by Mia Sheridan
“What?” Jonah rasped.
“He was shooting. You saw a bomb. Everyone else was diving for cover. Running away. Why did you run toward him? What made you do that?”
“Why? Because . . . I don’t know.”
“Jonah—"
“No, Clara.” She heard him shift, sit up perhaps, gather himself. “I know where your mind is going, and you think far too highly of me if you’re suggesting I was being heroic. It was just a reaction, not a choice. I didn’t even think about it.”
“Maybe that’s what makes it truly heroic.”
He laughed, but it was cold and sharp like the uneven stones that poked at her back causing her to shift in discomfort when they dug too deep. “You want to believe that, but it isn’t true.”
Clara sighed. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but can’t you give yourself a little bit of grace? You made some bad choices and the result . . . well, it’s all so tragic. But you didn’t intend for any of that to happen. You didn’t know. How could you? Murray Ridgley is the true monster of this story. Not you.”
“There can be more than one monster, Clara.” But his tone had softened and there was something in it that hadn’t been there before, though she couldn’t tell exactly what that might be.
Maybe, she thought. Maybe we were all some shade of monstrous given the right circumstances. “You’re not all bad, Jonah,” she whispered. He’d done bad things, but the results had been unintentional, and he’d suffered for them. Still. He let himself suffer for them. He made himself suffer for them. She knew he did. And he’d relentlessly held on to that suffering for eight long years, and from the sounds of it, planned to forever.
“Is anyone?” he asked, and then laughed, an ironic sound she didn’t understand.
“No, perhaps not, but I believe there’s redemption for those who truly want it. Who work to achieve it.”
“Oh, Clara, you’re naïve. There’s no redemption for me. Do you know what happened when I left the hospital? There was a crowd outside, and they yelled and spit on me as Myrtle wheeled me out of the door.”
She had momentarily bristled at being called naïve, but that was quickly replaced with sorrow. Her heart ached and she closed her eyes, hanging her head at the vision his memory evoked in her mind. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you experienced that at a time you must have been in terrible pain. I’m sorry people were cruel to you when you were injured and grief-stricken and in need of love, not judgment.”
“Why? I deserved it. And I accepted it. I was the face of the trial, and I was the face of the carnage later. And what a recognizable face it is.”
“Is that why you stay behind this wall? Because people will see your scars and recognize you? Because you’re worried they’ll be cruel again?”
He was silent for a long moment as though he wasn’t quite sure how to answer the question. “It’s just better this way.”
“I don’t believe that.” Clara wasn’t sure at which point during his telling of the story she’d decided to offer him grace from up close rather than from far away, but she realized very suddenly that whenever it had happened, she had.
The conviction wrapped around her and made her spine straighten as though an invisible cord had somehow been roped around her and connected to him. It pulled tight and she rose onto her knees and turned toward the wall so that her mouth was pressed against one of the whisper-thin gaps. “I believe you deserve grace, Jonah Chamberlain.”
The rough stone was abrasive against the soft skin of her lips but despite that, she pressed even closer, hoping somehow she could breathe that grace through the tiny opening and over to the other side where her broken wish collector sat, despairing and in pain. Alone. “I believe—”
She felt moisture on her cheek and drew back, tipping her head to look up at the rain. But the sky above her was bright blue and cloudless, not a raindrop in sight.
Clara looked at the wall again as more water droplets ran slowly down the stone face. She sucked in a startled breath. It’s weeping! “Jonah,” Clara exclaimed, pressing her palms against the damp rock. “The wall is weeping.”
A sweeping joy raced through her, a hopefulness filled with awe that caused her to laugh out loud. “Do you see it? Is it weeping on your side as well?”
“Yes.” The place where her lips had just been pressed was suddenly shadowed and she saw the rosy tint of his mouth through the stony gap. Unbidden, she brought her finger to the spot and though the wall was too thick and the gap too thin for her to touch him, she felt the exhale of his warm breath and tingly goosebumps prickled every inch of her skin.
“Jonah . . . “ she whispered, the feeling dreamy and strange. She didn’t understand it and yet she wanted more of it. She dropped her hand, replacing her finger with her lips and breathing his name again, their breath mingling.
For a moment they only breathed together and she closed her eyes, picturing them as they must appear from above, their bodies in the same position, pressing toward each other, the barrier of the wall separating them. It was the most intimate moment Clara had ever experienced.
The wall’s tears ran over her cheeks and into the corners of her open mouth. She darted her tongue out to taste them and laughed. “It’s salty, Jonah.” Just like real tears. Angelina’s tears.
Sadness mingled with the joy coursing through Clara’s heart, the wonder of the sight of the wall weeping dampened by the memory that the legend said the wall would only stop weeping when Angelina was set free.
Perhaps Clara couldn’t set Angelina free. Perhaps the wall wept for reasons other than magic or legend that Clara couldn’t explain. But Jonah Chamberlain was very real, and maybe she could help set him free from his self-appointed isolation. Perhaps she could help do good here at Windisle Plantation after all.
“Meet me, Jonah,” she whispered through stone, over his lips.
