In the Land of Tea and Ravens (17 page)

~27~

This girl, this dutiful woman, lived in a no man’s land surrounded by ravens. She made tea, and she liked to run. She had a sweet voice that could enchant the devil, and she’d met a villain. He wasn’t an evil villain, this man. He’d made mistakes he was bound to live with, but the girl had made mistakes, too. This girl and her villain were broken, the two of them brought together by a strange tea party with the dead.

~The Tea Girl~

Grayson always kept his promises. He’d awoken the next morning when Lyric did, the two of them sharing a quick cup of tea before they parted. She was off to see the dawn, and Grayson was off to work. The summer would end soon, the state overtaken by chilly breezes and changing leaves. There was still time for that. Summer in the South didn’t truly end until October, but Lyric would leave before then. She’d be gone before September ate August, and Grayson was feeling the loss.

Freddie Graham was climbing on to a tractor when Grayson topped the hill.

The man froze mid-climb. “You’re
lookin
’ good,” Freddie declared.

Grayson smiled. “It’s been a restful few days.”

Freddie slapped him on the back.
“Good, ’cause I could use some o’ your energy.”

Grayson moved past him toward the barn, his gaze going over his shoulder. “Where’s Daniel?”

Freddie shrugged. “Said there was
somethin
’ your granddaddy needed from town.”

Grayson paused, an odd trickle of unease sliding down his spine. A run to town wasn’t out of the ordinary, but it seemed wrong that Daniel would be absent the day Grayson returned to work after the reaction he’d received from the man the day before.

“From town?”

Freddie had started to climb once more on to the tractor, but something about Grayson’s tone made him pause. “You all right?”

Grayson didn’t answer. He walked toward the house instead, the barn forgotten.

“Hey!” Freddie shouted. “Where are you going?”

Grayson kept walking, his apprehension growing. His head told him there was nothing to worry about. His instincts told him there was something wrong.

Freddie abandoned the tractor and jogged to catch up to Grayson. “What’s
goin
’ on?”

Grayson glanced at him. “How long has Daniel been gone?”

Freddie glanced at a watch on his wrist.
“Maybe an hour?”
They’d reached the house. “Why?”

Grayson shoved the kitchen door open, the force slamming it against the wall, the sound startling a hunched Mildred Kramer where she stood at the stove.

“What in God’s
na
—”

Grayson glared at her. “Where’s Daniel,
Mamaw
?”

Mildred stiffened, her gaze passing between the two men, her expression shuttered. “He ran an errand for me.”

Grayson watched her, his blue gaze taking in the way her eyes widened, her nostrils flaring. He’d learned a lot about reading other’s people’s expressions while in prison; it had been a necessary survival skill.

Freddie’s brows furrowed. “Daniel told me he was
doin
’
somethin
’ for John.”

His face stormy, Grayson approached his grandmother and leaned in close. “Where’s Daniel?”

She swallowed, her wrinkled hands pushing at the spectacles on her nose. “He had business in town.”

The niggling sense of doubt he’d felt before grew, suspicion taking root in his gut. His heart rate climbed, his gaze going to the door. “You’re lying,” he hissed.

A loud roaring sound rose from the fields beyond the house followed by revving motors and distant shouts. Grayson froze, his eyes swinging to his grandmother. The color had leeched from her face.

Terror gripped Grayson. “What have you done?” he whispered.

“Grayson—”

He faced her. “What have you done?” he bellowed, his words almost shaking the house.

She wrung her hands. “I couldn’t let her take you away from me …” She started to reach for him and stopped. “Grayson, I just couldn’t let her take you.” A tear slid down her cheek. “We’ve already lost so much. This family has lost too much!”

Numb anger overwhelmed him. “This family!” he shouted. “What about hers?” He shook his head, disappointment overwhelming him, his hand gesturing at the room. “These walls used to hold champions. You were always my hero, you and Papaw. What happened?”

She stared at him. “There’s been so much death …”

The guilt he’d managed to let go of the past few days came stumbling back into him. That was the thing about guilt: some people let you forget it while others made you live with it.

“Shit!” Freddie screamed from the open doorway, his gaze flying to Grayson. “They’re going to demolish the Miller place!”

Grayson’s heart dropped, his gaze snapping to Mildred’s. “Lyric,” he breathed.

“They won’t hurt her!” Mildred cried. She shook her fist. “She needs to leave! She’s been here long enough. She’s stolen too much!”

Grayson’s gaze met hers, the coldness in his stare startling. “What has she stolen,
Mamaw
?” He
laughed,
the sound half-crazed.
“Except maybe my heart.
She was never here to hurt anyone.” He backed toward the door. “She was only here to heal.”

