Page 124 of Cursed Shadows 5

I sigh and look down at Hedda, shivering on his lap. “We are only here for the washtub. It has running water.”

“You will lock up when you leave?”

“Yes.”

“Then I am not needed.” Forranach taps Hedda on the bottom, a gesture to move her off his lap.

She growls in answer, but obeys and—with a huff—jumps to the cobblestone.

His hands grip the wheels, but he pauses and his furrowed look is aimed at me. “Who would’ve thought it?”

“Hm?”

“That you and I have this much in common.”

My frown is the only answer I give.

He wheels back, once, twice, then before he turns around, his gravelled accented voice comes, “I lost my leg in battle. The grief wasn’t only for the leg… it was for the loss of war. I can’t return. Ever.”

Still, that frown is etched onto my features. Maybe my mind is too sluggish to understand what that has to do with me.

“I lost everything to that grief. I even lost my wife.”

Niamh’s face, sharper than a fistful of knives, flashes in my mind. And with it, comes a faint understanding, faint memories—that she only evervisitedme at Forranach’s dwelling. She doesn’t live there.

Forranach isn’t done with me. “If you close yourself off when grief finds you, and you let it rot you, you will be like I was… before you came with a job for me. Strange what a little purpose can do to grief.” He starts to wheel away. “Best thing you can do for Eamon is honour his dream.”

I watch him until he’s gone down the dimness of the lane, and I can’t make him out anymore.

I cut a glance down at Hedda.

She blinks up at me.

“Bath.” That’s all I say.

Her teeth bare in answer.

THE CODA

TWO AND A HALF MONTHS AFTER THE SABBAT

31

††††††

Forranach has a duplicity in my life.

Part of him seems to lean into a fatherly role with me. He organised the hired males to move all the belongings I had at the dwelling into the flat above the tavern. He had the new sign commissioned, then bolted above the doors.

He tells me when I haven’t eaten, when my ribs show too much, and when I haven’t slept and so my eyes are painted with darkness.

The other part of him remains gruff and seemingly disinterested in anything at all. There is little warmth in Forranach, even less than one would expect from a dark male.

But there is care in him.

At least for me and Hedda.

But Forranach is no father to me; and he is no replacement for Eamon. He is who he is, and I am grateful for him in this time.

---