“What?” he croaked. “Why?”
She drew back slightly so she could speak more easily, immediately missing the intimacy of their mouths being so close. A kiss, only not. “Because you can trust me. Because I’m your friend. I know you have scars. I know it’s . . . hard for you. I understand. I do. But if you take the first step, if you come out from behind this wall, just for a short time, I’ll be there to do it with you.”
Hope soared in Clara’s chest. She hadn't felt this type of overwhelming joy in years, not since before her dad got sick. Time is so precious. She had learned that it should never be wasted. Sometimes there wouldn’t be a second chance.
"Meet me. Come out from behind the wall and meet me,” she repeated.
He drew away too, and Clara could practically feel the tension and the indecision pouring off of him. “I can’t.”
“You can. Jonah, you can.” She thought about asking to go inside, but somehow Clara felt that it was more important that he come out. Maybe after that, he’d invite her inside of his personal sanctuary, maybe eventually she’d be allowed to see Windisle rather than only hear the description. But this was for him, and she believed if Jonah stepped outside, just once, he’d see that he didn’t have to live the life of a trapped monster. And maybe he could begin to forgive himself.
Angelina would never live again. But Clara’s wish collector could. And she would help him do it. “You can,” she whispered with all the conviction in her heart.
Clara stood and watched the shadows move through the cracks in the wall as Jonah stood too. They were pressed against opposite sides of the wall again, only this time, the entirety of their bodies.
A warm tingle moved over Clara’s skin and she swallowed. “I get out of rehearsal at nine this Thursday night. There's a park only about a mile from here with a fountain and a few benches. Do you know it?”
“Yes,” he said haltingly.
“Meet me there. I’ll wait by the fountain. There’s never anyone else there when I go by it on the way here. It’ll be late, and it’ll only be me.”
“Clara, I—"
“Please.
I’ll be waiting for you. All you have to do is join me.”
He was silent for several long moments before he let out a loud whoosh of air. "Okay."
Clara grinned, such intense happiness rushing through her that it turned into a joyful laugh. "Yes? Okay," she said, backing away before he changed his mind. She’d order her Uber from down the block. "See you then. See you then, wish collector,” she called.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
November, 1860
The cool autumn breeze flowed over Angelina’s bare skin, causing her to shiver slightly, though her lips remained tipped upward in happiness. She felt John’s mouth on her shoulder, his lips warm and soft as he kissed her there, nipping softly as she laughed.
The old bed springs squeaked as she turned into the cradle of his arms, trailing one finger over his smooth jaw and then nuzzling her lips where her finger had been. Under the blankets she felt him stir again and smiled against his skin. “I have to get back,” she whispered.
He groaned, pulling her closer. “Just a few more minutes.”
She hesitated, wanting nothing more than to spend the rest of the day hidden away in that empty cabin with him, but knowing every minute she was away was a moment they were risking being caught. “I want to, John, but—”
“I know,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the lips and sitting up. She followed suit, turning and reaching for her dress where it lay discarded on the floor. One of the buttons was hanging loose. She’d need to repair it later.
My, but John had been in a hurry to get it off of me. She smiled again at the very recent memory of their lovemaking.
Behind her, John’s hand moved slowly down her back and when she glanced over her shoulder, the look on his face was reverent as though the feel of her mesmerized him. “Someday we’re going to have all the time in the world together,” he murmured. “Someday we’re not going to have to worry about who catches us, or who knows we’re together.” His voice was hushed, introspective as though he almost didn’t realize he was speaking aloud.
“That will be nice,” she answered, standing as his hand fell away. Nice? What an understatement. Glorious, more like.
She knew they were playing a game of what if, but it felt too good not to participate. What if . . . oh, what if he could be hers to fall asleep with and wake up to? To walk hand in hand down the street . . . to eat meals with and marry and— She cut off the thought as she pulled on her dress, turning back to him where he still sat on the bed, his bare golden skin shining in the dusky light filtering through the burlap curtains.
She was willing to play what if, but if her mind spun too far, the game became painful. Angelina knew very well how important limits were, though looking at John’s naked chest now reminded her she’d surpassed several already. A chill went down her spine, and this time it had nothing to do with the cool air flowing through the cabin.
“Come here,” he said, seeming to read her sudden melancholy. He pulled her to him and held her, stroking her back for a moment before letting her go and pulling on his own clothes.
He stood before her, taking her upper arms in his hands. “We are going to find a way. I don’t care if we have to travel to some other continent and live in a cave in the desert.”
She laughed and his eyes twinkled, but in truth, that might be their only true option. Still . . . a cave, with John, all to herself, day and night . . .
“Or a den under a massive oak tree.” She’d seen that once, watched a whole family of rabbits hop right down a hole in the ground. She’d been jealous of them, truth be told. How peaceful it must be down there. How utterly safe. “We’ll string a hammock from the roots to sleep in, and eat acorns for dinner.”
