The Ruby Dream (5 page)

Chapter Eight

Wyn was laid out on Sarah’s bed, in the main
room of the yellow cottage, where it was easier for the doctor to work. All the
townspeople had been shooed out of the house, even the men who had carried him
here. But not me.

“Let her stay!” Sarah had
commanded through a torrent of fresh tears, and the little doctor had shrugged
miserably and gone back to his task.

His tools were laid out on
the kitchen table, gleaming, formidable, and frighteningly sharp. I hovered
near the stove, pretending to mind the boiling water, for what felt like hours
turned to days. Maisie, stalwart and stern, took up the daunting task of
holding Sarah as she wailed. They were shut up in Wyn’s empty room, and the
sound was muffled and unearthly, setting my nerves on edge. My own tears
wouldn’t come.

After all, I couldn’t cry
until I knew. Knew what I was crying for. Just a mangled leg or …

Finally Jan straightened to
his full height, barely coming up to my nose, and wiped his hands on a
once-white towel stained a bloody red and black.

“That’s all I can do for
him,” he announced, before stepping back and dropping the gory towel on the
table. He began to heap his things, the shine now stained with blood, back into
his bag.

“That’s it?” I asked
incredulously. I took my first step in hours, as unsteady and callow as a
newborn lamb. The dust had been wiped away from Wyn’s face, but that only made
the injuries more ghastly in comparison to his soft, creamy skin. Two great
gashes had been ripped, one on top of the other, in the smoothness of his
forehead, but they’d now been hastily sewn up with gruesome black stitches. His
sweet freckles were dwarfed by a scattering of bright red lacerations. Colossal,
russet-colored bruises littered his cheeks, neck, and arms, and the old burn
scars on the backs of his hands seemed comfortable in comparison. Jan had built
a mound of quilts to keep Wyn’s left leg, bent and badly bruised, elevated. And
Wyn’s brown eyes – my favorite in all the world – were hidden from
me behind purple-gray lids.

“If you pray, lass, he will
be fine,” Jan said, patting me on the arm.

I hadn’t even noticed Jan
approach me, and I felt a sudden flare of rage. “He doesn’t
look
fine!” I snapped.

Jan took a step back and
studied my face for a moment. “I know you care about the boy. So for now, all
you can do is care
for
him.”

“Is he even alive?” I
choked out, something foreign and painful strangling the temper right out of
me. As if a goblin had taken residence in my throat.

“His heart still beats, if
that’s what you call alive,” Jan replied cruelly. “Whether he will wake up,
that I do not know. That’s a question for diviners and prophets. I’m told there
are doctors across the ocean that learn skills I can only dream of, but, alas,
I was born on the Amethyst Coast.” He paused, and I used shaking fingers to wipe
away the tears that had finally come. “Whether his spirit has left his body, I also
don’t know,” he went on. “But I’m of the opinion that he
will
wake and live until his stupidity leads him down a path from
which I cannot help him.”

The opinion of a man who
had studied medicine should have meant something to me, but tonight it didn’t.
All I could think about was what Wyn’s ghost would look like.

“If he’s alive, when will
he wake?” I asked.

Jan shrugged. “Soon, I
should imagine.” And despite the wailing of the boy’s mother in the next room,
the doctor’s eyes seemed to sparkle. “Though the body sleeps, the spirit has
ways of knowing when there is something to wake up for. Give him something to
live for.”

When my eyes dragged themselves open, I was
laying bent over the bed, my arm, warm from sleep, entangled with Wyn’s
lifeless one. My thumb rested on his old burn wound, long healed and utterly
familiar.

Felix slept at our feet and
the house was unnervingly silent. I wondered why I hadn’t been woken and taken
back to my own bed. Injury, illness, or not, it was highly improper for me to
sleep beside Wyn. Or so Sarah and Maisie had begun to say as we reached
adolescence, and were no longer allowed to fall asleep together.

A piece inside me nudged
sideways, knocking against my heart, yearning for those times when things had
been simpler. When I wasn’t scared of The Great and Mighty Voyage. When I’d
looked forward to it, cuddling up beside Wyn. Vill would come home and wake us
from our nap to tell stories or run around outside on summer nights. Sarah had
been less of a worrier then, Maisie happier and more apt to smile.

I crept over the creaky
floor to Wyn’s bedroom door and peered in. Maisie and Sarah were sound asleep
on top of the navy blue quilt of the skinny bed, the younger woman tucked
protectively in the older woman’s arms.

I smiled sadly to myself.
As long as they slept, I could be with Wyn. But once I went back to the chair,
the sight of the stitches threaded through his skin made bile rise in my throat,
a tidal wave threatening to spill over. And when I rested my head on the downy
mattress, I couldn’t sleep.

