Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down

by Stone, Danika

  “I told him I would consider his offer,” she answered.

  “Consider it?” There was indignation in every line of his face. His hands reached out, taking her by the arms and dragging her forward. “You promised ME!”

  The accusation was a lash against bare skin.

  “I HAD to!” she yelped. “My mother KNEW he asked me! She… she… insisted I think of things. Think of the future of my sisters and—”

  “And what of OUR future?”

  His eyes were wild and panicked, another lash of the whip. Thomas had spent every spare hour the last four months working endless odd jobs, trying to save money for passage to America. There, he said, they could start again. It would be their beginning. There it wouldn’t matter that they had not a single haypenny between them.

  “I… I cannot WAIT any longer!” she cried.

  His hands were tight around her arms, holding her in place. Shackling her.

  “What of how you FEEL, Ava? What of that?”

  “It does not matter what I feel!” she sobbed. “Not when we cannot—”

  “It does!” he interrupted. “Does he make you feel like I do? Do you love Jon like you love me?”

  “Thomas, please.”

  He pulled her forward, his mouth angling nearer.

  “You tell me THIS doesn’t matter,” he growled.

  Ava moaned as the sensation of his mouth against her breast became too sharp, pain mingling with pleasure. She let her head thud against the wall, her body quaking under each brush of his fingers over her hip, between her thighs.

  “Please,” she gasped, her mind still caught on the ghostly-memory of sitting in the rain, Cole’s mouth overtop hers.

  At her plea, he released her nipple, sliding up against her, fingers threading into her wet hair. Her chest was tight with something… throat aching. The room was almost white with steam, his face hazy as he reached her lips.

  “Please what?” he whispered, his hips against hers, leaning closer.

  She wrapped her arms over his shoulders.

  “Kiss me like you mean it.”

  Suddenly Thomas was kissing her, his mouth hard against her lips. Gone were the chaste summer kisses in the lane behind the church. These were wanton and needful, a man’s kisses, not a boy’s. Ava gaped in shock. In a second his tongue was pushing into her mouth, dipping in to taste her, his fingers sliding into her hair, shoving back the cowl of the cloak in his haste. The rain against both their faces.

  The sound of the shower pounded like the rain, heat slowly spreading between them. His mouth was against her, kissing her breath away. Their teeth and tongues were rough as they came together, need burning away the last of the chill. They were both out of breath when Cole pulled back, his teeth grazing the edge of her jaw, biting her skin and then suckling her earlobe.

  “Love you, Ava,” Cole growled, his mouth hovering above the shell of her ear. “Always…”

  “Love you too,” she panted.

  In the last minutes, his fingers had finally warmed, lighting a path of fire where they touched her. He slid his hands underneath her, pinning her against the wall. Scrabbling for purchase, Ava hitched a leg over his hip as his body held her in place, connection nearing.

  “Tell me what you want,” Cole growled against her open lips, punctuating his words with kisses.

  She moaned in response. She could feel the heat of his body pressing against her, close but not joined.

  “Tell me,” he insisted, kissing her, then pulling back to look at her. “I want to hear it.”

  In the steam of the shower, his hair looked longer, flattened against his face like a cap. A wave of déjà vu had risen inside her, leaving her trembling, but not with cold.

  “I… I want you,” she whispered.

  The kiss was reckless and rough, months of suppressed desires suddenly released. Ava found herself moving into it – every hissed warning by her mother forgotten in an onslaught of need. She ran eager hands over his shoulders, the sodden cloak wrapping half over him as he tugged her onto his lap on the dock. She wouldn’t think anymore. Wouldn’t decide. She would just let herself feel… to follow her heart this time and nothing else. Even the rain no longer felt so cold.

  ‘Not with Cole here…’

  She blinked in confusion. For a moment it seemed that she was somewhere else entirely, and then the feeling was gone. This was Thomas – ‘my Thomas’ – and he was kissing her – really kissing her – for the first time. He stroked her face, his eyes intent on hers, his gaze holding her in place.

