Page 19 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“I like Briar, Daddy,” I stated after he’d stopped hacking, mirthful tears in the corners of his eyes. “And that’s where we’ll leave this conversation.”
“Fine, fine. But allow me to say one last thing.”
I exhaled. “Yes?”
Daddy’s bony fingers grasped my hand. “I want you to end up with someoneyoulove. Not someone you think your aunt and uncle will love. Not someone you think I’ll love. He—or she—”
I snorted.
“You never know.”
“Daddy—”
“He should be someone you can’t live without. Someone you’d trust with your soul. Be he Danann or not.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” I waved a hand.
He’d told me all thismanytimes before. Usually right after one of Aunt Aylie’s rants about the importance of maintaining a pure Danann bloodline. Once, after she’d grounded me for suggesting this encouraged inbreeding, Daddy had added that my future husband should love me so much that he was willing to put up with all the shit Aunt Aylie and Uncle Neel would give him.
“I just want you to be with someone who makesyouhappy, Amy.”
I squeezed his fingers. “Don’t worry, Daddy. Remember, I always think with my heart.”
“Youbroughtthatrodent?”I whispered to my sister as we knelt in the grass on Avalon Green, a private park amid the mountains outside Pittsburgh—our local place of worship. The grass was cool and damp against my bare knees, the sun warming my head. Clean, brisk morning dew perfumed the air I breathed. Uncle Neel’s voice droned from the center of the large ring of solemn Dananns, Aunt Aylie drumming rhythmically beside him.
Viola petted the twitching head of her new guinea pig, Sugar. “Dad thinks she might be pregnant, so she needs exalted.”
Uncle Neel always set aside time in his service to bless expectant mothers, allowing the All Mother to bestow gifts on the unborn—a sweet idea but merely ceremonial, in my opinion. I’d met many “gifted” people whose mothers weren’t exalted.
Sometimes we included animals in this ritual—horses, cows, sheep, goats, dogs, and even cats. But never a guinea pig—a cuter, noisier rat.
Vi cooed at her shivering pet, her straight light-brown hair fluttering in the breeze. Her slanted gray eyes twinkled. Vi was much shorter than me with a more delicate frame, adorned that morning in a blue cotton dress and a knitted cardigan. A diamond sparkled in the crease of her broad, round nose. When she’d gotten the piercing, Aunt Aylie had had a conniption. She might’ve ripped the stud right out of Vi’s face had Daddy not proclaimed she could keep it.
“You’re ridiculous,” I muttered to Vi, who smooched Sugar like a baby.
She shrugged. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have something so sweet to cuddle.”
Briar sprung to mind.
He knelt across the circle with his parents in a blue oxford shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. His glowing eyes lifted to meet mine, his lips curling upward.
My stomach fluttered. What would he do when we reached the communal prayer, a custom of meditative bonding? Who one chose to commune with was significant. It meant a special relationship had formed—or was being formed.
But I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Briar and I weren’t committed, not even close, and suggesting we commune together might weird him out. Besides, the beseeching glances Laurel Woodrush kept shooting Briar from further down his quarter of the circle suggested he already had a bond to meditate over.
Beside me, my brother, Ace, gripped his stomach. At sixteen, he was just an inch shorter than me with thick reddish-brown hair and matching stubble. He had my dad’s crescent moon profile but with my pointed nose. Vi joked that the girls at school ogled him like the movie star, John West. Watching him suffer through his decision to binge on Taco King the night before, I questioned his appeal.
“Will you make it through the service?” I whispered to him.
Ace muffled another belch, clenching fists. “I think so.” His mouth hitched at one corner. “Although, when we get home, I’m for sure heading straight to the bathroom to fornicate.”
I blinked at him. “Please don’t.”
Daddy hacked with laughter on Ace’s other side, rattling his lawn chair. Clearing his throat, he flexed his fingers upon the hook of his varnished cane. “I think you mean defecate, Ace.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “That sounds more appropriate.”
Ace shrugged. “Uncle Neel said I should work on my vocabulary.”
