I couldn’t have stopped the tears flowing down my cheeks if I tried. Maybe I was crazy but I believed every word he said. I believed he could pull Mallory back from a fate she didn’t deserve and give her back her future.
I believed that, for the first time in my life, I was really in love.
MALLORY
“Mrs. Grant.” The voice floated toward Mallory from somewhere near the ceiling. “Mallory. Wake up. We need to run a few tests.”
Mallory had been drifting between sleep and wakefulness. Each time she awoke, she felt more like herself. The pain had dwindled to almost nothing and a deep sense of gratitude had taken its place.
“I’m fine,” she managed, pushing herself up on her elbows. “I just want to see my daughter.”
“You may very well be fine,” the technician attached to the voice said, “but until we run some tests, we can’t confirm it.”
“He said I was fine,” Mallory persisted.
“Who told you that you were fine?”
“The man who came in here.” She searched for a name but came up blank. “He was a doctor, I think. There was a woman with him.”
The technician laughed. “You were dreaming,” she said. “Nothing wrong with that.”
Mallory knew she hadn’t been dreaming, but she let it go. “I still want to see my daughter.”
“After we run the tests, you can see your daughter.”
“If I don’t see my daughter, I’m going to check myself out of here.”
That did it.
Two minutes later, a sleepy Ava was curled up on the narrow bed next to Mallory.
“Look at those pajamas!” Mallory exclaimed. “Where did they come from?”
“The nurse gave them to me,” Ava said around a yawn. “Pink is my favorite color.”
Everybody knew Ava’s favorite color was pink. “I’ve never seen pink elephants before.”
“The nurse said they were special.” Ava yawned again. “My sticker is gone,” she said, looking at the inside of her wrist. “It was pretty.”
“You had a sticker?”
“You had one too,” Ava said, her eyes drooping, “but now it’s gone.” Another gigantic yawn. “I’m sleepy.”
“Close your eyes,” Mallory said, pulling the light cover up over her daughter’s shoulders. “I’m here with you.”
And I always will be.
Chapter 18
CHLOE
“My in-laws are a half hour away,” Mallory said as she put down her cell phone. “Ava will be so excited.”
“The doctors are going to release you?” I asked, sipping my cup of dusty hospital tea.
Mallory grinned at me over her glass of orange juice. “They wanted me to stay one more night but that’s not going to happen.”
“It might not be a bad idea.”
“I’m fine, Chloe. Trust me. That doctor was positive.”
“You mean Dr. Schulman?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Dr. Schulman is a woman.”
“I know. I’m talking about the doctor who came to see me in my room earlier.”
“A tall, great-looking guy?”
“I didn’t notice. I was still pretty woozy.” She thought for a moment. “The woman with him seemed familiar.”
I nodded. The puzzle pieces were beginning to fall into place.
“What exactly did he do?”
“That’s the funny thing. I’m not sure he did anything but I started to feel better the moment he took my hands.”
I took a quick look at the inside of her right wrist. The red circle that had been present on her wrist, as well as Ava’s and Laria’s, was gone. I knew from the Book of Spells that the protective charms used by old magicks back in the day were tattooed to the inner wrist of the recipient.
I was sure we had both Rohesia and Gavan to thank for the happy ending. What could have been a tragedy had turned out to be a celebration.
Laria and Ava were happily playing in the corner of the room. The nurses had been unbelievably kind to us, providing the girls with toys and food and a DVD player that played Frozen over and over until Mallory and I thought we were going to go crazy. But it was a good crazy. Luke would be here any moment. Ava and Mallory would be with their family again. And I guessed Gavan and Wendy would catch up with me once I was away from the hospital.
I was about to take a bite of cold pancake when Mallory looked up from her french toast.
“Do you believe in magic?”
Uh-oh.
“Magic?” I asked.
“Well, maybe not magic exactly,” she qualified. “If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”
“Depends on what you tell me,” I said with what I hoped was a casual chuckle.
“I don’t think he was really a doctor.” She lowered her voice. “In fact, I think the woman he was with works at your shop.”
Okay. Now we were definitely venturing into dangerous territory.
“That’s my cousin Wendy,” I explained in a matter-of-fact voice. “She drove Ava to the hospital.”
Mallory’s eyes widened and I realized my mistake. “Who drove me to the hospital?”
“I did.” It was only a partial lie. Gavan and I got her here but it definitely wasn’t by car.
“I don’t remember that.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Mallory. You were in and out of consciousness. Things are bound to get confused.”
“But it seemed so real,” she said. “He took my hands and told me I was having a boy.”
“Are you?”
She shrugged. “Still too soon to know.”
“I think you were dreaming,” I said. “Your imagination pulled in all sorts of images and conversations and created a storyline.”
“I guess,” she said, not sounding at all convinced.
We polished off the rest of the hospital breakfast and I had just started to stack the plates and dishes on a tray when we heard the sound of footsteps rushing along the corridor and a tall, handsome couple burst into the room.
