C.E. Murphy - Truthseeker

“The day job? Didn’t you say you sell bras?” Dickon shoved the mattress the last few inches into the truck, then turned, panting, to Kelly. Lara clapped a hand over her mouth, cutting off a laugh. David appeared at her side to cock a curious eyebrow, and she let a smile slip through.

“Oh, Kelly’s so …” She made an hourglass figure with her hands. “People would say she’s the kind of woman men pant over. I thought it was funny to see someone actually doing that. I know he’s just breathless from working, but—”

“People would say. But not you?”

“Well, I’ve never seen it really happen.” Lara shifted her shoulders uncomfortably, and Kirwen’s expression grew curious.

“And you only report what you see?”

Lara folded her arms under her breasts, keeping her eyes on Kelly and Dickon, the latter of whom was enthusiastic in his opinion that Kelly shouldn’t give up her day job. “Kelly told you the other day. I have a knack for hearing the truth, so I don’t like to stretch its boundaries. People don’t usually literally drool or pant over one another. They might admire or gawk or be distracted, but actual drooling?” She shook her head.

“That’s quite extraordinary.” Kirwen sounded distant. Lara turned a concerned frown up at him, and discovered his gaze was as inaccessible as his voice. He seemed to be looking into her, through her, and beyond her, seeing something so far off as to be forever lost to him. “No wonder you have such a fascination with the precise meaning of words. Has it always been thus for you?”

Lara’s eyebrows shot up. “Been thus? Rapscallion’s one thing, David. Now you’re getting all Middle English.”

“Even Old, I should think,” he said absently, then shook himself. “Sorry. It’s a habit left over from a long time ago. But you’ve always known the truth when it was spoken to you?”

“Ever since I can remember. Kelly’s right.” Lara sighed and finally turned from the moving truck to go back upstairs. “It’s annoying. I don’t know if it’s more annoying for me or my friends, but it’s annoying.”

David fell into step behind her, speaking so quietly she might have thought she imagined his words, but for the ring of truth in them: “No, Lara, it’s a gift.”

Lara’s heart knocked in her chest, a dull thud that carried sorrow with it. She stopped, then pressed up against the wall to let Dickon and Kelly pass before turning to look down on David. “It’s not much of a gift. Maybe if I could know what someone was lying about, or somehow make them tell the truth, it would be a gift. At least, if I wanted to be a lawyer, or some kind of advocate like that. But as it is, I’m a seamstress, and it just makes everyone, including me, uncomfortable.”

“Gifts,” David said quietly, “are rarely comfortable, and I believe truthseekers never are.”

The word hit her skin like ice water, shivering and playing there. Lara caught a breath behind her teeth and held herself still, staring down at the weatherman. “What did you—Why did you call me that? Truthseeker . I’ve never heard that before.”

“No.” Sympathy colored his voice, warm and sad. “But it’s what you are, isn’t it? You’re drawn to the truth. Drawn to its flawless lines, to the points it makes between one being and another. You live in a world made of truth’s song, cradled by music, all the time. And it sounds so appealing,” Kirwen murmured. “It sounds so appealing, when it’s phrased that way.

“But what people forget is that music has a power all its own, doesn’t it? A life beyond any granted to it by notes written on a page. Music, unleashed, can uplift and create and destroy, stripping away pretenses and leaving raw, exposed vulnerability behind. It’s a gift, but not one to be envied.” Kirwen’s hands were knotted, urgency in them belied by the softness of his voice. His brown eyes were filled with helpless compassion, as if he understood what it was to know, always know, whether someone spoke the truth or not.

And he did. He understood in a way most people never did, not even Kelly. Lara’s chest hurt, breath forgotten as Kirwen grasped truth in both hands and laid it before her unrelentingly. The music of his words soared, carrying hope that caught in her throat. This was a man who wouldn’t lie to her, not for her sake, not for his own.

This was a man she could make a life with.

The thought was so unguarded Lara backed up a step and wrapped her arms around herself in unrealized defense. “Who are you? I don’t even know you.” The protest was more for herself than for the man who stood before her, a warning that she shouldn’t trust a flighty thought of lifetimes, for all that her every impulse was to step forward and hide her face against David Kirwen’s chest.

“I can tell you,” he said, “and you’ll believe me because you’ll know I’m not lying, but it would be better if I could show you. I have so much to explain to you. So much to ask of you. And no right to do either, but I’m desperate, Lara. I’ve been searching for you for nearly one hundred years.”

“Time’s treating you well.” Lara could barely force a whisper, voice tightened by the feeling of her heart filling her throat and the sensation of air having fled her lungs. A rare phrase intruded on her thoughts: I don’t believe my ears . Nearly everyone said that, but Lara, stripped bare of the pretenses shared by polite society, had always found it awkward. Now, despite the talent David Kirwen had just named truthseeking , she was hard-pressed to trust the conviction in his voice. No one lived a hundred years and remained young, except in fairy tales.

She looked away, suddenly and intensely uncomfortable. Preposterous truth was one thing; she’d encountered it often enough. Truth that was simply impossible, though, was beyond her scope, and she had no idea what to say to a man who presented it to her.

Her peripheral vision caught David’s unhappy smile. “Do you believe in fairy tales, Lara?”

Lara jerked her gaze back to him, heart pounding. He hadn’t—couldn’t have—read her mind, but his question followed her thoughts so closely it seemed he had. She tightened her arms around herself and shook her head. “I don’t like fiction very much. I know about learning lessons through allegory, but … no.”

“It might be easier if you did. I—”

“Are you two down there necking?”

The question shattered David’s solemn expression, and they both looked toward Rachel’s apartment door to find Kelly peering down at them hopefully. “You’re not. How disappointing. Well, get up here and help us argue over what kind of pizza we’re ordering, then. Dickon wants anchovies. Rachel told him he’d have to have a pizza of his own in that case, but he seemed okay with that. So now we’re trying to figure out if everybody gets one of their own.” She disappeared inside, and Lara turned to David, who dropped his head in mild vexation.

“Maybe this discussion is better left for later.” He made as if to catch Lara’s hand, as if he’d pull her out of the hug she held herself in, but stopped before touching her. “Please. At least say you’ll let me explain myself.”

A tiny surge of disappointment caught her off guard and she frowned at her tightly held arms, feeling as though she’d somehow betrayed herself. All good sense told her to back away, to forget what he’d said and the unlikely truth in his words. No one lived for centuries, and no one would have any reason to search for someone like her.

Except, inconceivably, improbably, David Kirwen. “Dafydd ap Caerwyn,” she said aloud, though softly.

Hope flashed through his expression. “The name I was born to, somewhere a very long way from here. Lara, please. An hour’s time to explain, without anyone to interrupt. I beg you.”