voice.
“By realizing there’s no scenario in which you two can have a future together. You are bound to Watson’s Landing, and Eight will be bound to Beaufort Hall. The distance across the river might not seem very far, but it would always be there between you. One or the other of you would always be in pain. That would only get worse. The bindings will force you back to your responsibilities, and people in both families have gone crazy from the pain of that. They’ve committed suicide to escape it. If you let Eight give up his scholarship when you have no hope of a future together, he’ll have given up his dreams for nothing.”
He finished speaking, and Barrie heard the staccato rush of her own heartbeat in her ears. An hour ago, she wouldn’t have let herself think about marrying Eight. The idea that she couldn’t, though, made her realize how much heartache she was in for.
CHAPTER SEVEN
While she was alone upstairs, the quiet of the house wrapped around Barrie like a comfortable shirt. Comfortable, not comforting. She had too much pent-up frustration to let herself be consoled.
Emerging from the shower in a billow of steam, she felt weighed down by gifts and obligations, by fear and loss and fury. She needed to try to speak with the Fire Carrier again. What Seven had told her made it even more important than before that she find a way to understand what was expected of her and what the binding meant.
Wrapped in a towel, she stopped at the balcony door on her way to get her clothes. It was almost midnight, but several of the boats were still there, bobbing in the moonlightthat reflected across the water. The scene was too similar to her memory: a boat and the Fire Carrier approaching, flames shooting across the water, the boat exploding, the smell of fuel burning, Wyatt and Ernesto screaming.
Logically, Barrie knew there had been other boats before and the Fire Carrier hadn’t done anything to them. Logically, she knew he had saved her. But logic didn’t trump the memories.
She’d had days to come to terms with how she’d seen him that night, not as the shadowed spirit of an ancient Cherokee witch but as something more. As someone real. And all along, he’d had something he wanted to tell her that he didn’t know how to communicate.
Since that night, she’d been thinking about trying to speak to him again, but thanks to the boats and Eight, who was asleep in the room beside hers, the Fire Carrier would have to wait. After dressing hurriedly, she slipped outside to the balcony. Treading lightly to avoid the creak and groan of weathered wood, she crossed to the railing.
The darkness whispered with night birds calling and insects droning, and the air settled around her, heavy with the sweetness of honeysuckle and magnolia and damp, cloying heat. All these things had been here when she’d first arrived at Watson’s Landing. Since the night the spirit in the fountain had bound her, though, sight and smell and hearing, all hersenses, were more intense, as if her skin had melted away and left her raw and beating in time with the landscape.
She didn’t need the chime of the grandfather clock downstairs to warn her.
Orange tongues of flame appeared in the woods, the flickering glow marking the Fire Carrier’s progress to the river. He emerged in the marsh with the sphere of fire in his outstretched hands. Bending low, he unraveled it a thread at a time until the entire surface of the water had ignited and the blaze ran upriver the length of the island, and down to the creek on the far side of the Watson woods.
Barrie held her breath, waiting for the boat to catch, to explode and send up a spray of smoke, fumes, and sharp fiberglass shards. She let the memories hit her, and they came in waves and waves.
Nothing exploded. The boats on the river never moved, and whoever was in them showed no sign of being aware that anything magical was happening around them.
The Fire Carrier turned to face Barrie.
“By realizing there’s no scenario in which you two can have a future together. You are bound to Watson’s Landing, and Eight will be bound to Beaufort Hall. The distance across the river might not seem very far, but it would always be there between you. One or the other of you would always be in pain. That would only get worse. The bindings will force you back to your responsibilities, and people in both families have gone crazy from the pain of that. They’ve committed suicide to escape it. If you let Eight give up his scholarship when you have no hope of a future together, he’ll have given up his dreams for nothing.”
He finished speaking, and Barrie heard the staccato rush of her own heartbeat in her ears. An hour ago, she wouldn’t have let herself think about marrying Eight. The idea that she couldn’t, though, made her realize how much heartache she was in for.
CHAPTER SEVEN
While she was alone upstairs, the quiet of the house wrapped around Barrie like a comfortable shirt. Comfortable, not comforting. She had too much pent-up frustration to let herself be consoled.
Emerging from the shower in a billow of steam, she felt weighed down by gifts and obligations, by fear and loss and fury. She needed to try to speak with the Fire Carrier again. What Seven had told her made it even more important than before that she find a way to understand what was expected of her and what the binding meant.
Wrapped in a towel, she stopped at the balcony door on her way to get her clothes. It was almost midnight, but several of the boats were still there, bobbing in the moonlightthat reflected across the water. The scene was too similar to her memory: a boat and the Fire Carrier approaching, flames shooting across the water, the boat exploding, the smell of fuel burning, Wyatt and Ernesto screaming.
Logically, Barrie knew there had been other boats before and the Fire Carrier hadn’t done anything to them. Logically, she knew he had saved her. But logic didn’t trump the memories.
She’d had days to come to terms with how she’d seen him that night, not as the shadowed spirit of an ancient Cherokee witch but as something more. As someone real. And all along, he’d had something he wanted to tell her that he didn’t know how to communicate.
Since that night, she’d been thinking about trying to speak to him again, but thanks to the boats and Eight, who was asleep in the room beside hers, the Fire Carrier would have to wait. After dressing hurriedly, she slipped outside to the balcony. Treading lightly to avoid the creak and groan of weathered wood, she crossed to the railing.
The darkness whispered with night birds calling and insects droning, and the air settled around her, heavy with the sweetness of honeysuckle and magnolia and damp, cloying heat. All these things had been here when she’d first arrived at Watson’s Landing. Since the night the spirit in the fountain had bound her, though, sight and smell and hearing, all hersenses, were more intense, as if her skin had melted away and left her raw and beating in time with the landscape.
She didn’t need the chime of the grandfather clock downstairs to warn her.
Orange tongues of flame appeared in the woods, the flickering glow marking the Fire Carrier’s progress to the river. He emerged in the marsh with the sphere of fire in his outstretched hands. Bending low, he unraveled it a thread at a time until the entire surface of the water had ignited and the blaze ran upriver the length of the island, and down to the creek on the far side of the Watson woods.
Barrie held her breath, waiting for the boat to catch, to explode and send up a spray of smoke, fumes, and sharp fiberglass shards. She let the memories hit her, and they came in waves and waves.
Nothing exploded. The boats on the river never moved, and whoever was in them showed no sign of being aware that anything magical was happening around them.
The Fire Carrier turned to face Barrie.
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