by Chant, Zoe
For a moment Wallace Evans looked truly old. Defeated, worn down, and bereft of hope, all more taxing than age itself. "When Michelle asked me to scare you off, I thought she was trying to protect Virtue and the shifters here. I've spoken with Dave, though, and...I hadn't known," he said quietly. "I didn't know she'd turned against her own kind. And then I watched you young ones doing everything in your power to keep this town safe, and I realized I might be wrong about you." He glowered again suddenly. "Old men don't like to be wrong."
Matthew smiled. "Hardly anybody does."
"Hardly anybody has as much practice being right as I do."
That was as close as he came to mentioning his age. Sarah desperately wanted to ask how old he really was, but couldn't think of a polite way to do so. Except to say, carefully, "Have you been guarding the charter all along?"
Wallace's flat expression told her he knew exactly what she was doing. To her surprise, though, he answered. "I dug this room after the jail was built, yes. How did you find out about it?"
"Elizabeth Todd's early diaries," Matthew said, almost apologetically. "Tom Barlow had them. She mentioned seeing the secret charter brought to the halls of law and justice."
Faint exasperation flitted across Wallace's face. "That girl always was too clever for her own good."
"Mr. Evans—" Sarah bit her lip, but couldn't help asking. "Mr. Evans, I thought shifters weren't immortal, but you and Hazel...?"
Evans said, "Hazel?" in much the same way Tom Barlow had, then barked a laugh. "Is that what she's calling herself these days? Shifters are mortal, girl. It's just that some of us are given tasks that take a long time to fulfill." He frowned deeply, studying the two of them, and eventually said, "I wonder if mine finally has been, now."
Sarah went to crouch beside him, looking up at him. "What was your task?"
"Protect the charter," he said with a shrug. "That's my job, until someone else who can be trusted with it comes along."
"And no one's come along for two hundred years?" Sarah asked in horror. "I'm sorry."
"I thought it would be my family," Wallace said. "A legacy passed down through the generations. But the burden never passed from me. They're mostly dead, and I'm still here." He looked thoughtfully at them. "No one in all that time has tried as hard to keep Virtue safe as you two have. And you're new," he said to Matthew. "It's been a long time since there's been a new shifter in this town. Maybe it's a sign of change. Maybe my time is coming to an end."
"We'll protect it, if that's what you want us to do," Matthew said, sounding almost helpless with awe. "It would be an incredible honor."
"Hah! See if you still believe that in two hundred years. Put it away, now, lad. Keep it safe."
"Yes, sir."
"Mr. Evans? Do you know what the woman in the woods' story is? Hazel's?"
"Better than most," Wallace said, but shook his head as Matthew went to roll the charter back up again, carefully, and brought it back to the box it had come from. "If you're asking will I tell it to you, no, I won't. It's not mine to tell. She has something to protect, too, though. Something to keep living for. It's not a gift," he added more quietly. "Living this long, waiting for someone who can be trusted to carry your duties on...it's a duty. If you two really are the change I'm waiting for, I hope the burden passes from you more quickly than it has for me."
"You want to rest," Sarah said softly.
"I do."
She reached for his hand, holding it for a moment. "Than I hope we're what you need us to be."
A complex expression of relief and sorrow passed over the old man's face. "Me too, lass."
Sarah scrunched her face. "Can I ask something awkward, though?"
Wallace lifted his eyebrows curiously, and she continued, "If we are the people meant to protect the charter after you...I mean, that's not going to kill you, is it? You won't go poof like the old crusader in Indiana Jones?"
To her surprise, old Mr. Evans laughed aloud. "I don't think so, no, lass. I think I'll just live out the rest of my days peacefully. Maybe I'll spend more time with Michelle," he said more quietly. "Maybe I've done this all to myself, by keeping to myself. Maybe, if I'd been more open with my family, they would have become the caretakers I hoped they'd be. Maybe I can help her see that our heritage is worth protecting."
"I hope so," Sarah whispered. "I'd like you to have that. And if there's anything we can do to help, we will. You know that, right?"
