A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 16

I n Christmas Eve, it snowed.

Briar woke to a text from Rowan.

Happy Christmas. Be by around 4PM to pick you up? xxx

He held the phone inches from his face and couldn’t contain a smile.

Since his episode, he’d completed all his custom orders and finally made enough money to buy ghost orchid pollen. He hadn’t told Gretchen yet, waiting to surprise her. Vatii fussed over him and promised not to chide him too often, since it was Christmas. He felt brighter.

The sky was navy by four. Rowan arrived early with a bag of gifts in one hand and snow in his hair. He set the bag down in the doorway and drew Briar out into the cool blue air just to cup his cheeks and kiss him.

It should have set off alarm bells. People could see. They were in the street, only a few steps out the door, aglow in yellow lantern light and—

And Briar didn’t care.

They drew apart. Rowan said, “Happy Christmas.”

Briar rose on tiptoes to kiss him again.

Maebh lived in the flat above her pub. It was a riot of smells and commotion, a roaring fire chasing out any trace of cold. Christmas carols played on an old radio from the kitchen, where everyone gathered to prepare food, except Ciara, who prodded presents under the tree.

“Ey, no spoaching,” Rowan told her as he placed his own gifts there.

Briar brought presents too, wrapped fastidiously like showroom props. Ciara saw these and yelled, “Pretty! Which is for me?”

After letting her shake her gift and chase Vatii around the living room, Rowan led them into the kitchen. Maebh smothered Briar in a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She poured him mulled wine from a pot on the stove, brewed with caramelized oranges. Rowan started preparing dessert—rhubarb pie and custard.

Briar insisted on helping somehow. As he peeled potatoes over a newspaper and the convivial atmosphere seeped into him, Ciara came to sit next to him, a pink diary in hand with a cartoonishly enormous lock on it. She leveled Briar with a serious stare.

“Briar?” she said.

“Yes?”

“When you and Rowan get married, I’m going to be your flower girl. Okay?”

Across the kitchen, Rowan choked audibly on his mulled wine. A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in Briar’s throat. Given how Ciara looked at him, it sounded like a threat.

“I’ll let you make my dress for me,” she added benevolently.

He pointed to her diary. “Are you planning weddings in there?”

She gave a theatrical, long-suffering sigh. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Sorcha said, “She hid the key and can’t remember where she put it, didn’t she?”

“I put it somewhere safe!”

“I know a bit of magic that could unlock it,” Briar said.

Ciara’s eyes grew wide, and she picked up the diary to slam it in front of him. “Show me, show me!”

“Say please, Ciara, how many times have I told you?” Sorcha said.

“Please!”

Rowan came over to watch as Briar lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s an old type of magic. It needs a different kind of tithe. You’ve got to tell a secret, something you’ve never told anyone.” Though a rare spell, certain words, or their meanings, held power. The confession of a deeply held secret unlocked the truth, and thus could free something sealed away.

A deep frown of concentration came over Ciara as she searched for a secret to tell. At a loss, she cast about the room, eyes falling on the turkey. She said, “I don’t like cranberry sauce on my turkey.”

The lock did not open. Sorcha burst out laughing. “Ciara, you’ve been giving out to me about the cranberry sauce all day .”

“I never told Briar!”

“It’s got to be something you’ve told no one else,” Sorcha said. “Not something you’ve told half of Coill Darragh.”

“I’ve a secret for you,” Rowan said with a sly smile.

“Tell me!”

“You’ve got to promise not to tell, or it won’t work.”

He mimed a zipper over his lips. Ciara did the same. After a moment, Rowan, Ciara, and Briar all put their hands on the diary. Rowan leaned down to whisper in Ciara’s ear. As a conduit for the magic, Briar felt it surge through him into the diary, but as it did, something else leaked through. It tickled his senses like fall leaves scuttling along a windy street. A magic signature, but not his own.

The lock on the diary popped open with a click. Shrieking triumphantly, Ciara pounced on it and ran from the room saying, “Don’t look, it’s private!” Unaware of the irony that if she had any secrets therein, she wouldn’t have needed Rowan’s to open it.

Briar watched her go. “I think your niece might be a witch, you know.”

“Wouldn’t surprise us. She’s a right spitfire,” Rowan said.

Briar had wondered why Ciara never showed the same unease around Rowan as others. Perhaps she had an ability, like Briar’s aura reading, that helped her see through it.

“So.” Briar smirked up at Rowan. “What’s the secret you told her?”

Rowan made a production of shrugging and returned to stir the pie filling without answering.

