Page 19 of Strange Grace
Haf’s mouth twitches and her fingers tighten on the basket’s handle. “I forgot! Yes, of course I’ll go.” She laughs at herself, and knocks her shoulder into Mairwen’s arm before skipping off. Bree nudges Mair too, and uses her chin to point across the square to Ifan Pugh, whose eyes track Haf’s progress.
Mair can hardly take her own gaze off the boys, especially Rhun and Arthur as they organize a race, debating obstacles and directions. Men call suggestions from the sides, for hurdles and traps. Mairwen sweeps out, offering herself and Bree and Haf as race markers, to hold ribbons the boys will have to carry from one to the next as proof they’ve gone the whole way. It’s set, and so they spend the rest of the daylight: playing games to echo the final night of the Slaughter Moon.
•••
AS THE SUN SETS, ALLreturn to the square, flushed and dirty. Rhun is hot with laughing and the race, trailing behind everyone as they chatter and argue over who won. Mairwen received a kiss from every boy who ran: gentlemanly hand and cheek kisses from Bevan Heir, the Argall brothers, and the Parry cousins. Arthur kissed her on the mouth, but swiftly and with a tight sneer that mirrored the shape of Mairwen’s and left her breathless. Rhun picked her up by the ribs and kissed her long enough to make her smile again. So long it lost him the race.
Falling behind not from nerves or sorrow, but the weight of gladness for all he has, Rhun is the one to see John Upjohn walking a parallel path to town, and he angles his route to meet up with the saint.
John Upjohn is the only person in Three Graces who never smiles at Rhun, though Rhun’s been told the saint has a sweet smile, with dimples on either side of his mouth. How Rhun would like to see that smile tonight. “John,” he says, almost bashful.
“Rhun Sayer.” Deep wrinkles pull at his eyes, as if John were twice his true age, and the corners are reddish, a sign of his poor sleeping. Mairwen has told Rhun that John still has nightmares, still sometimes comes to the Grace house in the middle of the night as if its hearthstone is the only thing that soothes him enough to rest. The saint is wearing the usual costume of a hunter: wool trousers and leather jerkin over a wool shirt, though he’s without a hood tonight. His stubbed wrist is tucked into a shallow pocket in his jerkin, and in his only hand is a sprig of dried flowers for the bonfire.
They walk in silence, drawn toward the crowd in the square, to the flicker of torches already lit. Rhun worries his tongue at the back of his teeth, unsure how to make the saint smile. What to say on a night like this, to someone so haunted by it?
Two houses before they reach the square, it’s John who stops. “I remember your cousin, ten years ago. I was only eleven, but I remember him, how bright and happy he was the night of his bonfire.”
“I remember, too,” Rhun says.
“It helped me during mine. To have that memory. I’m sorry you’ve got me and memories of me in the way.”
“No!” Rhun reaches out and grips John’s arm, to reassure him. “I’m not sorry.”
The saint makes a smile that is more of a wince, no dimples anywhere. “You will be.”
A chill grips Rhun’s spine, but he shrugs it off as if fear is a choice. “It’s what I’m for,” he says.
“Is it?” John Upjohn shakes his head and pulls his stump out of its pocket. The sleeve of his shirt is tied off so there are no scars to see. “You can choose,” he says finally, echoing Rhun’s thoughts.
Rhun lets his hand slide away from the saint’s shoulder. “It’s worth it.”
Expecting John to immediately agree is a mistake Rhun knew he was making even as he made it. When John slowly, reluctantly nods, Rhun apologizes: “I’m sorry. It must be impossible for you, tonight of all nights.”
The saint smiles helplessly, and there they are: two long dimples making John’s face more handsome for a moment before the smile falls away and John says, “You’re facing your best and worst night, and apologizing to me. I’m the one who’s sorry, Rhun Sayer. You’re too good to survive it.”
Unsurprised by the sentiment, only the bluntness of someone saying so aloud, Rhun lets his mouth fall open, and for a moment he’s at a loss. His cousin was the best, and didn’t live: Rhun never expected to be better than Baeddan. “I don’t have to survive it, to fulfill the bargain. I just have to run.”
“You should want to survive it, though.” The haunted blue of John’s eyes catches the last sunlight as he steps nearer to Rhun.
“I—I do,” Rhun says, though he rarely has thought of any future past the night of his run. All his future thoughts have been of the four more years he was supposed to have between now and then. The moment the blood appeared on the Bone Tree this morning, Rhun’s future vanished. He knows in his heart, in his gut, this is his second-to-last night.
“Good,” John says sorrowfully, as if he knows Rhun doesn’t mean it but can’t bring himself to challenge it.
The saint and almost-saint pause together in the narrow cobbled alley, though Rhun is broader, with more bright tension in the way he stands, and John Upjohn holds himself as still as stone.
“I’ll be all right, John,” Rhun says, and though he hates lying nearly as much as he hates secrets, he adds, “I promise.”
“Just remember,” the saint says, moving away from Rhun, glancing back over his shoulder, “you must have something to focus on, besides the devil. Besides the run. Something outside, something... good. A person, or hope for yourself. Something to pull you back out.”
“What did you hope for?” Rhun calls softly.
John lowers his head and holds out his arm with the missing hand. He doesn’t answer.
Before Rhun can press, the saint hurries toward the village square.
•••
THREE YEARS AGO, WHEN ARTHURwas nearly fifteen, his best friend, Rhun, stopped them along the narrow deer path they’d been stalking along, and kissed him. The moment before, as he leaned in, Rhun’s eyes were bright with happiness, so much so that Arthur started to smile back before he realized what was happening.
