Twenty-Seven
They toppled back into the orchard through a hastily opened portal, one by one. Eleanor was the last one through, and she shut it behind them with a wave of her hand, mercifully cutting off the sight of the featureless gray.
For a moment, no one said anything. They stared at each other.
“Is that it?” Otto asked.
“Did we win?” Eleanor asked.
“We won!” Pip whooped and flung herself at them—and then Otto was yelling and Eleanor was laughing and they wrapped their arms around each other, too giddy for words. Their shouts brought Jack and Wander and the hedgewitch, and then there was more celebration. Even the hedgewitch put her hands on Eleanor’s shoulders and smiled at her, and for a moment it was almost—almost—like having her mother back.
But then the hedgewitch fell back, and as Pip crushed Eleanor in another hug, she walked off among the trees.
When their celebration finally died down, Eleanor had to wipe tears from her face. They were tears of happiness, but not just happiness.
For the last year, they’d lived in fear. They’d survived with the knowledge that they might never live long enough to grow up, and that everyone they loved could be destroyed if they failed. If they faltered even for a moment.
The weight of that crashing off of their shoulders was a relief—but Eleanor grieved for the time they’d lost to worrying and suffering.
She grieved for her mother—the woman she once was and the one she could have been.
For the wickedness that had poisoned the hearts of the January Society, and left Pip with a mother who didn’t even love her.
For the cat-of-ashes, and the lifetimes spent bound to Mr. January’s cruel service.
For Katie, spending centuries without kindness.
It was like she could see all those years, all those lives. Time was a road with many branches, and it spread out before her, wild and wonderful and horrible all at once. She could feel them. All of them. A universe inside of her.
“Eleanor,” Otto said in a croak. She looked down.
Stars gleamed beneath her skin. The words of the world-walker were sharp and silver, winding among them.
“It’s beautiful,” Otto said. And it was. It was the most beautiful thing Eleanor had ever seen.
The words faded. So did the stars. But she could still feel them, faintly, inside her. They wouldn’t stay like this, she knew. The Story and its power would adjust and dim and fade. But it would always be part of her.
They stood haphazardly among the trees of the orchard, exhausted and bedraggled. Overhead, the moon was restored to a glowing disk, the stars glimmering in a perfectly natural nighttime sky.
“What now?” Pip asked. “Is that door going to stay shut?”
“I will make sure that it does,” Katie pledged. She stood a few feet away from them, having held herself back from the celebrations.
“Aren’t you evil?” Otto asked her, lifting an eyebrow.
Eleanor laughed. “It’s kind of complicated.”
“She has my memories,” Wander said, smiling. “Doesn’t she?”
“I’m sorry. I know I have no right to them,” Katie said, looking stricken.
“I knew they would find the home they were meant for. She isn’t who I am anymore. I am glad that she can be part of you, if you welcome her,” Wander said.
Katie nodded gravely. “I do.”
“And if it does not grow too confusing, being both of us,” Wander added.
Katie laughed. “I am very used to being more than one person at the same time,” she assured her.
Wander hesitated. “There is one thing that I would know, from the pages of my book.”
“I will tell you anything you ask,” Katie replied.
“The name of the woman I loved. What is it?”
Katie stepped over to her, and leaned to whisper softly in her ear. Wander’s eyes shut. She let out a little sigh.
“Ah. I think . . . I think that name sounds familiar. Like a dream I once had. Thank you,” she said.
“We still need to go back to the Library and return the ink and quill. And there might be other holes in the Wending we caused, right? We need to—” Eleanor started. A hand settled on her shoulder, and Jack looked down at her with a fond, weary expression.
“Eleanor. There are many tasks left to perform. But I think your part in this Story is over.”
Katie walked over to where her satchel had fallen on the ground, next to the book of Eden Eld. She put the book inside with the ink and quill and settled it over her shoulder. “I’ll make sure that these get back to the Library,” she said.
“If you will bring me with you, my thread may help to mend any lingering tears,” Wander said. “And I would like to walk the worlds a little longer, I think.”
“Of course,” Katie said. “Now. It’s time for me to write a new tale for myself. And it’s time for you three to do the same. Goodbye, Eleanor. Otto. Pip. May your paths be smooth and your tales be happy ones.”
She bent and placed a kiss on Eleanor’s brow. It was cold, like the night air, and left a strange but not at all unpleasant sensation. Then she straightened up and turned, a road blooming beneath her feet. She and Wander stepped onto it, and disappeared.
