I did it again, an open-mouthed kiss that ended with teeth, and this time her exhale crept a little closer to a moan.
I really, really wanted to make her moan in full.
“Harlow,” Talia said breathlessly, drawing back a little. Her pale eyes were heavy lidded and unfocused, lips beautifully bee-stung. I reared up to steal another small kiss before she went on. “Not that I don’t cosign this—very fucking enthusiastically, in case there’s any confusion—but we need to stop.”
“Why?” I asked, in a half-strangled tone that suggested I might die of such deprivation.
She jerked her head toward the dark beyond the lantern. “Because we’re attracting an audience.”
I followed her gaze, ice spilling like hoarfrost over my skin. “Oh. Oh, shit.”
Shades surrounded us, at least three deep in every direction, like the creepiest ever gathering of voyeurs. They hovered midair like untethered shadows, surveying us with those craters of not-quite-eyes that had taken on an even deeper darkness, like light-sucking vortices.
“Okay, so, this seems very bad,” I whispered to Talia through a suddenly dry throat.
“Well, it’s not the best, but it’ll be fine,” she said, unwinding her arms from my neck and shimmying fleetly off my lap. She kept her voice even-keeled and mellifluous, like some kind of hostage negotiator, which made me only more nervous; it was clearly for the shades’ benefit rather than mine. “We were just acting a little too alive for comfort. Shades are drawn to sex, and uh, sex-type activities. Unbelievably dumb of me not to have thought of that before.”
“My bad, I guess,” I said, even though, all things considered, I still wasn’t all that sorry about the part before the ghosts.
“Hardly,” she replied, shooting me a wicked smile before she turned back to the shades. She lifted her hands in front of her blazing garnet, arranging her fingers in a complex fretwork. I could feel the crackle of fresh spell forming, brewing between her palms. Then she began a low chant that corresponded to the twitches of her fingers—as though she was modulating the working crafted by her hands and voice, like some invisible instrument. Like she was charming spirits rather than snakes.
At this show of power, I felt the resurrection of that old, familiar envy I’d tried so hard to kill and bury all these years. To unwind and extricate from my sense of worth.
Whatever she was doing, a Harlow witch could never do. Not even the Harlow Arbiter.
The shades clung stubbornly to their spots for a few moments longer, bobbing in place like eerie buoys suspended in an invisible sea. Then they began to slowly, reluctantly disperse, wafting back to their trees or simply vanishing where they hovered, slipping back through the veil and into the bleak beyond.
“So, listen, I know this was my idea of fun and all,” Talia said when they were gone, the garnet’s fierce glow subsiding and her hands sinking into her lap, “but next time? Maybe we skip the peeping ghosts and grab dinner instead.”
14
Of Orchards, Jagbags, and Best Friends
And then you stone-cold made out with her, in Ye Woods of Gloom and Devastation, in front of all the ghoulies and everything?” Linden marveled, looking awestruck. “Girl, that’s metal.”
I nodded, taking a sip of mulled apple cider. “I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but it was actually kind of weirdly romantic. Not my usual jam, as you know. But apparently with the right kind of motivation, I can hang with a little horror in my hookups.”
“So thirsty,” Lin teased, shaking her head with mock censure.
“If you search deep inside yourself, I think you’ll find you mean adaptable.”
Linden and I sat in the Honeycake sunflower field with Jasper sprawled next to our flannel blanket, leggy yellow blossoms swaying high above our heads. Someone—Lark, probably, this felt like her offbeat brand of humor—had animated the sunflowers to break into an occasional angelic-sounding chorus of emo cult classics, the kind of angsty-white-boy music Linden had always unironically loved. The spell must have been keyed to the presence of magic, to ensure the flowers didn’t burst into song when tourists ventured into the field.
The field was currently regaling us with an a cappella version of some 3 Doors Down song, the sunflowers’ yolky heads bopping to the beat beneath a sky full of feathered clouds that looked like natural contrails.
I’d forgotten how much Linden’s family orchard felt like a modern take on the Elysian fields. It was almost annoyingly wonderful, a little like an admonition. As if Honeycake itself was asking me, What kind of fool would ever want to leave all this behind?