Worry and unanswerable
questions tangled in my chest and my neck began to ache, as though my ruby
weighed a hundred pounds. I would have no more sleep tonight.

What if his spirit has already left his body? Or what if his leg
never heals? We can’t go on The Great and Mighty Voyage if he can’t walk
.
Maybe it’s for the best. Just as long as he lives. I can’t go on and
live here, forever in mourning, where his presence would haunt my every –

Haunt.

The Haunted Wood.

I dashed toward the little
cottage’s front door and opened it slowly, squeezing through as small a hole as
possible. I sprinted for the woods, only pausing when I saw the spindly,
ghostly white tree. It glowed like the moon. If Wyn’s spirit had already left
his body, if ghosts were real …

There were too many ifs,
but my world had been shattered into a million glistening pieces and I couldn’t
just stay sitting in that chair in the cottage. I had to
do
something, so I trudged into the tendrils of fog that threaded
between the trees. I wished I’d gotten my questions for Pat Manor answered
– about his wife’s ghost, what to do, how to find them. Because I was at
a loss. Not just on how to summon a specter. But on how to continue with my
life.

Without Wyn, I couldn’t go
anywhere. I wouldn’t have the nerve to leave him behind, crippled or … worse.
But I also wouldn’t want to stay with a mere shadow of the Wyn I’d once known.
The sheer thought of it hurt my heart. My foot caught on a tree root and I
stumbled, but I climbed back to my feet and walked on. I was desperate to see
something – the girls, or my parents – but the desperation inside
me rebelled against seeing anything that might resemble Wyn.

He’s alive
, I told myself sternly. Why had I even come here?

Just then, a shudder ran through
me. It took no time for me to discern the feeling of somebody watching me. Just
like yesterday.

I turned slowly around,
eyes carefully taking in every shadow around me. Something could easily hide in
the underbrush or behind any number of trees. There was no earthly way for me
to pick that out of the pitch black or the scattered banks of fog. Was I
staring at that which would be the instrument of my demise at this very moment?

The memory of the stranger
ticked at my brain. What could he possibly want with me?

The familiar weight of my
ruby felt like a red-hot iron on the soft skin of my chest.

Trying hard to keep my
composure, I turned and carefully picked my way back in the direction I’d come
at a steady jog.

You shouldn’t have come here. You’re so foolish!
I chastised myself.

This deep in the forest, I
couldn’t tell east from west, but knew to keep to straight lines at all times.
Wyn had taught me that. Many years ago, I’d wandered into the forest and gotten
lost. It had taken nearly a day for a pair of hummingbirds to find me, curled
up in the hollow of a tree, sobbing softly. I’d followed them diligently,
hoping against hope that they’d lead me in the right direction. And that’s how
Wyn found me, trailing along behind the hummingbirds. He’d wrapped me in his
little arms, my knight without shining armor, and we’d held hands all the way
home. Of course, we never told Maisie or Sarah or Vill.

A hummingbird flittered against
my nose, waking me from my deep memories where I wanted to burrow and stay
forever, warm and loved. The little bird danced frantically around my head and
I wondered what had put him in such a state. Perhaps a cat had gotten too
close.
Or a stranger.

Darting, I stumbled over
the underbrush at the tree line, and that’s when something brushed against my
leg.

The air in my throat
evaporated, and I turned slowly, only to find the hummingbird flittering
against my calf.

What do you want?

It was then, as I turned to
go home, that I saw them.

The girls
.

My boots tamped softly on
the leaves as I spun until I was facing them fully. My specters.

They stood there, between
two baby oaks, giggling silently, a ghoulish presence that didn’t quite look
tangible. As though a master potter had shaped these figures out of the fog.

I sucked in a breath, my
heart pounding but afraid any movement would cause them to leave. It usually
did.

They were both small, the
size of six- or seven-year-olds, and their color was muted, as though someone held
a diaphanous piece of silk in front of them. In matching dresses with puffed
sleeves, they shifted and looked at me and laughed, but never spoke. No sound had
ever come from them, no matter how many times I’d wailed, “Why do you haunt me?”

Tonight, I only whispered
to myself, “This is real.”

But they weren’t who I
wanted to see.
If they’re real, then I
can see my parents
.
And …

Wyn
.

My heart beat faster and
faster, thumping against my throat. I didn’t want to see Wyn. I needed to go
back. Back to him. Because he was going to wake up. I wouldn’t see him here.
Suddenly I was afraid. Terrified.

Then the sound of a branch
snapping tore through the quiet night.

The specters disappeared
instantaneously and without pausing to see what caused the noise, I raced back
to the cottage as though I’d seen a ghost.
Or
two
.

Chapter Nine

The morning dawned bright through the windows
of the yellow cottage, and I was awake before Maisie or Sarah. When they
finally stirred, I was sitting upright in the chair as though I hadn’t slept
beside Wyn and held his warm palm all night.

