Ashes of Twilight by Tayler Kassy

Author:Tayler, Kassy [Tayler, Kassy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

As I expected, it is impossible for me to get away to see Pace before my shift. I’d left my lunch pail at the stables so my grandfather packs both our lunches in his and walks me to work.

“I know this has been hard on you,” he says after we leave the village. “Seeing Alex that way and all…” his voice trails off. “I’ve seen men broken over less.” He doesn’t speak for a moment, just clears his throat and looks away. What is he remembering? My grandfather never talks about the past, nor has he told me stories of his youth. He always lives in the present, no matter what the occasion, as if the past is too painful to recall.

He never gossips and never speaks of anyone unless he knows it to be the truth, which means he doesn’t talk much at all. His words are measured and weighed so when they come I consider them carefully because I know they cost him dearly. But there are times, when he drinks the liquor that is brewed deep in a long-exhausted cave, when he speaks of things I don’t understand and curls up in his bed and weeps with regret.

He puts his hand on my shoulder, something else he rarely does. He’s never been demonstrative in his affection yet I’ve never doubted his love for me.

“I just want you to know I’m proud of you. Of the woman you’ve become.” Once more he clears his throat of the emotion that gathers there. “I know I don’t say it enough.” He laughs, once, a sharp bark that’s rarely used. “I reckon I’ve never said it at all.”

The words and his random attempt at affection should warm me. Instead they fill me with a horrible sense of guilt. The first time in my life he tells me he’s proud of me and I’m lying to him.

“Don’t you let them down there scare you with their talk,” he continues. “Nothing that’s happened is your fault. It could have been any one of them with Alex when he died.” We continue on, him assuring me that everything is fine and me knowing that everything that’s happened is my fault since the moment Lucy told Alex she didn’t want him. I don’t know what to say. I can’t find the words that will take us back to the way things were before. So I walk with him and listen and fight back the tears of my shame until we come to the stable.

My pail is right where I left it, on the barrel next to the orange cat who seemingly hasn’t twitched a whisker since I left. My grandfather packs my lunch into it carefully and turns to go. “I’m working guard duty tonight. Tunnel twenty-three.”

I nod. Twenty-three is the cross tunnel where I came down the day Pace chased me. It’s the one escape hatch the bluecoats know about. Even though it has been nailed shut it is still a risk because they know where it is and where it leads.

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