The kitchen became a thoroughfare for every O’Shea in Coill Darragh while the cooking continued. Cousins, aunts, and uncles poured in with bottles of wine or a “How ya doing, hey?” They all introduced themselves to Briar and asked in a roundabout, friendly way how he found himself in Maebh’s kitchen, and had he tried her gravy yet? When he said he was a friend of Rowan’s, none concealed their shock. They seemed genuinely glad, if surprised, that Rowan had a friend. One of them put it like so: “He’s a face for scaring children, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

They greeted Rowan, warm but with an underlying discomfort. Briar could see them reaching across the void of that scar’s influence, and he could see Rowan on the other side of it, resigned to the distance the chasm created. They were all family. They’d known him before. But none seemed to understand what had become of him.

Some of the hubbub moved into the living room, a distant hum of activity. As Briar set the pots of veg in the kitchen, he felt a warm hand at the small of his back.

Rowan said, “When I invited you, I didn’t mean to put you to work.”

“I’m happy to help.”

“Well, you’ve worked enough. C’mere to me.” Rowan reeled him in close and wiped the corner of Briar’s mouth with his thumb. “Gravy,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Your mam seems famous for it.”

“Ah, sure.” He looked askance at the potatoes, a furrow in his brow. “Look, I asked Mam about Da’s work. She says she’s kept his office right like the day he left it. If you wanted to have a look and see what we can find about…” He gestured to his scar. “All this.”

“Of course. If you’re okay with me seeing it.”

“It’s fine for me. Just don’t want you working on your holiday.”

“Rowan.” Briar nudged him. “Let’s go look.”

They went upstairs through a door at the end of the hall. Inside, something half office, half bomb site awaited. Sandwiched between towers of books and papers was a desk. A curious number of instruments, both for potion making and aesthetics, decorated it. Some moved, whirring and spinning in an eternal loop, powered by invisible magic that had endured since the caster’s death. Framed botany samples and scientific illustrations covered the walls, and the dust of a decade coated everything in gray film.

Some of the clutter looked less natural. A couple desk drawers had been removed and upended.

“It looks like someone ransacked it,” Briar said.

“Could easily have been Da who did that. Mam mentioned he’d given out to her about his missing journal the day he disappeared. He was always misplacing things.”

“Any chance the journal wasn’t lost, but stolen?”

Rowan frowned. “Could be. I don’t know where to start.”

“I’ll start with the desk. That stack of books over there looks… well used? Maybe there’s useful information there.”

They sorted through the contents of the office, though with little idea of what to look for and so much to sort through, it made for a frustrating task. Vatii perused the spines of books stacked against walls and overflowing from shelves. Briar sifted through desk papers—spare parchment and Post-its with only a few scrawled reminders or phone numbers on them. The one drawer not strewn across the floor was locked. Briar asked about a key, and Rowan said he’d have to ask his mam when she wasn’t preparing to carve a turkey, as she was liable to carve him up instead.

Rowan leafed through ledgers and history books with one hand, the other fidgeting in his pocket. A small frown tugged at the corners of his lips.

“Anything interesting?” Briar asked.

“Hm?”

“In the history book. Anything about the invasion?”

“Oh, ehm, no. Doesn’t cover anything so recent,” Rowan said distractedly.

Briar turned back to the desk. There had to be some clue here, yet the only thing Briar gleaned was an interest éibhear had with a particular plant called the red carnella. A handwritten treatise of Coill Darraghn flora had been consulted so many times that the spine fell open to a specific, tea-stained page. On it was an illustration of a red flower shaped like a string of hanging bells. The same flower was painted and framed on the wall, along-side scientific lino prints. In the margins of notes, Briar found doodles of the plant. It seemed like an obsession. The botanical book claimed it was rare and endemic to Coill Darragh—something about the soil being the exact acidity necessary. Briar had never seen one before.

He sighed and closed the book. Nothing else jumped out. Nothing about the invasion, or Gretchen, or the responsibilities Rowan would inherit. Nothing that might have precipitated the loss (or theft) of the journal, nothing to indicate why it might be worth taking.

He looked at Rowan, profile aglow with the lamplight behind him. He seemed far away, still holding the same book, open to the same place. Briar admired the fall of dark lashes over warm brown eyes, the slope of his nose, the pursed shape of his lips.

Rowan still fidgeted with something in his pocket. On closer inspection, he looked agitated.

“Find anything?” Briar asked.

Rowan sat up straighter. He blinked, looking down at the book in his lap. “Ehm, nothing.” Sheepishly.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah! Yeah, fine.”