“You’re up early, child,”
Sarah said, her throat scratchy and dry from her night of crying. Tear tracks
still stained her cheeks, and her bloodshot eyes went straight to her son. “Let
me sit with him awhile, you’ve earned a break.”

“I don’t need a break,” I
protested.

“Come,” Maisie commanded
gently.

Felix tried to jump up to
obey the command, but his injured leg had been bound by the doctor, so he
finally gave up. He plopped his weight back down beside the bed and whined in
frustration.

Also annoyed at having been
pushed aside, I joined Maisie at the kitchen counter, where the old woman was
filling a kettle from a bucket in the corner. “You need to give the woman some
time with her son. Besides, I need you to go to Mary Finney’s. She finished the
baking yesterday and she’ll have bread for us.”

I nodded silently and
trudged obediently to the door, making sure to show my irritation in the slump
of my shoulders.

Outside, the sun beat down
rather mercilessly, and the sheep in the shed between Sarah’s and Maisie’s
houses voiced their discomfort under those woolen blankets they were born with.
I made note to take them out to the fields later, but my throat hurt at the
prospect of doing that without Wyn.

My boots kicked up tiny
dust storms as I shuffled down the road, and it was those clouds of brown that
I was watching when my shoulder met something hard.

“You should watch where
you’re going!”

“Be nice, Louisa, her lover
is dying,” another voice said.

I looked up to find a
gaggle of Killybeg girls standing before me.

He’s not my lover
, I thought wretchedly. It took everything in me, all the
manners I’d ever been taught, not to turn and walk away without a greeting. In
a bigger town, I could have, but not here where the word would spread of my
temper. Not that I cared, for my own sake, but it would embarrass Maisie and
Sarah awfully.

“He’s not her lover,”
Louisa said, louder, with a nasty grin at Corinthia, the one who had chastised
her. Only it wasn’t really chastising. Corinthia had hated me ever since the
day Wyn and I trained Felix, still a puppy, to attack her ankles. She was in
the habit of wearing awful pink socks up to her knees, and it had been easy to
get Felix to gnaw at them with his stubby puppy teeth. But when Vill found out,
the stunt had gotten Wyn locked up in the house for nearly two days.

“She wishes he was, but
he’s still open game,” Louisa added.

“Is he okay?” a girl with
fiery red hair spoke up. That was Jules Finney, and she was the nicest of the
lot. Sometimes I thought Jules and I could be friends, but she must have found that
the other girls offered her something better, because she treated me like a
strange little wolf, avoiding me as though she was slightly afraid.

I hoped my fear for Wyn
didn’t show to these predators. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. Surely
the heavy bags beneath my eyes and my dry, cracked lips indicated that I’d been
crying all night. But nobody said anything about it. Not even Cath, who stood
behind them all, her eyes on the ground like a coward.

“He’s going to be fine,” I
said confidently.

“Good, I’d like to kiss him
some day,” Louisa said, grinning.

My cheeks ignited. It was
all these girls thought about, kissing and men. But even more disparaging was
the fact that I’d been wanting that from Wyn for a long while now, too. The
thought of him doing that with Louisa made my insides whip into a tornado.

And that’s when I knew what
I had to do.

I would never leave Wyn.
Forget The Great and Mighty Voyage. I wouldn’t leave him to the likes of Louisa
or even Jules Finney. He was mine. Mine and only mine. If he never walked
again, never left Killybeg, neither would I. I would stay here and learn to
care about kissing and mending clothes and marriage and babies and sheep. I
would learn to sew and make soup from whatever was in the house. I could do
that. I
would
do that. For Wyn. My
knight, my protector.

A smile crept across my
face and I stepped toward the girls. “Actually, he
is
my lover.”

Not waiting around to
answer questions with more fibs, I pushed into their shocked little group and
they parted to let me pass. I was, all of a sudden, a girl on a mission.

It took all day, but it finally happened that
Sarah and Maisie were gone at the same time. Maisie had to let the sheep into
the field, and she’d insisted Sarah “get a drop of sun” on her face that day. I
eagerly watched them leave.

Felix lay on the bed now,
fast asleep, but he would hardly be a problem.

The spirit has ways of knowing when there is something to wake
up for
,
Jan had said. But Wyn’s spirit had yet to pass that message on to the parts of
him that would bring him back to me. So I had to take matters into my own
hands.

Or lips.

Give him something to live for
.

I sat, this time on the edge
of the bed instead of the stiff wooden chair, and the mattress gave way beneath
me, shifting Wyn’s body as though he was awake.

My heart was beating faster
than any time I could remember – even the day before last, when I’d
thought he would kiss me. I couldn’t remember hearing of a girl in Killybeg
ever
doing what I was about to do.

