The Smell of Dirt
The prairie wind whipped past Annie, tossing her skirts and knotting her frazzled curls, carrying the scents of broken dirt, dried brome, and spell work; of home and hard work. The smell of comfort.
Her heart bucked against it.
She shoved her hair back again to watch him, tight jawed, fingers tingling with the urge to do the spell herself.
Bo didn’t look at her as he paused his digging, but let loose a sigh lasting a full two seconds. “What?”
“You’re digging too deep.” Annie scowled at his hole, three feet wide, stalks of grass tipping in as he pushed rashly downward.
The smell of dirt rushed past her, stronger, mingled with the heady scent of his sweat, carried on the rapidly cooling wind, the sky streaked with gold and orange, purple clouds clumping together. She pushed the memories of working beside him away. That was a long time ago.
“A carrying spell,” he went on, ignorant of her thoughts yet again, “requires a meter wide circle and-”
“Meter?” Annie snorted, twisting her arms tighter across her middle.
“Yes, a meter.” Bo scowled up at her from his hole, the six-inch depression of earth giving her seven on him. He’d always said he never cared that she was taller, she never used to care. He waved at his hole. “It’s the metric system, Annie. A far more exact method of measurement than the backwoods standard-”
“I know what the metric system is,” she snapped. “But dividing by one hundred doesn’t do anybody any good in the ‘backwoods’! You’re going too deep. The land veins are too strong around here; they’ll run away with you.”
His mouth snapped shut, something she couldn’t read flickering through his blue eyes. She wished she could take it back. Her biting tone. The critical remarks. The last two days with him. The message she had sent, asking him to come home.
“But you’re good at running away.” The words came out without thinking. She immediately regretted them. And yet, she didn’t.
Bo’s hands slowly rose, shaking, his tie flapping in a gust, bafflement and rage contorting his face.
“What do you even want from me, Annie?” he yelled, the wind shoving his words in her face. He jammed the shovel into the ground. She spun, but he countered, hoping out the hole and stomping in front of her, the scent of him covered in dirt scrubbing at the inside of her nose, strong and cutting, too many memories tied to it.
“What do you want, Annie! I travel halfway around the world after getting a fuzzy message through a looking pool, rushing home, and now you won’t even talk to me except for snark and criticism! Where is the girl I knew? The one who was sweet and funny and laughed and-”
“You left her!” she screamed, hot tears pooling in her eyes that she refused to let spill, her skirt snapping in the wind. “You filled her head with dreams and promises, and then you left! Six months, you said. Then a letter said eight, ramblin’ ‘bout all the things you were learning at your fancy school. The next letter said a year.” One traitorous tear broke loose. “Then, they stopped all together.”
Bo stared, still as stone, storm winds and the tang of magic whipping around them.
“I… I never asked you to wait.” His words were soft, steeped in regret and pain, but they still cut into her all the same.
More heinous tears followed the first. Thunder rumbled, low and heavy.
“You honestly thought I wouldn’t?”