by Shona Husk
Nadine had exactly the same feeling. She looked forward to seeing Meryn each morning. His stubble grazed her cheek, but she liked that he wasn’t clean-shaven and smooth-skinned.
Her stomach did a little spin and she knew this was growing faster than she thought possible. Maybe that was a good sign, and it meant everything was good. Or maybe she was jumping blindly off a cliff and she should have let Bryce do a more detailed search on who Meryn was. No, she couldn’t go through life researching boyfriends. It took away the fun and the thrill of discovery.
She smiled against his lips and drew back. “I need that coffee.” And the sugar fix.
This time Meryn pulled out what looked like a new leather wallet and paid.
Her hand fluttered to the torque as they walked to a table in a sunny corner—the same one as last time. The torque had to be valuable. Had his wife given it to him, was that why he wore it? It was an odd piece of jewelry, but then he was Welsh, so maybe he’d been into all that Celtic revival stuff, the crafts and reenactments. She glanced at Meryn and tried to imagine him in a plaid cloak, brandishing a sword. It wasn’t that hard. That first night he’d been wearing a cloak, and the cops had taken his sword.
He caught her staring. “Do you not like it?”
“I do, but won’t you want it back?”
Meryn looked at her as if he was seeing her in a new light. “No. Seeing it on you makes me happy.” He smiled and the dimple formed in his cheek.
Nadine sat, stretched out her legs, and rested her elbows on the table, determined to continue getting to know Meryn while her coffee cooled. Only this time she wouldn’t ask questions that came with loaded answers.
“So, what did you do in the army?”
“Battle planning, strategy.”
“Officer?”
He looked at her for a moment.
“Or will you have to kill me if you tell me?” she said with a smile.
“I was high ranking.”
And he’d fallen about as far as anyone could. He’d had everything and in a few violent moments it had been taken. She knew that feeling, even if she didn’t really remember what it had felt like to have a real family. She had impressions and memories, but how could she trust them when all she remembered of her father was laughter and joy?
She took a bite of cake. She probably shouldn’t be eating cake this early in the morning, but it was the end of the day for her. Cake for dinner was probably just as bad. Last time it had been a muffin; around Meryn she was developing bad habits. She glanced at him but he didn’t seem to care what was appropriate breakfast food as he sampled his cake, white chocolate and berries.
Who made the rule that cake wasn’t breakfast food anyway?
Around Meryn, rules didn’t seem to matter, although he must have obeyed and followed orders once. “The army won’t take you back?”
“No. I broke, Nadine. I’m still mending. I like spending time with you, but maybe I am not the man you want to be around.”
But she did want to be around him. She bit the inside of her lip. Should she ask? What was the harm? What if he said no? She took a breath. It was short notice, but it would be nice not to go to a wedding alone. It was more than that; she wanted to go to the wedding with him. Be seen with him—and see her friends’ eyes widen in disbelief.
“Are you doing anything tomorrow?” Her heart raced, and it had nothing to do with the coffee or the run she’d done. Tension crawled down her back as he frowned. “It’s okay if you are, it’s nothing.”
“I’m free—what am I agreeing to?”
“It’s Gina’s wedding. Would you like to come as my date?” That wasn’t so hard, was it? She wanted to wilt. That one little question had sucked up all her courage and strength of will.
“I’d like that very much.” He reached out and touched her hand for just a second. “Thank you for inviting me.”
Nadine let out a relived sigh. “Right, it’s at ten in the big rotunda. I’ll have to meet you there, as I’m a bridesmaid and have stuff to do, but afterward, there’ll be a lunch and drinks.” And she was talking too much. He’d already said yes.
For a few minutes they ate in silence, as she realized she didn’t know the basics about him. “Can I be nosy?”
He took a drink of his coffee. “If I can be.”
Her heart gave a nervous stutter, but he already knew about her mother, and she couldn’t ask him questions without giving something back. Maybe getting to know someone wasn’t that hard…all it took was the right person to make it easy. “Okay. How old are you?”
“Thirty-seven. You?” He took a small spoonful of cake, watching her as he ate.
“Twenty-six.” She wrapped her hands around the cup and let the heat soak into her skin. It wasn’t the kind of heat she wanted to be feeling. She wanted skin on skin. “You saw action in the army?”
He nodded. “Do you like being a nurse?”
“I do.” She broke of a small piece of orange and almond cake and chased it around the plate before stabbing it. “I broke my arm when I was eight. No one believed me at first.” Her crying at night and being unable to sleep was nothing out of the ordinary. “When my arm swelled up, I was finally taken to the hospital. The nurse there was so kind. She didn’t think I was weird or strange.”
“I don’t think you’re strange.”
“That’s because you don’t know enough about me yet.”
“Try me.”
“I can’t sleep at night because I’m scared of the dark.” She put the piece of cake in her mouth and waited for him to speak, sure she was never going to see him again after this and yet enjoying being able to talk freely.
“It’s not the dark you need to be scared of, but the things it hides.”
She forced herself to swallow the lump of cake. Was he being serious or making a very dry joke? She couldn’t tell. “Thanks, that makes me feel so much safer.”
