the way my family has for generations, you wouldn’t be lying here in my arms now.”
Briar lifted her head so Henry could see her face. See that she didn’t blame him for anything. See how much she wanted to be lying in his arms.
“You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
Henry’s intense gaze met hers. “But I did. The first time I met Fanny was when my parents told me who we really are. They waited until they thought I was old enough to keep their secret, yet young enough to have not made real plans of my own. Fanny helped explain the seriousness of what we do. They told me the consequences of losing the spindle. She feels responsible herself, since her blessing over Aurora and the spindle continues on in ways she didn’t expect.”
“Can’t you walk away?” Briar asked the question she already knew the answer to. Henry was too dependable to walk away. That’s what she loved about him. Everyone else in her life who left, left for good. But Henry came back. Always Henry.