by Molly Ringle
Nothing happened.
He tipped his head back and laughed, almost as maniacally as the goblins used to. “You sure?” he shouted to the forest. “You’re done with me, for real?”
The wind gusted, and a few fir needles sprinkled down onto him, along with something a bit heavier that slid past his wrist and landed on his boot. He crouched to pick it up, and recognized the slender gold chain with three hearts on it. The one he’d brought in December, that had served as the inadequate monthly payment that caused them to enchant Skye in retribution.
Maybe the necklace had gotten caught on the branches when everything fell down last night, and was just now shaking loose. But Kit didn’t think the timing could be quite that coincidental. He tucked it into the envelope along with the rest of the loot, and glanced up into the trees. “Thanks, locals.”
He strolled to the truck, leaned against it, and stood breathing the rich mossy air for a minute, appreciating being out here and being left alone.
Then he texted Livy.
I’m free. Tried to summon them with a huge pile of gold, and nothing happened. They’re just gone. I’m free. Holy shit, I’m really free.
Free as that whale on your back :) , she answered a minute later. I am so happy for you.
All thanks to you, babe. Don’t think I’ll forget it.
You can thank me tomorrow. I’m going to bed. Goodnight, lucky man.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I HAVE SOME FREE TIME BEFORE MY WORK SHIFT, SKYE’S TEXT SAID THE NEXT MORNING. SAY AROUND 11. CAN YOU meet up?
It was a little after ten. Grady was already at the auto shop with Kit and Justin, doing a brisk trade in scheduling repairs for people who had dented their cars on the icy roads over the last couple of days. He texted back, Yeah sure, that’d be good. Where?, without checking with Kit first.
Kit wouldn’t be mad. He seemed incapable of being mad today. He’d been joking with everyone and bopping around the garage like he hadn’t been chained up and thrown out of a tree the other night.
Dock behind Green Fox, Skye answered. See you there.
Cool, I’ll be there. Grady bolted out of the office and buttonholed Kit on his way past. “I need to take off at eleven for a little while. I have to… talk to her,” he admitted.
Kit beamed, and thumped him on the arm. “’Course you do. Go for it.” He looked past Grady, and strolled onward. “Edna, hey! Good to see you in town, m’lady.”
At 10:55, Grady rushed down Shore Avenue on foot, and turned between the kayak rental shop and Green Fox Espresso, following the gravel driveway that led to a small dock.
The snow had melted overnight under a steady rain. Today the sun shone, drawing vapors of mist up from the wet dock boards and the surface of the Sound. The air was calm, and for early February it felt almost warm.
One side of the dock was open to the water, to allow for kayak launching. A wooden railing bordered the other side. Skye leaned her elbows on it, looking out at the water. She wore skinny jeans, a slouchy maroon knit hat, rain boots, and her thigh-length dark wool coat, buttoned tight around her middle. Grady approached, his legs weakening. The lining of that coat was silver-colored and smooth; she’d worn it into the woods with him lots of times, and he knew exactly how it felt on the backs of his hands when he reached under her clothes.
His insides felt like they were shredding themselves apart.
She noticed him. Her face was solemn and apprehensive, the way she had looked that day he’d walked into her kitchen the first time. So many firsts, so many memories, all in a single month.
“Hey,” she said.
He walked onto the dock and settled his elbows beside hers on the railing, not quite touching her. “Hey.”
“How are you and Kit doing?”
“Pretty good. Kit especially. He’s basically thrilled.” He smiled for a second.
He caught a smile in response, though only briefly. “I bet.” She rolled her lips together and looked out across the shining water again. “So. Seriously, listen, I am really, really sorry. I almost destroyed your life. I was shameless about it. I mean, I regretted it, even at the time, but I couldn’t stop, and—I’m just so sorry. I can’t say that enough.”
Grady breathed in and out. The air smelled of cold saltwater, fresh but somehow lonely. “No, look, I’m the one who’s sorry. I completely took advantage of you when you were…not yourself. I can’t stand it. I can’t believe I did that.”
