The Chocolatier's Wife (93 page)

“Your aunt’s
mentor was right.
‘Tis
not much to look
at,
at all.”

It
looked
like
a
stone
such
as
one
might
find in
any
quarry,
a
shard
of gr
a
y-blue
limestone
or
perhaps
shale.
Squared
off,
so
it
would
fit with
its neighbors.

“Does it feel special?”

“Aye.
It
feels
quite
uncomfortable;
‘tis
taking
much
of
my
will
to
keep
from
thro
w
ing it away.
And
it feels angry.
Very
angry.”

He
grabbed
an
old
coat
from
the
pile
and wrapped
it
in
it.
“We
have
to get rid
of it.”

“Why
not
leave
it
here?
No
one
could
possibly
know
where
it
is.
He
obviously doesn’t,
and
he shall be forced to give up eventually.”

“Do you know
why I
left the sea?”

This
change took
her aback
a
little.
“It
was
a
bit
of
a
surprise, but
I
thought
you
were
just
tired
of
it
and wanted to do something different?”

He
looked
at
the
bundle
in
his
hands. “Perhaps
it’s
better,
for
you
to think that.”
He
unwrapped
the
stone
enough
to
touch
it.
“It
doesn’t
feel angry. It
feels
warm, ge
n
tle.
It
seems
to
be
saying
that
it
likes
me,
that
it wants
to
go
to
the
sea.”
He
wrapped
it
again
and
thrust
it
at
her.
She
took
it reluctantly, but was glad to feel that the shield worked.

“A
storm
hit
us.
The
one
I
mentioned
earlier,
and
a
lot
of
men
died. We
lost
two
of
our
masts,
and
just
as
it
was
calming
and
we
thought
we had
survived,
a
yard
arm
broke
off
the
final
mast,
and
it
swept
three
of
us overboard.
I
was caught under it,
and
it pulled me deeper into the ocean.”

He
looked
at
the
bundle
in her
hands
,
and
said,
“I thought
I
was
dead.
I remember
thinking
it,
as
I
slipped
deeper
into
the
cold
waters,
that
I
heard the
voice
of
the
sea.
She
would
let
me
go,
she
said,
but
next
time
I
would be
hers.
A
hallucination,
no
doubt,
and
when
I
awoke,
I
was
laying
on
my deck.
It
was considered quite a
miracle that I
revived
at all.”

He
shrugged.
“The
damage
to
the
ship
gave
me
an excuse
to
get
into port,
and,
a
f
ter
that,
I
realized
that
I
could
not
get
over
the
idea
that
if
I
ever went
to
sea
again,
I
would
never
see
land
again.
I
managed
to
force
myself to
take
one
final
voyage,
but
it
was
not
something
I
could
ever
find
the strength
to
do
again,
because
her
voice
never
really
left
me.
With
that
stone that
you
hold
in
your
hands, well,
that
would
no
longer
be
a
worry, would it?
I
fear
the
temptation
to
use
it
would
be
far more
than
I
could
take.
And though
I
have
always
tried
to
be
a
good
man, I’ve
never had
a
convincing reason
to try my hand
at being an
evil one.”

She
gave
him
a
smile,
but
it
didn’t
take,
quite.
The
idea
that
he
had
been so
close
to
death
froze
her
heart.
“Are
you
saying
some
morning I
might wake
up
and
find
you
gone?
But
what
harm
could
come
of
it,
you
being
on the sea again
if you love it so?”

“The
Pandora
was
a
merchant
ship,
too,
once.
That
was
why
she
was
so horrifying.
She was one of us,
and
she turned pirate.”

“You would never
abuse your power.”

“Let’s not find
out.”

She
placed
it
on
the
bed,
then
took
his
hand
and
led
him
out
to
the kitchen.
The door shut again,
disappearing back
into the masonry.

“Why didn’t
you
ever
tell
me?” she
asked
as
she
went
to
look
in
on
the sprites. The basket was beginning to sway on
the chain.

“Because it makes
me feel like a
coward.”

She
snorted.
“You’d
fallen
into
the
water
before
and been
terribly injured.”

“But
none
of
those
times
did
the
sea
whisper
my
name in
my
ears
as
if welcoming me home.”

She
felt
as
if
someone
had
walked
cold
fingers
up
her
back,
and
she turned
to
say
something,
perhaps
along
the
lines
of, “Are
you
mad?”
when she heard a
squeak
from
the basket.

The
basket
began
vibrating
in
earnest,
and
the
towel
flew off
of
it,
and the
basket
fell
off
the
hook
and
rolled
around
the
floor.
Gusts
of
air
ripped through the place, slamming
through cupboards.

Her
worry
evaporated
into
joy.
“You’re
right!
They’re
fine!”
She
raised her
fingers
and
let
the
sprites
dance
through
them.
She
could
no
longer see
them,
and
that
was
perfectly
fine with
her.
She’d
gotten
used
to
them being
invisible;
she
could
see
them,
sense
them
by
other
means.
Right now she was feeling them pat her face, cuddle against her shoulders, bury themselves in her hair and against her neck, b
e
fore they flew
away.

“I was
worried
about
you,”
he
said
softly
to
a
sprite,
his
face
turned towards
his
shoulder.
“I
would
have
missed
you.”
He
turned
his
attention
to her.
“Every
night
I hear
an
odd
humming
sound
on
the pillows
next
to
me. I
think they
have
taken to
sleeping
on
the
pillow
next
to
my
head.
Rather pleasant company,
really.”