  “Tell me what you want of me, Ava,” he said.

  Again the sensation rose inside her, that feeling that he’d said exactly this sometime before. She took a shaking breath, feeling everything – the rain, his body against her, her mother waiting at home, furious – all poised on this moment. Like a single drop of water poised atop a blade’s edge, able to go one way or the other, the moment shifted slightly. The decision changed.

  “I… I want you.”

  : : : : : : : : : :

  They lay tangled in sheets, the steady patter of the rain outside wrapping them in a staticky buzz. Ava’s face was against Cole’s chest, listening to the steady thump. She ran a nervous hand up his ribs, pausing atop his heart. She should tell him.

  “I uh... I should probably let you know I had a bit of a disagreement with your dad tonight,” she said timidly.

  “You what?” Cole asked, his voice disbelieving.

  “I kind of…” her voice dropped, “told him off.”

  Cole did nothing at all, his whole body waiting silent, and then suddenly he was laughing raucously. Ava felt him shaking with mirth, the sound leaving her smiling.

  “So, uh… that’s okay with you then?” Ava asked, shifting to prop herself next to him on the pillow.

  “Marta keeps telling me I have to start standing up for myself. So I certainly can’t hold it against you.”

  Ava nodded, tipping her face toward him, but he didn’t kiss her right away. He ran his fingers over her face, tracing her features the way he’d done when sculpting her, expression solemn.

  “I love you, Ava,” he said, the palm of his hand resting against the curve of her chin.

  She nodded.

  “Love you too,” she answered, leaning her cheek into his hand. “I’m really glad you’re starting to talk to your dad. Even if it means yelling.”

  Cole nodded, a pained look passing across his features like a cloud blocking the sun.

  “We were talking about the time before Hanna died,” Cole began, his voice growing quiet, “Dad was giving the same old line about everything being great... just bullshit, all of it! This time though... this time I just called him on it. Told him I didn’t agree. That he hadn’t been there enough to even know.”

  Cole’s arms curled around Ava, his face next to her ear, leaning against her as he talked.

  “Dad just kind of freaked out. Refused to hear it. I told him how Mom used to be. About the way she was when he was gone… about her staying in bed all day, crying all the time, not being able to function. And then,” his voice broke, “Marta brought up the term ‘clinical depression’ and Dad just flipped. He started yelling, like totally lost it! He stormed out of the office. God, Ava, I was so upset. Marta wanted me to talk to her… about what had happened with Dad and I tried, but I was so fucking angry. I was yelling too.”

  His words disappeared and he turned his face against her hair. Ava felt his sobs. It was like his chest was ticking as the sound tried to burst out.

  “Shh...” she whispered, hands running up and down his back, face next to his. “It’s okay. You did good, Cole. I’m proud of you. Love you.”

  After a minute, his breathing returned to normal. He rubbed his face with one hand, eyes red.

  “You’re pretty awesome, you know?” he said roughly.

  Ava smiled, laying down against him once more, sleep tugging at her senses.

  “Together, we’re pretty awesome,�
� she answered, lids dropping closed.

  Chapter 14: Messenger

  Cole’s dream started as it always did: he sat next to her body, seconds before her death.

  “I love you, Ava,” he gasped. “I have always loved you... I always will.”

  She didn’t answer, of course; that wasn’t part of the dream. Cole waited for the moment, his gaze on the slant of sunlight in her eyes, like a clear stream slowly dulling with silt. Ava lay still and cold, the shallow rise and fall of her chest slowing with each breath, her hand icy despite the growing warmth of the day. As he watched (as he always did), her eyes dilated outward until they were no longer blue but black, unseeing.

  “No... please, god, no...” he cried. “Don’t leave me.”

  Sobs heaved from his chest, the ache spreading inside him until pain was all he was. He had no shell any longer, nothing to hold back the deluge that drowned him where he knelt. She was gone from him. Lost forever.

