Текст книги "Hemlock Veils"

Автор книги: Jennie Davenport

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Taggart picked up his gun, though with difficulty since he was shaking, and aimed it at the beast, who managed to stand on all fours. Before Elizabeth could plead again, he fired, startling her more than he had the first time; but the beast was gone, standing at the opposite end of the clearing. Taggart’s bullet had missed entirely, and Elizabeth released a sob of pure relief.

Henry stared at her with his animal eyes, brown and ringed with gold. “Go!” she said at him. “Get out of here!”

Aglaé growled, dropping some of her pretense, and just when she turned back to Taggart, Eustace lifted his shotgun. It took a moment for Elizabeth to realize what was happening.

That it wasn’t aimed at the beast.

***

Eustace had never been a man to fall for a ruse. Especially when it came to conniving and devious women. He’d known a few in his life, could always pick them out of a crowd. And this, whatever she was, had manipulation all over her. He couldn’t explain it exactly, but knew one thing for sure: she wasn’t what she appeared to be. And with the way she seemed to come from nowhere—first appearing as a decaying corpse that he realized was himself, then as a demon, and now this—he had nothing but the deepest of sinking feelings all throughout him. While viewing her from the end of his double-barrel, reality hit him: she was the one responsible for everything. Sheppy, the screaming, the terror, and even Gina Gray’s cats.

A wave of guilt rolled through him and he wished he would have realized this sooner, before Brian had tied Elizabeth up. She’d been right, about everything. And the most unsettling thing was that in the back of his aging mind, he’d known it all along.

“I’d watch where you point that,” the woman said, the corner of her mouth lifted in a seductive smile. She was a sight to see, that’s for sure, but that’s where it would end for him.

“I’d shut your mouth, woman, before I pull the trigger.” Eustace backed her up and she lifted her hands. His neighbors mumbled around him and Taggart asked what in Hell’s sake he was doing. But he wouldn’t fall for it like they had. Her back met the needles of a fir, and unlike a moment ago, when she’d been a sobbing, frantic mess at Taggart’s feet, she was cool as a cucumber, lifting a brow in fascination. As though his Betsy could do nothing to her. Probably it couldn’t, since the slash in her shoulder didn’t seem to affect her like it would a normal person with a soul and feelings.

“I see age has dulled your male appetite.”

Grinding his teeth, Eustace shoved the barrels into the soft spot on her chest, just between her breasts. Her skin was supple, he allowed himself to think in a moment of stupor. Alabaster, shimmering. He shook his head. “My appetite’s fine. I just won’t be fooled by a temptress.”

“A temptress? Is that what you think I am?”

“I don’t know what you are, but you’re something not far from the Devil.”

She threw her head back and cackled, the sound as grating as nails on a chalkboard. In his disorienting distraction, she took hold of his gun. But just as she twisted it from his grip, the monster attacked her from the side, trapping her beneath him. Eustace backed away, watching—seeing the thing for what it was, for the first time ever. How had Elizabeth been right this whole time? How had she seen it in the beginning?

The red-haired woman’s eyes hardened, changing her face, and as she struggled with the weight atop her—the weight that would crush a normal human being—somehow the beast was thrown from her again. She lunged for him, hands curled like claws and teeth bared like an animal, and with a roar of her own she was atop him, the two of them rolling in another struggle impossible for Eustace to see.

“Eustace!” It was Elizabeth, and he’d never seen such desperation.

He turned to Taggart, who watched the brawl with a dumbfounded expression. In fact, everyone did. No one could take their eyes away from the enigma they couldn’t explain. Nicole stood back with her arms over herself, and Brian was nowhere to be seen. Probably he had run away like the coward he was. Eustace yanked the keys from Taggart’s belt and found the small cuff key. While fidgeting for the lock wedged behind Elizabeth’s back, he looked down on her. “Beth…I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Eustace,” she said with distraction. Probably his apology was the furthest thing from her mind. The cuffs clicked, loosening. She brought her wrists in front of her, touching them tenderly, and he swallowed at the raw, bloody abrasions. When she nodded, an understanding passed between them, a kinship much like the one they’d shared in this same forest on the night they’d met. Funny, how back then he’d been the one convincing her to believe in magic, and tonight she was the one who had to do all the convincing. Back then he’d felt there was something about her, something that would save them all. And now he knew she would.

Elizabeth’s eyes shifted to the fight, to the whiz of blackness, and she hesitated with a distressed brow. Was it love she felt for the monster?

