The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [83]
“Thank you,” I said softly, taking the kerchief and scrubbing at my eyes. They were gritty, as if I’d looked into the maw of a sandstorm.
“You want to talk about it?” Dean moved closer, so that he filled up my slice of doorway, not as a shadow would but solidly, something I could grab hold of.
“Not here,” I said, glancing back at my room, contained by the iron nerves of the house. Dean cocked his head in confusion. “The walls have ears,” I explained. Bethina could be around any corner, and I didn’t believe that the house itself wasn’t echoing my words down into its bones, storing them for its own eldritch uses.
Dean lifted himself away from the jamb. “Grab yourself a wrap and come with me.”
“I … all right.” I shrugged into a wool cape I’d discovered with the dress and wrapped my school scarf around my neck. As Dean led us away from the landing, into the warren of hallways that made up the north wing of Graystone, I finally had to ask, “Where are we going?”
“I’m still your guide, I’ll have you know,” Dean said. “Trust me.” He stopped at a thin door at the very end of the corridor, too small to be anything but a closet. “You weren’t the only one who found a hidden surprise today, princess.” He popped open the door and gestured toward the open space. “After you.”
It was indeed a closet, the only contents a ship’s ladder leading up into darkness. A draft caught me and prickled my exposed skin. “Up?” I said, peering into the darkness. The way was black and fathomless, cold as space.
“Up,” Dean agreed. “I’ll catch you.”
I mounted the first rung and looked back at him. “I’m not afraid of falling.”
His mouth curled. “That’s my Aoife.”
I jostled as Dean put his hands on my waist and gave me a boost. Cal had told me to reprimand him for being familiar, but if I was honest I enjoyed that Dean didn’t treat me like I was something that might break. And I wanted to see what was up there.
I climbed, and even with Dean’s added weight the ladder was solid under my grasp, wood polished by decades of hands and feet. Gradually the cold grew sharper, a blade rather than a pinprick.
At last, we crested a platform, rotted wood on a rotating base with a skeleton of iron. The widow’s walk rode the ridgeline of Graystone like a ship in choppy seas, wind humming through the railing bars like water under the prow.
Dean swung his legs up and shut the hatch. We were alone on top of the world, moonlight and mist creating a landscape unearthly as the surface of Mars. I should have been scared to be up so high on an ancient, unstable structure, but the view was too eerie, and beautiful, for fear to reach me.
“Pretty boss view,” Dean said, lighting the cigarette he kept behind his ear. “Nothing like it in the city, that’s for sure.” He offered the Lucky to me after a quick drag. I shook my head.
“Told you, I don’t.”
“Figured I’d tempt you once more,” he said, and exhaled. The smoke formed shapes in the air, crow wings and creeping vines.
“Cal thinks I’m insane,” I blurted, folding my arms around myself to keep warm. Below the mist curled back on itself, a flock of dragons eating their own tails.
Dean looked askance at me.
“You’re about as far from cracked as they make ’em, Aoife. I’ve known brass statues that were crazier’n you.”
I grabbed the railing, letting the dead chill of the iron steel me. “My family has a … reputation. Back in Lovecraft.”
Dean shrugged. I knew because I heard the creak of his jacket. “ ‘Loony’ is just a title they slap on people who don’t fit the gray flannel life we’re all supposed to chase after. Lots of cats back in the Rustworks got the diagnosis, before they ditched out of the middle class and went downside.”
“Cal thinks I’m bound to lose my mind,” I said. Dean wouldn’t get my secret, not yet, but I had to let some of the pressure off before I burst like a faulty boiler, and the fact that he hadn’t just dismissed me as hysterical went a long way to that end. “My brother left me a letter, you know, that told me to find the witch’s alphabet. Well, I found it. It’s my father’s. It’s real