“You wouldn’t have done it, though, not normally. You were under a spell. And I’m the one who dragged you into it.”
“You were under a spell too. It wasn’t your choice.” He exchanged a cautious glance with her. She didn’t look offended, only worried. “So,” he added, “we’re both sorry. I forgive you, though I really don’t think you did anything wrong.”
“I forgive you too,” she said. “Though, likewise.”
That encouraged him a little. “Then we can stop talking about being sorry and how we should hate each other?”
She nodded, turning her face outward again. “Definitely. No hate. So now what? Back to normal?”
He let his gaze float down the shore to the white masts at the marina. “Finding jobs. Guess we have to do that.”
“You were going to move to Seattle maybe.”
“Yeah. Don’t know yet. You had graphic-design leads?”
“A few. I’ll look around. I don’t know where I’ll live yet, either. Maybe here, maybe somewhere else.” She lifted her chin and set her shoulders back. “Which is all really stressful. But hey, not as stressful as being under a curse.”
“Right. Well.” Unhappiness dragged at him like an anchor. He surrendered and let himself slip under. He cradled his forehead in his hands, staring unfocused at the water. “I’m still scared, though. I don’t think the spell is totally gone. I’m thinking about you all the time. I still…love you. So doesn’t that mean I’m still enchanted?”
He couldn’t look at her, and it took her a few seconds to answer. When she did, he heard kindness in her voice. “I don’t think so. I think maybe that’s the natural thing to feel after you go through a major experience with someone.”
He sent her a sideways glance. Though he was afraid to ask, he pushed the words out. “Is that how you feel?”
“Yeah. It is.”
This time he held her gaze, letting his hands lower again, settling them along the railing. The prettiest pink color had bloomed in her cheeks, and she wore a tender smile. “I don’t feel enchanted,” she added. “But I do love you.”
A grin broke across his face, unstoppable as sunrise. “It’s so good to see you smile. You have no idea.”
Skye closed the space between them, fitting herself into his arms, against his body, in the way that had become habit for them. “You too, stranger.”
He shut his eyes and held her, breathing in the smell of her shampoo, feeling he might break into pieces from the sheer force of being in love. She lifted her face and kissed him, and he sank into that happy occupation for several long breaths.
When they pulled back an inch, she looked at him, her gaze sharpening with amazement. “Was it just me, or was the sex incredible? Even though it seems like it should be all wrong to think that.”
“Oh my God, it was fantastic,” he said with fervent sincerity.
She laughed—and hearing her laugh was ten times better than seeing her smile, and he had to kiss her again for another minute or two solid.
Then he relaxed his hold on her, and looked toward the marina with a hopeless head-shake. “So I mean, do I stay in Bellwater just to be near you? Work at the auto shop? I guess I’d find my own place to live so I wouldn’t drive Kit crazy, but…”
“No.” She poked her finger into the middle of his chest. “No auto shop for you, Awesome Chef. Don’t you dare. Go find somewhere that appreciates your skills.”
“But that’s…almost certainly not going to be around here.”
“I know.” She sighed
. “I hate it, but, look. Go find a job you love. Go there, to it. It’ll probably be in another city, but we’ll manage. And I’ll look for something too, and maybe it’ll be near you, if we’re lucky, and maybe it won’t, but that’s how we have to do it. We have to prove we aren’t codependent. We aren’t enchanted. We’re responsible adults who can live in separate towns if we have to, without wasting away. We have to give it time and see what we think about…you know. An actual relationship.”
The mere idea of living in a different city from her made Grady feel like pouting and whining, if not outright wasting away. But he did grasp her point. He summoned up the maturity to nod. “You’re right. We ought to be responsible. It’s important.”
She looked sad for a second, then smiled again. “Do you have time to get coffee and have a real conversation? One where I actually talk? See if we can stand each other in real life.”
He turned toward the cafe, sliding an arm around her. “Yeah. Let’s.”
“Hey, Livy,” her boss at the Forest Service said over the phone. “You live in Bellwater, right?”
