by Nicole Maggi
Jenny wiggled her fingers. “I just got a manicure.”
Carly held up her hands. “My parents told me to protect my precious piano-playing hands at all costs.” Her lips curved. “Which means if I break a finger, I’ll get out of lessons.” She jumped up and bounced over to the barn, where Mr. Salter handed her a hammer.
Melissa tossed her hair. “Good. She can hold down the fort for a while. Or rather, hold up the barn,” she added with a chuckle while we all groaned at the lame joke.
I reached out and brushed Jonah’s hair off his forehead. “And I think I deserve a break, don’t you?”
Jonah snaked his arm around my waist and pressed his face into my neck. “Yes, you do,” he said, his voice muffled against my skin.
“Oh, God, you two, get a room.” Bree flopped down next to Jenny. “At least you get to deal with them next week.”
“Are you kidding? I am finding myself a hot Frenchman the minute we land, and I don’t intend to come up for air the whole week.” Jenny shimmied her shoulders. “Voulez vous coucher avec moi, indeed.”
I laughed so hard a crick ached up my side. “Poor Carly,” I gasped out.
“Poor Carly?” Melissa pouted. “Poor me. I thought we were going to hang out all week together, Lessi.”
I leaned back into Jonah, felt his chin rest on top of my head. “Well, take it up with my mom. She’s the one who changed her mind about me going.”
But it wasn’t really Lidia. It was me, proving to her that I could live outside her shadow and take care of myself. Also me pointing out that after everything I’d been through, I deserved a trip to France.
Bree sat up and leaned across Jenny. “Hey, I’m around all week. We should do something.”
Melissa raised her eyebrows. “Won’t you be with Cal?”
“Not every minute of every day.” Bree shrugged. “I do have my own life, you know.”
“Just like Gloria Steinem—and my mother—tell us we should,” Jenny said.
“Says the girl who’s going to run off with a Frenchman,” Jonah muttered in my ear.
I elbowed him in the gut.
“Well, that would be nice.” Melissa rolled onto her stomach and kicked her feet up. “We could have a Game of Thrones marathon.”
“Yeah, we can fast-forward all the parts that don’t involve Jon Snow,” Bree said as she twisted toward me and Jonah. “By the way,” she added quietly so Melissa couldn’t hear, “it looks like we’re all going to Italy this summer. Nerina could use the company.” She climbed over Jenny and settled next to Melissa so they could plan their spring break.
I nudged Jonah. “Hey, I’m going to pass out lemonade and then we should, you know, do the thing. Grab my backpack from the kitchen, will you?”
He nodded and unfolded himself to his feet, then reached down to help me up. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him, as natural and easy as though we had never broken up, never been enemies on two sides of a deadly war. He was mine now, a Benandante for as long as he lived.
I gathered a tray of lemonade from the picnic table and passed it out around the barn. The framework was almost done, a strong set of bones that would stand on this farm for a long time to come. Even though they weren’t here, I could feel Heath and my dad in every inch of it, their blessing hammered into the wood just like the nails. I handed Cal a cup of lemonade. “You know, it’s okay to take a break and hang out with Bree for a while. You have my permission.”
“I will in a minute.” He ran his hand over the corner he’d just fitted together. “You know, it feels good to build something from scratch.” He leveled his gaze at me. “Especially something for a good friend.”
I patted his arm in answer, unable to voice just how deep my thanks were. I turned and wove my way through the workers, handing out drinks. I remembered what Heath had said, about how lucky I was to live here amongst people who loved me. This barn was a testament to that: it was filled with love that was seeping through the wood, spiraling up from its foundation like a vine.
There was one cup left on my tray. I held it out to Mr. Salter—Ed, as he now insisted I call him—who pushed his hard hat back off his sweaty forehead. “Thanks, Alessia.” He looked out over the length of the barn’s framework. “It’s coming along, isn’t it?”
“It really is. I bet it’ll be done by the time I get back from France.” I touched his arm. “Thank you.” I knew it had been him who’d organized this, put the word out through the town, and gathered everyone here.
His eyes softened. “Well, you know I would do anything for your mom.” We both looked across the lawn to where Lidia stood, chatting with Miriam Wolfe beneath the eaves of the house. She caught us watching her and waved at the same time she laughed at something Miriam said. Her laughter rang out over the yard, a soundtrack more joyous than the playlist blaring from the iPod dock on the picnic table.
She was happy.
I hugged Ed hard. “I know you would,” I whispered. “And I’m glad.”
Ed coughed and hid his red cheeks with his cup of lemonade.
I hopped off the raised floorboards and met Jonah just past the barn. I slid my hand into his, and we headed for the woods.
As we climbed over the stone wall, I thought about Nerina beneath us, in her lair below the roots and rocks. It was going to be weird not having her here; I’d gotten used to her presence on my farm. But I knew that as much as the sight of Heath’s cabin punched me in the gut every time I saw it, for Nerina it was a million times worse. She needed to go back to Italy to heal.
The trees closed over us the deeper we went into the forest, surrounding us with cool, calm quiet. Here and there, I saw remnants of the magic: a leaf lined with shimmering blue, a branch dripping with azure glitter. Jonah and I pointed them out to each other, our eyes seeing things the rest of the world could not.