Wyn’s lips were parted ever
so slightly, but the fact that those huge brown eyes that set my heart on fire
were lidded made it easier for me to gather my courage. Breathing shallowly, I
bent over him.

Inches from his face, I
could feel the soft breath escaping his mouth. I paused, studying his still
lashes and the tiny pores on his nose. I put a hand to his cheek with a touch
as light as a feather, and brushed it ever so softly. His pumice-rough skin
scraped against me, and I realized he’d grown into a man almost without my
noticing. I studied the little hairs above his lips, so delicate in contrast to
the ugly gashes on his forehead. And the way his eyebrows were scrunched every
so slightly in sleep. As if he worried, even as he slept. I wanted him to stop
worrying. I needed to bring him out of there.

I pressed my lips against
his, softly at first, my eyes open, watching his. Then I gave in and closed my
eyes, pressing harder.

His lips, so soft and warm,
felt perfect. So
right
. As though my
own were made to do this, carved from stone to fit against his for this very
purpose.

Wake up, Wyn!

Our first kiss couldn’t be
our last. It would be my undoing.

The deep breath he drew in
against my lips took my heart with it.

“Ruby!” he gasped against
my mouth.

I jumped away and water
sprang to my eyes. I hadn’t thought ahead to this point in time, to his
reaction. I hadn’t gotten past the part where I put my heart and soul on the
line and wondering whether or not it would work. “Wyn …” I said breathlessly,
in a voice that sounded not wholly my own.

He gulped and looked around
at the empty room, eyes wide. Felix lifted his head, his ears alert. When Wyn
was satisfied we were alone, his eyes found me again.

“Ruby,” he repeated.

The tears dripped over the
edge of my eyelids like a trickling stream threatening to become a thundering
waterfall. “You’re awake,” I squeaked, trying to contain my warring emotions.

“Yeah, apparently thanks to
you,” he said with a grin.

“I’m sorry –”

“Don’t be,” he said. He had
to stretch to do it, but he took my quivering hand in his. “Don’t be, Ruby.”

Every time I’d ever seen
his face, which was every day of my existence, rose to the surface of my being
in a wave of happiness.

It threatened to drown me.
“Okay,” I choked out.

I settled back down on the
side of the bed, and we sat in silence as Felix crawled to Wyn’s face and began
licking the cuts on his cheek.

“You okay, boy?” Wyn said,
rubbing the sheepdog behind the ears.

“He has a hurt leg,” I
explained. “Just like you.”

He looked down at the
mountain holding up his left leg. The muscles in his neck trembled and his
right leg raised, but his left wobbled drunkenly.

“Damn,” he muttered. “I
haven’t felt a pain like that before.”

“I’m so happy you’re
awake,” I said, my smile growing. The anxiety and fear hadn’t lifted all at
once, but it was starting to drain away like the puddles after a summer storm.
“Wyn, what happened?”

He stopped struggling with
his leg and lay back against his pillow, the exertion showing on his face. “I
don’t want to tell you, Rube,” he said.

“Wyn.”

His lashes covered his eyes
as he looked down, ashamed. When he met my eyes again, he said, “I went to get
work at the amethyst mine.” He gulped and shook his head, his eyes flying to
the ceiling. “They said no. Only they didn’t say no. Instead they called me a
worthless kid and laughed in my face. I could have handled it if they’d just
said no.”

I looked down to where our
hands were still folded together. It looked as natural as anything, but felt
more exhilarating than anything in the world.

“But I left with them still
laughing at my back. I was really angry.” A nerve ticked in his jaw, and I knew
the anger hadn’t yet subsided. “So I crept back in and stole a bunch of their
stuff. Tools and picks and all sorts of things they have … or
had
.”

“Oh, Wyn,” I breathed. “Why
didn’t you just come talk to me?”

Wyn bit his bottom lip. “I
was embarrassed. How am I supposed to take you across the sea if everybody still
thinks I’m a kid?”

“
I
don’t think you are,” I said.

“Well, I acted like one. I
went to the abandoned diamond mine and started messing around in there with
their tools. I was sure I could find something – anything – to sell
or take with us. Just to get us on our way.”

“Edwyn Martin, that mine
isn’t stable,” I whispered plaintively.

A smile quirked his lips.
“I know that now.”

Sniffling, I playfully hit
the only non-bruised patch I could find on his arm. Then I fell upon him,
sobbing in earnest, and threw my arms around his neck. He drew in a sharp
breath of pain and I recoiled.

“You could have been
killed,” I said sternly.

Chatter from outside was
audible, but inside the house we sat in relieved silence. That is, until Wyn
said, “But that wasn’t the only reason I was in the diamond mine.”

My eyebrows pushed
together. What other reason could he have had for going to an old, abandoned,
notoriously dangerous mine?

“Rube, I have something to
show you.”