“If you don’t tell her to keep the secret, then I will.”
The chopsticks began to spin around the room.
“This is none of your business.”
“I’m your husband.”
“Not yet.”
“Okay, then I’m your lifetime partner,” he went on. “I’m also Laria’s father.” He paused and gave me a bone-shaking dead-eyed cop stare. “And I’m the Sugar Maple chief of police. It’s my job to keep this town safe and if that means telling your cousin to keep her mouth shut, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
As if on cue, the monster ring on my finger began doing its Morse code imitation.
“By the way,” Luke said, “I hate that goddamn ring.”
Finally something we could agree on.
WENDY
* * *
There is nothing like an eight-hundred-stitch bind-off to take a girl’s mind off the fact that her cousin was a sorceress.
I mean, if someone asked you to define the word “sorceress,” would you even know where to start?
How do you process the fact that your cousin had magickal powers? How do you absorb the fact that her baby daughter flew around the backyard like she had a jetpack in her onesie? How do you even begin to process the idea that the women sitting next to you at lunch in that very ordinary coffee shop were vampire and werewolf?
You don’t.
You either accept it as a truth or you reject it and move on.
I accepted it, but that didn’t mean I had absorbed it. Not even close. I wasn’t sure I would live long enough to absorb everything Chloe shared with me. I suppose we all wonder at one time or another whether there was more going on in the world than we saw. We wonder about ghosts and devils, about heaven and hell. We hope in the deepest part of our hearts that we would meet up one day with our departed loved ones.
But we don’t know for sure.
I knew for sure, however, that I had seen a human baby fly around the back yard under her own power.
Belief had to start somewhere.
Knitting has a way of giving you what you need when you need it. I wanted to empty my mind of everything but the project in front of me: hundreds and hundreds of cobweb lace stitches that needed to be bound off and emergency-blocked in time for Chloe’s wedding tomorrow. There wasn’t room in my addled human brain for anything else.
My smartphone had exploded with messages from Diandra, Kelly, and Claire, all demanding an update. I took a photo of the shawl I was working on and thumbed in a quick “Having great time. Wedding tomorrow. 800 stitches to go!!” and turned off the phone.
Normally I would have shared every last detail of my outrageously crazy day--flying babies, vampires, magickal spells and all. That’s what best friends did. They told each other everything. I had shared the details of my divorce, and all the stages of grief that came with it.
But for some reason I drew the line today.
Chloe hadn’t asked me to keep her secrets, but I knew that was because she trusted me to do exactly that. In record time, we had formed a bond that surprised both of us with its depth and its strength. I would never do anything to hurt her. I could only imagine the hell that would break loose if the world found out about Sugar Maple.
Besides, what sane person would believe me?
Which was why I was glad I had a lapful of fiddly knitting to keep me from thinking about anything beyond passing one stitch over the other. I had reached TMI hours ago. One more piece of information and I was sure my head would implode.
I was about a hundred stitches in when there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I mumbled, a stitch marker gripped between my teeth.
The door opened. Luke stood there, his expression opaque.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, reluctantly laying down the knitting. “What’s up?”
“Chloe told you about Sugar Maple.”
The man didn’t believe in beating around the bush.
“She didn’t have to. Laria made the situation pretty clear.”
His smile was gone before I could be sure I’d actually seen it. “That’s exactly what Chloe said.”
“I guess we’re a lot alike.”
“With one major exception.”
I nodded. “I’ll admit it’s a big one.”
He gestured toward the chair next to the window and I motioned for him to sit. He eased his long frame into it, looking a bit like a bull in a china shop. Assuming bulls sat down in china shops, that is.
“You probably have a lot of questions,” he said.
I nodded.
“And I’m probably the only one who can answer them.”
I took a long breath and then jumped into the deep end of the pool. “How long did it take you to believe it?”
His grin was equal parts rueful and amused. “I’m still not one hundred percent.”
“I saw a baby fly.” I met his eyes. “There really isn’t any other possible explanation but the rational part of my brain keeps screaming, ‘You’re dreaming, Wendy! Wake up!’”
“Most people would be scared, faced with a situation like this.” His inner cop was beginning to peek through.
“Were you?”
“Hell, yeah! Vampires, werewolves, all the things we were taught as kids didn’t exist and here they are, right in front of your eyes. I’d never even heard of a selkie and now I’m good friends with one.” He dragged a hand through his dark hair. “Nothing out there can prepare you for something like this.”
“And yet you decided to build a life here.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
My eyes widened. “Are you saying she put a . . . spell on you?”
“She didn’t have to. I fell in love.”
“Did you ever ask her to renounce her powers?”
“This isn’t an episode of Bewitched.”
“And you weren’t even tempted to ask?”
“Once or twice,” he said with endearing candor, “but then she wouldn’t be Chloe.”
