I'm not sure who actually reads this on fictionpress, but I wrote another chapter, so here it is!

NINETEEN DAYS

Chapter Eight
The Other Woman

They resurfaced.

Spluttering, Alosha came out of the water, spitting liquid from her mouth, flicking it out of her hair and her eyes and her clothes. This time, they were both utterly drenched.

Gasping for air, she glanced around. They were standing waist-deep in the grand marble fountain just inside the inner wall of Girusa. It was almost sunset. There were people gawking at them.

Edmund leaned on the edge of the fountain, exhausted and in obvious pain. His back was still smouldering slightly. Steam came off it in tiny spirals.

Alosha said, “We got away.”

He shook his head. “No. He let us go. You cannot get away from Tariq.”

“I don’t think he is as powerful as you make him out to be. I punched him, and he bled like a man, thick and red and real.”

“Alosha. Everything about Tariq is an illusion. Did you not feel his might? Were you not terrified of him?”

She said quietly, “Yes.”

Edmund slumped wetly against the side of the fountain.

“All right,” said Alosha, helping him up before he slid underwater. “There’s an inn over there. Let’s get you inside some dry clothes, and get some whisky inside you.”

They clambered tiredly out of the fountain and slap-slapped across the road. Alosha wrung her hair out before stepping inside the building. The innkeeper, a wide-set, middle-aged woman, took one look at their bedraggled appearances and sent them upstairs with orders for two warm baths, fresh clothes and a hot meal.

A maid led them into a large, panelled room with two straw-stuffed beds and a dining table, and a small fireplace. Behind separate screens were two metal bathing tubs. She carried in several buckets of cold water and filled the tubs, and then brought in a kettle and added boiling water. “Towels and clean clothes are in the cupboard,” she directed. “You can pay for them on your way out.”

She left.

Once both Edmund and Alosha were bathed and dressed in dry clothes, they sat at the table and the maid spooned two bowls of steaming chicken broth.

“Call me if you need anything at all,” she said, and hurried out to wait on other guests.

Neither touched their broth. Alosha unwound her towel from her head and rubbed her wet hair. Edmund sat with his legs spread, his bare feet flat on the wood, his new shirt wrongly buttoned. She bit her lip.

“Well,” said Edmund.

“Well,” said Alosha.

“Are you all right?”

She hesitated, and got slowly to her feet. She walked to the window. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I shouldn’t have brought you--”

“Don’t. I agreed to come.”

“You didn’t know--”

“Please. Don’t apologise.” She turned away from the view and looked at him, sitting there in the small wooden chair, still a little damp, his hair clinging to his head. “I should be the one asking if you are OK, after what he did to your back.”

“It’s fine,” Edmund said, rising and taking a step toward her. The chicken broth was completely forgotten. He remembered what it felt like, holding her to him in the tumbling fountain, feeling the planes and angles and curves of her body pressed against his in fear. He looked at her now, her brown sugar hair fluttering around her lovely, fair face, and he felt full.

He took another step toward her, and another, and he loomed tall and dark and blue-eyed in her vision, and suddenly he had crossed the room. His eyes were like stars. She felt his hands lightly on her waist, and then he kissed her.

Edmund pulled back an inch, and she thought she was drowning in that smile.

She froze. “Caleb--”

He put his mouth against hers again, and she could taste his lips and the smooth edge of his teeth and his tongue, and his hands were harder on her waist. She reached for him, breathing in his soap and the smell of his crisp clothes and the scent of his skin, which was sweet and dark and musky. She knew what she was doing, and she knew not.

She pulled away, sharply. “Caleb!” she said in horror. She looked at her fourth finger.

Edmund caught her with his silent, solemn gaze, bursting with emotion. He said, “I am Edmund, Alosha. I do not know Caleb. Do you know Caleb? Where is Caleb, Alosha? He is not here.”

Tears rained inside Alosha. “I do not know where he is. He is not here. He has been gone for a long time.”

