by Shona Husk
How had Roan changed?
How had the curse been broken?
Where were the others: Fane, Brac, and Anfri? Were they all adapted to this world?
Of course they were. It was only he who’d given in to the curse and become goblin.
He had to prove he was no longer weak hearted and that he wouldn’t fail again. Not for them, but for himself. If he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror when he trimmed his beard, how was he ever going to look his king in the eye?
***
Nadine jogged down the path, inhaling the fresh scent of the lemon scented gum trees lining the road. On one side, at the bottom of the hill, Perth spread out along the Swan River; on the other, tamed park was interspaced with buildings. Behind the buildings, Kings Park gradually gave way to wilderness, a sanctuary in the middle of the city that was well used by runners and cyclists on weekdays and families on weekends. Opposite the white building that was a restaurant, she stopped. An old-fashioned wishing well, complete with wrought-iron arches, sat alone and out of place. Most people walked past it without a second glance. She hadn’t stopped here for months.
Nadine turned off her MP3 player and pulled out her earbuds as she caught her breath, her muscles easing after the run up the stairs known as Jacob’s Ladder that linked the park to the city. Last time she’d been here, she hadn’t known what to wish for. The letter from the Department of Corrections had arrived, informing her of her father’s imminent release. Even though she hated him for what he’d done to the family, she couldn’t wish him ill or ask that he remain in jail forever. That would be a misuse of the power of a wishing well.
A wishing well was for granting wishes and she’d read enough fairy tales to know that wishing misfortune on someone else was a guaranteed way of having bad luck come visiting.
She unzipped the small pocket in her pants and pulled out a gold two-dollar coin. For a moment she just closed her eyes and held the money tight in her hand. Meryn’s gray eyes had been with her all night while she worked. She hoped he was okay, half hoped he’d come back. He hadn’t. Was it wrong to make a wish for someone else? She didn’t know what he wanted. The only thing she could do was wish him well. No one should be lost and alone.
She held her hand out, over the well. The top was covered in mesh to prevent thieves from stealing the money that would eventually go to charity. She let the coin fall. It flickered brilliantly in the early morning sun before splashing into the shadows.
“Good luck, Meryn. Wherever you are.” For three heartbeats she waited, as if expecting a puff of smoke and a shimmer of magic. Nothing.
Her lips moved in a quick half smile. Wishing on stars, or in wells, hadn’t helped her as a child, yet she couldn’t stop herself from believing in magic or hope.
She was sucker for a happy ending and hated depressing news stories.
After stopping, she didn’t feel like running again. There was a train every fifteen minutes and it wasn’t like she had to get home for anything important. So she dawdled, strolling through the park and looking at the scenery. The morning was too nice to waste, sunny and cloud free. If it weren’t for the biting breeze, she could pretend it was already summer.
She noticed a man sitting on a bench. His arms rested on his jean-clad legs and his gaze was on the road. He didn’t seem to be aware of the swirl of people passing him. As she drew closer, he lifted his head. His dark eyebrows arched in surprise and then he smiled as if he knew her. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was there. The smile was for her. She smiled back to be friendly, like she did with most people. Then she noticed the half-healed cut on his head and his eyes. The man did know her. It was Meryn.
Her foot snagged on a tree root and she tripped. Instead, of landing face first in the grass, she was caught by the man with the strange gray eyes. His touch was strong and sure as he helped her back onto her feet. That was the second time he’d saved her; around him she couldn’t seem to stay on her feet. Heat crept up her neck. This close, his eyes were dark gray; they seemed to draw her in, but she knew if she fell she’d get lost in there forever. His eyes definitely weren’t the empty gray she’d first thought, but they had a faraway touch, as if he’d seen places no person should. She blinked and the moment was gone. He released her arm and she immediately missed the warmth of his hand.
“Meryn,” she managed to say.
His smile widened and revealed a dimple in his right cheek. “Nadine. Are you okay?”