“How did you know it would work?”
“We didn’t. I guess you could say we took a leap of faith.”
“How have you managed to keep it from your family? Bunny isn’t exactly the shy and retiring type.”
“We’ve had a few close calls, but so far, so good.” He said he knew that their luck would run out one day but until then their secret was safe. “You can’t tell anyone about Sugar Maple, Wendy. Maybe Chloe didn’t make that clear but I don’t want there to be any mistake about that.”
“Chloe knows she can trust me.”
“That’s great, but I don’t trust anyone. I need your word.”
“You have my word.”
“I’m going to hold you to it.
“To keep Chloe and Laria safe?”
“To keep them all safe,” he said.
I sat on the edge of the bed after Luke left and stared out the window.
To keep them all safe.
His words kept spinning through my mind. Five simple words that told me everything about love and honor and commitment that was worth knowing. People climbed mountains looking for adventure. They went deep-sea diving. They bought tickets for space flights and flew hot-air balloons around the world in search of excitement. I wondered just how many of these wild and crazy risk-taking adrenaline junkies would have the guts to do what Luke had done: make a life here in Sugar Maple.
“I envy you,” I said out loud. They had a home, friends, a precious baby daughter, and, most important of all, they had each other.
Maybe the secret to happily-ever-after included a touch of magick.
Chapter 19
GAVAN
The night before the wedding
* * *
The man saw him. Their gazes met in the glass wall between them and in that moment Gavan understood how much there was to learn about this new world before they could be part of it.
He didn’t understand the properties that
governed the glass walls they called windows. Twice they had revealed his presence through reflections much like those found in water, first to Wendy and now to the mortal known as Luke.
Rohesia had warned him to remain undetected but this new world tripped him up at every turn.
He willed himself away from the cottage, gliding deep into the woods where he felt more at home. A giant had laid claim long ago to the mountaintop where he spent his days in rumbling slumber so he settled on lower ground near the waterfall and portal. The waterfall of charged energies worked upon him as food and drink did upon humans. For the first time since leaving his home, he felt whole.
His Old World powers were unable to navigate easily through the web of both manufactured human energies and New World magick energies that shielded Sugar Maple. He had tried again to contact Rohesia, but he was met with a blaze of silver static that blocked communication. He could feel Rohesia’s impatience building.
New World powers were unfamiliar to him. They were more complex, more adaptable to situations he had yet to discover. Were they stronger than the powers his people possessed or only different?
Chloe’s human mate had displayed admirable qualities toward the magicks in his care. He saw no evidence of the atrocities inflicted on the unprotected during the dangerous years but clearly caution was still required.
The wedding was scheduled to take place tomorrow. When the time came, would his quest for survival prevail over their need to protect their own?
The future was unknowable.
All he could do now was wait.
Chapter 20
CHLOE
The morning of the wedding
* * *
“You were right,” I said to Luke as I nursed Laria at sunrise. “I’m going to put a spell on Wendy. I don’t know why I fought you over it.” I hadn’t worked out the details but I knew I needed to protect Sugar Maple from discovery.
“I’m not so sure I was right. I spoke to her last night while you were taking a shower,” he said. “She understands what’s involved. I think you can trust her.”
“Since when is ‘think’ good enough?” He was a cop, after all. Cops liked absolutes.
“Gut instinct,” he said with a shrug. “I believe her.”
“People talk,” I reminded him. “They don’t always mean to, but sometimes things just pop out.” My face reddened as I remembered the unfiltered way I’d spoken to Wendy right from the start. If Laria hadn’t spilled the beans, I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t have.
“What kind of spell would you cast? Can you pick and choose like you’re placing an order from Thai Palace?”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t know and I don’t have time to find out.”
“This hasn’t turned out to be the wedding week we were hoping for,” he said, pouring me a big glass of orange juice.
I switched Laria from my right breast to my left. “Not even close.”
“Next time we elope,” he said.
“There won’t be a next time,” I said. “This is my one and only wedding.”
His beautiful green eyes met mine and I found myself once again thanking the fates that we had found each other.
I hated when we argued. We are both strong-willed, highly-opinionated individuals and that meant we butted heads from time to time. We were on a steep learning curve when it came to first-time parenthood and when you added magick and matrimony to the mix, it was no wonder things got a little volatile now and then.
We fell silent, enjoying the moment for however long it lasted. Laria’s nursing grew slower and her eyelids began to flutter shut. Wendy was still asleep in the guest room. Elspeth was doing whatever it was she did when I nursed. The MacKenzies were due to swoop down on us around nine a.m., when Janice and her glam squad would get us ready for the ceremony. This was probably the last bit of peace and quiet we would know for the rest of the day.
Lemony sunshine spilled through the open windows and traced patterns across the kitchen table. The raucous cries of blue jays, hungry for another handful of peanuts, made us smile.
