It was like the magic within me had died. Before today, I had never realized how my mood impacted my energy, but now I felt its absence keenly. I’d woken this morning to an empty apartment and had moved forward on sluggish autopilot ever since. I’d got up, showered, dressed, chewed on another piece of cheese, and wrote a note to Sylvia to thank her for her hospitality and to tell her where I was going. But not why. Then I left.
I felt lost and abandoned by everyone, like someone had blown out my pilot light, leaving me cold and alone.
As I sat on the bus, leaving the city behind me, and watching the foothills of the Pocono mountains rise up before me, I thought about little else other than Henry. Just yesterday, we’d been kissing, oblivious to everything and everyone around us. Perhaps if we’d been less wrapped up in ourselves, we might have seen this blowup between the General and Eleanor coming, but sadly, we had not. I racked my brain, searching for clues and signals that might have resulted in a different outcome—I really hadn’t predicted Eleanor telling her father about Victor, after everything she’d said to me—but all I could remember was how blissfully happy I’d been, and could think of nothing but Henry’s love and all the things we’d promised to each other. So much for that. At the first test, he’d abandoned me and disappeared off the face of the earth. Three cheers for true love.
I’d kept to myself on the bus. The seat beside me remained vacant, and right now, my bag was sprawled across it. I reached inside and nibbled on the tuna sandwich I’d bought at the station. I didn’t have much of an appetite, and the bread tasted stale. I checked the sell-by date. Go figure. The sandwich only had minutes left to live. After a couple of nibbles, I put the half-eaten cardboard back in its plastic wrapper and stowed it away. If I met a hungry cat on my travels, I’d offer it a treat.
Outside, the day was miserable. The dull, overcast sky couldn’t have mirrored my mood more completely if it had tried. I was grateful when at long last the bus pulled into town, and I grabbed my things and got off. Home was a fair walk or a taxi ride away. I couldn’t wait to be there and only hoped I could make it before the heavens opened up and the rain came down, because it looked like it was planning to do just that.
I was getting my bearings when a familiar voice called out to me. “Cat! Oh, thank Gaia I caught you!”
The familiar face of my dad couldn’t have been more welcome. He stood a few feet away from the bus wearing jeans and a raincoat. His posture was slightly bent over, as if already anticipating the rain.
“Dad! What are you doing here? How did you know I’d be here?”
“Your mom said you would be arriving on a bus. I just hoped it was this one and I hadn’t missed you!” Dad smiled as he bent down to kiss me on the cheek. “You don’t think you got those clever genes from your mom, now, do you?”
I almost laughed.
“Come on,” Dad said as he grabbed my bag. “It’s going to pour down any moment. Let’s go jump in the car and we can talk properly there.”
I followed without question and a few seconds later was strapping myself into his Highlander. Dad had put my bag in the back, and climbed in beside me, buckling up.
“Wow, this feels weird.”
“Being home?”
“No, sitting up front with you, usually I’m squeezed into the back with the screaming multitude.”
“You hungry?” Dad asked.
I thought about the less-than-appetizing sandwich in my bag. “I had a nibble of something on the bus, thanks.”
He looked at me critically, like a doctor examining a patient. “Are you sure? Because you look like you need fattening up. Have you lost a little weight since you left?”
I couldn’t say I’d noticed and shrugged. “So how did you know I was coming?”
“We got a call from Sylvia earlier this morning. You left her a note,” Dad replied.
“Ah.”
Well, I was glad she was back at the apartment, but now wondered if I’d done the right thing after all in coming home to Pennsylvania so soon. I stared out of the window. So much for the wisdom of the magic clock.
“She sounded pretty worried. I promised you’d call her when you got home.”
“I will,” I said. “Did anyone else call?”
“Don’t think so. Were you expecting someone?”
“No, I was just wondering. Never mind. Thanks for collecting me.” At that moment, he had to turn left, and I was able to hide my disappointment by shifting to look out of my own window.
I remained quiet for the rest of the journey. Every now and then, Dad would glance my way, his handsome brow a little furrowed as he worried about me. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. Not really. I yawned, pretending I was tired to explain my silence. I wasn’t sure what to say. How would he react if he heard the General had flung me out? I suspect he’d challenge him to a wizard duel, and though Dad was skilled with a scalpel, I doubted his powders and potions would stand up too well to a man skilled in wand craft. Enchantments or no enchantments, the General couldn’t stay locked in the Abbey forever, and when he came out, I knew Dad would be waiting. But without telling the General’s part in this fiasco, I wasn’t sure how to frame the rest.
After a short drive, Dad pulled up to the house and put us in park. He turned off the engine. “Are you sure everything’s okay? You’re awfully quiet. You know you can tell me anything. Anything at all.”
I didn’t want to lie to him. “No, it’s not, Dad. But it will be. I just need a little time. And thanks.” I leaned across the seat and kissed him and then dashed out of the car.
Mom was waiting for us at the door. It was unusually quiet, and I realized the kids must be at school. That was something. I wasn’t sure I was up to seeing them all right now. As soon as I reached the step, Mom wrapped her arms around my shoulders and almost squeezed the life out of me in a great hug.
“We missed you,” she said, planting hundreds of mom kisses on my cheeks.
I didn’t resist or push her away. Instead, I hugged her back. “I missed you too.”
“Have you lost weight?”
“Not you too. I don’t think so? I’ve been eating, honest.”
The rain was beginning to spit hard, promising lots more to follow. “Come on, ladies. Let’s get inside.” Dad ushered us forward from behind, and I was instantly greeted by the familiar smells of home-baked cookies and coffee. Mom had rustled up my favorites.
