by Day Leclaire
“It’s based on Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake, which in turn was based on an old German fairy tale.” He chose the largest of the feathers that had landed on her and she shivered in anticipation. “Do you remember the story line?”
“Vaguely. Something about a prince having to rescue a princess who was disguised as a swan?”
“Not quite. In the ballet, an evil sorcerer turns the princess into a swan forced to live her life swimming in a lake of her mother’s tears. Only in the depth of night can she reveal her true self and turn from swan to woman.” He traced the outline of Hanna’s mouth with the feather. “One of those nights a prince comes upon her and they fall in love.”
“What about the spell?” The feather drifted from her mouth across the tip of her chin and slowly, agonizingly downward. “Or didn’t it matter to him?”
“The prince vows to break the spell. But there’s only one way to accomplish that.”
“Let me guess.” Her voice sounded raw, strained with reawakened desire. “It has something to do with true love.”
“You got it. He has to declare eternal devotion for her in front of witnesses. So the prince, who truly loves his swan princess, gives his solemn vow to break the spell by swearing his love at a ball.”
“A Cinderella ball?” she managed to tease.
The feather paused in the hollow of her throat, threatening to drive her straight over the edge. “I have to admit, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, maybe that was a different party,” she allowed. “Go on with the story. Why do I get the impression it doesn’t end at the ball?”
“Because it doesn’t.” He resumed his downward movement, stroking the feather across the tip of her breast. It peaked painfully beneath the soft caress and she needed every ounce of self-possession not to cry out. “You see, the evil sorcerer shows up at the ball with a woman he’s disguised to look like the swan princess. When the prince declares his love for the wrong woman, the swan princess believes she’s been abandoned for another, the prince’s promise of eternal love an empty one. So she returns to the lake to die.”
Hanna swallowed, desire ebbing. She didn’t like this story. If she’d known it before the ball, she’d never have dressed the part. “Is that the end?”
“Not quite. The prince goes after the swan princess. In some versions, the story ends with the two dying together, throwing themselves in the lake so they’ll be united forever through death. In others, the sorcerer creates a storm that drowns them. Still other versions have the prince finding the princess in time to break the spell.”
“How does he break it?” She turned toward Marco, knocking the feather from his hand as she sought his warmth.
He pulled her close. “By destroying the sorcerer.”
“I suppose that’s easier than plucking the princess.”
Marco chuckled, the sound soft and intimate in the darkness. “I can attest to that.”
“And killing off the bad guy satisfied her? She forgave him for getting his swans mixed up?”
“Oh, I suspect the prince had some apologizing to do.”
“Maybe even a bit of groveling?”
“No doubt. But she relents for a very good reason.”
“Which is?”
He kissed her, a slow, delicious joining of lips and tongue. “Can’t you guess?”
“They truly love each other?”
“Of course.”
“And their love was enough to overcome an evil sorcerer and the prince’s small slip?”
“It was true love, Hanna.”
He wasn’t talking about Swan Lake anymore, and they both knew it. Tears burned, tears she refused to let fall. “Are you sure it’s enough?”
“Very sure.”
“There’s a point to this, isn’t there?” she asked tightly.
His sigh caressed her face. Gathering her in his arms, he carried her to the door of the balcony, a trail of rose petals and feathers scattered in their wake. He flung open the door and stepped outside, lowering her to the decking. The wooden planks were cold beneath her bare feet. The winds had changed direction, as Marco had forecast, sweeping in from the north and driving a wintery weather front before them. But she scarcely noticed. All she cared about was the man who held her, whose touch filled her with a desire so great, she shook with it.
“Dance with me, carissima. There’s music here. Listen with your soul and you’ll hear it.”
And there, in the midst of a winter’s night, she did hear. In Marco’s arms, it became a symphony. A chilly breeze lifted her hair, coaxing stray feathers and rose petals into an airy ballet around them. As she drifted across the deck, secure in his arms, a solitary snowflake swirled down to join the dance. Then another and another and another. It was the first snow of the season and Hanna knew in her heart that when Marco took her beneath the snow-flecked sky, it blessed their union.
