Somehow nothing’s changed, and everything has.
The coastal road turns so rough and mountainous that we reach Spain without realizing it until we come upon the same sort of packed customs house we fought our way through in Calais. This one is considerably more of a pain in the arse, since none of us speaks any helpful language or has a passport, which isn’t a dead end, but it’s certainly a hindrance. In addition, we’re fairly vagrant looking, closing in on two weeks unwashed, unshaven, and in the same clothes as when we were ambushed outside Marseilles. We’ve made a few feeble attempts to clean up as we went, but we’re still ripe.
It will be days before we can get new documents issued, so we take up residence at a border inn for travelers waiting to cross into Catalonia. The wealthy have rooms abovestairs, and since we, with our few remaining sous and no Spanish coinage, are not among that number, we sleep on straw bedrolls on the common room floor. It’s crowded and noisy, mostly men but a few families with children screaming their bloody lungs out. I hope sincerely that when we make it home—if we make it home—the Goblin will have grown out of his wailing years.
Percy and I leave Felicity in the common room with a book borrowed from a spinster she’s befriended and together climb up onto the roof of the livery stable in the yard. The shingles have a good slant to them, and I have to wedge my feet into the gutter and pull my knees up to my chest to sit straight. Percy lies down flat, his legs dangling over the edge as he stares up at the sky. Beneath us, on the other side of the slate, I can hear the horses nickering at each other, the fresh post mares keening to be off.
We don’t speak for a while. Percy seems lost in his thoughts and I’m busy trying to roll tobacco in a scrap of Bible page torn from a manhandled copy I dug up in the common room. I could snort it straight, but to my great shame, I’ve never been able to take snuff without sneezing, and as futile as this effort is beginning to seem, I’d rather smoke. Once my makeshift cigar is assembled, I have to lean a rather dangerous distance over the edge of the roof to catch the tip in the grease lamp hanging above the livery door. Percy grabs the tail of my coat to keep me from falling.
“What happened to your pipe?” he asks as I take the first drag and the whole damn thing nearly collapses between my fingers.
I tip my head back and blow out the smoke in a long, precious stream before I answer. “Somewhere with Lockwood and our carriage back in France. Ah, look here, I can read the scripture as I go.”
“Let it never be said that you aren’t resourceful.”
I hold out the rolled tobacco to him. “Careful—it’s a bit fragile.” Instead of taking it, Percy puts his mouth to my fingers and takes a pull. His lips brush my skin, and a tremor goes through me, like a shadow passed over the moon, so absolute I almost shiver. Instead of doing the foolish thing it makes me want to do, which is lean in until those selfsame lips are upon mine, I catch his chin in my hand and scrub at the stubble starting to pebble it. “You’re getting rather scruffy, darling.”
Percy blows the smoke straight into my face and I reel back, coughing. He laughs. “And you’re well freckled.”
“No! Really? God. That’ll wreck my complexion.”
It’s a petty complaint, considering how roughed up we’ve become over the last few weeks. We’re all of us sunburnt and wind-scraped, and I know I’ve lost weight—my waistcoat sat snug against me when we I got it tailored in Paris and now I have to fold an inch of material to make it tight. I’ve got fleabites from our dodgy lodgings up and down my back, and I’m beginning to suspect some lice have taken up residence as well. The dust from traveling is starting to feel like a second skin.
I hold out the tobacco again, but Percy shakes his head. “Have some more.”
“I don’t want any.”
“Go on. Tobacco’s good for your health.”
It’s not the worst thing I could have said to him, but it’s certainly a contender, and I feel like an ass the moment it leaves my mouth.
Percy sucks in his cheeks and looks back up at the sky. “And you’re worried for my health, are you?”
“Should I not be?”
His mouth puckers, and I feel like I’ve said the wrong thing yet again for no reason.
I shuffle my knees on the slate, casting about for something to say that won’t do any further damage to us. Percy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, hands folded over his stomach. His black eye is starting to fade. In the darkness, it’s no more than a shadow. Nothing’s different, I tell myself, but I can’t quite believe it. We feel like changeling versions of ourselves lying here, brittle likenesses doing a mimic of the way they have seen us behave before.
What if it happens again? It rises through my thoughts like shipwreck flotsam when I look at him. What if it happens right now?
“Are you feeling well?” I ask him before I really think it through.
He doesn’t open his eyes. “Don’t ask if you don’t care.”
“God, Perce, of course I care.”
“If you want me to say I’m fine so you’ll feel better—”
“I—” Definitely was hoping that would happen, I realize, and my stomach twists. I take another long pull, then say as the smoke slips out, “Give me a chance.”
Percy scrubs his hands along his breeches. “Fine. I feel horrid. I’m tired and I’m sore all over and the riding is making it worse, but if I say something, Felicity will get protective and we won’t be moving for days. I’m mortified you both had to see me like that. I haven’t been sleeping well, and sometimes when I don’t sleep it brings on fits, so I’m worried it’s going to happen again and every time I feel the least bit odd I get panicked it’s coming on and then we’ll have to hold everything on my account.” He turns to me, his chin tipped up. “That’s how I’m feeling. Aren’t you glad you asked?”
I can feel him shoving me away, but I hold my ground. “Yes.”
Percy’s face softens, then he turns away from me, his fingers working over his knuckles until they crack. “Sorry.”
I draw another lungful of smoke, so deep I feel like my ribs are about to pop. “Does it hurt? When it happens.”
“I don’t know. I never remember it. Thank God. It’s awful afterward, though. And the head examinations and cold baths and the bloodletting and whatever else the doctors feel the need to do. God, it’s miserable. My uncle hired a man to drill holes in my head to let the demons out, though that got squashed when he showed up to the house drunk.”
“Christ. And none of it’s helped?”
“Not a thing.” He laughs, then nudges me with his elbow. “Here, you’ll enjoy this—my uncle’s physician told us I was having convulsive fits because I was playing with myself. That was an uncomfortable conversation.” When I don’t reply, he says, “You can laugh. I thought it was amusing.”