Adrift (12 page)

How could I even dream of adding Devin to my life’s fabric, if that fabric was in such disorder that there was nothing to offer him?

It was then that I decided to give Devin my blanket.  He couldn’t accept my heart.  Neither of us was truly ready for that, but perhaps he would accept this offering… a promise of possibilities for us.  A promise that one day I would be whole and strong, and have a self worth offering to him.

I bound the edges as Maura had taught me, taking my work of art off the loom.  When Maura awoke, soon after I was aware of the sun rising above the hills, she showed me how to ‘full’ the blanket, letting it agitate in hot water in her washer until the fibers bound together just enough.

“You have to be careful,” Maura warned me, setting the blanket out to dry.  “If you let it agitate too long it will become a tight piece of felt instead of a blanket, and you wouldn’t want that.”

As always, she seemed to know without asking where the blanket would be headed.  Once it was dry she helped me fold it and gave me brown paper to wrap it up in, a simple gift from my heart.

Devin didn’t come to dinner that night, so the package sat waiting for him near the door.  I must have looked up from my tasks a thousand times, imagining I could hear the sounds of his footsteps, or that I could hear his voice in the distance.  I was positive, when the wind blew right, that I could hear him playing his fiddle, down in the village.  Music wafted up to me, where I sat in the garden, my hands covered in mud.  I sat back on my heels and drank it in, that elusive touch of the Old Magic caressing across my skin.

I set my teeth against the sensation, and went back to work.  The earth in Maura’s garden was fertile and the weeds couldn’t seem to help themselves.  I went through the rows, pulling up the tiny plants and runners of grass that threatened to invade.  That done, I pinched off leaves of lettuce for our dinner.  A full head of cauliflower was ready to eat, and I cut that off of the plant, knowing that Maura would be able to transform it into something unexpected and delicious.

Dinner was a lonely time.  I had little appetite, and picked at the curry that Maura had produced.  I sat, glancing from time to time at where Devin’s place was set, waiting for him.

After dinner, Maura quietly put his dishes back in the cabinet and set to cleaning up.  When I tried to help her, she shooed me off to bed.

I dreaded sleep.  Somehow I just knew that my vulnerability would make me more receptive to the magic this night.  I feared what my dreams might show me.

Omyn appeared to be waiting for me.  He gracefully approached me, his hands outstretched.  My skin tingled where he touched me.  I breathed in his fragrance-- pure and other-worldly.  There was nothing human about his scent.  He stood bathed in moonlight.  I swallowed, hard.  He was so gloriously beautiful.

He had no concept of personal space.  Already he stood pressed up against me, his eyes devouring my face.  It was all I could do to breathe as his fingers wandered across my face, brushing against my lips, tracing my eyebrows, even dancing lightly across my eyelashes.  His touch was so light, so slow, I thought I might pass out.

I tried to step away from him, but found myself unable to move.  My body refused to obey me.  It craved him and his touch. The beauty of him awoke a hunger I couldn’t even begin to name.  It was as if he owned me and could do what he wished with me.

“N-no,” I stammered, gasping for air.  “Omyn… wait… please!”

Omyn stepped back, his silver moon-touched eyes confused.  “Have I wronged you, mortal woman?”

I shook my head, more to clear it than to answer.  I closed my eyes, trying to bring Devin’s face before me, but I couldn’t.  My blood screamed to be closer to Omyn, to enter the circle of his arms, to belong to him.

I opened my eyes again.  Omyn stood before me, perfect, majestic.  Moonlight traced across the contours of his chest.  He was vividly beautiful, flawless.

And, for some reason, he wanted me.

Omyn reached out and clasped me to him.  There was no more room in me for thought.  He pressed his lips against my throat and I shivered, nearly falling to my knees at the lust that coursed through me at his touch.  He traced his mouth up my throat and I heard an inarticulate sound garble out of my mouth.  I thought I was about to swoon.

For some reason I opened my eyes.

My mother stood there, young and cool in the moonlight.  Her work hung unheeded from her hand.  She looked into my eyes and shook her head minutely, just the smallest motion, then she was gone.

The spell was broken.  I shoved Omyn away with all my strength and stood facing him, my chest heaving.  I held out my hands to shield myself from him.  I didn’t know if I was strong enough to resist if he touched me again.  I would succumb to him and all his… glamour.  That’s what Devin had called it.

Devin.  My stomach felt ill.  Though Devin and I had nothing concrete between us, it still felt disloyal to my feelings for him, to him himself, to be here like this.  With Omyn.

“Why do you fear me, pretty mortal?” Omyn said, his voice as glorious as his person.  It was, as the rest of him, a siren call to my senses, I fought the sudden urge to throw myself at him and taste his lips, his throat, the source of such sound.

“He’s not mortal,” I warned myself, “He’s not… real.”

He appeared beside me and breathed into my ear.  “But I am real,” he murmured, his breath caressing my face, making me burn.

“Touch me,” He whispered, “Why fight it, pretty mortal?  You know you wish to touch me.  I am as real as you are.”

Blindly my hands reached out to him. I tried to wrench myself away.

I awoke, with a cry of pain as I crashed onto the floor.  I whimpered to myself and drew my knees up to my chest.  I rocked back and forth, terrified and ashamed by the way I had responded to the Sidhe.

He was Fae, with no thought for tomorrow, but I had been born and raised mortal, despite my selkie mother.  I lived in a world of consequences, something that was all too easy to forget when Omyn was near me.

I shivered.  I feared what would happen, should I ever forget.

Chapter Ten

The presence of Kip in my room when I awoke warned me that Devin had come for breakfast.  I tickled the dog’s golden ears fondly, and promised him a good scratch later.

I padded out to the kitchen in my pajamas.

