Afraid of Only Me

"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if you only had a mind to, you could meet someone perfectly good. You've got all your limbs, you're tall enough, and that face of yours isn't half bad."

Elliot said nothing.

"If it truly embarrasses you, shall I introduce you to a decent girl from the village? Plenty of the young ones are curious about you."

The question came hesitant, testing the air, and Elliot let out a short, dry laugh.

"That doesn't suit you in the least. Have you turned matchmaker since I saw you last?"

"No, I just... When she heard you'd come down, my wife hounded me so..."

Elliot looked at the mumbling Thomas with a trace of pity. Living pinned beneath a sharp-tempered wife seemed no different now than it had ever been.

"I'll take the thought, and thank you for it. But you know I didn't come here on a holiday."

"Ah... Your sibling was ill, wasn't that it? A second cousin, did you say?"

Thomas frowned, fumbling after a memory gone thin.

"Something like that."

"Is it bad? Coming all the way to a place like this to convalesce—doesn't sound like any ordinary illness."

"Not to that extent. It's only... living shut inside a hospital is a pitiful way to go on, isn't it?"

Thomas nodded with sober weight.

"Right you are. Now and then a body needs clean air and a fine view, or the sickness won't readily let go. Good thinking. Bring them by sometime. I'll muster every skill I have, and the ones I haven't, and set a proper meal before you."

Elliot only smiled, and said nothing.

As if it were not enough that she was the granddaughter a man of power in the country was hunting with his eyes wide open, she was a girl who wielded some force no one could name. Short of madness, there was no chance he could take her into the house of a Thomas who knew nothing at all.

Before he knew it, they had reached the butcher's. Thomas, large and flustered, ducked inside and came bustling out again to offer a meat pie that smelled rich and savory.

"My wife made it this morning. She's gone to her sister's in the next village today, so she cooked supper ahead and left."

"Are you sure I should take it? What about your own supper?"

"Well, Mr. Berry said we ought to drink ourselves under the table tonight..."

Thomas let the words trail off and laughed, awkward and warm. Elliot's brow flicked up as he accepted the pie. He didn't need to see it. Thomas, minding his wife's temper and drumming his fingers on nothing but some blameless bottle, stood vivid before his eyes.

"Thank you. I'll eat every bite."

"Oh—and the plate has to be back tomorrow morning. Before my wife comes home."

"All right."

It took some doing to reassure Thomas, who would not stop extracting the promise. With nowhere else he ought to go, Elliot parted from him and turned his steps toward home, and at the sight of the pie plate a low sigh escaped him.

Anna would like it, at least. The thought of that unaccountable girl, helpless before anything that was meat, left a dull ache in one corner of his chest again.

The vast wariness toward supernatural power, the faint awe, even the very small curiosity—within a few days, all of it had run dry to the bottom. What held Elliot now was nothing but irritation, climbed all the way to the crown of his head.

"Would you stop doing that?"

Unable to bear the spoon any longer as it flew about above his head, Elliot finally let a sharp voice out. Anna, who had abandoned her meal to devote herself to spinning the spoon in empty air, pushed her lips into a pout.

"Nag."

"I clearly told you to sto—ow!"

The spoon suddenly lost its strength and fell. Struck square on the crown of the head, Elliot's eyes flared wide with anger.

"Anna!"

Even at the sharp rebuke she was unchanged, chin propped on her hand, her face bored. She drew the spoon back, set it turning round and round before her eyes, and asked in an untroubled voice.

"Why don't you ask me anything?"

"About what."

"Why don't you ask anything, I said. Don't you find it amazing?"

The spoon crossed the table again and came right up to Elliot's face. He stared at it a moment, then turned a cold look on Anna across from him.

"Am I supposed to be amazed?"

"Most people are."

"You said you'd been locked away your whole life. Do you even know what most people are like?"

Anna's expression stiffened, just faintly. It was childish, but landing that blow eased something in him at last.

"That's enough. I wasn't sent here to manage your temper."

Elliot plucked the spoon out of the air and, as if to make a point of it, scooped up a mouthful of hot stew. Anna glared at him, her face hot with resentment, then shoved her chair back hard and stormed out of the kitchen.

That temper doesn't look likely to die, either. Eyeing the chair toppled on the far side, Elliot clicked his tongue. He was coming to wonder less about the nature of the nameless power Anna possessed than about the upbringing in the marquis's house that had produced a temper like that.

He finished the meal alone, doggedly, and while he was washing up he noticed that one mug was missing. His gaze moved from the sitting room to the small room and all the places between, then hesitated and turned toward Anna's door.

Thoroughly reluctant, he moved his unwilling feet at last. He stood before the door and hesitated a long while again before lifting his hand, but however he knocked, the inside remained perfectly still.