When the blur stilled, the beast was a mangled, bloody thing, his chest heaving with fatigue. The red-haired woman looked a mess, too, but not like the beast. Then Eustace heard it, clear and vague at the same time, coming from inside his mind but from nowhere. Take her. Take her away from here, Eustace.

His vision shot all around him, then ended on the monster. He stared at Eustace, his large, marble-like eyes—usually evil and full of terror—somber and glazed. Somehow it had come from him, Eustace knew, and in his daze, all he did was nod.

But before he could take hold of Elizabeth’s arm, the beautiful demon pulled a long golden knife from a sheath on her inner thigh and drove it into the beast, just below his ribs. She moaned as she did this, a sensual sound of pleasure, and the beast roared with his fangs toward the moon—the fangs that would always give Eustace the willies.

Elizabeth released a tortured cry when he fell to the ground. Eustace tried grasping her, but she was gone too fast, his fingers catching the air. The beast saw her running toward him, though, and growled, returning to his wobbling feet.

He stared her down with a threatening look, one of competition. He was communicating with her the way he’d just communicated with Eustace—probably telling her to stay back.

Elizabeth did, grinding her teeth, and her attention, as well as Eustace’s, shot to the temptress as she laughed that horrible laugh. She began circling the beast, whose back legs gave out, and she ignored Elizabeth completely. “You know why I’m in this form again, Monster?” Eustace couldn’t stand her voice. There was something unsettling in it, as though the tone had been altered by some machine to make it more feline-like.

The beast snarled at her.

“Because I don’t want to simply poison you.” She examined her long, gold knife, stained in red. She wiped a finger down the blade, leaving a clean, golden streak amidst his blood, and this too seemed to give her pleasure. “I intend to kill you now, Monster. I told you I’d be back, didn’t I? If you even thought about breaking the curse.”

Eustace would have bet the beast sent her thoughts, since her face changed, became irate. Though it frightened him, Eustace couldn’t help his curiosity of this curse.

“Lies!” she cried, swiping the knife at the beast; he backed away, the blade barely missing. “You have thought it, or I wouldn’t be here!” Again she smiled, regaining composure, and as the beast lowered the rest of himself to the earth in weakness—or maybe even surrender—she said, “But don’t worry, Monster. I’ll kill her when I’m finished, if that’s what you want. I’ll do the job for you, since she has made mine more difficult.”

Silence again. The beast’s eyes were fastened so soundly to her he appeared as nothing more than a statue. Her face fell. “You would…give your life for her?”

“No,” Elizabeth began arguing. She tried approaching, but this time Eustace held her back. While she struggled with Eustace—weakly—a silent exchange passed from the beast to Elizabeth, and whatever he said, it was enough to bring her to her knees. She slid out of Eustace’s hands and with a despairing shake of her head, sobbed.

“Very well,” the redhead announced. “I suppose I can spare her.” The next part happened too quickly for Eustace to process, and he didn’t realize what had happened until it ended, until Elizabeth choked on her own blood. Somehow, she’d gotten from beside him to the witch within a matter of two seconds. Somehow, she knew just the right time to make a run for it: just as the temptress drew back her knife. She was about to drive it into the beast’s heart when Elizabeth leapt in front of him, catching the blade with her chest.

Eustace had never seen a sight so awful, nor had he heard a sound to match the wretchedness so impeccably. The beast’s howl was so deafening it brought every resident of the woods to attention. But it wasn’t just the beast who roared his opposition, for the temptress wailed as well, dropping her knife and watching with hands on her head as Elizabeth’s body fell to the ground. “No!” she cried, deep and gravelly.

Elizabeth lay on her back and looked to the stars, choking on the red that drizzled from her mouth. For some reason, this disturbed Eustace more than the spilling of it from her chest did. Elizabeth bleeding: it was so wrong.

The beast, with a new strength gained by probably nothing but adrenaline, lunged for the witch, and his teeth tore so brutally into her neck that Eustace could actually hear the ripping of flesh. In his rage, he shook her—a dog shaking a chew toy—and after he threw her feminine body against a tree, still she stood, miraculously. She stared at Elizabeth, mouthing no and holding her blood-gushing neck. She bled, yet stood as though unharmed.

