Birdhouses, Cake, and Returning the Favor (1/2)

A few days passed, but Rowan hadn't used the name again. Now that he'd whispered it in the dark, it stretched between them like a tether.

Strangely, he felt like he'd done something right and something wrong at the same time, despite his reluctance to say it out loud under the light of the sun where he couldn't pretend not to see the young man's reaction.

Rowan had decided not to press the young man with questions, instead seeing if the peace of the garden could work a healing magic beyond what Rowan could do with his own voice and hands. Connecting physically with the dirt and plants always soothed his own soul, so he gave his ward task after task. Every time, the other quietly obliged.

Rowan charged him with digging a new bed for his lavender, then his roses, then for a plot of flowers that didn't even exist. He continued to sing as they worked side by side with their hands in the earth.

"Let's plant nothing but daisies here. I'll make them in every color." Rowan wiped his forehead with the back of his dirt-covered hand.

It had gotten too easy for him to forget that the Caretaker was supposed to work alone.

"Why daisies?" The young man's voice was gentle. His eyes crinkled as they followed the movement of Rowan's hand.

"My sisters loved daisies. They used to force me to wear the crowns they made from the ones that grew by our house."

A pang of sadness gripped his heart. He really needed to stop saying things that should remain unspoken, but he couldn't seem to resist answering his ward's questions with the truth, especially when he used that voice.

"They stopped making you crowns?"

"They died. They were killed by a creature of Disorder. My mother, too."

The young man tilted his head. "You brought me back. Couldn't you bring them back, too?"

"No. I was too young. I only became the Caretaker much later."

"Once you'd joined the Order that hates you?"

Rowan wiped his forehead again. He didn't want to talk about the Order. Or about his sisters' souls. He was beginning to think Ciprian would never hand them over.

The young man smiled. "Don't look so upset. I'm not going to consider you one of them."

"I'm not upset." Rowan bristled, annoyed with himself for sounding upset even though he claimed not to be. "But I have taken vows. I exist to serve the Order. Whether they hate me or not."

One corner of the young man's mouth lifted a little higher. He nodded indulgently. "You need to recognize your own illusion before you are trapped forever. I could be persuaded to help with that…once I'm certain you are real, of course."

Rowan pressed his lips together. An uncomfortable feeling rose in his chest at the mention of the word illusion.

"Go ahead. I know you want to ask me something."

"No. I don't. Not today."

The young man reached out towards Rowan's forehead. "You've rubbed dirt all over your face. I'd prefer to see your freckles. They change when you've absorbed death, don't they? They were dark before, and now they aren't. I like them either way."

Rowan scooted out of reach. His face was suddenly hot. "What are you doing? You can't touch me. I've told you—"

The man waved his hand. "Illusion."

"It's not an illusion." Rowan's shoulders tensed. "I'm not going to be responsible for…for damaging my ward. I am unclean."

"Wren."

"What?"

"You told me you would call me Wren, yet you refuse to do so. Am I now only your ward?"

Rowan rubbed at the dirt on his forehead with his other hand, realizing he was most likely only making it worse. "Oh…I thought I might have offended you. I wasn't sure you liked it."

The young man held Rowan's eyes with his own. "I like it."

"Ok. Wren it is. If you remember something different, I'm sure you will tell me." Rowan stood and tugged at his sleeves. "But…you don't need to tell me today. I just want you to focus on staying here, in reality. You seem better. Do you still feel the shadows pulling on you?"

Wren shrugged. "Not any more than usual. Stop trying to hide your skin."

"My freckles…show my impurities." No one would actually want to see them. He didn't believe Wren's claim that he liked them.

"As I said, illusion. Lies. Call it what you will."

With the work in the garden done, the man disappeared on his own to the shed to drag out every scrap of wood and all of Rowan's tools. Rowan watched from his doorway as Wren started making what appeared to be a birdhouse.

Rowan wasn't sure what to make of the scene before him. The Prince of Illusions would never build a birdhouse. But apparently this person Rowan sang to life would.