She had pulled over to take the call, on her way to the Quilcene office. “Yeah, why?”
“We heard from DNR that someone reported fire damage in the national forest just west of there.” The state’s Department of Natural Resources was often the first agency to receive reports of forest fires, and passed along word to the Forest Service. “They checked on it and said it’s out,” he continued, “but an acre or so got burned, probably from lightning. Did you hear about it? When could that have happened? I mean, jeez, it’s been so wet, not to mention frozen. Did you guys have lightning with that storm the other night?”
Livy’s mouth fell open. Her mind temporarily relived the walk through the roaring fire, trees blackening all around her. She hadn’t been back there in daylight to look; she had assumed it was all fire-fae illusion. “Um,” she said, “maybe? It was kind of a crazy night. You know what, is it okay if I go back there right now and have a look?”
“Yeah, could you, actually? That’ll get us a head start on mapping any damage. I’ll email you the location.”
“Thanks.” Not that she’d need it. She had a pretty good idea where that fire damage would be. “Talk to you soon. Bye.”
She hung up, flipped a U-turn on the quiet two-lane highway, and sped back toward Bellwater.
Within half an hour, she stood staring at a swath of blackened trunks and scorched undergrowth. She snapped a few photos, and sent one to Kit with the text, Wow. Guess those fire fae were for real.
Whoa, he responded. Thought I smelled something burned last night, but couldn’t see much in the dark. You still over there?
Yeah, checking it out to report on it for work, ha, she answered.
Stay there. I’ll come.
In a little while, his truck growled up the Forest Service road and stopped, its roof just visible through the bushes. He swung the creaky door shut and tromped through the forest to her, where he stood with hands on hips, surveying the burn.
“Damn,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m surprised. But it’s all right, actually.” She touched the charred bark of a giant cedar. “Most of these trees’ll be fine. They can survive a certain amount of fire, especially one that burns through quick like that. It’s good for them, even.”
“Huh. What are you going to tell work?”
“That we had some freak lightning, I guess. Which is true. Caused by fire fae, but I’ll leave that part out.”
“Good call.”
His gaze drifted down to her, and he smiled. Leaning back on his boot heels, hands in his jacket pockets, he looked utterly content.
“Listen,” she said, “you finally get to be free now. I know you’re grateful to me, and I was happy to do it, and I would have done it all for Skye anyway, even without you and Grady mixed up in it. So you don’t have to feel tied to me. I swear I’ll understand, if you want to be—well, free. Like you deserve.”
He drew his eyebrows down, puzzled. “What are you talking about? You think I was lying the other night?”
“Not lying, just…under certain stresses. As we all were.”
He lowered his face, and scuffed at ashes with his boot. “Ah. So you want your freedom. Well, I get that, but I’ll tell you now, I’m not thrilled. I intend to argue with you about it.”
“No, no. I…come on. I love you. But…you want to roam the world. You’ll have money; you’ll get to do that. And you should. Me, I like it here and I’m staying, but why would you stay?”
Kit’s smile rekindled. He sauntered two steps closer. “A, because I like it here too, as we’ve discussed. B, because you’re here, and I love you. So C—should this be C?—yes, I want to enjoy not having to steal, and getting to save money, and doing things with it I’ve been meaning to do. Travel, restore cars, fix up the cabin, hire extra help at the garage. But can’t I do all that and also have a girlfriend?” He took one more step, and hovered within reach. “Do I have a girlfriend?” he added, husky and vulnerable now.
Everything had gone blurry through the happy tears in Livy’s eyes. She jumped forward and hugged him. “Yes. Definitely, yes. Okay, you’ve convinced me, no need to argue.”
When they kissed, Livy wondered if fae disguised as ferns or mushrooms or crows were watching.