Briar looked around the office—a museum to éibhear’s history. He stood and reached for Rowan, who got up and stopped fidgeting to put his hand in Briar’s. It was shaking. Even towering over Briar as he did, the hunch of his shoulders made him seem small.

“Is it hard having so much of him around?” Briar asked. “We don’t have to keep looking now.”

“It’s not—” Rowan broke off. He looked incredibly lost.

Unsure what else to do, Briar reached on tiptoes to embrace him, and Rowan gratefully stepped into it. He dropped his head into the crook of Briar’s shoulder, and a shaky exhale shivered against Briar’s neck.

“Rowan, you’re shaking.”

“Just a bit cold.” It was sweltering in the house.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

From downstairs, Maebh’s voice shouted, “Boys! Supper’s about ready!”

With dry humor, Rowan said, “We’ll get it in the neck if we let the food go cold.”

Briar debated pushing the subject. Something ate at Rowan, though he couldn’t seem to articulate what, and Briar didn’t want to dredge it up right before dinner. He would ask later.

Downstairs, the dining table had expanded, place settings arranged with gold crackers at each. There was even one for Vatii. Briar sat squashed between Rowan and Ciara, a vast spread of food before them. Succulent turkey, roasted potatoes crisped at the edges, thick gravy you could stand a spoon in. Honey-roasted ham pricked with oranges and cloves. The smell of turkey stirred a cauldron of nostalgia in Briar’s heart. No matter how skint they were, his mother always made a turkey for them Christmas Day.

This feast was bigger. This family was, too. They filled Briar’s heart in places his mother had left empty.

He helped himself to only a little of everything, which still resulted in a tower of food he struggled to finish. Luckily, Rowan’s size reflected his appetite, and he finished what Briar couldn’t.

Rowan’s family gossiped about the disaster of cutting a Christmas tree down so it fit in the living room. It barely squeezed through the door, shedding needles everywhere. For dessert, they enjoyed Rowan’s rhubarb pie and custard, the perfect mix of tart and sweet, served with vanilla ice cream.

Briar, stuffed to the gills, insisted on helping clean up. As he did, Maebh came in with a drying cloth. Briar said, “You cooked. Shouldn’t you be resting on your laurels now?”

“Oh go ’way. I’ve ulterior motives anyways.”

Briar’s heart thunked, though he couldn’t be sure that wasn’t impending cardiac arrest from all the carbs. “Oh?”

“It does this mammy’s heart good to see her shy boy find a friend in you, is all,” she said. “My Rowan’s a good man, but not many see it.”

“I noticed. I think it’s the scar.”

“Aw sure look it is.” She put a stack of dried plates in the cupboard. Briar thought she wouldn’t say anything else about it, but as he scrubbed the bottom of a wineglass, she added, “What I’m saying is, thank you. For making him happy.”

It struck Briar like a lightning bolt, shocking and heating him through. From where he stood, he could look into the living room and see Rowan sitting on the sofa. Ciara bounced on the back of it, putting bows in Rowan’s hair. Rowan glanced Briar’s way and met his eyes for just a second, and his smile grew.

He makes me happy too , Briar thought, petrified, like he’d stepped atop a very tall place and looked over the edge at something beautiful and perilous, then lurched with the desire to step off.

Pain lanced through his wrist, and his hand spasmed, dropping the glass he’d been holding into the water.

“You all right there?” Maebh asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, just clumsy.”

Everyone gathered around the tree, wine in hand, to exchange gifts. Rowan’s family got Briar decorations for his flat. Buttercup curtains. A houseplant with leaves shaped like coins. A fur throw for the end of the bed or to soften the wood floor. Briar had knitted them all scarves and enchanted them to feel perpetually dryer-warmed. Ciara buried her face in hers.

While the others were distracted by the giant, hideous portrait Sorcha had painted of Connor as a joke, Rowan tipped a gift into Briar’s hands. A small box that fit in his palm, with a silky blue bow that glided as he pulled it free. Inside, an earring sat on a bed of tissue paper. A silver antler with teardrop jewels dangling from it.

Briar thought it was very unfair he couldn’t kiss Rowan right then.

Rowan shifted nervously. “If it’s not to your liking, I can—”

“Put it on me.”

Briar held his hair away, and Rowan gently attached it to the cuff of his ear with fingers that fluttered like bird’s wings. When he finished, Briar turned his head this way and that, making the jewels swing and glitter in the lights from the Christmas tree. Vatii, always keen on sparkly things, nipped at it.

