The Blue Woods (40 page)

Ed coughed and hid his red cheeks with his cup of lemonade.

I hopped off the raised floorboards and met Jonah just past the barn. I slid my hand into his, and we headed for the woods.

As we climbed over the stone wall, I thought about Nerina beneath us, in her lair below the roots and rocks. It was going to be weird not having her here; I'd gotten used to her presence on my farm. But I knew that as much as the sight of Heath's cabin punched me in the gut every time I saw it, for Nerina it was a million times worse. She needed to go back to Italy to heal.

The trees closed over us the deeper we went into the forest, surrounding us with cool, calm quiet. Here and there, I saw remnants of the magic: a leaf lined with shimmering blue, a branch dripping with azure glitter. Jonah and I pointed them out to each other, our eyes seeing things the rest of the world could not.

Dario had been right: the magic had worked its way into the world long after the spell. Though the Malandanti had disappeared that night without us knowing who they were—a side effect that drove me crazy—over the next couple of weeks, there had been a few small-town scandals. My government teacher, Mr. Clemens, had been discovered laundering money in his basement. Josh Baker's mother was indicted in an insider trading deal gone south. And the mayor of Willow Heights was being recalled for improper use of government funds.

The Bobcat, the Coyote, and the Boar, reduced to nothing without their power.

“It feels so weird to walk here,” Jonah said, “instead of running through these woods as a Panther.” He paused. “Or a Wolf.”

“I haven't walked here since . . .” I stopped. “Wow. Since the day I spread my dad's ashes. The day I met you—in both your human and your Panther shape.” I watched a bird circle down from the top of a towering pine tree. “It feels like a lifetime ago.”

“For me it was.”

I looked into Jonah's eyes, as green as the forest would be in the lushness of summer, not so long from now. It was impossible to look back on that day now and not see everything that lay between then and now, the long journey we'd had to this point. After a moment, Jonah looked away and gazed over the trees and the shifting sunlight through the branches. “These woods . . . It's not just the magic. It's what happened here—what Heath did for me—that makes them sacred.”

I squeezed his fingers, my throat too tight to answer. After a moment, we continued on, climbing over fallen logs and passing beneath trees whose branches were just beginning to blossom. The copse of birch trees appeared in the scattered sunlight, their trunks glowing like moonlight. I stood in the middle of them and breathed in deep. Heath's spirit was here, but it wasn't tainted like I'd thought it would be. It was a place of grace, as much as a church or temple was.

Because it wasn't just the place where Heath had died. It was the place where Jonah had been born.

From here we could hear the Waterfall tumbling over rocks, rushing end over end. We came through the brush and climbed out onto the large, flat rock. “God, it really is beautiful, isn't it?” Jonah said. “I don't think I've ever just sat back and appreciated its beauty.”

It had been a long time since I'd done that, too—not since before my dad died. And as I sat there now, my back nestled against Jonah's chest, I knew that was what he'd want me to do now: appreciate it . . . and savor the hard battle we'd won to protect this place.

A Benandante was not on guard now; we'd agreed to take turns checking it once a day, just to be sure it was safe. Enough to keep my toe dipped into the Benandanti world, but not so much that I was stuck here forever. The Waterfall sparkled with Benandanti magic, a celestial web of light arching over it like a spun-glass bubble. Magic touched every corner of the site, from the shining stream above to the willow trees whose low branches hung like prisms caught in the sun. I knew that the other sites were like this now too, and that someday I'd get to see them all. I could do anything now, go anywhere, be anything I wanted.

Even in death, Heath had kept his promise to me.

I reached for my bag and drew out the small box inside. There were four such boxes. One had gone with Shen to take back to the Tibetan Temple. One with Nerina to bring to the Olive Grove. And one would go with me to France, where I'd scatter its contents over the lavender fields of Provence.

But this box belonged to Twin Willows.

I opened it carefully and stood. I waited a long moment, breathing in the scent of water and pine all around me. And then the wind shifted, carrying a breeze from another land. The tree behind us bent in its wake and the sun shone through, dappling the water with warmth and light. I turned the box over.

Heath's ashes caught on the wind, danced there for an instant, and floated down to the water. Beside me, Jonah's breath caught. I turned. He held his hand out to me and I took it, twining our fingers together. Together, we watched the ashes swirl on the surface of the water. The stream carried them to the Waterfall, and there they became part of the magic forever.

For just a moment, the world seemed hushed all around us. Even the Waterfall. I could feel Heath everywhere, in the trees and the sky and the sacrifice he'd made for the beautiful boy I loved. Jonah pulled me in tight against him and I knew he could feel it too. We stood in stillness until the world came alive again. I could feel it all thrumming inside me, the magic of all seven sites brimming in my soul.

I tilted my face up to Jonah's. “Once more for posterity?” I whispered.

He bent his mouth to mine. Before the kiss was over, we'd dropped to the rock, our arms locked around one another. But our souls were gone.

I rose up, up, up and then dove fast, the wind whistling through my feathers. This power would always be mine, would always keep me separate. But it was glorious to have someone else to share it with.

Jonah ran below me, his long legs stretching out over the ground, his fur glistening in the sunlight. He tilted his head up, and his emerald eyes flashed at me.

Race you to the ocean?

You're on.

And we soared through the forest, the world laid out before us, full of endless possibility.

Nicole Maggi
was born in the suburbs of upstate New York and began writing poems about unicorns and rainbows at a very early age. She detoured into acting, earned a BFA from Emerson College, and moved to New York City where she performed in lots of off-off-off-Broadway Shakespeare. After a decade of schlepping groceries on the subway, she and her husband hightailed it to sunny Los Angeles, where they now reside, surrounded by fruit trees, with their young daughter and two oddball cats. In addition to the Twin Willows Trilogy, she is the author of the novel
The Forgetting
.