A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(55)
“It wasn’t stupid,” I say quietly.
“It was.” He’s bitter again. Bitter with himself, and with this tower and everything surrounding it. I can tell.
“Maybe it was a little childish fantasizing about your ancestor,” I say to try to tease away some of the bitterness, and he looks up at me with surprise.
“Oh, Estamond isn’t my ancestor,” he says. “All of her children and her grandchildren were dead by the time of the War. It was Randolph’s nephew—his brother’s son—who inherited Thornchapel. My great-great-grandfather.”
I think of the entry Saint and I found, about her happy but too-short life. “That’s so sad. All of her children and grandchildren?”
Auden nods. “Randolph let the place fall into ruin after her death. He would occasionally visit his children in London, but gradually, he fired most of the staff and became a recluse. He watched his own line die out.”
I feel a pang for the old Randolph, alone in this empty manor with only his painting of Estamond for company. And a pang for Auden, the equally lonely boy, hiding up here from his father with his imaginary kingdom and an old tricycle.
“I’m sorry again,” I say, squeezing his hand and thinking of that little boy. The tower is freezing, and so now both our hands are cold when we touch. “I shouldn’t have said—”
“Maybe not to someone else, but I’m glad you said it to me,” he says, catching my gaze with his. His eyes are serious. “I have been blaming the house for him. And I’m letting him take up all this space in my thoughts like he’s still alive, like he can still hurt me, because if I stop letting him into my thoughts… If he’s really dead—then maybe it means I’m someone different now. Part of me must have died with him and I’m not sure what’s left. What can grow into the vacant places.”
“They’ll be good things,” I tell him confidently. “Strong things. That’s what Imbolc is for, you know—new beginnings.”
“At least according to the Reverend Paris Dartham,” Auden sighs. Then he gives me a real smile—half hopeful, half mischievous. “Are you really sure you want to act out a scenario laid down by an obsessive clergyman?”
I’m still squeezing his hand, I realize, as I look down at the woman in the painting. “It looks more like we’re following Estamond than him.”
“You’re right,” he says. “Well, that’s a comfort. I much prefer Estamond to old Dartham.”
I let go of his hand and point at Estamond with her torc and her vivid eyes.
“You’ll finally get to be with your queen,” I say, thinking of his boyhood games, but Auden gives me an odd look, as if unsettled by what I just said.
“My queen,” he answers slowly. “Yes, I suppose I will.”
We end up bringing the painting down to show the others, who are predictably excited and fascinated with it, and we all have another round of drinks while Delphine makes me pose like Estamond in the picture to gauge the resemblance for herself.
It’s decided—by Delphine and Rebecca, in a rare show of solidarity—that Becket and Saint should spend the night in the old wing’s remaining spare room, and that the planning for Imbolc would resume tomorrow. Saint makes a faint noise of protest at this, but there’s no arguing the blizzard outside, no denying the snow falling so thick and fast that even the forest can’t be seen from the windows.
So after dousing the fire, we stumble in a boozy haze up to our rooms, and after a general hubbub of brushing teeth and hunting for extra blankets and making sure Becket and Saint found everything they needed and also would both fit on the spare room’s bed, we close our doors and prepare to sleep while winter screams outside.
It takes me almost no time at all to fall into the dreams.
And when I do, there are thorns biting into my wrist and there’s a fire hot on my back and when I look down, I’m clasping St. Sebastian’s hand. Auden’s hand covers both of ours, and all of it is wrapped in thorny vines, stiff enough to make a cage, but tight enough to make all three of us bleed. We’re handfasted.
“A bride by thorns,” dream-Auden says.
Except then it’s not him, it’s Delphine and me, bound together with blood and thorns and she’s shivering against the pain, but with delight—and then it’s all of us standing in a circle, thorns between our palms and clasping hands tight so that we’ll each be pricked.
“Are you ready to lie down, Proserpina?” dream-Auden asks gently, and I am, I am finally ready to lie down.
There’s a door behind the altar.
I stare at it as I slowly spread my legs and am made a bride.
Chapter 17
Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope
The bed is almost too small for Becket and Saint together, but the priest is conscientious and Saint is exhausted. He came to Thornchapel to drop off a public library book for Proserpina, a fantasy title he knew she wanted to read and that he’d checked out under his account so she could take her time with it without worrying about late fees . . . but even at the time he knew it was a pretense. She hadn’t asked for the book and he hadn’t offered it—there was no reason for him to come to Thornchapel other than that he was crawling out of his skin from not having seen her that day. And if there was the danger that Auden would be there, the danger that he might see the same look of mingled hunger and anguish on Auden’s handsome face as Saint saw that night when he hurt Proserpina’s bare bottom for everyone to see . . .