Edmund touched his thumb to her rose-tinged cheek. She was like a dew-spangled flower in winter, like a bird, a cloud, a piece of diamond. “Alosha. You know what you are doing?”

“No,” she said, and pulled him to her.

When Alosha got home that night, Danika was crying softly in her room and there was an unopened letter on her desk from Caleb.

Alosha,

I will arrive in Girusa on Tuesday the 3rd. I cannot wait.

I love you.

Caleb

Today was Wednesday. Alosha felt dirty and terrible and guilty, but when she drifted off to sleep, she had a soft smile on her face. It betrayed her.

The next day was a Thursday. It was the tenth out of nineteen days. The doorbell sounded at a quarter to eight, and Danika was the first one down the stairs.

“Edmund!” she cried in unconcealed delight, flinging her arms around his neck.

He looked as impeccable as ever. His brown hair was combed neatly off his forehead, and he wore his dark blue suit with a white tie. His shoes were shiny. His teeth were shiny. He pecked Danika on the lips and smiled. “Hello.”

Alosha watched sleepily from the upstairs landing, in her nightgown.

“You’ve been away for two days!” Danika exclaimed, swatting the front of his chest. “How dare you, Edmund! What have you been doing?”

He kept smiling, and it was enough to make Danika feel dizzy. “I couldn’t wait to get here this morning, Danika,” he said.

She smiled and swatted him a final time. “Well, I’m glad you came. Come and have breakfast with us. Mother! Father! Look who’s here!”

Danika’s resentment toward Alosha seemed to be forgotten, at least for a moment. When Alosha came out onto the back porch with a dressing robe wrapped around herself and her hair loose, her sister smiled and pushed a plate of scrambled egg across the table.

Edmund nodded a silent hello.

Alosha had to try to remember how she had felt toward him before--before everything. Had she disliked him? She thought so. Dislike was easy to fake.

She made conversation. “Mother, Father--I received a letter from Caleb. He is coming back on Tuesday.”

She did not look at Edmund when she said this.

After Mr. and Mrs. Grey had expressed their delight at this news, and even Danika said, “That’s wonderful to hear,” Alosha finally raised her eyes across the table.

Edmund was sitting far back in his chair, his back straight, his arms straight, his mouth straight. He ran one finger around the rim of a glass, thoughtfully. Alosha could not look at him without remembering the words seared into his back.

“Excuse me, I need to borrow your restroom,” said Edmund abruptly. He pushed himself up from the table and nodded radiantly to Mrs. Grey and Danika.

Alosha shovelled the rest of her eggs into her mouth and stood. “Well, that was lovely,” she said, and dashed inside the house.

Edmund was waiting for her around the corner. He caught her upper arm and pressed a hard kiss onto her mouth. Alosha was breathless that someone might see them, but no one did. He crammed a wad of something into her left palm, and then pulled his body away from hers, and walked briskly back out to the porch.

Alosha smoothed out the piece of paper. A small brass key fell into her palm. The note said 27 Reme Street, 8pm.

Edmund and Danika left after breakfast and were gone for the whole day. Alosha returned to bed and alternated between reading and dozing until she heard the front door slam in the early evening. Danika crept upstairs with flowers threaded through her red hair, and smelling of sweat and sugar. She went past Alosha’s room and disappeared into Mrs. Grey’s parlour. Even from a distance Alosha could see the smile on her sister’s face.

Her thoughts were running amok.

How could she have let herself become so tangled in this mess? How could she have let anything happen between her and Edmund when he was supposed to marry Danika--no, he had to marry Danika? She had never acted like this before. It was impulsive, and foolish, and selfish.

Did she have no consideration for her sister’s feelings? Did Edmund have no consideration for Danika‘s feelings? Alosha wondered if he was experiencing the same guilt that was now gnawing with joyful malevolence at the pit of her belly. Perhaps not. Perhaps he was having the time of his life, courting two pretty girls at the same time. After all, it certainly looked like he had had a wonderful day with Danika. And were those grass stains on the back of her skirt?

