My heart thumped faster. “Maybe we can figure it out together.”
I watched his throat tense as he swallowed. Outside, the rain came down harder, heavy drops pelting the windowpanes.
He took a slow breath. “I saw a man and woman. They were standing in a small clearing, surrounded by old oaks. The light of a gibbous moon shone down on their faces. Also on the autumn leaves at their feet, making them glow like coins. Their hands were joined, and a long vine of flowering hedge bindweed twined around their arms. The trumpet-shaped blooms were so bright in the moonlight they hurt my eyes.” He hesitated. “Do you know what a handfasting is?”
Entranced by the picture he’d painted in my mind—so different from anything I might have expected him to relate—it took me a moment to respond. “It’s an old way of marrying, I think.”
“It is, centuries old. It’s called handfasting because the couple’s hands are joined with a ribbon or cord.”
I frowned. “You said the moonlight shone on their faces. Did you know them?”
A heartbeat of silence, then: “It was us.”
My mouth hinged open, and my breath stopped.Us?
He placed his cup and saucer carefully on the edge of the table, as if he feared he might drop them.
After another moment or two, I recovered enough to speak. “What does it mean, Harker?”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t know why I know this, but this vision—I believe it came fromGoosevar. He meant me to understand that he wishes us to marry. It’s the reason he brought you here, to me. It’s the reason for his interest in you. What I can’t understand, no matter how many ways I look at it, is what kind of sense that makes.”
My heart beat quick and light. I sat up straighter.
Marriage.
His eyes came to my face. “I can only imagine how this must—”
“There was aringin my tea leaves this morning,” I interrupted. “The symbol almost always means marriage. I thought it must be for Jack, since I don’t ...” Heat stinging my cheeks, I looked down and finished quietly, “Don’t have a sweetheart.”
He was quiet, and I found I couldn’t meet his gaze. Finally he let out a slow breath and settled back in his chair. “Setting aside the obvious impossibility of it, why would Goosevar interest himself in our lives in such a way?”
The obvious impossibility of it.I didn’t know why these words should stab at me as they did, because of course itwasimpossible—for so many reasons.
“I can’t imagine,” I said softly, “but it seems like something we might need to figure out.”
He raised a hand to rub his forehead, and I could feel his frustration and fear. My own thoughts were a dizzy, confused mess. But I thought if I could at least anchorhim, with his decades of stored-up knowledge, we might have a chance.
“What do you do in your laboratory when you have a problem to solve?” I asked. “How do you start?”
I felt foolish talking about his work when I understood it so little, but I could see he was grateful as he replied, “I write down the question or questions that I wish to answer.”
“Why don’t we try it?”
Nodding, he got up and walked to the dining table. I followed, noticing blank sheets of paper and a quill and inkpot already there.My letter.
He sat in the chair with the broken back and took up the quill. I pulled out the chair across from him, saying, “Will it be all right for me to sit with you?” It wasn’t much closer than we’d sat by the fire, but the attack had occurred here and was likely still very fresh in his mind—as it was in my own.
He smiled thinly. “I confess the temptation has been somewhat dampened by your resourcefulness the last time you were here.”
I didn’t grasp his meaning at first, but then his fingers brushed his burn.
I couldn’t help a huff of nervous laughter. “I’m sorry!” Feeling for the cross beneath my shawl, I said, “Does it still hurt?”
“Yes, and let us be grateful for that.” He took a sheet of paper from the stack and said, “Now, what is Goosevar? What is his connection to my family?” He scribbled down his questions.
“Also, did your vision really come from him?”
“And are the vision and your tea reading carrying the same message?”