"Anna. I'm coming in."

When no answer came, Elliot set his hand to the knob. To his surprise, the door was not locked. Through the slowly widening gap, the bright room came into view.

"...What. Where has she gone."

Flustered, Elliot looked around the empty room. Behind the door, inside the wardrobe, even under the bed—he checked them all, and from somewhere came the sound of a dog barking. He went to the window. Out in the back garden, Anna was playing with some dog.

"Anna?"

He looked from Anna, quietly gazing up at him, to the dog lying meek beneath her hand. Shaggy and filthy: a stray, by the look of it.

"Where on earth did that dog come from?"

He had barely let out an incredulous breath when the stray came charging at him out of nowhere, and he startled badly. The dog ran hard, cleared the sill, and drove its head into his chest as he stepped back on instinct. With a crash, Elliot went over backward.

What in the world is this.

He was rubbing the back of his head, where he had struck it properly, and pushing himself up when he flinched. Shaggy, yes, but starved thin—the stray was whimpering and burrowing into his arms. A deep shadow fell over the dog, which was trembling outright.

"Give it to me."

Elliot, who had ended up holding the dog without quite meaning to, lifted his head blankly. Anna had already come to the window and was holding both arms out, coaxing.

"I said, give it to me."

Following her gaze, he looked down in a daze at the dog in his arms. He got to his feet and took a step toward the window, and the creature began to shake to an uncanny degree.

"...What did you do to the dog?"

"Nothing."

"Then why is it this frightened?"

Green eyes touched with confusion held her quietly. Anna, expressionless as ever, pushed her lips out a little, as if sulking.

"How should I know."

Her arms stayed stretched out, like a child's reaching for candy.

After a moment's deliberation, Elliot approached the window, hesitating. The stray in his arms thrashed harder and harder. He was doing his best to ignore the whimpering at his ear, in the instant he meant to pass the dog to Anna.

"Ow!"

The dog that had been groaning all the while suddenly bared pale, fierce teeth and bit down hard on Anna's hand. When the horrified Elliot drew his hands back, it landed straight in the back garden and fled far off.

"Give me your hand! Heavens..."

He caught her wrist and lifted it in a rush, then flinched. Anna, who had only been grimacing at the stinging pain, prompted him as the silence drew out.

"Elliot?"

"...Ah. Sorry."

He offered an awkward smile and looked down at her hand again, hesitating. A hand soaked in blood. From the wound on the finger, the dog's teeth still plainly marked in it, thick blood dripped and dripped.

He swallowed against a dry throat. His Adam's apple trembled beyond his control.

"...I-I'll fetch the first-aid kit. Wait just a moment."

As if fleeing a hot flame, he left the room in a hurry.

A hushed stillness.

By then Anna had returned to a cold, blank face, and she tilted her head slightly to one side. Blood kept welling from her finger without end.

"...Doesn't it hurt?"

At the careful question, Anna shook her head without a word. Elliot, spreading ointment over the wound, wore a grave look.

"There's no way this doesn't hurt... If a nerve's been damaged, that would be serious—Anna. I told you to hold your leg still."

The calf that had been lightly swinging finally stopped. With a deliberately reproachful air he glanced up at Anna, sitting properly on the bed, then rose.

"I really think a doctor ought to see it. I'll bring one, so wait here a moment."

"I'm fine."

Anna took a bandage from the kit and, with her good hand, began winding it round and round the injured finger. He watched in silence. The motions looked, somehow, accustomed.

"A piece of the flesh tore away, and you say you're fine?"

"Yes."

"Anna."

"I know my own body best."

The words, tossed out indifferently without so much as a glance his way, sent a hot anger surging up in him. Elliot came over with steady steps, dropped to one knee at her feet again, and took the hand she had been bandaging.

"That isn't how you do it."

He undid the crooked knot she had managed with only her good left hand and tied it tight again. Even then, for a long while, he could not take his eyes from her hand.

"I still think you ought to be examined."

She was silent.

"Anna."

"Why is it afraid of only me?"

At the words from nowhere, Elliot's brow creased. Anna, quietly regarding only the tips of her toes, looked strangely downcast.

"You mean that mad dog just now?"

"Not a mad dog. Gorgolio."

"Gorgolio?"

Incredulity lay thick in the way he repeated it. Gorgolio. If his thin store of religious learning was right, that was the name of the three-headed hound in myth that guarded the gates of hell.

"You've already given it a name? And of all the names you might have chosen..."

Anna's shoulders sank, visibly. He had the sense to close his mouth. He couldn't quite understand it, but she seemed deeply sorry that the dog which had made a rag of her finger had run away.