checking the cottage one last time, then the drive through a soft rain that made the green glow like drenched emeralds.
When she finally walked into the airport, the noise, the crowds, the movement hit as a hard culture shock that nearly woke her. But she focused on getting through, just getting through all the steps and stages. When she finally sat in the relative quiet of the lounge to wait for her flight, she stuck with water. She already felt outside her body, and her hands shook a little as she raised the glass.
As she boarded, she thought how she’d flown on a dragon once, and that was real. Then she answered Marco’s cheerful text to try to ground herself to what was real now.
As the plane rose, she didn’t look out the window. Couldn’t bear to look at what she left behind. She didn’t want a movie or a book, but tried to lose herself in writing for a time.
It helped, a little, and when the story slipped away from her, she used the bathroom to take the potion, do the spell, and with the charm in her pocket, slept the time away.
Steps and stages, she reminded herself when she landed, and pushed through all of them until she wheeled her luggage out into a world of sound and rush that made her ears buzz and her stomach pitch.
She might have turned then and there and rushed for some sort of escape, but there stood Marco, both hands waving in the air. Marco, grinning from ear to ear. Marco, grabbing her in a hug that lifted her off her feet.
“Here she is!”
“Here you are,” she murmured, and, laughing and crying at once, pressed her face to his shoulder.
“Let me get a look at my best girl.” He pulled her back, blinked. “Girl, you were buff when I left, but shit my pants, you are frigging ripped. What’d you do?”
“Am I? I worked out a lot.”
Sword practice, combat training, riding, walking.
“Looks damn good on you. Where’s that dog of yours? Where do we have to go to get him?”
“I couldn’t bring him right now.” And she began to cry in earnest. “I left him with . . . I’ll explain.”
“It’s all right, baby, it’s okay. Stupid apartment.”
“I really want to get out of here, Marco.”
“Sure you do. Here, I’ll push this little mountain.” He got behind the cart. “I borrowed my cousin’s minivan—that’s an embarrassment to my breed, but it works. You just wait at the curb, and I’ll bring it around.”
“Thanks.”
“You must be worn out.”
“I guess. Everything feels so strange. Except you.” She gripped his arm as he wheeled the cart outside.
“My clock was off for days when I got back. You okay here?”
“Yeah, all good.”
No, she thought as he jogged away. No, nothing’s okay. The air smells wrong, the sky looks wrong. Too many people talking at once. Too many people and cars everywhere. The thunder of planes taking off, landing.
He pulled up in a cherry-red minivan, then hopped out to open the cargo doors. “You go on, sit and catch your breath. I’ll load up.”
“No, I’m good, and I need to move after the long flight.”
By the time she slid into the passenger seat, her head throbbed.
“It’s gonna feel weird driving on the right, I bet.” He pulled away from the curb. “I got the night off, so I’m going to fix you a good dinner. I know how you are about getting everything in its place, but you can wait till tomorrow to unpack. Just chill.”
“Maybe. I’ve got so much to tell you.”
“And I want to hear every bit of it. Especially about the Irish hunk you hooked up with.”
“That’s over.”
“Hey, maybe he’ll come over to visit you.”
She shook her head. “I had to go; he had to stay.”
“Don’t you forget about Sandy and Danny. Summer love can last.”
At her blank look, he rolled his eyes. “Grease, Breen, it’s the word.”
And he made her laugh.
She did her best to shut out everything but him as they drove into the city. She knew all of this, she thought, all of this so familiar. And now as distant as the two moons.
They carted all the bags up to the apartment.
“I’ve got to get the van back. You just chill, and I’ll be back again in a half hour. You chill, you hear?”
“Yes.”
He gave her another hard hug. “Welcome the hell home, Breen.”
When he left, she looked around. All this familiar, too.
But it wasn’t home, not anymore. No matter