Page 49 of Suncatcher

Pearl trusted Driz. Part of her thought she shouldn’t, but it was too late. She’d been forced to put her faith in Driz more than once, and Driz had not let her down. She had proven each time that she was dependable. That she was thoughtful. That she was kind. The combination was hazardously appealing.

They were from entirely different worlds. They could never be together as anything more than lovers, if it came to that. So it was perfect. Why shouldn’t they take pleasure from each other while they could? It would be simple, and then it would be over.

Pearl determinedly didn’t examine why that thought made her chest heavy. Or all the very valid reasons why it was perhaps the stupidest reasoning she’d ever come up with. She didn’t want to be reasonable in her fantasy right now.

She lay back on her bed and skimmed her free hand between her legs. What would Driz do if she could see her? If she knew what Pearl was doing? Driz obviously liked her, but was Driz attracted to Pearl in the same way? Was Pearl misreading everything? She shoved that unsettling thought aside and believed she was right as she trailed her own practiced fingers through the wetness she refused to be ashamed of.

Her pleasure arrived swiftly, with the image of Driz above her, arms cradling her, protecting her as wings kept them dry from a storm.

Pearl panted, staring at the underside of her ceiling and the watermark where the corner leaked sometimes. Then she finished cleaning up, dressed, and went three doors down.

Molly was on her back porch. Buster’s tail drummed against the wooden boards beneath him as Pearl ruffled his messy fur on her way past, coming to perch on the railing in front of Molly. Old, weathered paint peeled off it at the lightest brush. Since it wasn’t street-facing, they hadn’t bothered with this side yet.

“You’re blocking my light,” Molly grumbled, never looking up from her hemming, her movements steady and quick, stitches perfectly even.

Pearl shifted sideways and watched Molly work for a while. “I might’ve done something stupid.”

Molly hummed. “Probably.”

“Hey.” Pearl flicked a pain chip at her.

Molly finally looked up. “So what’d you do this time?”

Pearl opened her mouth, but wasn’t quite sure what to say. How could she explain? What was there to even say?

Buster’s ears perked as Pearl heard it too. The faint sound of jangling beneath windchimes came from the street.

“Gail?” Molly asked, her face lighting up.

“Sounds like it.”

Pearl stood, waiting for Molly to pack away the piece she was working on and follow her through the house and to the front that faced the street, the sound of the trinket trader’s cart louder now.

Gail looked exactly the same as she had when Pearl first met her decades ago. Her unusually tall frame was draped from head to toe in various shades of purples and blues, from the high silk scarf to her midnight boots. The rest of her features were always mostly obscured under the intense shadow of the broad brim of her hat.

She moved with both grace and chaos at the same time, unburdened by the heavy cart she hauled behind her by hand. Several local children trailed her excitedly until she stopped near the center of the street.

“Pearl, Molly,” she greeted with a nod as she moved around to throw open the wooden sides and back of her cart, expanding it to reveal the traveling assortment of items.

Driz would have loved to pick through Gail’s collection.

“We haven’t seen you in a while,” Molly said. “It’s been what, a year or so?”

“That sounds right,” Gail agreed, dancing around to the other side. “Anything new to show me? Anything you fancy? Because I might just have it.”

Molly wheeled down the ramp by the steps into the street so she could look closer, Pearl right behind her.

Pearl leaned forward to look at a wooden box inlaid with bone beside a shiny pair of cooking pots, but feathers tickled her in the face. She jerked back and glared at a hanging sculpture made of beads woven with colorful thread and the entire dismembered skeleton of a bird, shifting creepily in the breeze.

Molly was inspecting a collection of three thimbles, two made of stamped tin and one sculpted of thick ivory porcelain. “What the hells is this for?” Molly asked, picking up the porcelain one.

“Whatever you want it for,” Gail answered easily. She shifted, as if unable to stay still, her feet not seeming to touch the earth sometimes.

Molly huffed. “Well, it wasn’t made for sewing. It weighs a brick.”

Gail’s hum lilted pleasantly, but a shiver ran down Pearl’s spine as the air around them chilled for a moment. “If you don’t like it, don’t get it.”

Pearl’s gaze caught on a linen pouch with faded print on it. She picked it up, the contents jingling. “What d’you want for this?” Pearl asked, ignoring Molly’s curious gaze and focusing on Gail.