John laughed, but she perceived the note of sadness in his smile. He twisted a finger into one of her curls, pulling on it slightly and then watching as it sprang back. For a moment, his eyes filled with wonder as if her hair were some form of miracle he’d never known existed. “There’s a place for us, Angelina. Somewhere in this wide, wide world. Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she whispered with all the conviction in her pure and gentle heart. “Yes.”
They kissed for long minutes, for centuries, for eons, and it wasn’t enough, but Angelina knew their time was ticking. She felt it in her blood as if she carried some sort of internal clock that was counting down the hours and moving toward some unknown ending. Please let it be a good one, she thought. Please, please.
She left John in the cabin, his hair mussed and his lips red from her kisses, and hurried back toward the house, the basket of vegetables slung over her arm.
She entered the kitchen breathlessly, placing the basket on the counter. “Hello, Mama.” Angelina smiled but her mother didn’t smile back, returning her gaze to the potato in her hand, the knife moving swiftly over the skin, which dropped into the basket at her feet in long strips.
“You need to be careful, Lina.”
Angelina’s blood chilled, but she did her best to appear unaffected, removing the vegetables from the basket and placing them on the counter. “I’m always careful, Mama.”
Her mother stood, her deep-brown, knowing eyes moving over Angelina’s face then down her body, landing on the loose button and lingering before meeting Angelina’s gaze again. Angelina felt heat infuse her skin and unconsciously she reached for the button, fiddling with it for a moment before letting go, her hand dropping heavily to her side.
Her mama looked at the vegetables sitting on the counter and reached for one, picking up a yellow squash and turning it over before setting it down again. “Seems you forgotten recently when a vegetable be ripe for the pickin’ and when it not. Funny since you been pickin’ since you be a chil’.”
“I’ve been tired, Mama. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
Her mama eyed her, and Angelina swore she saw fear in her mama’s eyes, mixed in with the disapproval. “We all tired, Lina.” She turned away. “Know who to trust.” She turned back to her, her eyes glittering as if with tears. Angelina stilled. She’d never seen her mother cry, not once in all of her life. “And who not to trust.”
Her mother picked up the knife again and continued with her work as Angelina unpacked the rest of the basket, filled with the half-ripe vegetables John had chosen, obviously in his haste to get to her.
She couldn’t help the small smile that teased at her lips. She looked at her beautiful mother, took in the ebony smoothness of her skin, the high, proud bones of her face, the wide-set eyes that seemed to see everything, and understand it on a level others did not. “Did you love him, Mama?”
Her mother didn’t glance her way as she answered, and she didn’t pretend not to know who Angelina asked about. “Love? There ain’t no place for love here.”
But her mama was wrong. Angelina loved. And Elijah’s mama had loved him. She’d wailed like a wild woman when she’d seen him strung up in that tree, and it’d torn Angelina’s heart in half. And though she didn’t express it often, Angelina knew her own mama loved her too, despite whether there was a “place” for that love or not. No, Angelina didn’t think love worked that way. “Love makes a place for itself even if there isn’t one, Mama,” she said quietly. “Love carves into the hardest of places.”
Mama Loreaux halted in her peeling again, the sharpness of her gaze piercing Angelina, as stripping as that knife she held expertly in her calloused hands. “That kina talk gone get you hurt or worse.”
She set the knife down on the counter with a harsh clack, turning her narrow shoulders toward her daughter. “No, I did not love your father, and he did not love me. We made you on the floor o’ the cellar while his wife was havin’ herself a fine tea party in the parlor. He got the idea to lift my skirts while I was puttin’ the canned beets away, and I let him do it ‘cause things easier that way.”
Her eyes narrowed, but then she let out a long sigh, her gaze softening very slightly. “He ain’t a cruel man, and he ain’t all bad neither, but he gone choose his real family ove
r you any time, any day. You can talk fancy like them, and you can love all you want, but they ain’t never gone love you back the same way, and they ain’t never gone think a you as one a them. You got that?”
Angelina stared at her mother’s regal face, picturing the scene in the cellar she’d just described, picturing the damp, musty floor where she’d come to be. She flushed, looking away, not knowing how to feel about what she’d just learned, hurt welling up inside of her.
What had she imagined? That her father secretly loved her mother? That to him, Angelina and her mama were special somehow though he couldn’t show it lest his wife be angered? That because he’d rocked her on his knee and called her his little hummingbird, he loved her as much as his other children? Yes, she supposed she had. It had made her feel . . . worthy in a world where she was no such thing.
Heaviness descended upon her. But then she thought of John. She thought of how different things were between her and John than the way her mother had described what happened with her father. Their coupling was not a quick interlude on a dirty cellar floor. Their time together was spent in soft touches and shared laughter, with sacred promises and woven dreams. And the comparison gave her a resurgence of hope. Do you trust me? he’d asked. Yes, she’d answered, and she’d meant it. She’d meant it with her whole heart. They would find a way. Despite that there was no “place” for love between them, despite that the whole world was against them, or so it seemed. They would find a way. They would. Because where there was love, there was always, always hope.
Angelina turned away from her mother, but she felt the heat of her worried gaze on her back nonetheless, prickling her skin as if she’d stepped too close to a flame and was about to be burned.