Remus usually hated it when she touched him in public, but he barely seemed to feel her hand. His eyes were fixed on the Minister. She thought about how he'd told her his dad had tricked his muggle mum into thinking he'd saved her from a boggart and hadn't come clean until right before they got married. It was one of the only times she'd ever seen a hint of anger and disgust in him - subtle but there in the pull of his upper lip and the crease between his eyebrows - when he talked about his father. Even when he'd told her about how he'd got bitten she hadn't seen it. Remus had said that his dad told the story like it was a joke and his mum would smile like she thought it was all quite romantic but Remus had always felt uneasy about it. He'd said he couldn't stomach the thought of deceiving a woman in that way to get what he wanted from her.
At the time, Tonks had thought that was pretty flipping romantic. Before he'd kept enough secrets from her that she knew it wasn't really true.
Fuck this. Her fingers curled around her wand, her lips and tongue formed the word, and the small satisfying vibration of magic coursed down her arm before the urge had time to become thought.
Changing the rating to M from here on out for sexual content and some other mature themes.
Of course they'd ended up doing it. When Tonks had crawled across the bed and laid down beside him and stroked her fingers over his sweaty brow as one would a child, he'd kept his eyes closed for a while. Tonks couldn't tell if he was enjoying it or trying to pretend he was still asleep. It was always hard to tell with him.
Then he'd opened his eyes and looked at her as if he were going to beg her not to be here. He'd said in a small voice, "Tonks, please," and she'd withdrawn her hand as quickly as if he had tried to bite it.
Just as quickly his hands had slid around her waist and he had pulled her to his body and kissed her like it would redeem him.
When he'd pushed inside her he'd gone achingly slow at first, like he'd not wanted to waste it, like he might never do it again: looking at her with their faces close, his nose next to hers. But by the end he was mouthing wet kisses onto her neck, breathing hot and shivery into her hair, bucking on top of her. He had even made a bit of noise from low in his throat when she'd wrapped her legs around him and slid her feet along the backs of his thighs. How he must have hungered for her, for any loving touch, these long months he'd been away. He'd said her name, the right one, Dora. He hadn't tried to do anything ridiculous like pull out of her before he came, like he had at Christmas. (And what a legendary row that had kicked off). He hadn't asked if she was all right or if he'd hurt her, even when she twisted with pleasure and yelped in his ear. It was marvellous.
He'd laid over her for a while after, catching his breath and stroking her shoulders with his thumbs. Then when he'd slipped out of her he'd pulled the blankets up over their heads and wrapped her up in his arms, and she had laid there listening to his breathing as it slowed. There was still a tiny, rhythmic hitch in it, presumably from the rib.
Cocooned in his warm spice scent, closer than she'd been to him in six months, she'd thought her hammering heart would never let her sleep.
But she had.
And in the morning when she'd felt him behind her and wriggled herself up against him, he had moved straight away and let the cool morning air into the bed as he'd swung his legs over the opposite edge. "We can't be distracted, Tonks."
Tonks had lain there sulkily for a moment. Sex cleared her head and centered her in her body and she couldn't think of a better way to prep for a mission. But she just rolled out of bed with a little grunt and did six enthisiastic Burpees on the way to the loo. She didn't care, at this point, if Remus found her irritating, indiscreet, distractible. They were partners and she was used to rolling with his ceaselessly oscillating tide of effusions and withdrawals.
Over breakfast - of pale floppy toast and beans and sausage, brought to their rooms unasked-for by the innkeeper George - Remus seemed to come around a bit. He even popped up and strode downstairs to get her a second cup of coffee, setting it in front of her like a peace offering. She rolled her eyes, but she drank it.
"Tonks," he said to her when he got out of the shower with his damp fringe hanging over his forehead and the skin of his arms red from scrubbing. "I think we should talk about your morphing."
Tonks sat up rod-straight on the edge of the unmade bed, crossed her legs, and primly folded her hands in her lap.
"Well, I think we should talk about your mum," she said, echoing Remus's grim urgency. "Last night she -"
"Tonks." The warning note in his voice was sharp, unusual. Tonks sucked her teeth and fell quiet.
"Your morphing," continued Remus, gentler now, and he moved to sit in the tattered armchair across from the bed. "Tell me about it."
Tonks snorted and slouched back on the bed. "Not much to tell. What you see is what you get."
"What do you mean when you say that?"
"I mean this is the Tonks you get, like it or not. And if not get stuffed."