The old man nodded. Sarah squeezed his hand again, then caught her breath as a thought struck her. "Mr. Evans...you said if you'd been more open with your family, maybe they'd have become the caretakers you'd hoped for. I don't mean to be rude, sir, but you've kept to yourself an awfully long time. I wonder if..."
"Well?" Evans said impatiently. "You wonder what?"
"What were you asked to do, sir?"
"Keep the charter safe," Wallace said grudgingly. "Protect Virtue."
"But did anyone say you had to do it on your own?"
He scowled deeply, then, slowly, shook his head before his scowl got even darker. "Are you saying I did this to myself, girl?"
"No!" Sarah hesitated. "Maybe? Have you told anybody else besides us that your duty is to keep the charter safe?"
"Not since my wife."
"But you felt like the burden had passed as soon as you spoke to us," Sarah said cautiously. "Maybe...maybe it's just that the burden is meant to be shared, Mr. Evans. Maybe it's meant for everybody in Virtue to carry, not just one person."
Evans stared at her a long moment, clearly struggling with the idea before softening. "If that's so, then you two children won't be cursed the way I've been. I'd like that."
"Me too." Sarah actually leaned over to give the old man an impulsive hug, then startled a little as Matthew suddenly spoke from where he knelt by the charter box. "Mr. Evans." His voice was hoarse and shaking. "Mr. Evans, do you...is this...may I take...this out...?"
Evans snorted. "You're an archivist. I suppose you're careful enough. Go ahead."
"Mr. Evans," Matthew said again. He sounded close to tears. Sarah, worried, rose and went to see what was wrong as he took another document out of the box. "Is this what I think it is?"
"Probably." The old man sounded somewhere between grumpy and thrilled.
Matthew whispered, "Oh my God," and brought the page reverentially to the table. "Oh my God. It is. This is a Dunlap broadside. It's the Declaration," he whispered to Sarah. "It's the Declaration of Independence, printed by John Dunlap on the 4th of July, 1776. Or maybe the 5th." He laughed shakily. "Dunlap printed them overnight, so it's hard to know exactly. But this is it, Sarah. Virtue really did have a copy hiding in its archives." He pulled Sarah into his arms, hugging her as her eyes filled with tears.
Finding something so incredible was obviously amazing in and of itself, but it was really his emotion over it that filled Sarah with joy. She whispered, "Congratulations," and he gave her the most wonderfully stupid smile.
"I'm having a pretty good month," he whispered. "I found a home, the love of my life, and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. I don't think I can top that."
"I suppose you can have that to show off," Wallace said, obviously trying to sound gruff enough to hid his pleasure. "If you want it."
"If I want it." Matthew laughed again and turned toward the old man with tears in his eyes. "I do want it, desperately, but if I make this public there's a real chance American history hunters are going to descend on Virtue to see if there's anything else here worth discovering. We're going to have to do a lot of careful culling of the archives before I can risk that."
For the first time, Wallace Evans's gaze really softened. "You'll do," he said quietly. "You'll do, children."
Sarah, sniffling, smiled at the old man. "What do you want us to do?"
He shook his head. "Developments and denying what Virtue was built on isn't the way," he said. "Maybe you young ones, with your new blood and your new ideas, can figure out a way to
breathe life back into the shifters in this town. Maybe all this protectiveness and isolation is the wrong idea. The old families here, they've all married in to each other so much that there's hardly anything left of us. Maybe you can figure out a way to make it better."
A thrill of excitement shot through Sarah. "A new project!"
Matthew laughed out loud. She turned to him, slightly offended, but his smile was bright and pure and loving. "I'm all in," he promised. "You lead. I'll follow. There's nothing else I want in life."
"Except to show off that copy of the Declaration."
Guilty laughter ran through Matthew. "Except that. And also, maybe, just to—" He hesitated, looking suddenly abashed, and cast a glance at Wallace Evans, who shook his head and got up to leave.
"I know what you're feeling. There's only one thing a shifter can imagine, when they've found their fated mate. Go on, son." Evans stomped out of the hidden room, leaving Sarah to look up at Matthew with confused pleasure.
"What? What does he mean? What's the one thing you can imagine?"
