The Springborn

CALDER

I toss a log on the fire, although it’s hot as the devil’s ankles in here. But that’s how Delphine likes it for some reason. I have foregone trying to figure her out, for the most part. I think she might be better off unknown, anyway. Like all the parts of the devil that come with his ankles.

Across the room, Sabella stands at the counter, her back to me as she hacks some helpless vegetable with a butter knife. Her hair is in a knot, revealing a few inches of skin on the back of her neck. If I were not bound by these blasted vines, the temptation of that pale and narrow terrain might overcome whatever good sense I have left.

One might think a person trapped in a house by a madwoman would not squander time imagining the act of kissing a fellow captive, but one would be quite mistaken. I have been full of such imaginings. In fact, I grab onto them like they’re the precious driftwood that will keep me afloat on this sea of perilous unknowns.

Sabella looks over her shoulder at me. “Didn’t Delphine tell you to help Rhys wash up before dinner? He and Branna are still in the yard.”

“I can hear that.” Squeals of delight echo through the open windows as the boy and deer play tag. At least Delphine allows them to roam the grounds as she waits for whatever it is she’s waiting for. I try not to consider what might happen to us if she loses patience before Yonaz and Robbie return to rescue us. In my efforts to forestall such thoughts, I entertain romantic notions of Sabella’s neck. It works out rather well, I think.

“Where is Delphine?” I ask Sabella as I take a seat in our captor’s favorite armchair. The movement causes the vine around my upper arm to cut into my skin, and I cringe at the pain.

“In the garden doing something. Probably cursing weeds to die or talking apples into growing to be the size of your head.” She scoops up chopped carrots with her hands and drops them into a bowl before she starts in on a defenseless potato.

I ignore her jab at my hat size and appreciate what I can see of her left earlobe. If she had any idea the power she wields over me just by being … Honestly, she has ruined me. And it is wonderful indeed. Or will be, if the universe has any mercy upon me in the future.

My foot pokes at an ant, pointing it toward the open door. My mouth says without asking my brain, “This would be nice, if not for that woman. This house in the woods. Us together.” Regret makes my face a bonfire. I brace myself for another reminder that we are only friends.

Sabella turns toward me. She rests her hip against the counter. Her dress is rumpled and her forehead is speckled with perspiration. A lock of hair hangs down, barely falling clear of her left eye. A maple leaf clings to one of her antlers, evidence that she ventured outdoors earlier. Apart from the worry line between her eyebrows, I would not change a thing about her.

“You certainly have a good attitude today,” she says.

I shrug off her comment. Compliment? “Well, we did see a bat recently.”

“I hope we see him again soon. I thought my mother worked me to the bone, but Delphine… Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Um, there’s a leaf on your antler,” I say, hoping she believes me. What must my face look like? Is the longing for her written across my features in huge letters? I try to adjust my expression to a neutral one.

She runs her fingers over the silvery branches of her antlers until she locates the leaf. After she plucks it off, she presses it flat in her palm and stares at it. “I want to apologize,” she says. “Back in the woods, before we were captured, I hurt your feelings. I know you were just trying to help me.”

“Apology accepted,” I say. “We will figure this out, Sabella, how to…get along.” I don’t want to talk about being friends. I need to be allowed to hope for more—at least until we can return to the farm.

“We will,” she says, meeting my gaze. “I know we will.”

In a perfect world, I would cross the room now and give her a friendly embrace, something completely cordial and platonic and warm, but not warmer than she would appreciate, but this prison is not a perfect world. The vine around my arm tightens as if to remind me to behave.

And then Delphine calls my name. Before I go, I give Sabella the best smile I own. When she smiles back, I feel as though I could fly all the way to the moon without using my wings.