The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story by Theodora Goss Page A

father’s life. There were only scraps, receipts for books his father had bought, bills he must have been intending to pay, grocery lists. In one corner was a photograph of his mother on top of a stack of letters she’d written, probably sent before they were married. He would look at those, but not now. On top of what looked like a sales ledger was another letter, with a note scribbled in pencil:
Forward to Brendan
. It was from Evelyn.
    He felt a sudden sense of vertigo, as though he were looking down from a great height. How could she have sent this to him? How could it have gotten into the desk? But the postmark—it had been mailed years ago, a month before his father had died. Carefully, he opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of heavy cream-colored paper with
ERM
monogrammed on the top. On it she had written, not very neatly:
    Dear Brendan
,
    I’m so, so sorry about what happened that day. I saw something
—
I never told you, but sometimes I see things. A hundred years ago, they would have called it second sight. I’ll tell you about it if you want me to, although I don’t like to talk about it much. Can you forgive me? If so, please write back. I’d really like to hear from you
.
    Love, Evelyn
               
    His hand was trembling. What did it mean, this letter from the past? It felt as though she were speaking to him across the years. But of course she wasn’t, really. This was the letter she had mentioned sending, and it was only a coincidence that he was just finding it now. He wondered what she was referring to, what she meant by “seeing things.” But the letter had nothing to do with what had happened in Virginia. That had been about Isabel, about not telling Evelyn when he should have. About concealing the truth from the woman he loved and wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He set it down again.
    The drawer held a couple pens that looked as though they might still work, but nothing to write on. He would have to go into town to buy some paper. On his way out, he tidied up, washing the dishes in the sink and drying them with a tea towel, deliberately not thinking about the letter. Concentrate on the book he wanted to write. Yes, that was what he would do.
    As he walked into town, he realized that it felt good, having something to work on again.
    W hen the first draft was finished, he bought a secondhand laptop at the computer store. Every night, after a long day out in the boat, he would sit at the kitchen table typing, trying to tell the story the way his father had told it to him. Trying to make it a story that children would want to read.
    And then Magill and Magog roared with fury, until the clouds shook. But Elowen raised her hand and cast the strongest spell she knew. “Be stone!” she cried, and the giants turned gray and hard. She had transformed them into stone. Gawan swung his sword and struck their heads off. Those heads rolled down the hillside, and you can still see them if you go to Cornwall, gray stones that look like giants’ heads
.
    Then Gawan turned and saw Elowen lying on the ground. He knelt beside her, raised her head, and said, “Why do you lie here, my love?”
    “The spell was too strong for me,” she said. “I’m dying, Gawan. But I shall see you again. In another life, we shall be together, although we cannot be in this one.”
    “That you shall not!” cried Morva. “Not for a thousand years. You have killed my father and brother, and so I curse you, queen of Cornwall. You shall not be with your beloved until a thousand years have passed.” She cast her own spell and then clapped her hands, disappearing in flame and smoke
.
    Yes, that was it. That was the voice, the pacing he was looking for.
    The day he finished the manuscript, he celebrated with a glass of his father’s Glenlivet. Tomorrow he would go into town, e-mailit to Peter Cargill at Arundell Press. He knew they published a line of children’s books, and Peter might help him