AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What is this?” His voice was hushed.
The necklace was obviously not anormalpiece of kit.
I shook my head. Like hell I knew what it was, and I was past any point in caring.
Searle, scent washing with cool, guarded shock, slowly closed the lid. He put it back on my palm. I drew it to my lap and held it with both hands, but I kept staring out the window.
“What happened?” he asked.
“He said goodbye.”
“Meaning even if you have the chance to see him again, he doesn’t want to see you.”
His words were salt grinding into wounds. “Yes.”
“I am glad he and I are in agreement on this. Perhaps now you will listen.”
More salt, ground even deeper.
“We’re expected at breakfast,” he said.
Right. Breakfast. I stood. Somewhere, somehow, I’d gotten dressed. Jeans and a top, but I didn’t process what I was wearing. No socks. Toenails still had chips of that metallic blue on them. So did my fingernails. Soon the blue would be gone.
I followed Searle down to breakfast. I drifted in a cloud of numbness. Or in a pool of pain. Not sure which. Had I stopped feeling anything because I’d felt so much I’d gone numb?
Everyone was already there, putting napkins on laps and spooning food onto plates, or stealing a piece of toast and bacon before darting off to work. I placed the box between Demetrius and Marcella—they always sat at the end of the table, sharing it like they shared everything else—and took my usual seat a few chairs down, next to their youngest daughter. Searle went to pour us coffee.
I stared at my empty place setting. I was supposed to do something.
“Summer?” Emilia, Demetrius and Marcella’s youngest, pulled at my sleeve. “You okay?”
Summer. The name was a whip to my brainstem.
If anyone else had called me that, I’d have snapped, but she was just nine. She didn’t know who I really was. Or any of this. And she definitely should not know this kind of shit. I dug up a smile. Was probably ghoulish. “I am. I’m just tired.”
“You smell sad.”
“Chronicler work is sometimes very, very sad.” The numbness started to crack and grief leaked through. “You sometimes hear sad stories, or tell people hard things. Sometimes you can help, but most of the time, all you can do is listen and write it down.”
She pressed her shoulders and head against my arm. Poor little pup, this wasn’t her burden to worry about. I smoothed Elena’s hair and gave her a little side-hug before nudging her back to her breakfast.
Searle set my coffee cup in front of me, then took his seat, and began to put food on his plate.
I found the will to reach for my coffee cup and have a sip. Sarah passed me the little cream pot.
I watched the cream erase the reflective dark of the coffee.
Breakfast continued. I managed a few sips of my coffee and tried to stare at nothing in particular so everyone would ignore me and enjoy their own breakfast. Tim scooped some of the oatmeal into a small bowl, added some sugar and raisins to it, added a slice of the bacon to the side, then got up and brought the bowl to put right in front of me without comment before returning to his seat.
It took a few moments before I processed the oatmeal was food, that it needed to be eaten, and oh,Iwas supposed to eat it. And the fact I was not eating had caused some concern at the table. A wolf who didn’t eat was a sick wolf or a dead-but-not-dead wolf.
If I’d been Winter, they’d have just left me alone with my grief, and accepted the fact I’d come to the table at all as enough. But I was Summer, saddened Chronicler Apprentice who heard a Sad Story while on one of her first field missions.
I managed to put a spoonful of oatmeal into my mouth. It tasted like nothing.
“Go get ready,” Demetrius told his pups. “I’m leaving soon.”
They made the usual whining noises before heading off. Once they were gone, Demetrius picked up the necklace box and cracked it open. Marcella leaned over to get a look. Then they passed the box to Henri and Sarah.
