Burn Me Deadly

THIRTY-TWO

I, ah…,” I said, trailing off.

We sat in my office a few days after Liz left the hospital. I’d brought dinner up from the tavern and lit a candle, making the austere little room vaguely romantic. Fresh flowers sat in a vase on my desk, and a cool breeze blew in from the river. I’d even washed the ale mugs that tended to accumulate in one desk drawer. The sky visible through the window was darkening pink and red, and somewhere a drunk howled at the rising moon. Liz, her fork halfway to her mouth, stopped and cocked her head at me. “You, ah, what?”

I put down my fork, sat straight and looked at her. “I, ah, need to tell you something.”

She put her own utensils aside with deliberate care. We were having Rudy’s vegetable surprise again; ever since she’d watched Candora work on Marion, Liz had been unable to stomach meat. I understood completely, since I found myself getting twitchy around any open flame, no matter how small; even the candle on the table made me nervous. She said, “That sounds ominous.”

“It’s not ominous.”

“There’s not a Mrs. LaCrosse somewhere you haven’t bothered to mention, is there?” She looked at me with exaggerated inquiry. The bruises had faded, although her wrists were still bandaged. The cut on her thigh also remained sensitive and forced her to wear dresses, something she generally loathed.

“No, don’t be goofy. Who would marry me?”

“You’re the one being goofy. ‘I, ah, need to tell you something,’ ” she said, imitating me. “So tell me.”

“I’m serious.”

“Okay.”

I looked out at the sunset. The first stars twinkled at the edges of the pink clouds. A crow, running late, landed in the top of a tree. “You know how you kept the whole dragon thing from me because you worried about how it would sound?”

“I said I was sorry for that. And I meant it.”

“I know. The thing is, I’ve kinda sorta kept something from you for the same reason.”

Like me, she could keep feelings off her face, but I knew her well enough to see the rising concern in her eyes. Still, her tone remained light when she repeated, “ ‘Kinda sorta’?”

“Kinda sorta. I didn’t lie to you or anything, except by omission, and even then I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I just… didn’t know how to start the conversation.”

“And this is how you decided to do it?”

I shrugged. “I’m better at throwing knives.”

“So is this great secret something you’re ashamed of?”

“No, just something that… will be hard to explain.”

“And believe?”

“Probably.”

She sat back, pulled her napkin from her collar and placed it in her lap. She hiked up her dress to expose the cut to the air per Mother Mallory’s orders. It also displayed a distracting amount of thigh. She said, “Does it end with you saying how we can’t be together no matter how much we want to be?”

“No. It’s really not about you and me.”

“Then let’s hear it.”

Deep breath. It struck me that I was more scared of this than I’d been of the dragon. Yet I not only felt I owed her honesty; I also had taken something fundamental from her that day on the mountain. It can’t be easy to know you’ve lost a god, and I could see the sadness of it burgeoning in her. I felt obligated to try to restore it, to convince her that just because one god proved false, it didn’t mean there was no magic in the world. And to believe the story I was about to tell meant she’d have to accept anew the reality of magic, and goddesses walking among us.

Still, it took all my courage to get those first words out. “It’s about your sister.”

“Jessica?”

That was her older sister, married with a bunch of kids and, now, grandkids. “No, your twin.”

It took a moment to register; then her eyes opened wide. “Cathy?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… what about her?”

Here we go. “I knew her once.”

Under different circumstances, the look on her face would’ve been funny. “When?”

“Years ago. I was… well, I wasn’t exactly there when she died, but I… was there.” I sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“Then she really is dead,” Liz said deliberately. It replaced a long-standing question mark with a period.

“Yeah.”

She took a moment to absorb it. “And you knew that, and never told me.”

“Yeah.”

She just stared at me. It was almost fully dark outside now, and the light from the candle reflected from her eyes so that they seemed to burn with contained emotion. It also made her look exceptionally beautiful.

“Okay,” I said, unable to bear the scrutiny and silence. “I’ll start at the point it all got resolved, which was just before you and I met.”

“That sounds like the end of the story.”

“It is, but it’ll make sense.”

She took a drink of ale. A big drink. “And you love me?”

“Yes. And this won’t change that, for me at least.”

She wiped her lips, burped lightly and said, “You know I’m pretty hard to run off, too.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” I took another deep breath, leaned back in my chair and began the long, complicated story of Epona Gray, Phil of Arentia, the scariest dwarf ever and Queen Rhiannon, the sword-edged blonde:

“Spring came down hard that year…”