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Years passed. The garden was no longer a secret, not since the second first time the laughter of little children rang through the rose bushes, dressed in pinks and yellows and whites until they looked like they belonged more on the bushes than the dewy roses themselves. Dickon and Martha had led an entire chain of little ones, chubby hands and soft palms and rough fingers clasped one in another in a prim row, all the way from the small cottage across the moor through the flower beds of the estate to the tall wooden door hidden by the ivy. Eight sets of flushed cheeks and upturned noses twitching like rabbits while Colin and Mary showed them around.
The red robin's mate had hatched her chicks, each of them sharply dressed in their own scarlet satin waistcoats as they hopped from tall tree to tree, tittering and chirping in time with the moorland children's laughter. Leaves of every autumnal shade rained down on them, beet red and golden yellow and burnt orange. Thousands of points of green poked out of the ground and covered the tree trunks and it was all they could see even behind closed eyes.
There was no trace left of the spoiled lord of the manor and the imperious, sour-faced little wench. They were as proud as any Yorkshire gardener of the flower beds, telling our old 'Lizabeth Ellen that fairies did indeed press kisses to the irises and crocuses and daffydowndils each night, until the flowers blushed full of colour for they were so in love with the woodland creatures.
The garden had seemed so full those days, Colin could hardly reconcile that time with now. The thought made him scowl, lips curled downwards in an unhappy moue ever since he received Mary's letter. In his childhood, it had been common enough - sitting down to have himself a little sulk. Now it was an indulgence he rarely partook in. For what need did he have of such gloominess when his days were filled with the garden fit to bursting with flowers carefully tended by his own hands. A cousin who breathed life into him afresh every time she challenged him. And Dickon, who scarce needed a reason to kiss that pout off his lips, clearing away the weeds in the garden and in Colin's mind with equal ease and familiarity.
(The doctors were convinced it was the companionship of another lonely child, the affections of a once-distant father and plain, simple laughter that healed the invalid child who grew into a tall and strong young man he was now.
But Colin knew it was more - the bracing wind of the moors and the healthy outdoors, the magic of the garden and hours spent hunched over a patch of mud to make something grow. They all played their parts, healing him better than any doctor from London ever could, medications and liniments and poultices be hanged.
It was Dickon's hand in his, no less a feat of magic than the wind that first rustled the ivy and revealed the hidden door to Mary. They had fallen into a quiet embrace that first time, all those Christmases ago, and Colin knew then, as he knew in the garden - that he would live forever and ever and ever. Dickon's lips were cold against his own, butterfly light, yet Colin had never been more sure of anything than his boyhood conviction in a short life and an early, miserable death.)
He continued to kneel next to the rose bushes and root around the mud, which much too delicate for his harsh gestures. And utterly undeserving of such a punishment too. The poor dirt was hardly to blame for Mary's decision to stay in Guiana rather than take the next ship back home, to Yorkshire, to their garden, to them.
Nor was it to blame for Dickon leaving for the front in a few days. Something he decidedly did not want to think about.
It was nearing the end of summer (yet another thing that would leave him soon), one of the last few balmy days where they could spend long evenings outdoors. Dickon sprawled on the ground as if he was lying on sheepswool, as he usually did. Any other time not so close to his impending departure, Colin would find a comfortable perch atop him, pressed together from shoulder to hip, his head nestled safely over Dickon's breast and their legs tangled loosely in the soft green velvet of grass and earth. They would listen to the sounds around them - the hoot of a tawny owl in the distance, the scratching of field mice scurrying home for the night, the rustle of the apple tree's leaves brushing against each other. Except now, Dickon stood two lengths away from him, watching dormice or voles or some forsaken creature scamper about in the near dark. While Colin dug and dug and dug, until a pebble or twig or some such pricked his fingertip, enacting the earth's own form of revenge.
The usual nocturnal symphony was disrupted with Colin's half-bitten oath, muttered under his breath. He stuck one bleeding finger into his mouth. Out the corner of his eye he saw Dickon knee-walking over to crouch down right behind him. Colin needed no invitation to lean back against the warm chest pressed to the length of his spine (which did not grow a single hateful lump even after all these years). His hand was pulled away and finger carefully examined before Colin willingly let his head be tipped back for Dickon to drop a kiss right between his eyes, eliciting a sigh.
"What will we do with thee, eh? Tha' art miles away."
Mary had once said she thought Dickon was a woodland fairy, and never did Colin see more truth in that statement that when Dickon's laugh echoed around him, low yet clear, wine pouring through a decanter and splashing about, rich and thick. It ought to have made him heat up like a tea kettle, simmering and stirring his insides until it bubbled out of him in an overwhelming surge of pure love.
Instead all the statement did was bring realization rushing back to Colin, and he made to pull away from the affectionate nuzzle against his temple. No, it wouldn't be him who was going to be miles away was it, he thought uncharitably, shrugging his shoulders with a huff. But Dickon wouldn't let him, trapping Colin against him with arms strong as steel bands, lips never giving up the path they traced along the side of Colin' neck.
