Page 52 of Dragon Cursed
Poppy understood, with a small sick lurch, that her own skin wascold.
"You're not fine."
"It's a chill.I caught it walking yesterday.I'll boil up some willow bark and be right by tomorrow."
The lie came out of her so easily.
She had never lied easily in her life.She had never had cause to.The smoothness of it surprised her almost more than the lie itself.
Behind Briíd, in the dark line of the wood at the edge of her dead garden, she couldn’t see him.He had wanted not to be seen.But she couldfeelhim.He was watching her lie to a woman she had known her whole life.
She didn’t look toward the trees.
She kept her eyes on Briíd's kind, worried face.
Briíd looked at her a long moment.Whatever the woman saw, she didn’t push.She set the basket down on the table beside the door and gave Poppy's shoulder a squeeze.
"You send word if you need anything.Anythingat all.We owe you.The whole village owes you.You can't carry every load in this place by yourself."
"Thank you," Poppy whispered.
Finn pressed something small and warm into her hand on his way past.She looked down.A smooth black pebble — the kind a child finds and decides is precious.He looked up at her with enormous serious eyes.
"It's for you.It's a good one."
"It's the best one."She smiled.
She watched them go down the path.Briíd held Finn's hand.Finn looked back twice.The second time he waved.Poppy waved back.
She stood at her door until the gate closed behind them.Then she shut the door.Slid the latch.Pressed her forehead against the wood for the space of three slow breaths.She was tired.So very tired.
She turned around.
Alsander was already in the kitchen.
She didn’t know how he had gotten back inside without her hearing him.She would never know.He was simplythere, where he had been, his hand wrapped around the warm mug as if nothing had interrupted them.
His face was the face of a man who had been watching the woman he loved through her own kitchen window for the last three minutes.
"You lied to her," he said quietly.
"I know."
"You are not —" he frowned — "you are not a person who lies easily, Poppy."
"I wasn’t, no."She walked past him to the basket Briíd had left on the table.Lifted the cloth.The cookies were yellow with butter.The smell of them — ordinary and warm and good — made her eyes sting."I seem to be one now.I don’t know what to make of that."
He didn’t answer.She had lied to protecthim.When he answered, his voice was very gentle."Come and sit down,a chuisle.Come and have a cookie.We have books to read."
They cleared the kitchen table.
She dragged the heavy chest from the foot of her bed into the middle of the kitchen floor and knelt in front of it and opened the lock with hands that shook only a little.He watched her open it.He didn’t offer to help.He understood, without needing to be told, that this washersto open andhisto be present for.
"The journal first."Her voice was steadier than it had been."Then the recipe ledger.Then this one — my mother's herbal.Then the stack of letters.Then this one, here — this is my great-grandmother's.Saoirse Ní Bhriain.I have never read it.My grandmother told me to leave it until I was ready, and I have never been ready."
"You are ready now."
"I suppose I am."
