Throwing on a coat, she pulled on her Blundstones and set out for his house.
Yellow leaves spilled like gold coins across the path through the trees, flickering in the light of the setting sun. Trees hushed and swayed around her, too big and too thick and too tall. Here in the quiet, she could almost hear them breathing. Deep, steady breaths that sank all the way down to their roots.
Emeline followed the path through the quiet wood to the small bridge over the creek. After crossing it, she walked up to the stone house and rapped her knuckles on the wooden door.
“Hawthorne?”
No one answered.
She knocked harder. “Hawthorne!”
When nothing happened, she tried the knob.
Locked.
Emeline growled, then stepped back, scanning. “Where are you?” she whispered. She’d only learned one song today, the last one was missing, and her demonstration was just two days away.
I need you.
But no smoke plumed from the chimney and no lamplight warmed the windows. The house looked sleepy and dark.
Hawthorne wasn’t home.
Who else could help her? She thought of Sable and Rooke but had no idea where either of them lived.
She thought of Grace.
There’s a pub in the city called The Acorn,Grace had told her.Meet me there at sunset on Friday. We can make a plan.
It was Friday today, she realized. Emeline went to find her.
AFTER AN HOUR OFwandering the city’s lamplit streets, asking for directions (twice) and getting turned around (twice), she finally spotted the sign for The Acorn swinging above a door. It was nut shaped and forged of tarnished copper. The windows of the pub glowed gold, illuminating the packed house inside.
Emeline stepped through the door and into the warm, rowdy space. Lamps glowed dimly and it smelled faintly like beer. A pair of fiddlers dueled in the corner, bows slashing their strings, feet stomping in time with their tune, mouths grinning as their duet sped faster and faster towards its end while the audience cheered them on.
Emeline scanned the tables crammed full of people and caught sight of Rooke first. He sat near the very back, his dark eyes twinkling as he told Grace some raucous joke from across their table. With them sat Aspen, Hawthorne’s friend from dinner the other night. The girl with the gemlike eyes and delicate features. Beside Aspen sat Nettle.
Emeline made her way towards them, then sank down on the bench next to Rooke.
“Emeline!” He grinned, throwing an arm around her shoulders. His breath smelled like ale, and his smile was bright white. “Let me buy you a drink. What do you fancy?”
He was already on his feet.
“Um … you choose?”
When he left, Emeline glanced to Grace. “Have you seen Hawthorne?”
“He’s visiting a friend,” Aspen answered from farther down the table. “He’ll be joining us later.”
A friend?“Are you sure?”
Aspen’s unbound hair glittered in the lamplight. “That’s what he said over dinner last night.”
The image of Hawthorne making the beautiful Aspen dinner flooded Emeline. She couldn’t get it out of her head: the two of them alone, eating together by candlelight.
Was it just dinner? Or something more?
The thought snarled her stomach up in knots.