  “Hullo…?”

  The voice came from the distant trees. Cole’s face bobbed up at the sound. He’d never dreamt that before. A lone figure appeared in the haze of blue shadows, like a diver slowly rising from the depths. It was a woman coming from further up the beach, her steps slow and steady.

  She cupped her hand around her mouth and called out to him as she reached the tree line.

  “D’you need some help there?”

  Cole sat up, wiping his face with his hands, his heart hammering against the walls of his chest. There was something about the woman’s build, her fair hair – brown on top, but sun-bleached caramel at the bottom of her braid – and her gait as she walked, half-hidden in the shadows of the canopy that had his chest tightening with anticipation.

  “Can I bring you some help?” the woman called.

  ‘It can’t be…’

  “Can she be moved?” she asked, louder now. “There are others up the beach. I could get some’un to help you.”

  Cole laid Ava’s hand back against her chest with trembling fingers. He climbed shakily to his feet, his voice breaking with grief and hope.

  “There’s no point,” he managed to answer. “She’s already gone.”

  The woman stepped forward, her appearance leaving no room for doubt.

  ‘Hanna…’ He’d never dreamt this before. She was new and it terrified him.

  She walked toward him, her eyes on Ava’s stilled form. As she neared, she lifted her eyes to Cole, the expression so exactly his sister it nearly took him to his knees. It was Hanna Thomas as she’d been in life, the light humour and joy in her features so right that it left his throat aching with tears.

  “You came back,” he croaked, eyes brimming with tears of grief for Ava, and joy for his sister’s return. It made no sense, but she was here. She was alive.

  The woman’s face rippled in confusion. She glanced over her shoulder as if expecting someone else to be there. When she turned back, she gave him a sympathetic smile.

  “Others survived,” she said, her brogue the only difference to his sister’s voice. “They’re up there on the beach now.”

  She offered her open palm and Cole reached out unsteadily for his sister’s hand. She closed her fingers around his hand, squeezing three times. ‘I love you…’ Cole opened his mouth to speak, but only a sob came out.

  “You’re not alone,” she said gently, pulling him away from Ava, her fingers tight around his. “There are others who’ve made it to the shore. Come…”

  : : : : : : : : : :

  Ava floated above the field, watching the three figures: two standing, one laying, unmoving, on the ground. The snake and the coins were visible below her, the curve of the river echoing with Delft blue, Davy’s green in the swirl of the sea grass. As she watched, two of the figures turned and walked down the beach, leaving her – in the air, on the grass – alone.

  ‘Wait for me!’ she called. ‘Wait!’

  But her cry was only the wind, her voice lost in the calling of sea birds in the sky.

  : : : : : : : : : :

  Ava woke alone in the charcoal hues of pre-dawn, the bed beside her empty and cold. The room was dimly lit with greenish light coming from the window that overlooked the ocean. Within the window frame there was a silhouette.

  “Cole…?”

  His shadow turned toward her, but didn’t leave his place.

  “Sorry,” he answered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Ava squinted, unnerved by his voice. His voice was slightly different. Thicker somehow, like he’d been coughing or crying.

  “Cole,” she called hesitantly. “Is something wrong?”

  He laughed (or sobbed,) she couldn’t tell, not without seeing his face. He turned back to the window, putting his hand against the pane. Staring out into the slow bloom of dawn.

  “I dreamt about her,” he said brokenly. ‘Crying then,’ her mind observed.

  “About?”

  “About Hanna,” he said, leaning in to the window. Ava realized he was looking out to the cliffs far beyond the beach, where Hanna had defied death by jumping, and Cole had waited for her at the bottom. “I… I haven’t dreamed about her once… not once… since she died.” He shuddered, his forehead pressing against the pane. “But I dreamed of her tonight.”