Matthew's sheepish, sweet smile shaped itself into a kiss, before he murmured, "To live happily ever after," against her lips.
"Oh." Joy swelled in Sarah and she pulled herself even closer, smiling against his shoulder. "Yes. Yes, let's do that. Happily ever after." She yawned suddenly, a huge, eye-watering yawn that ended in a giggle. "Can happily ever after include going back to bed now? Some ridiculous person got us up at two-thirty in the morning."
Matthew laughed. "I think happily ever after involves a lot of going back to bed, and I love that ridiculous person."
"The ridiculous person loves you, too," Sarah promised, and they went home together, hand in hand.
Epilogue
Most of Virtue, it appeared, had been discussing whether Matthew Rojas would stay. Not just discussing it. Betting on it, and gossiping about it, and apparently keeping very close tabs on his activities, because when he was still there on the first of July—a Thursday; his contract didn't technically end until Friday, the second—people started giving Sarah secretive, speculative smiles when they came into the library.
When he was still there on the 2nd, those secretive smiles became open, wide smiles, and when he was still there two days later, on the Fourth of July, the whole town seemed to make a concerted effort to drop by their picnic blanket at the town festivities to say oooooOOOOooooh! Sarah had never seen so many smug looks directed her way. Not that she objected, since she felt pretty smug herself. "I would have lost, though," she said aloud.
"Hmm?" Matt lay stretched out on the blanket, his eyes lidded lazily against the sunshine. He was barefoot and wore shorts and a tank top that showed off his physique wonderfully, and Sarah had on a red, white and blue summer dress that she felt exceptionally cute in. Especially since it had pockets. She had, of course, made it herself.
They'd gotten to the town square early to stake out a good place to watch the parade from, and then, in the post-parade sunshine, hadn't moved much except to get a variety of all-American celebratory foods. A stack of barbecue rib bones lay on a plate next to them, along with scraps of hot dog buns, potato salad, apple pie, and a full bag of marshmallows that Sarah was saving to roast later that night. A small cooler filled with water bottles held down one corner of their blanket.
"If someone had asked me three weeks ago if you were staying in Virtue, I'd have bet against it."
"Me too." Matthew rolled toward her, wrapping his arms around her middle, and said, "My bear would have bet on it, though," into her hip.
"Well, isn't he a smarty-pants." Sarah bent and kissed Matt's hair, then curled her fingers through it.
"Wiser than I am," Matt agreed contentedly. "He knew there would be a way. I just had a hard time re-imagining my life so much."
"It's a big deal," Sarah replied quietly. "If I'd been working toward a city job and landed it, then fell in love somewhere else...I would have had a hard time, too." She snorted suddenly. "Especially since movies always have the girl giving up her big-city dreams for the small-town guy. You bucked the trend!"
"A new brand of masculinity." Matthew turned his head to smile up at her. "Speaking of which, will you be my one true heroine and go get me some ice cream?"
Sarah laughed. "Of course. Hot fudge sundae, or something else?"
"Surprise me." Matt sat up to steal a kiss, and Sarah, grinning, went to get ice cream.
Mabs appeared at her side in the line, eyebrows waggling. Sarah burst out laughing. "Aren't you supposed to be honeymooning or something?"
"Pretty sure getting the gossip on my friend's new relationship is—okay, not as fun as a honeymoon, but anyway, we leave Tuesday. And you?"
Sarah wrinkled her face. "What about me?"
"Yooooou knooooow."
"We've only known each other a month," Sarah said haughtily. "We're not engaged yet."
"'Yet!'" Mabs echoed in triumph. "You're gonna say yes, though, right?"
"I don't know." Sarah smiled. "Maybe I'm hoping he'll say yes."
"Awww!" Mabs made a heart shape with her hands. "Yay! I'm really glad for you," she said more softly. "You deserve to be happy."
Sarah pulled her friend into a sudden hug. "We all do."
"Yeah." Mabs sniffled. "Yeah, we do. Okay, I'm supposed to bring ice cream back for a ravening five year old, although how he can be hungry with the amount of food he's eaten today..."
"Well, tell him to be sure to join us for roasted marshmallows at sunset," Sarah said, and Mabs laughed.
