I look around at the dripping water and the ivy covering the trunks of the bare trees. At the horses snorting vapor on the air in the rain. The wagon up ahead. The feeling of belonging to these strange and wonderful people.
“Free.” There’s nowhere we need to be other than here. Nothing that anyone expects of us that we don’t expect of ourselves. No concerns about whether we’re popular or if we’re invited to the best parties or wearing the right clothes. “I love feeling free.”
“Same here.”
We watch the rain falling together, just him and me, safe and dry atop this wagon. We never get many opportunities to talk alone, and there are things I want to tell him.
“I started doing tricks with Dandelion because they helped me escape, but just being with her made me feel good again. Made me feel powerful, and I needed that. I felt so powerless in that house.”
I stare down at the reins in my hands, remembering the constant fear of my father’s temper and his fists that would lash out without a moment’s warning. Looking back, I don’t know how I got through the days.
“Now I don’t feel powerless at all. I feel strong. I feel safe.” I glance up at him.
Thanks to you.
Cale is watching me, warmth burnishing his face.
“Why did you start doing knife tricks?” I remember I asked him that once before and he didn’t want to tell me. “Oh, never mind. You don’t have to answer that.”
He looks at me for a long time while the rain patters around us. It’s almost like we’re in a private little cocoon. “I had a sister. She died.”
I breathe in sharply. “I’m so sorry.”
The rain continues to fall, making the tree trunks gleam wetly. It seems like he’s not going to reveal any more about it, and I don’t want to press him. I remember he said that it was a story which would ruin a nice day.
Maybe because it’s wet and gray, he feels like he can’t ruin it anymore.
“I was twelve when she died. I’d never felt pain like it and none of us knew how to handle it. I started knife-throwing, and it was the only thing that could clear my mind.”
He reaches out and covers one of my hands on the reins with his. I let my fingers twine through his scarred ones, each mark silvery white against his flesh. Each one a moment of grief. Each one healing his hurt.
“When I was fifteen, the circus came to town. The circus left and I left with them.”
An escape from an unhappy home. He needed it as much as I did.
Under the awning, we sit close to each other. His hand in mine, both of us guiding the horses. I don’t say anything or ask any questions. I don’t need to know the details of what happened. What’s important is that he was able to confide in me, and I understand him better now.
In the afternoon, just as night is drawing in, we turn off the lane down a long gravel drive, and Cale sits up. “We’re here.”
I look around for the farm, until I realize that we’re on the farm. There’s a house and outbuildings at the end of a long drive. Beyond that I see a church spire and tiled roofs. Cale’s village. Cale’s home.
The house looks seventeenth century and is quite large, but not showy. The wagons all turn and come to stop in a semi-circle at the front of the property, and a couple emerges. The man and the woman are older, in their sixties, and two dogs gambol about their legs.
Cale jumps down from the wagon, but instead of going to give his parents a hug, he helps me down and draws me over to them. “Come and say hello.”
Six other people get there first, and I’m glad because I’m suddenly overwhelmed with shyness. Everyone seems to know everyone else except me. Gorran starts to unhitch the horses, and I slip away and help him.
It’s easy to lose myself in the hubbub of unpacking and settling the horses. I lead Dandelion after the other horses into a stable. A big one, that’s clean and warm with stalls filled with straw.
I speak encouragingly to her as I try and walk her toward a stall, but my horse is suddenly tense and reluctant. “A stable, Dandelion. Do you remember what this feels like? Warm and dry and sheltered from the wind and rain.”
Dandelion’s flicked back ears tell me that she does remember what it feels like, and she’s not impressed in the slightest. Stables don’t just mean shelter to her.
“It’s all right,” I whisper to her, stopping and stroking her nose. “Dad’s not here. Dad’s very, very far away.”
Chapter Eighteen
Cale