By Sunday afternoon, Jonas had sold the ugly pastries as well as the good ones.
He came downstairs with three left in a box and an expression of triumph he kept interrupting to explain what had gone wrong.
“People asked for things I wasn't selling.”
“What things?”
“Savouries.”
“You sold sweet things.”
“I had a sign.”
“People can't read when they're hungry.”
“They can read prices.”
Daniel took a pastry.
This one wasn't ugly. It had a dark folded edge, pear showing through, ginger warm enough to reach him before he tasted it.
“You kept the good ones.”
“Professional courtesy.”
“To yourself?”
“Somebody has to.”
Jonas put the box on the counter and took out his phone. A photograph of the table: little blue flowers beneath the trays, a handwritten sign, a woman at one end pointing to something she'd evidently bought.
“Your mum came.”
“Yes.”
“Did she approve of the tablecloth?”
“She approved of everything except the tablecloth. Said I'd folded it wrong.”
Daniel laughed.
Silas was waiting outside.
He hadn't entered the inn. He had sent a message that morning asking if Daniel would talk, and Daniel, after reading it twice, had said he would walk down the river for half an hour. Leah was at the workshop. He'd told her what he intended.
She hadn't tried to stop him.
Now he put the box lid back.
“Where are you going?” Jonas asked.
“Walk.”
“Leave the last two.”
“I wasn't going to take them.”
“You looked.”
Daniel went outside.
Silas stood near the terrace wall, jacket closed against a wind which hadn't felt cold to Daniel until he saw the man holding himself that way.
“Thank you.”
“Half an hour.”
“That's plenty.”
They went towards the public path.
Daniel kept him on the right, away from the injured hand. Silas noticed and moved without comment.
For the first few minutes they talked about the weather. Daniel resented that more than an argument. The river was down from the rain earlier in the week, carrying a branch slowly until it reached the bend. A couple passed with two children, one of whom asked whether the man in the water was dead.
There was no man. A piece of floating cloth had caught against the branch.
His mother said, “Don't be silly.”
Daniel watched it until it moved out of sight.
Silas said, “You think everything will be about it now.”
Daniel turned.
“What?”
“The nights.”
“How do you know?”
“I've been there.”
“You were on the other side.”
“Not always.”
They kept walking.
At a bench above the water, Silas stopped.
“Sit?”
Daniel could have said no. His thigh hurt.
He sat.
Silas left space between them. Too carefully, perhaps, but Daniel wanted it enough not to object to the care.
“Who did you carry for?” he asked.
“A woman called Iona.”
“Where is she?”
“Dead.”
Daniel looked at him.
“She died after I took it. Years after.”
“So it didn't end.”
“I had it. She was human.”
The man rubbed his hands together. There was a little roughness in the sound.
“Did she do what you do?”
“Give me things? Yes.”
“Wounds.”
“Yes.”
“Did she ask?”
Silas looked towards the water.
“She told me what she needed.”
“Not what I asked.”
“No.”
Daniel rested his left hand on his knee. The thumb didn't lie in quite the place he expected.
Silas's eyes went to it.
“Does that still hurt?”
“Yes.”
“All the time?”
“Enough.”
The man leaned a little closer.
“May I look?”
Daniel drew the hand away.
“What for?”
“I'd like to see.”
“You had it. Before me.”
“I had the new thing. Not what followed.”
Daniel knew that was true. The healing, the awkward movement, the skin tightening while he slept. Silas had gone away without waiting for those.
He put the hand back on his knee.
Silas didn't touch at first.
Then he turned his own palm upwards, offering it.
Daniel looked at the palm. The hand on the recorded chest. The one which pulled Leah towards the bank when his couldn't reach her.
He placed the damaged hand in it.
Silas supported it lightly. Nothing pressed against the scar.
He looked for a long time.
Daniel could see the man's lashes, the grey mixed with brown in his hair at the temples, a little nick where he'd shaved badly. Things too human to be useful.
“I didn't know it would heal like that,” Silas said.
“You didn't stay to find out.”
“No.”
“What did you do instead?”
The hand holding his tightened a fraction, then relaxed.
“Went away.”
“Where?”
“Here and there.”
“Enjoyed yourself.”
“Sometimes.”
Daniel tried to move the thumb. It stopped before it should.
Silas watched.
For one irrational moment Daniel expected the hand holding his to make something easier. It was the same body whose wound had closed while his opened. Surely there was another direction in which it could work.
The thumb stayed where it was.
He withdrew the hand.
Silas let him.
“Why did you take it from her?” Daniel asked.
“Because I wanted it.”
“Why?”
The man smiled without amusement.
“You saw it moving.”
“I saw it beside my bed.”
“I know.”
Daniel looked at the water.
He didn't want the answer given on Silas's terms. He wanted an ugly motive which would make every remembered kindness false. Greed might have done. The way the man looked into the distance when he spoke about running was harder to use.
