Page 47 of Memories of the Lost

“I bought you your favorite potatoes,” she said.

“Mm. Did your mother tell you I’ve had a bad week?”

“Of course she did.” Sage inclined her head. “Arthur will be all right. He’s just exploring.”

Father and son had been fighting about his education. Arthur wanted to travel instead of finishing at university. Levi wanted him to wait. “It’s only two years. He’ll still be young.”

Sage shrugged. “Either way.”

“You didn’t come all this way to give me potatoes when you’ll be here tomorrow, girl. What’s on your mind?”

Sage set the basket down on a table they used to drink coffee. “Is it possible that a wolf really lives in the wood? Maybe the old legends are true?”

He lifted his head, surprised. The legend had been woven through the stories of the village as long as he’d been here, and many centuries before that. A great black wolf, creeping through the woods, pet of the Green Man who ruled the trees.

But that wasn’t what she was asking. “It’s most likely a dog, of course, but ...” He shook his head. “Could be a wolf. Mountain lions have been spotted in the West Country. Why not a wolf?”

“My mother said she saw one.”

He nodded, gazing at the uneven line of trees at the edge of the property. “Is this about the bones they found?”

Sage nodded, a hollow echo of memory and terror reverberating through her middle. “I’ve heard they’re not historical.”

“Well, they won’t know that for a bit. A bone is a bone. You know, they find these things every second Tuesday.” He clapped a palm around her upper arm. “Don’t fret, love.”

“You’re right.” Sage sighed.Accept the things you can’t change.

“Let’s go in, have a cup of tea. You can tell me why I shouldn’t bother Arthur about a gap year.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

New York City

Tillie was dreaming. She was curled up in bed under the eaves of what she somehow knew was an attic room. A cat stretched the length of her body, chin to knees. His purr was low and comforting, and when she bent her face to his, he licked her nose. She kissed him back, his fur as soft as down, his nose just slightly wet as it touched her skin. She was awash with love and murmured words in some nonsensical language, and—

She awakened. Human arms held her.

Liam was asleep, as deeply as a child. Closing her eyes, she gave herself over to the heat of his skin against hers, the soughing sound of his breath. It was lovely for a long moment, but he ran uncomfortably hot, and she had to pull away, slipping into her yoga pants and a sweatshirt to go to the kitchen for water.

Where the other dream had unsettled her, this one had left behind a fragrance of sweetness. She could feel the cat’s head against her face, the low, rumbling purr against her fingers. Drinking water, she thought it was a strange amount of detail for a dream.

That cat again.

On the horizon was a faint hint of dawn. Tillie wanted coffee, but she was afraid it would wake Liam, so she carried the glass of water withher into the studio and looked at the renditions of the cat she’d drawn. His striped face, his blue eyes, his enormity. A giant of a cat, touching her body from chin to knees.

From where she stood, she could see Liam sleeping. Again, her fingers itched to capture his image, and since he’d given her permission before, she felt he wouldn’t mind if she sketched him now. On the same tablet of newsprint she had used for the cat, she employed charcoal to outline his form, the length of his legs, his hair scattered on the pillow, his jaw.

Then another, wilder, with wings against his back, slightly unfolded as if in rest. Another with the wings in a slightly tighter shape. A feather had escaped and fallen to the floor.

Another of him standing with that little smile, arms crossed, the wings just visible over his shoulders.

No.Scowling, she tore the paper from the pad and tossed it aside.Silly.

She looked back to the drawing of his sleeping pose with folded wings and tried it again, drawn to something elegant in the shape of the feathers, long and white. Using a sharply pointed colored pencil, she sketched tattoos with asemic writing tattoos around his belly and ribs, wondering what words she would actually use. It would be too personal to use the poetry that wound around his torso, and whatever the words were in the painting should support the idea of the angel. Angel of mercy? Messenger angel? Angel of death?

Angel of the forest? The skies? The lost?

She didn’t know.