The Deepest Blue(12)
Following him inside, Mayara felt her heart crack at the wreckage inside. Rain had soaked everything. While his studio was built too high up to flood from the tide, plenty of rain had gushed in through the damaged roof. The floor was covered in puddles. So much beauty, gone in an instant.
Mayara lifted a driftwood horse out of a puddle. He’d been carving it to be part of a mobile to hang over Helia’s unborn baby’s crib. Now it never will. She choked back a sob and suddenly realized why Kelo had been so insistent on hurrying here. It was hard to say goodbye to the dead; it was going to be a hundred times harder to say goodbye to the living. “I know why you brought me here.”
Not looking at her, he knelt in the puddles and yanked at the floorboards. “You do?”
“You didn’t want to say goodbye in front of everyone.”
Crack. One of the floorboards splintered as he pried it up. Over his shoulder, she saw a trunk lying in a pool of water that had seeped through the floorboards.
“Kelo . . . I need you to know . . . you’ll always be in my heart.” She caressed the bit of carved driftwood, turning it over and over in her hands. “No matter what else they take away. No one can take away that.”
Still not looking at her, he opened the trunk and then handed her a stack of clothes.
She peeled off the wedding gown carefully, as if it weren’t already ruined by rain, mud, and blood. Kelo took it from her just as carefully, set a chair upright, and draped it over the back. Drying herself with a blanket, she dressed in the clothes he’d given her: a thigh-high wrap dress plus water-resistant leggings.
These were high-quality clothes, she noticed. Very sturdy. Very practical. And they fit her as perfectly as the wedding dress had. A suspicion began to tug at her mind. “You know my size.”
“I just made you a wedding dress,” he pointed out. “That shouldn’t be a surprise.” He was watching her with a wary expression.
The wrap dress had extra fabric that could work as a sling for supplies, and the leggings felt tough enough to withstand the scrape of barnacle-encrusted rocks. She noticed he’d pulled two packs out of the trunk. Most villagers kept only blankets and candles and a few essentials in their storm trunks. This outfit and these supplies . . .
They were made for a journey.
“You know that no one escapes the Silent Ones,” Mayara said. “It would be better for my family if—”
“I’m your family,” Kelo said. “And it would be better for me if you were with me. That’s what we swore, remember? To share our journeys. So journey with me, Mayara. Away from here, until it’s safe to return.”
She couldn’t ever return. “Everyone knows I—”
“What do you wish Elorna had done?”
Mayara flinched.
He drew her closer. “Your sister did everything she was supposed to, was the dutiful islander, went with the Silent Ones . . . and she died.” His voice was gentle, even if his words felt like knife cuts.
“I can’t escape this. You know that. I only have two choices: become one of the Silent Ones or go to the Island of Testing.” Why is he torturing me with this? He knows I can’t run!
He pressed his forehead against hers. “I’m asking you to pick a third choice.”
“I’m supposed to be the impetuous one. Everyone calls me reckless, chasing after a sister who’s gone, as if I could catch her and bring her back.” She pulled away and looked at the two waterproof packs. “But I suppose this isn’t impetuous of you, is it? You’ve been planning this for a long time.”
“Years,” he said.
“You never told me.”
“You never wanted to hear.”
That was . . . not the right answer. “I thought we didn’t have secrets from each other.”
He reached for her hands again. “It’s not a secret that I want to be with you forever,” he said simply. “You know I’m a worrier, Mayara, and a planner. Did you really think I wouldn’t prepare for this?”
She wished he’d told her. She would have talked him out of this sooner, so he wouldn’t be clinging to this false hope. “Elorna tried to run.”
He blinked.
“She sneaked away without a word to any of us. I’d had a nightmare and I woke in the night. I went to go curl up with Elorna—sometimes she let me do that when I was scared. But when I went into her room, her bed was empty.”
“What did you do?”
“I climbed into her bed and went to sleep,” Mayara said. “I wanted her to escape. I didn’t want to tell anyone she was gone. I thought if I were in her bed, asleep with the covers over my head, everyone would think she was still there, and I’d buy her enough time.”
“What happened?” he asked softly, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest of the story.
“She came back, before dawn, before anyone woke, and when the Silent Ones arrived, she was packed and waiting for them. I asked her why she didn’t keep running, and she said: ‘Because then I lose you no matter what. This way, there’s a chance.’”
Mayara had never told anyone about that night. Maybe we do keep some secrets from each other. But it was a secret only because it hurt so much to say the words. He had to hear this, though. She continued. “Elorna said if she survived the test and became an heir, we’d see her again. She would have been allowed to visit. But if she ran . . . she couldn’t ever return. It would be too dangerous to come back—the Silent Ones would have caught her. She’d have to stay away from everyone she loved and everything she knew. She’d be alone.”