The Springborn

CALDER

“ W hat happened in there?” Robbie asks when I brush past him. We’ve been firm friends for years, brothers in all ways but blood—but I wish he were elsewhere at the moment. I’m too disgusted with myself to be good company for anyone.

I fear I have bungled things again. Worse than before, even.

“Later, Rob,” I mutter.

I hurry toward home, crushing sticks and ferns underfoot. My regrets plague me, but I can no more outrace them than I could a runaway steam engine. Robbie, too, manages to follow at my heels.

She—Sabella—makes me lose my mind. All right, it is wrong to put it that way. It is not her fault I transformed into a grinning nincompoop the instant she opened the door to me. She cannot be blamed for my overabundant, play-acted charm, or the apple-offering (am I the serpent of Eden? Good glory no!), or the falsified letter from the housing officer. Yonaz was the one who insisted I tell the new-lodger tale instead of the truth, so I suppose he is partly at fault…

Nevertheless, it is I who flitted about like a dandy from a poorly written novel. Blast me.

If I were the praying kind, I would beseech the Lord above to help me do better when I return to Sabella’s house. This is no mere game. Nor is it truly about me and my personal inclinations. This is about her safety. Her future happiness.

Ahead of me stands the vine-covered wall and the entrance to my home. I bend and press my palms to my knees as I try to catch my breath. The welcoming scents of wood smoke and cinnamon cake beckon me inside. Ordinarily, I’d track down the cake like a hound on the hunt, but I seem to have misplaced my appetite.

Untrue. I know exactly whose kitchen I left it in.

The hours between now and when I can bring Sabella here—to the place where she belongs—will seem eternal. I have never been one to worry, but I worry now. What if she refuses to join us? If that were not vexation enough, I’m pining to be in her presence again. If such longing makes me a madman or a fool, then so be it. I only hope that in the end, I am the fool she chooses to call her own.