Widdershins (84 page)

Geordie hugs me until I put my feet on the ground. He holds me a moment longer, to make sure I’ve got my balance, but he doesn’t need to. I’ve totally got my balance.

“Oh, dear,” I say and lift a hand to wipe at the big wet spot I’ve put on Geordie’s shirt.

“Don’t even think about it,” he tells me.

His grin is as big as the one I can feel stretching my own lips.

I turn to the crow girls.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I begin.

Maida steps up and lays a finger against my mouth.

“Shush,” she says. “We’ve wanted to do this for ages, but we couldn’t.”

Zia nods. “There was a veryvery dark thing in you, but it’s gone now.”

“Gone, gone!” Maida cries.

And she begins an impromptu dance. She takes one of my hands, Zia the other, and we bang some more around the room, giggling and laughing until we finally collapse on the bed. I look up to see Geordie shaking his head, but still grinning. He pulls me up into a sitting position. I’m still snickering when I turn to look at the crow girls again, but all the merriment has left their faces once more.

They’re solemn and serious.
Everything
feels solemn and serious, invested with a gravitas that’s completely eluding me. The very air in the room seems to have an earnest weight to it.

“You should spend some time in the otherworld,” Zia says.

Maida nods. “You really should. Both of you.”

“The air of the otherworld is closer to the long ago than it is here.”

“It will keep enchantment strong in your blood.”

“So that you stay strong and your light will never pale.”

“This world of Raven’s . . . it has a funny hold on how things should be.” “Everything’s harder here.”

“Magic.”

“Kindness.”

“Remembering the Grace.”

Then Zia winks at me, a quick smile in her eyes. “But it has better sweets.”

Maida gives a solemn nod of agreement, humour dancing in her eyes, as well.

“This is veryvery true,” she says.

They jump onto the bed and bounce up and down.

“Time to go, time to go!”

And just like that, as suddenly as they appeared, they’re gone.

I feel breathless—the crow girls have the habit of making me feel that way. Only Lucius and Geordie ever seem truly calm around them.

Geordie sits down beside me. He takes what was the Broken Girl’s hand and runs his fingers over mine. They’re as healthy and flexible as his own, without even a hint of numbness or pain.

“Are you really okay now?” he asks.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt better,” I tell him. “Except maybe last night.”

He blushes, just a little, but he grins.

“I see they took the rest of the chocolate bars with them,” he says.

I push him back onto the bed and straddle him.

“Oh, who cares about a bunch of old chocolate bars?” I ask him.

“Not me.”

And he pulls me down, his hands going up the back of my shirt, his lips finding mine.

Matthew Garner’s been my physical therapist since I got out of rehab, lo so many months ago. I don’t see him every day anymore. These days, I only have an appointment every two weeks. But he knows my case. He knows my body’s strengths and limitations. So when I come waltzing into his office, sans wheelchair or canes, a bounce in my steps and swinging my arms, he just stares at me with that classic slack jaw look that you’re forever reading about, but never seem to actually see in real life.

It’s been like that since we came down for a late breakfast at the Custom House in Sweetwater through to seeing all my friends. Wendy and Sophie and Mona and just everybody. Even dour old Goon stared in surprise and then actually grinned when I came skipping into the Professor’s house after Geordie and I got back from Sweetwater.

I don’t even have my scars anymore, and let me tell you, I don’t miss them. Not because of vanity, since I’ve never been one for shorts or dresses. But because every time I looked at them, all I saw was the road map of my pain.

Geordie’s waiting for me now outside of Matthew’s office. He’s sitting on the balustrade leading down to the sidewalk, his fiddle case open beside him while he plucks out tunes on his fiddle. I give him a kiss—just because I can.

“How’d it go?” he asks as he puts away his instrument.

I smile. “He so totally has no idea what happened to me.”

“And wanted to run a million tests.”

“Which I politely declined.”

“As is your wont.”

I shake a finger at him. “I’m the one who comes out with words like ‘wont,’ Geordie, me lad. Don’t you go stealing my vocabulary.”