Dario had been right: the magic had worked its way into the world long after the spell. Though the Malandanti had disappeared that night without us knowing who they were—a side effect that drove me crazy—over the next couple of weeks, there had been a few small-town scandals. My government teacher, Mr. Clemens, had been discovered laundering money in his basement. Josh Baker’s mother was indicted in an insider trading deal gone south. And the mayor of Willow Heights was being recalled for improper use of government funds.
The Bobcat, the Coyote, and the Boar, reduced to nothing without their power.
“It feels so weird to walk here,” Jonah said, “instead of running through these woods as a Panther.” He paused. “Or a Wolf.”
“I haven’t walked here since . . .” I stopped. “Wow. Since the day I spread my dad’s ashes. The day I met you—in both your human and your Panther shape.” I watched a bird circle down from the top of a towering pine tree. “It feels like a lifetime ago.”
“For me it was.”
I looked into Jonah’s eyes, as green as the forest would be in the lushness of summer, not so long from now. It was impossible to look back on that day now and not see everything that lay between then and now, the long journey we’d had to this point. After a moment, Jonah looked away and gazed over the trees and the shifting sunlight through the branches. “These woods . . . It’s not just the magic. It’s what happened here—what Heath did for me—that makes them sacred.”
I squeezed his fingers, my throat too tight to answer. After a moment, we continued on, climbing over fallen logs and passing beneath trees whose branches were just beginning to blossom. The copse of birch trees appeared in the scattered sunlight, their trunks glowing like moonlight. I stood in the middle of them and breathed in deep. Heath’s spirit was here, but it wasn’t tainted like I’d thought it would be. It was a place of grace, as much as a church or temple was.
Because it wasn’t just the place where Heath had died. It was the place where Jonah had been born.
From here we could hear the Waterfall tumbling over rocks, rushing end over end. We came through the brush and climbed out onto the large, flat rock. �
�God, it really is beautiful, isn’t it?” Jonah said. “I don’t think I’ve ever just sat back and appreciated its beauty.”
It had been a long time since I’d done that, too—not since before my dad died. And as I sat there now, my back nestled against Jonah’s chest, I knew that was what he’d want me to do now: appreciate it . . . and savor the hard battle we’d won to protect this place.
A Benandante was not on guard now; we’d agreed to take turns checking it once a day, just to be sure it was safe. Enough to keep my toe dipped into the Benandanti world, but not so much that I was stuck here forever. The Waterfall sparkled with Benandanti magic, a celestial web of light arching over it like a spun-glass bubble. Magic touched every corner of the site, from the shining stream above to the willow trees whose low branches hung like prisms caught in the sun. I knew that the other sites were like this now too, and that someday I’d get to see them all. I could do anything now, go anywhere, be anything I wanted.
Even in death, Heath had kept his promise to me.
I reached for my bag and drew out the small box inside. There were four such boxes. One had gone with Shen to take back to the Tibetan Temple. One with Nerina to bring to the Olive Grove. And one would go with me to France, where I’d scatter its contents over the lavender fields of Provence.
But this box belonged to Twin Willows.
I opened it carefully and stood. I waited a long moment, breathing in the scent of water and pine all around me. And then the wind shifted, carrying a breeze from another land. The tree behind us bent in its wake and the sun shone through, dappling the water with warmth and light. I turned the box over.
Heath’s ashes caught on the wind, danced there for an instant, and floated down to the water. Beside me, Jonah’s breath caught. I turned. He held his hand out to me and I took it, twining our fingers together. Together, we watched the ashes swirl on the surface of the water. The stream carried them to the Waterfall, and there they became part of the magic forever.
For just a moment, the world seemed hushed all around us. Even the Waterfall. I could feel Heath everywhere, in the trees and the sky and the sacrifice he’d made for the beautiful boy I loved. Jonah pulled me in tight against him and I knew he could feel it too. We stood in stillness until the world came alive again. I could feel it all thrumming inside me, the magic of all seven sites brimming in my soul.
I tilted my face up to Jonah’s. “Once more for posterity?” I whispered.
He bent his mouth to mine. Before the kiss was over, we’d dropped to the rock, our arms locked around one another. But our souls were gone.
I rose up, up, up and then dove fast, the wind whistling through my feathers. This power would always be mine, would always keep me separate. But it was glorious to have someone else to share it with.
Jonah ran below me, his long legs stretching out over the ground, his fur glistening in the sunlight. He tilted his head up, and his emerald eyes flashed at me.
Race you to the ocean?
You’re on.
And we soared through the forest, the world laid out before us, full of endless possibility.
Author Biography
Nicole Maggi was born in the suburbs of upstate New York and began writing poems about unicorns and rainbows at a very early age. She detoured into acting, earned a BFA from Emerson College, and moved to New York City where she performed in lots of off-off-off-Broadway Shakespeare. After a decade of schlepping groceries on the subway, she and her husband hightailed it to sunny Los Angeles, where they now reside, surrounded by fruit trees, with their young daughter and two oddball cats. In addition to the Twin Willows Trilogy, she is the author of the novel The Forgetting.
