His foot finally slips into the shoe.
“Yes,” he says, not at all sounding excited.
He then wrestles with the other one until, finally, he gets it on. Then he stands tall, shoulders squared.
“Time to go get baby nephew,” he says again.
And looks at me as if to say,I put my shoes on for this.
The next morning,I’m woken to raised voices echoing in from outside the cottage. Sleep last night had been fitful, but in the early morning hours, I had finally succumbed, even if it was full of horrific dreams. I stir, pulling the knit blanket back over my shoulders, but as the shouting rouses me from my disoriented state, I begin to recognize the voices.
It’s Maddox and Nolan.
The strangeness of hearing them argue, especially at that level, brings me back to reality. Getting out of the bed feels like it takes every muscle in my body. My limbs are lead as I shuffle over to the window. It’s cracked just barely. Nolan must have opened it last night to let the breeze into the often stuffy cottage.
From the window, I can see the shed where the fishing boat is kept. Nolan and Maddox are outside its door, arms crossed like shields in front of them.
“If you have something to say, say it against me, not her,” says Nolan.
“You’re both the same anyway,” says Maddox. “Neither of you can stand the circumstances in which you’ve been placed. Neither of you can just simply be content or figure things out on your own. You make deals with the Fates. You make bargains with those cleverer than yourselves with no regard for how they might affect others. Over and over again, I’ve watched the two of you put yourselves in precarious positions, and I’ve never said a word.
“But if you think it’s just your lives you’re holding up for collateral, you’re more dense than I thought. How many people have to get hurt? Charlie is laying in there fighting for her life,” Maddox’s voice breaks, “and I don’t know that she’s going to win that battle. No matter what words of encouragement you try to play off as the truth, you don’t know that either. You’re not the master of your own fate, and you’re certainly not the master of hers.”
“I care for you both. I don’t mean to make it seem as if I don’t. I’m so sorry,” says Nolan. “Wendy and I were just trying to protect each other. Protect our family.”
Maddox’s eyes go wide. “Can’t you see that that’s all I wanted too? To protect the two of you? To protect your family? But we failed, Nolan. Your son—we couldn’t protect him. Not in the end. But Charlie—there was no reason for her to get hurt.”
“Charlie knew what she was signing up for when she sided with us against a Fate,” says Nolan.
Maddox clenches his jaw, turning his face away. “I don’t know that she did. Charlie, despite all she’s been through, is so good. She only sees the best in people. Do you think it ever crossed her mind that she would be fighting to stay on this side of the realms because of a bullet fired from her own pistol by her best friend?”
“I think Charlie would have died for our son’s safety,” says Nolan.
“But your son isn’t safe,” says Maddox. “Perhaps I could bear it if he was. Or perhaps if it had been the Sister who fired the shot. I just need time.”
“Time for what?”
“I can’t be in the same house withher.” The vitriol with which he says that last word makes me think he’s not talking about Charlie.
“You’re leaving then?” asks Nolan.
Maddox looks at him as if he’s lost his mind. “Of course not. I’m not leaving Charlie. I’ll stay and take care of her until…” His voice trails off. “Well. Until she doesn’t need to be taken care of anymore.”
“So you’re asking us to leave?” says Nolan. “You’re telling us to leave?”
Maddox’s entire stance almost melts, and his voice softens.
“No, Nolan. I’m asking you—as my friend. Wendy’s hardly recovered from labor, and… well, I don’t know how much recovering there will be from what else she’s experienced.”
“We’ve experienced,” says Nolan.
“You said she’s healing up nicely,” says Maddox.
When Nolan gives him a strange glance, Maddox shrugs. “I overheard what the healer told you. Her mind’s more broken than her body. But what he told her—not to exert herself for sixweeks, not to strain, to stay in bed—I’m not asking for her to journey horseback across the country. I’m asking for you to get her on a boat and take her back to the ship. She can rest in your cabins there.”
“I can’t move her.”
“Yes, you can.”