Then the beast approached Elizabeth with a gentleness Eustace would have never been able to fathom before. He stood over her as her eyes became glazed and her chest heaved with the final croaks and coughs of death, blood now pooling beneath her as it traveled from the wound, down her ribs. He nudged her with his long, monstrous snout, even licked her a few times—licked away the blood on her chin. The gentleness astounded Eustace. It reminded him again of a dog, this time trying to save his wounded master. The beast communicated with her, because Elizabeth—still unafraid in her dying moments—reached a hand to the monster’s face, grasping his dark fur.

Eustace stepped closer so he could hear. While stroking his fur, in a voice so soft he barely heard, she whispered, “It’s all right, Henry.”

Tilting his ear in their direction, Eustace had to have misunderstood. After all, his hearing had been pretty terrible the past few years.

The beast huffed and howled another agonizing cry, then looked back at her, whimpering from deep within his throat.

“Because,” she said, “you’re free now.” Tears left the corners of her eyes and it seemed her voice was more difficult to come by. “Please don’t cry for me, Henry. This was the only way—”

She gagged, turning her head to the side as she coughed again, and this time Eustace knew he hadn’t misheard. Henry. Henry?

“I…” she added in a strained whisper, a smile lighting her face. “I can be your antidote.”

The beast groaned.

“I love you, always. Never…forget it, Henry.” And with that her eyes closed and her hand fell from his fur, her body going limp. As the beast wailed, his howl the most painful sound Eustace had ever heard, it began to sound more human. The sound of a shouting man. A shout of rage: “Nooooo!” Eustace was about to question his own sanity, but then the earth began to tremble.

He took a step back, absorbing the pulse beneath the rubber soles of his boots, and the beast began vibrating himself, pulsating with a visible heat. He shouted, again that shout of a man, and as he collapsed to the ground beside Elizabeth, it appeared his body had turned inside out, and by the sound of his cries, Eustace would bet it was something agonizing. He wanted to look away, his stomach turning from the gruesome sight, but he couldn’t.

Then all fell still and what lay there wasn’t a beast anymore, but a man. Eustace actually rubbed his eyes, just to make sure he saw correctly.

Then he put everything together. Henry, he thought in awe. Of course.

Henry, body contorted and lying face-against-dirt, pushed himself up; Arne, whom Eustace hadn’t seen arrive, ran to him. He placed a blanket over Henry and helped him sit. At the same time Eustace realized he hadn’t been paying attention to the crowd at all, his eyes welled. He turned to the other faces, the awe-struck expressions and even some tears. Regina’s, for one. Her hands were clasped in front of her and her large chest shook with weeping. Nicole’s arms were still wrapped around herself as she too shed tears. Still, no Brian was in sight.

Then there was Taggart. The awe factor had brought him to his knees, and in the dirt, he stared at the scene as though this moment was his final. Eustace turned back to Arne and Henry, and Henry appeared disoriented as he tied the blanket around his waist. But the disorientation didn’t last, for he stared at his hands, turning them over a couple of times, and then at the stars. He jerked around to Elizabeth’s body, and the sob that shook him made Eustace’s own throat close.

“Elizabeth!” he cried. Arne, with wetness in his own eyes, put a hand on Henry’s shoulder, but Henry shook it off and picked up Elizabeth, bringing her to his chest. “You can’t leave me, not like this,” he mumbled desperately, over and over again, and through tears Eustace hadn’t known he was capable of. He mumbled more pleas, some of which Eustace couldn’t make out, and none of this felt real. The idea of Henry and Elizabeth in love was almost as shocking as the reality that Henry had been the beast all these years, and that Elizabeth had known—and that they’d been sneaking away together at night. Eustace was a damn fool for not seeing it sooner, for not seeing who he was.

He realized then that he was the Henry: his old friend. He saw him now, as clearly as though he’d been thrown back forty years. Henry had been here the whole time, the same man now as he had been then. Eustace fell to his own knees at the wonder of it all. At the heart-wrenching way Henry clung to Elizabeth, the only woman who’d been able to see him for who he was. Eustace’s own heart broke, too, his soul mourning for hers. The soul he shared a kinship with.

There was something excruciatingly humble about a man who had once appeared to have everything in the world but emotions, weeping—begging almost pathetically. And that sound was the only one in the air, the denseness of the nighttime forest insulating his cries. If Henry knew anyone else was there, it didn’t show. He had an audience to his most personal of moments—the sacred moment of mourning—whether he wanted one or not.

Then his eyes, bloodshot, darted to everyone else’s before ending on Doc. “What are you just standing there for? Help me save her!”