They’d always been watching. She could live with that. Just part of the local color.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
SKYE DROVE DOWN THE WINDING HIGHWAY ON A FRIDAY MORNING, HER VOLKSWAGEN PACKED TO THE ROOF WITH boxes. Sprays of white and pink glimmered in the greening forest that lined the road: Indian plum, red currant, and salmonberry in bloom. Spring had arrived. Not everyone knew the names of those plants, but when you had a sister in the Forest Service, you learned that kind of thing.
Her chest ached at the thought of Livy, and her eyes still felt tender from the tears she’d shed this morning upon hugging her goodbye and moving out of their house. But happiness swept back in like a spring breeze at the reminder of where she was heading: an hour and a half south, to Olympia. To Grady.
Grady had taken a cooking job at an upscale bistro in Olympia, and found an apartment there. He and Skye had continued liking each other in real life just fine, it turned out. They’d lasted almost two months living in separate towns, driving to see each other every weekend or whenever they had days off. Then Skye found a position with a graphic design firm in Olympia, where she would start work on Monday. So it only made sense to move in with him.
In her spare time she was also hard at work on her graphic novel, tentatively titled The Goblins of Bellwater. A small press was already interested, having loved the first few pages she sent them.
Besides, she’d still see her sister a lot. She and Grady vowed to get together with Kit and Livy as often as they could. In the meantime, she’d left Livy a little present to find when she got back from work today.
Skye smiled.
Livy read the text from Skye as she walked to the front door after work.
Arrived and moved in! Btw, look behind the winter coats in the front closet ;)
“Hmm.” The intrigue lightened Livy’s melancholy at coming home to an empty house. She leaped up the front steps and unlocked the door.
Against the closet wall behind the coats she found a two-foot-tall framed picture wrapped in brown paper—no, four framed pictures stacked together, she realized as she tugged them out.
Kneeling on the front hall tiles among dried muddy boot-tracks, Livy unwrapped the framed paintings, and laughed aloud even as tears rose in her eyes.
Skye’s art took vintage-travel-poster style this time, and featured an intrepid Livy in each frame.
In the first, she wriggled through a black and brown tunnel of dirt with roots stretching into it and spotted red mushrooms sprouting above. THE EARTH LOVES YOU IN OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST, said the all-caps hand-lettering.
In the second, a shining blue sea-star path led her into the Sound with th
e green water parting magically around her boots. Skye had lettered DIVE INTO BEAUTIFUL PUGET SOUND in the night sky above.
The third showed Livy dashing through red and orange flames with her coat pulled over her nose and a dragon soaring past, with the title WESTERN WASHINGTON, THE HOT PLACE TO BE!
The fourth, captioned CLIMB HIGH IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, featured her ascent into the dark green tree canopy, her hair streaming in the wind, white snowflakes and ice-colored hummingbirds hovering around her.
Livy sniffled, still laughing, and dialed Skye.
“Oh my God, I love them!” she said in lieu of “Hello” when Skye answered.
“Yay!” Skye said. “It was so hard to keep them hidden from you while I was working on them. Jamie let me keep them in her house and do the painting in her garage.”
“I am so hanging these in the hallway. But you kept copies for your portfolio, right? You’ve got to.”
“Definitely. I took scans. In fact, during my job interview I showed them those, and they were some of their favorites. I kind of think those pieces got me the job.”
Livy laughed again, tracing her fingers across the air-poster lettering with pride. “They must think you have one weird-ass imagination.”
“Eh, artists. We’re like that. Plus I told them we have a family tradition of some pretty crazy stories about the woods.”
“Yeah. Don’t we, though.”
It was summer in Bellwater—or nearly, since it was late June, and everyone knew summer in western Washington didn’t truly start till the 5th of July. A layer of clouds hovered over the Sound, but the air had warmed, sunsets lingered until ten p.m., the town had filled with vacationers hauling speedboats, and in the evenings Livy frequently heard the whistle and crack of fireworks.
Today Livy finished work early and showed up at the garage to hang out with Kit until it closed. She helped bring in wind chimes and movable sculptures. He had finished the mermaid months ago and it had sold, and so had the dragon, the mushroom gnome, and the oversized hummingbird he had followed it up with.