Alosha hugged a pillow and exhaled slowly. She touched her hand to her lips, lightly, trying to recreate the moment when Edmund had first kissed her. She wanted to put the memory in a little box in the corner of her mind and lock it away. And then burn it.

She stretched out on her stomach, so that her hand rested next to her face, flat on the mattress. The small silver ring on her fourth finger sparkled. It blinded her for a moment.

Alosha pulled herself off the bed, and went to the bottom drawer of her desk, where she pulled out the note and the brass key. She fed the note into the flame of her candle until it was nothing more than black scraps. Then she crossed to her window and flung the key outside. It vanished into the dusk.

Ten minutes later, Alosha was scrabbling around in the bushes below her bedroom window. She held a candle in one hand and parted the leaves with her other.

I cannot believe I am stooping to this.

She found the key wedged between two bristly branches, and stomped back up to her room to wash her hands.

Alosha spent much longer than usual getting dressed. She chose a frilly white dress with a daringly low-slung collar, and then took it off. She put on a mauve-and-lilac print dress with a puffy skirt, and then took it off. At last, she realised she was being ridiculous. She left the house in a sleek, charcoal-grey gown and black gloves. She put the key inside her right glove, between the creases of her palm.

Her father let her take the carriage, but only after she lied and told him that she was helping Caleb by meeting with a rich nobleman interested in purchasing a Madigan painting. Mr. Grey joked that the nobleman would probably try to purchase Alosha.

The inside of the carriage was cool and dark. She rested her cheek against the leather of the seat, and it was oddly soothing. The driver stopped the carriage just inside the inner gate, as she requested, and she got out and saw the fountain that she had dived into with Edmund, and she remembered the forest palace and Tariq and his terrible illusions.

Alosha shivered and headed down away from the fountain.

Reme Street was in residential district of Girusa, close to the inner wall but a fair walk nevertheless. Alosha didn’t mind. She enjoyed the crisp feel of the darkness on her skin and the pearly glow of the moon above. Her skirts danced and foamed around her ankles like the night sea, and she had to hitch them up a little to keep from treading on the hem. She kept her head bowed, moving at a brisk, even pace, avoiding any sort of confrontation. There were a number of people on the streets even at this time, but they all seemed eager to go about their own business.

Alosha passed the Council Building with its many libraries and offices. Yellow candlelight crept out between the shutters of a few windows here and there; other than that, the place was dark. She passed East Girusa Boys’ Academy, which was also closed for the night, the wrought-iron gates drawn shut and entwined with chain-link.

Beyond the fruit market, which was a silent sea of canvas-covered stalls, the city flattered into aisles of low, modest townhouses, each contained within its own small, modest garden. Each house was like a bungalow, with a red door and a matching red letter-box, and a wooden porch that wrapped around the side of the building. The front bushes were in a mild state of unkempt. It was all so quaint and unlike anything Alosha was used to, that she smiled.

Reme Street was buried in the midst of this patchwork array of cottages. She found number 27 and stood on the sidewalk for a moment looking at the front of the house even though it looked exactly the same as all the other buildings in the area. As she pulled off her right glove and tipped the brass key into her palm, she realised that stood out like a sore thumb in her sleek dress.

Taking a deep breath, Alosha walked along the broken stones of the front path, the long arms of the unkempt grass brushing at her ankles. A stray cat stared at her from the fence, glaring and yellow-eyed. Overhead, a black bird screeched as it cut a path across the starry sky.

There were homely touches on the front porch. A wind-chime, clumsily made of string and metal hairpins, hung from the top of the nearest window frame. Beneath it, a wooden rocking-chair creaked softly in the breeze. Its seat was padded with a mauve-and-yellow patchwork cushion, but its curved frets were laced thickly with cobwebs—an uneasy sign of disuse.

