The Line

TWENTY-NINE

Hours had passed in our world by the time I returned home. The house was in upheaval, and my family was tearing it apart both physically and psychically in search of any evidence of what had happened to me. I saw Oliver first. He was standing on the other side of the linen closet door, a marker in his hand. Symbols and lines like the ones I’d seen in Maisie’s notebooks had been written all up and down the hall. Strangely, my first thought was how much primer it would take to cover the marks.

He dropped his marker and pulled me into his arms. “My God, Mercy! What happened to you?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Let’s find Iris and Ellen, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

And I did. Oliver, Iris, Ellen, and Emmet, who had insisted on joining us, all clustered around the kitchen table, and I started at the beginning and told them everything. I spoke of my feelings for Jackson. I confessed about my visit to Jilo’s crossroads, telling them about the love spell I’d wanted and the love spell Peter had bought, which Jilo had, in the end, broken. I told them about the damaged souls at Candler and the living night that existed somewhere in a realm not so far from our own. For the benefit of their understanding, I relived Connor’s manipulations and my own foolish actions. I told them about how Wren had spied for Jilo and what his fate had been. They all sat silently listening to me. The stillest of all was Emmet, who was too reticent to speak and nine times too smart to judge.

It was a little before six when I stood and left them. No one objected to my departure, and no one asked me where I was going. There were all too busy processing everything I had told them.

I stepped out into the garden, then crossed over to my faithful bicycle, which was leaning against the garage. The air had changed in Savannah; it felt charged but fresh, as if a storm had passed through in the night. I hopped onto my bike and pedaled up Abercorn and around Lafayette Square. St. John’s loomed across from me, it spires reaching up to heaven. I directed my own eyes upward, thanking whomever was in charge for getting me through the night and asking for the strength to make it through the coming day.

I dismounted and walked the last few steps through the park, crossing the brick street to Jackson’s GTO, which he had parked directly in front of the church. Jackson was leaning against the hood of the car, drinking a cup of drive-through coffee. He was staring westward, as if he intended to keep to his word about not seeing another sunrise in Savannah. I took one last long look at him before he caught sight of me, knowing all too well that I might never lay eyes on him again. The light of the eastern horizon had already begun to glow in his golden curls, but his face remained shaded. He turned to face me as if he felt the power of my gaze. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he I could tell he had been out all night, probably fighting, certainly drinking. He raised his cup to me in a salute.

As I got closer to him, I noticed that there was a vicious cut along his right cheek, and a bruise on his temple. He reached up and touched it. “Last night out. I shared my reasons for getting out of this little piss-hole of a town, and the natives didn’t take too kindly to my opinion.”

“I’m not going with you,” I said, ignoring him. “At least not today. And you can’t leave today either.”

“Naw,” he said after a moment, still rubbing a finger over the bruise. My heart almost melted at the sight of his swollen face. “It’s time for me to be moving on. I’m all packed up, and I quit the docks yesterday. There’s nothing to hold me here.”

“You can’t leave Maisie without facing her. You need to stay and talk to her. Explain things.”

“Yeah, and let her turn me into a frog,” he said, trying to make it sound like a joke, but I could tell that he was terrified of facing Maisie.

“She won’t do that. She’ll scream at you. Heck, maybe even throw something at you. But you’re breaking her heart, you deserve to face a little screaming. You’ve got to stay here and face up to her. And if there is ever going to be something between us, you have to let me take the time to face up to her too.”

“She’ll hate you,” Jackson said.

“We’re sisters, a big part of her already hates me,” I said and smiled. “But a big part of her loves me. I couldn’t just run off with you behind her back. We could never be happy together that way.”

“I’ve told you, Mercy. I can’t stay here. Not even for you. I can’t live with your family’s weirdness, with this crazy magic crap. I need a normal life.” He paused. “I was hoping that it could be with you, but I guess that wasn’t meant to be.”

