“No, I’m okay.”
I was a little cold, but I didn’t want to turn around. The quiet and the feeling of just walking alongside him like a normal couple was too good. He reached out, his palm extended, and I stared down into it. Something flickered in his amber gaze as he took my hand.
“Here, it’ll keep your fingers warm,” he said gruffly.
My heart fluttered against my ribs and there was a painfully warm sensation in my stomach. Keeping my eyes to the ground, I let him walk beside me and hold my hand. How did this fill me with so much sweet longing and pain all at once? Perhaps because I knew we didn’t love each other, perhaps because I knew it was all for nothing.
I shook my head, trying to think of something to take my mind off his skin against mine.
“What’s the Autumnal Feast?” I asked.
He glanced at me sharply and his eyes glittered. The corner of his mouth curved like I’d said something amusing and I disliked the feeling. It reminded me of being a child, trying to get a straight answer about an awkward topic from an adult.
“It’s a seasonal…party,” he said. “We have it every year at the beginning of November. I’ve hosted it the last few years.”
“Like a solstice thing?”
“Sort of.”
“Is it religious?” I asked, still confused.
He laughed softly, his head falling back. “It’s decidedly unholy.”
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but he released a heavy sigh, like he was finally letting a weight shift from his shoulders. He squinted across the wet stones and leaves and his gaze fixed on a metal gate at the bottom of the hill. I felt his direction shift, heading towards it, and I tightened my fingers in his grip.
“My grandmother is buried here,” he said.
I glanced up at him, but all the emotion was gone from his face.
“Would you like to visit her grave?” I asked carefully.
His jaw worked and then he nodded once. I felt his resistance, his discomfort with vulnerability. And there was something else in his face too. Something darker and haunted. I kept quiet and let him lead me down the road to the iron gates. It was the Catholic section. I followed him through, holding tight to him, until he paused before a headstone.
“This is it,” he said flatly.
The marble monument was a large rectangle with delicate, little carvings up the sides. There was an angel affixed to the top, wings spread to shelter the stone. In the center, in elegant script was his grandmother’s name.Estella Calo, Beloved Grandmother.I stared at it for a long moment as a realization sank in.
“You made this headstone,” I whispered.
“I did.”
His voice was hoarse, guarded behind iron gates. My throat felt tight as I imagined him in his studio, carving his grandmother’s tombstone. Alone in the dark. My God, that image hurt like a knife in the ribs. I swallowed and squeezed his hand. That was too much for him, or perhaps being here with me was too much. He pulled his hand away and pushed it into his pocket.
“You loved your grandmother,” I said. “I’m sorry you lost her.”
He kept quiet, staring down at the stone.
“What…what happened to your grandfather?”
“He’s buried there.”
I followed where he pointed to a much smaller stone encircled by an iron fence. Confused, I looked from one monument to the other.
“They’re not buried together,” I said. “Were they divorced?”
He shook his head. “I buried them apart on purpose. He was cremated and she wasn’t. I always wanted to set that motherfucker on fire while he was alive and no one could stop me doing it once he was dead. So there he is, in a jar under the ground, alone. My father is the only reason he’s not in the fucking trash.”
My mouth fell open and I clapped my hand over it. Stunned to my core. Granted, I didn’t know anything about his family. But I’d never heard Peregrine speak with such vitriol of anyone before. I’d certainly never heard anyone speak so badly of the dead.