The Cunning Man || ONC 2021

2: Connection

"What on earth are you doing?"

Nora stood in the kitchen doorway and stared at me slightly slack-jawed. I stopped next to the table, plates of bacon and eggs in hand.

"Making breakfast?" I lifted one auburn eyebrow at her.

"You cook?" She looked at me like I'd just grown a third arm.

I snorted under my breath and set the plates down on the table. "I've been a widower for five years. 'Fore that, I was on the trail. An' 'fore that, I lived in a house without a mother. I've been fending for myself for most of my life, Nora."

"Yes, but --" her voice trailed away when I pulled the chair in front of her out from under the table.

I pulled out my own chair then and plunked down. When she continued to stand and stare at me, I motioned toward the plate I'd prepared for her.

"I meant it in my letters when I said I probably wasn't going to be the kind of man you were used to. I figure whoever wakes up first makes breakfast. Doesn't need to be any more complicated than that."

Having said my piece, I grabbed my fork and dug in. After a few more seconds of disbelief, my new wife sat down across from me and picked up her own silverware. I snuck glances at her while we ate.

Her face and figure were soft, and I liked that she didn't wear her corset so tight as to hide the fact. She wore a simple blue blouse without an ounce of flounce, paired with an equally unembellished brown skirt. She came across as uncomplicated and practical, which I valued in a wife.

Her hair told a much different story. It was a wild tangle of black curls so fierce that the blue silk ribbon she used to tie it back barely succeeded in doing so. Her hair and her eyes warned that she could just as easily be the way to a man's ruin, should he ever think to tame her. I valued that in a wife, too.

"When you wrote that, about not being the kind of man I was used to, were you also alluding to you being a witch?"

I looked up at her question, a biscuit halfway to my mouth. "It crossed my mind when I wrote it, yeah."

"Would you have ever told me you were a witch if --" she gestured in frustration and huffed under her breath. "If, well, what happened last night hadn't happened?"

"No."

"Did Samantha know you were a witch?"

I sighed at the mention of my late wife's name. "No."

"She never asked about that hex symbol you wear?"

I almost choked on the sip of water I'd just taken. A triumphant little smile curled up the edges of Nora's lips.

"We're both from Pennsylvania, Cade. Hex symbols are a uniquely Pennsylvanian thing."

She had me there. I had the awful realization that it probably wouldn't have mattered if our magics hadn't reacted to each other. As a supernaturally gifted human herself, the brightly painted disk I never took off would have been enough to make my new wife suspect the truth I tried to hide.

"She asked about it, didn't she?" Nora continued to press forward toward her point.

"Yeah." I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken.

"So, you lied to your late wife the entire time you were married to her."

It was my turn to flinch like I'd been slapped. "Jesus, Nora. What's your point?"

"Are you going to lie the entire time we're married?" The way she asked that question clearly communicated that if my answer even sounded like "yes", our marriage would be quite short-lived.