“But you aren’t quite settled yet,” Anne said, more a comment than a question.
“No,” Vincent replied. “I’m not.”
Anne glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, trying to read the firm set of his jaw and lines of his face for a sign of what he might be thinking.
He was staring straight down at the blackthorn bush, trying to peer between the branches to see the stone that had been buried beneath, his expression as hard as the granite that Mr. Crowley’s name was etched upon.
“I don’t think he meant to keep the ring away from your family forever,” Anne said, assuming that Vincent might still be clinging to some resentment over his uncle’s choice to leave his Task undone. “He wasn’t trying to punish you.”
Vincent turned to face Anne then, one of his brows lifting ever so slightly.
“What?” Anne asked, confused.
“Nothing,” Vincent said. “It’s only that I thought you might have realized.”
“What are you talking about?” Anne asked, shifting so that they were facing each other now.
“I don’t think my uncle intended to hide the ring away at all,” Vincent continued. “Otherwise, why would he have picked you of all people to leave it to?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Anne admitted.
“He could have left the ring to anyone. Or better yet, tossed it in the gutter where it didn’t have a hope of being picked up ever again. But he didn’t. He left it to you,” Vincent said.
“I still don’t see . . . ,” Anne murmured.
“If my uncle didn’t want the ring returned, why would he have given it to the one witch who’d be able to figure out how to fit all the pieces together at just the right moment?” Vincent asked.
Stunned, Anne shifted her gaze back to the blackthorn bush, wondering if what Vincent said could be true. Had Mr. Crowleyleft her the ring because he knew that she’d discover where it belonged?
“I think he knew that the journey to finishing his Task would help put all of us on the right course,” Vincent murmured as his gaze shifted away from the tombstone, the tension in his expression softening the barest whisper as his eyes came to rest on Anne’s face. “That in trying to tie together the loose threads, we’d find pieces of ourselves that we didn’t know were missing in the first place.”
“Then why are you here?” Anne asked curiously. “If you feel so strongly that your uncle wanted you to be happy in the end, what are you still searching for?”
Vincent looked as if he was going to draw back into himself then. The icy mask that had become a familiar sight was already starting to stiffen his features. But before it could reach his eyes, something gave way, and he released a deep sigh.
“When someone comes to us searching for help, the trouble isn’t often tied to anything they did to the person who’s passed on,” Vincent explained. “What keeps them from feeling at rest are the actions that they neglected to take. Arguments and broken promises: those are things that you can hope someone forgave knowing what your true feelings were. It’s what you leave unsaid that lingers on and makes you wonder.”
“Wonder what?” Anne whispered.
“If they knew they were loved,” Vincent whispered. “That they weren’t alone.”
“He must have known how you felt,” Anne insisted.
“I’m not so sure,” Vincent said, his mouth tightening as he reached a hand toward the branches. “He held himself apart, and I never asked why. Never tried to understand what he was trying to protect beneath all those thorns that kept everyone at bay. Perhaps, if I had . . . but now I’ll never know. It’s the words I failed to say, you see, that haunt me still. I tried speaking tohim after he passed, but even in death, he would not let me any closer.”
“You can’t keep carrying that kind of burden,” Anne murmured. “It will gnaw at you from within until there’s nothing left but a shell.”
“I know,” Vincent said, drawing his hand even closer to the grave. “But that doesn’t stop me from wondering.”
The moment Vincent’s fingertips touched the bush, though, his thumb nicked the edge of one of the thorns, breaking the skin and causing a few drops of blood to drip onto the branches.
Before Anne was aware of what she was doing, she stepped toward Vincent and reached for his hand. She held it in her own, assessing the wound and reaching into her reticule for a handkerchief to press against it, but before she could retrieve the cloth, her attention was drawn back to the blackthorn, which was starting to shift of its own accord.
At first, Anne thought the wind must be rustling the branches, but she didn’t feel a chill whipping against her cheeks. Then, ever so slowly, plump green buds began to grow along the bare branches, softening the sharpness of the thorns before bursting into thousands of delicate white flowers. They looked startlingly beautiful beneath the falling snow, all the hard edges having given way to something far more inviting.
Vincent’s hand gripped Anne’s as he gazed at the flowers, as if he needed some sense of purchase while taking in the sight that had unfolded before them.
For blackthorn that grew on a grave of a witch bloomed only when someone they loved pricked their fingers against one of its thorns.
