Rosemary Thorne's Arc

Chapter 2 of 24

Rosemary locked the door. The bolt slid home with a small, final sound. She turned back to Damien and saw his shoulders shaking. His scarred hand pressed flat to the boards. Whatever was under his skin had stopped moving, but he was breathing like a man who had run a long way. "Tell me what it is," she said. "I can't help you if I don't know." "You can't help me." He didn't look up. "Sit far away." She did not sit far away. She sat close enough to touch him and did not touch him. The purple alligator had wedged itself under the table and gone still, watching. Her three cats sat in a row on the hearthrug, tails wrapped tight, staring at Damien the way they stared at storms. "Water?" she asked. "Bread? Something cold?" "Don't feed me. Don't put anything in my mouth. It makes it worse." She filed that away. First fact. She stood, went to the kitchen, and came back with the crocheted blanket from the back of her reading chair. It was the softest thing she owned. She laid it over his shoulders slowly, giving him time to refuse. He didn't. He gripped the edge with his good hand and pulled it tighter. "What makes it better?" she asked. He was quiet a long time. "Being outside. Being alone. Not being touched." "You're inside. You're not alone. I haven't touched you." "I know." His voice cracked. "That's why I'm still here." She sat back on her heels. She had been about to fetch him lemonade from the cold cupboard, the blue kind he had refused eleven nights in a row. She had been about to stroke his hair. She had been about to do every warm thing she knew, and every one of them would have hurt him. "Damien." She kept her hands in her lap. "I don't know your curse. I was going to guess. I would have guessed wrong." He finally looked at her. His eyes were his own again, tired and dark. "Yes. You would have." "Then tell me the rules. Not the story. Just the rules. What hurts you. What helps. I'll write them down and I won't ask why." He studied her. She saw him decide. "No food from another hand," he said. "No skin on skin. No pity. No promises. Cold helps. Weight helps." He touched the blanket. "This helps." She pulled her satchel over, took out a notebook, and wrote each one down in pencil. Five rules. Not a cure. Not a name for the thing under his skin. But a map. He watched her write. His breathing slowed. "Stay till morning," she said, not looking up. "On the floor. Under the blanket. I won't come near." "All right," he said. It was the first thing he had ever agreed to.