“Let’s get out of here. There was no time to braid her hair, as she was expected back for Mayor’s Tea, but Maria tied it back for her and off she had gone to the house she would shortly be leaving forever. Perhaps just a beer or two in the open air would be enough, but the thought of a girl wouldn’t quite leave his head. Roland was far from the relentless creature he would eventually become, but the seeds of that relentlessness were there—small, stony things that would, in their time, grow into trees with deep roots .
”He tried other ways into her memory with no success—every path he tried ended in that bright pinkness, first obscuring her recollection and then coalescing into a full moon. “Wash it off if ye like, but I think ye’ll wear it in yer heart yet awhile. That old saying made him think of the scarred and bowlegged man who had been his life’s greatest teacher, and he smiled. “YES,” Blaine said at last.
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