Hemlock Veils

“Don’t they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”

“Ah, back to ‘perspective is reality.’”

She faltered at his words, since the perspective vs. reality talk had been between her and the beast. He didn’t seem to notice his mishap and she quickly recovered. “You disagree?”

They paused and he gazed into her eyes a few seconds before looking away, squinting against a shard of sunlight. It was moments like that, with his eyes pulling magnetically to hers, she found herself desperate to open him up. “I think things that are truly beautiful are beautiful to everyone.”

She gave a short laugh and kept walking. He got back into stride with her.

“What do you find so unbelievable about that?”

“Everything. I don’t think a statement has ever been more false.”

He lifted a brow as though amused at her challenge.

“We’re all different, Mr. Clayton. Every one of us has different opinions and outlooks, and different ways we feel life. It’s all a matter of what we know and what we’ve experienced, and our outlooks are what make certain things beautiful or ugly to us. Take the dandelion for example.” She bent, picking one from a yellow patch near her feet. She stood and studied it, twirling it between her fingers—the blossom straggly and rigid but bright and hopeful. “To most it’s just a weed. Obnoxious, destroying, ugly. But to the honeybee…” She gave it a light sniff.

“I…see. And though I disagree, you’re right about one thing: every one of us has opinions, and yours and mine couldn’t be more dissimilar.”

She smiled. “You are right about that.”

They reached another unruly rose bush, every bud red like the others. She stopped before it, ru

He had survived, and she wanted to say that. But instead, she let the sadness she felt for him swell inside her chest, adding it to her many complicating feelings. “And they’re all red,” she said. “Her favorite color.”

He looked at her as though she’d yanked him from a deep thought. “And yours?”

After a moment of speechlessness, she managed, “I…don’t really have one, I guess. I find it depends on the time in my life.”

“Lately?”

She looked above her. “Lately, green.”

He nodded in agreement, and his smile seemed involuntary as they left the roses. The pathway turned, rounding behind overgrown ferns, and her focus drifted again to his ink.

“Didn’t your mother teach you it was impolite to stare?”

Her eyes shot to his, and a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Clayton. I don’t mean to, it’s just…there are too many details to pick up in one glance.” He appeared uncomfortable, and her heart sank. “The tattoo, I meant.”

He scratched his head, and she would have bet he was wishing for a shirt. “If you must know, it was a mistake. It has no significance, other than I saw the monster for the first time as a boy, and…I guess I couldn’t forget it. Just one of those things you do when you’re young and trying to live in the moment.”

The way he tried so hard to convince her was amusing. “Ah, one of those.”

“But I bet you don’t have any of those, do you?”

“I’ve made mistakes, Mr. Clayton. Many. Just not…in the form of ink.”

“Tell me one.”

She looked at him.

“I did tell you one of mine, after all.”

“Are we actually sharing juicy secrets here?”

He looked ahead, put in his place.

“Remember,” she went on. “It wasn’t me who was opposed to them.”

“Fine. Then tell me.”

She swallowed. “Tell you what?”

Stopping, they stood closely, her neck craned to him. “What it is you were ru

She looked down, scrunching her brow. “Mr. Clayton, I…can’t.”

“I thought you didn’t concern yourself with the judgment of others?”

It was clear he’d overheard her and Arne’s conversation on her porch the day she moved in, and the realization left her cheeks warm. “In others, I don’t.” She met his eyes. “In you…I do.”

He appeared lighter then, his shoulders low and brow relaxed. His mouth fell open ever so slightly as he stared into her eyes, and he even seemed to gravitate closer. And something new stirred between them. In the begi

“Sorry it took me so long,” Arne said from behind, making her inhale as though she’d been holding her breath. Perhaps she had been.

Henry lightly cleared his throat and took a step back. No longer in the trees, they were now in the lowering sunlight, only about twenty paces to the back door. The realization that she just now noticed this was staggering. And the reality that Henry could be such a distraction made her chest burn again, just from the thought of it. Arne handed her a full glass of iced tea, the rim topped with a lemon slice. He handed the other to Henry, as well as a shirt Henry didn’t put on.

Neither of them drank and Henry looked at the falling sun.

“So, Elizabeth, what do you think?” Arne asked with a smile of anticipation.

“The tea?”

He chuckled. “No, dear. The gardens.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes momentarily, attempting to align her thoughts. Trying not to dwell on how it felt to get lost in Henry’s eyes, in that heat. “It’s absolutely breathtaking.”

“I knew you would like it.”

Henry glanced at the sun again, fidgeting. “Arne, I hate to waste the tea you slaved over, but we really should get inside. It’s…getting late.”

“I should get going, too.” She handed her full glass to Arne. “I’m so sorry. Can we take a rain check on the tea?”

“Do you have another engagement, Elizabeth?”

“Don’t mind him,” Henry said.

“Yes, something like that,” she answered, anxious for the night. “Thank you for being kind enough to show me around, Mr. Clayton.”

He nodded and she turned away, storing his image in her mind. “The tools, Ms. Ashton,” he said. She turned back. “Take them.”

“No, you keep them.”

“You may need them again, given the condition of your home.”

“If I do, then…I’ll just have to come back for them, won’t I?”

He seemed to be taken by that same speechlessness again, and with his eyes locked on hers, he nodded. When she turned, walking the trail that would lead her from the gardens, she smiled to herself, especially when he said from behind, “Goodbye, Ms. Ashton.”

***

Henry slowed his pace out of his gate, his feet unhurried. He didn’t want to be too obvious, but at this point he was sure Elizabeth knew his intentions: that he pla

But the infatuation…it elated him above rational thoughts.

The morning air was dense with fog, the atmosphere gray and moist, and when Elizabeth appeared through it, at the end of her walkway, his heart jolted inside his chest. He still wasn’t used to the sensation, and it froze him in place. Her hair was up again, in a twist at the back of her neck, and she smiled. He returned it, unable to help himself. She was tired, he could see, but she appeared happy. Happier than he’d ever seen her, in fact. She glowed from the inside out, joy oozing from her eyes and exquisite smile. Could it be due to their late night again last night? Was it possible she received as much enjoyment out of their midnight walks as he did? She’d been waiting for him at her porch again when the sun had fallen and her smile had been just as exuberant then as it was now. He didn’t understand it.