“What was she like?” he asked.
“Iona?”
“Yes.”
Silas thought for a moment.
“Impatient. Funny when you didn't want her to be. She could make you feel that everything you were worried about was a small thing she had already finished with.”
“Sounds familiar.”
The man glanced at him.
“Yes.”
They sat without speaking.
“How old were you?”
“Younger.”
“Thank you.”
“Not much younger than you.”
Daniel looked at him.
“I've had it a long time,” Silas said. “It hasn't stopped anything ordinary happening. My teeth still need looking at. Winter's still cold. If I cut myself opening something, I bleed on it like anyone.”
He unfastened the jacket to show an old mark at the edge of his ribs. Daniel didn't know which hurt had been earned by which body.
“And you found people.”
“Yes.”
“Who agreed.”
“Yes.”
“Did they know?”
“Some did.”
Daniel waited.
“Some didn't know enough.”
“Like me.”
“Yes.”
The answer was too plain to argue with and still gave him no satisfaction.
“Why June?”
Silas turned towards him.
“Because there was a woman in a car.”
“Because you needed someone.”
“Both.”
Daniel looked down at the path.
Silas said, “The last person who carried for me had died. Before I met you.”
“And you were looking.”
“Yes.”
“So you found us.”
“I was on the road. I didn't put the car there.”
“You expect me to believe that.”
“I'd expect you to think about it. Everything else is on your film. That part isn't.”
Daniel remembered the car's first movement, the wheel beneath his hands, his own belief that the road still existed where he was driving. Silas hadn't been in any of it until after he couldn't reach Leah.
The man hadn't needed to cause the accident to make use of it.
Silas leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I went into that water,” he said. “Before I could change. Before there was anything in me which made it easier.”
“I know.”
“It hurt.”
“I know.”
Daniel could remember the blood on the man's cheek. His teeth knocking together while they waited for the ambulance.
“I didn't give you that,” Silas said. “The cold. The cuts. I couldn't.”
“Would you have?”
Silas looked at him.
The question remained between them.
Then he said, “I don't know.”
Daniel believed that answer more than the others.
A woman passed pushing an empty pram. She smiled at both men, then turned to look for the child walking behind her.
The little boy refused to hurry.
Silas watched with an expression Daniel couldn't name.
“Do you have anybody?” Daniel asked.
“People I can call.”
“That's not the same.”
“No.”
“What happened to Iona?”
“She got older. So did I. We had different things to want.”
“And she died.”
“Yes.”
The man pushed a loose stone with the toe of his shoe.
“I used to think taking the wolf would make me less afraid of being alone.”
“Did it?”
“For a night.”
Daniel heard the answer in his own body before he knew why. One night without the hand failing. Without the little shock of being helped when he wanted to be useful. Without watching Leah do something he couldn't do.
He stood.
His thigh pulled sharply.
Silas began to rise.
“Don't.”
The man stayed seated.
Daniel took two steps, waited until the pain stopped increasing and turned back.
In his pocket the phone pressed against his leg. He had kept the recording, yet the man on the bench could still lift a hand and make him think of being held rather than hurt.
There would be another moon. He needed to remember the film before then.
He began walking towards the inn. After a few seconds Silas followed, keeping the space.
At the terrace they stopped.
“Your time,” Silas said.
“Yes.”
The man looked at the kitchen door.
“Was that pear?”
“What?”
“Earlier. The smell.”
“Jonas made them.”
“He's good.”
“Yes.”
“I like ginger.”
Daniel almost offered one.
The habit rose before fear or anger: someone liked a thing they'd made; there were two left inside. A small pleasure to be completed by giving.
He kept his hands at his sides.
Silas saw enough to smile.
“Another day.”
He walked away before Daniel could refuse a day he hadn't offered.
Inside, Jonas was clearing the upstairs room. Ruth counted cups while complaining that somebody had taken two home and would probably pretend it was a misunderstanding.
Daniel put the remaining pastries into a container for Leah.
He added a third from the tray Jonas hadn't shown him.
“Professional courtesy?” Jonas asked from the doorway.
“Personal theft.”
“Approved.”
Daniel smiled.
At the workshop Leah was sitting on a low stool with a catalogue open across her knees. She took the container, smelled it and began eating before asking about Silas.
“How was it?”
Daniel leaned against the bench.
“He was someone's bearer.”
“Before.”
“Yes.”
She looked at his face.
“And?”
“He knows what it is.”
Leah stopped chewing.
“What you feel?”
“Some of it.”
The answer made Daniel want to leave. He stayed because she was there and because the pastry still smelled good.
She offered him the last bite.
He took it.
For a moment the pear and ginger filled his mouth. Heat without pain. Something he could name and then lose as he swallowed.
He wondered how far away he could have smelled it with the other body.