Star's Crossing

70: The Words

Can I tell you a secret?

Mare shot down the path, the icy winter air freezing her tears on her cheeks. In rage and tragedy and bitter glee she laughed and threw her arms wide.

I believe in love.

The sky was the sweet yellow of pollen: it looked like summer, like the tinsel at the masquerade, like that flower on a fateful day an eternity past.

Tomorrow; at last we shall meet.

Mare did not care that she'd been a fool then. She did not care she'd been a fool today.

You seem more yourself than I've ever seen you.

Mare still believed in love. She always would. It was her blessing, her curse.

What rules will you break, Mare?

She did not fear the ending of her novel, nor her story. She'd written this much. She could stand to write a little more.

Our doubts are traitors.

Mare drew the horse's reins and the steed threw up its hooves, grating to a halt.

You told me, once, that love is the only thing worth living or dying for.

Abruptly the wind in Mare's ears fell silent; she realized where she was on her path. The irony was not lost on her, and beneath that bur oak, her heart, at last, broke. She'd fallen in love here. She'd lost love here. And here, now, she acknowledged she might never find it again.

I forget nothing. I remember every word.

Mare slid from her horse and glided to the tree. She gazed up at it imploringly. But a magical tree could only do so much, couldn't it?

She put her hand to the bark, and the weight of her loss and love fell upon her shoulders. "Even you cannot change fate."

"Ah. But who can?"

Mare closed her eyes.

Impossible.

She forced herself to turn. But she knew that voice; after a year, after an eternity, Mare would know his voice anywhere.

He stood beside Mare's horse. He had no hat or cane or even a coat, and his cheeks were pink, his curls windblown. He reached up and stroked the horse's neck. For an eternal moment they remained there, separate and apart, together in the wood that had conspired to bring them there.

"Ms. Atwood," said Teddy softly, and he turned those impossible eyes to her, "what are you doing here?"

What am I doing? Mare could have laughed, but she did not. She was frozen, immortalized as though in amber. This moment felt dangerous, tenuous. One word could break the spell.

We've broken a thousand times; here still we stand. She said, voice threadbare, "You missed your coach."

"Yes." Teddy looked at the horse, stroking its mane almost idly. "I went to your house."

Tears swelled in Mare's throat, but she swallowed them, a smile, disbelieving, curling her lips. "Why?"

"Do you remember when I saw you here, on the path in the rain? You'd ruined your dress to protect a book Alison had given you." Teddy smiled. Twilight shone in his eyes—his lovely, familiar, familiar—eyes. "I remember then, I wished, I believed—it was you. My writer."

Mare pressed her lips together. He'd known, then. He and Camden and Geoffrey had begun their conspiracy to steal a kiss, to call her theirs. But Mare had forgiven the boys, somehow. And God knew she had forgiven Teddy long ago.