Remus frowned at the ceiling and didn't speak for a moment. "Do you mean you prefer not to morph?"
Tonks glared at him. Her face was getting hot. "When I try it looks rubbish."
"You're dissatisfied with the quality of your morphing, then."
An unimpressed look from Tonks. "Do try to keep up, Lupin."
"Perhaps it might help to talk about it?"
Tonks remembered the last time they'd tried talking about it, almost a year ago, after he'd already told her he was leaving. Molly had stuck her nose in it as usual and asked him to try talking her round, and the idiot actually had, slinking up to her in the Weasley's vegetable garden after lunch with his hands in his pockets and shame all over his face.
"Are you going to advise me to forget all about your ancient, knutless, invalid self and quit moping over Sirius falling off the face of the fucking earth because I couldn't duck a curse from my elderly fucking aunt?"
Remus's face paled and he swallowed hard, looking at the floor. "No, and I'm sorry about that," he said quietly. His hands were starting to fidget with each other, fingers knitting together and breaking apart.
A hard thunk in Tonks's chest like her heart bashing itself against a wall.
Remus continued in a mumble, looking at the floor: "Obviously you don't have to do it in front of me, but I do think that you should try practicing - only for your own safety, should you need to - to escape, to avoid recognition - I'd feel better about you being here if -"
"Fine," she said, sighing dramatically but getting up and standing before the oval mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She looked down at her hands in it. She could hear his footsteps as he came to stand behind her. He had to stoop a bit to meet her eyes in the mirror, his face close over her right shoulder. She could smell the astringent sweetness of tea on his breath.
"What if I gave you a prompt?"
She shrugged. He raised his eyebrows and suggested, "The boy at the shop yesterday?"
It was a soft quaffle, quite a memorable face. Tonks scrunched her eyes closed and brought the boy up in her mind, straining slightly against her own bone and flesh to mold it into shape: the eyebrows so pale they were almost invisible, watery blue eyes with an angry red tangle of broken capillaries in the left one. Donkey lips, a cleft chin - she opened her eyes.
"Ugh," she groaned in disgust and looked off to the side. Remus's face beside hers in the mirror looked perplexed.
"That's not bad at all, Tonks, what are you unhappy with?"
"The shape of the face isn't right, the cheekbones, skintone's not quite on either," she listed off. "I couldn't pass for him. And I didn't even change my hair at all."
"Well, it's only practice, and I think -"
"Well I fucking hate practice."
"Why?"
With a frown, she morphed back to her own face.
"I don't like trying and failing," she snapped, which wasn't strictly true. Meeting his eyes for just a moment in the mirror before looking off to the side. "I don't like looking at myself in the mirror like this."
Remus was silent and still for a long time. At last, softly, he said: "I can't understand why. You must know that you're -" His hand went up to rub the back of his neck. "- you're quite a... beautiful woman, Tonks. You could be... some renaissance painting, some artist's muse..."
Anger tightened the back of Tonks's throat and she rounded on him, glaring. He took a step back in surprise.
"Oh, fuck off, Remus. Maybe you should practice fucking off." She stormed past him, grabbing her boots from the side of the bed in one hand and slamming out of the room. She slammed her own door as well just to drive the point home and flopped down on her own still-neat bed to do up her boots and force the thick clog in her throat down.
Dry your face off! snapped her inner Mad-Eye. It had better be fucking raining on your side of the room, Auror Tonks!
She scrubbed the heels of her hands across her cheeks, sniffing and swallowing.
Remus could put on his teacher voice, interrogate her in his gentle, leading way, study her face with every bit of his unnerving focus - he still didn't understand any better than her Mum or Molly or anyone else. She was no painting; she was nobody's muse. She was the fucking artist.
There was a marquee erected at the bottom of the hill north of town, and its gleaming white wings shaded a milling crowd of muggles. From the hilltop the old ruined church overlooked the festival, slouched over watching like a bored king.
Tonks walked a few steps in front of Remus and didn't look back. Being with her last night had been a mistake, a setback. Despicable weakness, whispered the loathing in him. Your weakness fucked your last mission and now it's fucking her.
Yesterday it might have been hard for Remus to imagine the energy between him and Tonks being any more inflamed with irritable tension than it already was, but here they were: walking single file like two strangers.
