Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (39 page)

“Yes there is.” His voice lowered and warmed. “Come stay with me.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

S
OPHIE STUFFED A CHANGE OF
clothes into her backpack, her mind in a flutter. Even without the Thanatos issue, the problems of staying overnight with Adrian would be enough on their own to worry her. Was it actually dangerous, with spirit-realm microbes floating about? Would she be disgusting and snore all night with her cold? Would he try to cuddle with her even when she was disgusting, or would he not want to? Which would be worse?

Adrian had said he was going to come all the way to the dorm to meet her, since it was the middle of the night and she was sick. He overrode her protests by assuring her he had a disguise of some kind, which Nikolaos had provided for him a while back.

So, on top of the other concerns, Sophie also worried she’d burst into nervous giggles at the sight of whatever this disguise was.

Her phone rang.

Sophie answered. “Hello?”

“I’m downstairs,” said Adrian. “Do you want to come down? Or buzz me in?”

“I’ll come down. See you in a minute.” She hung up and grabbed her pack. Dizzily, blowing her nose on the way, she hurried down the staircase and stepped out the glass door. Night air gusted into her face, rattling leaves on the shrubs. No one was around except a guy leaning on the wall, holding a cigarette. He had straight hair to his shoulders, brown streaked with bleach-blond. He wore a black fedora, glasses with thick dark rims, and a typical emo-kid long black raincoat.

Oh,
no
. She stopped, closed her eyes a second, then looked at him again. Giggles overtook her. She leaned back helplessly against the window.

Adrian slid the unlit cigarette into his coat pocket, and stepped back into the shadow of a high hedge. “Pull yourself together. Let’s go.”

She followed. “You look—this is—” She grasped a handful of the wig, then fell against his chest, unable to do anything but laugh.

He hugged her. An extra swoop of dizziness, and the cessation of the university noises, told her they had switched realms.

She lifted her head, trying to see his face in the darkness. “Don’t ever go blond.”

“Deal. I was only ever going to wear this disguise in extreme emergencies. Like when a murderer threatens my girl.” He removed the glasses, and her adjusting vision could make out the shine of his eyes, and the concern in them. “You all right? Really?”

Her laughter faded and her emotions teetered back to the verge of tears. She leaned on him. “No. I’m a wreck. And so tired.”

Adrian stooped and lifted her, tucking an arm under her knees. She hugged his neck and he carried her across the fields, moving branches out of the way so nothing scratched her. At the Airstream he transferred her to one arm while he opened the door, then climbed in with her. It was warm inside; the generator was humming. Two small lamps shone, one above the sink and one on the wall above his bed, at the end of the trailer. He set her on the bed, and took her backpack and coat, pushing them into a tiny open closet. He removed the pieces of the disguise and shoved them onto the top shelf. Sophie curled up on the blankets, watching him.

Kiri thumped her tail on the floor. Sophie held out her hand, and Kiri leaped up to snuffle it.

Running his hand through his flattened curls, Adrian sat on the fold-down bench that served as the only seat in the small bedroom, other than the bed itself. “Okay. Tell me what she said to you.”

Sophie did so, dully recounting all the threats and disturbing suggestions Quentin had made.

Adrian listened, gaze steady on her face, his knuckles pressed to his lips and his dark eyes burning with anger. When she was finished, he dropped his gaze to the floor and sat motionless a while. Then he rose and kissed her on the forehead. “You did the right thing getting out of there. But it’s okay to lie in the future and say you’ve had nothing more to do with me.”

“I will.” She reached out for his hand. “But I do want more to do with you. I know it’s real, everything you’ve shown me.”

“Good.” Adrian squeezed her fingers and let go. “Tell me what you need—for now, or for morning. I’ll get it. Tea? Orange juice? Vegetables?”

“Right now I just need rest. But for breakfast, I guess some kind of herbal tea, maybe with rosehips or echinacea. And apples and almond butter, if you don’t have them.”

“What kind of apples do you want?”

“Aww. People don’t usually ask me what kind of apples.”

He gave her a half-smile. “We in New Zealand are apple experts, I remind you.”

“I know it. We in Washington import them when ours aren’t in season. I like Honeycrisp best, but if you can’t find them, Fuji are fine.”

“Anything else? Are you warm enough?”

She nodded, drawing his blanket up over herself. “I’ll be all right.”

“Kiri’ll stay with you. I won’t be more than an hour or two. Call right away if you need anything.”

He went out. Sophie lay with her eyes closed, comforted at being in his bed, in a realm out of reach of lunatics like Quentin. Kiri snoozed near her, getting up once to drink from her water bowl in the kitchen, then returning. Outside, the generator hummed and some kind of wild dog or monkey yipped in the distance.

It’s a strange realm, but it’s my realm
, she thought, letting Persephone’s identity steal over her in her exhaustion.

She heard the click of the Airstream’s door opening, and the rustle of a plastic bag. Sitting up, she saw Adrian enter. Her phone indicated that an hour and a half had passed since he left—it was almost three in the morning now. She must have fallen asleep.

He set the plastic bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and walked to her, still in his flannel-lined coat. Dirt was smudged across his shoulder and chin. “How are you doing?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Not bad.” She thumbed the dirt off his chin. “How’d you get all dirty? Did you fall over or something?”

“No. I, uh—”

He moved his right hand behind his back. Kiri whined and lifted her muzzle to sniff it.

Catching a glimpse, Sophie gasped and seized his hand to drag it into view.

It looked like a car had run over it, was her first horrified thought. It was crushed and bloody and mangled. His cuff was wet with blood, and a few red drops had fallen on his jeans and stained them.

“I’m fine,” he protested.

“How is this fine? What did you do? Did you find Quentin?”

