Page 26 of Heir of Uncertain Magic

“Right.” She spoke a little too loudly in an attempt to keep rising emotion from her voice. “Right. With Mr.Portendorfer.” Had they arranged to leave again already?

He glanced at her, and she wished for a candle to better read his expression. “Good night, Hulda.”

He strode away without further ado. Hulda watched him go, listened for the opening and closing of the door before pushing her way into her room and pressing a fist into the popped bubble in her chest, blinking away tears of shame.

The coach rattled as it pulled close to town. No kinetic trams ran through the small town Merritt had grown up in. His elbow hurt from being propped up against the narrow windowsill on the far end of thecab, but he didn’t move it. There were no curtains for privacy, so he just stared at the passing scenery. Had been staring at it this whole time, even though he was tired. He’d never been good at sleeping in carriages. On the bright side, the thing moved fast enough that—thus far—none of the wildlife had tried to talk to him. Not that it mattered if he went mute. He’d hardly spoken a word since boarding.

The coach had filled along its route, then emptied again, save for one other soul—an older woman in a posh violet dress who sat as far away from him and Fletcher as she could possibly get. Fletcher, across from him, had remained relatively quiet. He lived in Boston, so Merritt had saved the postage and marched straight to his friend’s home after the ordeal with Hulda, spewing his readiness to get away. Fletcher was an agreeable sort, but he’d insisted they at least wait until after working hours the following day to leave.

Merritt had met Fletcher in Boston before sunset the next afternoon, desperate to be away and yet wishing he’d never made the promise to go.

Right now, Fletcher was resting his eyes. Not sleeping. Fletcher’s mouth did a weird thing when he slept, regardless of whether it was prostrate on a bed or upright on a hard, jolting bench. At the moment, his mouth looked perfectly normal.

Merritt was sick with thinking. Thinking about Ebba, thinking about Myra, thinking about Sutcliffe and his mother and his father and Cattlecorn. About Hulda. Despite his silent pleas, his mind had fixated on the tangled mess, stretching it out and braiding it into knots, and there was little inside the cramped vehicle that could distract him from it.

Hulda’s words still chafed, though a good night’s rest had helped. How could she think so little of his character?I’m not going to sleep with you.Might as well have castrated him right there.

Of course, it wasn’t her fault those simple words had affected him so. Maybe Hulda had only meant to warn him ... but warn him fromwhat? All Merritt wanted was to love her, and to show her he loved her because he knew she doubted herself. He could see it in her eyes and the twist of her mouth, in her stance. Hear it in her carefully curated words and unsure tone.

Hulda made him happy, and he’d like to think he made her happy, but God help him, while he knew that instant in that hotel hallway was less than a blip in the scrolls of the universe, it had cut deep. Lucifer’s hell, he’d made a mistake—a monumental one—but it had been onlyone time. The pain of everything tied to that day had more than scared him away from the sporting district during his long bachelorhood, and he’d never gotten close enough to another woman to even have the opportunity.

He sighed, and his breath left a film on the window. Maybe after he slept on it again, he’d be able to internalize Hulda’s apology, which had seemed genuine, because this was a stupid thing to wallow over. All of it was stupid.Hewas stupid.

And he would rather be anywhere right then than that coach, because it took a fork in the road and there was Cattlecorn, just as he remembered it, and heaven help him, he was going to vomit on his shoes.

“Merritt.”

He glanced at Fletcher.

His friend leaned forward and knit his dark hands together. “You’re far away.”

Finally pulling his sore elbow from the window, Merritt rubbed his eyes. “Wish I were.”

“Do you want to stop by my house first? Mom will be happy to see you.”

But Merritt shook his head. The sooner he got this over with, the better. “I’ll get off by the school and meet you tonight.” The constable’s office was near there, and Nelson Sutcliffe should be in by now—Fletcher had said the man was still constable, or at least he had been on Fletcher’slast visit home. Bethhadsent that letter, as she’d been instructed, before Merritt could change his mind about it. For better or for worse. After speaking with his biological father, he’d swing by his ... his old house, and ...

That line of thinking thickened into a ridge, and he couldn’t push his thoughts beyond it.

Leaning forward, Fletcher clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll wait up for you, all right? You have someplace to go. Don’t forget that.”

Merritt nodded, though in truth, he didn’t really hear the promise.

The coach drove away, and Merritt’s mouth dried to cracking. He could hear the sound of distant children at the school, but otherwise the area was quiet. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked with wooden legs, his knees hinges in need of oil. He blinked, and half the road was gone behind him. He didn’t remember walking so far.

This would be tricky—Sutcliffe’s office was attached to his house, and Merritt hadn’t said preciselywhenhe would be coming ... or had he? He’d drafted four different letters to Nelson Sutcliffe, and now he couldn’t recall which one Beth had mailed and which he’d fed to the fire. Regardless, he hadn’t set off for Cattlecorn when he had originally intended, so the point was moot.

Think of sleep,he told himself.Get answers, get sleep.

He didn’t know the constable well. He recalled running into him at the post office once as a youth, and the man had tipped his hat and then chided him for recklessness. He remembered the Barleys’ wagon breaking a wheel near the mercantile and Sutcliffe helping move it to the side of the road ... All in all, Merritt would never have guessed the man was his sire ... but then again, maybe he wasn’t, and all these records and such were wrong.

Cuuuuuurrrrrrl,the grass at the side of the road whined.

Merritt arrived at the house. Sure enough, the west door was labeledCONSTABLE. He stood and stared at it for a long time, until he heard someone on horseback coming up the road. Not wishing to be seen unnecessarily, he knocked and opened the door.

The space inside was cramped but adequate, with a desk that appeared to have been made by a novice carpenter. There were narrow shelves behind it that again made Merritt think of the post office, and then a table scattered with a few knickknacks. A door opposite him led into the rest of the house.

Nelson Sutcliffe, notably older now, glanced up from behind the table. He had dark hair—Merritt’s was light, like his mother’s—and a more prominent jaw than Merritt. But the harder Merritt looked, the more similarities he saw. The set of Sutcliffe’s eyes, though not the color, and his nose ... their noses were exactly the same. Maybe he was imagining it—

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