“You haven’t known her long enough to love her!” she cried.

Grayson paused. “I’ve had years in prison to learn that sometimes time means less than experience.”

“Grayson!”
Freddie cried.

Grayson spun, his feet carrying him to the door.

Mildred followed him. “They won’t hurt her!”

The trucks beyond the house grew louder, more menacing.

“Dear God!” Freddie gasped.

“They won’t hurt her,” Mildred whispered.

Grayson stepped free of the kitchen, his gaze going across the fields. Townspeople were gathered on the Miller lawn, bulldozers and other equipment pulling down the lane, tossing up dirt and years of fury.

“They can’t—” Grayson began. He froze, his heart dropping to his feet, his blood freezing, realization dawning. “No!”

“It’s just a house,” Mildred said.

“The cup,” Grayson hissed. He couldn’t
breathe,
his chest so tight he wasn’t sure his lungs could work.
“The cup!”

Grayson hadn’t owned a cell phone since prison, and he’d never seen Lyric with one, but he wanted one now.

“The cup!” he screamed.

The cup, Lyric’s
life
, was
inside
of that house. He’d been the one to ask her to stay, to explore this strange chemistry between them. If anything happened to the cup, or to her, it would be his fault. He took off at a run, his legs knocking over a potted plant just outside of the door, the clay shattering.

The cup! He had to get to the cup!

Machines beeped, the sound followed by shouting.

The cup!

Running had never seemed so important. It didn’t matter that his lungs burned. It didn’t matter that he looked insane, his face twisted, his eyes full of desperation.

“The cup!”
His screams were loud and tyrannical, frantic and crazed.

Faces rose, gazes meeting his across the fields, their mouths and eyes widening.

Grayson kept running and yelling, his throat burning, his lungs on fire, his eyes watering.

“You can’t!” he yelled.

Robert Smith, Bridget’s father, glanced up from the bulldozer where he sat, his narrowed gaze on Grayson. The machines were too loud, Grayson’s screams lost on the wind, the words torn away from him, but they knew what he was doing. They knew! They saw the intent in the way he moved.

He waved his arms and begged them to stop.

They kept moving forward, the vehicles primed to destroy.

“The cup!”
Grayson panted.

He was close enough now he could see the cars parked along the road. Curious onlookers
mingled,
riotous glee in their eyes.

Blue lights flashed, Richard Newton’s patrol car idling on the edge of the lawn. Leaning against the door—her back to the house, her hands handcuffed behind her, and her head down—was Lyric. There was something tragic about her shoulders, a calm defiance and sagging acceptance.
Above her, perched in the trees, sat the ravens.

Machines roared, the sound setting Grayson’s blood on fire.

Shoving through the crowd, he wrestled his way to the house, his body thrown between it and the bulldozers.

Shouts rose into the sky, angry yells embracing him. Behind him, despite all of the noise, the rocking chair on the porch moved.
Creak
, the chair said.
Creak.

No one noticed it, but Grayson did. The sound made him bolder, his head lifting, his chin rising, a gaze full of rage meeting the men on the bulldozers.

“It’d be best if you moved,” Robert Smith called down.

Grayson’s gaze met his, his defiance cold and unrelenting. This wasn’t about a house. This was about Lyric’s life. This was about a woman, who in a matter of weeks, had managed to change him in a way no one else had. Her loneliness ate away at the armor he’d once erected around himself.

Despite the situation, he found himself laughing, the sound mad.

Lyric was reliving her family’s story. She was the tea girl, a woman with no true name, no true place in life other than this strange affinity she had with tea. She’d healed him with the brew, the same way Mercy had healed her king.

Jealousy had left the family forever tied them to a teacup, and now bitterness was going to kill them.

He was falling in love with her.

Most people thought love was supposed to be this beautiful, amazing experience, full of nothing except laughter, joy, and happily ever
afters
. True love wasn’t about the good times. Those were too easy. True love hurt. True love healed.

Something real had sparked between Lyric and Grayson, something real and painful and terrifying, and he’d be damned if it ended this way. He’d be damned if it ended before it really had a chance to begin.

“Grayson!” a woman screamed.

His grandmother’s voice shook, full of
a despair
so stark, it cut through his flesh. The scar on Grayson’s chest throbbed, his gaze meeting the faces of the mob dead on, his shoulders thrown back, his feet rooted to the ground.

His jaw tensed.

“Don’t make me arrest you, Grayson Kramer!” Sheriff Newton called.

Grayson’s gaze met his. Taking a step backward, he edged defiantly toward the house.

“For God’s sake!”
Henry Calhoun yelled from his perch on the second bulldozer. “Just arrest him already!”