“But it’s too late.” It came from the witch. Eustace had forgotten she was here, her form hunched in the shadows. She stepped into the light, her blood gone. But even in her wholeness, there was something different about her, something weaker. Something more human. Her voice sounded drained and her body looked tired. Even her beauty appeared less…hypnotizing. Henry’s expression hardly changed at the sound of her voice. “She’s gone,” she finished. She seemed as distraught as the rest of them.

“No,” Henry replied, his brow still furrowed. “There’s got to be something…” He shook Elizabeth again, stroking her hair. “Please,” he barely managed in a breath. “I need you, Elizabeth. You can’t…leave me alone.” He brought her to his body again, nearly crushing her as he held on, and cried into her neck. She looked so dainty and fragile in his large arms, like nothing more than a ragdoll.

“You fool,” the witch growled, angry and irreverent. “Don’t you see? You’re a worthless man again! That means she’s gone, Monster.”

Henry turned to her so sharply she flinched. “Go!” he yelled, his voice as booming as the beast’s bass growls. Both his and the witch’s teeth were gnashing. “Leave me alone, Aglaé. You’ve done enough, and you have no power here anymore.”

With a hiss, the witch—who it seemed was nothing but a powerless woman now—was gone, running through the trees until Eustace could hear her no longer. Henry didn’t watch her leave, since his eyes scanned Elizabeth’s face desperately. Tears still managed to fall, even though his sobs had subsided, and Doc approached then, kneeling before them. Eustace crawled to them too, despite his weak and hurting knees, and Henry met his eyes. Eustace gave a nod, trying to show his sympathy, his understanding. His apology.

“I…” Doc started. “Let me see what I can do.” The look in his eyes said he had no hope, that he was just doing it for Henry. Perhaps as a way to make amends for the mess the whole town had caused.

Whether Henry thought it hopeless or not, Eustace didn’t know, for he laid Elizabeth gently on the ground at Doc’s knees. He brushed the hair away from her face tenderly, where it stuck to the blood on her left cheek. It wasn’t right seeing her this way, a shell of what she used to be, and in seeing her up close for the first time, Eustace brought a fist to his mouth, a sob swelling in his throat. But he hid it, as painful as it was, since it would be a mistake to let it go in front of Henry.

Doc felt her over, examined the wound, and then checked her pulse. It looked as though he contemplated chest compressions, but then stopped, lowering his shoulders. “Mr. Clayton, I…I’m sorry. I just think it’s too late.”

Henry shook his head; there was nothing he could say. No one could argue with death.

Chapter 27

An excruciating, debilitating pain weighed Henry down. Elizabeth’s absence was everywhere, suffocating him. Her pale face and her body, smeared in blood, swam in his vision, and he refused to believe it, refused to believe she was gone. She couldn’t be, since she was the only reason he was living.

He found himself gently shaking her shoulders again, kissing her on the cold mouth, willing her lips to return the kiss. He couldn’t breathe, the night sky and trees and everything in existence falling down on him, all at once. Arne pulled him away from her when Henry began giving her chest compressions, since Doctor Ortiz hadn’t. “I have to,” he argued with Arne. Henry shoved him away, too easily, and didn’t look to make sure he’d landed safely, for he was back at Elizabeth’s side, giving her mouth to mouth then pumping her chest again.

“Henry!” Arne snapped. “She’s gone!”

Henry shoved him away a second time. Again, he gave her chest compressions. Her blood painted his hands up to his wrists, coagulating in his arm hair. It was an awful sight, her blood.

Her blood.

Their blood.

He rocked back, his mouth falling open. The realization took his breath. He’d never thought it a possibility, since he’d always assumed only he could break his curse, but he hadn’t broken it. He had a Curse Breaker. He and Elizabeth, bound together by love, were now bound together as Cursed and Curse Breaker. According to the stories, they were physically, chemically one—two lives dependent on each other. The story of Absolon and Elvire wasn’t one Henry had made himself familiar with, but he knew enough: the woman who brought bread to an abomination, then saw him for the man he was. Elizabeth was Henry’s Elvire, her coffee as Elvire’s bread.

“I know what to do,” he rushed, searching his body for any open wounds. But for the first time he realized he had none, his body made whole in his permanent transformation.

His eyes fell on the pocket knife attached to the doctor’s belt. “Doc, your knife,” he demanded.

Doctor Ortiz hesitated. “Mr. Clayton, I…”

With impatience, Henry ripped it from the doctor’s belt, flipping it open with even more impatience. All in attendance gasped.

“Henry,” Arne reprimanded, taking hold of his arm.