Plastic folding tables lined the worn-down desirepath to the marquee. Muggles swarmed around them - maybe two hundred, Remus thought, including those already seated under the tent. Remus could smell popcorn, roasted meat, something sweet and rich that he couldn't identify. His stomach purred, tantalised despite his breakfast. As they approached Remus could see the tables were laden with things for sale - sweets, meat pies, jars of jam. A table piled with courgettes, floppy heads of greens and enormous yellow onions bore a handwritten sign declaring them Fresh Elder Blessed Veg. Confusingly, another table scattered with golden chanterelles and honeycombed brown morels was marked with a slab of painted wood that said DIVINATED MUSHROOMS.
When they met the crowd clustering around the sale tables, Tonks separated from him, seemingly drawn into the throng. Remus knew he should follow her but he couldn't help himself: his feet brought him to the neat triangles of cake and tarts, glistening under clingfilm on paper plates. He didn't even much like sweets, generally - but he hadn't smelled anything so delicious since before he'd gone underground. Confounded at himself, he bought a slice of lemon cake with thick slabs of pale yellow zest-speckled buttercream, refusing the change from his crumpled five-pound note with a wave of his hand. The plump lady baker held out a plastic fork, smiling a soft, serene smile.
"Be blessed," she said sweetly.
By the time he caught up to Tonks he'd eaten half of it. She did a rather overwrought double-take when she saw the plate in his hand.
"Hungry, are we?" she said with a suspicious look.
"I've checked it," he said through a mouthful, pantomiming a swirl of his wand. "It's all right, just cake."
She shook her head, turning away from him. He heard her mutter something inaudible and the faint buzz of a charm tickled his ear canals. She pointed to the stacks of books on the table before her. What do you make of these, her enchanted voice whispered, audible only to him. He leaned in to look.
A man of middle-age, tan and pearly-toothed with glossy jet-black hair and aviator glasses was on the dust jacket in a still muggle photograph. He wore a cream-white muggle suit and in one outstretched hand he held a ball of blue flame.
Finding Your Inner Light, said the embossed golden title above the man's head. In smaller print: The Science and Art of Will. The author was credited as Charles Oplichter, founder of The Fellowship of the Magiae Naturalis.
A line of strange symbols followed, indecipherable to Remus despite his N.E.W.T. in Ancient Runes. He recognized something similar to the crosslike Nauthiz, meaning need, and another that vaguely resembled the pointed Ansuz, which usually meant name or communication but could also mean god. Others were harder to decipher, possibly just nonsense.
"Sotovoci," incanted Remus in a low voice, twitching his wand inside his sleeve, and then he sent a charmed whisper to Tonks: It's a self-help book for muggles. The Minister mentioned it last night.
You didn't tell me about that, Tonks's whisper shot back.
There wasn't -
And don't tell me there wasn't time, another whisper from Tonks cut across him. We had time for all that faffing about this morning and for your two breakfasts.
Remus heaved a long sigh and set his plate of mostly-eaten cake atop a stack of books, picking one up to leaf through it. The wiry little bald bespectacled man running the table snatched the plate up immediately and held it in the air.
"Please sir, these are very valuable, I'll thank you to keep any food and drink off the table."
Tonks smiled indulgently at the man, took the plate of cake off him and held it out to Remus. A hot wave of embarassment flushed over his skin and he quickly threw it out in a nearby bin. His stomach still gurgled, insatiable.
"I'll take one of these," Remus told the man apologetically, holding out a wad of muggle cash.
Under the brilliant white tent, the air was cool despite the crowd. A stage was framed in long white curtains and set with a large wooden shipping crate and a low table draped with cloth. Under the cloth were the lumpy shapes of some objects unseen. Remus and Tonks found seats amongst the neat rows of metal folding chairs, near the back. Tonks's head swiveled around, surveying the seated congregation.
Lots of kids here, said her magic whisper in his ear.
Well, it's church, he whispered back.
Not many old people though. Don't old people go to church?
Remus shrugged. He had only ever been to church as a child with his Mum for Easters and baptisms; most everyone there had seemed old to him.
Do I count as an old person? he whispered, the corners of his mouth playing up.
Tonks scowled at him. Shut it, she whispered, and he felt the fizzle in his ears of her charm breaking.
"Ladies and gentlemen," boomed a man's voice from somewhere unseen. Tonks's gaze snapped toward the stage. "Seekers of the light, holders of the flame: be blessed, for today we honor the confirmation of our beloved Sister Dymphna, four years ago today!"
The crowd exploded into whistles and applause. Remus's hands came together automatically. Tonks eyed him from the side for a second before clapping along.