“No. I wanted to, believe me. But I didn’t even know where to look, so…after getting the food I took out my aggressions on some rocks in the spirit realm.”

“Some rocks.”

“The smaller river over there, I think it’s the Marys River. I started picking up boulders and throwing them down into it, just to smash something, and…” He sheepishly covered his injured hand with the other. “One of the really big ones slipped and landed on my hand. Probably broke just about every bone in it. Stupid.”

“Oh, my God. Doesn’t it hurt? It does. You’re pale.” She laid her palm on his cheek, finding it clammy.

“I’ll recover. It’ll be fine by morning.” He picked up a black T-shirt from the floor, and wrapped it around his hand.

She set her fingers on top of it. “You were this mad because some woman was a bitch to me?”

“No.” Adrian gazed at his lap. “I was mad because she’s right.”

“Are you insane?”

“She
is
right. I thought of all those things myself, or most of them, those two years I was waiting for the immortality fruit to grow. I told myself it wouldn’t be a problem, it’d be fine, we’d work it out. I’m stubborn and selfish.”

“You’re not. She’s crazy.”

“At first I thought it’d be enough if I could just have you. If I had to pick one person to bring into this with me, then of course I’d pick you. I told myself that was all I was trying to do. One real companion isn’t so much to ask for, is it? But wouldn’t we eventually want our best mates and closest relatives to join us? Then wouldn’t they want
their
loved ones to join us too? Numbers would multiply in no time.”

“There’s a whole other realm for us—for you. There’s room. We wouldn’t be overpopulating the living world.”

Adrian flexed his injured hand carefully inside the T-shirt, and winced. “The more of us there are, the harder it becomes to keep secret. The likelier it becomes that the wrong people
will
hear about the fruit and steal it.”

“Then why not hide out in the other realm? Hardly ever go to the living world at all?”

He didn’t lift his face. “It comes to that, eventually. Closing the door on the world you know, only seeing it in quick visits, never living properly in it again. That isn’t what you’d want, is it?”

When he put it that way, Sophie realized it was pretty much how Adrian lived now. She laced her fingers into his, on the uninjured hand. “There still has to be some way to compromise, to be a part of both worlds. You said it yourself: most people wouldn’t mind immortals existing. They might even protect us. Thanatos is the extreme—the crazies.” Her throat rasped as she spoke, her cold reasserting itself. She took a moment to cough and clear it.

Adrian glanced at her. “Right, go back and forth. Bringing new plagues to humankind.”

“I don’t have a freaking
plague
. I have a cold.”

“That’s the one thing that didn’t occur to me in those two years. Didn’t occur to Rhea either, because she doesn’t think in modern terms—germs and all that. But it’s completely possible. Likely, even. Weird giant animals evolved out there. Of course different bacteria and viruses would have too.”

Though fear shivered through her, she adopted a brave tone. “All right. If I get worse and look like I’m about to die, rush me to the orchard and feed me the blue orange.”

“That’s my plan. Though it would mean turning you into one of their targets.”

“Whatever. I already am. That’s the choice I made.” When he glanced at her cautiously, she added, “I came running straight to you and your realm, didn’t I? I never called the cops on you for kidnapping me. I’ve been choosing you since day one.”

He leaned over and hugged her, cradling her head with his cloth-wrapped hand. Then he moved back to kiss her softly on the lips. “That doesn’t have to be your final answer,” he said. “But thanks.” Suddenly his expression brightened. “So you know it’s a blue orange?”

Sophie paused, thinking about it. “Yeah. I do. Though I haven’t totally unpacked the memory yet.”

“You will soon.” He rose. “Want some tea?”

“Sounds good. And you can tell me about New Zealand.”

“New Zealand? Why?”

“Because I want to know everything about you. The things the memories
can’t
tell me.”

He rolled his eyes. “I got good marks in social science, bad marks in maths, my favorite color is green, and are you falling asleep with boredom yet?”

She plumped the pillow upright and settled her back against it. “Make that tea. And wash the blood out of your coat before it dries that way.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

A
CLOUDY GRAY LIGHT FILTERED THROUGH
the Airstream’s drawn curtains. Almost seven a.m., said the vintage analog clock set into the wall.

Sophie was alone under the blankets. Rising onto her elbow, she found Adrian and Kiri asleep on the floor. Kiri was curled up on her dog bed. Adrian’s head shared the edge of it; he lay on his back with his knees drawn up to fit the small floor space. He still wore his jeans, boots, and green flannel shirt, as if he hadn’t intended to fall asleep.

His right hand lay across his chest. She leaned down for a closer look at it. Though smudges of blood marked his skin, his flesh was whole and unbroken, the lines of his finger bones perfect. Incredible.

To avoid waking him, she stepped over him and tiptoed to the tiny bathroom, and slid the pocket door shut. Adrian’s coat hung over the one towel rack, its sleeve damp from where he’d washed out the blood. She moved it to the edge of the bucket-sized tub, wondering with a smile how Adrian fit in that, and spent several minutes making herself feel more human again with the help of warm water and a washcloth.

After blowing her nose enough to use up nearly a dozen tissues, she could breathe more freely, though the noise must have woken up her companions. Dog toenails clicked on the floor, and Adrian murmured something. A moment later, he said from outside the bathroom door, “Sophie?”

“Hi. Yeah.” She glanced in the mirror—oh well, dark shadows under the eyes, no fix for it now—and opened the door. There he stood, looking anxious and adorable with sleep-disordered hair. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ll get out of here for you.”

“No, take your time. I was about to take Kiri out. Just checking on you.”

“I’m okay. At least, my throat feels better, and I don’t think I have a fever anymore.” They both smiled. “Just a cold. Told you,” she accused gently.