“What will you do to her?” Doctor Ortiz asked in panic.

“Not to her, to me.” He met Arne’s eyes. “Our blood, Arne. We don’t have much time. If I hurry, then maybe I can—”

“Save her,” Arne finished, enlightenment lifting his brow. With a nod, he released Henry’s wrist.

Before Henry could mentally prepare himself for the pain, he sliced the knife deep into his palm. It stole his breath, made his hands tremble. But he could handle the pain. He’d experienced far worse, even just tonight. Henry ignored the unsettling noise of repulsion and disbelief from the crowd.

He positioned his hand over the open wound in Elizabeth’s chest and made a fist, squeezing. His blood drizzled into hers and ran down his wrist, even emerged from between his fingers. As he used his other hand to rub his blood into hers, mixing them desperately, the doctor groaned.

“Mr. Clayton, this can’t be good.”

Henry’s eyes shot to him. Through his teeth he said, “She’s already dead, Doc. If she’s dead anyway, what harm am I causing her?”

Doctor Ortiz lifted his hands, and Arne said, “It’s all right. He knows what he’s doing.”

Henry looked back to his task, panic beginning to overtake him. Did he really know what he was doing? It was ridiculous, thinking his blood had anything special enough to save her. He exhaled sharply at the anguish in his heart, the one that reminded him he’d lost her. “Come on, Elizabeth,” he whispered close to her face, still mixing their blood. His eyes caught fire again, her ashen face swimming in his vision. “Please. We’re one now. You have to come back.” A sob escaped him and he touched her face, gently, trying not to smear blood on her cheek. She was beautiful even in death, but the inner beauty that made her shine had disappeared, and it racked his body. He bowed his head on hers, weeping.

Then the sound, so faint he swore at first it was his mind playing tricks: a subtle intake of breath, low and raspy. He lifted his head, scanning over her, but her eyes hadn’t opened. “Elizabeth,” he rushed, touching her.

Another inhalation.

This time Doctor Ortiz heard it and bent to her, the whites of his eyes bright. “Holy Mother of God.” He checked her pulse, counting. Warily, he looked at Henry. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but whatever you’ve done, Mr. Clayton…”

“Is she…?”

“She’s alive.”

***

Still lifeless, still pallid.

Henry stared at Elizabeth.

She breathed with difficulty, but had a pulse. Her stab wound had healed over, too, more quickly than his own wounds used to heal. Only the slightest scar remained.

He sat in a carpeted chair beside her bed, in one of the only two examination rooms in the clinic, resting his clean and freshly bandaged hand on his knee. He’d been here for over two hours; they all had.

He’d carried her here shortly after her first breaths—and after many cries of joy from his neighbors, regardless of the fact that they had no idea how any of this was possible. Doctor Ortiz had ushered the crowd out of the waiting room adorned with posters about allergies and childhood vaccinations, pushing them out the entrance and into nighttime air, where they watched through the glass.

But hours had passed and nothing about her condition changed. She hadn’t so much as twitched a single muscle, hadn’t so much as flitted an eye beneath her lids. She was gone but here at the same time. Henry had even tried mixing more of his blood with hers, but it was too late.

After Doctor Ortiz had finally convinced him his blood would do nothing more for her, he stitched Henry’s hand and Arne left to retrieve his clothes. He sat beside her now, fully clothed and clean, and curse-free. Yet he felt worse than ever. He couldn’t move his attention away from her face, afraid to miss the moment she would wake—if she would wake. He willed it, sent her mental messages, praying that because they were one, she would receive them, wherever she was. And he tried not to doubt, tried not to wonder if her brain wasn’t alive while her body was because he had waited too long.

Earlier, Regina had sat with him, her hand on his and her arm around his back, and this, her willingness to comfort, had surprised him. How any of them were at ease with all that had happened—how they’d been so accepting of the revelation of his deepest secret—was a marvel. He’d been the monster, the one they’d always feared; yet here they were. The rest of the town, even Nicole, still waited outside the hospital, all with candles, Arne had said. Henry hadn’t gained the courage to look himself. He couldn’t face them, not yet. He couldn’t face anyone but her.

However, Taggart had come in twenty minutes before, just after Regina had left. He’d been the hardest person for Henry to even think of facing, aside from Brian, who according to Arne was nowhere to be found. When Nicole had gone looking for him, she discovered that even his house had been emptied, as though he’d packed up and left in a hurry. Perhaps this town, and all its magic, was finally too much for him. It gave Henry a slim measure of peace just knowing Brian was no longer here, that he wouldn’t have to control his impulse to kill him for the way he’d tied Elizabeth to the tree.

