Spindle(73)

He cleared his throat. “Fear grew and spread. The servants gossiped about what was going on at the castle and it began to affect the kingdom. Normally parents push their daughters at princes, hoping to make a match, but no one who knew the story was willing to part with a daughter, even if it meant she would become royalty. The family was shunned, blamed for the problem.

“Many generations later, and many attempts to rid themselves of the spindle, they finally decided to do something drastic. They sent a youngest son to take the spindle to the new land, America, to hide in a remote valley and guard the spindle to his dying days. The legacy of protection would pass to each generation. No one leaving the valley. No one calling attention to themselves. No one tipping off Isodora to the spindle’s current location. They would live in poverty and seclusion, the opposite of royalty so as to keep the secret. He was the one who named the area Sunrise Valley in memory of Aurora. She had long passed, and they thought it would be a fitting tribute, since her name means sunrise.”

“So your family has been guarding the spindle all this time? At least until Isodora found it.” A shiver ran down Briar’s body as she remembered speaking with the fairy who wanted her dead.

He shifted, pulling her in tighter. “Cold?” He wrapped his other arm protectively around her, and rested his chin on the top of her head.

Briar nestled in deeper.

“This is the part that’s going to be hard to confess,” he said. “Know how deeply sorry I am, Briar. I thought I was doing the right thing. My parents tried to talk me out of it, but finally relented after I was so persistent. Perhaps they were as hopeful as I was to rid ourselves of the responsibility. When I saw Fanny here in place of Prudence, I thought you were in danger. Something had changed. We had been protecting you, just in case, for so long, and I panicked. They told me they didn’t know where Isodora was, so I wanted to get the spindle as far away from here as possible. As far away from you as possible.” His hand squeezed tighter. “The irony is, if I had continued on with my regular life, going to the mill as if nothing was wrong, acting the way my family has for generations, you wouldn’t be lying here in my arms now.”

Briar lifted her head so Henry could see her face. See that she didn’t blame him for anything. See how much she wanted to be lying in his arms.

“You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

Henry’s intense gaze met hers. “But I did. The first time I met Fanny was when my parents told me who we really are. They waited until they thought I was old enough to keep their secret, yet young enough to have not made real plans of my own. Fanny helped explain the seriousness of what we do. They told me the consequences of losing the spindle. She feels responsible herself, since her blessing over Aurora and the spindle continues on in ways she didn’t expect.”

“Can’t you walk away?” Briar asked the question she already knew the answer to. Henry was too dependable to walk away. That’s what she loved about him. Everyone else in her life who left, left for good. But Henry came back. Always Henry.

“No. But if the town keeps growing the way it is, we are going to have to move. We’re finding too many girls wandering onto our property even though we have fences and all those signs up. Remember that day I brought you home?”

Briar nodded. “I didn’t think your mam liked me much.”

“I’d never seen her so angry, and with good reason. I came back outside and you were walking in a daze toward the house. You should have seen your face. The spindle was pulling you in.”

Briar remembered the jittery feelings she felt while near the house. She thought it was nerves because of the KEEP OUT signs. But it was the spindle. “I had no idea.”

“The fairies would come every few years and supervise while we tried to destroy it. The only trial that even came close was when we submerged it in the river. It didn’t seem to like the water. It came back to us, but aged. Fanny could feel that the curse had been touched somehow.”

“Why does the spindle come back to your family?”

“Prudence thinks it’s because of Aurora, her bloodline. The spindle seeks her out and we are the closest thing.”

He took a deep breath, his chest rising and lifting her up with it, as if he were helping her breathe. “The day after Fanny arrived, I spoke with her in the woods, told her of my plan. She wants this to end as much as we do.”

Briar nodded. That secret meeting was the conversation she overheard.

“I saw an opportunity. It was like a window in time had opened up. There was a change in destiny and I wanted to seize the moment and change my family’s future. You helped me with that when you pointed out how strange it was that we never left the valley.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I was only frustrated that I couldn’t leave the valley.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore. You know already that I dropped the box in the middle of the ocean?”

“Yes. The spindle box.”

“You want to know how Isodora could possibly get hold of the spindle from the bottom of the sea? I don’t know. There was that storm.” He nestled his head in the crook of her neck. “My family will never be rid of it.”

“You might be soon,” Briar said quietly. “If the curse is fulfilled…if I die…you will be free. Promise me you’ll watch out for the children. They love you dearly and I know you’ll do right by them, making sure they go to good homes.”