Chapter
Seventeen

I spend the next couple of days with the Anima clan doing my best to keep busy. If I’m helping to cook meals, then I’m not counting down the days until the full moon and Aunt Rachel’s transformation. When I’m assisting the soap makers, I’m not thinking about Sebastian’s kiss and the weird place we left things off. When I’m sitting in the barn, talking with Opal and Natalie, I’m not wondering if Matteo is my father, and what it means if he is or isn’t.

It’s the moments of quiet when I first wake up to the sun sinking below the horizon, that’s when the thoughts haunt me. So I move. Throwing on my clothes and dashing from my shared room, hoping if I move fast enough I can outrun the fog of worry always at my heels.

But there are times, like now, that my fingers can’t go fast enough to keep the fog at bay.

“See?” I tell Henry, an older man who I learned used to have terminal cancer until he came to live with the Anima and received their blood. “If you wrap the mold in plastic wrap as soon as you pour, and then remove it before it reaches the gel stage, your soap won’t crack.” I tuck the edges of plastic wrap around the mold and place it on a cut log beside the campfire he built outside his trailer.

“I really appreciate the tip.” He smiles.

I shrug. “My aunt taught me. It’s not like cracked soap is a bad thing, but I know it doesn’t always sell as well.”

“And we can use all the sales we can get.” He reaches for the plastic wrap and tears off a sheet for himself. “It’s funny to think I’d be living in a commune making soap for money.”

“Why?”

Shaking his head, he laughs. “Once upon a time, I was a lawyer. If the cancer hadn’t killed me, that job surely would have. I was so obsessed with getting ahead in life, I forgot to actually live it.”

I consider his words. “This,” I scan the various tents and trailers in surrounding us, “makes you happy?”

“No.” He laughs again. “And that’s what being here taught me. “There is no this that can make you happy. No one thing, place, job, or person can make you happy. You know what makes you happy?”

I shake my head.

He places his hand over his heart. “You. Only you can make you happy.”

I turn his words over in my head. When I was with Aunt Rachel I was convinced the key to my happiness was getting the hell away from the cabin. But now that I’m hundreds of miles away, I’m not happier, and even more lost.

Shaking my head, I push the thoughts away before they can take root. No. I will not think about Aunt Rachel, Sebastian, Matteo, or anything else that will have me erupt into sobs in front of this nice man.

“Charlie!”

I spin around to see Opal stepping over a couple making out in a sleeping bag. Carrying my violin case, she stops in front of me. “You haven’t touched this thing since we’ve been here, and I’m dying to know if you can actually play it.”

I think about the last time I played the violin—for Sebastian—and shrink away. “I’m not really sure I’m in the mood.”

“Come on. Please.” She clasps her hands together. “Other than a few homeless guys, I’ve never seen anyone play one of these in real life.”

Henry sets his soap mold aside. “It’s a beautiful night. The only thing that would make it perfect is some music.”

“See?” Opal thrusts the case at me. “Everyone agrees. Now you have to play.”

Frowning, I wipe my hands off on my pants before taking the case. “Fine. But just one song.”

“Yay.” Clapping, Opal drops onto the nearest log.

With a lump in my throat, I remove the bow and run a block of rosin down the hair. Henry said only I can make myself happy. Once upon a time, playing the violin did just that. But now, my days of making music in the little cabin in the woods feel like a lifetime ago.

With trembling hands, I remove the violin. After tuning the strings, I place the instrument beneath my chin. This new chapter of my life should bring new music. But as I drag the bow across the strings, I bring to life the song that’s haunted me throughout my existence. The song without words that Sebastian remembered from his past.

“Oh,” Henry says, clasping a hand to his chest. “This is one of my favorites.”

His recognition of the song almost makes me stop. The melody has a tight hold on me, keeping me from breaking. It calls to the camp in the same way it calls to me. People come, by the dozens, encircling the campfire where I play.

Many sway to the notes as they pour from my fingers, drawing us all closer. From somewhere in the crowd, a guitar rings out. A bearded man emerges with a viola tucked beneath his arm. He raises it and plays along.

It’s not long before a girl, slightly younger than me, steps up to the fire. She holds out her hands and begins to sing.

