Page 68 of Memories of the Lost
She laughed softly. “That would do a lot for my heart.”
“Do whatever you want with the painting. You can put it in your show if you like. I’ll send you a release myself.”
“That’s okay. I just want it for me.”
“I’ll still send it.” He stepped close, and their bodies touched lightly. “I hate leaving, Tillie. I really do.”
“I hate it, too. That we can’t even see where this is going.”
“It’s not over, is it?”
“Well, it can’t really progress if you’re traveling the world, can it?”
“We can text. FaceTime. Email.” He curled his hand around her ear. “You can come visit when your show is finished.”
The feeling of him leaving was a piercing hollowness in her heart. “Did you ever go to summer camp?”
“Sure.”
“And fall in love? And then you promise to write each other, and you do for a little while. Then real life intrudes, and you drift away, and then the next year, you are a little awkward until each of you falls in love again. With someone else.”
He was very still, those clear eyes beautiful even in the thin illumination of the streetlight. “This is not like that, Tillie. Nothing like it.” He kissed her, a gentle kiss, sensual and so rich that she could live on it until she died. Everything in her years felt connected to him, cells to cells. “And I don’t think you think it is, either.”
When he raised his head, she saw tears gathering in his eyes, and it triggered her own, which were already too close to the surface. Then they were kissing and crying and hugging, and she would have done almost anything to keep him there. It was stupid, she thought, but it was also one of the best moments of her life so far, bittersweet and beautiful and awful.
“I am going to miss you like someone carved a piece out of me,” she whispered. “It’s crazy. I’ve known you less than a week, and it’s like my whole life has changed.”
“I think,” he said, holding her head in his hands, “that we were meant to meet. And if that’s true, we can trust that life will bring us what we need to be together.”
She shook her head. “You’re such a dreamer.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And you’re a dream come true.”
She laughed.
“Too much?”
“Yes. But I liked it.”
A car pulled up, a black Town Car that was obviously his. Liam made a soft noise of protest and kissed her face all over, forehead andeyes and cheeks and nose and chin and then her lips. “I will miss you every second we are not together,” he said. “But you won’t be able to miss me because I’ll be texting you constantly.”
She hugged him, hard, to hide the rise of her emotion. “I can’t wait.”
And then he was gone, the car spiriting away the best thing that had ever come into her life.
Ever.
PART TWO: TSUNAMI
Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.
—J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Wulfecombe
Clare had a long shopping list to carry into Barnstaple on Wednesday. Mostly, she shopped locally as much as possible, but it was time to stock up on various flours and staples, like the sunflower seeds and flax she used for bread, and the alternative flours she needed to make her gluten-free mix for her youngest daughter, who had a host of allergies and sensitivities. Clare had hoped she’d be able to heal them by the time Polly was grown, but she hadn’t.