It was futile. Grumbling, he gave up his escape attempts after one last-ditch effort. Dickon caught his weight when he slumped heavily, enjoying their closeness even before Colin's slim fingers settled over the arms wrapped around his middle. He swayed them as gently as the morning breeze fluttered the honeysuckle blooms, nose buried in Colin's dark, dark hair. Colin closed his eyes.
"Art tha fallin' asleep on me before tellin' us a story? With the giant an' the garden an' the children?" The little Sowerbys had been spell-bound, restless little hands and legs quiet while Colin narrated the story, both a man of science and a preacher with a sermon.
"No." A half-lie. Colin could think of few things better or more conducive to sleep than curling up in Dickon's arms, steady heartbeat beneath his ear. "Maybe. If that'll make you quit moitherin' me."
Hearing the hint of Yorkshire that leaked out whenever Colin was tired or sleepy or distracted always delighted Dickon beyond measure. His chuckle had turned into a full bellied laugh and he couldn't resist the urge to squeeze his beloved closer, hold him tighter, until there was no telling where one ended and the other began.
Grafted together like a pair of oak saplings, as Colin had once explained, pointing out to a picture in one of his senetifik books.
"Beg pardon, Mister Craven," Dickon teased, allowing Colin to cut his words off with a frustrated kiss. Any attempt to deepen it was in vain, Dickon could not stop smiling long enough for that. His amusement persisted as Colin move to tug and push and butt his head against his chest until Dickon eased himself flat to the ground.
Colin was lovely as the moon this way, ivory-pale and glowing, one forearm braced on the ground to hold himself over Dickon, large agate eyes never looking larger than when he affixed such an intense look at him. Almost as if he was trying to commit every detail to memory.
A feeling Dickon understood only too well.
He met Colin's gaze, hoping to convey all he meant without breaking the still of the evening. As sure as the summer would return year after year, so would everything else come back - the robin, Mary, Dickon. The childish scrawl printed on the back of a packet of flowering seeds. (I will cum bak.)
Perhaps it was the same magic that allowed Dickon to speak to fox cubs and birds and little green things in their garden that allowed Colin to hear the wordless promise. "Aye, that you mun," he murmured. "All creatures here below mun return some day."
Satisfied with his own declaration, Colin ducked his head to dust kisses on every one of Dickon's freckles, the same sort of kisses Dickon was wont to employ to distract him with, when he was lost in his books. Unlike Colin, who half-squirmed at the ticklish feeling and was bound to smack Dickon lightly on the chest to get him to focus, Dickon let the sensations of a hundred thousand kisses wash over him. Waiting patiently for Colin to finally, finally slot their mouths together before Dickon curled a hand around the back of his neck and drew him in closer, slip his tongue between parted lips, convinced he could spend forever this way, and more.
The hand that wasn't engaged in holding him up slid to rest over Dickon's heart, the beat thumping against Colin's palm in a steady rhythm. Their faces were pressed so close together Colin was certain their eyelashes brushed together, copper and ebony. He drank in Dickon's smile with the thirst of a marooned man, the smile spilling every unspoken word of comfort and joy and reassurance and love Dickon held in his big heart.
It could have been ten years before they came back to each other. Dickon was the one to break away first, blinking his eyes open and his smile, small yet full, matched the one Colin wore on his own face. The back of his hand traced a gentle path on Colin's cheek, that Colin couldn't help but lean into, eyes sliding shut to revel in it.
"It will be daylight soon." Dickon's voice was little more than a whisper. "We munnot stop now."
The nudge to his shoulder, a wordless request, was all Colin needed. He maneuvered himself around, cradled against Dickon's side, who was good-natured enough to allow Colin to manipulate his hand, pointer finger aimed at the stars as he charted out some imaginary lines.
"Those ones there, you see?" Remembering what he read in the book Mary gifted him for his last birthday, Colin repeated the names. "Deneb, Vega, Altair. The summer triangle. Do you see it?"
Countless times he had shown Dickon the same wonders in the sky, and each time Dickon's voice was filled with wonder, as it always did when Colin had the rare and coveted chance to be the teacher. "Aye, I see it. That'll be us."
"Yes. You, me, and Mary."
For thousands of years the stars had orbited around each other. Even apart from each other, all they needed to do was look up to the sky. A reminder of how the three of them were bound to each other, forming a timeless constellation.
All Colin had to do was wait for his other two stars to come back.
Dickon tugged their joined hands to drop yet another kiss to Colin's knuckles, silently urging him to continue their stargazing lesson. Armed with a child's conviction that they would find each other once again, Colin turned back to the stars.
Somewhere in the distance a cricket chirped, showing its own mate the starry sky shared by all creatures alike.