"Here to kick off our festivities," continued the booming voice, "is a man who needs no introduction, though he's told me he'd like to be introduced as extremely charming and handsome -" a pause to let tittering simmer over the crowd "- our friend, our trusted confidant, our Minister!"
Amidst applause and joyous whooping, The Minister strode onto the stage. He grinned and raised his hands, pressing them down against the air so that the volume of the applause lowered with them.
"Friends," he said, and Remus noticed at that moment that the man wasn't speaking into an electronic microphone, though his voice echoed around the tent as if amplified. "I won't bore you with any sermon today. Should you need my guidance, know that my door is always open. And should you have any trouble finding my door, it's the one on the front of the Shrike & Marten."
A bubbling of genuine laughter from the crowd.
"Today," he continued, languidly pacing the stage, looking into the faces of individual congregants with a tender smile. "We honor the best of all us. Sister Dymphna -" The minister cast a fond look at someone unseen backstage. "- sweet girl, you have shown us all what it is to find the light within ourselves, and to shine it into the lives of others. Thank you, my dear, for all that you do." The Minister put his hands together, encouraging the congregation to clap. He grinned around at everyone and then ducked his head as if in modesty. "Now. Indulge me in a few tricks to celebrate the day."
With a flourish, the Minister whipped the dropcloth off the old table, revealing an odd assortment of junk - a book, a comb, a bobbin of black thread, a hand mirror on a pink plastic frame. He picked up the black leatherbound book, like a Bible but slimmer. Too far away to make out the title but Remus had an inkling what it must be. The Minister brandished it with one hand.
"Who here has broken something?"
Hands shot up in the crowd, waving and reaching excitedly. It reminded Remus of some of his most eager students. The Minister pointed to one.
"Donal, come on up here, what d'you have for us today?"
A large man stood, holding up a plastic shipping bag.
"Broke me late mam's china teapot, I did," he called up to the Minister, shaking the bag so that the shards of pottery inside clacked together audibly. The Minister gave him a sympathetic look.
"Not Norma's tea service! With the little bluebirds on?"
"Yes sir," nodded Donal. "She's turning in her grave, I know it."
The Minister shook his head with a soft smile. "Fear not," he said kindly, and pointed the book in his hand toward the plastic bag. The bag crackled and its contents shuffled and rattled inside. Donal's sun-ruddy face broke into a huge grin. He reached into the bag and pulled out a whole, unbroken ceramic teapot, glazed white with tiny painted birds. He held it up and turned on the spot so the whole crowd could see.
"Be blessed, he's done it! Seraphina's knees!"
Tonks turned to Remus and quirked an eyebrow. Remus heard the charm buzz back into his ear.
So is Donal a plant, or...? went Tonks's whisper.
I don't think so, Remus replied. I think the Minister just reparo-ed the man's teapot.
Sure enough, the Minister kept soliciting volunteers, who held up their broken possessions one by one. Pointing the leathercovered book at each, he fixed them all. A little girl's dolly had its head magically fixed back on, right in plain sight, the porcelain knitting together visibly.
There's a wand in the book. Has to be, Remus's whisper said to Tonks's ear. She turned and nodded, her face solemn.
The Minister's next bit was some basic transfiguration: a young man, clean cut in a white shirt and black braces, ran out from backstage and set a dusty stained-glass table lamp on the stage. The Minister made a flourish with his wand and it changed, with a poof of blue smoke, into a peacock. It strutted across the stage, head bobbing, dragging its jewel-toned tail. The crowd was raucous.
With a showman's casual flourish, the Minister performed a series of magic tricks - the levitation of a table and chair, the conjuring of a flock of golden, floating balloons, the apparently impromptu vanishing of a spider crawling across the boards of the stage - all of which pulled gasps and sighs and riotous applause from the bamboozled crowd. There was something odd about the variety of spells he'd chosen: Remus couldn't quite put his finger on what. At the end, after presenting a pubescent girl with a bouquet of conjured daisies, the Minister quieted the crowd again with a wave of his hands. His presence was powerful enough that even the smallest children in the group hushed themselves.
"Friends, the time has come to do the real work of our Fellowship. To brandish the flame that burns in each of us to vanquish our truest enemy - fear," intoned the Minister in a voice that was low and quiet but obviously enchanted to be clearly heard by all. "Who amongst us has the courage to be afraid?"
Only a couple of hands went up. The Minister nodded and swept a hand toward the stage. "In your own time, friends."
