Lili Crow - Wayfarer

“I’m sor—”

“Nah.” He actually kissed her hair, and the warm shivery feeling that went through her almost made her weary knees unlock. It was a good thing there was nowhere to fall; he had her against the car so hard she could barely breathe. It was only for a moment before he loosened up, stepping back and holding her at arm’s length as she blinked up at him. “You know, I had dreams about doing that.”

“About driving me around?” Her cheeks scorched, and she almost leaned forward. The little betraying tremble in his arms told her that he’d let her, and that he wouldn’t be averse to going back to that fascinating new thing called kissing.

“Sticking my tongue in your mouth.”

“You have no romance.”

“I have lots of romance. I’ll show you sometime.” Was that a grin on his face? She couldn’t tell, it was too dark now.

“Keep it under wraps, Fletcher. I’m a nice girl.” The wisecracking felt good. Like she had everything under control. If she could fool him, maybe she could make herself believe it.

“Yeah, you are. When you’re not hell on wheels. Get in the car, Sinder.”

So she did. He held the door for her, and closed it with finicky, careful softness. He even waited until she locked it before going around to the driver’s side, and she took a moment to shut her eyes in the dark, there inside the shelter of his car, and let herself pretend it was going to be all right.

“Here?” Puzzled, he peered up the street. Under the elms the darkness thickened, even the ancient wrought-iron streetlamps struggling to pierce through. “Who lives around here?”

“A friend.” Ellie reached for the door handle, hesitated. “Hey.”

“What kind of friend?”

A batty old lady. Who nobody, especially Laurissa, would ever connect me to. And it needs to stay that way. “Just a friend. Listen . . .” The words dried up. What did she even want to say?

The engine purred. His fingers didn’t restlessly tap the steering wheel. He stared at his knuckles like they were the most interesting thing in the world. In the soft glow from the instrument panel he looked older. Twenty, maybe, or even further along. It was a funny thing, to see what he’d look like in a few years. His cheekbone had a good arc to it, and the shadow along his jawline looked interesting enough to touch.

So she did.

Her hand hung in the air between them, and he was a statue. She traced the bottom of his cheek, marveling at the texture, so different from her own skin. A muscle flicked high up on his cheek, and his knuckles had gone white.

She snatched her fingers back. Don’t, Ellie. This could burn you.

This could burn you bad, and you don’t have a lot of wick left.

As casually as she could, she reached for the door. “Thank you.” Hoarsely, because her throat had gone dry. “I lost the number you gave me. Your parents still in the phone directory?”

“Yeah.” He still stared at his hands. Was he angry? Or maybe some other guy feeling, mysterious as the Seventh Layer of DeVarian’s Charms? “They’re bidding for Midsummer Ball, too, so the guest rooms are being redone. My dad had a couple extra phone lines put in.”

Bidding for Midsummer this early? Someone’s eager. Maybe it was Laurissa.

Ellie found, to her weary relief, that she didn’t actually care. “So if I call . . .”

He shook his head. “Someone will answer, they’ll get me. Just tell me where you want to meet me.”

“And you’ll show up?” Well, now I sound clingy. Clingy little Ellie.

“Yeah.” He didn’t even hesitate.

She had to ask. “Why?”

“You want me to say it again?”

“Maybe. No,” she interrupted when he opened his mouth. “Don’t say anything, okay? Let’s not ruin it. I’ll call.”

“Sure you will.” He said nothing else as she got out of the car. The engine idled, and he didn’t move.

She stepped onto the sidewalk. Up a block or two and to the right was where she thought Auntie’s house was. If it wasn’t, well, she was going to look really stupid wandering around here at night. Someone might even call the cops. There’s a prowler . . . it’s a girl . . . Then maybe she’d have to find a lie that wouldn’t tell them where she belonged, so they wouldn’t drag her back to Laurissa.

She was so tired coming up with a lie that good just didn’t seem possible. Not to mention the fact that if they didn’t drag her back to Perrault Street, she might be taken to someplace like Jorinda Hall or Crantsplace Juvenile.

That was enough to make even Laurissa seem faintly welcoming. So Ellie put her chin up and her shoulders back, walking into the shadows under the elms. The sound of the primer-dipped Del Toro’s humming faded behind her, and when she crossed the street it cut off as if with a heavy knife.

She didn’t look back.

For a few moments she stood staring, in dull disbelief. At night Auntie’s house seemed even narrower, its slightly crooked chimney glowing at the top with a red smokelifter charm, its picket fence grasping fingers. The garden hummed to itself, and when Ellie stepped under the trellis arch she found the gate was open, held back by the twining vines of those queer frill-petaled roses.

She almost wanted to stop and look at the charm used to train them, but her head throbbed at the thought. The crushed-shell walkway ground under her tired maryjanes, and there was an odd slipping sensation—as if the shells were melting, or as if she was being drawn forward without moving, the house looming larger and larger as the path became a river and Ellie a tiny boat rocking on a deep current. She hitched her schoolbag up on her shoulder, the knotted strap digging in, and had her foot on the first slick, quartzlike step when Auntie spoke.

“Come late to Auntie’s door, the wanderer has. They come back to Auntie late at night, always.”

Ellie whirled, almost losing her balance. There, in the middle of a stand of waist-high green fern set back behind tall blood-colored hollyhocks, black in the darkness, the old woman stood. Fireflies danced around her white head; she’d freed her thistledown hair, a thin but oddly vigorous river down her back. Her brown face was scored with deep lines, but just as night had made Avery look older, it made Auntie look younger.

“I . . .” Ellie floundered. “I’m sorry, Auntie. I have . . . I don’t have anywhere else to go, and—”

“Yes, yes, Auntie knows.” One plump hand waved, fireflies rising from the fern’s depths to follow the gesture. “Inside the lonely daughter goes, and the smallroom upstairs is hers. Tomorrow we begin.”

She was too tired to care how the woman knew, or to examine the tiny secret thrill that went through her at the word daughter . “Begin?”

“Bright light inside Auntie’s weary little dove. We train it, we shape it. We teach thee to charm, Columba. Yes, a singed little fiery dove. Go inside.”

It’s about time something went right for me. “I can’t pay—”

“Auntie doesn’t want money , little Columba. Go, and rest.”

Something in her lifted a weary protest, a murmur of danger. If Auntie had been a man . . . well, she never would have come here. She was smart enough for that. “Thank yo—”

A spark kindled in those dark eyes. “Do not , no thanking . Insult to Auntie it is. Inside, or we deny thee shelter.”

The implicit promise—that if she hurried, Auntie would at least let her stay the night—propelled her forward. Ellie forced herself up the steps. The fudge door opened, and strangely, once she stepped inside, she felt almost safe. It swung shut behind her with one high-pitched squeak, and she made it up the stairs and down a narrow, dusky hall. Four doors, three of them closed tight and secretive, but one left half open to show a soft gray bedroom with fans of white feathers over its empty fireplace and a small white-painted rocking chair by the tiny window. There was a bathroom the size of a closet, and a closet pretty much only big enough for a broom and two hangers, but it looked damn near like a palace.