Unbound

“Enough!” Matalina called out in a mock anger, her feet in a shaft of light, a dusting rag in her hands, and a flush to her cheeks. “Leave your papa alone. There’s the girls’ things to be moved if you need something to do.”

“Sorry, Papa!” Jack said cheerfully, dropping his corner to make the chair thump. Jenks’s feet flew up, and his wing bent back under him. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Dust a little,” Jaul said, tangling his wings with Jack’s, and Jack dusted heavily, shifting as he pushed him away. “The fairies will think you’re dead,” he finished, sneezing.

“Come and carry you away,” Jumoke added, his wings lower in pitch than everyone else’s. It made him different, along with his dusky coloring, and Jenks worried, not liking how Vincet had looked at him as if he were ill or deformed.

Jake just grinned, his wings glittering as he hovered in the background. Apart from Jumoke, they were the eldest in the garden now, as fresh-faced and innocent as they should be, strong and able to use a sword to kill an intruder twice their size. He loved them, but it was likely this would be the last spring they’d help the family move. Jack, especially, would probably find wanderlust on him this fall and leave.

“Go do what your mother said,” he grumped, grabbing four sweetballs from the bowl beside him and throwing them to each boy in turn. “And keep your sugar level up! You’re no good to me laid flat out in a field.”

“Thanks, Papa!” they chorused, cheeks bulging. It kept them quiet, too.

Matalina came closer, smiling fondly as she shooed them out. “Go on. After the girls’ room, find the big pots and fill them. Check for cracks. I’m soaking spider sacks tomorrow for the silk. They’ve been in the cool room all winter. If we’re not careful, we’re going to have a hatching. I’m not going to make your clothes out of moonbeams, you know.”

“Naked in the garden is okay with me,” Jumoke mumbled, and Matalina swatted him.

“Out!”

“Remember what happened the last year?” Jaul said, his words muffled from the sweetball as they headed for opening.

“Webs everywhere!” Jack said, laughing.

“Yeah, well you’re the one that moved the sacks into the sun,” Jumoke said, and they were gone, the dust from them settling in a glowing puddle to slowly fade.

“How else was I going to win the bet as to when they were going to hatch?” came faintly from outside the desk, and Jenks chuckled. It had been an unholy mess.

Slowly their voices vanished, and Jenks watched Matalina’s expression, gauging her mood as she smiled. Wings stilling, she walked across the varnished oak wood to settle next to him, their wings tangling as she snuggled in against him. Slowly their mingling dust shifted to the same contented gold.

“I can’t wait to get back into the garden,” she said, gazing at the pile of laundry across the room. “I’ll admit I don’t like moving day, but I’ll not set myself to sleep like that again with the fear of guessing who might not wake up with me in the spring.” Reaching to the bowl, she deftly twisted a sweetball into two parts and handed him half. “You’re quiet. What’s got your updraft cold this morning?”

“Nothing.” Setting his half of the sweet back in the bowl, he draped his arm over her shoulder, moving his thumb gently against her arm. Remembering the smell of the newlings, he dropped his gaze to her flat belly, not swelling with life for more than a year now. His wish for sterility might have extended her life—but had it also made her last years empty?

Setting her sweetball aside as well, Matalina shifted from him, pulling out of his reach to sit facing him. “Is it the pixy that you and Bis went into Cincinnati to help? I’m proud of you for that. The children enjoy watching the garden when you’re gone. They feel important, and they’ll be all the more prepared when they’ve a garden of their own.”

A garden of their own, he thought. His children were leaving. Vincet’s children were so young. His entire adult life was before him. “Mattie, do you ever wish for newlings?” he asked.

Her eyes fell from his, and her breath seemed to catch as she stared at the piles of clothes.

Fear struck Jenks at her silence, and he sat up to take her hands in his. “Tink’s tears. I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I thought you didn’t want any more. You said…We talked about it…”

Smiling to look even more beautiful, Matalina placed a fingertip to his lips. “Hush,” she breathed, leaning her head forward to touch his as her finger dropped away. “Jenks, love, of course I miss newlings. Every time Jrixibell or any of the last children do something for the first time, I think that I’ll never see the joy of that discovery on another child’s face, but I don’t want any more children who won’t survive a day after me.”

Worried, he shifted closer, his hands tightening on hers. “Mattie, about that,” he started, but she shook her head, and the dust falling from her took on a red tinge.