By a Charm and a Curse(34)



“So what do you want for your birthday, Whiskey?” Marcel asks. He’s passing around a half-empty bottle of champagne. I reach for it automatically, but when my fingers clink against the glass, reality comes crashing down. I shake my head, and Marcel’s dark eyes go wide with embarrassment over forgetting, but he covers it quickly.

Whiskey stands, her face lost in the strips of teal and yellow dangling from the roof. They flutter prettily in the breeze from the open skylight. “I,” she says, pausing dramatically as she swipes the green bottle away from Marcel, “want a pony. And a racecar. And a sea otter. And something sparkly. Someone make that happen.” She plops back down onto the pillows, almost knocking me into Ben.

Instead of pushing me away, Benjamin moves an arm until I’m nestled into his side, my torso in line with his. I stiffen. I don’t want him to feel that my body doesn’t mold to his, to have the cold that fills me seep through his clothes to touch his skin. I start to pull away.

But then, in a movement that feels natural, he moves to the side in such a way that I have to fall back against him. He’s so warm. I shouldn’t be able to feel it, but I swear every pulse of blood that rushes through him beats against me. I close my eyes and melt into him.

“What about Spots McGee?” Duncan asks as he sprawls backward into the wagon. Half his body is in the wagon and half is outside with Pia, who ducks her head in to see what we’re talking about.

“Spots is a seventeen-hand Clydesdale, Duncan,” Whiskey says. “I want one of those tiny ponies, the ones that never get big, what are they called?”

“They’re just called miniature horses, aren’t they?” Gin asks. She reaches across Marcel to take the bottle back, and as she does, surprising everyone in the wagon, Marcel darts out and kisses her.

Everyone is still for half a heartbeat. Duncan lets out a wolf whistle as they break apart, and I can’t help but notice the dazed smile Gin’s wearing and the pleased grin on Marcel.

“Oh my God,” Whiskey says. “Oh my God!” She flops backward and grabs a pillow to bury her face in. Her voice muffled, she screams, “I did not need to see that! Never! I could go a lifetime without seeing my sister kiss a boy! Cities could crumble! Oceans could dry up! And that would still! Not! Be long enough!”

She yanks the bottle away from Marcel. “I have a new birthday wish—therapy!”

“My birthday wish is to see more,” Duncan says. He waggles his finger between the two of them. “Do it again.”

After Whiskey pummels Duncan with a pillow until his hair skews to the right like a comb-over that met a hurricane, and the laughter dies down, it’s a much quieter affair. Whiskey is both too sleepy and too tipsy to walk on her own, so Duncan and Pia each take an arm and help her back to her trailer. Marcel and Gin slip out, too, but head in the opposite direction, into the sea of oaks bordering our camp. Which just leaves Benjamin and me.

I slump back against the wall of pillows, hating the fact that the dropping temperatures are more pronounced now that most of the warm bodies have left. A shudder tremors through me even though I try my hardest to repress it. But Ben, ever observant, notices. This time when he draws nearer, I let him line his body up with mine.

I am in completely uncharted territory.

Never mind the fact that I’ve never, ever been with a boy who charms me as much as Benjamin does. Never mind the fact that I am some weird, cursed puppet girl. Never mind the fact that having him so close makes me feel ridiculously happy. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Turns out I don’t have to. Ben lies back and tugs my hand till I sink down beside him. His right arm slips beneath me and curls me toward him, so that it’s easy for me to line up as much of my body with his as possible. We lie there, positioned beneath the tiny skylight, watching dark-gray clouds scud across the stars. One lantern is still lit, and as it sways, it sends panels of yellow-y light across the walls. There are no other lights inside or out, and the stars above are impossibly bright.

“I lived in a small town,” I say, “but there were still enough lights that I never saw the stars. I know how clichéd I’m going to sound, but there’s so many more out here, and they’re beautiful.”

There’s no response for a moment, but then Benjamin turns against me, hesitating, and lines me against his chest so that our view is the exact same out the small window. “That,” he says, pointing, “is Pisces. This star”—I see one bright spot at the edge of his fingernail—“connects the tails of the two fish.” His paint-flecked hands sketch out lines between more of the stars. “That’s Cassiopeia, forever chained to a throne because she said she was more beautiful than the Nereids. And that is the Phoenix, the bird who dies and is reborn in fire.”

His hand drifts down to rest on my arm, and I pick out the shapes he showed me again and again, to make sure I’ll remember them later. The soft rustling of leaves and Ben’s steady heartbeat are the only sounds in my world. “How do you know all that?”

He shifts again and pushes his glasses up his nose. “When you’re never in the same place for more than a week, you need a constant. Something that doesn’t change, ever. Stars are my constant.”

There’s something about this beautiful piece of honesty that fills me up, and I can almost pretend I’m warm.

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