The Wizard by the Sea by Anna Wineheart

Author:Anna Wineheart [Wineheart, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-03-07T06:00:00+00:00

Back home, Connor pulls the recipe cards off the kitchen walls. He tucks them under the sailboat, face-down, and closes the closet door on them both.

It’s been almost two years, and the ship is driving Yates insane. Next to his two centuries, eight years with a person shouldn’t have carved this many memories in him. He sees a young boy sitting cross-legged on an empty floor, throwing flower bombs up into the air. He sees an adolescent curled up in his armchair, reading Life and Magic, though it’s far too advanced for his level. He sees a young man with his hands full of earth, transplanting a lavender bush that has overgrown its pot.

He sees a man, broad-shouldered and cast in shadow, standing over him in the darkness, winding him up with need. That memory haunts him through the nights.

Sometimes, he peeks out the windows, expecting Connor to be waiting on the path for him. Sometimes he expects impatient fists on the cabin door, followed by excited shouts of Let me in!

The five charred marks still linger on the island counter. Occasionally, Yates peels off the embroidered table mat to look at them, just to remind himself that it hadn’t been a dream. That Connor had touched him and claimed him. Made his toes curl and his back arch for the first time in decades.

The chalk runes are gone. When Connor still visited, waiting for Yates to lower the barrier, he’d considered erasing Connor’s memories. It would have been easy, too. Connor stayed for hours, not moving from his spot.

Today, Yates steps out into the cabin, where the runes for the boundary lie. Connor isn’t coming back. He knows this in his bones when he brushes his fingertips over chalk, smudging away lines of power. In the same heartbeat, the barrier falls away around the boat, dripping like a sheet of water.

In the depths of his heart, Yates wishes that Connor would return.

He needs to forget him. He can’t.

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