She stepped up to him, intending to pull a few overgrown vines from over his face. A prick of static electricity stabbed her finger, and she flinched away.
A breeze rattled the mantle of leaves cascading over Dante’s forehead. One flickered near his eye, the hint of a wink.
Mr.Hobb caught up to her then, sending her skittering away from the statue in embarrassment. He laughed at her flushed cheeks.
“Greeting an old friend?” he asked.
“Trying to tidy him up a bit. I’ll have to come back with some gloves, though. I think I underestimated how much work is to be done.”
Mr.Hobb and Mouse parted with cheerful farewells. He took the path toward the village, while she took the one further through the forest to John’s cottage.
As she walked, Mouse remembered bouquets of dried flowers hanging around her family’s old flat in Manchester, cozy and smelling of earth, with her mother’s smiling face framed by the petals. The image flooded her with warmth, sunlight spilling into her heart.
From the corner of her eye, Mouse saw a nest of bluebells sprouting up in a friendly crowd off the path.
She would never pick one. It was a known fact that picking a bluebell was tantamount to committing theft from the Fae, and althoughthose rules were old and dead, there was still power in them. Or so her mother drilled into her from an early age.
No, she would not pick them, but nothing could stop her from lying among them for a few minutes to watch the sun drift lower through a cloud of violet petals. The earth was spongy and pressed back against her weight. She could pretend for a moment that it was an embrace.
However, the instant her head dipped beneath the flowers, she could not concentrate on the sunlight or the smell or the coolness under her head. Instead, all she could think of was that the damned Hall would be nearly impossible to fix within a month. Why had her uncle listed Carlyle as the third heir after what he had done to Bertie? Did her uncle genuinely hate her so much that he would betray the memory of his beloved son to hurt her?
Dampness crawled from the ground through her coat, but she could not move. Not yet. Not until she enjoyed the bloody dappled sun coming through the bloody trees. There was no way in hell that thoughts about her uncle or Carlyle could take away those small, soft pleasures she treasured, even when she might have nothing in a month. She would not allow it. She glared at the leaves above. The moon was early, caught out in the blue sky like the pale sail of a far-off ship.
Someone snickered. Mouse shot upright.
No one was there, but a flash of movement caught her eye. When she turned, she saw another statue.
It was Dante. Or at least it looked like Dante. But that was impossible. She’d left the real Dante behind on the path. It was strange, though, that she had never seen this look-alike before during her journeys to John’s cottage. Perhaps some children were playing tricks and rearranging the statues in the woods?
Mouse pressed her hand to her heart, compelling it to slow. Nervous laughter colored her voice as she spoke, half joking. “You frightened me.”
The statue almost seemed to tilt its head.
Mouse felt as though the entire world leaned in on her all at once. The wind breathed across her neck, waiting to bite down.
“Mouse, is that you?” John’s voice broke the spell. Her gaze whipped to the path, then back again. The statue remained as still as stone.
“One moment,” she said, but it came out as a husky whisper.
“You are going to catch your death of cold!” John called. She was back on the path in an instant. “What were you doing out there?”
“Lying in the bluebells.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course. What was I thinking, asking such a silly question? If you want to lie in the flowers, you might as well do it in my garden with tea on hand. And look at the state of your coat!”
“Yes, yes, you old busybody. That is a good idea,” Mouse agreed, and they started toward the cottage. Still, Mouse felt the gaze of something behind her, like pins through her clothes. At the edge of the woods, Orpheus warned her not to turn back.
John’s garden was a collection of striking flowers and tidy rows of vegetables. Bees danced in lazy circles where their hives pressed against the cottage in a village of white boxes. John’s bicycle leaned against the front stoop.
“You can use it while you are fixing up the house.”
“You trust me with it?” Mouse asked coyly.
“If you promise not to crash it. Or take it into the mud with you next time you obey your true nature and wallow like a piglet.”
“You are very rude for a man of God.”
“If you crash it, you will buy me a new one.”