Her husband’s voice came to her as he filled her, the words soft, but driven by unassailable determination. “I don’t know what sort of sorcerer enchanted you or what evil spell holds you, amante mia, but I will find a way to break it. Whatever it takes to end the secrets between us, I’ll do. I swear it.”
She closed her eyes, desperate to speak and unable to.
“I only ask one thing.”
“What is it?” she managed to ask.
“Don’t lose faith, Hanna. No matter what the future brings, promise to trust me.”
Her response came without hesitation. “I promise, Marco. I’ll always trust you.”
But the wind howled as winter’s first storm bore down on them, drowning out her voice.
The next several days were the most joyous Hanna had ever experienced. For the first time in her life, she became impatient with work, not to mention the narrow structure of her world. Making money had become boring. Fortunately, Marco knew precisely how to wreak havoc on structure, not to mention schedules and plans and lists and charts. He was particularly good at upsetting her carefully organized charts. But the one thing he excelled at was living life to the fullest. With him at her side, she found herself looking at the world from an entirely new perspective.
And what he showed her gave the breath of life to a heart and soul too long barren.
As the days passed, she vaguely heard Pru and her stepsons fussing in the background. At some point, she’d have to do something about them. But for now, her focus remained on Marco and the joy she felt whenever they were together. Even apart, she found work easier, less of a burden. But the moments she lived for were those first few seconds when the building emptied and grew quiet, as though holding its breath, waiting for the two lovers to bring it to life.
Then Marco would appear in the doorway. He’d look at her with those brilliant brown eyes, his gaze steadfast, the miracle of his love glittering with a passion she couldn’t mistake. She’d fly across the room and into his arms and he’d strip away the outer artifice, revealing what she kept safely hidden from all others. Only then did she dare shed her feathers and become a real woman.
Was it love? She shied from the thought. It was too much, too soon. But one thing she did know. It was time to fling open the door and let Marco enter her inner sanctum. It was time to take him to the place it had all begun—where the evil sorcerer had first worked his spell.
CHAPTER NINE
THERE WAS SOMETHING ODD going on and Marc couldn’t quite put his finger on it. When Hanna had suggested going for a drive before dinner, he’d been willing enough. He was always delighted the times she suggested something contrary to her normal routine. But it soon became apparent that she had a specific destination in mind, along with a reason for bringing him here.
“What is this place?” he asked as she turned into an empty parking lot outside a tiny steeple-topped building. “A church?”
“It used to be. It’s deserted now.”
“I can see that. So why are we here?”
He could see she struggled with her answer. Was she get
ting ready to reveal another secret? If so, this was a serious one. “It’ll be easier to show you,” she finally said.
She climbed the sagging steps to the double doors that fronted the small, vacant church. Removing a large brass key from her pocket, she inserted it in the lock. It took a bit of jiggling, but at last the bolt clanked home. Turning a knob stiff from disuse, she shoved the door open. Inside was a single huge room, simple and painfully empty. The pews and other religious accouterments had been removed long ago, leaving the chapel barren of life. As they walked inside their footsteps echoed into the rafters overhead, painfully harsh in the melancholy silence.
“There’s a small meeting room with a kitchenette through here.” She pointed to a door leading off the side of the chapel. “I stored everything there.”
“Everything.”
She nodded solemnly. “Yup. Everything.”
The patient Salvatore, he reminded himself. “Lead the way.”
The meeting room was spotless, a long table in the center of the room filled with tidy stacks of assorted canned goods, a dozen huge wicker baskets, checked napkins and various Thanksgiving decorations. “Want to help?” she asked casually.
“Help with what?”
“Preparing Thanksgiving baskets.” A hint of uncertainty peeped out from behind her stoic expression. “It’s a yearly tradition.”
