It’s difficult to see, but something stains his fingers. I stop and take his hand, pulling it close to my face. “You’re bleeding.”
“It isn’t blood,” he says, watching me. “I was painting.”
“You paint?”
“Yes.” The word is tense, as if he has admitted to something he meant to keep hidden.
“What do you paint?”
Wolfe starts walking again, and I follow behind him. “People, mostly.”
“Your coven?”
“Yes, my coven.”
“Why?” I ask, wanting him to keep talking, to keep sharing this part of himself with me.
“Because if I don’t, how will we be remembered?”
The words take my breath away, the raw honesty of them. I want to say something to ease the anger in his voice, the pain, but there is nothing. My coven doesn’t know his exists, a hidden life concealed in magic and the shadows of the trees.
“I will remember.”
Wolfe turns to me, putting some cedar in my basket. “And will you tell your mother? Your future husband? Or am I a secret you will carry to your grave?”
“I—” I stop myself because the answer hurts too much to say out loud. I stare at him, more shadow than person in the dense forest. He knows I can’t tell anyone, that our protection and his depends upon the mainland believing that dark magic is gone. But it’s a painful truth, one that will claw at my chest for the rest of my life.
I’m stunned when his fingers find my face, gently trailing over my cheek and tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “That’s what I thought.”
He turns without another word, but I’m stuck in place, my hand coming to rest where his fingers were just moments ago.
“I need to get home,” I finally say, forcing myself to move.
Wolfe slows, putting a narcissus stem in my basket. “What are you really doing out here?” he asks, ignoring my comment entirely.
I turn and follow the sound of the waves, wanting to get to the shoreline, where the moonlight will illuminate my way home. Wolfe falls into step beside me. I don’t respond until I’ve reached the beach and breathed in the salt air, letting it calm me from the inside out.
Finally, I turn to Wolfe.
“I came out to harvest and started thinking about our conversation, and I don’t know. I think I subconsciously went searching for proof that what you’ve told me is true.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then why would you be looking for proof?”
I take a deep breath. “Because I don’t want to believe you.” I walk closer to the water and sit on the sand, tired and embarrassed and confused.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s easier than the alternative.”
“And did you find any proof?” he asks, sitting on the ground next to me. His tone gives nothing away, but there’s a softness to him that I haven’t felt before, and I don’t understand why. Maybe he can see all the threads he’s torn loose from me.
“Well, I found you. Either you’re following me, or you have a magical house on this island that I got a little too close to.”
“I’m not following you,” he says.
I pause. “I know. So how does it work? How did you know I was out here?”
Wolfe shifts next to me, and I realize he’s uncomfortable too, not knowing if he can trust me. Not knowing if he has shared too much or if I’ll go home and tell my mother everything I’ve learned.
“There is a spell on the house that can sense heat signatures in the woods surrounding it. It was originally used to alert the witches to nearby animals. Before their crops began yielding food, the witches needed to eat. We now use it as a kind of security system.”
As he speaks, the anger inside me grows, but it’s more than that. It’s sadness that this place I have loved with every part of me has kept secrets so large they threaten to break everything my coven has worked so hard to build.
“If you hadn’t been there to stop me, would I have eventually bumped into your home?”
“No. The magic would keep you walking in a loop through the forest.” He watches me as he answers.
“I hate that you have an explanation for everything,” I say, but I think what I really mean is that I hate that I believe what he says. I hate that his words have made me ask questions I’ve never thought to ask.
“I hate that you require so many,” he says, and I think what he really means is that he hates that we don’t know about the life he lives, as if it isn’t worth knowing about.