Ava shrieked with delight and threw herself at her grandparents. “Grammy! Gramps!” she shouted, tackling them around the knees. “Mommy said you were coming!”
Mallory was so happy that she started to cry, which (of course) got me started crying too. Laria woke up from her post-nursing nap and decided to join in the fun.
I doubt if anyone but Ava noticed when I scooped up Laria and eased toward the door. The two little girls exchanged last looks and I wondered if I would ever really understand the bond that had formed between them.
Laria fussed all the way down to the main floor. The elevator shimmied into position and I stepped into the sun-filled lobby. Why is it that the day after a major storm is always heartbreakingly beautiful? One of the many mysteries of life.
The other mystery was how Laria and I were going to get home.
“Need a lift?” asked a familiar voice.
I turned slowly and met Janice’s eyes. Her timing had always been terrific. “Are you offering one?”
“That and an apology or two,” she said. “Liam has something to say to you.”
I hadn’t noticed her son standing off to her left.
Wendy and Gavan had been right. The younger Sugar Maples had been engaged in a hormonally-charged teenage turf war.
“They came in and took over everything,” Liam said, sounding righteously outraged. “The cave’s our place. It goes back to when it was part of Sinzibukwud. They can find somewhere else to hook up.”
I exchanged glances with Janice. “Did you ever use the cave to--?”
Janice shook her head. “Did you?”
“Have we met? I didn’t date until I was almost twenty-one.” Tall, skinny, and socially inept was not a recipe for dating success.
“We were trying to scare your cousin,” Liam continued. “We didn’t want to hurt her. We figured she would tell the big guy and maybe we could drive them out.”
“You could have killed two innocent people, Liam,” I said. “Do you realize that?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really sorry. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to see if they were okay.”
“No thanks to you and your friends,” I said, still not quite ready to let him off the hook. “It was Rohesia who gave them shelter and kept them safe until we found them.”
“Seriously?” Janice asked, eyebrows raised.
I nodded. “Seriously.”
“I guess I got that one wrong,” she said.
“I guess we all did.”
Laria woke up from her after-breakfast nap and beamed a great smile at all of us. She reached out her arms to Liam and I only hesitated a moment before I handed her to him. His mother’s eyes filled with tears. (So did Liam’s but we pretended we didn’t notice.) My daughter definitely loved the boys.
“You were right about one thing,” I said to Janice as we walked along the shoveled path to the parking lot. “I have changed.”
Janice nodded, glancing over at me. “You’re a mom now,” she said. “That changes a woman.”
I patted my belly and rolled my eyes. “Tell me about it.”
“There’s that,” she said as we approached her car, “but that’s not what I meant.” She pulled in a shaky breath. “I know how selfish this sounds, but for thirty years we were everything to you. We were your family.” She stopped for a moment and regrouped. “Now you have your own powers. You have a daughter and a family of your own and –“ She shrugged. “We miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” First-time motherhood was a deep dive into family life. Juggling the baby, a husband, the knit shop, and my position as Sugar Maple’s de facto mayor left little time for the friendships that had sustained me all my life. “I’m going to do better.”
“You’re doing fine,” Janice said as I slid into the passenger seat. “Maybe Lynette and I need to make a few adjustments, too.”
“I’m going to look into what’s been happening between us and Rohesia’s clan.” I glanced over my shoulder at Liam who was strapping Laria into one of Janice’s old car seats. “I could use your help, Liam, when I do.”
His face turned bright red and he nodded. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. At least, I hoped not.
“Thank you,” Janice said quietly as she headed out of the parking lot.
“I hear he comes from a good family.”
The sun was high in the sky when Janice stopped at the foot of my driveway where I’d left the Buick.
“I assume there’s a car under there somewhere,” she said, flashing me her trademark wicked grin. “Need some help shoveling out? I have a son who could use the practice.”
I had to hand it to Liam. He didn’t so much as utter a whimper of protest.
“Mother Nature put it there,” I said. “I’ll let Mother Nature get it out.”
Full sun. Temps in the high fifties. It would take no time at all. Besides, who was I kidding? I probably wouldn’t drive again until spring.
Liam released Laria from the car seat. She fussed a little when he handed her over to me but settled happily against my shoulder.
“When do you expect Luke?” Janice asked as we said goodbye.
“Any time,” I said, aware of the big smile spreading across my face.
“Enjoy,” she said, gunning the engine. “Honeymoons don’t last very long.”
Maybe not, I thought as Laria and I waved goodbye, but I was glad true friendships did.
Luke and I were lying in bed with the curtains opened wide to the night. Moonlight spilled across the snow, throwing shadows along the walls of our bedroom.
Across the hall, our daughter slept soundly under the watchful eye of Elspeth, her troll-warrior nanny.
The cats were curled up on the window seat, nestled deep in the folds of the granny afghan I had crocheted when I was eight years old.
We were warm and safe and together and for a moment I believed we would stay that way forever. That’s one of the things love did to you. Love softened the rough edges of life. It cushioned the blows. It made you believe dreams really could come true.