Tradition. Good. Traditions forged connections and united families. “Sure.” He stripped off his jacket and tossed it aside. “Tell me what to do.”
“Each basket gets one of everything. The turkeys are in the freezer. If you’ll fill the baskets and arrange the contents so everything is attractive, I’ll decorate each one.”
“No problem.” He grabbed the first basket and draped a large orange-and-yellow checked napkin in the bottom. Shooting her a curious glance, he tried to decide whether or not to probe. What the hell. It didn’t look like she intended to volunteer the information. “Have you been doing this for long?”
“Ever since I was four. This is my second Thanksgiving on my own.” She smiled, tying ears of Indian corn together with decorative feathers. “Except I’m not on my own anymore, am I?”
“Nope. Not even a little.” He crossed to the freezer and removed a plastic-wrapped turkey, depositing it on top of the checked napkin. “So who was your previous helper?”
“Henry. Though to be honest, I was his helper. He’d been putting together baskets on the sly for years and years. He used this as his base of operations ever since they rebuilt the church in town...oh, twenty-five years ago, I guess.”
Hanna hesitated, and Marc saw the secrets trembling on her lips, secrets desperate to be revealed. “And?” he prompted gently.
She shrugged. “And it’s a good thing he did. Because otherwise I’d probably have died of exposure.”
“Died...?” He forced himself to continue putting cans into the basket, struggling to regain his control, despite the fist-to-the-chest she’d just delivered. Don’t lose it now, Salvatore! His wife was finally opening up to him and if he were very, very smart, he’d tread very, very lightly. “When was this?”
“Years ago. I was about three.” Her composure was unassailable. So calm. So deliberate. So removed from what he instinctively sensed was a crucial moment in her life. “At least, they think I was three. Henry found me. He’d come to put together the Thanksgiving baskets and... And there I was.”
“Just sitting on the church steps?”
Her smile held a painful incandescence. “Right in the middle of the top one.”
“What happened to your parents?” he probed.
She avoided his gaze, continuing to doggedly tie feathers to stalks of corn. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to know?” He couldn’t believe she could remain so remote when relaying one of the most horrendous stories he’d ever heard—a story in which she stood center stage. “Hanna—”
The feathers seemed to burst from her hands, fluttering like wounded birds to the scarred wooden table. Her jaw set, perhaps to keep it from trembling. “I was abandoned, okay?”
He fought to control his reaction, to dampen the words burning to be uttered. “No, it’s not okay,” he said in impressively mild tones. “Not for me and I suspect, not for you, either. Were your parents ever found?”
“No.” With careful precision, she gathered up each feather and resumed her task. “No one knows who they were or why they...why they left me.”
“Do you remember it?” he restrained himself to asking.
“Yes.” The whisper-soft word was absolutely heartbreaking. “Though it’s mostly sensations and shadowy images. Feelings.”
“Bad feelings.”
Silence.
“Feelings you’ve never gotten past.”
He could hear the give and take of her breath—low and shallow, a desperately even filling of the lungs. But her hands betrayed her, trembling just enough so the feathers began to scatter across the table again. She tried to scoop them up, the helpless disarray unsettling to see in one so exacting.
Feathers, he thought, realizing it was the key. Hating himself for intentionally inflicting pain, he pushed one final time. “So the mother and father who were supposed to love you, abandoned you. They left the swan princess swimming in the middle of an empty lake. Alone and deserted.”
The remoteness cracked, the expression in her hazel eyes so wounded, he thought the moment would forever scar his soul. It was a depth of agony beyond expression. Her face had turned pale against the blaze of curls, her silken skin stretched taut across fragile bones. Her mouth quivered ever so slightly and with an exclamation of fury, he shoved the basket aside and gathered his wife in his arms, holding her so tightly her helpless tremors knifed straight through him.