“What do you think?” Briar asked.

Rowan didn’t say anything, but his expression said plenty. Briar went to grab the gift he’d made from under the tree, wrapped like origami with mistletoe tucked in the folds. “Remember, you have to pretend to be surprised.”

“I told you, I didn’t see anything.”

He unwrapped it one corner at a time, lifted the lid. Inside lay a necklace of leather twine. At the end, one of Vatii’s feathers was tied with a gold Christmas bell that didn’t ring when Rowan picked it up.

“It’s charmed,” Briar said. “I’ve enchanted it so if you ever find yourself wandering into the forest again, the bell will ring, and it will alert me that something’s happened to you. See?” He pulled on the neck of his jumper. A rune in the shape of a diamond with a dot in the center sat in the middle of his chest.

Rowan didn’t respond for long enough that Briar wondered if he’d miscalculated, if this gift served only to remind Rowan of something terrible rather than expressing how badly Briar wanted to protect him.

Then Rowan put the necklace over his head and whispered, “Thank you.” He made the two words sound grand.

They spent the rest of the evening playing board games until Ciara had to go to bed. Basking in good food, drink, and company, Briar caught himself reminiscing over nights spent like this with his mother before she’d gotten ill. Watching old black-and-white films. Making elaborate cheese boards. Sharing a box of chocolates, his mother always leaving his favorite caramels. He hadn’t felt like that in a long time. The only thing tarnishing his good mood was the flicker of a muscle in his hand.

Rowan made motions to depart, and it was another fifteen minutes of saying goodbyes and thank-yous, then lapsing into conversation, then goodbyes again. They finally made it out the door and into the chill night. Snow fluttered down in big fluffy flakes.

“I have something to show you,” Rowan said.

He led Briar into the alley behind Maebh’s pub. There, under a blanket of snow, was a long wooden sledge. Rowan picked up the rope tied to its front.

“Asked Sorcha if we could borrow it. Have you ever been?”

Briar grinned. He hadn’t.

They traipsed through town, snow crunching underfoot, the sledge dragging behind them. Rowan took him to the fields where they’d had their second kiss. At the top of a steep hill, he set the sledge facing the incline and instructed Briar to hop on. It had been made for more than one, but Rowan stood behind it and shoved.

Briar let out a yell. The nose of the sledge angled downward, and he got a good look at how steep the ground went and how far down the bottom was as gravity took hold. Cold stung his cheeks, a laugh stolen by the wind. He hit a bump that sent him swerving, but he managed to swing his body sideways as counterbalance. He wobbled and slid the rest of the way, coming to a sudden stop in a drift at the bottom. Vatii winged after him, cawing joyously.

He turned around to see Rowan, a faraway waving shape on the hilltop.

Euphoric and dizzy, Briar grabbed the sledge rope and started up the hill again. Rowan came to meet him halfway.

Briar insisted they both go. Rowan didn’t think they’d both fit, but Briar was determined. He sat in the front, Rowan wedged behind him with both legs stuck out to either side.

“It’s going to crash,” he said in Briar’s ear.

They did crash.

As they sped down the slope, Rowan’s weight dragged the sledge leeway. They tipped out, rolled and skidded down the hill, snow rucking up under their clothes. They came to a stop with Rowan half atop him, breath frosting the air in silver puffs. Briar shuddered, laughing, teeth chattering. Rowan had snow in his hair and all over his face. With mittened hands, Briar wiped it away.

Cheeks glowing red, Briar moved to kiss him at the same time Rowan did. They knocked foreheads, burst out laughing and groaning. Rowan kissed the throbbing spot where Briar would have a goose egg later, and then kissed his mouth. Briar’s entire body felt heavy, drunk on the desire tasted between them. Rowan pulled off his mittens to put hands as hot as irons under Briar’s clothes, making him gasp. He broke away to apologize, only for Briar to chase his mouth and drag him into the snowbank.

It was the sort of joyous moment Briar thought only happened to people with richer, luckier lives than his.

Rowan’s heart was a hearth, the circle of his arms a home, and Briar felt sick with the longing to stay there forever.

He realized, with a drop in his stomach, that he was falling in love.

This wasn’t casual.

He wasn’t sure it ever had been.

Rowan drew away, panting. His nervousness from earlier returned. With one hand, he reached for his pocket. At the same time, splintering white light formed a halo in Briar’s vision.

Rowan said, “Briar, I—Briar?”

Briar tried to answer but choked. The lights in his vision spidered and spread. His body jerked. For the second time that week, the curse took him.