He threw his cup to the ground, the last of his coffee bleeding out onto the bricks. He gave me one last look, got into his car, fired up the engine, and headed west as quickly as the wheels would carry him.

I watched the taillights of his car buzz down Harris Street and lost sight of them a little after he crossed Bull. I knew I could never love a man who would desert my sister without even saying good-bye, and I could certainly never love a man who was a coward. I picked up the spent cup, Jackson’s last insult to Savannah, and threw it away in a trash can in the park. I walked my bike home and spent a lot of time wondering how much of what I’d loved about Jackson had been real, and how much I’d invented myself. The Jackson I’d grown to love was not the man who had just left. He was in all probability a creation of my own mind, no more a real man than Wren had been a real child.

I arrived home and leaned my bike back up against the garage. Sunrise met me in our garden, and with a jolt I realized that it was my birthday. Our birthday, I corrected myself, as I sent a wave of love out to Maisie. I hoped that in time she’d be able to forgive me for everything that had happened with Jackson. I hoped that her vision of him would grow as clear as my own suddenly had.

I was glad that no one had locked the kitchen door after I’d left. When I stepped inside, Ellen was waiting for me at the table all by herself. “Hey, you,” she said. “Get in here and let me see your hand.”

For the second time in twenty-four hours, someone took my hand and erased an injury. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since Connor had been the one to cure me. “I know you’re tired, but sit with me for a while,” Ellen said.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I just want to get to bed. You could use some sleep too, I’m sure.”

Her face was drawn, and she looked much older in the golden light coming through the window than she ever had before. “No,” she said firmly. “I need to tell you a few things first, and then we can both get some sleep.”

“All right,” I capitulated and sat down next to her.

“First of all,” Ellen said. “Happy birthday.” She smiled at me. “No, I didn’t forget. None of us did, but I doubt that we’ll get around to much celebrating today.”

“It’s all right,” I said and yawned, hoping that Ellen would take it as the signal it was intended to be.

Ellen reached out and took my hand. “I also want to be sure,” she said, “that you know that I will always be there for you. I loved Erik, your father, and in spite of what happened between him and Emily, I believe that he loved me too. I know he loved you girls. He once told me that not claiming you as his own was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But he agreed that it was better if Ginny never learned that he was your dad.”

“But how could you overlook the fact that he had children with your sister?” I asked.

She took a moment to consider her response. “He was a special man,” she finally said. “I loved him more than life itself, and he was my son’s father. Somehow I managed to forgive him. He deserved children, and Ginny kept me from having any more after Paul was born. I am glad that you were born. When Erik rebelled against his family, they disowned him. You, me, Maisie, and Paul were all he had in this world. I think that made it easier for me to get over his fling with Emily.”

She reached down and uncovered an old photograph she had been shielding from my sight. “I don’t have a lot of things to share with you from his life before we were married, but I do have this. It’s a picture of Erik’s grandmother, your great-grandmother. Her name was Maria.”

She had clear and perfectly spaced eyes, arched eyebrows, and heart-shaped lips. The photo was black and white, but I was sure that the woman’s beautiful long hair must have been the same shade as Maisie’s honey blond locks. “She looks exactly like Maisie,” I said, taking the picture into my hands to investigate it more closely.

“Yes, she does,” Ellen replied. “But even though you look more like your mother, I can still see a bit of Maria in you.”

“May I keep this?” I asked, growing almost enchanted by the face staring back at me from the photo.

“Of course. It’s yours,” Ellen replied.

“Thanks,” I said, starting to stand, but Ellen reached out and stopped me.

“Sweetie, there is one more thing.”

“Okay,” I said, her tone worrying me.

“Last night after you came home from the fire, I sensed something when I hugged you. Things were too wild last night for me to try to verify it, but I’d like to do that right now, if that’s okay.”

“Aunt Ellen, you’re kind of scaring me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, standing up and leaning over me. “It’s nothing to be frightened about.” She lowered her hand to my stomach. “Sweetheart, it’s just as I thought. You’re pregnant.”