He did remember her. She glanced at the wound on his head. It could’ve done with some stitches, but he didn’t look like the kind of man who cared about a scar or two. She glanced at his hands, remembering the nicks she’d seen on his skin. There was a fresh cut on his hand. Did he go looking for trouble, or did it find him?
“Your head looks better.” God. Could she be more lame? He looked better, in jeans and a hoodie zipped up against the cold. He’d trimmed his beard and looked, well, like an attractive man she’d stop to talk to if she hadn’t seen him confused and disheveled. It was hard to believe he was the same person who looked so lost in the hospital.
“It is. Thank you.” He spoke in accented English.
She paused and realized he’d spoken to her in English. The other night they hadn’t been able to talk. Her lips curved as a smile began to form. Today she could ask him everything she’d wanted to. Should she? Or should she just walk away?
If she’d been able to stop thinking about him, she wouldn’t have dropped a coin in the wishing well. Besides, he didn’t seem dangerous and she was in a public place.
“And you speak English today.”
He glanced away before answering. “A little.”
“Do you speak French?” She hadn’t spoken her mother’s language for so long, with anyone, yet she hadn’t forgotten. And the other night he’d responded as if he recognized the language.
He shook his head, his brown hair curling just above his shoulders in a fashionable I don’t care about my hair look. “I’ve heard it.”
“What languages were you speaking? Was one Latin?”
Meryn considered her for a moment. “Latin and Decangli.”
“Decangli? Is that from Wales?”
He smiled. He should smile more often. “Yes. You run here?”
“Sometimes.” Liar. She ran every day after work. But it was too soon for him to know that, even though she wanted to sit down and get to know him better. “Ahh.” She shifted her weight, not sure what to do. “Well, um. I’m glad you’re looking better—er—feeling better.”
“I am.” He paused as if he wanted to say something else but didn’t know what.
That made two of them.
“Thank you,” he said, filling the silence.
She reached out and touched his arm, a gesture meant to offer comfort. But feeling him beneath her palm, she didn’t want to pull away. She wanted to step closer. What she’d thought was simple curiosity, or even compassion, was turning into an attraction she shouldn’t have. Her pulse sped up as if she were running.
He moved and caught her hand in his. Skin to skin. His palm rough against hers. She wanted to know everything about him. How he’d ended up in hospital, what he did. Why he was here.
Instead, she drew away, her fingers sliding free of his and craving the contact as soon as it was lost. He was already under her skin. Whatever she was feeling was dangerous, and falling for the wrong man could be fatal. Her mother had learned that the hard way.
“Well, maybe I’ll see you here sometime.”
Meryn smiled again and the chill left the air. Before she could get sucked into talking to him more, she walked away, but couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder one more time. He’d sat back on the bench and was watching her. She waved and turned away before she was tempted to go back and ask more questions.
He wasn’t like other men. There is a reason why, she reminded herself. He wasn’t right. Wasn’t right or just damaged? She couldn’t judge him when she’d been to more shrinks before she�
��d hit ten than most people saw in a lifetime. At the end of the street she stopped and looked back. He was sitting, head bowed again. Was he praying or thinking?
***
Meryn glanced down the road in the direction Nadine had left, but she was gone, back into the endless city. Tomorrow he would wait here and hand back the cross. He couldn’t hold her hand and lie to her in the same breath. Today he would learn more words, so he could make her understand him better. So he sat in the pale winter sun and let other people’s lives eddy around him. He lost himself in their discussions. The words were foreign in his ears, even though he understood their meanings. The words he mimicked under his breath were awkward on his tongue. Yet he knew he had to try harder, as this was the only way he would be able to learn the language and be able to speak to Nadine.
He had to try harder to fit in and become a man of the times.