Devin sat at his usual spot, his back turned towards me.  I smiled to myself, thinking how very different he was from Omyn.  He must have sensed my gaze on him, for he turned and half-smiled at me, as if he were unsure how I would react to him.

I wasn’t sure, myself, how I should react to him.  I chose to ignore the awkward lump in my belly and slid into my seat, where Maura was already sliding a fried egg onto my plate.  I smiled at her in thanks.

“Speaking of chickens,” Maura said, breaking the silence, and sliding another fried egg onto a piece of toast on Devin’s plate.  “Today’s a good day to be cleaning out the coop, if you’ll give us a hand, Devin.”

Devin nodded, biting into the toast and licking egg yolk off of his fingers.  It was a homey, comfortable gesture.  “I can do that.”

I smiled, pleased at the thought of working side-by-side with Devin for a whole day, no matter how dirty and smelly I knew cleaning a chicken coop out was.  Nothing, I figured, could be much further from Faerie than chicken droppings.  I almost snorted my tea at the thought.

Maura gave me a meaningful look and tilted her head towards the brown paper package on the counter.

Suddenly, I felt very shy.  I shifted back and forth in my seat, feeling like a child again.  I took a big swallow of tea to hide my discomfort.  With a deep breath to steady myself I retrieved the package from the counter and set it on the table in front of Devin.

Devin raised his eyebrows at me.

“It’s for you,” I said in a rush.

He furrowed his brow deeply.  “But--” He laughed, “how did you know?”

It was my turn to look puzzled.  “Know what?”

Maura hid a smile in her tea and I turned to her.  “Know what, Maura?”

Devin laughed.  “Well, that’s funny… Meg, it’s my birthday.”

I gaped at him, unable to believe it.

“Surely you know Maura enough by now to know she’d set her own son to cleaning out a chicken coop on his birthday.”

Maura swatted at Devin and he ducked, playfully.

Still chuckling to himself, he pulled at the string around the package.  He unfolded my blanket and the smile left his face.  He looked stunned, silent, as he ran his fingers lightly over the simple repeated pattern.  He stroked the soft wool and brought it up to his nose, breathing in the delicate scent of the detergent we had fulled the blanket in.

“It’s beautiful,” he said quietly.  “Thank you, Meg.”  He looked up into my face.

I smiled back at him, my heart squeezing in my chest to see him there with the blanket pulled against his chest. 

“Now you can never truly be rid of me,” I teased, knowing as soon as the words were out of my mouth that they were the wrong ones for me to say.

Devin flinched, but he smiled through it.  “It’s beautiful,” he repeated.  “I will always treasure it.”  He stared into my eyes, his whole face so serious.  “Always.”

Devin’s birthday, as it so happened, fell on the equinox.  Learning this struck my heart for pain on his account.  His father had been killed on the morning of his tenth birthday.  It didn’t seem fair, to have to live his life, not only feeling guilty for something that wasn’t his fault, but also that the anniversary of his father’s death fell on his birthday.

We spent the day, as I expected, scrubbing out the old chicken coop.  It was a cute little outbuilding, designed to look like a miniature version of the cottage that Maura lived in.

We first penned the chickens up in their yard, locking them away from the coop, all except a broody hen who was sitting on a clutch of eggs.  Devin said that they were due to hatch any day.  I gave her wide berth, knowing from painful experience how violent broody hens could be.

My dad had always called broody hens ‘throwbacks to dinosaurs’.  I smiled at the memory.

We set to shoveling out dirty straw and carting it off to the compost pile, where it was mixed in to the existing compost.  It was a dirty and smelly job, but Devin made it fun somehow.

Once the straw was emptied from the coop, we scrubbed out the whole building, other than the corner where the hen set, with brown floor soap that Maura, naturally, had made herself.  The soap was very strong and stung my hands and made my nose itch, despite the lavender that was dried within it.

Once the coop was washed thoroughly, we filled it back up with clean straw.  Then it was time for the outside.  The whole building had to be sanded down for a new coat of paint.  I had always like scrubbing and sanding.  It was vigorous exercise, and satisfying to scrape away the old paint and chips of dried wood.

We paused at lunchtime to picnic, feasting on veggies from the garden, and sandwiches on Maura’s homemade bread, and then it was time to paint.

Maura had chosen a soft gray paint for the building, with white trim.  Maura filled the window boxes with flowers, completing the impression that it was a real house.  These touches created a soft, quaint look. It was the kind of coop that would be at home in a public place, not just nestled into a hill on a farm, out of sight.

The coop was just another testament of how Maura lived, with attention to detail, wreathed in beauty.  I hoped to be like her, when I had my life a little more figured out.

We scrubbed up, had a simple dinner, and threw ourselves in front of the fireplace to rest-- all except Maura, who somehow found the energy to set to work on her loom.

She glanced over at me, with my idle hands.  I didn’t know what to do with them, now that my project was completed.

Devin, under his blanket, which gave me a shiver of delight to see him with, smiled at me.  “I know that look,” he said, nodding towards his mother.  “She’s about to set you to work.”

“Nonsense,” Maura protested.  “I was just thinking that every woman should know how to knit, if only to keep her hands busy.”

“My dad taught me how to knit when I was younger,” I confessed.

Maura grinned.  “There are needles in the box next to the loom.”  She pointed.  “You have free reign with my yarns, of course.”

Grinning with pleasure at her generosity, I went to dig in the box, which was full of different sizes of knitting needles.  I did wonder, as I sifted through the box, if the soft yarn would snag on my rough and blistered hands.

“Do you want a set?” I teased Devin.

He groaned lazily.  “Not me.  I’ve done enough today, thank you.  I intend fully to sit back here and watch the two of you work without a single pang of guilt for my laziness.”

He did looked relaxed, I realized.