"He's been talking about it all morning. No danger of forgetting." They got their sundaes from the ice cream stand and went their separate ways, both smiling.
A big, big man with a big, big cooler was at their blanket when Sarah got back with the ice cream. Matt had risen and was chatting with him, and the big guy smiled at Sarah as she approached. "Hey there. I'm Steve. I just bought the old bar up the street there?"
"Oh!" Sarah handed a sundae to Matt and stuck a hand out to shake Steve's. "I'm the librarian, Sarah Ekstrom, and I guess you've met Matt already. Nice to meet you! Everybody's looking forward to seeing what you do with the place! What brought you to Virtue?"
"Actually, Jake Rowly's parents did. They moved to the town I'm from and kept talking about Virtue. I thought it sounded like it had promise. You like beer?" He opened the cooler to reveal enough bottles that Sarah was impressed he was carrying it around so easily. "My family owns a brewery. This is our house brew."
"Oh, wow, I'd love to try it." Sarah took two, at Matthew's nod, and popped the top off one to take a thoughtful sip. Then her eyebrows rose and she handed it to Matthew to try. His eyebrows went up, too, and Sarah grinned at the big man. "That is some good beer," she told Steve. "You're going to do well here."
"Well, I'm thinking of a bistro, not a pub, but I'm glad to hear it and the folks back home will be pleased. Look, it's great to meet you, and I hope I'll see you at the bistro!" Steve waved and headed off to the next picnic blanket, introducing himself and handing out more beer.
"Beer first, melty ice cream after?" Sarah asked Matt, who was looking after Steve thoughtfully.
"Mm? No, beer in our own cooler for later, and ice cream now. He's a shifter," Matt said, dropping his voice.
Sarah did a double-take after the big guy. "Really? You sure?"
"Positive."
"Really," Sarah said again, lowering her voice, too. "Both Wallace and Hazel commented on you being new, like it was a big deal. So this makes two new shifters here in a month, and Jake came back last year. I wonder if something's changing in Virtue."
"I don't know," Matt said. "I know Virtue has changed everything for me, though."
Sarah put the beers into their cooler, sat on the blanket and tugged Matthew down beside her so they could have their ice cream. "Me too," she said softly. "I know I was always here, but..."
"You weren't, though," Matt reminded her. "You came here when you were six, right? So maybe Virtue did change eve
rything for you, too."
"A man who listens," Sarah said, still delighted by it. "You really are something, Matthew Rojas. And maybe you're right." She looked across the square, at all the gathered people sharing the hot, sunny afternoon. "Maybe everybody here has a shot at happily ever after, as long as they're willing to let it happen."
"I almost wasn't."
"But you came to your senses." Sarah leaned over to steal an ice-creamy kiss. "By the way, I got something for you."
"Oh?"
Sarah slipped her hand into her dress pocket and came out with a single key dangling from a polished wooden bear keychain. Matt chortled at the bear, then caught his breath, looking from the key to Sarah. "Is this the key to your heart?"
"You've already got that. This is more pragmatic. It's the key to my house." Sarah held her breath a moment, hopefully. "Our house."
Warm color rushed Matthew, deepening the dark gold shades of his skin. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. I hope so, at least. If you wa—"
"I want," Matthew said fervently. "I want. I've never wanted anything more in my life." He kissed her, mumbled, "Well, maybe one thing..." and kissed her again.
And again, until Sarah, blushing, whispered, "You better stop that, or we're going to have to go home and we'll lose our picnic blanket placement before the fireworks."
"What if I promise fireworks of our own?"
Sarah laughed. "Tempting, but I can wait another few hours for personal fireworks. If we leave now the whole town will know it, too, and you're a local, now, Mr. Rojas. You have a reputation to consider."
Matthew laughed and pulled her into his arms. "I'm not so worried about my reputation, but I do want to be here for the rest of the celebration." He fell quiet a moment, clearly thinking, then said, "It's been a long, long time since I felt like I belonged somewhere. I want to be part of these kinds of things, the town events." He looked at the key again, then smiled at Sarah. "And I want home to be with you."
"It is," Sarah murmured. "Forever."
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