I hung up my poncho, and Dad slipped my bag on the hook next to it. It was comforting seeing all those rows of hooks, currently empty while the kids were out. I looked down at the discarded shoes and around at the scattered toys and abandoned clothes and blankets. Sylvia’s place had been so organized by comparison. It was good to be home.
I meandered over to the kitchen table, and a minute later, Mom deposited a hot and frothy latte in front of me. “Thanks,” I said.
She sat down across from me, and I saw them both exchange worried glances.
“Why didn’t you call and tell us you were coming?” Mom asked.
“I don’t have a phone right now,” I said.
“You lose it?” Dad asked. “Those things are expensive to replace.”
“Misplaced it. It’ll show up sooner or later.”
Dad bit his lip. Any other time he would have laid into me, but not today. He was far too sensitive for that.
Mom’s coffee was rich and refreshing, and I reached across for one of my favorite chocolate covered shortbreads. I ought to call Sylvia, but I needed to use one of their phones and didn’t want to make the call in front of them.
“How is everyone?” I asked.
“Good.” Mom smiled, and reassured that at least I was in full possession of my life and limbs, she got up and began pounding something in her mortar.
Dad slipped his phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. “I have to get back to work shortly, but make whatever calls you need. Just be quick.”
I took it from him gladly and, standing up, grabbed hold of my coffee. “Do you mind if I take this up to my room?”
Dad nodded. And off I went.
With my door closed behind me, I sat in my wicker chair with my right leg hooked under me. I couldn’t wait to speak to Sylvia. She was my direct link to Henry, and angry as I was, I was still desperate for news of him. Plus, whatever he thought about this business with his mom, he owed me an explanation for abandoning me. I deserved that at least.
I deposited my coffee on the little table beside the chair and pulled up her number from caller ID.
Her phone barely rang before she answered. “Oh, by Gaia, Cat! What in Hades made you run away like that? I saw your note as soon as I got home. I was worried sick! Wait a minute. I want to be there.”
The face of Dad’s phone inflated like a hot bubble, but instead of popping, the plastic grew and grew into the robust shape of Sylvia. Her image kept growing until it was the size of a Maine Coon cat, and then the bubble popped off the phone and drifted to a few feet away from my face.
Wow, I thought. That was one I hadn’t seen before. I would have to learn that one.
“There, that’s better. I can see you properly now. So tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single thing.”
I kept my voice low and told her everything that had happened at the Abbey. She listened intently, interrupting with only the occasional, “What?” and “No?”, “He did what?” and “No way!” Then she said, “He didn’t even let you go back inside to get your phone? What a monster. No wonder you headed for home. You couldn’t contact me, and you couldn’t contact Henry. It’s unforgivable.”
I couldn’t have agreed more, but that went without saying. “And when I got back to the apartment, you were gone, so I decided I ought to come on home,” I finished.
“Yes, sorry about that. Funnily enough, I went back to Pennsylvania myself. My darling Matt was pining for me and needed a little love. I must have just missed you when you left. Bad timing.”
“What about Isabella? Where is she?”
Sylvia was silent for a moment, and her natural smile left her face. “Let’s just say that little fae experiment didn’t quite work out. Her brother came and collected her yesterday. I don’t think we’ll be hearing from her again.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that.” And it was true. Isabella was a wild one, to be sure, and she sometimes got in the way when I wanted to be alone with Henry, but she had been a lot of fun and had never been mean to me. I thought about Jimmy. Perhaps it was for the best she was gone, if only for his sake. As for her brother, well, it wouldn’t bother me if I never saw him again. “What did she do?” I asked.
“Nothing. Not a thing. That’s the problem. All partying and no work. I’m sorry and all that, but I can’t afford to have someone around who isn’t pulling their weight. That’s what Henry said, and from what little I saw of her, I had to agree with him. Talking of Henry.”
My heart skipped a beat when she mentioned his name. “What of him?”
“I could tell you myself, but I suspect you would rather hear what he has to say directly from him.”
“What?”
Her smile widened like a Cheshire Cat. “Toodle-oo. Talk later!” The Sylvia bubble floated back toward my phone, colliding with an audible pop, and just like that, Sylvia was gone.
At that moment, two things happened at once. First, I heard a strange rumble outside, like low thunder, and the braying of several horses, unless I was very much mistaken. Riders weren’t unknown in this neck of the woods, but this didn’t sound like a single rider. And who would go riding in this downpour?
I pulled out my leg from under me and was about to go look out of the window when there was also a knock at my bedroom door. I turned instead to answer that.
It was my dad. One eyebrow was cocked higher than the other, like he didn’t know whether to be puzzled or amused.
“I think you’d better go take a look outside.”
Confused myself, I handed him back his phone and ran past him and down the stairs. I didn’t know who would be waiting for me down there, but I prayed my heart was correct and that I wouldn’t be disappointed. My mom stood by the kitchen table, looking equally as amused as Dad had been. I didn’t stop to speak but flung open the front door and ran out into the rain.
I stopped in my tracks when I got to the front step. A spectral coach-and-four was parked on our front lawn. The horses, which were almost transparent, snorted and stomped on my dad’s weedy turf, pulling at the dandelions and shaking their manes in confusion when their ghostly teeth failed to make purchase with the crop.
Their frosty breath was labored, like they’d been driven long and hard over some distance. To me, it was like a scene straight out of a Jane Austen novel—only the horses were long dead, and I was no Elizabeth Bennet.
And there, sitting in the driver’s seat, soaked to the skin and with a riding whip in hand, sat Henry, looking like a drowned rat in a wet white shirt and leather jacket. And he was smiling.