Alosha glanced nervously around and slotted the key into the red door.

It swung open lightly at her touch.

“Edmund?” she said, very quietly.

The front corridor was low-ceilinged and dark, but the far end was illuminated in soft candlelight tones. Alosha let the door swing shut behind her, blocking out the chilly night air. The warmth of the small cottage wrapped around her skin like a furry creature.

She went tentatively down the corridor, feeling the walls press narrowly in around her, smelling the gentle smells of old carpets and mothballs and worn-out paint. There was something in the place that made her think of childhood.

The room she came to at the end of the corridor was a cosy library. In here, the carpet was still threadbare and moss-coloured, and the walls were still painted with old-fashioned prints, but there were glossy, polished-oak shelves lined one wall grandly, and there was a marvellous mahogany hearth in which a dampened fire now burned. All manner of books were stacked high on a round table, and spilled off the shelves. There were silver wall-sconces, obviously installed later in the cottage’s modest life. It was a hodge-podge of old and new, past and present.

Edmund Oakley stood beside the fireplace, sipping brandy.

He looked up when Alosha stepped in, smiled, and re-capped his drink. The silver flask disappeared into the pocket of his velvet-dark jacket. He didn’t look at all surprised to see her.

Alosha said, with more irritation in her tone than she had intended. “I wasn’t going to come, you know.”

Edmund sighed, and the brandy re-emerged.

Alosha opened her mouth. She wanted to say a hundred things, wanted to ask him what exactly he was doing and how he intended to sort this mess out. She wanted to tell him that she was going to do the right thing and turn around and walk out of this place, because she loved Danika. And then, also, there was Caleb. Alosha couldn’t even think about Caleb at the moment.

But then Alosha made the mistake of pausing, and in that pause she let Edmund level his gaze at her, and then she didn’t say anything.

“If you shouldn’t have come,” Edmund said, “then why did you?”

Alosha folded her arms, and cast an appraising gaze around the little library. Without meaning to, a half-smile formed, slowly, on her lips. “You’ve chosen an interesting place for us to meet, Edmund. I quite like this cottage. It’s very quaint. And this room seems to be the most interesting of all.” She wandered across to the round table and flipped through the topmost book. A sheen of dust lifted off each page as she turned it, and the paper threatened to crumble under her very fingertips. The text was handwritten, and almost illegible.

Edmund stayed by the hearth and let his eyes follow Alosha’s movements, observing closely the curiosity and then bewilderment that passed over her features, and finally the subtle, persistent fascination as she examined various other books scattered around the room. He could do this for hours, easily. Watch her.

Alosha ran a hand over the shelves and raised her eyes to him in wonderment. “What is all this?”

With a rueful smile, Edmund relinquished his vantage point by the fireplace and walked over to her. He touched the spine of a green book. “These are mine,” he said. “I lived in this place for a while. I came back here often, after I was cursed, mostly to read, and research.”

“Research,” echoed Alosha. “On Tariq.” She ran her fingers over the pages that lay open on the table. A Comprehensive Study of the Demi-gods of the Age of Magic. Elvenkind: a massive tome, flipped to a section marked Weaknesses of the Elven Race. The Power of Curses.

“I was trying to find out more about him,” admitted Edmund.

“No,” said Alosha, looking closely at the texts that Edmund had circled and the notes that he had scribbled. “You were trying to find out a way to defeat him.”

Edmund considered her words for a moment, and shook his head ruefully. “You are shrewd. I’m still trying, you know. Looking for a weakness—any weakness.”

“And what have you found?”

“Dismally little. Tariq is of pure Trickster blood. It’s easier to beat a strong man than an intelligent man, and it’s near impossible to beat an intelligent, devious man.”

Alosha paused for a moment, in thought. “You said you came back here often, after you were cursed.”