The sun tracked higher. Meryn knew he should get up and do something, but sitting and absorbing had taken on a greater importance than walking around aimlessly. The dark-skinned man he’d seen pulling up plants earlier sat down on the bench. Meryn watched from the corner of his eye as the man unpacked food. He should go and get something to eat and drink. He’d sat here for too long listening and watching. He was about to move when he noticed a marking on the back of the man’s hand.
A cross.
He tore his gaze away.
“Would you like a sandwich?” The man mistook his glance as interest in his food.
Meryn shook his head. He wasn’t taking charity from an elder; he hadn’t sunk that low, had he? His stomach grumbled. It would be nice to try something different—something he hadn’t hunted and killed, and he would be able to try out some of the new words racing around his skull. He could have his second conversation for the day; that was enough to keep him seated.
He pulled out a silver coin and offered it to the man. “I’ll pay.”
The man studied the coin, then looked at him, a faint frown lined his forehead. Did they not accept silver coin anymore?
“No charge.” He handed the coin back. “You might want to hang on to that; it’ll buy you a bit more than a sandwich.”
Well of course it would buy more than a sandwich. It would buy meat and wine enough for several meals, but he had nothing smaller and nothing else to trade.
“I’ve nothing else to…” He searched for the right word. “Give.”
The man shrugged and offered him the box of food. There was fruit and bread. Meryn hesitated.
“Go on, have a bite to eat. You’ll feel better.”
Meryn blinked in surprise. This man had been watching him. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve been sitting here on the bench all morning. You aren’t fine.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Thinking is easier when you’re not hungry.”
That was true. Everything was easier when the stomach wasn’t making demands. “I can get food.”
The man nodded. “I’d like to talk to someone while I eat, and I feel rude eating when you aren’t.”
Meryn reached over and helped himself to a half sandwich. He didn’t examine it too closely in case that was considered rude. So he took a bite and hoped it tasted all right, or at least better than raw lizard or cooked snake. He swallowed. “Thank you. I’m Meryn”
“Solomon.” Solomon ate another bite.
Meryn ate even though the questions about the marking on Solomon’s hand burned on his tongue. Would it be impolite to ask? Was it a slave marking? A mark of punishment? Finally he gave in. He needed to understand the meaning of the gold cross he’d taken from Nadine.
“What does the…marking…mean?”
Solomon looked at his hand. “To remind me not to lose faith.”
“Faith?” What was Solomon trying to believe in?
“In God.”
Which god? What god had the Roman cross as his symbol? “The cross is punishment?”
Solomon looked at his hand, thoughtful for a moment. “Yes and no. Jesus the son of God died on the cross. But he died for all our sins. When all seems lost, if you have faith, you aren’t alone.”
Meryn had lost faith and hope. He’d lost everything in one night. But instead of having the courage to hold on to something, he’d let go of everything. “I gave up.”
“We all do sometimes. Admitting it, facing up to it, is the true test of character.”
Meryn wanted to believe what this man said, if only because it gave him a slim chance of redemption when he deserved none. He finished the sandwich in silence. Nadine wore the cross as a sign of faith to her god. What would her god say about him stealing it? Would He understand and forgive? “And if I fail?”
“You try again. And again. Because if you stop, you might as well be dead.” Solomon carefully closed the lid on his food box. He looked at Meryn as if he were seeing him anew. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
How could he answer without sounding like a half-wit? “I’m a long way from…home.”
“Where was home?”
“Wales,” Meryn said, hoping that would explain everything that was wrong with him.
“I shall add you to my prayers. I hope you find a new home.”
“Your God will answer?”
Solomon shrugged. “He listens.”
Would any god listen to him when he’d given up his humanity for so long? “Where are you from?”
Solomon smiled. “I was born in Sudan, taken to France as a baby, and came here with my wife to start a new life many years ago. It didn’t go as planned.”
Meryn didn’t recognize any of the places Solomon listed. Had the world been renamed in his absence? Everything he learned revealed ten new things he didn’t know. Would he ever learn everything he needed to survive?