“My eldest daughter, Branna, was scared of the dark. She always found a way to creep into our bed.” Meryn’s gaze flicked between her and his cake as if he were debating a more serious question.
“You look like you want to ask me something weighty.”
Meryn nodded. “You would’ve been very small when your mother died. Do you remember her?”
Apparently he wasn’t worried about sticking to the safe questions. Geez, they hadn’t even covered favorite bands, movies, they’d gone straight for the deep and meaningfuls. What did she tell him? That she remembered her mother’s cries for help, her orders for Nadine to run and hide? Then the raw screams of terror when she realized no one was going to help her as she was dragged out the window. For the first time she didn’t feel like a freak. Meryn would know exactly what she meant.
“Bits. She had long black hair that she used to let me play with and fill full of clips and hairbands, and she had beautiful blue eyes. I wanted blue eyes like hers when I got older. I hated mine because they are the same as his. I have the eyes of a killer.”
“You have beautiful eyes.”
Nadine smiled and focused on drinking her coffee as her cheeks heated. She wasn’t used to be being complimented. He had nice eyes too, gray but not cold. She put her cup down and finished answering the question. “Mostly I remember her reading to me. She always read me fairy tales before bed. I still have the book. She wrote her favorite in the front: Le roi des gobelins.”
Meryn blinked, sure he’d misheard, but he hadn’t. Gobelins. Goblins. The language was too familiar. The words the woman had called out as she’d fought against the goblins that had abducted her from the Fixed Realm, her long dark hair tangled in the fists of the gobelins, as she’d called them. He looked at Nadine and saw too many similarities in the shape of her face and the curve of her lip. Was the woman he’d seen kill herself in the Shadowlands Nadine’s mother? How long ago had that been? He had no way of measuring the time. Or was he grasping for connections?
Nadine sat up straight, her eyes wide. “You know it? No one else has
heard of it. My mother loved The Goblin King.”
He didn’t know the fairy tale. He knew the reality. “Maybe not the same one,” he said slowly. This was dangerous territory.
“I’ll tell you my mother’s version.” She rushed on as if eager to share what she knew. “Once upon a time there was a king…” She recited the story without break. Each word and each inflection well used, like a bard that had told the same tale many a time. Like all good stories, it never grew tired.
Meryn didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say. Their story had survived as a children’s fable. Had Dai been responsible for this version?
“Is it the same as the story you know?” Her eyes were bright as if she was hoping he would agree.
He took a sip of the hot coffee. “Not quite.”
“How is it different?”
Meryn swallowed down his doubt about sharing. “The men were wrongly cursed by a druid. And at the end they got free.” Would Nadine believe he was one of those men? No, loving a fairy tale was different from living it. If she knew he’d been a goblin for so many years, she’d be horrified. Yet he didn’t want to keep lying to her. He wanted to be able to talk about his life freely.
Nadine leaned forward, her eyes lit by curiosity. “How?”
“The king found love.” A love strong enough to overlook his hideous goblin visage in the Fixed Realm. Love was something Roan would never have found as King of the Decangli. He would have married for alliance to strengthen the tribe, the same way Meryn had in marrying Idella. But Meryn knew how lucky he’d been to find love while still doing his duty to the tribe.
She leaned back and laughed. “That’s the beauty of fairy tales. Love is always perfect. The reality sucks.”
“You don’t believe in love?” Love was what made live worth living.
“Falling in love with my father got my mother killed.”
“Love doesn’t kill.” He was sure of that. A man would do anything to protect his family. He glanced at his hands. He’d done everything he could—but the curse had bound him tighter than any rope. “But losing it hurts.”
“You still love your wife?”
He was silent for several breaths. “Yes.” It was the truth. He would probably love her forever. She was his first love and he hers. He was learning to live with her memory and the pain it caused. When Nadine looked at him he felt like he had a chance to be happy again. “But it’s not the same as it was, and never will be.”
Meryn took another taste of his drink and pretended he liked it. “Can I ask about your father?”
He needed to know if what he suspected was the truth, or his mind making desperate connections between the woman in the Shadowlands and Nadine.
She shrugged. “There’s nothing to say. He went to prison, and I haven’t spoken to him since.”
“Not once?” He would do anything to hear his children speak again, if only one word. One sleepy sigh. One smile. Nadine’s father had lost his wife and child to the goblins.
“He ruined my life.”
“He’s still your father,” Meryn said. She couldn’t understand the agony the loss of a child caused a parent.
“He pleaded not guilty and was given a life sentence.”
“If he pleaded not guilty, maybe he isn’t guilty.” If the goblins had taken her mother, then her father was innocent, his life and family ruined by the selfish whims of goblins. How could Meryn have ever thought giving in was a solution? But he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been out of his mind with grief. No one would have been able to stop him from fading. Dai understood that; did Roan?
Nadine put down her cup and crossed her arms. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know what it feels like to lose a family, to lose children who barely had a chance to live.” His voice was rough as the hurt resurfaced, but it didn’t drag him down and suck him under this time.