And maybe they did. Mallory had texted me a few hours ago to let me know that her husband Josh had been granted humanitarian leave and would be joining her and Ava within the next few days. I was over the moon with pleasure that I had played even a very small part in the outcome.
“You know what this is all about, don’t you?” Luke asked as we savored the afterglow.
I whispered something in his ear and he laughed.
“True,” he said, “but that’s not what I was talking about.” He leaned up on one elbow. “You saw yourself in Mallory and Ava.”
“We’re nothing alike,” I protested. “She’s human. I’m magick. She—“
“You didn’t want Ava to lose her mother the way you lost yours.”
And just like that it started to fall into place for me. I knew how it felt to be a little girl without a mother. I didn’t want that to happen to Ava.
“That explains my feelings,” I said, “but how does Laria figure into this?”
“I’m guessing she made the connection on her own,” he said. “You and Laria shared a goal but for different reasons.”
“Her powers scare me,” I whispered. “I don’t know where they’re going to take her.”
“Imagine how I feel,” he said. “I go away for a few days and our baby girl turns into a cartographer/sleuth.”
I tried to laugh with him but I was too filled with emotion. “Sometimes I think she’s just passing through, that I’m going to wake up one morning and she’ll be on her way to some destiny I know nothing about.”
Luke, who had lost his first child to an accident before we met, didn’t argue the point. “Nobody knows how much time they’ve got. We’re all just passing through, Chloe. That’s what makes the good times so sweet.”
All around us things were changing at the speed of light. The world seemed to be reinventing itself on an hourly basis and Sugar Maple was no exception. But the things that remained were the things that mattered, the ties of family and friendship.
Magick or human, our time in this dimension was limited. The ride might be a long one, like Elspeth’s. It might be poignantly short like my mother’s. It might be a life of human dimensions or magick parameters. It was anybody’s guess.
I couldn’t see into the future. According to the Book of Spells, Laria’s destiny has yet to be written. I prayed Luke and I would be together to celebrate a golden anniversary, but the Fates might have other plans for us.
And Sugar Maple? Change was in the wind here, too, and we had to find a way to face those changes together or say goodbye to three hundred years of peace and prosperity.
Luke was right when he said this life came with no guarantees. I guess sometimes it took a human heart to understand all that was invisible to magick. You couldn’t see love. You couldn’t hear it or smell it or touch it or taste it. But it was there just the same, supporting you during the good times and making the tough times that much more bearable.
When all was said and done, the only thing you could do was hold on tight to the ones you loved and enjoy the ride.
And that was exactly what I planned to do.
The End
Enraptured – The Holiday Story
The Sugar Maple Chronicles – Book 7
Coming October 2018
When a radar glitch brings down billionaire amateur archaeologist Jack Winchester’s small plane in the middle of Sugar Maple’s First Annual Holiday Street Fair, Jack finds himself hot on the trail of the town’s magickal secrets . . . and a rival for the love of a very special woman.
The Secret Language of Knitting
The knitting vocabulary can be confusing to civilians (a.k.a. muggles) so here’s a short glossary to help get you up to speed.
BIND OFF - See “cast off”
BSJ - Baby Surprise Jacket, probably EZ�
��s most popular design
CAST OFF - To secure your last row of stitches so they don’t unravel
CAST ON - To place a foundation row of stitches on your needle
DPN - Double-pointed needles
EZ - Elizabeth Zimmermann, the knitting mother of us all
FAIR ISLE - Multistranded colorwork
FO - Finished object
FROG - To undo your knitting by ripping back (“Rip it! Rip it!”) row by row with great abandon
KITCHENER - Grafting two parallel rows of live stitches to form an invisible seam
KNIT - The basic stitch from which everything derives
KNITALONG - An online phenomenon wherein hundreds of knitters embark on a project simultaneously and exchange progress reports along the way
KUREYON - A wildly popular self-striping yarn created and manufactured by Eisaku Noro under the Noro label
LYS - Local yarn shop
MAGIC LOOP - Knitting a tube with one circular needle instead of four or five double-pointed needles
PURL - The knit stitch’s sister―instead of knitting into the back of the stitch with the point of the needle facing away from you, you knit into the front of the stitch with the point of the needle facing directly at you
RAVELRY - An online community for knitters and knitwear designers that has surpassed all expectations
ROVING - What you have after a fleece has been washed, combed, and carded; roving is then ready to be spun into yarn
SABLE - Stash Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy—in other words, you won’t live long enough to knit it all!
SEX - Stash Enhancement eXercise—basically spending too much money on way too much yarn
STASH - The yarn you’ve been hiding in the empty oven, clean trash bins, your basement, your attic, under the beds, in closets, wherever you can keep your treasures clean, dry, and away from critical eyes
STITCH ’N’ BITCH - A gathering of like-minded knitters who share knitting techniques and friendship with a twenty-first-century twist
Entangled- The Homecoming Page 13