“You really aren’t missing anything today, are you? If I didn’t know better I’d say you were hanging on my every word. But I don’t want you to hit me in the face. Yes, I did live here, a very long time ago. Approximately one hundred years ago, actually. This is—” his voice changed a little at this point, just the subtlest shift in nuance “—where I grew up, with my family, before I was cursed.”

Alosha stood very still. She had a hundred thoughts running through her head, and she could have spoken any one of them. You brought me to the house that you lived in as a child? What could that possibly mean? Why would you want to share all of this with me?

And even though she didn’t utter a word, he must have seen the questions in her eyes, because he put the brandy back in his coat (for good) and asked, “Would you like to have a look around?”

She nodded.

They strolled, at ease, from the warmth of the library to the old-fashioned kitchen with its cluttered, dusty cupboards, to the disused sitting room. It was cold in here, but it was the quiet darkness, the obvious emptiness, the lack of life, that made her shiver. Alosha bent to look at the faded family portraits: here was a boyish Edmund she barely recognised; in a later picture, an older version that almost exactly resembled the man that stood in front of her now. There was a father, a mother, two sisters—all deceased, surely.

She could feel him watching her. Edmund. It was the same way Caleb used to watch her when she was doing the smallest things, like tying a bow on the back of her dress. His gaze made her skin prickle. She made sure not to meet his eyes.

They looked at his bedroom, but Alosha didn’t want to stay in there for long. It felt sacred, and stepping within felt like treading on something precious. She saw a moth-eaten bedspread and an easel with dried paints and piles of books. She saw a model horse-and-carriage, built by an amateur out of wood.

She closed the door again, and even staring down at her feet she could feel Edmund’s eyes on her. His gaze trekked from her face to her neck and down the long length of her body, and this time she could not help but lift her own eyes to meet his.

It jolted her bodily, as though something slammed into her with force, knocking every thought backward out of her head.

Edmund growled softly, “I’m sorry; I can’t wait…” and he reached both arms out and seized her by the waist, his thumbs pressing firmly against the superior ridge of her hip bones. Her dress made a crinkling noise.

Alosha twisted aside. “Don’t kiss me,” she wanted to snap, but it came out as more of a petulant whine. “Please, don’t.”

“I can’t…” Can’t what? Can’t help it? Can’t stop?

“Go and kiss Danika,” said Alosha, and this time she sounded a little fiercer. “She’s the one that you spent the whole day with. It’s Danika that you should be with right now.”

“Don’t you want this?” His confused thumbs pressed harder into the sides of her hip.

She twisted aside again. “Who do you think you are?” she cried, growing more frustrated. “You spend the day flirting with my sister and come back and expect to do the exact same thing to me in the night! I am not going to be a second Danika. I am not going to be another one of your useless girls.”

Edmund was quiet. And then, slowly: “You think I treat you the same as I treat Danika?”

“How am I to know?”

“Alosha,” he said, and with his head bent he moved one hand around her waist so that it cradled the small of her back, and she couldn’t help but feel a rush deep in her belly. “The way I think of you is far and beyond how I think of Danika. I do not look at Danika like this.”

Alosha went completely still—not voluntarily. She could not move. Her muscles had lost all response. She whispered, “You don’t?”

“No,” said Edmund, and something familiar was tugging at the corner of his lips once more. He went on softly, “I don’t do this to Danika,” and he curved his neck and pressed a breath of a kiss onto her collarbone, “nor this,” and he kissed the side of her neck, at the same time pressing his hands into the muscles of her back, so that she felt him around her, on all sides, all at once, “nor this,” and he let their mouths meet at last.

Alosha couldn’t quite remember what happened after that.

Edmund was angry. He was angry with Tariq, because he was being forced to marry the sister of the girl he was in love with.

Before dawn, Alosha went into the library and saw that Edmund had already been there; the fire was going, and several books had been torn apart in a fury, and pages lay scattered about the room, some of them smouldering in the hearth.

She got her things and left the cottage quietly. There was so much happening that she didn’t know how to fix, and she was simply letting herself get more and more tangled in this misadventure.