The Ten Thousand Doors of January(77)

But all that was permanently in the past, like a dragonfly preserved in amber.

Follow Jane. “All right,” I whispered, and tried not to feel like I was seven again, eternally running away. “We’ll go to Arcadia. And will you—will you stay there with me? Or go home?”

She flinched. “I have no home.” I met her eyes and found that the pity in them had curdled into something ragged and despairing. It made me think of ancient ruins or decaying tapestries, of things that have lost the thread of themselves.

She teetered for a moment on the edge of saying something further—recriminations or rebukes or regrets—then turned and left the cabin with her back very straight.

Samuel and I were quiet in her absence. My thoughts were a flock of drunk birds, ricocheting between despair (Would we both be homeless forever? Would I spend my life running?) and a childish, bubbling excitement (Arcadia! Adventure! Escape!) and the distracting warmth of Samuel’s hand still lying beside mine on the quilt.

He cleared his throat and said, not very casually, “I intend to go with you. If you allow it.”

“What—you can’t! Leave your family, your home, your, your profession—it’s far too dangerous—”

“I was never going to be a good grocer,” he interrupted mildly. “Even my mother admits it. I have always wanted something else, something bigger. Another world would do.”

I gave an exasperated half laugh. “I don’t even know where we’re going, or for how long! My future is all tangled and messy, and you can’t sign up for all that out of, of goodness or pity or—”

“January.” His voice had gone lower and more urgent, which made my heart do a funny duh-dump against my ribs. “I do not offer out of pity. I think you know this.”

I looked away, out the cabin window at the blueing evening, but it didn’t matter: I could still feel the heat of his gaze against my cheek. The banked coals had sparked and caught flame.

“Maybe,” he said slowly, “maybe I did not make myself clear before, when I said I was on your side. I meant also that I would like to be at your side, to go with you into every door and danger, to run with you into your tangled-up future. For”—and a distant part of me was gratified to note that his voice had gone wobbly and strained—“for always. If you like.”

Time—an unreliable, fractious creature since the asylum—now absented itself entirely from the proceedings. It left the two of us floating, weightless, like a pair of dust motes suspended in afternoon sunlight.

I found myself thinking, for no particular reason, of my father. Of the way he’d looked as he walked away from me all those times, shoulders bent and head bowed, dusty coat hanging loose on his frame. Then I thought of Mr. Locke: the warmth of his hand on my shoulder, the jovial boom of his laugh. The pity in his eyes as he’d watched me drugged and dragged from his house.

In my life I’d learned that the people you love will leave you. They will abandon you, disappoint you, betray you, lock you away, and in the end you will be alone, again and always.

But Samuel hadn’t, had he? When I was a child trapped in Locke House with no one but Wilda for company, he’d slipped me story papers and brought me my dearest friend. When I was a madwoman locked in an asylum without hope or help, he’d brought me a key. And now, when I was a runaway pursued by monsters and mysteries, he was offering me himself. For always.

I felt the lure of that offer like a hook behind my heart. To be not-alone, to be loved, to have that warm presence always at my shoulder… I stared hungrily into Samuel’s face, wondering if it was a particularly handsome one and realizing I could no longer tell. It was only his eyes I saw, ember-bright, unwavering.

It would be so easy to say yes.

But I hesitated. My father had written about True Love like it was gravity—something that simply existed, invisible and inescapable. Was it True Love that made my breath catch and my heart seize? Or was I merely scared and lonely, reeling from exhaustion, clinging to Samuel like a drowning woman offered a buoy?

Samuel was watching my face, and whatever he saw made him swallow. “I’ve offended you. Forgive me.” His smile curdled with embarrassment. “It is only an offer. To consider.”

“No, it’s not—I just—” I started the sentence without knowing where it was going, half-terrified of where it might end, but then—with a sense of timing that bordered on the divine—Jane returned.

She had an armload of mossy firewood and a closed expression, like a sutured wound. She saw us and paused, her eyebrows lifting in a my-my-what-have-I-interrupted sort of expression, but proceeded to the stove without comment. Bless her.

After a minute or two (during which Samuel and I both exhaled and shifted our hands farther apart), Jane said mildly, “We should sleep early tonight. We leave in the morning.”

“Of course.” Samuel’s voice was perfectly even. He levered himself off the bed, face paling with the effort, and ducked his head graciously toward me.

“Oh no, you don’t have to—I can sleep on the floor—”

He feigned deafness, spreading a few mousy-smelling blankets in the corner and crawling into them. He rolled his face to the cabin wall, shoulders curving inward.

“Good night, Jane. January.” He said my name carefully, as if it were barbed.