My love said to me

My Mother won’t mind

And me Father won’t slight you

For your lack of kind

Then she stepped away from me

And this she did say

It will not be long, love

’Til our wedding day.

She stepped away from me

And she moved through the Fair

And fondly I watched her

Move here and move there

And she went her way homeward

With one star awake

As the swans in the evening

Move over the lake

The vocalist pauses as the guitarist picks up tempo, forcing me along in a whirlwind of flying fingers and thrusting bow. The girl twirls, her long skirt spinning in a dizzying array of colors. When she begins the third verse, the crowd joins in.

The people were saying

No two e’er were wed

But one has a sorrow

That never was said

And she smiled as she passed me

With her goods and her gear

And that was the last

That I saw of my dear.

I dreamed it last night

That my true love came in

So softly she entered

Her feet made no din

She came close beside me

And this she did say

It will not be long, love

’Til our wedding day.

Someone shouts, and the tempo picks up again. The people gathered move together, dancing and spinning as a tambourine keeps time with a steady pulse.

Opal hooks an arm through mine, yanking the violin out from beneath my chin. “Come on,” she shouts, laughing. Setting my violin inside the case, I can’t help but laugh, too, as we spin and twirl arm in arm through the dancing crowd.

Opal releases me, and I spin away, only to land in Henry’s arms. Taking me by the elbow he twirls me, and I’m passed to another boy. We’re only together for a moment before the crowd shifts again, and I’m passed to the next dancer.

The moment my hands meet his chest the breath leaves my lungs. Sebastian stares down at me, eyes blazing, before spinning me away, only to pull me tightly against him.

“You’re back.” My throat is so tight, I’m barely able to squeeze out the words. “When?”

“Just now.”

Taking me by the hand, he twirls me. The next dancer in line holds his hand out for me, but Sebastian draws me against his chest. Reflexively, I wind my hands behind his neck, fingers locking. He drops his hands to the small of my back, pulling us together, so my chin rests in the hollow of his throat when I look up at him.

There’s something about the expression in his eyes that causes a shiver to run down the length of my spine. I know that him being here means he must have found the necklace Matteo sent him after. There is now proof of my parentage in the camp.

And yet, I can’t bring myself to care. I want the music to go on forever, so that I might stay with Sebastian, locked in this moment where I’ve found a seedling of happiness.

Pressed together, we move as one. The other dancers are nothing but streaks of color beneath the star-filled sky.

“Charlie,” Sebastian begins, “the way we left things—”

“Please don’t,” I say, cutting him off. “Words are always getting in the way and messing things up. I just want to exist in the moment—at least for a little while longer.”

He nods, drawing me to him. He rests his chin on my head as the music spirals around us. I close my eyes, and for a moment the rest of the world falls away. There is only music, Sebastian, me, and an entire sky full of stars.

Sebastian’s breath, warm on my neck, makes me gasp, and my eyes fly open. Turning, I find his lips dangerously close to mine.

“Before you, Charlie, I didn’t believe I could have these feelings.” His jaw flexes. “I don’t want them.”

“I don’t want them, either,” I say.

A grin tugs on the corner of his lips. “Looks like we’re screwed.”

“So what do we do?”

“There’s only one thing to do.” He lowers his mouth to mine. The glint of fang flashes from his parted lips. “This.” The moment his lips touch mine my muscles tighten with the need to draw him closer. His arms ensnare my waist, pulling me against him so that the warmth from his body spills into me, setting me awash in flames. My heart comes alive, a fluttering thing that beats against its cage of bones. Electricity jolts through my body. I lift onto my toes, my fingers winding into his hair. I don’t want him to ever let me go.

But then the music stops, and he does just that.

The air between us is colder than anything I’ve ever felt.

Opal pushes through the crowd. “The King wants you to come to the barn right away. He wants everyone there.”

As soon as she says the words the summoning bell clangs in the distance. Each ring pierces my chest, rattling my ribs. Swallowing hard, I turn to Sebastian. “I’m not ready.”

A tendon along his jaw flexes as he places a hand on my arm. “When it comes to finding out the truth, no one ever is.”