“What’s yours is mine,” he says with a grin.

“Except we’re not married.”

“But we could be.”

I stop and look at him, not quite sure what I’m hearing.

“Did you just propose to me?” I ask.

“I was kind of trying it on,” he says, “to see how it would take.”

“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be very boho of us. Don’t all the good scruffs like you and me just live in sin?”

“We don’t have to. I think it’d be nice. It would feel . . . complete.”

“Plus it would let us avoid the whole girlfriend/boyfriend and significant other conundrum.”

“And I love you.”

I can’t get enough of hearing those words.

“Say that again,” I ask.

“Hove you.”

“You said it twice,” I tell him, “but I still love you more.”

Okay, so we’re a couple of saps, but who cares? I’ve been in an endless freefall of happiness for days now and after the last couple of years I put in, I’m reveling in it. I give him another kiss and we start off down the street, holding hands like a couple of school kids.

“Do we have plans?” I ask.

“Not until tonight.”

“Right. Dinner at Christy and Saskia’s.”

Geordie nods. “Christiana’s supposed to be coming, too.”

“That’ll be fun. But I was thinking a little more long term.”

“Such as?”

“Well, maybe we really could spend some time in the otherworld. I’ve only ever been there under duress. I’d like to just be able to explore it for once without having to think that my life’s in danger.”

“What about what Joe’s always saying—you know, about how that shine of yours is going to attract trouble on the other side.”

“We can go with Sophie and Wendy at first—or with Christiana. They can show us the ropes and keep us safe. Especially Christiana.”

“No kidding. I think she’s the definition of capable.”

“And then there’s always Joe.”

He nods. “Except I can’t go right away.”

“Because you’re still doing those gigs with the Knotted Cord.”

“I promised, didn’t I?”

I have to smile. The Riddell boys are like cousins and fairy in that way. When they give their word, you can take it to the bank and count on collecting the interest.

“Of course, you did,” I say.

“It’s only until Siobhan gets the full use of her arm back again.”

I nod, but I could have kicked myself that morning in Sweetwater when we came downstairs and I saw her with her arm in a sling.

“We were so stupid to not ask the crow girls to help her, as well.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Geordie says. “I think it’s got to be more serious than a sprained arm, or a cure for a hangover.”

“We still should have asked.”

“There’s a lot of should-haves in both our lives,” he says. “If we stop and worry about them too much, we won’t have time to appreciate what’s happening now.”

I punch him in the arm.

“Don’t go getting all philosophical on me,” I say. “You know what I meant.”

“Ido.”

“And Geordie, me lad?”

He turns to look at me.

“I’d love to be married to you.”

That quick grin of his is so endearing that I have to pull him to a stop and kiss him again.

Like I said, we’re a couple of saps. But we’re loving every minute of it.

It’s later that same night.

We’re staying in my old studio on Lee Street because—hello? Stairs are no longer a problem for the new and improved All Mended Girl. I can get up and down the steep flight at the loft even better than I could before the accident. I have so much energy it’s almost scary. I was never the quiet and demure type in the first place, but now there’s a constant buzz in my every muscle and vein.

Maybe it’s the light everybody’s always talking about. I still can’t see it, but maybe I can feel it now.

I sure feel something.

We picked up a DVD on the way back from dinner at Christy’s apartment and started to watch it, except Geordie fell asleep halfway through. I turn off the DVD player and TV and sit there on my old Murphy bed for a while, watching him sleep. Finally, I lean down to give him a kiss, then scoot off the bed. I walk over to the window in my bare feet and look down at the street for a long time, feeling so blessed that there aren’t the proper words to express my thanks.

But I send out thanks all the same. To the crow girls, to Joe, to the Grace, to Geordie and Raylene and everybody who helped bring me to this point where I’m so healthy and happy and alive. Right at this moment I’m not carrying any baggage. I feel vibrant and ready to be filled with new experiences.

After awhile I take the phone to the far end of the studio where I won’t disturb Geordie, and call my sister.

I called her once as soon as I got back, just to let her know I was okay and say that I’d call her back later. This is the first chance I’ve had.