Wren seemed content to work alone on his unexpected project, so Rowan decided to let him be. After a while, he thought it would be a good time to try yet again to get Wren to eat. It was the same thing every day, three times a day. Rowan made food. Wren took a bite or two and ignored the rest. Every night he lay on the floor by Rowan's bed, sleeping on an empty stomach.

As Rowan watched him hammering away happily at the birdhouse, his frustration built until he was ready to forget the uncleanliness he'd just panicked about so he could hold Wren down and force feed him. He couldn't call himself the Caretaker anymore if the person in his care died of starvation while his rebirth into this world dangled on a thread.

Just when Rowan began to consider making just such a threat, he remembered the cinnamon cake that he'd found by the bridge. He'd been so preoccupied, he'd forgotten about its existence as soon as he set it on his counter to be lost behind canisters of lentils and bags of potatoes.

"Here. If you won't eat my cooking, maybe you can humor me and try this. I can't bear the thought of you wasting away out here while you work from sun up to sun down." Rowan shoved a plate with a slice of cake on it at Wren.

"Truly? You can't bear it?" Wren took the plate and stared at it.

"No, I can't. And you don't have to build that," Rowan said. "You can rest if you like."

"It's nothing."

"Tell me, how do you know how to make something like this?"

"I know how to make many things." Wren shrugged. "This is just something real. Sometimes I like to make real things so that I remember where I am."

"Oh?"

Wren picked at the cake with his fingers, but still didn't take a bite. "I'm almost certain this place is real. I just want to enjoy it while I can."

Rowan said the well-worn words. "I promise it's real. You are real. I am real. Why won't you eat?"

"Promises can be the biggest illusions of all. If this is illusion, it's pointless. I can go for a long time without food there. And if I eat and this place is real, you aren't going to want me to stay here." Wren's eyes drifted up to Rowan's face. His expression was unreadable. "Maybe I don't want confirmation that it's real."

Rowan didn't want to think about what Wren meant. Or about how he knew things about the Order, or how to cast a magical spell on the bridge, or disintegrate creatures with only a movement of his finger. Not yet. Planting flowers and building birdhouses were safe to think about. Not those other things.

It had only been a short time, but he realized he liked the intrusion of this person on his solitary existence. It felt good to have someone to help who wasn't disgusted by it. Selfishly, he wasn't ready for things to change.

"We don't have to talk about that now. Right now, I just want my little Wren to strengthen his new body. Eat the cake."

"Little?" Wren's lips twitched. "As Master Caretaker wishes."

Rowan's cheeks burned. Since when did he grow so comfortable bossing someone around. He could tell Wren was only humoring him, but he also clearly seemed amused. That was much better than lost. "I'm sorry. Sometimes you only respond when I order you about."

"I don't mind. You didn't let me die. I will allow it. I think you and I are very much alike. That's why I'm having a hard time believing you are real. I find this all very…pleasurable. But I suppose it has to end eventually." He took a bite of the cake, chewing slowly as he stared at the plate. His brows crinkled as he took another bite.

Rowan held his breath so he wouldn't break the spell, watching as Wren finished the entire piece.

He spoke as he shoved the last bite in his mouth. "What is this?"

"I told you. Isn't it cinnamon cake?"

"It's sweet."

"It's cake."

"I've never had cake before." Wren picked a crumb from the plate and ate that, too.

Rowan couldn't be hearing that correctly. "You've never had cake? You mean you've never had this kind of cake…"

Wren shook his head and a strand of black hair escaped from behind his ear to brush against his jaw. "I've never had any cake. I was never allowed, and then I was…busy.

Busy doing what, exactly? Another thing Rowan didn't want to wonder about. "Would you like another piece."

Wren nodded and held out the plate.

Rowan ended up bringing the entire cake outside, pre-sliced, and left it for Wren to have while he worked on a second birdhouse. A sense of satisfaction filled Rowan's chest. This certainly could be considered progress. Maybe he wasn't such a miserable Caretaker after all. Wren didn't even follow when Rowan went to tend to the souls in the garden.