Christine
***Almost Four Years Later ***
I was going to kill Emma Arnaud.
I’d let her pluck and wax every extraneous strand of hair on my body, and she was still not done pecking away at my eyebrows.
“Seriously, Em. Why aren’t you done?”
My powers answered me. Because she wanted me to look as perfect as she’d looked on her wedding day. That day, two years ago, I’d fussed over her and completed every task she’d given me to do as her maid of honor, and the day had gone off without a hitch. Almost. Baby Sophie wasn’t the best walker back then and she’d veered into the crowd to get to Emma’s parents before completing her walk down the aisle. Nate had picked her up and saved the ceremony.
And now it was my turn to be pampered, but I absolutely hated pampering.
“I’m almost done,” she said. “Stop whining.”
She swatted my hand away, and my bedroom door opened. Sophia. Of course … she was sobbing. She’d cried through Emma’s entire ceremony, so I didn’t bother asking her to stop.
“My angels,” she said.
“Oh, God,” I groaned.
“The band is here. I just wanted to let you know that.” She wiped her eyes with the same crumpled tissue that had been in her hand all morning. And then my mom walked in, with a matching tissue in her hand.
She was wearing a longer version of Emma’s dress. I didn’t have many friends, and I’d needed enough bridesmaids for the entire ghost pack to stand with Nate. So I had Em, my mom, and Nate’s little sister, Mina. I’d had to ask two of Emma’s friends who I’d gotten somewhat close to because Nate’s uncles had pouted about not being in the wedding party. Courtney and Stephanie had been gracious enough to accept the late offer.
“You’re not even in your dress yet!” Mom said.
“I know. Blame Emma.”
“Lydia,” Sophia said, and pointed to the boxes in the corner of my room. “I thought you told me that you unpacked last night.”
“Not completely,” Mom said. “We got a little busy with her bachelorette party … that I wasn’t supposed to mention to you. Sorry.”
Sophia looked a little upset, both about being lied to and not being invited to my party. There were just some moments that Sophia should not witness.
Even with everything we’d had going on yesterday, I’d wanted all of my things to be in our new, and old, house in New Orleans by our wedding day. Today was the day that my father had agreed to let me move out of our house in San Juan. Nate and I had gone by his rules for almost four years. I’d stayed with my parents like they’d asked, and Nate had lived partly in his dorm room at Princeton, partly in Anchorage with his dad, and partly in secret in my bed.
They were finally going to let me be an adult and live alone with Nate in New Orleans. It was Nate’s idea to have the ceremony here, and he’d chosen the perfect venue. My parents had already used the beach in San Juan for their second wedding shortly after we’d saved the world, and then Emma and Paul had used it. We wanted something unique, and the house where we’d met and where we were going to live just fit.
“I’ll unpack later, Sophia,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”
She didn’t listen. She started unpacking as Emma and Mom helped me into my dress. After an insanely long lace-up process that my mom cried through, Emma put the finishing touches on my makeup and walked me to a mirror.
I looked exactly like I’d imagined I would look on my wedding day—wearing a strapless lace gown, my curls up in a bun, and my veil flowing from the bottom of it.
“Wow,” I said.
“I know,” Emma said. “I’m that good.”
My other bridesmaids, Courtney, Stephanie, and Nate’s not so little sister looked beautiful in the yellow dresses that Em had chosen for them. They were all slightly different, but they worked well together.
And then … he came in. My father.
He looked dapper in his tux, but sad in the face. “Don’t do this,” I said.
He hugged me, and Mom started crying again. How were we going to make it through this day? In the privacy of our hug, he said, “It’s not too late to change your mind. We’d love to have you in your room … forever.”
I laughed. “Dad, we talked about this.”
“I know … I’m just not ready. It’s like you’re only four years old and leaving me.” That was as long as he’d known me, but it was really my twenty-first birthday. In hindsight, I wished I’d chosen another day to get married. My mother was never able to keep it together on my birthday, but I hadn’t wanted to wait any longer to become Mrs. Nathan Reece. Technically, I was becoming Mrs. Nathan Thomas Dali Scott-Reece, but that was too long to put on a driver’s license.
“I’m not moving back in, Dad. So come on. Suck it up. You have a big job ahead of you today. That’s a really long staircase.”
He walked me out of my room, his arm already in position.
“Where’s Sophie?” Emma said. “We need Sophie in place to do the flowers. Oh, dear Lord, she’s going to ruin another wedding!”
“She won’t,” Paul said, from the second floor. “She’s right here. I’ll send her up. Go to Mommy, baby.”
My goddaughter wobbled up the stairs in a yellow dress with tons of ruffles. She’d gotten Emma’s dark hair and Paul and Sophia’s blue eyes. She was perfection inside of the most hyperactive body you’d ever see. She ran past Emma and straight to me with her little arms open for a hug. Paul must have given her something pink and sticky to eat, and she was headed straight for my dress.
“Up we go,” Sophia said, and grabbed her great-grandchild. “Your silly father gave you cake … at ten in the morning. What are we going to do with him?” At this point, there was nothing to be done about Paul. He was still outrageous, and he’d spoiled Sophie rotten.
While Sophia cleaned up my flower girl, the band began to play downstairs. It was my dad’s friends, so all the magical beings in the audience, including the nuns, were going to have to be careful while they were here. Either that, or we were going to have to tamper with their memories at the end of the night.
Something moved in the corner of my eye. For the quickest moment, I thought I saw a shadow in the doorway of my grandmother’s studio. Emma was busy getting everyone in line. Sophia was supposed to march in first and kick off the whole thing.
