The Reckless Oath We Made(68)

“I am well-armed,” Gentry said.

“I ain’t saying you ain’t, just that you might get more than you bargained for.”

“What? Do you have bears? Mountain lions? Isn’t that what the guard dog is for?” I said, but Uncle Alva cleared his throat.

“No. Dane’s right enough. You’d best stay in the house.”

It felt like they were talking in code, but unless I was willing to keep pushing, we were sleeping in the house. I followed Uncle Alva upstairs, and he brought out some sheets from the linen cupboard in the hall. They were musty like they’d been in the closet for years, but there weren’t any bugs or mouse shit in them. Same for the mattress in the guest room. It was probably older than me, but I didn’t see any bugs in the seams as I made it up.

A few minutes later, Gentry came in carrying his big rucksack and a sleeping bag. I wondered what weapons he had in the rucksack, and whether he was planning to sleep alone in the bag.

“Now, I’m just downstairs in the back room, if you need anything. The boys got their own trailer, so they don’t sleep up here. You’ll have it to yourself,” Uncle Alva said and, after he went downstairs, Gentry and I were alone.

On a scale of one to ten, with the old amusement park being about a seven, Uncle Alva’s house was maybe a four on the horror movie scale. When I went to brush my teeth, I wasn’t bracing myself for a ghost to look back at me from the old mirror over the sink, but it wouldn’t have surprised me. I wondered how long it had been since anybody had slept up there. On the way back from the bathroom, I peeked into the bedroom that had belonged to Aunt Tess and Uncle Alva, and my grandparents before that. A layer of dust covered everything. I didn’t imagine Uncle Alva had slept there since Aunt Tess died. I wondered if her clothes were still hanging in the closet, but that was strictly ghost territory, so I went back to the guest room lickety-split. At some point that evening, Uncle Alva must have given the guest room a sweeping and dusting, because it wasn’t that bad.

Gentry was sharpening a knife, so at least he was prepared for horror movie developments, but he came back from his turn in the bathroom smelling like toothpaste and soap and looking freshly shaved. That explained the knife sharpening.

He looked at his phone and sighed. Then he said, “I must call my mother.”

“Do you want some privacy?”

“Nay.” I still thought maybe I should leave, but his end of the conversation was a lot of Yea, my lady and Nay, my lady. He told her we were staying with Lady Zhorzha’s kin. “Yea, all is well. My lady’s uncle, Sir Alva, hath made us welcome.” That was kind of true.

There wasn’t anybody for me to call, so I laid back on the double bed and looked at stuff on my phone until he hung up. Then we were alone, together, in that creepy, drafty heap of a house. With just the one bed. Uncle Alva only put us together because he thought Gentry was my man, so I considered offering to make up one of the other beds, but he had his sleeping bag, and I didn’t want to be alone when the ghosts showed up.

Plus his T-shirt and his boxers were a little too tight around his thighs and his arms, and that made sharing a bed more interesting. I got up and turned off the overhead light, so the only light left was his little camping lantern. Then I curled up on the bed with my legs uncovered. For a minute, Gentry stood with his back to me, looking at my reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Then he turned around and came across the room to stand next to the bed. Left hand on top of his head. Right hand clenched. Relaxed. Clenched.

“Come to bed,” I said.

“Nay, I shall sleep there and keep the watch.” He pointed to where he’d unrolled his sleeping bag near the door.

“Well, you can sleep on the floor, but I wasn’t really talking about sleeping. What stories haven’t you told me?” When I scooted over, he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“A great many, but I would hear a tale of thine,” he said.

“I don’t know any stories.”

“Tell me how thou wast wounded.”

“You wanna hear about my wreck? It’s not very interesting.” In addition to being boring, it was kind of awful, so I told it like a fairy tale. Like Melusine.

“Once upon a time, there was this girl. Her mother was a dragon. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. One day a prince, the Prince of Merriam, came around and acted like he wanted to make her a princess. She wasn’t interested in being a princess, but she figured it might be better than being a scullery wench. So she went back to his castle with him, and for a year and a day—” That was something LaReigne had taught me. A Wiccan thing that was like marriage. Handfasting. As soon as I thought about LaReigne, I got this nervous hitch in my stomach. LaReigne was out there alone. Worse than alone. With some piece of shit who’d taken advantage of her.

“My lady,” Gentry said. He’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, but he laid down next to me. “Art thou—”

“So for a year and a day, they were together. Then the dragon’s daughter found out she was going to have a baby, and the prince got pissed off and acted like the dragon’s daughter was trying to trick him into making her a princess. Except she never wanted to be a princess, and she thought the prince was acting like a royal shitbag. In fact, she thought maybe she should just ditch the prince and keep the baby. For the record, babies are nice. Princes, not so much.