Page 59 of The Exorcism of Faeries
He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up in her absence, the muscles in his forearms shifting as he filled a kettle with water and placed it over the blue flames.
As he pulled down a tea tin and filled two teacups with leaves, the earthy scent of it filled the space between them where Atta sat at the butcher block island. “Why Folklore and Religion?” he asked her conversationally.
Atta chewed on her lip, considering. “Part of me wanted to teach. Or write. But, I think really it was all because I know that the grieving need a new perspective, a different sort of hope.” A line formed between his brows as he listened intently. “There’s darkness found in hearth tales and the Church, but they all know that part already. They’ve seen it in the eyes of their dead. But there is also whimsy found in fairytales and hope found in the spiritual.”
Sonder took the kettle from the stove before it could give its full self-important whistle. “I’ve never looked at it that way,” he said, pouring the water into their teacups, his face obscured by the steam. “You have made me think outside of my normal reasoning on several occasions.”
The steam chose that moment to dissipate and the way he was looking at her sent a rush of heat up her neck.
He slid one of the cups across the island to her and she wrapped her fingers around it, relishing the warmth.
“Are you cold?” he asked, watching her hands. “This old manor is dreadfully drafty.”
“A little, but I’m all right.”
He lifted his tea and gestured to her with his other hand. “I’ll show you around while I light the hearths.”
He first took her back down the corridor that looked as if it belonged in a Victorian period drama and into the room she’d seen with the piano. It was a lovely thing, all old, carefully carved wood, and she was beside herself when Sonder set his teacup on the lid and sat on the bench.
“Any requests?” he said over his shoulder with a grin.
Atta lifted her chin in challenge. “Requiem in D Minor, K. 626.”
Sonder’s grin turned wicked and wolfish before he spun back to face the piano. His fingers moved over the piano effortlessly, the haunting notes a balm to her very soul. It felt like magic, like one of those ethereal moments that makes one feel simultaneously filled to the brim with joy and drowning in despair because you know there will never be a moment exactly like it ever again.
He stopped after just a minute as she knew he would. The piece had never been finished.
“A Requiem Mass. How fitting.” He smiled. “Thought you could throw me off with that suggestion, didn’t you?”
“Ye’, ye’. Toot your own horn later, Murdoch.”
His laugh made even her fingertips tingle. “Did you know it was never completed?”
“I did.”
His eyes squinted. “You never cease to surprise me, Ariatne Morrow.”
Atta looked at her shoes as he rose and came toward her. “What’s next on our grand tour?”
“How about the library?”
She paused, and it took him a couple of seconds to realise she wasn’t following him out into the hall. “You have anactuallibrary?”
“One thousand books constitutes an official library. We have three.”
“Three thousand, you mean?”
Sonder chuckled and grabbed her hand to pull her along. “Come and see.”
Oh, he had not been exaggerating. “Jesus of little Nazareth,” she whispered, spinning in a small circle to try and soak it all up.
Sonder was watching her, leaning against the doorframe. “I take it you like it.”
“I couldlivehere.” She craned her neck to look at the top row of books high up into the vaulted ceiling.
“Then you might enjoy this—” He pushed off the wall and strode to a corner where Atta’s gaping hadn’t reached yet.
“Are you kidding?”