Eleanor let out a breath. She swayed on her feet, and her father wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Wait,” she said. “Where are the hounds? The graveyard dog? We need to—we should—”
“Relax, kid,” the cat-of-ashes said, trotting out of the trees. She had a ragged feather sticking between her teeth and a smug expression on her face. The kitten-of-ashes bounded behind her, fur on end with excitement. “The hounds still belong to Katie. They took off to go find her. They’re not bad dogs, really. Neither is meathead there, once you get past the breath. He was just doing what he was told.” She nodded over her shoulder, and the massive form of the graveyard dog skulked into view, head hanging low.
“Sorry about trying to eat you,” he mumbled.
“I take it you aren’t bound to Mr. January anymore?” Otto asked.
The cat’s tail lashed. “Our deal ended the minute you sent him through that door.”
“What about the rattlebird?” Eleanor asked.
“Oh, that guy was awful,” the cat-of-ashes said. She spat the feather out, a rather undignified process. “Tasted awful, too.”
The graveyard dog gave a rolling, bone-quaking laugh.
“Prrow,” the kitten-of-ashes said. “Meow prow mew.” She looked very pleased with herself, preening.
The cat-of-ashes rolled her eyes. “You did not help. You hindered. And hid. No, you are not a fierce warrior,” the cat-of-ashes admonished the kitten.
“Prrow,” the kitten-of-ashes insisted, then added in a tiny mew, “Fierce!”
“Ugh. Now I’m stuck raising my own continuity error,” the cat-of-ashes said. “Good thing I’m going to be an amazing parent. Come on, Pip-squeak. We’ve got places to be.”
“You’re going?” Eleanor said.
“We’ll visit,” she allowed. “But we’re not pets. We don’t stay.”
“I stay. Also sit. Also down. Also speak,” the graveyard dog said.
“Hush, you,” the cat snapped, and the graveyard dog huffed and dropped to the ground, putting his blocky head between his paws in a sulk.
“I guess this is goodbye, then,” Eleanor said. “Thank you. For everything.”
“It’s been interesting,” the cat-of-ashes said, which was as close to a compliment as Eleanor could expect from a cat. The cat-of-ashes arched her spine as she rubbed up against Eleanor’s leg. Eleanor scratched her ears, and the cat let out a farewell purr. “Try not to stumble into another apocalypse without us.”
“I think we can manage that,” Pip said, giving her a final pat.
“Merfpurr,” the kitten-of-ashes concluded, bashing her head affectionately against Otto’s shins. And then the two of them loped away.
“What now?” Otto asked as the road vanished behind them.
Eleanor looked around. Someone was missing—the hedgewitch. Eleanor felt a zip of alarm, but then she spotted her. She’d walked off on her own, to the far end of the orchard, near the pine forest that surrounded Eden Eld.
“Give me a minute?” Eleanor asked.
“All of a sudden, we’ve got all the time we need,” Otto said.
“Go on,” Pip said.
Eleanor walked slowly through the trees. The air was cool and crisp, the moon shining overhead. She hadn’t realized how much she missed that. A normal sky overhead.
“Well,” the hedgewitch said as she approached, gazing off into the woods. “You won.”
“We won,” Eleanor reminded her. “You were amazing in that fight. I couldn’t have gotten to Katie without your help. And turning Ms. Foster to stone?”
“I remember very little about that woman, but I do remember her being awful,” the hedgewitch said, and Eleanor laughed. The hedgewitch didn’t join in. “So what are you going to do?”
Eleanor looked at her in puzzlement. “Do?”
“About me,” the hedgewitch said. “You needed me for the fight. Now you don’t. I’m of no use to you anymore. I’m no use to anyone. You can bring your mother back, now.”
“People don’t have to prove that they’re useful to deserve to live,” Eleanor said.
“Don’t they?”
“No,” Eleanor said firmly. “Thinking like that is how you get a bunch of people to agree to hand their kids over to get turned into keys. When you start caring about useful more than you care about people, bad things happen. I miss my mother. More than anything. But I won’t destroy you to bring her back. That’s not who I am. It’s not what she’d want.”
“But what if I let you?” the hedgewitch asked softly. She turned slowly. “Eleanor, when my power left me, it was like I was hollowed out. I was my abilities. Without them, I’m no one. I have no friends. No family. No ambitions or grand quests. I’m . . .”
“Empty?” Eleanor whispered.
