Page 17 of These Godly Lies
“Everything’s fine, I’m sure. Last I visited her, she mentioned wishing to see you. I’m sure that’s all this is.”
“You’ve been visiting?”
“I always do, from time to time.”
Anna stares down the trail, a thought winding around her ribs like a noose. “Jiro’s not in the garden.”
One moment, two, and Khiran curses.
Eira’s home is, as always, the same as the last time Anna left it. Smoke curls up from the chimney, the meadow grasses tall and peppered with flowers nurtured by spring rains and budding warmth. Decomposed leaves from seasons past slip, still wet from the morning mist, under Anna’s heel.
Jiro is at the edge of the forest, his brows drawn tight as he stares at the house. Hearing them approach, he allows them a quick glance before returning to the meadow—as if it being out of his sight risks it disappearing. “You don’t have any neighbors,” he says, a tremor of nervousness making his voice shake. “I’ve been back here with you gathering firewood dozens of times. There’s not supposed to be a house here.”
The sigh Khiran releases sounds like both defeat and acceptance. “Come on, then. It’s too late to hope for discretion now.”
Anna winces, watching his back as he follows the trail without them. This wasn’t part of their plan. Jiro wasn’t supposed to know about this side of their lives. Doubt chokes her, curdling in her gut like old milk. Maybe Khiran was right. Maybe she should have let him find someone to take Jiro in before he could have the chance to get wrapped up in their mess.
“What’s he talking about?” Jiro asks.
Anna hates the suspicion in his eyes.
She breathes around the weight on her chest. “You’re right,” she says, swallowing. “I don’t have any neighbors.” Because it is far too late to keep this secret.
Jiro studies her. His favorite mask—the one of cool, stubborn indifference—slowly fades into one of wonder. “So this place is…?”
“Magic.” The word tastes strange in her mouth. Like it somehow says too much and not nearly enough. “Come on. I’ll tell you more once we’re inside.”
He follows her, his gaze flitting over the meadow as if every facet of it is something to be studied. Khiran has already gone inside without them, but it’s just as well. It gives Anna more time to think of how much and how little information she’s willing to part with.
“The sun is in a different position,” Jiro notes, his eyes wide with fascination.
“We’re not in California anymore.”
“Where are we, then?”
Anna doesn’t have an answer for him. Eira’s home has always been a place that folds itself between nowhere and everywhere all at once. It’s only the length of the trails and the flora that give her the sense that it lies somewhere on the European continent, but she can’t even be sure if that’s entirely true. “The Meadow,” is the only answer she can give him that feels like truth.
When Anna opens the door, Eira’s cornflower eyes immediately go to the extra person in her threshold, frowning. “Well, this is a surprise.”
Anna flinches. There is a word hiding between the others, silent but somehow ringing through her chest with the clarity of a bell.Unwelcome.“He found your trail before we did.”
Eira hums, studying the boy with the same calculating gaze she once pinned on her. Anna remembers the feel of it, the way she wanted to curl into herself in hopes of hiding the worst parts of her.
Eira sighs, turning to Khiran with a scowl of disapproval deepening the wrinkles around her mouth. “I expect this from her, but you should know better.”
When he says nothing, she shakes her head. Her gray hair, twisted into a braid at her back, moves with her. “Never mind.Ishould have known. Of course, you couldn’t say no to her. Lovesick fool that you are.” She pins Jiro with a hard gaze. “Follow the trail back home, boy. I’m afraid this conversation isn’t for your ears.”
He looks ready to argue, but Eira’s stare sharpens before he can voice a complaint and his outrage quickly sobers into resignation. Still, he glances to Anna first.
She offers him a fragile smile. “We’ll be home soon. Would you mind getting dinner started?”
Hesitantly, he nods, giving them all one last parting glance before leaving. Eira barely waits for the door to close behind him. Her sigh is like leaves on gravel. “Sit. I wish the issue of the boy was my greatest concern, but it isn’t.” She pins Khiran with a meaningful stare. “There’s news from Edun.”
The change in him is instant. His spine straightens, tension plucking at his shoulders, but it’s the way his attention sharpens—as if Eira’s every word could spell out their future—that alarms Anna the most.
“Edun?” she asks, carefully sinking into one of the chairs. The word somehow sounds both foreign and familiar at the same time. She thinks of the stories about a garden and a serpent, of golden apples and eternal youth.
Khiran wets his lips. He has yet to sit. “It’s where The Tree grows.”
