Page 37 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

“Did you, uh—did you do this with your grandma when you were a kid?” he asks, kneeling to examine a leafy green shrub dotted with bright magenta flowers. He rubs his fingers along the leaves, smelling the citrusy fragrance of bee balm. He snaps off the flower, thinking that Calliope might like the dark pink color for a sunset.

“Yeah.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “She raised me to respect the earth and appreciate what it can give us. The earth has all we need, she’d say. If we ask politely.”

They take a few more steps into the forest, Calliope veering off to the left. She is momentarily hidden by a tree trunk. That’s when the smell hits him, the unmistakable stench of decaying flesh with freshly turned soil. It’s been less than a week since he buriedKid, and he curses silently that he had forgotten about it. What good is his guilt if he can’t even remember to feel it?

“Calliope, stop,” he calls out, his voice carrying just a hint of compulsion.

She obeys—has too, of course—her knees locking in place so quickly she holds out her arms to balance. His heart clenches with the accidental command as she tosses a wide-eyed, hurtful look over her shoulder. Yell at me for that later, he thinks—prays, almost—I deserve every bit of it, but please, just listen this time, Calliope.

“We should go back the other way,” he says, as evenly as possible.

She turns, and in just a few short steps, he can feel the heat radiating off her limbs as she looks up at him. Her frown deepens, and he feels the sudden urge to smooth out her brow, to run his thumb against her cheek.

“What’s down there?” she asks. Her emerald green eyes search his face. “Who’s down there?” she amends, when he doesn’t answer right away.

The sun breaks free from a cloud and a shaft of light shines down on them. He takes a step into the shadow, feeling rough bark against his back. She steps forward, too and he clenches his teeth as her gaze sears across his face.

“Why did you kill him?” Her voice is quiet, no louder than the rustle of leaves above their heads.

There’s no need to clarify who she’s talking about. “I don’t know,” he replies. He looks away. “He wasn’t a good person. He hurt more people than just you, and he was just going to keep doing it.”

Now that the words sit between them, he realizes the true meaning hidden in their depths, like unlatching a hidden compartment in a box. It’s all an excuse—a fable he tells himself and if he unravels the paragraphs and dismantles the sentences, it all falls back to his brother. He wasn’t a good person. It’s exactly what he thought about Aodhán. It’s the flimsy excuse he clung to—continues to cling to, like a raft in rough waters, barely keeping him afloat as he drowns in remorse.

It seems he will forever circle back to that one moment, and while individual variables may change, he, himself, remains constant, cast in repeating parodies of his brother’s murder, throwing out meager attempts to right his past mistakes, only to find himself back at the beginning. Two brothers. Headstrong, each fueled by their own sense of righteousness.It will always end with blood.

He stands in front of Calliope, his actions laid bare in front of her. He knows she can’t see into his mind, but he hopes she can read his eyes, see the regret, the shame, the loathing. Will she come to the same conclusion about him and his actions? Does she see that murder has no justification, and he can repeat the excuses until the end of time but they won’t do any good.He can attempt to warm his soul with their reassurances, but death is cold and unyielding.

Her fingers ghost along his cheek, his jaw, then rest on his chest. “Do you regret it? Killing him?”

He covers her hand with his own, marveling at the sense of warmth that spreads through his chest. His answer comes out faint, scraping against his mouth, wobbly with emotion. “Yes.” He lets loose a deep, weary sigh as a cold tear slides down his cheek.

She wipes it away. “Let’s go back the other way, then.” She steps around him, but catches his hand, gently pulling him along in the opposite direction.

* * *

The afternoon wears on and, along with it, the air turns sour with heat. The sun begins to travel, angling through the trees, their bare branches barely able to block the shift in light. Entire sections of the forest are now in full sunlight, and Rory feels the same way.

It’s as if he had been standing in the shadows only to find himself suddenly at the mercy of the light, his entire being unfolded in front of Calliope. He feels raw, vulnerable even, but it doesn’t sit on his frame like the ill-fitting shirt he thought it would be. If anything, it’s more like a small hole has been patched up. Just a few stitches, but it’s enough for now.

The actual sunlight bearing down on them, however, is worrisome. He squints up at the sky.

“We should wait a little bit before walking back.”

Calliope looks up too, one hand holding her hat in place. She agrees and begins to sit at the base of a tree, but Rory holds out a hand to stop her. She looks up expectantly.

He removes his long-sleeve flannel shirt, revealing a cotton raglan underneath. He fans the flannel out on the ground. “Don’t want your dress to get dirty,” he says gruffly.

She smirks. “You know there is a nifty little appliance called a washing machine.”

“Is that what that hunk of metal in the basement is?” He rolls up his sleeves to his elbows as he sits down on the ground.

She laughs and settles down on the shirt, tucking her dress around her legs. Together, they lean against the tree. The coolness of the damp soil rises up and the cry of cicadas ripples around them. Overhead, a blue jay flits from branch to branch. Calliope pulls out her new notebook and a pencil from the basket and begins to sketch. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that the subject of her drawing is him and he shifts awkwardly, hyper aware of his size.

She gives him a stern look for fidgeting and he stops, raising his hand up, palm out in surrender before letting it rest on his bent knee.

“So,” she says, eyes darting between the page and his profile. “I know about the sun thing. And now the eating thing. But the never aging. That’s true?”

“Yeah. I’ll always look like this.” He runs a hand over his chin, and she tuts at him for moving. “Unfortunately,” he adds quietly to himself.

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