Eden Riverwallow's Arc

Chapter 16 of 18

The wolf slept before Eden did. She sat on the floor with her back against the door and watched his ribs rise. The bleeding had slowed. The room smelled of him and only him. That was the problem. She stood when the light through the small windows went grey. She moved carefully. She did not want him to wake and find her touching his things without permission. But she looked. A stove with one pot. A shelf with three books, spines worn blank. A hook by the door with the black coat. No cup that wasn't his. No picture. No sign that anyone else had ever stood where she stood. She understood then what the cottage was. It was not a home. It was a hole he crawled into to bleed in private. He had brought her here because she made him. He had not brought her here to stay. She pulled the moon amulet from under her collar. The crack in the glass caught the window light. His white hair curled behind it. She set it on the small table by the bed where he would see it when he opened his eyes. It was not enough. An object he had given her, returned, only said she had been here. It did not say she wanted to come back. She thought about it, then pulled off her outer shirt. The black tee underneath she had worn for two days. It smelled like her hair and the woods and the sweat of running. She folded it small. She set it beside the amulet. She wrote nothing. She could not think of a sentence that would not sound like a trap. The wolf shifted on the quilt. His eye opened, yellow, then brown as the man came back through the fur. Kane pushed up on one elbow. He saw the table. He saw the folded cloth. He saw the cracked moon beside it. "Eden." His voice was raw. "What is that." "Mine," she said. "I'm leaving it here." He stared at the shirt like it might bite him. "Take it with you." "No." "Eden —" "You brought me here because I forced you." She stayed by the table. "I don't want to be a thing you hid from. I want to be a thing you come back to." His hand moved before his face did. He picked up the shirt. He held it against his chest, once, quick, like checking a wound. Then he set it down again, flat, careful, next to the pillow where his head had been. He did not look at her. "Then it stays." She let out a breath she had been holding since the willow. "I'll go before dark," she said. "So the house doesn't ask." He nodded. His fingers stayed on the cloth. When she stepped out through the split in the stone, the cottage behind her held something of hers for the first time. She walked back toward the house that knew her name, and did not feel she was walking home.