“So, what was up with that dream?” she says. “Except we decided it wasn’t a dream, didn’t we? Or if it was, you pulled me into one of yours.”

“I’m sorry, but I really needed you there,” I tell her. “You were my inspiration to be strong and stand up to the Del in my head, because you’re the only one of the two of us who stood up to him for real.”

“Yeah well, when you think about it, I didn’t do such a good job. I should’ve cut his throat instead of just his leg.”

“I’m glad you don’t have to carry the weight of that.”

“I guess.” She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “When we were there, you kept talking about how we were inside your head, but it felt just like the otherworld to me.”

“I think it was a bit of both.”

“I guess that’s why I’ve been feeling this way.”

“What way?”

“Well, ever since that night, I can’t stop looking over my shoulder. I keep expecting to see one of those damned wolf boys, just a-gunning for me. They warned me pretty much point blank that they’d be coming for me if I ever went back.”

Raylene’s had her own experiences in the otherworld, but they didn’t turn out nearly as well for her as mine did. You know how fairy tales have good guys and bad guys in them? Well, she was definitely the big bad wolf and the canids didn’t take too kindly to what she was doing to their reputation. She’s changed now, but cousins have long memories.

“I’ll talk to Joe,” I tell her. “He’ll make them understand.”

“Good luck with that because I don’t. Understand, I mean.”

So I tell her the whole story, everything I didn’t get the chance to explain when we were sitting on the porch of that old homestead inside my head.

“I guess it all makes a certain perverted kind of sense,” she says when I’m done. “Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

I hear the yearning in her voice.

“I can’t not,” I tell her. “We’ll probably go once Geordie’s done with the last of his commitments to play with the Knotted Cord.”

“So, Geordie’s going with you?”

I smile, but she can’t see it.

“Oh, yes,” I say.

She laughs. “Someone’s getting laid.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Of course, it is. It’s you and Geordie.”

“No, I mean we’re getting married.”

“Oh, wow. I’d say ‘so soon?’, but you guys have been circling around each other for pretty much forever, haven’t you?”

“I guess we have. Will you come to the wedding?”

“Is it going to be all mushy?”

“Come on, Raylene. Say you will. Say you’ll be my maid of honour.”

She waits a beat before she asks, “What about all those friends of yours? Wendy and Sophie and the one who draws the comics—”

“Mona.”

“Whatever. Shouldn’t it be one of them?”

“I want it to be you.”

“Just a sec’,” she says.

Her voice sounds a little funny, then I hear her put the phone down and blow her nose.

“Are you okay, Raylene?” I ask when she gets back on.

“Oh, sure,” she says, with the usual sardonic tone back in her voice. “It’s just allergies.”

You big liar, I think. You don’t have allergies any more than I do.

But I don’t call her on it.

“So, say you will,” I say instead.

“Of course I will. I can’t not show up at the wedding of the only member of my family that I actually like.”

“Careful,” I tease. “You’re being almost sentimental.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

“I love you, too,” I tell her.

I can almost see her do that little shake of her head she does when she’s feeling uncomfortable. Just mentioning any kind of intimacy always seems to puts her off-balance.

“I’m glad for you,” she says. “You really deserve some happiness after all you’ve been through this past couple of years.”

“Everybody deserves happiness—including you, Raylene.”

She surprises me. I know she carries a lot of regret over the things she’s done in the past—things she can’t ever change. She never talks about it, but I know she feels that there’s no way she can ever make up for what she’s done, that she doesn’t deserve happiness because of all the pain she’s brought into other people’s lives.

But instead of brushing me off, she says, “I guess that’s why I’ve got you in my life.”

I can’t help it. I start to cry.

“Oh, Jilly . . .”

“No, it’s good,” I tell her through my sniffles. “I’m . . . I’m actually happy. I’m so looking forward to seeing you.”

“Me, too,” she says.

I look out the window, at the strip of dark night sky I can see above the building across the street. I think:

Once upon a time . . .

Maybe fairy tales aren’t the only place you can find a happy ending.