Even getting past the way Taggart had handcuffed her would be difficult, no matter how much he understood why, or how sorry he was for the loss of Sheppy.

“Mr. Clayton…” Taggart had begun. A sobbing sound came from his throat and he cleared it. “I didn’t know…”

“I know,” Henry said, never looking up at him. He watched Elizabeth’s eyelids instead.

“I just wanted to say that. I’m…so sorry. I was only doing what I thought was best. I didn’t know.”

For some reason Henry’s eyes burned and as they welled, he pressed his lips together. Still, all he could say was, “I know.”

After a long moment of silence, Henry’s eyes traveled to the wet, muddy soles of Taggart’s boots. Those boots left Henry alone again.

He sat alone now, too. How many people still waited outside, praying, as Arne said they were doing? The door opened then and Arne stepped through.

“Did they go home yet?” Henry asked him.

Arne shook his head. “They won’t, not until you come out. They’ll wait forever for you.”

“They’re not waiting for me, Arne. They’re waiting for her.”

“Then come out, talk to them. You’re you again, Henry. You don’t need to hide anymore, and they’re waiting to accept you.”

The simple action of shaking his head took all his energy. “I can’t be me without her.”

“You can. And she’ll still be here when you get back. I’ll even wait here with her.”

“They can manage.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about. It’s you who needs them. They’re a support system. They care, they love Elizabeth. After tonight…we need to pull together.”

“After what they did to her…”

“Henry, they were frightened. They didn’t know what to think.”

Arne was right, but Henry didn’t see the point. He stood anyway, studying Elizabeth before turning away from her for the first time since they’d arrived at the clinic. “You’ll stay with her? You’ll tell me the moment anything changes?”

Arne nodded.

With a sigh, Henry left the exam room and approached the glass doors. He hesitated when pushing them open, every head turning to him. There were so many, more than had been in the mob, and candles burned everywhere—even into the street and in front of the small church across it, since there were too many souls to fit in the clinic’s parking lot. The way every eye watched him, anticipating his words, left him momentarily beyond speech.

“She…isn’t awake yet.” Some shoulders slumped. “But I have hope,” he added, his voice catching on the last word. He shoved his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat, looking to the walkway. A single azalea lay on the cement, pink like the ones Elizabeth had planted last month, but it had been trampled by her supporters’ feet. It wasn’t one of her flowers, he knew, but still it insulted: on the ground, disrespected. “I won’t give up on her,” he finished with hot resolve.

“Nor will we.” It was Anita Thurman, holding a candle in one hand, her other fidgeting with the golden cross around her neck.

Henry nodded, and after a long moment, he cleared his throat again. “I suppose tonight was a shock.” A few chuckles arose, surprisingly. “There are many questions I can’t answer. But I assure you, it’s all behind us.”

“It’s all behind you?” Nicole asked, somewhat reluctantly, and when he met her eyes, he felt sorry for taking her so long ago.

Swallowing, he nodded. “Yes,” he answered in a small voice. “And…I’m sorry.”

Regina neared, touching his arm. Her always round eyes were even rounder—open, free of criticism. “We’re sorry.” Nods and murmurs of assent lifted all around. And the way Henry’s tear ducts leaked was so unexpected he looked down, again clearing his throat. This time he didn’t have the mental energy to hold it back. Before he knew it, Regina’s arms were around him, and his were around her. Then other arms joined, the arms of a community, coming together for him, for Elizabeth. He couldn’t fathom how they could be so supportive after witnessing such impossible things; perhaps Elizabeth wasn’t the only soul who could understand after all. He wasn’t deserving of it, but he absorbed it; because with these arms and these faces, he felt something. He felt home.

When he pulled away from Regina, Eustace patted him on the shoulder, and immediately, at the touch of his hand, Henry thought of Holly Farrell and how distraught Eustace had been when she’d left Hemlock Veils forty-nine years ago. All because of him.

“Eustace…” he began, not knowing what to say.

Eustace smiled beneath his shaggy, coarse beard, making the many wrinkles around his eyes deepen. It said he had forgiven him. “We all love you.”

Henry chuckled for the first time since becoming an un-cursed human again. His old friend, now his new one. It all felt strange, and so liberating. “Thanks, Old Man. For being her friend, for welcoming her here. You were the first.”