“I saw someone at Wendy’s window last night.”
I was instantly on red alert. “The peeping tom?”
The cop face was back. “What peeping tom?”
“Oh crap.” I felt like an idiot. “They were talking about him yesterday at the fitting. I guess I forgot to tell you.”
“You’re saying Sugar Maple has a peeping tom?”
“Bunny saw a face outside her window at the Inn. Isolda and Janice didn’t see anyone, but they both had the feeling they were being watched.”
I had also forgotten to tell him about the man in the embroidered cloak who had been peering into Sticks & Strings when Wendy approached. I made up for that omission now.
“I’d chalked it up to the Souderbush boys and eternal teenage boredom, but now I’m not so sure.”
The Souderbush boys were lanky kids who would never grow past mid-puberty. They were nothing like the man Wendy had seen.
“This was definitely a big guy,” Luke said.
“Human?”
“I doubt it. I could pretty much see right through him.”
“I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Luke said. “I’m not crazy about guys, dead or alive, peeking in our windows but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.” He said a few spirit stragglers had slipped through our barrier this week but with a little help from the locals, they had been located and turned away. “He was probably one of them.”
It was as good an explanation as any. I pushed the vision of the guy from the Book of Spells from my mind.
Or at least I tried to.
The persistent feeling that trouble was on its way reared its head again but I was maxed out on worry. It would be nice to put everything on hold for a few hours and enjoy the fact that I was about to marry the love of my life. The peeping tom would have to wait.
* * *
WENDY
* * *
I don’t think I slept more than an hour on the night before the wedding. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Laria launching herself from the roof of Chloe and Luke’s cottage and taking a solo flight around the backyard.
Try sleeping after that.
The cottage was bursting at the seams by the time I slipped into the kitchen for juice and coffee. I tried to stay out of the way but Chloe made sure I was drawn into the thick of things. I had a hard time remembering who was magick and who wasn’t. The MacKenzie women mingled with the ladies of Sugar Maple and after awhile I found it didn’t really matter.
Janice did something amazing to my hair with a flat iron and a little product, then handed me off to one of her assistants who transformed my bare face into something camera-ready.
Bunny buzzed around, looking spectacular in a pale green dress and summery hand-knit shawl.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, giving me a warm hug.
“So am I,” I said, hugging her back. “Thank you for making this happen.”
I was in a place I never thought I would be, surrounded by people (both mortal and magick) I would never have met if Bunny MacKenzie hadn’t set out to find me. The world would never look the same again. My eyes had been opened to possibilities I had never dreamed existed in our three-dimensional world and I was grateful.
When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream about a secret door that opened into an enormous sun-filled room that held another secret door that opened into yet another room and—well, you get the picture.
My old life in Bailey’s Harbor seemed very far away.
GAVAN
* * *
He watched unseen as the mortals and magicks assembled for the ceremony. Two females of similar appearance and age hugged in an exuberant expression of affection between them and he was shocked to realize one was mortal and one was magick.
In fact, everywhere he looked, mortals and magicks we
re celebrating together.
Rohesia was wrong. Just the thought strengthened him. Sugar Maple was not a fortress that served to keep visiting and settled magicks safe from marauding humans. Instead, it was a peaceful settlement where both sides traded, mingled, and coexisted in harmony. A return to the fabled time when peace reigned in northern Wales, but better.
The reports of peace brought back from magicks upon their return from visiting the Spirit Trail were true. Despite his training and devotion to Rohesia, he knew he was right. He had seen the love and devotion that the half-magick Chloe and the human Luke had for each other. He had seen the deep respect the warrior troll, Elspeth, had for Chloe’s chosen mate, Luke. And he had even felt an undeniable attraction to Chloe’s human kin, Wendy.
He had also heard Chloe tell Wendy how her love for Luke had brought her powers to life and that Aerynn’s line only loved once. Instinctively he knew that all the collective magick of his world could never make Chloe yield to him. The only way to bring the clans together was to join the celebration, not oppose it.
There would be no future for his clan in this dimension if that future was built on a foundation of bitterness and strife. If they were to find a place in the world of the new magicks, they would have to learn to embrace change or disappear forever.
He would not stop the wedding of Chloe and Luke. He would not break up a child’s family.
And it was in that moment that he finally understood what he must do: Blueflame Rohesia immediately and tell her he would still do all in his power to facilitate the move to Sugar Maple, but the wedding would go forward.
CHLOE
Proctor Park – early afternoon
* * *
The house sprite team had transformed a portion of Proctor Park into a wedding wonderland. Somehow they had managed to make it look like a team of run-of-the-mill humans had been working for days to erect the tents, set up the tables and chairs, create the altar area from the old gazebo where Luke and I would exchange promises.
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