A small handful of people got up and squeezed their way through the rows of seats to form a line at the side of the stage. The Minister beckoned the first of them, a man of about Remus's age in denim overalls to which clung wisps of hay.
"Are you ready, Henry?" The Minister clapped him on the back reassuringly. Henry nodded.
With a wave of his black book, The Minister magically unlatched the hinged top of the wooden crate. The crate rattled suddenly and the lid cracked open and fell shut. Then it was tipped open completely as something burst from it and landed on the boards of the stage.
It was a sheep, gray-white and unseasonably shaggy, with matted wool hanging down in locks around its legs. Its eyes were red and weeping a glistening yellowish fluid. A blue plastic tag was affixed to one ear. It staggered toward Henry on unsteady legs, falling down on its foreknees and bleating a horrible, stangled cry. Henry took a sharp breath; he looked ill.
"Disease!" cried the Minister, standing behind Henry and grasping his shoulders to steady him. "Blight! The fouling of our crops and our animals! A worthy fear, truly!"
Henry squared his shoulders, seeming to take some strength from the Minister's presence.
"But where there is faith, there is no fear!" The Minister held up his book and thrust it toward the sheep.
The sick sheep's wool changed from a matted gray to a tie-dye pattern of many colors. Sunshades and a tam popped into existence on its long face.
"Quit yer greetin', Donal," it said in a deep Scottish burr. The crowd roared with laughter, and Henry's shoulders shook with it. At a wave of the Minister's book, the particoloured sheep climbed back into the crate and disappeared.
Remus looked over at Tonks and found she was already looking at him with intensity. Her hand came over and gripped his knee. He knew she was thinking the same thing he was.
The next muggle to face the crate was a little girl, holding her mother's hand. She looked to Remus like she didn't want to be there, but her mother pushed her in front of the Minister with a roughness that made Remus's brow furrow and Tonks's fingers dig into his knee.
From the crate crawled two people, a man and a boy, both gray-pale and mottled with bluegreen veins, their hair wet and stuck to their faces, green moss growing around their ears and noses, advancing across the stage on all fours. They looked like corpses that had been pulled from water and moved with the jerky stiffness of inferi. Black liquid dripped from their mouths as they crept toward the little girl, who cowered back against the Minister as he knelt and gripped her from behind in a bear hug. He whispered something in her ear, inaudible to the crowd, and she nodded tearfully.
"Begone, Jacob. Begone, Levi. Where there is faith, there is no fear," said the Minister sadly, and pointed with his book. The two drowned corpses stopped their crawling and sat in unison on the stage. Their color changed to the healthy flush of living flesh, and the water that dripped from them changed into a viscous amber liquid. Sticky toffee puddings topped with dollops of cream and sprigs of mint appeared on each of their heads, dripping syrup down their whole bodies. The boy swiped a finger across the man's cheek and licked the treacle off of it with a grin.
"Yum," he said, beaming at the audience. A few people laughed uneasily. The Minister waved his book and banished the sticky boy and man back into the crate, his expression grim.
The little girl's face shone with tears as her mother dragged her offstage by the hand. The lemon cake felt like it had curdled in Remus's stomach.
The next up was a lanky boy in his late teens. Out of the crate came a young lady of the same age, wrapped in a tight pink dress, a mane of blonde hair to her waist, spike heels clicking on the stage as she sauntered forward on long bare legs. She pointed below young man's belt buckle. His Adam's apple bobbed as he anxiously swallowed.
"What am I supposed to do with that thing? 'Bout this big, innit?" She laughed incredulously and held her thumb and forefinger three centimetres apart. "Hardly even a mouthful, more like a nibble -"
"Riddikulus," Remus heard Tonks mutter beside him.
The young woman in the pink dress looked surprised, then turned into a pink plastic lawn flamingo which toppled over on its thin wire legs. It clattered against the stage and the congregation burst into laughter.
The Minister, who hadn't even raised his book yet, looked startled, and he peered out into the crowd for a moment before recovering.
"There we have it, Sam, such faith I needn't even say the words," he said smoothly, patting the boy on the back. His eyes were still scanning the crowd as he raised his hands to solicit a final round of applause.
"Thank you all for your kind attention. Next up, Sister Dymphna herself will grace us with her extraordinary talent, and after that our very own Elder will bless us with a granting of wishes and the touch of healing hands. Please, my friends, enjoy the show."
Remus saw the Minister's gaze linger on himself and Tonks for just an instant before he turned and disappeared backstage. He could feel his pulse pounding in the base of his throat. He felt hot in the shade of the tent.
