What world he came from, she could hardly guess. When he was here, though, he seemed to hover at the edge of things. Sometimes a man, sometimes a shadow.
She set down her scraper and listened.
The wind stung her cheeks. The gulls screamed over the water. The sea spirits had all disappeared from the craggy rocks below the cliffs and gone to calmer waters.
A storm was coming.
Casting her gaze into the junipers, the girl saw no one. Back and forth went her good eye, between the trees. She was just about to turn and quickly finish her task when she saw it—a black shadow—between the jagged gray rocks.
Crow. Dark like the deepest part of the woods and insubstantial as a ghost.
“Are you a ghost?” she asked quietly, putting a voice to her thoughts as she went back to scraping barnacles.
“No” came his voice loud and clear as a bell. Right beside her.
The girl shivered. But not out of fear.
“What, then?” she asked, still focused on her work. “Not a man.”
“Are you so sure?”
His response surprised her so much she slipped and cut herself with the scraper.
Blood welled up. She dropped the blade into the sand and stared at the crimson shine blooming across her palm.
He breathed her name. His solid form disappeared as darkness swelled around her, enclosing her in a cocoon of night.
Where a moment ago there was pain, now there was... nothing. The sting in her hand extinguished like a snuffed flame.
The wind roared in her ears once more. The gulls and the sea returned.
She stared at her palm. The blood was gone. The skin was split no longer, and in its place was a thin, tidy scar.
Looking up, she found him solid before her. He stood close enough to touch.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
A pleased smile tugged at his normally stern mouth. The sight of it made something unfurl within her.
Her pulse quickened. She studied those clear black eyes. Deep as the sea. In all their years of friendship—Was that what this was? Was he her friend?—she’d never touched him.
How she longed to.
But the moment she lifted her fingers to his face, he stepped back. Startled.
She insisted, pushing away from the boat. She touched his cheek, her skin heating at the contact. She stared at him, her good fierce eye searching both of his.
They were so close now. Her fingers slid behind his neck.
His eyes were wild and unsure, his breath unsteady.
She pulled his face gently down to hers, coaxing him to her.
Before their lips touched, her father yelled her name, calling her in from the storm.
Crow jerked away, his voice tight. “We can’t do this. You don’t realize what I am.”
He was melting away from her. Back into shadow. Out of her reach.
