With Gracie’s help, Callum spread out the canvas sheet he’d lugged up from the boathouse. Despite the days of scorching sun, the ground held some of its perpetual moisture, and the handful of boys and girls clamored over each other to claim a spot on their backs.
Callum sat near the center and Gracie plopped herself on his crossed legs, turning her freckled face towards the heavens. Hetugged the small green book from his pocket, noting how the silver etchings of the night sky embossed on the cover had already faded in places from frequent handling. With practiced ease, he flipped through until he found what he’d been looking for.
“Look there, on the horizon.” Every eye swung towards where he pointed. “Ye can see Sagittarius just above the water.”
“What’s it look like?” Lachlan called, his pubescent voice cracking.
Callum squinted at the page. “It’s supposed to be a… tea pot?”
“What kind of tea?”
“I dinnae see anything.”
“Do ye have any shortbread?”
He chuckled at the smattering of questions, choosing to answer one he’d had himself. “Ye have to use yer imagination, and if ye haud yer wheest, I’ll give ye shortbread, aye?”
“Aye,” they chorused back, Gracie’s high shriek far louder than the others.
Callum gave a satisfied nod. “Now, if ye lean back, ye see the bright star at the top of the cross? That’s Cygnus.” He felt the sharp throb in his chest and refused to ignore it, allowed the pain to sink in for a moment as he caught his breath. Eventually, it would have to stop hurting when he thought of Violet, and he feared that day. He would savor the memories of her, no matter how much they may sting.
If he hurt, he was still alive, his heart continuing to beat for her.
“I see the cross!”
“What’s a Cygnus?”
“Can I have the shortbreadnow?”
“Nae, ye cannae have the shortbread now because ye willnae stop grumbling. And Cygnus is a swan.”
Little Brucie—so named to distinguish him from his father, despite the younger lad having shot up this summer to Callum’s height—hummed, his tawny brows furrowed. “Is that the goose one?”
“Swan,” Callum corrected, pushing down the urge to tell the children the story of Kevin the goose, that chilly night in the garden when he’d first kissed her—
Where was she now? Did she enjoy living as a ruined woman? When he’d seen Trembly a few days before, as he and James visited from Paris, he’d been desperate to ask after her. Perhaps she was watching the stars now, thinking of him.
“Was he a mean swan?”
Callum looked down and smiled at Gracie’s upturned face, her tiny brows knit in concern. “Nae, he wasnae mean.”
“Swans aren’t mean.” He stilled at the voice behind him, one he’d heard in his dreams so many times but had resigned himself to never hearing again. “Geese, however, are known to bite.”
He dislodged Gracie from his lap and scrambled to his feet, the change in altitude leaving him dizzy and breathless as he spun to face her. Violet stood at the edge of the canvas, wrapped in a plaid and watching him with wary eyes.
“Violet,” he whispered. “Ye’re here, why—”
“Chickens are mean too,” Gracie called from her position spread prone on the canvas. “We have a chicken named Fergus, and me ma wants to cook him for supper because he keeps stealing our pies.”
“If he’s ahe,” Deaglan cut in, “he’s not a chicken but a cock!”
All the boys started sniggering, then erupted in peals of laughter.
“Hush now,” Callum barked without looking away from Violet. “There are ladies present.”
“Aye!” Gracie called. “I’m alady, ye boggin’ lavvy heids!”
Violet had her fingers pressed to her lips, but couldn’t hide her smile. God, but he’d missed that smile.