“Not quite,” the hedgewitch said, her voice hoarse. “You thought that I didn’t care about you. I thought the same. But traveling with you . . . Not all of Claire vanished. And her love for you was the strongest part of her. It’s still here. Faint, but here. It’s the last real thing about me. You should have your mother back, Eleanor. You need her. You don’t need me.” The hedgewitch stretched out her hand, palm up. “Go ahead. Bring her back.”
It was what Eleanor had dreamed of since her mother disappeared. Having her back. Being together again. But Eleanor didn’t move. The hedgewitch wasn’t always kind, wasn’t always pleasant to be around—but she was a person.
“Don’t think of it as destroying me, then,” the hedgewitch said. “Think of it as resetting me. Roll back the clock, the way you’re going to do with Eden Eld. Make me the woman I used to be, before I changed.”
“Everyone changes,” Eleanor said. “We’re supposed to change. If I had to go back to being the girl I was last Halloween, I would lose so much. And some of it would be good to forget. But some of it, I wouldn’t trade for anything.” She hesitated. “You were part of my mother for a long time.”
The hedgewitch nodded. “From the time she was nineteen. She held me at bay for a while, but never completely.”
“Then maybe it’s wrong to think of you as different people,” Eleanor said. “I’m Eleanor, and I’m the world-walker. I made it part of me. It isn’t erasing me anymore. Why couldn’t it be the same for you? Why couldn’t you be you, and my mom? Part of each other. All the ways you’ve changed. All the things you’ve done. Everything you’ve learned. And everything you lost. You wouldn’t be erased. You’d be . . .”
“Whole,” the hedgewitch said, a fragile note of hope in her voice. Eleanor’s heart thumped hard in her chest. The hedgewitch took Eleanor’s hand gently. “I do not want to feel this empty anymore, Eleanor. I don’t want to live my life knowing that so many of the best parts of me have been erased. If you can give her back to both of us, Elle, I think you have to try.”
Eleanor’s throat was tight. She couldn’t speak, only nod, as she drew the book of Claire Barton from her bag. She held it against her chest with one hand, and with the other, she touched two fingertips against the hedgewitch’s wrist.
It wasn’t like weaving the Stories into herself and Pip and Otto. The sense of her mother came to her almost reluctantly, pulled up from the pages of the book. There was none of that hunger and urgency. And there was no finding places to tuck it in, no holding it back from devouring the hedgewitch. In all of the hedgewitch’s empty places, Claire Barton fit. And the hedgewitch had been formed into a perfect match for Claire.
Emotion and memory sighed through her hands, flowing more easily now. There were beautiful things in those pages, love and joy, but also sorrow, and wretched fear, and Eleanor thought for a moment of stopping those pieces from lodging themselves inside the hedgewitch. But they were part of her mother, too. The good and the bad.
The lines of inked words flowed down from where Eleanor touched. They didn’t stay on the skin the way the Stories did—these words were where they belonged, now. They glowed faintly as they sank into the hedgewitch’s skin, vanishing.
And then it was done.
Eleanor let her hand drop. The hedgewitch’s eyes were closed, her breath quick and ragged. Eleanor wasn’t breathing at all. Had it worked?
The hedgewitch’s eyes opened.
And Eleanor’s mother broke into a wide, tearful smile. “Elle,” she said, her voice hoarse. “You found me.”
ELEANOR LOVED WORDS. She loved when you could find the one perfect, correct word, and when it took a thousand wonderful words to describe something. But she would never, no matter how long she lived and how many languages she learned, be able to put into words the feeling of having her mother back.
She would never be able to explain all the emotions that rushed through her in the moment her mother wrapped her up in an embrace—or, moments later, when Jack strode up, alarmed by the sound of weeping, and knew at a glance that Claire had been restored. Or when, finally, finally, her mother and her father held her in their arms, and were together.
When Claire tucked Eleanor’s hair behind her ears and looked into her eyes, it wasn’t just Claire. It was the hedgewitch, too. But their stories were the same story. Eleanor’s mother was her mother—all of her. Everything she’d done and everything she’d been through. All the ways she’d shattered, and all the ways she’d healed. And so was Eleanor.
So were all of them.
And as Eleanor watched Pip and Otto head home to reunite with their own families, she thought about what stories their futures would hold.
Whatever tales there were to tell, they would discover them together, she thought. She looked up at the stars, and felt the starlight within her shine.
“Happy birthday,” she whispered to herself, and smiled.