fancy house. Just someone else to do the shopping.”
Sam considered. He hadn’t loosened his hold on me yet. “I think you always have to do your own shopping.”
“I’ll bet the Queen doesn’t shop for herself.”
He blew a breath out over the top of my hair. “But she always eats the same thing every day. Eel jellies and haddock sandwiches and scones with Marmite.”
“I don’t think you even know what Marmite is,” I said.
“It’s something you put on bread and it’s disgusting. That’s what Beck told me.” Sam pulled his arms free and leaned on the railing instead. He eyed me. “Are you cold?”
It took me a moment to realize the implication: Will you shift?
But I felt good, real, firmly me. I shook my head and joined him at the railing. For a moment we just stood there in the darkness and looked out into the night. When I glanced over at Sam, I saw that his hands were knotted together. The fingers of his right hand squeezed his left thumb so tightly that it was white and bloodless.
I leaned my head against his shoulder, just his T-shirt between my cheek and his skin. At my touch, Sam sighed — not an unhappy sigh — and said, “I think those are the northern lights.”
I shifted my gaze without lifting my head. “Where?”
“Over there. Above the trees. See? Where it’s sort of pink.”
I squinted. There were a million stars. “Or it could be the lights from the gas station. You know, that QuikMart outside of town.”
“That’s a depressing and practical thought,” Sam said. “I’d rather it was something magical.”
“The aurora borealis isn’t any more magical than the QuikMart,” I pointed out. I had done a paper on it once, so I was more aware of its science than I might have otherwise been. Though I had to admit that I did find the idea of solar wind and atoms playing together to create a light show for us a little magical anyway.
“That’s also a depressing and practical thought.”
I lifted my head and shifted to look at him instead. “They’re still beautiful.”
“Unless it really is the QuikMart,” Sam said. He looked at me then, in a pensive way that made me feel a little fidgety. He said, reluctantly, as if suddenly remembering his manners, “Are you tired? I’ll go back in with you, if that’s what you want.”
“I’m not tired,” I said. “I want to just be with you for a while. Before everything gets difficult and confusing.”
He frowned off into the night. Then, all in a rush, he said, “Let’s go see if those really are the northern lights.”
“You have an airplane?”
“I have a Volkswagen,” he replied valiantly. “We would have to get someplace darker. Farther away from the QuikMart. Into the wilds of Minnesota. You want to?”
And now he had the shy little grin on his face that I loved. It felt like ages since I had seen it.
I asked, “Do you have your keys?”
He patted his pocket.
I gestured upstairs. “What about Cole?”
“He’s sleeping, like everyone else at this time of night,” Sam said. I didn’t tell him that Cole wasn’t sleeping. He saw my hesitation and mistook the meaning of it. “You’re the practical one. Is it a bad idea? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a bad idea.”
“I want to go,” I said. I reached down and took his hand firmly. “We won’t be gone long.”
Getting into the Volkswagen in the dark driveway, the car rumbling to life, it felt like we were conspiring to something greater than just chasing lights in the sky. We could be going anywhere. Chasing the promise of magic. Sam turned up the heat all the way while I moved my seat back — someone had moved it all the way forward. Reaching over the center console, Sam briefly squeezed my hand before grabbing the gearshift and backing out of the driveway.
“Ready?”
I grinned at him. For the first time since the hospital, since before the hospital, I felt like the old Grace, the one who could do anything she put her mind to. “I was born ready.”
We raced down the street. Sam reached over to brush the top of my ear with his finger; the action made him send the car slightly crooked. Looking hurriedly back to the road, he laughed at himself, just a little, as he straightened the wheel.
“Watch out the window,” he said. “Since I can’t seem to remember how to drive. Tell me where to go. Where it’s brightest. I’m trusting