Page 45 of The Witch's Spell
IT’S STILL EARLY YET BY the time we finish lunch. Aurora and Thorne retreat to the parlor to continue reading the books they got from the library, and Faolan is on the side porch, probably stewing about something, like usual—which means he’s not doing anything useful and can be an extra pair of hands for me.
“Come on,” I say when I step out onto the porch behind him.
He turns his head just enough to arch a brow at me. “What?”
“Need your help with something.”
He narrows his eyes and opens his mouth, probably to complain.
I cut him off with, “It’s for Aurora.”
And whatever he was about to say dies on his tongue. With a grunt, he pushes to his feet. “All right. What is it?”
“Follow me.” I clomp down the porch stairs. “I’ll show you.”
With Faolan’s help, I finish preparing the final few pieces I’ll need for the baby’s cradle. I drew up some plans weeks ago, then scrapped them and started new ones. Then I did it again. At one point, the entire kitchen table was covered with crumpled paper and broken pencils. Finally, Rowan told me to stop overthinking it and just build the damn thing. So, that’s what I’m going to do.
Faolan and I carry all the wood into the cottage—first dropping it in the kitchen, then pulling our boots off and carrying everything up to the baby’s room to avoid tracking snow and mud all over the house. Harrison joins us and sits in a patch of sunlight coming through the window, watching us with interest as we start laying all the pieces out and organizing them the way I like.
Finally, with everything measured and cut and sanded to perfection, it’s time to begin.
Yet I hesitate.
I feel like I’m holding something precious in my hands, have been given a monumental task, one I’m afraid of failing. This will be the baby’s cradle, the place where they’ll sleep, where Aurora will sing to them and wrap them in soft blankets to ward off the chill. It’s imperative I get this right.
Faolan is seated on the floor across from me, one knee pulled into his chest. He tips his head and narrows his eyes, not unlike how Harrison is doing. They’re both staring at me. Waiting.
“Where do we start?” Faolan asks.
Right. First things first. I’ve builthomes, for goodness’ sake. I built an entire cabin for myself when I was still a young apprentice.
It’s just a cradle, I tell myself.Just start, and it’ll come together.
“Hand me that piece there.” I point, and Faolan hands it to me. Then I grab another piece, the wood smooth beneath my calloused hands, and drive my first nail, affixing the pieces together.
Faolan doesn’t look impressed. But it’s a start. After all these months, I’vestarted.
And it gets a little easier after that.
Faolan helped me and Rowan build the extension onto Brookside, and though he didn’t have a clue what he was doing, he was a big help. Even now, he’s attentive as I work, handing me the tools and pieces of wood I need, a curious and focused look in his blue eyes.
The room is warm. A fire crackles in the hearth, keeping the air comfortable even as the sun slips lower in the sky, stealing the sunlight from the window. Harrison heads downstairs, probably to see what Aurora is doing, but Faolan and I keep at it.
I’m putting together the cradle’s legs, which have a gliding mechanism at the top that Aurora will be able to use to hopefully lull the baby to sleep. I know very little about babies, but Iamaware they find comfort in being rocked.
I’ve just finished gently hammering another nail into the wood when Faolan says, “Why are you doing this?”
My eyes find his. “What do you mean?”
“The baby isn’t yours. So, why are you helping like this? Preparing for it as if it’s your child?”
Well, for one, Rowan asked me to, and his doing so was an olive branch between us, a reaching out over what could’ve become a chasm to shake my hand. But more than that, Iwantto do this. I want to do my part, to help Aurora welcome this new little life into the world, into our family.
“The child might not be mine by blood,” I say softly, running a thumb absentmindedly over the smooth wood, “but it’s going to be part of my family. And blood related or not, I feel like I already...” My throat starts to clog with emotion. I have to pause and swallow down the tightness before I can continue. “I feel like I already love them, whoever they are. And I want to be there for them, even if all I’m good for is building cradles and mending holes in the roof.”
My gaze lifts toward the hallway leading to the main bedroom, where I patched a hole in the ceiling this past spring. It’s a bit funny now, remembering how cross I was about the whole thing, considering Lydia offered my carpentry services to Aurora forfree. Not that Aurora didn’t try to pay me, but it’s enlightening, sometimes, to look back at how much things have changed and to realize how far you’ve come.
There’s a quiet moment in which the fire crackles and Faolan and I sit across from each other silently. Then Faolan turns his head to look into the flames and says, “I understand.” One of his fingers drifts along the smooth edge of a piece of wood I’ve yet to assemble. “Though I’m not blood related to all the other members of my pack—or what was my pack—I loved them like brothers and sisters. They were my family.”