Babies take a lot of care, she’d said in the cottage before they’d made love. They need time and attention. You can’t just want them one minute and toss them aside the next when they become too much trouble. She’d been the baby who’d been tossed aside. Had she spent the last twenty-some years trying not to be too much trouble for fear of being abandoned again? Is that why she held herself so remote and distant, terrified of love and all its inherent risks?
“Tell me,” he ordered. “Tell me, carissima, so it’s out in the open and not hidden away inside anymore.”
“It was dark.” The words tumbled free, fluttering as helplessly as the feathers had. “And cold. So cold.”
He snatched up his coat and wrapped her inside, enclosing her in what little warmth he could provide. “They left you at night?”
Her hair caressed his chin as she shook her head, a gentle touch of vibrant life in the midst of deepest despair. “No. I think it was early in the morning, though it was still dark. They bundled me up and gave me a note. They said I shouldn’t let go of the envelope, no matter what. And they told me to sit on the steps until the people came for church. It never occurred to them that the place had been deserted, that no one would be coming.”
He swore, a vicious word that barely touched on his true emotions. “And then?”
“‘Don’t cry,’ they said. ‘Not one tear. Soon,’ they kept repeating. ‘Someone will show up soon.’ But—”
Her voice broke and he prayed for strength, prayed he’d say the right thing. That somehow he could make it better. Deep down he knew nothing could do that. He was years too late for that. “You’re not alone, anymore. I’m here, love.”
Her hands slipped around his waist, clinging. “I remember the sun coming up across the fields. It looked huge and blood red. I thought the sky was on fire and I started trembling. It was probably from a combination of cold and fear. Still, it terrified me because I thought the shaking would make me drop the envelope.” Her chin quivered and her voice dropped so low he had to strain to hear. “That’s when I saw someone walking across the fields, filling the sky and putting out the fire.”
“Henry?”
“Yes, Henry. He’d come t
o pick up the Thanksgiving baskets and deliver them. Instead, he found me. If he hadn’t had such a generous heart... If he hadn’t decided to use the old church as his base of operations...” Her humorless laugh held more than a hint of tears. “I never thought to ask if he delivered the baskets that year.”
“Dammit, Hanna! To hell with the baskets. What happened after Henry found you?”
“He picked me up. Carefully. Like I might shatter if he were too rough. My hands were so cold, I couldn’t even open them to give him that damned envelope. He finally pried it from my hand and read the note. And then—” Her breath shuddered in her lungs. “And then—”
“Finish it, sweetheart.”
“He cried. I remember because I’d been told not to cry. And I hadn’t. Yet, here was this great big man sitting on the steps with me on his lap and he was bawling like a baby. I felt so badly. Like I’d done something wrong. I kept patting his cheek and trying to tell him it was all right. Telling him what my parents had said, that people would come. But I was so cold, I doubt I made much sense. He just looked at me and shook his head, the tears dripping off his chin. I think that’s the moment I knew my parents weren’t coming back. I still didn’t cry. Not that day and not since.”
“You cried at the Cinderella Ball,” he reminded gently. For some reason, it seemed a significant point.
“I did cry, didn’t I?” Hanna remained silent for a long time. “I didn’t think I could anymore,” she murmured with something akin to wonder.
“What happened after Tyler found you? Foster care?”
“In a way. Henry kept me for awhile, but the authorities decided it wouldn’t be proper for a widower with three strapping boys to raise me. Besides, he was a farmer whose crop had failed that year and he was struggling to make ends meet. It wasn’t fair to burden him with another mouth to feed. Anyway, the town voted to keep me.”
“What do you mean they voted?”
“I mean everyone in Hidden Harbor got together to decide what to do about me. They voted to raise me.”
We found her. We’re keeping her, Pru had said. Hanna had mentioned being raised by the town, or at least various “suitable” families in town. This explained it. “That’s what you started to tell me before, isn’t it? On your birthday.”