  Ava slid under the sheets, soft warmth giving way to crisp cold. She took hesitant steps across the room. When she reached the window, Cole dropped a hand down from the glass, reaching out for her with chilled fingers. As with the night before, a hint of memory, hidden in the dark waters of her mind, slid toward the light, like a fish about to surface, fading before she could get a glimpse of what it was. This moment was too pressing, Cole’s pain too sharp.

  “What did you dream?”

  This close, she could see his expression. A smile flickered at the edges of his lips.

  “I dreamed of the field after the storm.” He gazed at her, then back to his vigil at the window. “I dreamed of the snake and the coins.”

  Ava felt the other sense tug once more, moving closer to the shallows of her conscious mind. Her eyebrows pulled together in concentration as she following his line of sight to the seascape and the rocky peaks beyond. There’d been something she’d dreamed too, but every time she pulled it forward, it faded once more.

  “My painting,” she breathed.

  Cole’s fingers tightened around hers.

  “The dream I had after Hanna died. The same one… but this time it didn’t end.”

  Ava turned in shock, her hand slipping out of his fingers, rising in surprise.

  “It didn’t end?” she gasped. “But… but how?”

  Cole's laughed tiredly.

  “I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “But usually it’s the same: me on the grass, and you. But this time, instead of ending, there was more…”

  Cole continued talking but Ava’s mind skittered feverishly with the news. The thing under the water of her mind was very close. She could feel its scales, could run her hand over the shape of it, and she knew its name: Hanna Thomas.

  She’d dreamed her too.

  “…and she took my hand, Ava. She squeezed my fingers the way she did when we were kids.” He took her hand and squeezing three times. “Then she told me it was going to be okay.” Cole’s voice broke, and though he didn’t let go of her fingers, he turned again to the window. “And then she led me up the beach. I just knew… I knew it was all going to be all right.”

  “And me?” Ava asked. “Was I there?”

  The muscle in his jaw began to jump at her question. After a moment’s delay, he turned to meet her eyes.

  “The rest of the dream was the same.”

  “Oh…”

  Ava watched the breaking waves on the beach, the pale blue lines growing lighter as dawn neared. She could remember a part of her dream now, and it terrified her.

  ‘He left ME behind this time!’

  Ava’s heart was pounding even before she spoke. She knew how Cole felt about these things, but it had
to be said.

  “Cole, I… I want you to let Dad read your teacup sometime.”

  He made a strangled noise, turning completely from the window, letting go of her hand.

  “Uh-uh, no way.”

  “Why not?”

  He paused for a moment, crossing his arms and then uncrossing them again, as if realizing what he’d done. He was either on edge or annoyed. Outside, the first rays of light reached the horizon, bright crimson spreading out under purple clouds that covering the sky.

  “Look,” he said, running his fingers along her arm, “I just have a hard time believing that stuff. Last time when he read your teacup, it was just kind of... messed up.”

  Ava put her hands on her hips.

  “Well if you don’t believe it, then what’s the problem?” There was aggravation threaded through her tone as much as persuasion.

  “Last time was just a little much,” Cole answered , his hands settling atop her shoulders as he moved away from the window.

  “But you don’t believe it,” she grumbled, glaring at him. “So why not?”

  “It’s just too weird.”

  “But Cole...” Ava started, “if something’s changed, then I want to know what. I want to know how that happened!”

  Cole tipped up her chin so she looked at him.

  “Yesterday was big for me, Ava. I finally told my Dad my side of things.” He released a heavy sigh before continuing, “I’ve been trying to do that for years. It was fucked-up and awful, but it happened.”

  “I’m glad, but I still think—”

  “No,” Cole interrupted. “Look,” he said, “It’s probably just because of the things with my dad, and the things your father told me about. Mix it all together, my dreams have changed. Because things here…” he picked up her hand and placed it against his chest, “...are changing. So maybe my dreams are too.”

  “Maybe,” Ava muttered, narrowing her eyes like she didn’t quite believe him.

  Cole’s mouth twitched in amusement.

  “Haven’t sold you on a logical explanation yet?”