Solomon stood. “I need to get back to work. It’s been nice talking to you, Meryn. I hope you find the answers you need.”
“How shall I repay you?” He couldn’t be in debt when he had nothing.
“God will provide the answer.”
Meryn watched as Solomon walked away. He had fewer answers than before. Perhaps he was going to need his cousins’ help to rejoin the world after all. With the realization sour on his tongue, he got up, knowing that next time Dai came searching for him, they would have to talk. As he walked, his muscles ached from sitting still for too long. He’d spent too long in one place watching people. He would have to make sure he moved around the park so he wasn’t noticed.
Except for in the morning. Then he would wait for Nadine and he would return her symbol of faith. He took the gold out and looked at it again, this time with a new understanding about the man carved on its surface. He’d died for everyone’s sins. Meryn’s included even though he didn’t know this God? Had Solomon’s God forgiven Meryn already for failing his wife and children, his king and tribe, for stealing? Even if He had, would Nadine?
Did he forgive himself?
Chapter 6
Nadine lay on her side watching the tree in the backyard sway in the breeze. She should’ve fallen asleep as soon as she’d climbed into bed. Instead, she was almost excited after seeing Meryn in the park. She’d smiled all the way to the train station and then all the way home. The shimmer of tension remained in her stomach like butterflies bumping around in the hope of escape.
She closed her eyes, determined to sleep and not think about Meryn. Would he be there tomorrow?
If he was, what would she do?
She raked her teeth over her lip as she thought. She should avoid him. He was a sword-wielding, mysterious-stranger who’d been delivered to the hospital by the cops. And then there was the nightmare in the hospital. She frowned. What was causing him to wake up so violently, fists ready for a fight?
Were his dreams as dark as hers?
After her mother’s murder, she’d stopped speaking. She hadn’t said a word for six months in any of the three languages she knew. The psychiatrists said it was normal for a traumatized chil
d. Maybe it was. Maybe it was her way of burying everything she’d seen, except for when she slept and she’d wake screaming silently, unable to remember what had troubled her. Maybe some things weren’t meant to be spoken aloud.
But Meryn had spoken English today. Not a lot. Her frown deepened and drew her eyebrows and lips into the scowl. Why forget English but remember Latin? What had happened to him that was so bad he’d wanted to forget?
She knew that if she saw him again she needed to find out—even if that meant sharing her past. And precious few people knew the truth about her family because she didn’t want to be judged by her father’s crime. But Meryn was different. Very different.
Once again she walked the corridors of the castle she’d built in her mind as a child. A dress of ice green trimmed in gold swept the floor with each step. Years of stories and imagination had filled its stone walls with tapestries and paintings, candelabras and elegant furniture. It was here she’d escaped to when she couldn’t sleep. Here she’d hidden from the world. In her castle, anything was possible and reality became the dream. Today she was alone. There was no ball, no servants, no imaginary parents doting on her.
Nadine’s footsteps echoed, flat and heavy, as she wandered through the great hall and up the stairs. When she called out, her voice echoed through the castle. And no one came. That wasn’t right. This was her dream and it should obey her will. Her steps became faster as she searched for a way out, but there were no doors. She ran to the window and peered out. The walled garden where she sat with her mother listening to stories was barren land. Gone were the shrubs, flowers, and statues. They’d been replaced with gray dust. Her breath caught in her throat. It was all gone. Beyond the glass pane was a wasteland of gray, flat nothingness.
Her dream was deconstructing, going back to the emptiness it had come from. She placed her palm on the glass. It was cold, as if no sun had ever touched its surface. She sighed and her breath clouded on the glass as the temperature dropped.
The howls and cries that always haunted her dreams drew closer. She’d always known creatures hid beyond the walls of the palace garden. But she’d always been safe in her castle. Now? Was it safe to hide here when it was changing by itself, unraveling and twisting as if she no longer had any control over the dream?