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The cottage fell silent.
“Eureka!” Ezra suddenly cried out.
Joe and I both jumped, our heads swiveling towards her. She cradled a mason jar, filled with gods only knew what, against her cheek. She shuffled towards the table and then motioned for me to come sit down.
I took the sizzling cast-iron pan off the fire, dished up two plates, and served them. As soon as I set it down in front of Ezra, she shoved it to the side with the back of her hand. I debated pushing it back in front of her, just to mess with her, but decided not to, in case she shoved it onto the floor next.
“Come, child, sit down and let me show you,” she said, petting the side of the jar as if it were a spoiled housecat.
I plopped into the wooden chair, watching skeptically as her wiry fingers began to unscrew the lid. When she opened it up, on reflex, I paused my breath and leaned back, eyes darting over to Joe, who didn’t appear to smell anything foul. I tested the air, daring a delicate sniff. I scented nothing, just the leftover smells from lunch—a sweet harmony of onions and peppers and spices.
Ezra turned the jar over and dumped the contents out onto the table. Dirt came pouring out. I rolled my eyes, shifting to get up from the table.
“Patience, child,” Ezra said, her head dipping close to the table as she shifted the dirt around, her finger hooking on a black string. Smiling, she yanked it up, revealing a dirty ring.
“Kaleb’s mother wasn’t a day over sixteen when she found out she was pregnant with him.” She inspected the ring with her vacant eyes, turning it over in her aged hands, rubbing this spot and that. “She was the daughter of a noble house. And as you know, a child born out of wedlock, well, it would ruin her and her family name. Not wanting to face condemnation from the community, her mother sent her to see me for a tonic to end the pregnancy. But when I pressed my hand to her stomach, I felt the fate of the child being knitted beneath. I told her I could not make the tonic.” Ezra shook her head as if she were saying no once again. “The poor thing sobbed. You see, she was afraid, afraid of what her father would do when she told him. Afraid no man would marry her because she was ‘soiled goods.’” Ezra chuckled. “Those were her own words, not mine.” She tipped her head thoughtfully to the side, chuckling some more. “What a strange notion. A woman . . . soiled goods.”
“A silly one, indeed,” Joe agreed as he worked on the last two bites of his food.
I blinked, watching him and then Ezra, noting how comfortable they were with one another. I wondered how long Joe had been sneaking into Ezra’s room. Decided maybe I didn’t want to know.
“So then, what happened to Kaleb’s mom?” I asked, wanting to hear more.
“I agreed to help her, to raise Kaleb as my own. After a bit of persuading, her mother agreed to it as well. She told her husband that her daughter was going to visit an aunt and sent her to live with me for the next eight months. After Kaleb was born, she returned to her family home, just in time to learn that her father had accepted a request for her hand in marriage—a duke from the west, if memory serves correct. Before she was due to travel to her new home, she came by and gave me this ring.” Ezra handed it to me.
I took it, studied it in my palm. A thin gold band endorsed an intricate, scalloped bezel shaped like a flower. A sizable sapphire, oval in shape, was nestled in the bezel. I couldn’t imagine what something like this must have cost.
“It was her engagement ring,” Ezra added.
“Why did she give it to you?” I asked, shifting the ring, watching how the light caught the sapphire, making it dance and twinkle, even with a layer of dirt on it.
“She asked me to sell it and use the money to give Kaleb a good life. But I didn’t need money to give Kaleb a good life. It was the only thing I had of his mother, so I decided to keep it. I had hoped to give it to him when he found love.” She tapped her chin. “I’m giving it to you now, to keep for him.”
I bit my bottom lip, staring down at the ring. It suddenly felt a lot heavier. “Why didn’t you ever tell Kaleb the truth about his mom?”
“I intended to tell him on the day I gave him the ring,” Ezra said, her shoulders slumped down. “But I never got the chance.”
Joe reached over the table and patted her hand. “You did the best you could, Firecracker.”
My eyes narrowed.Firecracker?
“Thank you, dear,” Ezra said. It might have been the most mundane string of words I had ever heard come out of her. It was weird. All of this was weird.
I looked down at the ring. “What do I do with it?”
Ezra winked, her milky white orbs staring right on past me. “You keep it safe until you can return it.”
One week had passed since I’d last seen the dark, brooding male. Von had said he was going to be away for a little while, following up on a lead in his search for the Crown of Thorns and checking up on the others who were still in Belamour, searching for Soren. I was tempted to ask him if I could go with him because I did miss Harper, Lyra and Ryker, but I felt like Ezra needed me more right now, so I decided to stay. Von also mentioned something about paying his sister a visit while he was in Belamour. I couldn’t imagine that would be pleasant—for either of them.
I wasn’t worried about Von. I had seen firsthand the type of power he wielded—felt it kiss the back of my neck at the same time it broke the bones of soldiers. If anyone could handle themselves, it was Von.
So why did his seven-day absence bother me?
Well, at the base of it—I missed him.
I missed him to the extent that I even tried talking to Ezra about it, but she was about as knowledgeable as the floorboards. In fact, the creaking slabs provided more conversation than her lately.
Ezra was in full-on Ezra mode. I thought the weight of Kaleb’s death was starting to wear on her, even though when I prodded her about it, she insisted that wasn’t it—that change was on the horizon, whatever that meant.
