“Everyone does.” He shakes his head, not looking back. “But I’d never put away a thought about you.”
I stop walking.
“Liar,” I say with some authority.
He turns back to look at me, eyebrows up. “What?”
“I know you have,” I tell him, brows daring.
Jamison walks back quickly and right up into my face. “Ye went through my baggage?”
I shake my head quickly.
“Then how do ye ken?”
“I could tell.” I stare up at him, my eyes big and kind of afraid. I don’t think he’d hurt me, but I sort of feel as though I’m going toe-to-toe with a storm.
“By the shape.” I swallow. “How it looked—I don’t know.” I shake my head. “It felt like it called me.”
He glares at me for this, like I already know too much. “Ye d?nnae know what I put away,” he tells me as he shakes his head, right up in my face. “Whatever ye put away o’ me and what I did, it’s no’ the same thing.” His eyes drag over my face. “There’s nothing about ye I want to forget,” he says before he turns and keeps walking.
“That’s evidently not true,” I call after him.
“Ye d?nnae ken o’ what ye speak,” he calls back, and I frown even though he’s not looking at me to even care.
We walk in a prickly silence after that. Mostly just dotted with “careful’s” and “it’s slippery here’s” and “d?nnae touch that, it’s poison’s,” things like that. That’s all it is for hours between us, but I don’t mind because I’m using the time to remember what’s in those bags that I put away. Something about a coat, obviously. I remember that now. He put a coat on me. But why did I care about it? And snow or something? And there was another? Something about family? His family? And one more that escapes me— I feel I’m on the cusp of remembering it right as we get to the mouth of a cave.
Jamison looks back at me. He still looks a bit cross with me, if I’m honest.
“The Carnealian Mouth,” he tells me as he trots down a few rocks on a beach at low tide.
He offers me his hand to help me down, and I’ll be honest with you—I do think about not taking his hand. Maybe that’s what I should have done.
It’s easier if I don’t remember things with him. And I think, perhaps, if I didn’t take his hand, he’d have stayed angry with me the whole time we were in the volcano, and it might have made for an overall wiser trip.
But I’m eighteen, and it’s not wisdom that I want for my birthday, so I take it. A wave crashes loudly on the face of the cliff right by us, and my hand stays in his a few seconds longer than it needs to before we each snatch our respective hands away.
I gesture at the entrance. “After you.”
He nods, and I follow him in.
It’s dark instantly and humid and rather difficult to see—though not impossible—and then I trip on something.
“Ouch!” I cry, looking over my shoulder, glaring at the nothing I tripped on.
“Watch yerself.” Jem frowns at me, and then I move in closer towards him. Without looking back at me and without a word, Jem’s hand reaches for mine and takes it again, and somewhere behind us, a steam vent blows. He holds it tightly in a mindless way, and I remember properly what was in that silver bag—the one about the coat and how he pulled me close in to him, how it felt when he tugged it around me. And something about a breeze? There’s something about a breeze in another bag, but I feel nervous to remember what’s in that one, so I don’t.
Rather a terrible thing to remember if it wasn’t one of my favourite thoughts to wear in the world.
“Have you been here before?” I ask him.
“Many times,” he says. “My mum likes it. There’s magic here, she says.”
“Where are we going?”
He looks back at me. “Ye’ll see.”
We walk deeper and deeper into the cave, and it gets hotter and hotter. The flowers on my dress fold themselves back into buds. He stops for a second, peels off his coat, and throws it over a boulder.
“Don’t you lose that.” I nod my chin at it, some worry in my voice.
A pleased little smile spreads over his face. “Aye, look who’s been doing some remembering.” He flicks me a look as he takes my hand again and keeps walking for a bit. “What did I say to ye at the Bird?” he asks, staring straight again. I peer over at him, and he looks at me. “Or did ye check thon in too?”