Something moved in that room again.
It hadn’t been haunted in years. My grandparents’ spirits had been ushered over to the other side, and we only bothered them with séances a few times a year. And all of the wedding guests were supposed to be downstairs. That room should’ve been empty.
Mom fixed my dad’s tie, and I walked into my grandmother’s old studio slowly. It had been years since I’d been afraid of anything or anyone coming into my home. Why today? Why on my wedding day?
I turned on the light just to prove to myself that it was nothing. I heard someone running in there, and a box that I hadn’t unpacked tipped over.
“Hello?”
A little voice said, “Oh, no. Come on … work. Come on.”
“Hello?”
With a thought, I moved myself to the other side of the boxes. There, crouching on the ground with a blue candle and a handful of powder was a little boy. He had to be younger than ten. He wasn’t wearing anything other than plaid boxers. “Hi,” I said.
He looked up at me with startled eyes. Green eyes. I narrowed mine.
To the candle in his hand, he said, “Come on … work.”
“Who are you?” He didn’t answer me. Neither did my powers. “I’m talking to you. How did you get in here? Who did you come here with?”
He groaned and pleaded with the candle in his hand, “Please … please work. I’m going to die!”
Oh, he needed help. After Mom started working part-time and left Tyler mostly in charge, he’d hired Nate and me as emergency backup. Most people in the supernatural world knew who I was, so I guessed this little boy had found us. But he certainly didn’t look like he wanted to be found.
“Who’s going to kill you?” I asked.
“You are.”
His candle flickered, and he blew the dust in his hand into the flame. In the same second, I clutched his arm, and in the next, I opened my eyes … in my wedding dress … downstairs in the living room.
All of the flowers that Emma had decorated the place with were gone, and the chairs with yellow ribbons tied on the backs had been picked up. How had I missed my own wedding?
The little boy took off running, as fast as Nate could run, and I screamed, “Hey! What’s going on? Get back here.”
He groaned, from somewhere in the dining room.
“Looking for this?” Nate said, and carried the little boy back into the living room over his shoulder. He was also wearing boxers. “Baby … why are you in your wedding dress?”
“Because I’m getting married today!” I yelled. “Oh, don’t look at me. It’s bad luck!”
Nate chuckled. “Noah, your mom has lost her mind.”
“Mom?” I said. “Noah? What the … who the …” I paused to gather my thoughts. “Where is your tux? And Emma and Sophie and … my parents.”
“Emma and Paul are on vacation,” he said, slowly as though I were a mental patient. “Your parents are in San Juan with Naomi, and Sophie is upstairs like she’s been all weekend. What’s … wrong with you?”
Since the only other person in the house that I knew was Sophie, I yelled her name. A door opened on the second floor, and a girl who was way too big to be Sophie came out.
She had the same dark hair and the same blue eyes, but she wasn’t my little baby anymore. She had … boobs. Everything about the world was wrong. She’d just gotten out of Pull-Ups. Why the hell did she need a bra?
“What’s going on?” I said, but I didn’t say it. It was my voice, just coming from another room in the house.
When my body double walked into the living room, I realized I’d had one too many shots at my bachelorette party. My hair was a little shorter, but I looked mostly the same. I had to still be on the party bus … falling over my mom, as we rang in my twenty-first birthday and my wedding day.
“Did you jump through another portal?” Nate asked.
“No! I …”
Noah, the boy in Nate’s arms, pointed to Sophie. “It was all her fault. I swear. I had nothing to do with it.”
“He’s lying!” Sophie yelled. “He asked me to send him back to his birthday, and I did!”
“God,” the other me said. “Bring me the spell, Sophie.” She snapped and gave the other me a book that was almost as big as she was. “You sent him back to the day …” The other me looked into my eyes. “Oh … you have to get back to your life. It’s a big day for you.”
I was about to ask why, but I looked at Sophie again, then at Noah. They had to be about four years apart, and in my world, Sophie was already three. Nate and I were going to have a baby, that baby, in the first year of our marriage. Probably nine months into it to be exact.
Since none of us knew how to reverse the spell, we had to call Sophia. I didn’t know why it shocked me, but she looked exactly the same. “Sophie, I’m going to spank you,” she said. “I told you about using magic on your own. You’re not ready.” She turned her long finger on Noah. “And you, too, mister. What did I tell you about running around the house like a savage? Put on some clothes.” She smacked Nate’s shoulder. He was also running around the house like a savage in his underwear. “He does everything you do, Nathan. It wouldn’t kill you to wear pants!”
Then she yelled at the other me for not watching Sophie and Noah, then finally, she yelled at the real me for no reason at all.
“Now get over here,” she said, “before you miss your wedding.”
I took her hand and looked back at Nate and my son. “Does it all work out?” I asked him.
He smiled, that same heartbreakingly gorgeous smile that I’d been seeing for years and still hadn’t gotten used to. “Better than we ever imagined, babe.” There were family pictures all over the walls, but I didn’t want to focus on them. I saw myself holding a little girl, and there were countless pictures of my parents with the kids, but I wanted the future to still be a mystery.
Sophia snapped her fingers, and I landed in my studio alone … on my wedding day again. My mom was calling my name outside of the door. “It’s time,” she said.
I walked out just in time to see her descend down the staircase. Then Emma went. Then … it was my turn. My dad took my hand and led me down the stairs. Nate’s face lit up when he saw me, and he smiled again … the same smile I’d just seen in the future. And I knew that this was the start of my happily ever after.
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