She scowled at him and he knew he’d exposed a very tender wound. When Nadine finally spoke, it was soft and firm as if this was the end of the conversation. “It’s not the same.” She stood.
Meryn pushed his chair back and got up, determined not to let her walk out while she was mad at him—it was much easier to never come back. “No. You still have a chance. I lost everything. I think of my kids every day, I think of the things I could’ve done differently to save them, I think of the things I could’ve done better as a parent. I spent so much time away from them. None of it changes what happened. Nothing ever will. Maybe he has the same thoughts.” She opened her mouth, and Meryn held up his hand and continued. “You don’t have to like them or agree with them. But you will always be his daughter, regardless of what happened to your mother.”
She pressed her lips together and looked at the ground before looking back at him. In that moment the anger that tightened her features had softened, a little. “I’m not used to people defending him. Most people see the color of his skin and assume he did it.”
What did the color of someone’s skin have to do with guilt or innocence? “You assumed he did,” he said softly, not wanting the argument to flare up again, yet needing it resolved.
“Everything says he did. What am I supposed to believe, a vague hope that he didn’t and he’s wasted all that time behind bars?”
Meryn looked at his hands. They still carried the scars and callouses he’d earned over years of handling weapons as a man. The ones he’d gained as a goblin had vanished, as if the time he’d spent in the Shadowlands had never existed. The knowledge of what he’d seen and done hadn’t. He was sure he’d seen Nadine’s mother die in the Shadowlands.
He wanted to be able to tell her everything, yet he knew that wasn’t possible.
“I think everyone deserves a chance to tell their side, and that sometimes, if they are really lucky, they get a second chance.” He took her hand. She was his second chance. A chance he’d never dreamed of.
She stared at their hands for a moment before looking up. Her eyes were shiny, but she was smiling. She shook her head. “Do you always believe the best in people?”
“No.” He’d seen evil at work in the Fixed Realm long before he learned how callous a goblin could be. “But people should have the opportunity to speak before being condemned.”
Would she let him speak if he tried to tell the truth and explain her mother’s tale was real? It was a risk he wasn’t ready to take yet, and he hated himself in that moment. While she was being open, he was still hiding and he could feel the gulf between them widen.
Nadine stepped closer, her body only a hand span away from his. “I’ll take that under advisement.” Her hand trailed up his chest and landed on his shoulder.
His muscles tensed beneath her palm as their gazes locked. For a moment neither of them moved. Then Meryn lowered his mouth to hers in a soft kiss.
“So I’m still invited tomorrow?” he said against her lips.
“Mmm.” She drew back, the heat in her eyes setting his blood alight. “I look forward to seeing you in a suit.” She winked, then pulled her hand free of his and started walking away.
He watched her go; this time she turned and waved. He was sure she knew what she was doing to him. And he was enjoying it.
Chapter 13
Meryn’s words echoed in her mind. Maybe he isn’t guilty.
Maybe it was time she faced the past and put it in the ground for good. On the train ride home she replayed every memory she had and tried to force the memory of that night to the surface, but all she got was breaking glass and screaming.
When she got home, the house was silent. She let the tension in her shoulders ease. After a shower and changing into pajamas, she took a deep breath and pulled out the box of letters and also the folder full of newspaper articles that she’d printed from the Internet as a teenager, when she’d been trying to understand everything she’d been told for the past decade. Back then they hadn’t helped. They’d left her more confused about why he never fought to be free. Why plead not guilty but then ne
ver ask for a retrial or a lesser sentence?
What had her mother thought when she began seeing Solomon? Did they sneak around, or were they open? Michaline must have seen something in him to love, to risk her mother’s wrath and travel halfway across the globe.
Despite the drama and struggle that must have been for them both, she only had vague happy memories of a childhood cut short by screaming and breaking glass. In her mind, the glass shattered again and again and again. In her nightmares, the glass shattered, spilling onto the floor. Why would her father break the window to get in?
He wouldn’t break the window—unless he was trying to make it look like someone else had done it.
For a moment she didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
Maybe he wasn’t guilty. Her heartbeat slowed as she considered the possibility seriously. She ignored the box of letters from her father and took out a folder. Carefully, she flicked through the old printouts. The headings were different when read with an adult’s eye, especially one open to the idea that not everything was as it seemed. Instead of seeing the scandal of a black man killing his wife, she saw the racism. She saw police looking for a quick conviction in a case with no real evidence and no motive. While the media had fed off the story, there was very little fact, just endless speculation about how Michaline had died and where her body was. She had never been found. Nadine bit her lip.
She glanced at the shoebox of letters on the floor. Twenty years’ worth of birthday and Christmas letters, except for the first few they were all unread. Would the answer be in there? What could he tell her that would make up for the years of being the unwanted child? So unlovable even her grandmother hadn’t come for her and her father hadn’t fought to get free.
She had wasted so many wishes and prayers on the hopeless dream that her parents would reclaim her and everything would be okay, until eventually she had given up. Somewhere between the ages of eight and nine, she’d realized this was her life now. Her mother was dead and her father had done it. Everybody said so, so it must be true. After that, she’d sworn she’d never read any letter from him, yet here she was.