When he raised his head she was watching him in wonder. “I don’t know you at all. First I thought you a simpleton. Then you couldn’t speak. And now you can, but you won’t.” She stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips along his jaw, her touch soft and searching, more intimate than any kiss on the lips. “I don’t know you, but I want to. Can you let me in a little?”
He closed his eyes. This was playing with fire. “What do you wish to know?”
Chapter Ten
The youth’s name was Theseus. He and Ariadne were escorted to the labyrinth and pushed inside. Then Theseus turned to Ariadne. He was tall and fair but when he saw that she had brought the spindle into the labyrinth, he laughed in scorn. “You’ll have no use of that here. Better you follow behind me and let me kill the beast.” So saying, he took out a short sword he’d concealed in his robes and, turning right, disappeared into the labyrinth…
—From The Minotaur
What did she wish to know? That was easy: Lily wanted to know who Caliban truly was—a name, an identity, something to place him in the world in relation to her.
But he couldn’t answer that, she knew, so she started with a simpler inquiry.
“You seem to know about family.” The sun was beginning to set and even with the smell of burnt wood, the garden was a magical place. Birds had begun their evening song around them in the golden rays. “Do you have family?”
He nodded. “I have… a sister.”
She smiled up at him, into his muddy-brown eyes surrounded by such beautiful, lush lashes. She was relieved that he’d answered that much—hadn’t rejected her question out of hand. “Older or younger?”
A corner of his wide mouth cocked up. “The exact same… age as I.”
“A twin!” She grinned in delight. “What’s her name?”
He shook his head gently.
But she wasn’t so easily disappointed now that he’d let her in a little. “Very well. Do you like her?”
“Very much.” He paused as if searching for words. “She is… the dearest thing… to me… in the world.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, how sweet.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You make me… sound a little boy.”
“I don’t mean to,” she said earnestly. “I think one’s family, the people one keeps close to oneself, are very important. I don’t think I could like a man who didn’t value others.”
“And… do you like me?”
She wagged her finger at him. “I’m not so easily lured as all that. Now. Were you born in London?” She turned, swinging their hands as she meandered down one of the paths.
“No.”
She pouted. “In a city?”
“No.”
Her eyes widened in exasperation. “In England?”
“Yes, I am… an Englishman,” he said, and then relented. “I was… born in the country.”
“North or south?”
“South.”
“By the coast?”
“No.” He slid an amused glance her way. “There were… farmlands. And a pond… quite nearby. My… sister and I learned to… swim in it.”
“And you had a mother and a father.” She looked down at the charred path because most people did have both a mother and a father growing up—just not she, it seemed.