You shouldn't have done that, Remus whispered, only for Tonks.
Tonks shifted in her seat and let go of Remus's knee.
The crowd sizzled suddenly with excited whispers. The curtain that hid the area backstage had parted slightly to reveal a man peeking out. Remus recognized him right away - the orange-tan face had aged but not a thread of gray marred his perfect jet-black coif. Sunglasses hid his eyes even in the dim shade of the tent.
Mr. Oplichter, the Elder.
Remus couldn't see the man's eyes behind the shades but a cold certainty poured into his gut: he was looking right at them. At Tonks. They'd been caught.
You knew you would fuck it all up, rasped the voice in his head. Just like the last one.
His mission, his redemption, his last gift to Albus Dumbledore: gone with a flick of Tonks's wand and a salvo of idiot laughter.
Before even he knew it was happening, his hand had snatched Tonks's wrist, he was standing and pulling her. She almost knocked over her chair as he dragged her up the aisle and into the blinding sunshine outside the tent.
WHAT THE FUCK, LUPIN? Tonks's voice shouted in his ear, so loud through her charm that he dropped her wrist and had to bend double, clutching his head with both hands. A high-pitched drone needled his ears. Momentarily deaf to his own voice, he stuttered the words to break the charm.
"You - why did you interfere," he panted. "We've got to get out, Tonks, we're not meant to tip our hand so soon -"
"Remus will you fucking chill out for once in your life," snapped Tonks. She rubbed at her wrist and Remus could see to his horror that it was red where he'd grabbed it. He opened his mouth with no idea what to say: apologize, beg her forgiveness, speak whatever incantation would send her away from here, away from him, somewhere his weak, rantling need for her could no longer pull her into danger. He looked up at the sky as if to find help there, but there was none: only circling aloof black buzzards and shifting wisps of cloud.
"This is over. We have to go," he said to the sky. He shoved his hands in his pockets, strode urgently across the field and away, and neither any God nor Tonks spoke a word in answer.
As always, Sister Dymphna was simply divine, Sebastian thought. Looking radiant as well, all her ginger curls spilling over the white sleeves of her modest dress. She had a knack for looking glamorous in a delicate, virginal way, like a young Kate Bush. She read the Imbued Objects first, picking up the little spool of thread and turning it over and over in one hand while her eyes went all big and empty and wet.
"She is alive," Sister Dymphna said dreamily. "She walks in love and safety, now. When the time is right, before the change of the season, she will travel back up the road and open her arms to you again. You must be ready to meet her."
Sebastian happened to be close enough to Mr. Stewart to hear the shuddering little gasp he took. Must be his daughter Tamara. Sebastian hadn't seen her since the big confirmation party, when all the girls around his age had dressed themselves in white and walked at midnight up the hillside to the old church in a line, carrying their lanterns. Sebastian had snuck out of bed and peeked out the attic window to see the line of yellow lights snaking up the hill.
He knew that Sister Dymphna was right about Tamara in the same way he knew the sun would set over the munroes to the west that night. If Sister Dymphna said it, it would happen. She knew things that no-one could know.
When he'd been chosen for one of her readings last year, he'd silently drawn a spoon from the kitchen drawer and taken it upstairs to his bedroom and turned it over and over in his hand with a question in his mind. The next day when he'd sat with her at her little table she'd picked it up and done the same, over and over in her delicate fingers, freckly skin almost translucent over the bones and veins. Then she'd gone all big-eyed and blank and said in a calm voice that yes, the person on his mind had received his last letter and no, they were never going to write back. Tears had just begun to sting the rims of his eyes when she'd grabbed his sleeve with her other hand and in a voice too low for the circle of onlookers to hear, she'd said: do not meet Eric in the barn tonight, you will be caught and it will be terrible. Your insides will hang like party streamers. Eric's as well. Then she'd released him and set down the spoon to indicate that she was finished.
Eric still gave him wounded, questioning looks when their eyes met in the crowd at church, but his guts were still inside him, and Sebastian knew he had to be smart if he was going to live long enough to leave this town. There would be more dark-haired, blue-eyed, skinny-legged boys in Glasgow or London or New York someday, if he kept his head down and stuck to the plan.
He'd always owe Sister Dymphna a debt. And he hoped, though he knew it would never happen, that someday by chance he'd glimpse her there in the big city, walking by herself in love and in safety: both of them very far away from this place, and free.