Page 15 of Scythe & Sparrow
“Is that the accent I hear?”
“No. I was born in Ireland.”
She nods again and flips a card over, leaning closer to examine its details. “You left when you were young. Thirteen, right?”
My hand stops midway to delivering oranges to the blender. My head tilts. “How’d you know that?”
Rose looks at me and grins, her eyes devious and sparkling. “Magic.” I’m just about to pepper her with questions when she shrugs and drops her gaze to the card. “Or maybe it was just a lucky guess. Figured you were old enough to keep the accent, young enough for it to soften. Thirteen seemed about right.” She flips a second card and hums a low note.
“Tarot?” I ask, and she nods without looking up. “Is this what you do at the circus?”
“Yeah, in part. But mostly I’m the Sparrow in the Cage,” she says theatrically, framing her last words with jazz hands. She glances up just long enough to catch my confusion. “I ride a motorcycle in the Globe of Death.” I open my mouth to ask her a thousand questions, but she turns the conversation back on me before I have the chance. “So, you ended up in Nebraska in an attempt to avoid romantic relationships?”
I snort a laugh, picking up a carrot to start peeling it. “Let me guess. You came up with that one due to the bachelor vibes of the house. Was it the doily that gave me away?”
“No, but I do have questions about that.”
“I’m getting the impression you havemanyquestions.” I plop the carrot into the blender and watch as Rose examines a third card and shakes her head. “How did you know about that?”
Rose pins me with a stare that slides right into me. One that burrows in. Drills beneath layers that suddenly seem too thin to hide behind. I don’t just feel looked at or assessed. I feelseen. And after a moment that seems like it’s pulled too tight by an invisible hand, her expression smooths, as though she’s found what she’s looking for. “Magic,” she says, and with a wisp of a sad smile, she takes the cards and shuffles them back into the deck. “How’s that working out for you? Being here, I mean. Getting away from Boston.”
“I don’t know.” I slowly start to peel another carrot. I can feel her eyes, the weight of her watchful gaze. She says nothing, just waits to see which way I’ll take her question. And part of me wants to elaborate on the honest answer I just gave her. But I don’t. “What about you, how’s the circus working out for you?”
Rose breathes a laugh, but I can sense the disappointment in it. “Not so well now, I guess. They all left.” When I look up, she does a little shimmy on her chair, wiggling her fingers before she pulls what seems to be a white crystal charm in the shape of a bird from her jacket pocket. She makes a slicing motion through the air in front of her and then places the object on her deck. Though I want to ask her about it, I don’t, already feeling thrown off course by her presence without broaching the realm of crystals and divination.
I clear my throat, trying to regain my sense of balance when I ask, “How old were you when you joined Silveria?”
Rose’s smile fades, turning brittle at the edges. “Fifteen.”
“Pretty young,” I say, and she nods once. “Why?”
“Had nowhere else to go.” Rose shrugs as she pockets the crystal and shuffles her cards. “When Silveria Circus came to town, I took half the money I’d saved and spent all day there. Next day, I took the other half. Third and final day, I went straight to José and begged him for a job. He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no. When they pulled up stakes to leave, I hitched a lift with one of the crew.” Her expression is brighter when she looks up at me, blowing a strand of hair from her eyes. “I worked and he fed me. I proved I was tough, and he paid me.”
“So, what, you just … left home?”
“No,” she says. “I just left.”
I want to ask her what she means, but the light seems momentarily lost from her eyes. I watch as she flips over a card and hums a thoughtful note. “Do you enjoy it?” I finally ask, unsure if I should be scraping away at her past when the present is already enough of a mess to dissect.
“Normally it’s great. I get to travel. I love the troupe. I’m always seeing new places. Meeting new people. But I guess it’s not so great when something likethishappens,” she says as she gestures to her leg.
“Does stuff like that happen often?”
“No. Not to me.”
“What about stuff like Matt Cranwell?”
Everything in the room goes still.
I feel like I’d be able to sense our heartbeats in the air if I reached out with my palm. Rose says nothing. Doesn’t even blink. I can’t read much from her expression, but part of me already wants to rewind time and reel those words back into my mouth. I don’t know this woman. Whatever happened is none of my business, whether she’s staying here or not. Prying into her life is unfair. I’ve offered my home, without anything in return. Not even secrets.
I’m about to apologize when Rose says, “Not exactly. No.”
My gaze lingers on her for a long moment and then I give her a nod before I focus my attention back to the blender and the smoothie. When it’s ready, I grab two glasses from the cupboard and fill them with the thick liquid, taking them to the table with a pair of metal straws. I pull the chair back from the end with the single place mat, Rose’s eyes on me through every motion.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” I say as I pass her the smoothie, though she doesn’t move or even break her gaze from mine.
“I’m staying in your house. You have a right to know the kind of person under your roof.”
